FCC votes in favour of net neutrality

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/net-neutrality-passes-in-landmark-fcc-decision-1.2971126

Score one for the little guy.

I think...

Phhheeeewww......*ass unclenches, legs go noodly, and goes all floppy in chair, arms dangle at sides*

I blame Obama.

It looks like the companies that spent $200 million on lobbying beat out the companies that only spent $45 million on lobbying.

Excellent.

"Remember...you wanted this."

Write down your current connection speed. In 30 years, it will probably be the same - because now it's a public utility. and those rarely get upgrades that improve customer satisfaction above "mildly irritated". Also, as a public utility, do we all have to chip in to pay $10 million for broadband to be run to the guy who lives 50 miles outside of Boseman Montana?

It sounds really good but the details will be what matters. The Republicans have been completely outrageous in their lies and attempts to deceive the public while sucking cable company dick.

We're not allowed to know the details of the 328 pages of new regulations. Those are still secret.

No it is not. That's not what the ruling said, and connection speeds are continuing to accelerate.

From the article in the OP.

The FCC vote means it will reclassify the internet as a public utility rather than as an "information service," which is subject to less regulation.

Now that it's a public good, they need to ban porn, swearing, and blasphemy.

Net neutrality is how the net ALWAYS ran until two years ago when cable companies got the rule over turned on a technicality. They then ran hog wild blocking consumers from websites they wanted to see, sites like Netflix, just so they could extort protection money out of those companies. Sure, the big companies could pay hundreds of millions in protection racket "fees" to the cable monopolies but not small businesses or start ups.

It is great that the net is now restored to how it always has run and that cable companies no longer have the right to block competitors web sites. Consumers should be the ones to decide which websites they visit and not cable companies telling them which websites they are allowed to visit. Shit, and don't give me any horse shit about them not being able to afford to upgrade their service either. Not when Comcast spends $7 billion per year on stock dividends and stock buy backs but only spends , $4 billion on maintenance, and a poultry $1.5 billion on upgrades.

They know they are monopolies which face no competition in most markets so they don't invest in improving service and instead are only interested in being toll booths who extract money out of citizens who have no other choice.

You know, that's probably exactly right. And yet, there's still some good news in that for once, the right side had the better bribes.

Two of the FCC commissioners said the new rules are a "half-baked, illogical, internally inconsistent and indefensible document."

As a public utility, the states are now free to tax Internet access. That could be a huge source of revenue for many of them.

I think what you mean is, "government bureaucracy votes in favor of government bureaucracy." Just one more piece of your freedom swiped from you.

I'd rather have government bureaucracy than depend on the good graces of big business.


It's pretty eye opening seeing people think this is a bad thing. It really does show their level indoctrination.

Big business and entrepreneurship is why were all talking here instead of chatting on an analog telephone - which is regulated as a public utility.

Yeah, DARPA, what's that?

30 years ago I called on phones which were scetchy with plain analog voice communication. Now they are digital data capable. That is not to mention things like improvement over pulse technology to touch tone. Oh, and there is also DSL quality. No, those are not improvements to a reality denier like you. You see, just because it is a utility does not mean they are not for profit. Comcast still will want to improve it's services or it's competition will wipe it out. We now have satelite internet and local broadcast broadband technology which is all going to compete with each other.

Just because they are a utility does not mean they are never going to advance. Go fuck yourself with that bullshit line, oh and do it with the huge rotary dial phone people used 30 fucking years ago. Because you know utilities never change.

Actually, as a public utility there are certain things that do need to happen. Things like phone service are mandated to be repaired within a certain time because utilities are something required. As a utility there may be new regulations on places like comcast and TWC which require service to be restored within a lot less time like phone, electricity, and certain TV signals related to EBS. I do believe since the worst companies in am,erica constantly include the large cable companies mildly irritated would be a step up.

Please do show us how that works because I have worked for cable and know how new instals work.

yes, the telephone companies failed to recognize home broadband as a profitable business. However, those phone lines you talk on are far more capable today than they were 30 years ago. The bells do have DSL also, and AT@T is providing cable and digital broadband services over areas instead of just the lines in your house. Please do show us how low your understanding truly goes.

Yep, the two corrupt Republicans sure didn't want the cable company lobbyist gravy train to end thus their drama queen antics.

You can't get that golden parachute industry pay off unless you are a good little puppet.

DARPA is the organization whose rules forbade using the Internet for anything other than government purposes. It would have gone nowhere if they hadn't handed it over to private industry, who redesigned it.

FTFY.

And why were they being lobbied? Under the earlier framework, Internet companies never bothered to lobby anyone in DC because what went on in DC was completely irrelevant to the Internet. The Internet was free and non-partisan. Then people in DC talked up the idea of taxing and regulating, and the money poured in.

Now it's a question of whether the Republican companies can pour in more money than the Democrat companies, and who is willing to spend the most to make up new rules. The users have become irrelevant.

It's possible to think this is a bad thing and yet still agree with your statement about government democracy > big business regarding individual interests. We all know that john Castle and gturner are complete buffoons, but that doesn't mean this is the best way to regulate Internet accessibility.

Probably, but those two want some LOLertarian solution.

What Democracy? No one on the FCC panel is elected, and the lobbyists who spent hundreds of millions also put a whole lot of their people on the White House staff to push their position. The FCC commissioner initially balked at the idea of regulating, but finally buckled to White House pressure.

So we have 328 pages of regulations we can't see, written by people who aren't accountable to anyone, pushed by organizations that spent hundreds of millions to write things to favor themselves, to be implemented by the same government that couldn't build a website for two billion dollars. We will almost certainly get Grubered.

And even if their intent was honest and above board, the Internet is now under the control of the same people who have so badly mismanaged events in Russia, Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, and China. It's like asking a doctor with ADHD and ALS to do brain surgery on you.

Wow. The FCC really have been exceeding their remit.

It was a typo, and it should be fairly obvious if you look at the post to which I was responding, that I meant to type bureaucracy.

The FCC commissioner is obeying commands from the White House inner circle, the geniuses who think the solution to ISIS is community outreach and jobs programs.

If you trust that they're on your side and looking out for your interests, you should be really worried because they just might be, and as any allies can tell you, having this White House behind you is very bad position to be in because they fuck up everything. It's much safer to be their target.