Three people appointed by the president decide what is best for the country as the FCC bypasses congress and refuses to even openly testify before congress. The people become irrelevant and further detached to the ruling class. Why was the push for Title II so hard when the lower courts rejected the proposal and outlined alternatives? If you think that the govt has the people’s best interest in mind, why do they operate undercover? Why is the proposal not open for the people to view. Why is the FCC eschewing open debate even within its ranks and (the three majority voters) taking last minute direction from Corporate giants and special interest groups (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler-net-neutrality-plan-google-115502.html)? I thought we were getting corporations and special interest group out of writing legislation? Is it surprising an agency under the cover of darkness would reclassify an entire industry in order to expand its power? Is this something the people should have some say in?
Corporations are popping champagne here. I give the internet a couple administrations before decency standards, new fees and other regulations on upstarting websites start pushing individuals out (this *is *under Title II). Does the Govt have the self-restraint they claim to keep away from a new revenue stream there for the taking? If anything, if you like your internet (the crown jewel of unregulated innovation’s gift to the world), you can keep the same internet for awhile because innovation will be frozen. An era is over.
Hub dont think you really get whats going on, the commision is 5 people, 2 voted against NN (lol republicans) cause corps cant profit from throttlin, the people definately won.
You should be happy, with Wheeler at the helm a lot of people are surprised it actually went through with his ole corrupt lobbyin ass.
Innovation is winning. Net Neutrality is the way the internet since the beginning and how we had the dot com boom and subsequent web/smart phone boom.
ISPs and others were not allowed to shape traffic in any way. Title II gives the FCC authority to enforce a neutral net, to support a nurturing environment for small business to thrive.
The way the internet was, was removed when the courts overturned the 2010 FCC open internet rules; the courts outlined what was and was not allowed under the 2010 FCC open internet rules given the FCC’s claimed authority. The FCC is now doing everything they have to, legally, to protect net neutrality, since their previous efforts were proven not legal. Title II gives them this authority.
There were special interest groups on both sides. Until the open internet rules were overturned, almost all lobbying and money spent in this area was done so by ISPs for their corporate interests; ISPs desire all of their business practices and ideas for maximizing profits to remain 100% behind closed doors.
ISPs have already shown they are willing to obstruct traffic to make money, well before the open internet rules were overturned. Every time this happened, the FCC/courts ordered them to stop. Title II preserves this authority.
The reason the bill is not open is the two Republican chairs don’t want to submit their comments. Tom Wheeler specifically gave all of the chairs and their organizations a deadline of February 26th. The two Republican chairs are simply refusing to meet their deadline over politics. If I were in charge, I’d fire them for not doing their job.
If they had any critiques or positive suggestions on how this bill could be better, they should have submitted them well before the deadline to allow for healthy debate.
This is the highest order of wastefulness that has plagued our Congress.
Eventually the FCC will open up the entire document for public viewing. They have spent months and months taking comments from all sides and have come to a conclusion, just like how Congress operates.
X + 2 = 5
X = 3 (democrats)
Each of these 5 (five) member are appointed by the president, they are NOT elected. And the 3:2 or 2:3 ratio is mandated, so Pres can load the commission anyway he wants to get his agenda across, and I think using it to change internal definitions of services in order to force legislation is a breach of public trust.
So as I had said; three appointed officials decided the fate of this legislation. This completely bypassed the legislative branch. Please turn your attn back to golf/haggis/shetland ponies since you are unable to follow.
I dont totally disagree, I do not like the local monopoly ISPs have. but I think Title II is like giving a drug dealer a roll of cash intended for him to make an investment with (ie: a monumental mistake). There are ways of handling this other than Title II.
Yes, it does now. It did not then. You seem confused. This has to do with the way the FCC has in the past distingusihed between ‘information services’ and ‘telecommunication services’ (I noted this earlier). The DC courts’ judgement basically noted that in order to regulate broadband services they would have to be reclassified (as common carrier - a category repurposed from the railroad era, hahaa). Everyone was well aware that the FCC could define/classify information vs telecom services anyway it wanted, but until they did that the courts could not grant them permission. Wheeler had stated many times he was against it it was too onerous, but then Obama publically took him to task and specifically called for the FCC to reclassify to enable Title II.
It should be noted that this type of occurance I just outlined can only occur in an appointed bureaucracy. It is in total contradiction to any incarnation of the concept of rule of law.
No. Title II make many more tools available. What are the requirements for starting up a radio or TV station/studio vs a website? Via Title II there are no restrictions on the FCC to enact price controls, licence requirements, complicated reporting metrics, decency standards, etc. However the FCC has stated that it will voluntarily refrain. Yay.
Hahaa. No. This is the most significant internet regulation in history, it is game changing and the legislation is changing by the day (via input from big business and special interst) and it has just been forcefully rammed down our throats.
This was the two republican chairs’ statement: “We respectfully request that FCC leadership immediately release the 332-page Internet regulation plan publicly and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it…” prior to holding the vote.
transparency = evil; because republicans
well bless your heart, arent you just the perfect picture of a polite little child waiting for the adults to tell you what they have done for your own good.
And No. Not like congress operates at all. They do not answer to the people. This is not a subtle distinction.
…Although you are right about the congressional democrats letting us see legislation only after it passes and not before. So this is the way you prefer it? As long as they are on your side huh?
Wheeler flipped his public opinion on direct interconnection 180 and he flipped his public opinion on the use of Title II. Will he flip his public opinion on not employing the more onerous parts of Title II to the internet? I guess he wouldnt necessarily have to, since the FCC has already stated that all of Title II is potentially open to use by future administrations, there is no hard restriction against it, it is strictly on the honor system for this one. hahaa
All I’m seeing about not liking Title II is “big government ruinin’ muh monies”. Title II is a victory, despite its potential flaws. Too long have big corporations had their free reign over government and fucking over the under-privileged, so it’s nice to at least see big corporations having to hold that L. Heaven forbid they make money in one less sleazy way. I’m not sure why Title II would have had to go through legislation, but I’m sure it would have been shot down to allow big corporations to shove their already Mandingo sized dicks down our throats. No thanks.
Speaking of big corporations, Verizon was SO FUCKING SALTY about the decision that they made a public statement in MORSE CODE, saying the decision “imposes 1930s laws on the Internet”. I had no idea the Internet existed in the 30s either.
yeah, that pretty much sums up how we feel when you post
lol @ Verizon trying to claim this is all about Obama. This was literally as if 3 companies were making roads in the country, and wanted to keep being allowed to tell you that you weren’t allowed on their roads, and if you came on their roads, they should be allowed to let rich people use the fast lanes, while you park your car and walk instead.
Every time one of those ISP’s cries about this, my dick gets hard and I smile because I know obviously we did the right thing.
I don’t like the FCC. I don’t like that they created themselves for a problem nobody was having. I don’t like that they can fine you for words, yet remarkably similar words are allowed (I can say penis or weiner, but I can’t say cock…I can say poop, but I can’t say shit). But I respect the amount of work they put into this, and they’ll be good to have in charge of internet. Lord knows, if they start fucking up, the public will be all over them like stink on shit.
Yeah Verizon higher ups are demonstrating child like reasoning in explaining why net neutrality is bad. They’re framing it as “obama thinks isps are bad guys”
They’re ridiculously explaining it as “government is taking your internet”, completely ignoring the fact that the internet is a global thing, now. All that has happened, is the government has told ISP’s that the FCC is going to be in charge of regulating ACCESS to the internet, and making sure that certain parameters are being met (minimum connection speeds, etc), the same as having people going around inspecting roads for potholes, or the hydro company having people go deal with downed wires and such.
As opposed to the current way isp’s have been running, which has led to nonsense like rural areas STILL not having access to high speed internet because that would take away from precious profits, and allowing insane prices just to gain internet access, as well as the retarded plans of all the ISP’s to try to add tiers of internet, so people could pay more to not get fucking bottlenecked or throttled.
Putting our collective foot down took way too long, but I’m glad it happened before shit really got out of hand.
The govt has the authority to break the monopolies without granting itself complete regulatory authority. Hell the govt *created *the monopolies in the first place. Jealousy and entitlement are effective blinders.
First of all I have no sympathy for the ISPs. But the roads analogy is not appropriate. The govt builds public roads. Build a private road and you can do whatever you want on it. The cable co.s pay to lay the broadband infrastructure which is highly regulated by the govt. The govt decides who does this and what fees and hurdles they jump through to do this (hahaa, most regulatory agencies are populated by former chairs/employees of the companies being regulated) and they are effective in deterring regional 2ndary ISPs. To further your analogy, having a customer pay extra for direct interconnection to support massive traffic is like the govt demanding tolls to use the highway. I would also like to point out that the purpose of paying highway tolls was billed in many areas as temporary and solely to pay for the highway construction and when that was paid for the highway would be free for everybody to use (skip a generation and all these broken promises are forgotten, but this is nothing new just history repeating itself). The govt will never scale back a revenue stream, the natural tendency is to increase them and increase its own ability to create new govt jobs. This is why you dont want the govt regulating the internet and making promises that it will *voluntarily *take a hands-off approach.
In most other 1st world countries, I believe the orgs which own the infrastructure do not provide the service and the ISPs must offer competitive prices/service to land customers. This is not the case in the US where the US govt classifies the broadband landscape as a ‘natural monopoly’. As evidenced by how ISPs operate in other countries, this is not the case (or at least is artificial based on govt regulation of infrastructure).
The US govt has the ability to bust monopolies, why is it refusing to do this?
Well, it can endorse a monopoly and micromanage operations as it sees fit. And this was the purpose of Title II which was written as intended for railroad service providers where the pace of innovation was at a snail’s pace compared to the present. And it still stiffled innovation then and it will do much more damage here. How often do utilities decide on upgrades? Well my town has had a water main break almost every other week this year. We still using copper phone lines? Return on investment is not derived from the market so there is no incentive to upgrade.
First of all the language has been witheld from the public so nobody knows what it says. Furthermore, the FCC has itself said that none of the regulatory privileges offered in Title II are off the table. They are simply going to refrain from using them, honor system style (please stop ignoring this point). You are simply parroting feel-good govt agency talking points.
I have fam that you have to drive ~5 miles on three connecting dirt roads to get to they house. They have high speed internet. I am curious as to who doesnt.
Will the idea of government “regulating” internet can be seen as a bad thing when you think about what government regulation usually does. It can also be a great thing if you look at the success regulation has if you look at what works and how ultimately it benjfited the normal people, even though it restricts unlimited exploration and revenue growth.
It’s easier for the people to force change on the government than some big corporation. Granted there are issues with regulatory agencies like the FDA that make it harder to push medicine out, the hoops do offset an equally amounts t of hazard out of the way and ultimately has the implied interests of all parties.
If all youre viewpoints care come from an economic standpoint of revenue generation being the merit on which assign health. Where you can freely create wealth and “allow” normal people to cash out, then it will be bad.
If you care about equal distribution of resources and adaquate fairness for wealth generation, what any and all governments should provide (this is especially true of the federal government) this is nothing but good.
Verizon and all ISP are looking real Rockefeller right now.
Ok, then I’ll use the railroad baron analogy. The same shit was tried back in the day by the railway companies. They claimed that since they put the tracks down, only they could use them or dictate who could use them, at their prices. Eventually, enough issues arose that they had to start regulating it. Hell, it’s no different than the government setting regulations on other utilities.
I’m not ignoring shit, you’re setting up scenarios which haven’t or won’t happen.
And you’re ignoring shit like where the ISP’s sue cities and municipalities because they set up their own fibre optic networks, which the FCC now banned the ISP’s from doing, thus allowing several cities to escape litigation, and continue building projects which benefit their communities.
did you read your own article? Half that was about how local municipalities have laws on the books that act as barriers to high speed broadband.
And the percentage of people that have no access to high speed internet (54%) is coming directly from the mouthpiece of a govt agency. Forgive me if I dont trust Wheeler (havent I already noted his flip flopping?). Funny how two years ago the FCC claimed only 5% (10X less!) of the rural population had access to high-speed internet:
Wait, so do they just give whatever answer seems best for the situation? hahaa
Thanks for underscoring my point …
ashamed.
I know; right? My bad, I was too immature to resist. I wish you had some snappy comeback or something like everyone else (Ima pretty soft target). Now I just feel sad, like I hurt your feelings or something. Dang.
hahaa
No. You are wrong. The number went up because the definition of “high-speed” went up from 4Mbit/s to 25 Mbit/s. Which further confirms what Net Neutrality proponents have been saying for a long time now, that providers haven’t been updating their infrastructure to provide adequate service to all their customers. They’re hosting 2015 era content on 2000’s era equipment, and then charging back to the customer for the lack of performance instead of using their massive profits to upgrade and adapt.
This is 99% of the problem right here, that broadband providers refuse to invest in their own infrastructure, even though they’ve been given massive tax subsidizes to do so, and they take in huge profits each year. They want someone else to do it for them. Google Fiber is proof that a modern network can keep up with modern demand. On the cost side, I’ve no clue since Google’s merely experimenting, but given that the broadband providers own their own infrastructure and profit from it, their business models should include upgrades to maintain the hardware to current standards. but it doesn’t.
And in the case of large cities, this is why connections to popular sites are throttled. Their shitty routers and line infrastructure can’t possibly deliver the content demanded to everyone. Now tell me why I should have to pay extra for that, when it’s their fault?
