Posted on 11/25/2017 6:25:22 AM PST by tired&retired
Everyone agrees that the Internet should be free and open. How it’s achieved? Well, that’s the issue After signaling that it would for months, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday revealed its plan to dismantle regulations that ensure equal access to the Internet, a concept known as “net neutrality.”
The regulations classify broadband access as a telecommunications service, which subjects it to “common carrier” provisions that bar Internet service providers from discriminating against how broadband is used. The regulations were passed in February 2015 by the FCC, then led by chairman Tom Wheeler. Wheeler’s successor Ajit Pai, a vocal critic of that move even while serving under Wheeler, has vowed to revisit the issue.
Pai’s position is that the common carrier provisions used to ensure net neutrality is “last-century, utility-style regulation” that injects uncertainty into a market now dominated by broadband. Pai, who says he supports an “open Internet,” believes that less regulation in this area is more beneficial to market growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
Look up why the ICC, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was signed into law by Grover Cleveland back in 1887.
You’ll see a similarity between the concern about railroads then and internet service providers now.
If railroads gave favored rates to firms that they liked then the RRs and not consumers would be deciding which companies succeeded and which ones didn’t.
This is the lefts fear mongering.
The last thing we need for a free and open internet is government involvement.
We aren’t other countries, no valid comparison there.
That’s BS propaganda. The Net Neutrality regulation was never enacted and this didn’t happen.
OTOH google, Facebook and Apple have blocked pro-life and Christian website and apps plus outright “banned” from the internet nazi groups. And no amount of net neutrality law will prevent that.
Content control is already here and it’s not the ISPs doing it.
I believe internet searches should be free and neutral, therefore search engine companies should not be able to collect "fast lane" money to put someone's business at the top of my search results list.
No he didn’t - Comcast is also a content provider.
This is all a ruse to get government control over the internet and what can and can’t be distributed on it.
My take on all this (and I really admit that I view this from a corporate perspective because it makes sense to me) is that if I, as into Company XYZ decide that I’m going to upgrade my infrastructure in order to improve business and capability for people who are my customers, I should not allow free and unfettered use of my upgraded facilities by company ABC who is not going to upgrade their facilities, and has no plans to do so because they can squat on the facilities that are been upgraded by company XYZ and get the same relative capability without having to spend their own money to make it happen.
I don’t have a problem with a company finding a way to make sure that their time effort and money Benefits their customers who pay that money to improve the service instead of benefiting I know load company like ABC who is content not to spend the money on the capital equipment to improve the performance for their own customers.
Ending net neutrality might make it financially worthwhile for more competitors to get into the market. And THAT is a VERY good thing. :-)
Soros and thugs are selling net nutrality to us as a 'conservative' idea... it's not.
Years ago a friend brought a communist to a gathering at my home. His two issues were 'earth elementals (magnets mined in Africa) and net neutrality.
It was the usual diatribe about exploiting Africa lah blah blah... but the 'net neutrality' thing was his most fervent cause. I was clueless about it and tucked the information away for a later time.
So you're right rigelkentaurus - seems Soros, rats AND communists are for this.... which means we need to look at it carefully before buying into their propaganda.
The solution is to de-monopolize ISPs which YOUR city government gave toncomcast as they get a kickback for doing so.
If you had a choice of multiple ISPs in your area this wouldn’t be an issue.
But government picks and chooses the winners (not you) in the same way they picked and chose railroad track easements and the controlled what trains ran where and when. Much like taxi cabs fight against Uber.
The solution is les regulation and more competition. Not MORE government regulation.
Ending the prospect of net neutrality is what I should have said. Just because it was never enacted doesn’t mean businesses didn’t have to plan for it.
This!
I see this graphic shopped around a bit.
Where is this from again? And what exactly is the ISP being presented, because I’m a bit skeptical of what is being shown here is being shown in proper context.
I do however, know people who stream literally non-stop movies, music, online gaming, have kids who are constantly online gaming and.
Those are the people who are gonna get whacked once Net Neutrality is ended -- and it's going to end.
It's NEVER good for the consumer to have so few choices in any market space. What is there, five major high-speed internet service providers in the country and they're pretty much all regional and have their markets locked up without any competition.
The best example I can give of what happens when there's little to know actual REAL competition in a market space is in gasoline. In the 1990's we have 22+ different oil and gas companies competing for our gas & diesel business across the country. Some were large, some were small (and regional) however there was almost always enough competition and choice between those 22+ different oil & gas companies to keep prices low for consumers.
Then the consolidation of the oil and gas companies began. The FedGov (starting with Bill Clinton) enabled big mergers to occur and that followed through to the Bush Administration. It took less than 10 years for 22+ different oil and gas companies to merge and consolidate down to about a handful.
What happened? Prices went UP. Consumers got squeezed paying $4+ for a gallon of gas. Yes there were other factors such as a weak US Dollar that contributed to high prices, the other oft not spoken of fact is also that many/most of the US Based oil & gas companies were bought up by foreign interests which further drove up prices. That nasty conversion of US Dollars to foreign dollars cut into their profits so they drove up prices more to cover the gap. That's exactly what happens when American companies get bought up, consolidation happens, HQ's move offshore and American Dollars leave never to come back. We've seen this act across multiple industries in our country over, and over again.
It was only when fracking started (innovation) and the market began to bring more oil online that prices eventually came down. Thank God for good old American ingenuity and the Wildcatters, right?
Here's the difference between Comcast for example, and the Oil & Gas Industry: NO ONE BELIEVES that the same type of disruptive, price-cutting innovation that's been going on in Oil & Gas will happen with Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T etc.. if Net Neutrality ends.
Case in point: What exactly have Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T for example innovated in the last ten years in the high speed internet market? Other than to bring speeds up a bit, exactly nothing.
Prices go up and it's other companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others that innovate.
Comcast for example is really nothing more than a utility at this point. They're no different than the electric, water and natural gas that come into your home. In fact, they innovate at about the same rate that the electric, water and natural gas companies do too!
So why end Net Neutrality when there is literally ZERO competition for service in most areas, just like water, gas and electric?
Well, the ISPs are not currently allowed to do it.
That is no proof that they would not do it if it were allowed.
You’re either believe in freedom or not. The entire premise of internet freedom being predicated by some benevolent government agency is asinine. Advocates of freedom see opportunity in the very fact that some companies want to restrict their own business. It’s called free enterprise—you should look it up.
The only way the leftists succeed is by granting some agency regulatory powers that will ultimately guarantee the exact regulation of speech you all supposedly rally against.
Exactly.
It’s absurd to watch people on the right get on-board with this crap, while they look like whipped dogs when these same poor widdle tech companies actively censor us all over the damn map.
Like why are we going to the mat to protect their revenue stream so they can then kick conservatives off their sites?
I changed the graphic to reflect Comcast and what I believe will happen when net neutrality ends.
I've had a two weeks long battle with Comcrap to fix my service as their signal keeps dropping outside my house. I can prove it, I have a better testing meter than they do yet they refuse to send anyone out to fix the problem unless I agree to pay a rather exorbitant fee that they'll only waive if their technician says the problem is outside my house.
What are the chances of that happening?
So yeah, I'm pretty pissed at Comcrap and as much as I'm going to hate doing this, I'm doing to downshift to AT&T DSL for the remaining few months I have in my home.
Comcast's customer service is positively HORRIBLE.
No - they currently ARE. The Net Neutrality regulation was NEVER enacted! Even if it was - content control already exists on the internet and net neutrality wouldn’t stop it!
I suggest you look up the definition of two words. The first is "monopoly."
The second is "oligopoly."
Both are dangerous to consumers, both have histories of driving up prices and driving down service, both have histories of stifling innovation.
That's why monopolies are typically illegal (albeit selectively enforced) and oligopolies while legal, do enable few players in a market space to set prices among themselves. In an oligopoly, the actions of one competitor directly impact the actions of another. Whether raising prices, lowering service/output, you name it.
In almost every oligopoly, it is a race to the bottom to see who can provide the least service for the highest price.
Fact.
Enacted vs. Enforced via Policy are two different things.
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