The FCC votes on Net Neutrality tomorrow...

[Vic]

Cable TV in the US has been under FCC regulatory oversight since 1959.

 

[soccerballtux]

There were 19 states that had laws on the books prohibiting government municipalities from starting up networks to compete with incumbent local ISP's. From the looks of it, the first two, in Tennessee and North Carolina will be taken down by FCC to see how competition fairs once the local governments can build their own town networks. If it works well, I suspect it will expand to the rest of the country quickly.

this is very exciting news!!!!

 

[soccerballtux]

Been a member for five years, have 16 posts, and you come out of the woodworks to defend the telecom companies over net neutrality? :hmm:

he's probably just more traditional conservative works his 40hrs and lurks occasionally for intellectual stimulation.

as opposed to being a shill or something conspiratorial like

 

[Fenixgoon]

Even the last mile is okay.

Who doesn't have cable? Raise your hand.

This is a pure power grab by Government.

-John

you're asking a tech-focused internet forum who doesn't have cable. people here spend thousands on video cards, home servers, and god knows what else.

this forum is definitely not representative of the US at large.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...wer/File:US_Wireline_Broadband_31Dec2012.tiff

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/technology

and keep in mind, the FCC defines broadband as 3mpbs or greater. hardly an adequate definition given today's internet content and applications.

 

[Engineer]

and keep in mind, the FCC defines broadband as 3mpbs or greater. hardly an adequate definition given today's internet content and applications.

3Mbps in the upward direction. 25Mbps down.

 

[mu11et]

Trolls gonna troll.

I thought it was a legitimate question. Think about it. A local municipality takes tax payers funds to create an ISP that is in direct competition with private ISP's. It this municipality on a profit based to expand it's area? What happens if the local ISP goes bankrupt, who bails it out the tax payer again? What if down the road it goes bellyup and decides to sell to a private company, all of the tax payers money is now down the drain. Is it fair for a local ISP to undercut a private ISP because it is funded by the tax payer and doesn't have the same profit margin or no profit margin at all or operates at a loss like 99% of all government/municipalities?

 

[dank69]

I thought it was a legitimate question. Think about it. A local municipality takes tax payers funds to create an ISP that is in direct competition with private ISP's. It this municipality on a profit based to expand it's area? What happens if the local ISP goes bankrupt, who bails it out the tax payer again? What if down the road it goes bellyup and decides to sell to a private company, all of the tax payers money is now down the drain. Is it fair for a local ISP to undercut a private ISP because it is funded by the tax payer and doesn't have the same profit margin or no profit margin at all or operates at a loss like 99% of all government/municipalities?

If you were paying attention you would know that the ISP refuses to deliver broadband to the municipality which is why they want to set up their own. So basically you are defending an ISP that refuses to service an area and blocks the area from trying to set up their own service. See why you look extremely stupid now?

 

[mu11et]

You know exactly the point I am trying to make but you want to twist it to what you want to believe. Look, ISP's do things that get on my nerves and they have plenty of faults. Like insurance companies that pissed me off till the government got involved and my insurance went up 115% now I am really pissed off!!! Every time government gets involved it cost the tax payers more. Does the government do a few thing right? YES but they screw up more then they fix.

Do government/municipalities going into direct competition with the private sector good? NO
Can government/municipalities give the private market incentives to invest capital in areas they normally wouldn't? YES

 

[fskimospy]

You know exactly the point I am trying to make but you want to twist it to what you want to believe. Look, ISP's do things that get on my nerves and they have plenty of faults. Like insurance companies that pissed me off till the government got involved and my insurance went up 115% now I am really pissed off!!! Every time government gets involved it cost the tax payers more. Does the government do a few thing right? YES but they screw up more then they fix.

Do government/municipalities going into direct competition with the private sector good? NO
Can government/municipalities give the private market incentives to invest capital in areas they normally wouldn't? YES

It all depends on the situation, sometimes competing with the private sector is good, sometimes it's bad.

Unless you're willing to commit to vastly more sweeping regulation of ISPs as they currently are, competition from municipal broadband seems like a good idea.

 

[dank69]

You know exactly the point I am trying to make but you want to twist it to what you want to believe. Look, ISP's do things that get on my nerves and they have plenty of faults. Like insurance companies that pissed me off till the government got involved and my insurance went up 115% now I am really pissed off!!! Every time government gets involved it cost the tax payers more. Does the government do a few thing right? YES but they screw up more then they fix.

Do government/municipalities going into direct competition with the private sector good? NO
Can government/municipalities give the private market incentives to invest capital in areas they normally wouldn't? YES

Your insurance has been going up for a long time. Long before the ACA came along.

That boondoggle aside, I didn't know what point you were trying to make because you specifically said the municipality was using taxpayer funds to create an ISP to compete with a private ISP, when that is clearly wrong.

If your point is just that government can't do anything right without screwing up more than they fix then whatever floats your boat.

 

[blankslate]

Who's money? Tax payers money? So now local municipalities are spending tax payers money go into competition against private companies?

It's competition if the ISPs want to provide service to the municipalities in question....

When municipalities realize that there is a demand for services and municipalities decide to provide that service because the ISPs won't... then the ISPs lean on state legislatures to stop the municipal network that is the dick move that shouldn't be rewarded....


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.”

 

[mu11et]

Your insurance has been going up for a long time. Long before the ACA came along.

Sure it went up a little each year but not 110% till the government took control of it. Not to mention at my age I don't need prenatal care or childrens dental which I am now forced to pay for and my deductible doubling. Wait till the employer mandate kicks in.

 

[mu11et]

It's competition if the ISPs want to provide service to the municipalities in question....

When municipalities realize that there is a demand for services and municipalities decide to provide that service because the ISPs won't... then the ISPs lean on state legislatures to stop the municipal network that is the dick move that shouldn't be rewarded....


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

Okay but when it is mismanaged, then what? Soak the tax payer again. If the community votes for it then okay go for it.

 

[fskimospy]

Sure it went up a little each year but not 110% till the government took control of it.

Medical cost inflation has been at the lowest rate in decades since the 'government took control of it'.

 

[blankslate]

Okay but when it is mismanaged, then what? Soak the tax payer again. If the community votes for it then okay go for it.

Mismanagement never happens in private industries only in public governmental agencies?

That's news to me... I mean if only blackberry was a private company instead of a government start up they might still be around right?

In any case at least the citizens in general have a say about their municipal projects by as you noted voting... that's not as much a case if at all with corporate ISPs unless they want to boycott the internet or deal with much slower speeds.


....

 

[fskimospy]

Mismanagement never happens in private industries only in public governmental agencies?

That's news to me... I mean if only blackberry was a private company instead of a government start up they might still be around right?

In any case at least the citizens in general have a say about their municipal projects by as you noted voting... that's not as much a case if at all with corporate ISPs unless they want to boycott the internet or deal with much slower speeds.

....

The real issue here is that we're not talking about the government coming into a competitive marketplace and trying to stifle it. These telecom companies are local monopolies, but since they are private monopolies instead of government ones you not only get all the bad service of a government monopoly but you also get the profit seeking behavior of private companies that encourages them to soak the people under their monopoly for all they're worth.

It's the worst possible situation to be in. If we're going to have people extracting profits from us, what we're supposed to get in return is actual competition for those profits.

 

[piasabird]

I have not seen any evidence the FCC can control phone companies. This gives me no reason to think they can control ISP's or the WWW. The real problem is the Internet is like an international playground. The USA cant really control the Internet. There has to be some kind of Fines or penalties and perhaps Jail time and or mandatory paybacks if an ISP has a contract with someone and then is incapable of fulfilling the contract. For instance just like Ma Bell maybe force Comcast to break up if it can not follow through on its promises.

All agreements and service contracts should contain specifics like the minimum and maximum allowable speed and penalties if they can not maintain that speed that they promised in the contract. It should also contain penalties for Users that run a business server on an ISP with a residential contract and are slowing other people down.

I also think we need a public accessible reporting system that looks at things like the real causes of network congestion. Is it the mega corporations or the little guys that really cause network congestion??? I might also favor something like a wiretapping law for the Internet. There should also be ways to get people with websites to get them to stop sending unwanted junk mail all day long. It is like you cant stop these fools once they start. I say tax the junk mail and require a license and an ID system for all E-Mail.

 

[dank69]

Sure it went up a little each year but not 110% till the government took control of it. Not to mention at my age I don't need prenatal care or childrens dental which I am now forced to pay for and my deductible doubling. Wait till the employer mandate kicks in.

Your healthcare costs did not go up 110%. This did not happen. Everyone who ever made this claim has been proven wrong and you are wrong too if we are being honest. You may have been forced to pay for a healthcare plan that covers much more than your old one, but prenatal care doesn't equal 110% jump in premiums. And dental? WTF does that have to do with healthcare?

Until you post up details of your old and new plans backing up your 110-115% numbers we will have to assume you are full of shit like everyone else spouting this nonsense.

 

[piasabird]

So where can we read about these stupid laws?

 

[blake0812]

So where can we read about these stupid laws?

Wikileaks

 

[sphenodont]

Who's money? Tax payers money? So now local municipalities are spending tax payers money go into competition against private companies?

Isn't the conservative mantra that local rights ought to trump federal ones?

The elected representatives of Chatanooga, on behalf of the residents of Chatanooga, built out a network to serve their customers who were not being properly served by the cable company. If the citizens didn't want this expense, they would have protested and/or campaigned against it. Instead, they approved it, built it, and they love it.

Besides, you're moving the goalposts again. You asked who would spend millions on building out a rival network. You were answered municipalities. You asked which ones. You got an answer. Now you're trying to reframe the argument.
Let's go back to the original one. It's been proven that there are competitors who would be and are willing to spend money to compete with lazy incumbent ISPs. Now what?

 

[PliotronX]

Isn't the conservative mantra that local rights ought to trump federal ones?

The elected representatives of Chatanooga, on behalf of the residents of Chatanooga, built out a network to serve their customers who were not being properly served by the cable company. If the citizens didn't want this expense, they would have protested and/or campaigned against it. Instead, they approved it, built it, and they love it.

Besides, you're moving the goalposts again. You asked who would spend millions on building out a rival network. You were answered municipalities. You asked which ones. You got an answer. Now you're trying to reframe the argument.
Let's go back to the original one. It's been proven that there are competitors who would be and are willing to spend money to compete with lazy incumbent ISPs. Now what?

Well written retort. There are many more examples of residents voting overwhelmingly for high speed internet than there are against it. If they hadn't been pushed to that point by duopolies in the first place, it wouldn't be an issue. Telephone companies in particular have already received s-tons of money in bonds that have been squandered.

 

[mu11et]

Your healthcare costs did not go up 110%. This did not happen. Everyone who ever made this claim has been proven wrong and you are wrong too if we are being honest. You may have been forced to pay for a healthcare plan that covers much more than your old one, but prenatal care doesn't equal 110% jump in premiums. And dental? WTF does that have to do with healthcare?

Until you post up details of your old and new plans backing up your 110-115% numbers we will have to assume you are full of shit like everyone else spouting this nonsense.

I am self employed. My insurance doubled plus some. YES my damn insurance went up 110% not to mention my deductible doubled and I am now paying for stuff I don't need and will never use. I don't have a choice on my plan I picked the bottom of the barrel plan and it is 110% more then the plan I had and liked. YES I am being forced to pay more for a plan I don't want. This is just hard cold numbers.

 

[werepossum]

Here is a pretty good write up by Cnet pointing out just how meaningless this ruling is in the grand scheme of things.

http://www.cnet.com/news/7-things-net-neutrality-wont-do/#ftag=YHF65cbda0

That's pretty much a perfect summation, thanks. Yes, this prevents some corporations from harming you. Yes, this may allow the government to harm you. Can't grant government the power to protect us without opening the door to government harming us. That doesn't mean government should do nothing on our behalf, it merely means that we must be vigilant against government overstepping its authority.

 

[werepossum]

Your healthcare costs did not go up 110%. This did not happen. Everyone who ever made this claim has been proven wrong and you are wrong too if we are being honest. You may have been forced to pay for a healthcare plan that covers much more than your old one, but prenatal care doesn't equal 110% jump in premiums. And dental? WTF does that have to do with healthcare?

Until you post up details of your old and new plans backing up your 110-115% numbers we will have to assume you are full of shit like everyone else spouting this nonsense.

Not to derail the derailing, but we found out Monday that the reason our prescriptions skyrocketed under our Obamacare-compliant HSA policy was because our pharmacy fucked up. Instead of switching us to the new, materially worse health insurance policy, they simply removed the old policy, which left us as having no health insurance. That settles the mystery I raised earlier about why BCBST would negotiate separate costs for the same medication for different HSA policies when it all comes out of our pocket either way before deductible, and the same percentage comes out of BCBST's portion after deductible.