FCC Revising Broadband to Enforce Net Neutrality

[ravewulf]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]This is not unconstitutional. The regulation before was unconstitutional. This one merely requires things labeled as "broadband" to adhere to standards. Cable companies can call it something completely different if they want to get around this. Like "High Speed Internet".The thing about Net Nuetrality is that it does the opposite of what its name sake is. The reason why people fight this tooth and nail is because tech is the most unregulated major industry in the US, and its the most profitable for a reason. Adding regulation, any regulation will have negative effects on such a free-market ecosystem. I don't think anyone wants to pay for new regulations that promote fair use.[/citation]
You sir have been listening to Fox "News" too long. Regulations are the referee in the game of economics. Regulations are there to say "No Mr. Corperation, you cannot abuse your customers or our people." Killing regulations is equivalent to removing referees from sports an allowing players to literally kill the opponents.

Net Neutrality is exactly what it sounds like. Otherwise companies like Comcast are allowed to say "we don't like our competitors, so let's over charge them and slow their site to a crawl so none of our customers can get to that site." And Comcast could legally do that to ANY site they wanted.

 

[ravewulf]

[citation][nom]silky salamandr[/nom]What the hell does the president have to do with the fcc or Comcast? Please elaborate...[/citation]
The power of the bully pulpit. Duh. What any president says has signigicant impact on a lot of things.
Our last president said a lot of idiotic things (along with things fed to him by others) and that was what was done.
Our current president, although he ran on a progressive promise of change, has become rather silent on anything that's remotely progressive and instead moved to the center-right (aka the center of Washington). Still, I'd rather him over Bush anyday.

 

[ravewulf]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]We have gotten to the point where every major industry has thousands to hundreds of thousands of regulations that no business can plausibly adhere to.[/citation]
Yeah, like the simple mining safety regulations that Massey has been ignoring for years, choosing to pay inexpensive fines instead of properly protecting his workers by fixing the dozens of safetly violations that have accumulated over the years. Instead, he lets his workers get blown up and burned to death. All for the sake of profit.
And don't get me started on the big bankers that prefer to crash their companies for the sake of short term profit and then have the nerve to loby what are "supposedly" our politians into getting us to pay the bill instead of forcing the CEOs to cough up the money themselves. The current system is flawed. It's a reverse-Robin Hood effect. The rich get richer while robbing the poor and middle class.
/end rant

 

[Guest]

"Adding regulation, any regulation will have negative effects on such a free-market ecosystem."

Yes, for the companies who're trying to abuse the system to maximize their profits. There's no such thing as a completely 'free-market ecosystem', without regulations we'd end up with one single company doing everything and their primary manufacture would be arms.

"I don't think anyone wants to pay for new regulations that promote fair use."

I needed to scan this page alone for a couple of seconds to determine that you're quite obviously wrong on that count.

 

[johnnyupgrade]

Net Neutrality is a tricky subject and I think we all need to research it a bit more.

There are pros and cons to this. Regulating broadband may deprive us of the connection speeds current technology is capable of, but it may also protect us from being completely limited or blocked from certain aspects of the web (i.e. p2p file sharing).

Whatever the case, it comes down to the consumer. If Comcast blocks a service I want; I'm not getting Comcast as my ISP. As long as there is a demand for something, the service will be provided, and the legalities handled by lawyers in the courtroom.

 

[ravewulf]

[citation][nom]johnnyupgrade[/nom]If Comcast blocks a service I want; I'm not getting Comcast as my ISP.[/citation]
Except, of course, when Comcast (or any other provider) is the only provider in your area. Or if they all limit the same things, you are still down to no real options (private medical insurance in a some areas is a good example of this).

 

[abbadon_34]

Regulating Natural Monopolies like utlities is one of the only valid purposes of government. It attempts (imperfectly) to correct the market anomolies and restore a free market.

Since it is impractical for a large number of coimpeting internet lines to enter one's home (or electricity or water) and thus demand choices into the home, the few that do must be prevented from exerting undue control (i.e. reduced choice or constricted supply)


This is good, and this is Libertarian.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

Soooo.... does this mean I can go back to online gaming with no throttling again soon?

 

[falchard]

I think you guys have a misunderstanding of how the free market works. The ones with power are the people who buy products, not politicians or companies. When you start to add regulation you start to edge out small companies and competition from the market because they have to adhere to those regulations. This is the big big reason our banking system is messed up. They only allow 12 banks to even exist, other institutes are called credit unions which provide superior service then banks.

Also 1 company cannot be the only company in an economy. In order to have an economy you need trade and purchase with a monatary system, you just can't do that with 1 company in existence.

The problem I have with net nuetrality is that the FCC does not know how to be an ISP. Most consumers don't understand how an ISP operates. The ones who know the ISP business the best are ISPs. The problem I see is that no ISP can support their network at the speeds they advertise. During peak times their speed slows down because of the load. Throttling allows the ISP during peak usage times to offer high speed to its non-heavy traffic users. ALso giving ISPs the ability to prioritize certain sites for a price means I pay less on my internet subscription.

The FCC is going a round about way in getting ISPs to conform to net neutrality. All they have to do is make demands for using federal lines which compose the majority of the US internet infrastructure.

I think the thing federal level regulations should accomplish is the very basic amount of regulations to allow for the safe exchange of goods. A regulation is useless if they cannot enforce it which is what happened in your sob story about miners. The answer to such problems isn't make more regulations, its enforce the ones you got.

 

[Guest]

"I think you guys have a misunderstanding of how the free market works."

We understand perfectly fine, you're just arguing from the theoretical ideal rather than the reality.

A completely unregulated 'free market' is as much a pipe dream as a functional old-school-communism plan economy is. Both rely too much on the less unsavory aspects of the human psyche and are thus inevitably, sadly, doomed to fail.

Free market capitalism is based upon greed.

It's a proven concept and it works, it just can't be allowed to run completely free as that will inevitably foster monopolies.

The human race have proven time and again that it can't work together toward the common good without outside supervision, thus I'm frankly baffled that you believe a completely unregulated economy would work.

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I think you guys have a misunderstanding of how the free market works. The ones with power are the people who buy products, not politicians or companies. When you start to add regulation you start to edge out small companies and competition from the market because they have to adhere to those regulations. This is the big big reason our banking system is messed up. They only allow 12 banks to even exist, other institutes are called credit unions which provide superior service then banks.Also 1 company cannot be the only company in an economy. In order to have an economy you need trade and purchase with a monatary system, you just can't do that with 1 company in existence.The problem I have with net nuetrality is that the FCC does not know how to be an ISP. Most consumers don't understand how an ISP operates. The ones who know the ISP business the best are ISPs. The problem I see is that no ISP can support their network at the speeds they advertise. During peak times their speed slows down because of the load. Throttling allows the ISP during peak usage times to offer high speed to its non-heavy traffic users. ALso giving ISPs the ability to prioritize certain sites for a price means I pay less on my internet subscription.The FCC is going a round about way in getting ISPs to conform to net neutrality. All they have to do is make demands for using federal lines which compose the majority of the US internet infrastructure.I think the thing federal level regulations should accomplish is the very basic amount of regulations to allow for the safe exchange of goods. A regulation is useless if they cannot enforce it which is what happened in your sob story about miners. The answer to such problems isn't make more regulations, its enforce the ones you got.[/citation]

Do yourself a favor, go back to college.

Thank you.

 

[logitic]

I really don't know what's actually being regulated here, but if it brings my $190.00 Comcast cable bill down some I will be happy. Oh and if it stops mid day throttle I would love that too!

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal. Sounded like the FCC was going to try to use telephone policies and regulations to try an control Internet service.

 

[2zao]

article says FCC will want to get rid of throttle

(for all of you who didnt read the first paragraph correctly and b1tch3d about FCC bandwidth throttling)

not saying everything is good... just that many that commented didnt fully read article

 

[ethanolson]

If they can regulate it enough to seperate porn into a second pipe that costs more to subscribe to (because of tax) but leave everything else alone, then I'm all for it. Unfortunately, they're not doing that. Reporters Without Borders is pushing this in hopes to "change democracy."

 

[ravewulf]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I think you guys have a misunderstanding of how the free market works.[/citation]
What you described is indeed the ideal free market system in theory, but it does not describe the reality of what goes on. You've been drinking the corporatist kool-aid far too long.

 

[ravewulf]

[citation][nom]ethanolson[/nom]If they can regulate it enough to seperate porn into a second pipe that costs more to subscribe to (because of tax) but leave everything else alone, then I'm all for it. Unfortunately, they're not doing that. Reporters Without Borders is pushing this in hopes to "change democracy."[/citation]
Ugh. The whole point of Net Neutrality is to treat all traffic exactly the same (no priority, no difference in cost). And the internet is not "a series of tubes." The data centers that house the servers that have porn sites on them probably also have hundreds of other (non-porn) sites housed there as well