No, you're manipulating what I said, and that's not cool.

I clearly said that if you want to know what an Internet without neutrality looks like, go to China.

I have never said, and I will never say that I don't want the government regulating the Internet (or many other things). I've said the complete opposite.

I'll try again. China's government isn't regulating the Internet. They are censoring it. It's odd that you can't see the distinction.

In a similar way, a corporation will censor the Internet when it does not profit them, or serve their interests. There are many examples, but the one I pointed out, AOL and CompuServe in the 80s are perfect examples.

No, actually I and others have shown that regulation definitely and purposely interferes with business, which is a good thing. That is practically the definition of regulation! Taking the position that business should be let alone to do what it does and somehow people will be protected is irrational and ignores the thousands of documented cases spanning the entirety of human history. I mean, really.

Our economic system generally works like this: innovation among many small players, followed by roll-ups and consolidation, followed by monopoly, or at best a very small number of massive corporations that offer exactly the same thing at exactly the same price. C.v. Oil companies, automakers, televisions, computers. Eventually, after many years, sometimes decades, competition may emerge, but it depends on barriers to entry, and telco (even wireless telco) has massive barriers to entry. In the meantime, people suffer, innovation stifles, profits maximize to monopolies/cartels. That's literally econ 101. I'm stunned that I have to point that out.

Besides, health and safety absolutely include regulating the Internet -- by restricting my ability to research my own health, as a perfect example, say a particular food additive like Aspartame.

Without citations I view your argument is merely an ill informed opinion. Provide citations and I will consider your point.

Also, I'm not talking about subsidies. Do not conflate the two. I'm generally not in favor of subsidies.

You keep thinking that a regulation that impacts the economy is a bad thing. So we should just let fishermen fish out the entire ocean, or cut down whatever trees they find, or dig holes wherever they want, or put whatever they want into the air, because that impacts the economy? Really?

To be clear, regulation is not a bad thing if it leads to more freedom, competition, or better health, education, environment, etc. I'll give you a new example: removing lead from gasoline.

That completely ignores today's market reality. Corporations are required to maximize shareholder value. In today's market the CEO is utterly focused on quarterly results that return profits. Publicly traded enterprises are massively punished for missing their profit estimates and in most cases are not tolerated to lose money quarter after quarter. Go ahead and give me examples that show a corporation doing significant things (meaning directly and substantially impacting their bottom line) that do not generate profit and aren't considered research. The only time corporate goals and directly human goals align is when they result in profit to the corporation. Saying anything else is ignoring all the evidence to the contrary.

Corporations bring all kinds of great things to us. They just need regulation.

You are mistaken about what DARPA is. Please see for yourself:
http://www.darpa.mil/

I didn't say DARPA was a regulation. I said that DARPA, a government agency, created the Internet purely with government funds. This was to refute a statement someone made about innovation only coming from enterprise. It had nothing to do with regulation.

Yes it will. Just because you don't understand why doesn't make it not so. I'll explain: telcos have peering agreements to transfer data to and from other networks. That's an expense to the telco. I call it a cost of doing business, they will just call it a cost. Peering connections will be downgraded massively to save money and generate extra revenue from those who can afford it via premium plans.

Does that make more sense to you?

At least we agree that the banks manipulated people and the government for profit.

Student government loans aren't really what we're discussing here, but the fact that there isn't any regulation on higher ed costs has lead private universities to skyrocket tuition and destroy a lot of young people's lives.

With respect to telco monopoly, where I happen to live the only option for many years was Comcast. That's a monopoly. You'll find that quite common in the United States. You cannot compare a wired connection to a wireless/satellite connection and say that eliminates the monopoly issue - they are fundamentally different services. There have also been price fixing among local telcos. Also conveniently overlooked is the fact that government telcos consistently provide better service at lower rates. Same with other utilities.

Many people have no other choice. Many, many others cannot afford to pay more. That's the point.

I wish I was more knowledgeable about this, having read online, here, and from family in the industry.

It would seem to be the simplest of answers.

My family, is split. Representing Entertainment Telecom on one side and Internet security on the other.
Makes my head spin.

I can only say for certainty, and an opinion only, I dont like the currently appointed FCC chairmen.
In listening to him, I receive no comfort from his representation and perspective.

I'm in the same boat as many others on this thread. I have one choice, Frontier. I pay $130 for horribly slow speeds and a great deal of down time. I primarily work remote, so it's how I make a living.

I don't understand how anyone would think that the service would improve by reducing/removing regulations. That is completely counterintuitive. The only reason I may be getting other options is due to county law/regulation.

Trust us internet security guys, we usually know what we are talking about.

I think you are a good judge of character.

You should hear two very authoritative, knowledgeable people argue both sides!

Yes, I tend to trust one brother, internet security, over corporate lawyer...profit driven.

Family Dinners are a challenge, unless we agree to avoid the "topics".
I hope others have it easier.

For those more involved, is there a chance enough noise will be generated to defeat this change?

There is no reasonable argument for being against net neutrality once you're educated on it.

I have yet to see a single person anywhere, and I've been following this closely for years, make a single good argument against it.

It's mostly reflexive "government bad" responses, and that can be fixed with education if they're willing to listen.

You get plenty of free market über alles people too, who'd have a point if there was an ISP free market. There isn't.

Try canceling your ISP and shopping around some time.

Whole country is getting screwed on this one.

Honestly? No.

Under the old FCC chairman, yes, the new one will ram this through. Process has already started, public commenting is a formality he'll ignore.

Speak up by all means. But that's just the reality.

I happen to work with one of the foremost policy experts in the country when it comes to net neutrality, the FCC, and ISPs, Jon Brodkin. If you don't want to take my word for it I highly recommend reading his coverage:

https://arstechnica.com/author/jon-brodkin/

In an interview with npr, Ajit Pai was asked if they would consider keeping the net neutrality rules if enough Americans supported it. He said that all factors would have to be considered and that "best evidence" suggests otherwise. i.e. this is going to happen.

In a nutshell, net neutrality basically ensures that service providers providing internet access are acting as neutral parties when it comes to the data that flows on their networks.

It ensures that everyone has equal access to any content available online. It isn't "regulation" per say--it's protecting unhindered access to online content.

This is similar to telephone service. You can call anyone and anyone can call you. Imagine if phone companies started regulating who could call others and when and for how long. You might suddenly find yourself unable to call your friend across town because he uses verizon and you use AT&T because of whatever corporate shenanigans the two companies are involved with that prevent you from having equal access to phone service. Or, you phone calls are arbitrarily limited to 60 seconds before being disconnected.

Net neutrality is the idea that your access will not be interfered with by organizations that provide that access.

I completely disagree. Strong well organized public support can have incredible effects. The public has been conditioned to believe otherwise.

Thanks, Aurich.

After reading through, I like this article best, as it provides a perspective and argument
in agreement with my digestion of other info into one.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/net-neutrality-goes-down-in-flames-as-fcc-votes-to-kill-title-ii-rules/

Its a shame this, and many other decisions are being driven under Party Partisanship.

I'm not just saying that to be negative, I'm speaking towards both the words, actions and attitude of Chairman Ajit Pai. I have no doubt the outcry will be substantial, and I do encourage it, always good to have actions logged for future reference, the future of the administration is certainly fluid.

But Art was asking if there was a chance. And if you're following all of it the answer is no, not really. Hey, here's hoping. But I wouldn't get those hopes up. The gears are already turning. See the link Art posted above, this is happening.

So no more firestick?

Yeah I totally understand that perspective and completely agree it is a dire situation given the current environment. But, telling people that is 100% a sure thing and they should just bury their head in the sand is a sure fire way that it will become reality. I've been a part of several grass roots movements where the odds were similarly stacked against us and some of those turned out in our favor much to my dismay. I'm just saying we should all encourage the public to be educated, get involved, and take a stand. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right?

They likely wouldn't cover it anyway given the fact that the major telecom companies own the corporate media. To get any accurate information on the topic people have to make an effort to search for it and avoid corporate talking points/propaganda.

Net neutrality is a very misunderstood topic. I'm a registered Independent, but I tend to favor the regulations that Clinton put in place. I fear the new net neutrality rules are more about money and politics than what most proponents claim, and do little to benefit consumers.

America has subpar internet service compared to other parts of the world. Partly due to size and geography (we are more spread out), but also due to lack of competition and the fact that our regulations favor large monopolies. Net neutrality may actually result in price increases (Google "unbundling").

ISPs have ALWAYS prioritized content and sold access to capacity based on quality. Often a provider will offer one or more pools of mixed bandwidth... better more expensive pools contain a more diverse mix of routes from top carriers (faster, resilient). Cheaper pools have fewer, and are usually assumed to be less reliable. This is ultimately a good thing! Content providers can choose the product that meets their needs. This has been great for my clients.

I don't think there is harm in regulation attempting to address the issue of unfair content throttling, but it could have been done in a far simpler way than the massive regulations that Wheeler passed.

I suppose I have little trust in government or corporate America at this point. I'm just tired of supposed fixes making things worse. Don't get fooled by partisan brainwash, do your own homework.

I just checked, no throttle on my connection.

IMG_1111 (resized).JPG

Search for it

Search for it where? The internet?

If we really think that the networks won't cover it because it won't benefit them financially, what will they do when they can regulate the web.

Said the frog in the pot of water that was heated slowly.

How about this? Back in the mid-nineties laws were changed in regards to how prescription drugs were allowed to be marketed. In come the tv commercials that start saying "ask your doctor if proviagraxzon is right for you". Before you told you doctor your symptoms and he/she gave you a prescription for them. Now we go to the doctor and ask them for drugs. Fast forward 20 years and 60% of Americans regularly take a prescription drug. Are we healthier because of this, I would argue no.

That's assuming the consumers of that information have even the most basic understanding of data transport, which they don't. Hell, most IT professionals I encounter have a tenuous grasp at best so I'm not holding it against anyone.

Now we are back peddling and blaming because a large percentage of the population is addicted to prescription pain meds and we want the government to regulate it better.

Who would have thought that marketing pharmacuticle grade opiods would have led to addiction?

Yes, there are plenty of good independent sources, for now....

I think you might be conflating a few different issues and how net neutrality works. But I will say this, if you think the corporate media doesn't consider what they air in terms of what will make them the maximum profit, you are mistaken.

Very true, but I don't think you need to have an understanding of the OSI model in order to grasp net neutrality. However, the onus does fall on those of us who are more technical to explain it to the general populous.

This might be the stupidest argument on the topic yet. Can you site that legal requirement?

It's trivially easy to block a known VPN. It's also trivially easy to run a VPN that isn't widely known and use that instead.

The OSI model has nearly nothing to do with long haul data transport other than as a reference point.

I think you missed the point.

Unless the point was just to throw a generic networking concept at an unrelated issue, then perhaps I did.

Working with that analogy, remember 900/976 numbers? They cost more to call than standard long distance numbers. Was that an injustice?

He is referencing the fiduciary duties corporate directors owe their shareholders. There have been numerous law cases on it, so feel free to google it. Also, its "cite" not "site".

1. The point was that people do not need to have any understanding of data transport to understand net neutrality. How that was lost on you is beyond me.

2. If you think the OSI model has nothing to do with data transport you may not be as smart as you think you are.

If you think that's what I said, you may also not be the top of the reading comprehension class. I work on DWDM and mesh networks, the OSI model really doesn't come into play once you're past very small stuff - in my experience. Thank you for the spelling correction though, they are infrequent but I do care.

I remember doomsday talk when neutrality went in. Hell, isn't it only since 2015? I don't see the end of days with CompuServe and AOL type segregated networks happening If we pedal back to 2015. I dunno if deregulation is going to improve anything, I just doubt we're going to see the internet change in any significant way.

I hope you recognize the irony in that statement considering this tangent began when you didn't understand:

Ignorance is bliss I guess. Regardless, to get back on track I assume you are against net neutrality? Let me guess, working on DWDM and mesh networks you work for a telecom company?

Dude, I'm not trying to provoke a conflict. You brought up the OSI model in relation to net neutrality when you could have easily made the same point with pretty much any other basic concept. I didn't get your drift, nor did you get mine.

I do. I've been in the industry for a couple decades at pretty much every level but right now this is my bread and butter. I'm not against net neutrality, I'm against overly simplified arguments that target the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The argument is like nails on a chalkboard as far as I'm concerned because users can't be bothered to educate themselves and they pay the price and I don't have a problem with THAT specifically.

Okay last time, I'm amazed you don't get this. You insinuated that, for some reason, people need an understanding of data transport to have a position on net neutrality. So I brought up a basic concept that the average person wouldn't comprehend and said that they can still understand net neutrality if they don't get that concept. Why is that so difficult for you?

Wow, how did I guess.....

Really? Because it seems like you are against net neutrality considering some of the comments you made. Such as the one directed at Brijam by saying that fiduciary duties are -

Sorry if I'm coming across strong on this, I'm sure you are a good guy, but it seems like you are in this thread only to cloud an incredibly important issue.

The difficulty comes when you force your words into my mouth. My only intention was to bring a level of reality to a flawed argument but even I see the futility in that now. I don't get the impression you're trying to understand either and I don't have any desire to engage in combat so hey.

Don't say you're sorry if you're not, you obviously have an ax to grind and I'm not sure how I fit in but best of luck to you with that. I'm just here for the pinball. My internet neutrality is safe and sound.

It takes away from the strength of your point to call it stupid. It's also one very small step from a personal attack. Please try to be more civil.

As has been noted by others, I am referring to fiduciary duty. Find me an earnings call where the questions to the CEO/CFO regard anything but profits or things that lead to or will take away profit. I dare you.

While you are at it, find me an example where deregulation led to anything but increased prices and reduced services (or economic meltdowns, or environmental disasters, or dead people.... you get the idea). I'll save you time - there are none.

If you think that's going to save you, you're so very wrong. It's also trivially easy to monitor for any form of VPN traffic and automatically block new ones as they come in. It just isn't being done. Yet.

Anyway, where will that VPN be located? Some magical unicorn land where Net Neutrality is preserved? No, it'll be in a data center at another telco.

The concern is the intent. When net neutrality rules were put in place, it was mostly meant to preserve not change. To remove them implies that there is an agenda for change. Realistically, I agree that we won't see a major change overnight. In ten years I do think that the internet will be much different based on the outcome of the net neutrality rulling.

Response to my other two prior postings: my question was mostly rhetorical.

The airlines, energy industry and the breakup of AT&T in 1984 have all been positive for the consumer and promoted healthy competition. I suppose the answer in this case is more complicated and not as cut and dry as those, but we are after all supposed to be a capitalist country. I don't get the hatred of large corporations. People should buy stock in them if they are worried about someone getting rich supplying products that we all need.

My view of this issue does not come from a hatred for large corporations. The internet is a virtual space and the quality of it comes from the contributions of those in that space. In my oppinion, the internet content that is provided by large isps is very poor compared to other companies that have web based businesses. They isps want to capatlize better on the content that they don't provide (websites like Pinside, Netflix, Amazon, etc.). This will essentially create a tax for all of the non isp user and cooperations. I do not live in a remote rural area and I have been trying for years to find an isp alternative to the two that I have but they pretty much own the market. If my solution was as easy as switching to a better competitor, this wouldn't even be an issue. I see this as an outsourcing of regulatory capabilities to the isp companies on a space that has been made great by other individuals and cooperations.

Let's say that you built a mall that became overtly popular and successful. Now the state decides to give your competitor (much less successful more politically influencial) the authority to manage and tax the road system. Your competitor decides that it would be profitable to place a toll on the only road that leads to your mall. You can't get approval to build a new road. That is how I view net neutrality.

this isn't about resenting corporations making a profit. Net Neutrality preserves a principle that has been fundamental to the internet since its inception. it is the ISPs who are trying to change that, by repealing Net Neutrality so they can erect walls and barriers selectively between users and the content they want to access.

again we are not talking about different speed tiers - they already do that, of course. we are talking about giving the ISPs the discretion to censor what web sites and web services their users can access and use. keep in mind it doesn't necessarily even have to be for monetary purposes. Verizon could prevent any of its customers from accessing any website that said anything bad about them, or about a politician they've paid for. there would be no rules in place to stop them. perfectly legal, without net neutrality.

there is NO upside to the consumer, and it shatters the very thing that makes the internet so useful. do you REALLY want your internet access and internet bill to start looking like cable tv? do you really want corporations dictating which websites you have access to?

Net Neutrality was an unwritten rule since the inception of the internet. the FCC only put formal Net Neutrality rules in place when ISPs started violating those principles. without these rules, ISPs will absolutely do what Net Neutrality advocates fear -- they already were starting to when the rules were put in place. it's the ISPs who are trying to regulate, censor, and change the internet, not the government.

the invisible hand of the free market is a great tool for incentivising businesses to offer desirable products to consumers, but that tool alone is not always sufficient entirely on its own, especially if a given market has a relatively low number of players, and the bar for entry is as high as it is in the case of an ISP. that's just the reality of a market economy - in some situations, you DO need a referee to set some ground rules. Net Neutrality is a critical ground rule that all ISPs should have to play by.

There's no "invisible hand", it's just a bunch of wealthy sociopaths attempting to extort as much labor and money as possible while lurching from one economic crisis to the next.

Every expert I've seen, and most airline customers believe airline deregulation was a huge mistake. We have less carriers, less service and many fees for things that were once included in the original ticket price.

Your assertion that energy deregulation was good is backed up by what exactly? My understanding is that it led to massive price increases and little else, unless you are talking about the removal of monopoly protections that allowed other utility players into the market, which I'd hardly call the kind of deregulation we are talking about here.

Lastly, breaking up AT&T was deregulation? Huh? That was a government ordered move to break up a monopoly!

There's no hatred here. I own stocks, I'm a businessman, I happily use many corporate products and enjoy the benefits that well organized enterprise delivers on many levels.

However, we have to be honest. History has shown every single time that when regulations are lifted, prices increase, monopolies and cartels form, services diminish, and in many cases human lives and environmental devastation occur. These aren't debatable positions. They're facts.

These facts are bogus. Not one time in history has deregulation lowered prices​? Improved services? You're pushing lies when you say garbage like this, at least go with most of the time it doesn't turn out well. Deregulation is debatable, and in some circumstances the outcome is beneficial.