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Net Neutrality on the Chopping Block Again

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While our minds are occupied with Thanksgiving preparations and tying up loose ends at work, and the hustle and bustle of black friday shopping, this is what's happening right under our noses.

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IT'S OFFICIAL. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under the guidance of chairman and former Comcast exec Ajit Pai will make a decision about whether or not to scrap the Obama-era ruling to protect net neutrality.

READ MORE --> https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3021551/fcc-will-reveal-vote-to-repeal-net-neutrality-this-week

Basically, one of the very few things that BO actually did right was to protect net neutrality.  The former Comcast exec Ajit Pai is set to take regulatory power away from the federal and state government and make it so that ISPs can charge you a premium for normal internet speeds and if you don't pay you will be kicked down to a slower lower priority network.  They are making deals with content providers like Netflix, Amazon  and Hulu.

From the actual inventor if the Internet

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When I invented the World Wide Web as an information sharing system in 1989, I aimed to create a neutral space where everyone could create, share, debate, innovate, learn and dream. That’s why I gave my invention away for free, so that anyone, anywhere could access and build on it without permission. My vision was an online space that would give people freedom — and America’s entrepreneurial, optimistic spirit embraced it with enthusiasm.

The internet was created as an open source society and now the ISPs want to hijack it, set up toll roads and control your access to the WWW.  If your ISP does not like a website, they can slow down your connection to a crawl, and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it.

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Net Neutrality is like price controls, the hallmark of socialism.  Tim Berners Lee is a big socialist, in deed if he's not admitting it openly.

If your provider is slowing down your sites...change providers.   We haven't needed it until now, we don't need it.  

Capitalism created the internet, keep your government controls to themselves.

 

 

 

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This is where rubber meets the road. The problem with "change providers if you dont like" is, in most places, there are no second or third providers / competition. WHY ? the problem circles back to Govt (whether local or other) giving exclusive rights to select parties. 

This goes back to the grand debate on no govt vs limited vs all-powerful govt. 

As much as we like to complain about "Internet", alternative media was propelled primarily because of availability of Internet. We all complain when Google / YouTube removes monetization channels for 2A guys.  Now imagine them being put on a dialup connection speed (remember those days ?) while the snowflake videos are streamed at speed ? 

What if the content / speed filters are tweaked dynamically ?  Anti-Firearm channels from YouTube work at normal speed but 2A channels from same YouTube stream at dead slow ? 

Do we suggest we change providers to a non-existing one ?

To further the point, how would we feel if all NRA sticker vehicles are routed to single lane while rest are routed to high-speed 10 lane highway ? 

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2 hours ago, Malsua said:

Net Neutrality is like price controls, the hallmark of socialism.  Tim Berners Lee is a big socialist, in deed if he's not admitting it openly.

If your provider is slowing down your sites...change providers.   We haven't needed it until now, we don't need it.  

Capitalism created the internet, keep your government controls to themselves.

 

 

 

i thought the internet was originally a way for "instant" comms for the military?

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2 hours ago, Malsua said:

Net Neutrality is like price controls, the hallmark of socialism.  Tim Berners Lee is a big socialist, in deed if he's not admitting it openly.

If your provider is slowing down your sites...change providers.   We haven't needed it until now, we don't need it.  

Capitalism created the internet, keep your government controls to themselves.

 

 

 

You know what else is like Price controls? Price controls in the form of granted monopolies. These ISP’s are usually the only game in town with “broadband”.  

And now those same ISP’s want to influence the traffic to their own content instead of competitors. 

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1 hour ago, Fred2 said:

The problem with most regulations and laws for that matter, is that the name is the opposite of what they do.

Something about Net Neutrality is telling me it is not neutral.

You have it backwards. Net Netrality says that the ISP’s must treat all traffic equally. They can’t speed up data to one site (their own) and slow down others (Netflix). The ISP’s want that regulation repealed

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A large (enough) corporation is as much of a threat to personal freedoms and individual rights as a large corrupted Govt.  If anyone want a proof, look no further than East India Tea Company.

Once these Corporations took advantage of dished out monopolies, fraction-of-penny-over-dollar auctions from FCC, they have become bit*ch of People.  If they want to turn around and cry "injustice", they better get ready to pay for the public land used for every trench dug, cable laid, tower erected and air-waves procured. 

Lets also not forget that these are same "communications" companies that enjoyed forced monopolies, made trillions of dollars before telcom deregulation. Interestingly, a "deregulation" takes another "regulation" to enforce. 

Even today, US Telcom companies are dragging their feet while sitting on "exclusive rights" to specific wireless spectrum. If they really want to compete in a true open market, then give up monopolies and compete. 

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2 hours ago, 1LtCAP said:

i thought the internet was originally a way for "instant" comms for the military?

Indeed, it was, well actually it was built for fault tolerance and instant communication.

The world wide web was built with rich content in mind.  In 1993 "rich" was pretty lame.  I remember the first time I fired up Mosaic.   I also remember shortly thereafter going to Playboy.com.  Of course at the time, the browsers had a bug where pictures would _NEVER_ completely download.  They'd get slower and slower as it painted on the screen and eventually stop, right about the time you got to the hips ;)

 

 

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13 hours ago, Malsua said:

Indeed, it was, well actually it was built for fault tolerance and instant communication.

The world wide web was built with rich content in mind.  In 1993 "rich" was pretty lame.  I remember the first time I fired up Mosaic.   I also remember shortly thereafter going to Playboy.com.  Of course at the time, the browsers had a bug where pictures would _NEVER_ completely download.  They'd get slower and slower as it painted on the screen and eventually stop, right about the time you got to the hips ;)

 

 

For that reason, and that reason alone, I'll deviate from my usual cannibalistic capitalism ways, and favor net neutrality. Gotta keep that porn flowing without impediments for the future generations.

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2 hours ago, 1LtCAP said:

only thing i did on the interweb in the 90's was email, and an online air combat sim called air warrior.

I remember internet/fidonet games in the 80s.  Text based, turn based games like Yankee Trader.  They were fun I suppose because there was nothing better.  It was slow, but the pace of life at the time, for me at least, was much slower.

 

 

1 hour ago, WP22 said:

For that reason, and that reason alone, I'll deviate from my usual cannibalistic capitalism ways, and favor net neutrality. Gotta keep that porn flowing without impediments for the future generations.

Smut peddlers will make sure you can mainline porn.  Porn drives a lot of technology advancements, getting people off is worth a lot of money.

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20 hours ago, Malsua said:

Net Neutrality is like price controls, the hallmark of socialism.  Tim Berners Lee is a big socialist, in deed if he's not admitting it openly.

If your provider is slowing down your sites...change providers.   We haven't needed it until now, we don't need it.  

Capitalism created the internet, keep your government controls to themselves.

 

 

 

Darpa created the internet. That's why in the early days it was called arpanet. 

The reason we didn't need it before is that the internet is run on peering agreements. Rather than behaving like telco or wireless telco and charging additional fees for communication that involves networks other than your own, they decided to omit that and just agree that if you accept my network traffic at no charge, I'll accept yours. We do this as peer networks, and save everyone lots of billing hassles. 

The problem is broadband ISPs decided they wanted to court customers that primarily pull data in rather than send it out. Oddly, this happens when you mandate huge disparities between upload and download speeds. SO after creating their own problme they scream it is not fair and they can't afford it!!! 

And ain't shit gonna trickle down. Even under the current state of affairs, the margin on broad band is 97% for cable companies. NINTY-FRIKIN-SEVEN!!!!. That's after infrastructure, employees, customer acquisition and retention, etc. 

They need either price controls or de-regulation where we can have total service resellers and no government protected monopolies. Because right now they can charge what they want, and want to sell you service they don't deliver, all while having a state granted regional monopoly. Which is BULLSHIT. 

 

 

 

 

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On 11/20/2017 at 3:30 PM, Malsua said:

Net Neutrality is like price controls, the hallmark of socialism.  Tim Berners Lee is a big socialist, in deed if he's not admitting it openly.

If your provider is slowing down your sites...change providers.   We haven't needed it until now, we don't need it.  

Capitalism created the internet, keep your government controls to themselves.

 

 

 

I'm sorry but your points literally make NO SENSE and you're taking a very simplistic view of this.

1. Change providers. Yeah OK. Most areas have a monopoly with only 1-2 choices, and that's actually about as good as it gets, in rural areas it's often only one company for miles. 

Start your own network? yeah sure, just hand me a couple billion dollars and an army of lawyers, no big deal.

2. "We didn't need it until now" You're right, we didn't. Broadband internet wasn't a thing in most homes until the mid 2000s and HD video streaming on mobile has only been a practical and affordable thing for about 5 years. 

The new generation, the millenial generation, does not sit and watch cable TV, they don't go to see movies in theaters, they don't plant their ass in front of the boob tube for 4 hours a night and generate those nice Nielsen numbers that their parents and grandparents did. 

This has sent the old entertainment industry into a frenzy. The TV networks are scared of Netflix and Youtube, Hollywood is scared of rotten tomatoes. The list goes on. 

But those old companies aren't playing nice. Like you said, capitalism. Maybe they could start their own streaming? Make their own VOD content? Nah, they're just going to make the government effectively shutdown the new guys. 

Meanwhile you say "capitalism"

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34 minutes ago, mossburger said:

I'm sorry but your points literally make NO SENSE and you're taking a very simplistic view of this.

1. Change providers. Yeah OK. Most areas have a monopoly with only 1-2 choices, and that's actually about as good as it gets, in rural areas it's often only one company for miles. 

Start your own network? yeah sure, just hand me a couple billion dollars and an army of lawyers, no big deal.

2. "We didn't need it until now" You're right, we didn't. Broadband internet wasn't a thing in most homes until the mid 2000s and HD video streaming on mobile has only been a practical and affordable thing for about 5 years. 

The new generation, the millenial generation, does not sit and watch cable TV, they don't go to see movies in theaters, they don't plant their ass in front of the boob tube for 4 hours a night and generate those nice Nielsen numbers that their parents and grandparents did. 

This has sent the old entertainment industry into a frenzy. The TV networks are scared of Netflix and Youtube, Hollywood is scared of rotten tomatoes. The list goes on. 

But those old companies aren't playing nice. Like you said, capitalism. Maybe they could start their own streaming? Make their own VOD content? Nah, they're just going to make the government effectively shutdown the new guys. 

Meanwhile you say "capitalism"

Who is throttling content?  Who is creating fast lanes?   The government needs to be out of the way, not dictating winners and losers because when they do, we all lose.

What exactly is it that you think Net Neutrality has done for you?  You couldn't get your streaming content until it was in place and now you can?  What?   Everyone is talking about this fast lane boogeyman and there are NO examples of this. 

You think your ISP is going to block content they don't like?  Lawyers are salivating over that prospect.  You think you're going to pay more because the ISP is going to charge Netflix and Youtube more?  Well, yes but that's coming no matter what happens.  As revenue from traditional cable dries up, the vampire squid cable companies are going to jam their blood funnel into anything that smells like money.  We are all going to be fleeced.  

 

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5 minutes ago, Malsua said:

Who is throttling content?  Who is creating fast lanes?   The government needs to be out of the way, not dictating winners and losers because when they do, we all lose.

What exactly is it that you think Net Neutrality has done for you?  You couldn't get your streaming content until it was in place and now you can?  What?   Everyone is talking about this fast lane boogeyman and there are NO examples of this. 

You think your ISP is going to block content they don't like?  Lawyers are salivating over that prospect.  You think you're going to pay more because the ISP is going to charge Netflix and Youtube more?  Well, yes but that's coming no matter what happens.  As revenue from traditional cable dries up, the vampire squid cable companies are going to jam their blood funnel into anything that smells like money.  We are all going to be fleeced.  

 

The government isn’t dictating winners and losers. The government, through NN is saying the ISP’s can’t either.  The ISP’s have to treat all data equally. That is what the ISP’s don’t like. 

The reason there aren’t examples are because NN has been law for most of the period that streaming has gotten popular. There are examples of what the ISP’s want and it is bad for everyone except the ISP. 

If they’re not going to enforce NN then what they should do is force the separation of content providers and delivery mechanisms.  Given the enforced monopoly and physical barriers to entry the content creaters shouldn’t be able to use that as a compenditive advantage. 

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32 minutes ago, Malsua said:

Who is throttling content?  Who is creating fast lanes?   The government needs to be out of the way, not dictating winners and losers because when they do, we all lose.

What exactly is it that you think Net Neutrality has done for you?  You couldn't get your streaming content until it was in place and now you can?  What?   Everyone is talking about this fast lane boogeyman and there are NO examples of this. 

 

Um...

AT&T already counts all data towards your data cap, except for DirecTV which it owns, you can stream as much of that as you want...

T-Mobile has TV-free data and special agreements with Netflix...

Numerous other examples under the current rules. New rules would be even worse...

I get the feeling you aren't very well versed on this? It's okay if you aren't. Just please don't pretend like you are.

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The design and architecture behind original "internet" was rooted in the idea of scalable, decentralized and fault tolerant "network" that work in cooperation and collaboration. WAY different from "forced socialism and robbing people".

It was inherently "neutral" and collaborative.

Around the same time, telcom deregulation kicked in, opening the traditional telcom as "common carrier platform".  Technology become available to build "internet" over existing telcom - dialup.  Tom, Dick and Harry entered the market providing "internet" services. AOL is one such but huge success example. 

Along the way, Cable Companies who already had wires laid (much like old TelComs) with the help of favorable regulations providing right-of-way etc, figured technology to route "internet" over existing wire. 

Its important to remember, in either cases, Companies got LOT of freebies to lay the wires. They DID NOT (and still DO NOT) buy land. They get rights in exchange for promise of playing nice in general. 

Everyone played along and nice for a while, UNTIL streaming business really kicked off and started to threaten the traditional cable / tv business. In the meantime lot of unholy mergers & acquisitions happened. Instead of staying ahead of the competition (duh!), " traditional media" companies, empowered by merges & acquisitions, started to hatch plans on how to disrupt their new competition. 

Some ahole (you see the CEO complaining about "sharing" in the link below) figured that its "their" network and other companies like Netflix / Amazon / Google etc were "taking advantage" of it. This is despite the fact that customer (you and I) paid market prices to cable / service provider companies. 

Thats when things started to roll down the hill.  Rest is summarized in the link below (atleast until 2013).

EDIT: Its important to note that, by design, all participants "pays". If you were to look at Internet as a "Tree" every leaf pays "down" towards the trunk and every node in the root pays "up" to the trunk. So no one is really "taking advantage" of any cable company or provider.  For example, Google, Netflix etc pay their share to be connected to "Internet" just like we pay monthly fee to be connected to that net. 

In summary, the current state of "Net Neutrality" is Cable / Local providers (and their media big bosses) own making.  

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2048209/net-neutrality-at-the-us-fcc-a-brief-history.html

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45 minutes ago, voyager9 said:

e reason there aren’t examples are because NN has been law for most of the period that streaming has gotten popular. There are

Actually, there are examples of isps throttling traffic from certain sites and other networks.  I'm at work right now and I can't really look it up, but I will be happy to when I get home later.

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12 minutes ago, mossburger said:

 

Um...

AT&T already counts all data towards your data cap, except for DirecTV which it owns, you can stream as much of that as you want...

T-Mobile has TV-free data and special agreements with Netflix...

Numerous other examples under the current rules. New rules would be even worse...

I get the feeling you aren't very well versed on this? It's okay if you aren't. Just please don't pretend like you are.

Reading is fundamental.

>> What exactly is it that you think Net Neutrality has done for you? <<

Then you go on to claim net neutrality has prevented what you say is throttling but they are still throttling?  Confused much?  Data caps and streaming caps are part of your contract with your provider, none of it has anything to do with Net Neutrality. 

I get the feeling you are a millenial who thinks anyone older than you hasn't been in IT for 35 years or was posting videos to You Tube when you were in grade school and is probably old and smelly.   Well that last bit is right.

How about a compromise?  I dislike all parties involved.  They all are looking to squeeze money out of us.

Start lobbying congress to craft legislation to address these issues.   How about breaking up some of the monopolies like comcrap, Time Warner, etc.   Bash them over the head with anti-trust laws or the threat of such to keep them in line.

 

 

 

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32 minutes ago, mossburger said:

 

Um...

AT&T already counts all data towards your data cap, except for DirecTV which it owns, you can stream as much of that as you want...

T-Mobile has TV-free data and special agreements with Netflix...

Numerous other examples under the current rules. New rules would be even worse...

I get the feeling you aren't very well versed on this? It's okay if you aren't. Just please don't pretend like you are.

I get the feeling you’re either confused or a troll. It’s ok either way but don’t pretend your not. 

Theyre not proposing new rules. They re proposing to repeal existing rules that keep ISPs from favoring or charging more for some data over others. 

If you think your examples above are bad, the ISP’s will be able to do much worse when the rules prohibiting it is repealed.  You want to connect to Netflix, iTunes, or Prime?  You need to purchase the streamin video bandwidth package.  You want Pandora, Spotify, or IhR, you need the streaming music package.  Social media, extra. 

 

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1 hour ago, voyager9 said:

I get the feeling you’re either confused or a troll. It’s ok either way but don’t pretend your not. 

Theyre not proposing new rules. They re proposing to repeal existing rules that keep ISPs from favoring or charging more for some data over others. 

If you think your examples above are bad, the ISP’s will be able to do much worse when the rules prohibiting it is repealed.  You want to connect to Netflix, iTunes, or Prime?  You need to purchase the streamin video bandwidth package.  You want Pandora, Spotify, or IhR, you need the streaming music package.  Social media, extra. 

 

Uh...you're saying exactly what I'm saying....were 100% in agreement with each other...I am against Ajit Pai altering what we have now...

ISPs want exactly what you described and what they're about to do is not good for the consumer in any way shape or form. I was using my examples to try and show Malsua that these companies are already doing everything they can to restrict new media, and will only get worse if they get their way

 

Not cool of you to accuse me of being a troll when I'm on your side...sheesh....

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But seriously, now, the ending of the net neutrality is not good. Just take a look at what happened in Portugal due to the end of net neutrality.

I mean, if you like the pricing structure of the cable companies, then you'll get more of it.

http://www.businessinsider.com/net-neutrality-portugal-how-american-internet-could-look-fcc-2017-11

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1 hour ago, mossburger said:

Uh...you're saying exactly what I'm saying....were 100% in agreement with each other...I am against Ajit Pai altering what we have now...

ISPs want exactly what you described and what they're about to do is not good for the consumer in any way shape or form. I was using my examples to try and show Malsua that these companies are already doing everything they can to restrict new media, and will only get worse if they get their way

 

Not cool of you to accuse me of being a troll when I'm on your side...sheesh....

Your right. I apologize.  I got the quotes mucked up and thought you said something you didn’t.  

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Simply put, deregulating the internet, departing from it's original open source unrestricted structure, would be like deregulating football, baseball, or any other sport you happen to still like.   Anything goes.  Regulation, to some degree, is necessary.  what the FCC is proposing takes away consumer protections and empowers corporations to rape you.  The internet, on the consumer market level, was intended to be an open source, unrestricted, means to access information.  Without net neutrality, you will only see what your ISP wants you to see.

Imagine what it would be like if you wanted to travel somewhere, and the person at the toll booth told you, as a matter of corporate policy, they don't want you to go to your destination because it would not be an optimally profitable destination for them and you will have to pay extra to go to your destination or they outright say no, you cannot use this road to get to  where you want to because it's a conflict of interest, and block your ability to access information.

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Interesting topic which a few of my family where discussing at the family Thanksgiving get together.

Over view of discussion:

Companies way back when where given govie subsidies/breaks/help to establish and build out "the network".

Created virtual monopoly in areas for cable companies.

No incentive for innovation or expansion as original companies held monopoly.

Original network creators already had net neutrality without gov intervention.   Little occurrences of blocking or throttling of competition.  New comers to industry who use the backbone of the network begin rising in popularity (Google, Facebook, internet streaming entertainment news/entertainment/alternative news sources, streaming services (PlayStation Vue, Hulu, Netflix etc).  New comers using much more of network product but not paying more to use.  

2015 Governmnet passes "Net Neutrality" because of concerns of what may occur in futiure? Stiffling competition, throttling, contention restrictions, etc. despite not really occuring.  Current monopolistic companies stop expansion because not in their interest and not profitable to expand due to gov interference.

2017 Gov wants to repeal "Net Neutrality" to way things were prior to government intervention (when there was no problem or existence of blocking or throttling) to allow original monopoly owners to make more money so in theory they will expand or update systems or technology.  In theory new free market model makes it easier for new comers to enter market but in reality established monopolies (which where able to become monopolies due to initial gov help/ assitance) have a huge advantage over new comers.

End of overview/duscussion....which unsure of accuracy because nobody was experts.

Take away was government helped create problem by helping companies in infancy of cable by essentially creating monopolies.  Then decades later with advent of streaming arose competition to monopolies.  New comers benefited by not paying more despite using more data.  2015 government intervenes and again creates problems because of what may happen.   This causes caling back of progress and expansion.  Now gov wants to repeal act to stimulate expansion and improvements in technology.  Some upset because blocking and throttling may occur even though it hadn't in past.  Concerns consumers may be forced to pay more.

 

 

 

 

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