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FCC to Vote on Net Neutrality Rules on Thursday
New American ^ | Tuesday, 24 February 2015 | Bob Adelmann

Posted on 02/24/2015 6:37:38 PM PST by robowombat

FCC to Vote on Net Neutrality Rules on Thursday Written by Bob Adelmann

On Thursday consumers will finally be able to see and read the FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) planned new rules to regulate the Internet. Deliberately hidden from public view, the 332-page document is expected to be passed by the FTC, as demanded by President Obama last November when he told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to adopt the “strongest possible rules” in regulating the Internet.

Leaks from the document were inevitable, and critics have slowly pieced together the latest attack on Internet freedom. Five times legislation has been offered in Congress to mandate “net neutrality,” and five times it has failed. Twice courts have struck down previous efforts to regulate the Internet. This time, however, ignorance and momentum are likely to rule the day, and the Internet.

ULINE Shipping Supplies Huge Catalog! Over 29,000 Products. Same Day Shipping from 11 Locations www.ULINE.com The main excuse for implementing the new invasions is the statists’ favorite complaint: Internet service providers “discriminate.” They discriminate by charging different rates and providing different services for their customers, based upon usage, content, the size of the servers providing the service, the complexity of the platforms connecting the data between providers and end users, the type and expense of the equipment used to facilitate that data flow, as well as the mode of communication. This is awful. This can’t be allowed. Something must be done.

In other words, all automobiles, in the worldview of the Obamas and the Wheelers (and their facilitators seeking to benefit from less competition, such as Facebook, Google, and Netflix), ought to be beige in color, have identical horsepower, the same number of doors, and get the same gas mileage no matter how far or fast they may be driven. After all, in their worldview, offering free market choices is a sin from which only government agencies such as the FCC can save us.

Readers of the new rules will no doubt find phrases such as the following, which have appeared in previous attempts to rein in the Internet: “Broadband service providers may only prioritize … based on the content, applications, or services … purchased by the end user, without charge for such prioritization.”

This will require Wheeler and his statists at the FCC to change the classification of the Internet from “information services” companies to “telecommunications companies” in order to inflict the much more onerous rules the agency applies to them. In short, the new regs will turn the Internet into a bland, beige, highly regulated, inefficient, and costly utility. Not only will Internet customers be charged more, through the levying of various fees and service charges, but many of them will resign from the Internet because of those increased costs, resulting in fewer choices.

Those remaining will begin to enjoy a service that is less innovative, with slower speeds and less content than would be the case, as entrepreneurs are now being treated as unnecessary impediments to neutrality. As the authors of a backgrounder on the Internet for the Heritage Foundation noted, “Most of the practices identified by regulation supporters as activities that should be prohibited are in fact beneficial for consumers … efforts to regulate the internet would hurt the very consumers those advocates claim to [want to] protect.”

One simple example will suffice. One of the most cited incidents reflective of the dangers inherent in today’s Internet, according to net neutrality supporters, occurred between Madison River Communications (MRC) located in rural Mebane, North Carolina, and Vonage. Back in 2004 MRC blocked Vonage, a voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) telephone provider, from using its service as it competed with a local similar service. The FCC mandated a settlement that would likely have occurred anyway without federal interference. Today, residents in Mebane have access to five broadband providers, giving MRC plenty of competition and plenty of reason to be more responsive to the needs of its customers.

And this is the single case most often referred to by statists building their case for giving the FCC more power to interfere in such local matters.

But the “control” mindset is firmly implanted as evidenced by Matt Wood, a writer for the Free Press blog. He observed, “Letting the carriers charge more or less money to reach certain sites is discriminatory, and it’s not how the Internet is supposed to work.”

No, Matt, that’s exactly how the Internet is supposed to work, if it’s left alone to provide competitive services to its customers. Once the FCC is empowered to interfere, however, Matt, the new “net neutral” Internet will be slower, most costly, and less useful to those customers.

There are other dangers to “net neutrality” as well. As David Farber, a former chief technologist of the FCC, expressed it:

My fear is that regulating the Internet like a telecommunications service [utility] potentially opens a Pandora’s box.

Once that box is opened, it will prove impossible to close. Good intentions expressed by Wheeler to use a “light touch” in the early days of the new regulatory paradigm will hardly provide insurance against vastly more invasive intrusions by his future replacements. As the policy director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Clyde Wayne Crews, put it:

In expanding utility regulation into the modern era, what the FCC is doing will set new precedents that irretrievably undermine [the Internet’s] critical infrastructure’s evolution across sectors and harm the nation.

A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: obamanet
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I have phoned and written my Rep and both Senators and gotten no response. Congress is in recess and this power grab was timed for the 'Ski Vacation break' that Congress sets for this time each year. The staffers I have reached seem unaware or dismissive about this issue and they are supposed conservative GOP members staffers.
1 posted on 02/24/2015 6:37:38 PM PST by robowombat
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To: robowombat

Just defund the FCC.

Write them out of the budget!


2 posted on 02/24/2015 6:38:51 PM PST by G Larry (I'm not here to make liberals happy.)
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To: robowombat

The GOP is as useless as a teat on a male rattlesnake.


3 posted on 02/24/2015 6:39:48 PM PST by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: All
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4 posted on 02/24/2015 6:42:58 PM PST by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: robowombat

> ULINE Shipping Supplies Huge Catalog! Over 29,000 Products. Same Day Shipping from 11 Locations www.ULINE.com The main excuse for implementing the new invasions is the statists’ favorite complaint: Internet service providers “discriminate.” They discriminate by charging different rates and providing different services for their customers, based upon usage, content, the size of the servers providing the service, the complexity of the platforms connecting the data between providers and end users, the type and expense of the equipment used to facilitate that data flow, as well as the mode of communication. This is awful. This can’t be allowed. Something must be done.

Oh so this is about fairness and punishing some Internet providers and making them all charge the same rate type of thing eh? BULL EFFING SHIP! This is about using that as an excuse to get your greedy little hands in the Internet packet stream so you can monitor it, control it, and silence dissenters who don’t agree with your message! You $&%# lying sack of $hip!


5 posted on 02/24/2015 6:44:15 PM PST by jsanders2001
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To: robowombat

6 posted on 02/24/2015 6:44:29 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: Diogenesis
Remember those recess appontees ?

THAT'S why ... or rather THIS IS WHY ... we have lost all sense

Politics moves quickly slow ...

Quickly to confuse the moment ... slowly to bide time until it's time to spring

Every man that had one of these sluts in his neighborhood will regret not slashing tires and spiking driveways for the rest of his life

The sorry sack o'shit(s) deserve each other

7 posted on 02/24/2015 6:46:40 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but, they're true)
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To: robowombat
Say goodbye to the Internet.
8 posted on 02/24/2015 6:47:15 PM PST by Logical me
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To: Diogenesis

Right, why bother voting when those we elect will not vote the will of those that elected them. I’m done voting ... doesn’t seem to matter, the libs will win no matter what.


9 posted on 02/24/2015 6:47:25 PM PST by doc1019 (Blue lives matter)
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To: robowombat

That description of net neutrality is rubbish. It has nothing to do with making everyones internet service the same. Customers can still get faster service and be charged more for it.

Net neutrality is about stopping the access providers (cable and phone companies mostly) from treating the websites a customer chooses to visit differently depending on whether that website has paid the ISP.


10 posted on 02/24/2015 6:48:14 PM PST by FewsOrange
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To: Diogenesis
Well said. They have no gonads and are unwilling to fight for fear what the dinosaur media will say about them. Poor babies, they don't want to get their feelings hurt!! So how can we change this is the question? How can we instill in the pansy republicans a backbone of iron and courage of steel? How? Is that a stupid question? Don't answer that.
11 posted on 02/24/2015 6:48:21 PM PST by Fungi (Evolution is piece by piece over billions of years. At what point did a precursor become a human?)
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To: Diogenesis

Tell me about it, the GOP is completely gone, it’s like this phantom party that exists solely to give people the illusion that they have a choice when it comes to elections. If it was up to me, every last person from Obama down to the entire Congress with the exception of a few would be arrested for treason. They do NOT rep the people of this country, they are enemies of the people. F them all!


12 posted on 02/24/2015 6:51:35 PM PST by GrandJediMasterYoda (Obama: 12 acts of blatant treason and counting)
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To: Logical me

Pure tyranny.


13 posted on 02/24/2015 6:52:27 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: doc1019

Correct. Don’t vote. Train. Train for violence. Too late for anything else.


14 posted on 02/24/2015 6:56:22 PM PST by The Toll
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To: robowombat

Obama’s speech writer has prepared a great speech so Obama can brag and claim victory for the little guy , BARF


15 posted on 02/24/2015 6:58:42 PM PST by molson209 (Blank)
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To: robowombat

ARREST THE FCC COMS THAT VOTE FOR THIS! There must be some law they are breaking!


16 posted on 02/24/2015 6:59:51 PM PST by originalbuckeye (Moderation in temper is always a virtue; moderation in principle is always a vice. Paine)
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To: G Larry

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny stuff right there....

Why, all we need is the GOP to take the presidency, then they can AGAIN.....increase the size/scope of gov’t.

Hell, I can’t remember the name of the LAST Dept. they ‘0’d out’. Can anyone else??


17 posted on 02/24/2015 7:02:28 PM PST by i_robot73 ("A man chooses. A slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan)
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To: robowombat

Certainly seems like all the pieces are coming together. Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the most devastating, well planned terrorist attack to ever strike AMERICAN soil.


18 posted on 02/24/2015 7:04:24 PM PST by Toespi
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To: robowombat

My Rep [Bob Latta—OH] introduced H.R. 279 but what good it will do I dunno. But keep screaming, everyone who’s watching as of late are all totally PO’d, and it shows. Maybe sheer numbers and noise can stifle ignorance and momentum—wehave 36 hours to holler, don’t let up and tell your friends as well.


19 posted on 02/24/2015 7:06:52 PM PST by W. (Dem0crat-mandated education reform killed American progress. Thanks, morons!)
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To: i_robot73

Are you kidding? We’re still paying for the Spanish-American War.


20 posted on 02/24/2015 7:09:26 PM PST by EternalVigilance (CAN-DO-USA.com)
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