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Does anyone here actually oppose Network Neutrality?

WildCat said:
That's a real Orwellian definition of "freedom".
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Did you actually read from the words stated by Ajit Pai, below the quote from Orwell's 1984 starting with :

To wit: "PRESS STATEMENT OF FCC COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI

ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S PLAN TO REGULATE THE INTERNET"
 
Faustus said:
Did you actually read from the words stated by Ajit Pai, below the quote from Orwell's 1984 starting with :

To wit: "PRESS STATEMENT OF FCC COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI

ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S PLAN TO REGULATE THE INTERNET"
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Pai is just blathering the talking points his sponsor Mitch McConnell wants him to blather.

I found particularly amusing that he refers to the current situation as "pro-competitive". I guess it is a competition to see which local broadband monopoly can buy exclusive rights to particular content providers so they can divide the internet into channels like cable TV.

Go ahead Faustus, tell me all about the "pro-competitive" environment we have now. I need a good laugh!
 
Faustus said:
OpenInternet - Real Internet Freedom, Not Regulation



FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai held a press conference on February 10, 2015
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How about this:

We ask these REGIONAL MONOPOLIES (Yes, they are REGIONAL monopolies. Not "some people say." It's like "Some people say 1+1=2." No. It's 1+1=2. Period.)

Anyway, we ask these monopolies really, really nicely to please do not charge so much for internet service, and to please, please PLEASE do not put an extortion fee on competitors such as Netflix, so that us customers can actually get the speed that we already paid for without the possibility of throttling! Please, please, oh please, with a cherry on top? PLEEEEEEAAAASE!?

Yeah. Right. That's not how the world works. We cannot just ask really nicely for these corporate regional monopolies to give us what we ALREADY pay for. That has been done. Over and over and over again. Thousands upon thousands of times. They continue to jerk their customers over by playing unfairly, guess what: We have the workings of a REPUBLICAN government to force them to act like a responsible citizen. That is, afterall, the entire point of a republican form of government.....
 
Nihilianth said:
How about this:

We ask these REGIONAL MONOPOLIES (Yes, they are REGIONAL monopolies. Not "some people say." It's like "Some people say 1+1=2." No. It's 1+1=2. Period.)

Anyway, we ask these monopolies really, really nicely to please do not charge so much for internet service, and to please, please PLEASE do not put an extortion fee on competitors such as Netflix, so that us customers can actually get the speed that we already paid for without the possibility of throttling! Please, please, oh please, with a cherry on top? PLEEEEEEAAAASE!?

Yeah. Right. That's not how the world works. We cannot just ask really nicely for these corporate regional monopolies to give us what we ALREADY pay for. That has been done. Over and over and over again. Thousands upon thousands of times. They continue to jerk their customers over by playing unfairly, guess what: We have the workings of a REPUBLICAN government to force them to act like a responsible citizen. That is, afterall, the entire point of a republican form of government.....
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But they're not regional monopolies in the truest sense. There are alternative services available. Cable/DSL/I-phone-over-the-net(wireless broadband access?)/others That's why I referred to "duopolies" which still is not a complete accounting of capacity available to the common user.
 
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Originally Posted by Faustus
Its proponents say that NN will free internet (its users) from the "duopoly" (some say monopoly) of the telecom and cable industries. In reality it will give the “duopoly” enhanced tools to limit new comers therefore blocking competition.
Citation required.
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Newtons Bit said:
That [link] could only be more non-sequitur if you had posted a picture of a potato.
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quote from the link:
The Internet is highly competitive. Traditional “phone” and traditional “cable” companies have been locked in an intense struggle to win customers, and wireless is rapidly becoming another viable alternative to wired broadband connections. If a private company blocked or censored Internet traffic maliciously it would lose its customers. If government exercised such control over a government-controlled Internet, there would be no place to turn.

The envisioned burden-of-proof for required network management practices is unreasonably restrictive and will prevent business models that may be economically efficient, impose uncertainty, and create litigation risks. Such restrictions would lower the rate of return on investments in building network capacity to the point that some of those investments would no longer make economic sense.

The Internet would then either remain crippled or be “rescued” with taxpayer subsidies, which would inevitably bring government control and politicization along with government ownership. Indeed, this “public utility” model is the desired outcome of many proponents of regulation, including former White House adviser Susan Crawford and Free Press founder Robert McChesney.

Such a transformation of the Internet into a government-controlled public utility is a major policy change that should be debated in Congress, the legitimately elected legislative branch of government. The Commission should not on its own set into motion regulatory changes that will force us down this path.
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Faustus said:
But they're not regional monopolies in the truest sense. There are alternative services available. Cable/DSL/I-phone-over-the-net(wireless broadband access?)/others That's why I referred to "duopolies" which still is not a complete accounting of capacity available to the common user.
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Wrong. I live in the Northeast. What happens in the winter time in the northeast? Snow, and very very bad weather. Satellite is not much of an alternative. Most people prefer cable over satellite for this very reason. In any case, "competittion" does not address the extortionist policyt of throttling competitors. For about the 7584327589654723896543789654376895430752nd time:

I ALREADY PAY FOR A CERTAIN SPEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeez. Throttling should be an illegal business practice. Period! It's like if you were to go into a grocery store, pay for a gallon of milk, but the grocery store is allowed to dump half of it out because the brand you happened to purchase did not pay an extortion fee to the grocery store. Regardless of whether or not there is competition, that is ILLEGAL!
 
Faustus said:
quote from the link:
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If government exercised such control over a government-controlled Internet, there would be no place to turn.

Where in the world do these people come up with this crap? Slip in a claim without actually explaining. Please. Explain:

HOW would it be that "there would be no place to turn" if government "exercised such control?"

Also, there is ALREADY no place to turn for many, many people. You seE: We have these things called "regional monopolies." And they control VAST areas of the nation. Do note: Not everyone lives in New York City or Philadelphia where there is a tower close by. Lots and lots of people live out in the middle of nowhere, where satellite isn't even option to begin with. And the local government has to grant a cable company MONOPOLY STATUS in order to get the infrastructure to smaller towns.

Now, the issue is not whether or not there is "enough competition," or if "there needs to be more competition." "Competition" is a strawman. I do not know why you do not see this!

No. The issue is not "competition." The issue is "EXTORTION." Why should it be legal for a business to throttle a person's internet connection to a competing website, when that person is already paying for a certain connection speed? I ALREADY PAY FOR THE CONNECTION! Forget about "competition." This is a highly unethical business practice at the very least. It should be downright illegal. You cannot offer a service or a product, then cut back on said service or product just because you do not like how a particular customer uses it.
 
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WildCat said:
Do you have examples of how it is "highly competitive"?

How about listing 10 broadband providers serving your area?
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Of course not10, but I can name three. And even two would qualify as being "highly competitive"
 
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Faustus said:
Of course not10, but I can name three. And even two would qualify as being "highly competitive"
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Name them so we can compare these competitors, and be certain you're not calling a dial-up or a 3mb/s DSL line as "broadband". And I'm not really sure about calling 2 or 3 providers a "competitive" environment.
 
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I only have the cable company to "choose" from. The phone company has DSL and fiber but not in my neighborhood. As for wireless, I get LTE at my house but data is way too expensive to use at as a primary connection.
 
Nihilianth said:
Jeez. Throttling should be an illegal business practice. Period! It's like if you were to go into a grocery store, pay for a gallon of milk, but the grocery store is allowed to dump half of it out because the brand you happened to purchase did not pay an extortion fee to the grocery store. Regardless of whether or not there is competition, that is ILLEGAL!
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Psh. They wouldn't waste the product.

What they're doing is more like pouring half the bottle into an empty bottle, then filling them the rest of the way with water.
 
Francesca R said:
Two is usually called a duopoly, not highly competitive.

The US really does not have ISP competition. Not that NN will change that.
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And "competition," for the 800 millionth time, is a strawman! We aren't talking about whether or not more competition would be better. Everyone already agrees that more competition is better. What we are talking about, is a business practice that is highly illegal in virtually every single other industry in existence, and in virtually every single nation that has ever existed for the past 500 years at the very least! Again, for the 800 millionth time, in virtually every single other industry, you cannot just simply cut products or services that a person has already paid an agreed upon price, for a an agreed-upon level of service, or amount of product! This is a very simple concept that goes way back, thousands of years in some cases. It is why nations the world over have developed official weights and measures.

It is really, REALLY easy: I pay for a gallon of milk, I get a gallon of milk. I pay for an 8 oz. nugget of gold, I get an 8 oz. nugget of gold. I pay for a hundred megs/second, I get a hundred megs per second (actual technical issues notwithstanding, of course.)

Why, oh why is this so hard for people to understand? :jaw-dropp

ehcks said:
Psh. They wouldn't waste the product.

What they're doing is more like pouring half the bottle into an empty bottle, then filling them the rest of the way with water.
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:D ^This.
 
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Nihilianth said:
It is really, REALLY easy: I pay for a gallon of milk, I get a gallon of milk. I pay for an 8 oz. nugget of gold, I get an 8 oz. nugget of gold. I pay for a hundred megs/second, I get a hundred megs per second (actual technical issues notwithstanding, of course.)

Why, oh why is this so hard for people to understand? :jaw-dropp
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Well you only actually pay for up to 100 megs. And so throttling, say YouTube traffic, is fine because the speeds will fall into the range of "up to" 100 megs. The government shouldn't disallow such a practice, because freedom. What are you, a commie? Besides, as everyone already knows, markets always produce the best outcomes when they are free of government regulation. If customers don't like the service a company is providing, the Invisible Hand will kick in and competition will put them out of business. At least thats what my ideology says. And that couldn't be wrong otherwise I would have rethink my world view.
 
Blaaaaarggggggghhhh...

There is so much bloviation on both sides of this issue.

Here's the thing. I don't know if you guys know this, but the internet has had a "net neutrality" rule in effect for something like the past 15 years. Almost since the beginning of the internet, there's been net neutrality. Net neutrality is not some new beast, and the world didn't end with it.

However, an appeals court struck down the last net neutrality rule, stating the FCC did not have the authority to make such a rule. That's been the never ending cycle. The FCC makes a net neutrality rule, someone (Verizon) challenges it, the courts strike the rule down. Rinse, repeat.

So now the FCC is classifying the internet as a utility, and this will give it the authority it needs to make net neutrality rules.

However, as a regulator of a utility, this also gives the FCC a whole new range of regulatory powers over the internet far in excess of just ruling on net neutrality. This reclassification means they can now set prices, for example.

This is extreme overkill. A huge government power expansion. And the government never fails to exercise the powers it gives itself. With these new powers it has given itself over the internet, the FCC is not going to stop at net neutrality.

And now big money is going to be capturing that regulatory power.

Here's another thing. "Net neutrality" is actually a bandwidth issue. Internet Service Providers want to be able to control which web sites get faster speeds due to the current limitations in bandwidth.

Key word: current.

Technology is going to solve this problem, not the government.

And the government just grabbed a metric ton of power that far exceeds the ability to regulate "net neutrality".

So...long after technology has made the net neutrality issue obsolete, the government will retain today's new powers.

Bogus.

Bogus, bogus, bogus.
 
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