FCC votes in favour of net neutrality

That's not a tantrum, that's what two of the FCC commissioners foresee. Yes, states do get to regulate public utilities, and the Internet just became one. How bright are the people working for your state's utility commissions?

When was this? My choice today is Comcast or... Comcast. Please tell me how I get less choice moving forward?

We have the cheapest AND cleanest power in the nation, with our Public Utility, Seattle City Light. I really REALLY hope the Council decides to set up municipal broadband.

Comcast no longer gets to offer you a list of different packages as the market changes. Each package will have to be approved by the government after a lengthy review process. You might get Netflix II a couple of years later than people in other states, depending on who has the best lawyers.

Um, no. Now that they're Title II I can sue to stop your Seattle upgrades until Eastern Kentucky gets universal 10 MBPS service, because a key element of common carrier law is that everybody gets equally adequate service. There are no haves and have nots, and the government gets final say so on where companies must make their infrastructure investments.

You're cheering on a completely different ruling. This is not that ruling.

Does that mean that the advertised speed will be the actual. FUCK YEAH!

I called to bitch about cancelling or at least downgrading. Why pay for 105mbps when I only ever got between 3-13mbps? I asked if I dropped down to their 50 mbps plan would it actually have any effect due to me never getting about 13. They said I couldn't downgrade at that time, I'd have to call during the week.

The next day I got 65 mbps for the first time in the 3 years I've lived here. That's over 3x faster than I have EVER gotten.

You are so full of shit.

From one of the five FCC commissioners:

The Commission’s decision to adopt President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works. It’s an overreach that will let a Washington bureaucracy, and not the American people, decide the future of the online world.

One facet of that control is rate regulation. For the first time, the FCC will regulate the rates that ISPs may charge and will set a price of zero for certain commercial agreements. And the Order goes out of its way to reject calls to forbear from section 201’s authorization of rate regulation and expressly invites parties to file such complaints with the Commission. A government agency deciding whether a rate is lawful is the very definition of rate regulation.

...

Just as pernicious is the FCC’s new “Internet conduct” standard, a standard that gives the FCC a roving mandate to review business models and upend pricing plans that benefit consumers. Usage-based pricing plans and sponsored data plans are the current targets. So if a company doesn’t want to offer an expensive, unlimited data plan, it could find itself in the FCC’s cross hairs.

Our standard should be simple: If you like your current service plan, you should be able to keep your current service plan. The FCC shouldn’t take it away from you. Banning diverse service plans would just hurt consumers, especially the middle-class and low-income Americans who are the biggest beneficiaries of these plans.

In all, the FCC will have almost unfettered discretion to decide what business practices clear the bureaucratic bar, so these won’t be the last plans targeted by the agency. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote just this week: This open-ended rule will be “anything but clear” and “suggests that the FCC believes it has broad authority to pursue any number of practices.” And “a multi-factor test gives the FCC an awful lot of discretion, potentially giving an unfair advantage to parties with insider influence.”

Your future is up for sale to the man who pays the highest bribe.

I figured out what this reminds me of!

I knew it was familiar...

Sokar losing his marbles when Obama won in 2008.

"Landmark FCC decision?" Decision? When did the FCC become part of the Judicial branch of government, that it's issuing decisions?

However, in this case the difference is telling people what the regulation in question actually is.

Sorry, but those are the words of two FCC commissioners. I can't help if you can't handle it.

Early last year the National Telephone and Cable Association explained why it's a good thing that broadband isn't classified as common carrier, saying

Classifying the most technologically advanced communications network in human history as a common carrier is a terrible mistake. Time and time again both Democrats and Republicans have said this type of regulation delays innovation, creates uncertainty, and inhibits a lively marketplace.

In a different statement about common carrier, they said:

• CONSUMERS WILL PAY MORE FOR INTERNET SERVICE
• NEW FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL TAXES WILL BE IMPOSED
• LESS INVESTMENT AND SLOWER NETWORK UPGRADES
• LESS COMPETITION AND CONSUMER ADOPTION
• LESS INNOVATION AND SERVICE ENHANCEMENTS

This isn't the "net neutrality" you were asking for. You got Grubered.

In defining the Internet as a telecommunications service, the FCC just made it subject to all the regulations on telecommunications services, including state laws. My state has hundreds that are now applicable, many dating back to the 1940's and still on the books. They look like this:

(2) The company desiring the connection may file a written statement with the Public Service Commission setting out the reasons why the connection is desired and the points at which the connection should be made, and giving the name and address of the owner or chief officer residing in this state of each company with which the connection is desired. The executive director of the commission shall thereupon cause a copy of the written statement to be served upon the companies owning or operating such lines or exchanges, by mailing a copy to the owner or chief officer residing in this state, and shall fix a date, not earlier than ten (10) days from the date of mailing the notice, for the hearing of the application. Upon the day so fixed for the hearing, the companies may respond in writing to the application, and either side may introduce such testimony as it desires and be heard by attorneys. After the hearing is completed the commission shall make its finding and enter it in a book to be kept for that purpose, and shall mail a copy thereof to each side; and if the commission directs the connection to be made it shall indicate the points where the connection is to be made, the number of wires to be connected, the terms and conditions and the rates to be charged, and the division of the rates charged between the companies handling the messages. The cost of making the connection shall be borne equally by the parties. If any company refuses to make a connection for a period of thirty (30) days after the finding of the commission directing the connection to be made, the company desiring the connection may make the connection and may recover one-half (1/2) of the cost thereof from the company so refusing.

That's now the "new" procedure for getting an Internet hookup. Your state may vary.

Recall that the head of the FCC was originally hotly opposed to the idea of any new regulations on the Internet. He and Obama had some rather heated exchanges that made the news. But $200 million dollars in lobbying money at the White House goes a long way, and a lot of heat was brought to bear on the commissioners for force them to act. It's highly probable that he and his fellow Democrats, who were forced into doing this, made sure it would be a total disaster that would be struck down - because they didn't want to do it in the first place.

The degree of formatting in your posts seems to be increasing. Are you sure you haven't caught something off Castle? Or is there a common cause in the weather or lunar cycle?

No, it's because the quotes didn't preserve line and paragraph breaks, or in some cases the lines were double-spaced with hard line breaks and narrow columns. I have to redo all that.

Meanwhile, state regulators now have to think about how they're going to regulate cell phones, since the whole industry just got dumped in their lap and by law they have to deal with it according to statutes passed by their state legislators since the 1930's.

Verizon really needs to go fuck themselves. Hard.

If I was a customer of theirs, I would immediately switch providers after a hissy fit like that.

Oh yeah? Well how about offering some FIOS in my neighborhood. You didn't get that done during the free wheeling era that you so pathetically pine after. Let's not confuse things, here. The pipe-line providers intend to screw us regardless of the regulation. The question regards whether content providers can do the same.

Could someone explain to me how a pay-to-play internet would stimulate innovation? Would Mark Zuckerber have been able to create Facebook in his college dorm room under such a system?

I am a customer of their's but am on contract. Also their network is the best. Still, they really should go fuck themselves for that tantrum.

No, that pretty much describes the attitude. It's funny it seems to cross partisan lines (and so does the argument against net neutrality).

You don't pay for internet access? Did Zuckerberg not have to pay? You all pay. It's just that netflix and google want you to pay more for their customer's bandwidth. Customers that are sucking 50% of peak demand without moving a mouse. Not that I mind, I'm one of those customers.

That's not what I meant. It's not that Netflix and Google want the customer to pay more, it's that Comcast and Verison want Netflix and Google to pay more. Netflix WANTS net neutrality so that it doesn't have to pay extra. in a Pay-To-Play situation, big companies would pay the providers bigger bucks to get "fast lanes" on the internet, while small start-ups have to suck hind tit. That means those small startups with big innovations can't compete with the big companies, and big companies don't have to innovate in order to stay ahead. If pay to play had been in effect when Zuckerberg was in college, everybody currently on Facebook would be on Google Plus.

Net Neutrality: Because not enough of your life was the DMV.

That's not what happened prior to this ruling, so I don't know why you assume it suddenly would were the ruling reversed. No matter what, it costs X amount to deliver the sum total of content to the sum total of receiving nodes. That total cost (X) can change due to changing volume, technology, etc., but there is always, for any given time, just one total cost. The question revolves on how we pay for that cost. In all cases, the payer is the content consumer. We either pay the content provider (Netflix), or the content deliverer (the ISP). Net neutrality means that we are paying the ISP, rather than Netflix, whether or not we actually use Netflix. If I don't use Netflix, I'm still paying for an Internet capable of providing Netflix. Those of us who object to net neutrality not on the basis of regulation=bad, object because we see it as socializing the cost structure when there is no good reason to do so.

Isn't that the whole point of the ruling?

Could you expand on this?

That's what I said. You're looking at the equation from the other side. If Netflix and google don't pay the big bucks to situate their servers on Comcast's data floor, who do you think is going to? Why are you protecting Netflix and Google at your expense (assuming you don't subscribe to Netflix)?

Small startups don't need the bandwidth. When they get as big as Netflix yes they will, and they should pay for their end.

As it is today I'm not sure Netflix could be allowed to put servers locally in Comcast data centers. Net Neutrality means they may have to go back to the CDN that wasn't working so well.

You guys have this all backwards/upside down. Think about it...

Or just read what Gul said. Carefully.

Maybe, not sure how well I can describe it, though, because most people never seem to get what I'm saying about this. I'm going to make up some numbers here, but it should illustrate the point. Let's say it costs Comcast $100 million to deliver all content to all customers. Netflix traffic is 50% of all content that passes through Comcast infrastructure. That means Comcast is spending $50 million to stream Netflix, and $50 million for the entirety of all other Internet usage by Comcast customers. Customers pay $1,000 per year for Internet service, there are 100,000 customers. 50% use Netflix and porn, 50% only look at porn (remember, made up numbers). Now, let's do some math, special owner's privilege!

Customer group 1, pays $1,000 to use 100% of what is available through Comcast
Customer group 2, pays $1,000 to use 50% of what is available through Comcast

That means that customer group 1 is using 67% of Comcast bandwidth, while customer group 2 is using 33%. But they pay the same price. Put another way, customers in group 2 pay $500 for their own use, and $500 more to cover the costs of customers in group 1. They are paying for 100% more than what they use, while customers in group 2 are paying for 33% less than what they use.

My solution to this is for Comcast to charge Netflix a premium for streaming so much content ($50 million), cut the Comcast subscription fees from $1,000 to $500; Netflix adds $500 to the annual subscription cost. So consumers are still paying $100 million, but only the consumers using Netflix are paying the extra cost of providing Netflix bandwidth. With the new rules, that's illegal. Like Steve, I benefit from this, as I like Netflix and porn. But that doesn't make it fair that people without Netflix subscriptions are paying the cost of Netflix' infrastructure requirements.

It's fascinating how google and netflix have used PR, the Internet to warp the public's perception of who pays for what. You've got two mega capitalist entities doing what? Pushing for "net neutrality"? Where's your common sense, people? Geez, stay after school and write on the board 100 times: I will not regulate resources to benefit two companies.

I hope you realize the actual speed depends on more than your ISP's bandwidth. Your argument is specious.