Obama: White House Expects FCC To Uphold Net Neutrality

[Engineer]

,..wait for it,...



http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/12/...ler-may-reject-obamas-plan-for-net-neutrality

Oh well, it was worth a shot.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...gnore-Presidents-Net-Neutrality-Advice-131283

Since the Post story was published I've seen several people (including former Public Knowledge boss Gigi Sohn) insist that Wheeler's comments at the meeting were taken out of context by the Post:

I suspect that somebody in the WH came down hard on Wheeler for publicly dissing Obama.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Living in a country where I might get a postcard to my destination a few months later makes you miss the finer American things in life.

I have no idea how anyone can think our postal service sucks. It's amazing. Need supermodels at the post office who are all smiles and handjobs or something? Sorry buddy you're asking too much.

 

[unokitty]

Home broadband in the US costs far more than elsewhere. At high speeds, it costs nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and more than five times as much as in South Korea. Why?

The price of basic broadband, TV and phone packages - or bundles as they are known - is much higher in American cities than elsewhere, suggests the New America Foundation think tank, which compared hundreds of available packages worldwide.

Looking at some of the cheaper ones available in certain cities, at lower to mid download speeds, San Francisco ($99/£61), New York ($70) and Washington DC ($68) dwarf London ($38), Paris ($35) and Seoul ($15).

This research echoes the findings of another report earlier in the summer by the OECD, which compared countries in terms of their broadband-only prices. Across all 10 download speeds and capacities, it consistently ranked the US near the bottom.

"Americans pay so much because they don't have a choice," says Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy.

US may have a mediocre ranking regarding broadband speed. But when it comes to cost, few countries rank above us.

After all in 2014, Comcast alone contributed $4,482,122 to politicians. Not to mention the $11,940,000 that they spent lobbying.

How much money did you give the politicians? How much money did you spend lobbying?

You can pay the politicians, or you can pay Comcast...

Uno

 

[Jeff7]

Wheeler spent many years as a lobbyist for large telecom companies — while working in Washington for The Wireless Association, America's main wireless lobbying group, Wheeler supported limiting net neutrality policies and argued that the FCC should leave big businesses to do what they wanted in the space.

Yes, because if history's taught us anything, it's that large businesses and extremely wealthy people will invariably seek to serve society's best interests.



Speaking of deregulation, I guess when Washington officials hear the term "conflict of interest" they must think that Interest is a city in the Middle East.

 

[rockyct]

The government told dairy farmers it had to kill off its cows. How did that work for the Dairy industry or for you trying to purchase milk for your child?

The government runs the Postal Service?
The government runs the Liquor Industry?
The government runs the Tobacco industry?
The government runs the Train and aviation industry?
The government runs the Car Industry?
The government runs the Education Industry?
The government runs the Farming Industry & Food stamps?

What has the government improved in any of these industries?

Seems like overall, the government has improved all of those areas.

Have you seen the milk prices in Canada?
Would any private company transport a letter for 49 cents?
Is there a problem with making sure alcohol and tobacco isn't sold to minors?
Do you not want our planes and trains required to meet safety standards?
Would you prefer cars without airbags, seat belts, and other safety equipment; no unbiased safety testing of vehicles; or no forced recalls of defective parts?
Would you prefer every school to decide for themselves what they teach and have no minimum guidelines at all?
Would you prefer expensive food prices and an unstable market?

Either you're trolling or you're living in a libertarian bizarro world that has no basis in reality.

 

[Jeff7]

Seems like overall, the government has improved all of those areas.

Have you seen the milk prices in Canada?
Would any private company transport a letter for 49 cents?
Is there a problem with making sure alcohol and tobacco isn't sold to minors?
Do you not want our planes and trains required to meet safety standards?
Would you prefer cars without airbags, seat belts, and other safety equipment; no unbiased safety testing of vehicles; or no forced recalls of defective parts?
Would you prefer every school to decide for themselves what they teach and have no minimum guidelines at all?
Would you prefer expensive food prices and an unstable market?

Either you're trolling or you're living in a libertarian bizarro world that has no basis in reality.

Come on now, deregulation is awesome. Companies always have our best interests in mind. Benevolence is key in their everyday operations.


:hmm:




That's why people have done things in the past like kidnap people from another country and work them to death for no pay, exploit child laborers, and expose workers to very dangerous conditions and simply kick them to the curb if they were injured on the job.
Then when things were implemented to curb these behaviors, they fought against those efforts every step of the way

 

[mammador]

I don't get the brew-ha-ha on this... and I say this as a digital marketer, whose industry depends almost exclusively on the Internet.

I reckon there is nothing wrong in having premium services, given clearly defined/outlined bandwidth parameters. This means no lying and no deceit by ISPs or online sellers.

Meh...I think this issue is overstated, because even with recent WAN techs out there, all cabling has limits. So even with net neutrality, ISPs need to prioritise traffic, essntially a mass-QoS. And if VoIP for landlines becomes big, then this obviously means more bandwidth is needed.

 

[BoberFett]

Come on now, deregulation is awesome. Companies always have our best interests in mind. Benevolence is key in their everyday operations.


:hmm:




That's why people have done things in the past like kidnap people from another country and work them to death for no pay, exploit child laborers, and expose workers to very dangerous conditions and simply kick them to the curb if they were injured on the job.
Then when things were implemented to curb these behaviors, they fought against those efforts every step of the way

Come on now, government control is awesome. Government always has our best interests in mind. Benevolence is key in their everyday operations.


:hmm:




That's why they intentionally inject black men with syphilis, round up Japanese-Americans and put them in camps, create agencies to spy on Americans and grope you at airports for no measurable increase in security.

Don't kid yourself. Government sycophants are no better than their corporate sycophant counterparts.

 

[Jeff7]

Come on now, government control is awesome. Government always has our best interests in mind. Benevolence is key in their everyday operations.


:hmm:




That's why they intentionally inject black men with syphilis, round up Japanese-Americans and put them in camps, create agencies to spy on Americans and grope you at airports for no measurable increase in security.

Don't kid yourself. Government sycophants are no better than their corporate sycophant counterparts.

Some other countries manage to mitigate the effects, and they're less tolerant of corruption.

US: Found doing something corrupt or shady? Don't worry, there's an excellent chance that you'll be reelected. You might even run unopposed, so there's nothing to worry about.
Or we'll freely shuffle people around from lobbyist to regulator to industry executive or consultant without giving a damn that it's a huge conflict of interest.



One way or another, there are sycophants. But what options are there? Small government has problems. Big government has problems. Caveat emptor has problems. "The lesser of two/three evils" has problems.
Making a system that's resistant to corruption isn't too difficult. What is difficult is enforcement and attention to ensure that it stays that way. I think that's where we find ourselves now once again. Corrupt practices have become the norm.

 

[blankslate]

Unless Congress passes a law, the FCC isn't legally allowed to uphold net neutrality

I think the general idea is that they may "reclassify" broadband carriers as common carriers, and thus can then impose net neutrality restrictions. They couldn't impose net neutrality when they were classified as information services but reclassifying them opens them up to FCC regulations.

Yes I've heard several commentators pointing to SCOTUS pretty much saying that the "FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate ISPs because the FCC didn't classify them as common carriers. However, the FCC has *wink wink nudge nudge* the authority to reclassify them as common carriers."

As for those screaming the "gubment will ruin the interwebs!" Well who do you trust more the ISPs acting like general douche bags or incompetent FCC people?

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-telecom-smothers-city-run-broadband

Janice Bowling, a 67-year-old grandmother and Republican state senator from rural Tennessee, thought it only made sense that the city of Tullahoma be able to offer its local high-speed Internet service to areas beyond the city limits.

After all, many of her rural constituents had slow service or did not have access to commercial providers, like AT&T Inc. and Charter Communications Inc.

But a 1999 Tennessee law prohibits cities that operate their own Internet networks from providing access outside the boundaries where they provide electrical service. Bowling wanted to change that and introduced a bill in February to allow them to expand.

She viewed the network, which offers speeds about 80 times faster than AT&T and 10 times faster than Charter in Tullahoma according to advertised services, as a utility, like electricity, that all Tennesseans need.

“We don’t quarrel with the fact that AT&T has shareholders that it has to answer to,” Bowling said with a drawl while sitting in the spacious wood-paneled den of her log-cabin-style home. “That’s fine, and I believe in capitalism and the free market. But when they won’t come in, then Tennesseans have an obligation to do it themselves.”

Seems like a reasonable thing to do when the market isn't serving a segment that probably would appreciate broadband access right?

At a meeting three weeks after Bowling introduced Senate Bill 2562, the state’s three largest telecommunications companies — AT&T, Charter, and Comcast Corp. — tried to convince Republican leaders to relegate the measure to so-called “summer study,” a black hole that effectively kills a bill. Bowling, described as “feisty” by her constituents, initially beat back the effort and thought she’d get a vote.

That’s when Joelle Phillips, president of AT&T’s Tennessee operations, leaned toward her across the table in a conference room next to the House caucus leader’s office and said tersely, “Well, I’d hate for this to end up in litigation,” Bowling recalls.

The threat surprised Bowling, and apparently AT&T’s ominous warning reached her colleagues as well. Days later, support in the Tennessee House for Bowling’s bill dissolved. AT&T had won.

Guess not.


It's the general attitude of ISPs demonstrated in the example above and from several famous user experiences that have caused many to start to trust ISPs less than the FCC...

ISPs in many cases act like predatory monopolistic asshats in many markets in the U.S.

"but but but that's just crony capitalism not the real 'free market' which is really magical"

Yeah riiiiight....



The FCC may be incompetent and be getting appointed people to head it that are just mouthpieces for the ISPs but if ISPs weren't acting like total dipshits there probably wouldn't be this debate about reclassifying ISPs as common carriers.




*e2a*

This Sunday the streaming network Twit run by a former tech.tv (ah the good old days before it turned into G4 crapfest) host Leo Laporte will have guests who run their own smaller ISPs debating the "ISPs should be regulated as common carriers" proposal/subject.

http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-tech/483
Here is the link to the particular show from last week. This Sunday's episode on 2014/11/16 will have the guests debating this thread's subject.


http://twit.cachefly.net/video/twig/twig0275/twig0275_h264b_640x368_256.mp4
The above show on the TwiT online network already talked about this subject with starting at about 34 minutes into the video which.

This streaming site is very good source (imo) for keeping up with recent developments in general computer and information tech. And there's an app for listening to it live on smartphones or downloading audio files of past shows.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.markhanson.twit&hl=en





....

 

[BoberFett]

Some other countries manage to mitigate the effects, and they're less tolerant of corruption.

US: Found doing something corrupt or shady? Don't worry, there's an excellent chance that you'll be reelected. You might even run unopposed, so there's nothing to worry about.
Or we'll freely shuffle people around from lobbyist to regulator to industry executive or consultant without giving a damn that it's a huge conflict of interest.



One way or another, there are sycophants. But what options are there? Small government has problems. Big government has problems. Caveat emptor has problems. "The lesser of two/three evils" has problems.
Making a system that's resistant to corruption isn't too difficult. What is difficult is enforcement and attention to ensure that it stays that way. I think that's where we find ourselves now once again. Corrupt practices have become the norm.

Americans are fat, stupid, and happy. We're far too wealthy to have any concern about corruption, corporations, or government. Every now and then some group of Tea Partiers or Occupiers gets their little panties in a bunch, but it subsides as soon as the next season of Dancing with the Duck Dynasty starts.

Options don't matter, because none of the little lovers tiffs between corporations and government matter, because life will pretty much go on no matter what happens. Americans will continue to be fat, stupid, and happy.

It will take a real catastrophe to really change anything. Sorry, but paying a few bucks extra for slightly worse internet speeds than Europeans doesn't count as a major catastrophe.

 

[moonbogg]

Net neutrality is good. We need it. I heard it on AM640.

 

[Engineer]

Good ole Verizon...sued to have Net Neutrality, as it was, removed and won. Now that the box has been opened and they're in "oh shit" mode, it's time to back peddle and say that it's now OK to put the old rules back, lol.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...f-FCC-Returns-To-Weak-Neutrality-Rules-131499

You reap what you sow....hope they get plowed under.

 

[Jeff7]

Americans are fat, stupid, and happy. We're far too wealthy to have any concern about corruption, corporations, or government. Every now and then some group of Tea Partiers or Occupiers gets their little panties in a bunch, but it subsides as soon as the next season of Dancing with the Duck Dynasty starts.

Options don't matter, because none of the little lovers tiffs between corporations and government matter, because life will pretty much go on no matter what happens. Americans will continue to be fat, stupid, and happy.

It will take a real catastrophe to really change anything. Sorry, but paying a few bucks extra for slightly worse internet speeds than Europeans doesn't count as a major catastrophe.

Oddly enough, we once again agree on some things.

Just as long as they can make the annual purchase of a new $400 phone and enjoy paying $50/month for service. Doesn't matter if you're working a low-end service sector job and scraping by. There'll always be money for cable TV, smartphones and the service plans, and cigarettes.

Good ole Verizon...sued to have Net Neutrality, as it was, removed and won. Now that the box has been opened and they're in "oh shit" mode, it's time to back peddle and say that it's now OK to put the old rules back, lol.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...f-FCC-Returns-To-Weak-Neutrality-Rules-131499

You reap what you sow....hope they get plowed under.

Or there's this sort of approach, kind of like how the NFL got non-profit status.

"Fine, implement Net Neutrality law again. But you have to exempt a few of the major ISPs."
Specifically, the ones with the most bribery dollars thrown at the government. Or lobbying money, donations, or whatever you want to call it.