I first got on the internet in 1993. Back then the rallying cry of everyone was 'don't let the government regulate the internet'. It is funny how in 25ish years folks have completely switched and think that it is utterly necessary for the government to regulate the internet. Since when does the government do anything well? I say get them out and keep them out.

 

1. They have been taught all their lives that free speech isn't universal. It's okay to prohibit and censor "certain kinds" of speech.

2. They have been raised to believe that they shouldn't have to pay for things like music and movies (and lots of other stuff), and anything that limits their ability to get stuff for free and quickly is evil.

 

All is not lost. Maybe I'm old school but I kept myself busy before the internet. Not saying it's the worst thing in the world, but, I got along before it...I can get along without it. Maybe even read a book or meet more folks in my hood, like the old days!

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Yep, we are going to get hosed. Basically, ISP's can throttle and/or block content at their discretion.

 

My understanding of it is that "Net Neutrality" is misleading name for it. The way it was explained to me is that "Net Neutrality" is the equivalent of how broadcast TV and Public Utilities are.

Do you want the Government dictating/controlling the internet like they do broadcast TV?

Or do you want the Internet to be truly free and open?

Do you want the Government to dictate what can be and can't charged for Internet service like they do electricity/water/ etc....?

Why shouldn't the service provider control what speeds they have, what they will charge for each level of service, where they will and where they wont provide service?

Then you have to consider the facts of how the Government progresses when given this type of control.

Next they will try and dictate internet content like they do TV.

 

Why shouldn't the service provider control what speeds they have, what they will charge for each level of service, where they will and where they wont provide service?

I agree they should control what speeds they have or offer. But, if I am paying for the pipe, doesn't matter if I want I use it for IMO. They already control where they will and wont provide service.

 

I agree with you, keep the Govt out. What I am saying is I am fine paying for bandwidth tiers. I just don't want my ISP to restrict or manipulate what I do with that bandwidth.

 

Supposedly the rules they are rolling back didn't exist before 2015. Everything seemed to work fine up to that point IMO.

The only thing I need to know is that democrats and California liberals are for it so therefore it must be bad for me.

 

Supposedly the rules they are rolling back didn't exist before 2015. Everything seemed to work fine up to that point IMO.

The only thing I need to know is that democrats and California liberals are for it so therefore it must be bad for me.

They enacted the rules in 2015 because there were rumblings of things to change with the ISP's and internet freedom. Just because it was all good before 2015 don't assume that to be the case moving forward.

 

Much like many of Obama's names for programs end up the complete opposite of reality. Ex: AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE ACT

Obama's hope for his order was to slow roll a govt filter through regulation and the FCC just ended it. Another WIN for the world.

 

Check back in a few years and compare how much you pay for the same type of internet service you now receive. My bet is it will be more, significantly more. As long as you’re ok with that “freedom,” it’s all good. Every government decision has pros and cons, as well as politicians who benefit, often financially, from those decisions. I hope this ruling works out for everyone, but when ISPs pay lobbyists and/or contribute money to politicians to make this change happen I get a little suspicious.

 

Part of the problem is that there has been a lot of mergers between the internet service providers and the media companies over the last 10 years. Comcast and NBC are part of the same company for example. If you live in an area where Comcast is the only choice for internet and they only let you visit the NBC news website and not the Fox news website, there would be a lot of people mad around here. Or what if Comcast decides they don't want customers going to firearms related websites. Net neutrality laws are supposed to protect against those kinds of practices.

 

The large corporations that provide most of us our internet are the only ones who will benefit from this.

 

First, if it's a liberal who proposes it, you KNOW it's not good 99.999% of the time. Net neutrality is no different. Without government intervention, companies like Google, Ebay and Amazon grew up from someone's garage/dorm room project to multi-billion dollar companies. ALL of the nonsense you're hearing is just that...nonsense. This passed yesterday...did you notice any change? You won't...except now Internet entrepreneurs will have the freedom to innovate without big brother stepping on them. I've been in the tech industry since before the Internet was publicized, since before web browsers. All the crying and whining is being done by people who are crying wolf.

 

You really think there were going to be major changes within hours?

Are you looking forward to your ISP filtering your content? I'm not

 

communication singnals sent via wire are Literally over 100 years old. That "technology" needs to end.

If it takes Comcast adding a "toll" to all the data Apple sends me .. to force Apple or Google to Finally build a truly wireless network - Then so be it.

There are Multiple solutions to ending the use of Wire for communications. Some are cell towers (i think thats expensive) others are Satellites (my previous company and the solution i think will work.

For to long these Billion dollar companies have been using a free resource, just like the cattle men used free range grazing. This FCC decision will losen up those investment dollars into start-up's (Like my old one) that had the technology to move ALL communication off wires and into the Air - and we could do it globally (and without a single cell tower) ..

UNFORTUNATELY what we heard from all the giants was - "why invest in to your technology.. the internet is free Bro". Well those wires are not free anymore.. and GOOGLE and APPLE are going to have to build their own distribution networks.

There a have LONG been solutions to end wired communication signal transmission (long as in last 7 years) THIS will finally move that forward.

its about time

 

If you like the way our government handles medical care, drivers license bureaus, etc, you will love net neutrality!
Keep the gov. out!
Let the free market work!

 

Exactly. I have never heard so many people clamoring for govt overreach. Now you know the power of the liberal media.

 

Anyone who thinks this will benefit for the little guy or start ups, ask yourself: Where did the millions in lobbyist donations come from that found a way in the in the coffers of those who voted to repeal? Give you a hint, it wasn't from the guy working on the next big thing in his garage.

 

BTW...to those of you worried about "large companies" making a ton of money off this..I suggest you invest in these companies!
An incoming tide raises all ships.

 

I thought Al Gore developed the internet?

 

He did and he wants to charge for it.

 

Look at the companies who are objecting the most: Google, Facebook, Netflix, and other companies that use high bandwidth. Why? Because under net neutrality they are getting a free ride to use an expensive resource (internet infrastructure) to support their business. The cost of the internet infrastructure is passed along by ISPs to their consumers. Therefore, under net neutrality, a consumer is paying their ISP for the cost of providing Netflix to their neighbors whether they are a Netflix subscriber or not. I have read that Netflix accounts for 40% of the internet traffic, so it's not an insignificant cost--and Netflix takes advantage of net neutrality to get it for free. Without net neutrality, ISPs will be able to negotiate with Netflix and other high bandwidth companies to supply the bandwidth they use.

It's similar to trucking companies and consumers paying fuel taxes to support road construction and maintenance. "Road neutrality" would mean trucking companies get to use the roads for free for commercial purposes.

From the consumer side, net neutrality is similar to an airline customer expecting a first class seat even though they paid for a coach seat. Or an electric customer using all the electricity they want for a fixed price just because they're connected to the grid.

Bottom line: net neutrality is the opposite of a free market.

 

Best explanation of net neutrality yet!!!!

Green headed your way

 

Here's what happened before 2015

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites. 

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace. 

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products. 

VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

The court struck down the FCC’s rules in January 2014 — and in May FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler opened a public proceeding to consider a new order.



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There is nothing in the Constitution, I repeat nothing, that gives the government the authority to regulate anything. If anything, it is a state right per the same Constitution.

The internet was not broken in any way, shape or form prior to 2015... this was about establishing another taxpayer-funded bureaucracy and/or content control, hence government overreach. It is also not an essential utility or a matter of life or death. Neither is TV/cable, electricity or phone service, all of which are currently taxed heavily if you care to look at your monthly bills.

 

Which constitution are you referring too. This one?

The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."
Commerce Clause - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause

 

Free market solution would be great. Absolutely. But there is a serious lack of competition in most areas. Without competition there is no free market. Would the ISPs have any incentive to not gouge consumers? Or limit content to their content?
Seems like if the ISP is allowed to throttle back access, it absolutely necessary to allow and encourage more ISP choices for consumers. Why are choices so limited?

 

Free market solution would be great. Absolutely. But there is a serious lack of competition in most areas. Without competition there is no free market. Would the ISPs have any incentive to not gouge consumers? Or limit content to their content?

Limit content to their content

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Competition like the alrlines? A ha ha ha....More like collusion...

 

So how exactly does this affect the nudie websites?? Asking for a friend. [emoji3]

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So how exactly does this affect the nudie websites?? Asking for a friend. [emoji3]

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Ha Exactly! That's what Joe six pack needs to know.

 

Y'all saying govt overreach, but what if the govt isn't our biggest enemies. These days, companies control the govt, it's just a matter of time for them to control us. Our biggest enemy are the big corporations taking advantage of the consum3rs by overpricing everything(airline industry collaborating).

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net neutrality

My Techie son wrote a short paper on net neutrality and and why he believes it is a good thing. He was wondering about your thoughts on what he wrote.

I just finished reading about net neutrality from many different places both pros and cons. As I was reading on the subject I began to understand laws of net neutrality, which were put in place in 2015. What I have gathered is that net neutrality requires that all “BSP’s” to provide one speed for all. It basically states that all data should be delivered together and no one should have priority. You can relate it to “internet plumbing” net neutrality wants only one pipe that everyone and everything uses at once. It also states that no one on the internet can be blocked by a “BSP”

The problem I have with the idea of using one pipe line where no one gets priority is that its slower and can be a traffic jam when to many people are accessing a specific website at once. We saw this happen with the health.gov websites when Obamacare became available. The traffic was so high that many people couldn’t load anything at all. Now even though this was before net neutrality imaging how much worse it would be if we could only use one pipeline. With no net neutrality, we can leave the current pipeline and have other pipe lines for websites that experience more traffic to help our speed become faster and less lag time. I think this is something that is positive and not negative. Now the idea that all the other sources will be slower because the other pipes are faster is untrue. Think of it like a freeway, you can bypass all these stops and traffic lights that slow down your trip, but if you need to stop you just get on the access road and even though it’s a slower speed limit you still get to your destination. if we add these faster internet pipelines not only will it help heavy website traffic, but it will also speed up the slower one because there is less traffic.

Now the idea that they can block websites(I’m actually not worried about this) seems many people are making it like “it the end of the internet”, “they are going to block all websites they don’t agree with”, and “they are taking away free speech from social movements”. This gibberish is a scare tactic to make people freak out. It’s just like everyone freaking out about the end of the world in 2012 or the end of America with the election of Trump. I believe that this is just a simple scare tactic because the laws that are being repealed have only been in place since 2015 which is only two years. Before 2015 there were no issues with blocked websites that took away free speech. Many left and right websites were up with many different views. I also believe that Obama put the “you can’t block any websites” as a political move to gain favor with people or make anyone who would repeal it seem to not care about free speech and hush people up because once again there was no issue before with blocking websites even though they had the power to do so. Another reason they won’t block anyone is because of the free market. This work by the means of competition. For example, if company “A” is blocking may websites that people want for $50 a month and company “B” offers all websites with no blocking for $50 a month, then company “A” will lose a lot of money because people will all buy company “B” internet service. So, company “A” would rather go out of business or have to offer all websites. Lastly, blocking already happens in a way. I host my website with “WIX” and in part of their agreement if they find you website offensive in any kind of way then they have the right not to host your website and will give you reimbursement depending on certain variables. an example of this is the KKK. I found out that many websites that are tied to groups like them have to host their websites on their own because most companies don’t want to host them and have every right to do so.

To wrap all this up many people are making a bigger deal than it really is. I think most people and the media are making it seem so bad because it is more about who is repealing this law, Trump administration, and it is less about the actual law itself. My personal opinion on the matter is leaning more to no net neutrality for all the reasons above however I really don’t think that either way is a big deal as a customer to a “BSP”. Sure, your speeds will vary but that can be relative. It really is more of a topic for companies with heavy website traffic. I have two questions I leave you with the first being “Did you have an issue with the internet before Obamas net neutrality laws were put into place before 2015?” And second “if Trump was not president and these laws were repealed by someone else do you think that the public would still make a huge mess out of this topic?”

 

net neutrality

"BSP" Is broadband/internet providers

 

CR, I agree with you. The one thing that bothers me is the lack of competition among providers. Most of us have no choice or very few. So if we don't like the lack of access to certain websites that company A provides, we don't have a choice to go with company B. An open market place that would give people the choice among various providers that you describe would be the ultimate answer. But currently that doesn't exist.
I think ISPs were given exclusive territories to ensure return on their original investment. That's a guess.
The completely wireless ISP that a couple of folks have mentioned, sounds real interesting. Didn't know that was even doable.

 

.....
The completely wireless ISP that a couple of folks have mentioned, sounds real interesting. Didn't know that was even doable.

I know a hard working young man that recently quit AT&T and went to work for Centerpoint. His reasoning was that communication (low energy) would eventually get to be entirely wireless and that his future was questionable there. However, wires would still be needed for high energy electric power so his future with Centerpoint would be stable. If communication changes as much in his career as it did in mine, who knows?