you can keep your freedom of speech.
Period!"
Posted on 01/14/2014 11:12:55 PM PST by KTM rider
Thanks for watching that YouTube video! That will be 50 cents, please.
Sound unrealistic? It's actually a distinct possibility, after a Federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down an FCC ruling meant to prevent an Internet service provider -- the company you pay for online access -- from prioritizing some website traffic over others.
And because that rule was wiped off the books, those ISPs are suddenly able to do just that. With service providers suddenly able to charge based on the type of content you watch or the sites you visit, it's easy to imagine a system like that of today's cable television market. Want HBO? It's an extra $5. Want our streaming video package, with YouTube, Hulu, TV.com, and more? That's $5 too.
Don't pay and you can't watch. Period.
The so called “net neutrality” rule, put in place by the FCC in 2010, was intended to ensure equal access to all types of content. Regulators and politicians feared a tiered access to premium content or that ISPs might unfairly fast-track access to their own content over competitors.
'Without these rules, consumers are at the mercy of their providers ... and business arrangements that could severely limit access to certain content.'
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It may be hard to believe, but the airlines we deregulated in 1978. It was a broadly bipartisan vote, and Carter signed it.
this whole issue is a phoney problem.
bandwidth hogs like youtube
expect to get the same priority as email.
but youtube needs 100000X as much bandwidth.
If Comcast tries something like that you still have options.
You can get with other members of your community and solicit other providers to come to your community to provide competition.
If you community has is one that contracts with Comcast that gives them a monopoly on providing service to your area petition your community leaders to pressure Comcast not to prioritize their own PPV service. If they do not relent your community can contract to another ISP.
My home town has had at least 3 cable service providers that I can think of in the last 40 years. Your area is not stuck with Comcast. If you don’t like them get involved and get rid of them.
The issue isn’t Youtube versus email, it is YouTube versus Breitbart. Google can pay whatever extortion Comcast or Verizon demands to carry Youtube, but Comcast and Verizon could probably squeeze Breitbart or RedState or any other uppity small company out of business given the chance.
The top 5 ISP’s control 65% of the US market. That’s Comcast, Time Warner, SBC, Verizon, and Cox. To say people have a choice is deeply disingenuous. Because of the build out cost, and control local government asserts, competition is pretty much dead. There is just consolidation at this point. The last time there was real competition was during the DSL heyday, but notice how the big telcos were able to kill the competition by blocking the smaller companies using their lines.
Don’t forget that you control the local government.
It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. Samuel Adams ...
I personally would rather have a corporation be in control of the internet than have the FCC deciding what goes on with the internet.
Once the FCC has the power to issue regulation governing the internet you will see a deluge of regulations similar to what we have with the EPA.
Good! Folks will pay what content is worth. Smart purveyors will maintain free access...like Amazon, eg. And a lot of dreck may go *poof*. Cuz Aadvertizers will pull ads from sites that absolutely no one will open.
Free market is good. I’m for it. As of now....with what I understand of it.
How many providers go by your house?
If there was ever an argument for government regulation, it should be that internet service providers provide internet service. PERIOD.
ISPs are the modern equivalent of the "common carrier". In return for the physical monopoly they enjoy, they must be required to provide equal access to any and all sources of carriable information.
I've always hated telcos, just behind the gubmint.
Two, but the technology exist for a third.
The technology exist for electric companies to provide Internet Service of power lines.
How Broadband Over Powerlines Works
Regulations should always be the last resort.
There was some virtue to the equality paradigm.
However, if this is just traffic based, FR has little to fear. It’s very texty (at least as far as its main server hosted content is concerned) at a time when everyone and their aunt and uncle have splurged on graphics.
I understand there also is a lot of dark fiber out there.
Price competition will very likely, as before, help sort the issue out. Someone wants to tax You Tube, they either need to make up for it with a lower fee basic package, or lose business.
I am sitting here using a Clearmodem, and the cable company that serves the apartment where I am (digging out from a financial crash, I’m not as well off in pecuniary terms as a decade ago) has an offering, and so does the phone company. By land, sea, and air figuratively speaking.
I could see some kind of interim provision that things be kept neutral for people that only one provider will serve.
I thought this decision was freeing?
Well over 70% of the US population has NO competition for high speed internet service providers able to maintain high speed streaming.
QUOTE:
“[For] at least 77 percent of the country, your only choice for a high-capacity, high-speed Internet connection is your local cable monopoly,” says Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.
There is no doubt websites like FR are going to be systematically crushed by middle and upper management at the cable company monopolies. It will take time, but there is no doubt there will be outright supression of civic speech.
There are satilite companies.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/114101-tea-party-groups-come-out-against-net-neutrality
“...Radke said the Tea Party opposition to net neutrality stems from concerns over increased government power.
“I think the clearest thing is it’s an affront to free speech and free markets,” she said.
She said more Tea Party groups plan to make time to focus on net neutrality ahead of the midterm elections.
...”
If you’re gonna talk about a poster on FR, please have the courtesy to ping Him/her. I know I would appreciate it.
CC
The talking heads on CNBC were just discussing this. The NYT guy and Walter Issacson (former CNN prez) think “net neutrality” is a very good idea.
If they’re for it, I’m against it.
period.
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