Tougher Internet rules to hit cable, telecoms companies

Rooters ^ | 26 Feb 2015 | ALINA SELYUKH

[shove_it]

(Reuters) - U.S. regulators are poised to impose the toughest rules yet on Internet service providers, aiming to ensure fair treatment of all web traffic through their networks.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected Thursday to approve Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed "net neutrality" rules, regulating broadband providers more heavily than in the past and restricting their power to control download speeds on the web, for instance by potentially giving preference to companies that can afford to pay more.

The vote, expected along party lines with Democrats in favor, comes after a year of jostling between cable and telecom companies and net neutrality advocates, which included web startups. It culminated in the FCC receiving a record 4 million comments and a call from President Barack Obama to adopt the strongest rules possible...

[bigbob]

Anything done by executive order can be changed by a future executive order. This is a regulatory action, not a federal law passed by Congress like Obamacare.

[HarleyLady27]

(Reuters) - U.S. regulators are poised to impose the toughest rules yet on Internet service providers, aiming to ensure fair treatment of all web traffic through their networks.
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What this says to me is: Comments against bambaboy, and the government will no longer be allowed; we won’t have a “Rush Limbaugh” web page; we won’t be able to go to the internet and read what “Fox News Network” has to say about what is happening in government; but you bet your last dollar that CNN; and all the other media outlets will be able to spread bambaboy’s garbage all over the internet!!!

[Aleya2Fairlie]

This really isn’t such a big leap. Already, there is very little on TV, radio or the net that isn’t geared to push the Liberal agenda. I’m so sick of having it pushed down my throat I could scream! Then I look at my grandchildren’s textbooks and schoolwork and want to throw up! Net neutrality will just be a little mopping up scheme to make sure that sites like FR don’t mistreat the poor little Commie swisher trolls by banning them or saying unkind things about them that may damage their fragile psyches. In other words, insanity will rule and any remnant of free expression that may have survived in isolated pockets will be silenced. Welcome to Obama’s “transformed” America.

[shove_it]

Volksempfänger in English The Volksempfänger (German for "people's receiver") was a range of radio receivers developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

Sounds about right. How do you say "death to the EIB network" auf Deutsch?

[DonaldC]

Hard to tell what the impact of this is since the details are not out. So far, most discussion has been around billing for tiered bandwidth access, which by taking that away will slow down innovation as it takes the incentive away to develop improvements. The rest seems to be speculation....imho

[llevrok]

The federal government can’t wait to control the internet by issuing licenses for web sites, deciding what is necessary for “the common good,” and getting to tax access to the net

Yup. The same FCC that allowed a Civil War telegraph tax to stay on phone bills since...well... the civil war!

[SgtHooper]

Because, nothing is as it seems.

[llevrok]

I could just cry.

Your comment is right on the mark.

I tell my 28 year old daughter two things over and over these days :
1) you and your generation have given up so much of the freedom I had up until a short time ago - and seem OK with that, and
2) I am glad I am near the end of my life as I would not want to live 64 more years in her America.

The sound of crickets usually follows as she is too busy Facebooking to give a damn.

[KC_Lion]

This may have more to do with the I.R.S. Scandal but, the point still stands.

"The Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation." But actually, it's a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions. —Hubertus Knabe, German Historian

But why did the Stasi collect all this information in its archives? The main purpose was to control the society. In nearly every speech, the Stasi minister gave the order to find out who is who, which meant who thinks what. He didn't want to wait until somebody tried to act against the regime. He wanted to know in advance what people were thinking and planning. The East Germans knew, of course, that they were surrounded by informers, in a totalitarian regime that created mistrust and a state of widespread fear, the most important tools to oppress people in any dictatorship.- Hubertus Knabe, German historian"

East Germany isn't a warning to American Progressives.

Its a Goal and an Instruction Manual.

[Jane Austen]

I feel the same way. It also bothers me that rioters are allowed to run wild, like in Missouri, but no huge demonstration against illegal aliens who are invading this country. Instead, the government is providing them with special rewards simply because they have broken our laws. This is sick.

[TADSLOS]

Spot on.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

which by taking that away will slow down innovation

Where I live, in a semi-rural area with my house about 1400 feet from the nearest main road, we have no access to wired broadband.

The telco and cable company have told me, (albeit politely) to pound sand, I'm not getting a broadband connection as far into the future as they can see it.

So I'm stuck with satellite or wireless internet, with data caps that make anything other than web surfing or E-mail unavailable. Stream a movie? Yeah, maybe once a month, with a break for buffering every ninety seconds or so.

So when the broadband companies start whining about how they won't be able to "innovate", I find myself here:

[Army Air Corps]

Excellent post.

[moehoward]

Bump that.

[AU72]

Liberals have been able to tie up regs don’t like for years in the court, why can’t it the same with this?

[bert]

Comcast is the primary agent of DNC propaganda. What ever Comcast wants it is going to get.

To solve the problem, Comcast must be destroyed

[DonaldC]

“Comcast must be destroyed”

They are pretty much the best deal out there for an ISP so leave that part alone please...hehehe

[Buckeye McFrog]

Fox News panel last night....Rahm Emmanuel is in trouble in Chicago because his opponent is channeling Elizabeth Warren, and the low-infos are flocking to him like lemmings.

They are about to take over the Democrat Party.
And then the country.

[Buckeye McFrog]

In public approval polling Comcast consistently ranks somewhere between ISIS and Ebola. That is how Obama is getting away with this.

[Teacher317]

Why would I object to not allowing companies that can pay more having web preference?

Because in the eyes of the Marxist third of America, it is not FAIR that some have the resources to pay for a better home, better car, better doctor, or faster internet. It is far better to make everything crappy for everyone, so that it will be FAIR.