Scary article about the FCC, and "New net neutrality rules"

[niil945]

It absolutely has oversight. The FCC is a part of the executive branch, answerable to the President, and are there to create rules and enforce them. Those rules can be overridden by Congress, but they are given broad latitude to create and enforce rules without waiting for congress because to do otherwise would allow bad behavior to go on for years before you could get Congress to vote on it. They're still overseen by both the President and Congress, and their rules can be overridden by the SCOTUS as well.

The idea that they have no oversight is just nonsense.

The last line here sums up what I think of Daerio's point of view. And he knows it. That's exactly why he keeps defaulting to fallacious arguments.

[Reeve]

So much for your oversight.

Not seeing what an executive agency is about to do before they do it isn't the same thing as having no oversight. Congress can still make laws they have to abide by, the President can still order them to behave differently, and the SCOTUS can still overrule them. They have oversight.

[niil945]

Actually, that's exactly what you're doing. I'm not sure why.

*cough*fallacious garbage*cough* I'm not going to bother responding to this anymore aside from simply pointing it out. It doesn't warrant any additional response.

The fact that you're trying to make it a party-argument is also laughable.

*cough*fallacious garbage*cough*

Can you post the language of the bill being voted on for me to look over?

Does being able to post the language of the bill being voted on equate to "unchecked government oversight"? I'd say no, as we're not the ones who oversee the FCC. Welcome to a republic!

Edit: Awww... Reeve actually provided you the names of some of the entities who do have oversight. I didn't see your name on the list Daerio You should contact the FCC and request the bill because I'm sure they'd give you a copy and let you vote. Oh wait, that's a democracy which we are not. Nevermind, we don't care what you think.

[Daerio]

Nevermind, we don't care what you think.

The feeling is completely mutual, sir.

Government overseeing itself works about as well as the police doing it. Well enough for the sheep who want to believe it, but anyone else knows better.

You haven't even given a BAD reason as to why the language of the bill is being kept secret. How can the public elect politicians who represent their wishes, when we don't even know what's being voted on? I get you're into the whole Wizard of Oz, "Don't look behind the curtain!" bullshit, but not everyone is as dense as yourself.

I guess the issue is you've obviously placed complete faith in Big Brother, and I haven't. You consider yourself enlightened for having done so. ^_^ Preach it, brother!

[Reeve]

The feeling is completely mutual, sir.

Government overseeing itself works about as well as the police doing it. Well enough for the sheep who want to believe it, but anyone else knows better.

I see. So you're one of those people who are into calling people you disagree with "sheep." It totally makes sense now. At least you didn't go with "sheeple," so you don't quite go so far into the negative points.

[Daerio]

I see. So you're one of those people who are into calling people you disagree with "sheep." It totally makes sense now. At least you didn't go with "sheeple," so you don't quite go so far into the negative points.

People who put blind faith in the government, that's like definition shit going on right there.

And there's nothing more blind than not even knowing what's being voted on, and loving it!

[Caanrial]

There are all sorts of things wrong with the concept of net neutrality. This implementation, while it sounds nice and cozy with the title and all, actually will force existing ISPs to allow access to all of their hardware to competitors. I love how the liberal crowd is so quick to claim "but..fairness!" and then turn a blind eye to the companies who spent millions+ of their own dollars to lay the thousands+ of miles of cable & telephone & fiber lines, then be forced by fiat to give access to all of that infrastructure to their competition, who has no such investment in anything like that.

Talk about fairness.

Also, I fail to see a problem with "tiers of service", it is a commonly-accepted business practice world-wide in many arenas. If you want basic Internet access you can buy the normal speed for $29.95/month. If you want more bandwidth and speed then you can pay a little more and upgrade to twice as fast/much for $59.95/month, if you are a business you can buy super fast speed/bandwidth for $199.95/month, etc, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is "fair" -- you pay for what you want. This "net neutrality" thing will require that everyone gets the highest speed/bandwidth available for the same price. How can that even work? Bandwidth, contrary to some dreamy-eyed folks, is not unlimited. Not only that, but when Internet access is controlled by the government, the very real fear of censorship rears its ugly head, wherein the government decides if something should be allowed or not, the antithesis of "neutrality".

What I *do* see is a hatred of capitalism in all of this, and that lurking spectre of socialism where the best of everything should be free to everybody, supplied by the government of course, with no concept of where that product comes from and no concern with compensation to those creating it. Oh, that's right: "you didn't build that." Forgot that part..

[niil945]

Misunderstanding of the issue? Check.

Blaming "liberals" for something? Check.

Ill-informed token reference to "socialism"? Check.

Parroting of meaningless Obama out of context quote? Check.

Congratulations, sir! Welcome to the Fox and Friends team!

Yeah I read his post and instantly realized he doesn't have a clue what net neutrality actually is. It has nothing to do with what we pay ISP's for different levels of service and isn't remotely comparable. And if the people who paid for the infrastructure actually dictated how it was used, that would be us via taxes and ultimately the federal government because those endeavors were massively subsidized.

[Reeve]

There are all sorts of things wrong with the concept of net neutrality. This implementation, while it sounds nice and cozy with the title and all, actually will force existing ISPs to allow access to all of their hardware to competitors. I love how the liberal crowd is so quick to claim "but..fairness!" and then turn a blind eye to the companies who spent millions+ of their own dollars to lay the thousands+ of miles of cable & telephone & fiber lines, then be forced by fiat to give access to all of that infrastructure to their competition, who has no such investment in anything like that.

Talk about fairness.

Also, I fail to see a problem with "tiers of service", it is a commonly-accepted business practice world-wide in many arenas. If you want basic Internet access you can buy the normal speed for $29.95/month. If you want more bandwidth and speed then you can pay a little more and upgrade to twice as fast/much for $59.95/month, if you are a business you can buy super fast speed/bandwidth for $199.95/month, etc, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is "fair" -- you pay for what you want. This "net neutrality" thing will require that everyone gets the highest speed/bandwidth available for the same price. How can that even work? Bandwidth, contrary to some dreamy-eyed folks, is not unlimited. Not only that, but when Internet access is controlled by the government, the very real fear of censorship rears its ugly head, wherein the government decides if something should be allowed or not, the antithesis of "neutrality".

What I *do* see is a hatred of capitalism in all of this, and that lurking spectre of socialism where the best of everything should be free to everybody, supplied by the government of course, with no concept of where that product comes from and no concern with compensation to those creating it. Oh, that's right: "you didn't build that." Forgot that part..

This has absolutely nothing to do with what you just said. No one is saying you can't have tiered service.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Meh, the mere fact that it is 300+ pages is not a HUGE concern to me, though it will probably be insanely boring reading for the most part, and most people, if they DO postpone it to allow the public to see it.

Most of it is probably closing loopholes to stop the telecoms companies suing the government and winning.

- - - Updated - - -

There are all sorts of things wrong with the concept of net neutrality. This implementation, while it sounds nice and cozy with the title and all, actually will force existing ISPs to allow access to all of their hardware to competitors. I love how the liberal crowd is so quick to claim "but..fairness!" and then turn a blind eye to the companies who spent millions+ of their own dollars to lay the thousands+ of miles of cable & telephone & fiber lines, then be forced by fiat to give access to all of that infrastructure to their competition, who has no such investment in anything like that.

Talk about fairness.

Also, I fail to see a problem with "tiers of service", it is a commonly-accepted business practice world-wide in many arenas. If you want basic Internet access you can buy the normal speed for $29.95/month. If you want more bandwidth and speed then you can pay a little more and upgrade to twice as fast/much for $59.95/month, if you are a business you can buy super fast speed/bandwidth for $199.95/month, etc, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is "fair" -- you pay for what you want. This "net neutrality" thing will require that everyone gets the highest speed/bandwidth available for the same price. How can that even work? Bandwidth, contrary to some dreamy-eyed folks, is not unlimited. Not only that, but when Internet access is controlled by the government, the very real fear of censorship rears its ugly head, wherein the government decides if something should be allowed or not, the antithesis of "neutrality".

What I *do* see is a hatred of capitalism in all of this, and that lurking spectre of socialism where the best of everything should be free to everybody, supplied by the government of course, with no concept of where that product comes from and no concern with compensation to those creating it. Oh, that's right: "you didn't build that." Forgot that part..

Say you spend 40 dollars a month on internet right now.

Base line rental is 30 dollars per month (limited transfer amount of 50GB, 25Mbit down/4Mbit up. after that, you are restricted to 128kbit/s down and 48kbit/s up). This is the "cheap option" you wanted.
You cannot access World of Warcraft, Steam, Origin, U-Play or any other online gaming services unless you pay an additional 15 dollars a month."
Also, no news outlets except one are available unless you pay an additional 10 dollars per month.
If you want to stream video, that'll be another 15 dollars per month.
If you want another 100GB, that'll be 20 dollars per month

You happy about that? You get what you have right now for 40 bucks per month, for the low, low price of 90 dollars (assuming you buy the extra data transfer).

Oh, and an hour of youtube videos at 1080p is a bit more than 10GB of data.

[Masark]

Also, I fail to see a problem with "tiers of service", it is a commonly-accepted business practice world-wide in many arenas. If you want basic Internet access you can buy the normal speed for $29.95/month. If you want more bandwidth and speed then you can pay a little more and upgrade to twice as fast/much for $59.95/month, if you are a business you can buy super fast speed/bandwidth for $199.95/month, etc, etc.

Thank you for showing that you are incapable of reading. What you are presumably dictating has nothing to do with the topic of discussion.

The "tiers of service" is "oh, you want to visit mmo-champion.com at a speed faster than dial up? That'll be another $50." or "That's a nice site you've got there. Be a shame if our customers access to it was somehow slowed to a crawl. But if you give us a stack of money, we could protect you against that."

[Kujako]

Thank you for showing that you are incapable of reading. What you are presumably dictating has nothing to do with the topic of discussion.

The "tiers of service" is "oh, you want to visit mmo-champion.com at a speed faster than dial up? That'll be another $50." or "That's a nice site you've got there. Be a shame if our customers access to it was somehow slowed to a crawl. But if you give us a stack of money, we could protect you against that."

Odds are it would be reversed. Comcast for example would go to Curse gaming and say "nice web site you gots there, be a shame if all our users couldn't connect to it".

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Odds are it would be reversed. Comcast for example would go to Curse gaming and say "nice web site you gots there, be a shame if all our users couldn't connect to it".

Or both, for maximum money for the ISP.

[Bullettime]

Thank you for showing that you are incapable of reading. What you are presumably dictating has nothing to do with the topic of discussion.

The "tiers of service" is "oh, you want to visit mmo-champion.com at a speed faster than dial up? That'll be another $50." or "That's a nice site you've got there. Be a shame if our customers access to it was somehow slowed to a crawl. But if you give us a stack of money, we could protect you against that."

Exactly. And if NN isn't signed into law, this will be what happens regularly in the near future. Certain ISPs had already been starting this which is why there's a debate here to begin with.

It has nothing to do with tiered services. It has to do with the ISPs already charging us one rate and then, if NN isn't signed in, being able to turn around and charge us more to play WoW or tell Blizzard that they have a choice between paying up or make all their players on that ISP have shit connection to the game. Comcast already did this to Netflix.

That's before getting into other issues like preferring certain businesses and throttling/halting connectivity to competitors unless the users or other businesses pay up.

[Zoaric]

Or both, for maximum money for the ISP.

This. They'd exploit both sides, not add any actual benefit to either end, and skyrocket
profits.

[Masark]

Odds are it would be reversed. Comcast for example would go to Curse gaming and say "nice web site you gots there, be a shame if all our users couldn't connect to it".

That's the scenario I gave in my second bit.

[obdigore]

This. They'd exploit both sides, not add any actual benefit to either end, and skyrocket
profits.

So... like health insurance then?

Bazinga?

[Bullettime]

This. They'd exploit both sides, not add any actual benefit to either end, and skyrocket
profits.

Exactly. For say Blizzard, we could be charged say 50 bucks a Comcast package with moderate speeds but have to pay 20 more dollars if we don't want crap speeds to certain games like Blizzard's products. Then they could turn around and tell Blizzard "pay us a bunch of money or our customer's speeds to your game will suck anyways."

Both would basically have to play their game and pay up while they rake in massively increased profits. Meanwhile, the customer is screwed because most people in the US only have like one provider, so we can't just say "fuck you I'm going elsewhere."

[Aica]

What I *do* see is a hatred of capitalism in all of this, and that lurking spectre of socialism where the best of everything should be free to everybody, supplied by the government of course, with no concept of where that product comes from and no concern with compensation to those creating it. Oh, that's right: "you didn't build that." Forgot that part..

1. The US telecom industry is made up of localized monopolies. There is nothing capitalistic about it.
2. The federal government paid for much of the telecom infrastructure through massive subsidies. If anyone needs to be compensated, it's the taxpayer.

[Caanrial]

It has to do with the ISPs already charging us one rate and then, if NN isn't signed in, being able to turn around and charge us more to play WoW or tell Blizzard that they have a choice between paying up or make all their players on that ISP have shit connection to the game. Comcast already did this to Netflix.

Actually, that's wrong. Do some research, here Google this Forbes magazine article (may need to use the cached version to read it):

TECH 11/25/2014 @ 4:00AM 34,306 views
How Netflix Poisoned The Net Neutrality Debate
. . .
There was intentional throttling going on, Rayburn reports. But it was not being done, as Netflix claimed, by Comcast or other large ISPs, intentionally or otherwise.

The congestion, rather, resulted from a calculated choice made by Cogent, Netflix’s own Internet transit provider. Cogent, it turns out, had implemented a practice of prioritizing the traffic of its retail customers over that of its wholesale customers, including Netflix, during times of heavy network usage that strained Cogent’s capacity to deliver the traffic being pulled by end-users.

Faced with irrefutable evidence reported by Rayburn and others, Cogent quickly admitted to intentionally slowing the traffic of all its wholesale customers, a practice that may still be in place. see http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/...slow-lane.html[url]

It wasn't Comcast that throttled anything, contrary to ALL blog posts and comcast-hating people in the country, it was the Netflix 3rd-party pipe provider Cogent that throttled it via prioritizing traffic. Comcast got blamed but they weren't the guilty party. And every blog and news outlet has kept quiet about this because it goes against the agenda for net neutrality that is going to ultimately result in the government controlling what websites we can visit.

If you want anything to be "free" then keep the damn government out of it. And please, research more and stop grabbing the low-hanging fruit of blaming Comcast for everything. Finally, point to be made, even on the slowest speed account you can EASILY play WoW or any other MMO just fine, you just can't simultaneously stream videos and download bittorrents also...if you want that then purchase more pipe by going to a higher tier service.