Net Neutrality

It's not over till the fat lady sings, let's wait until the new proposals are actually released to the public. But it's good that Wheeler is being fairly blatant about it, Title II is really the only way forward.

The Republicans are gonna lose their shit over it fairly quickly, though.

Sprint and other small ISPs rally behind Title II net neutrality

Whodathunkit. The little guys have clued in to the fact that they won't benefit from the monopoly mafia, and so their small weight is being thrown in favor of net neutrality because it ultimately benefits them.

Power to the people, hands in the air, all that.

Small ISPs will benefit hugely from title II, potentially. For instance, if the FCC demands that the line-layers open up their lines for the usage of multiple companies, as is the case with phones, which would shatter the vast regional monopolies of companies like Comcast, because suddenly anyone who can set up some servers can compete in their home markets, and that's when you see the bottom fall out on prices.

(Politico) "On Thursday, [Federal Communications Chair] Wheeler is expected to present to the commission a set of rules that would treat broadband providers like utilities, effectively denying them the right to charge companies a premium for faster access to consumers and holding them accountable for any attempt to secretly impede the flow of data. When the commission finally approves them — a vote is scheduled for late February — it will mark the most significant rewrite of the rules of the road for the Internet in more than a dozen years and affect the competitive playing field for generations to come."

So basically it means Verizon won the battle but has now lost the war, correct?

Yes. Yes it does. The very definition of a Pyrrhic Victory, I believe.

More like a victory that generates more blowback that it earns in advantage points.

What was the "victory" part? The previous decision?

Mind you, this is probably only a "victory" that puts the US on par with other Western countries.

Um? Other Western countries can set up outright blacklists, either by government order or ISP decision. For example, France is expressly allowed to order every ISP in France to blacklist a site that they choose to (though they don't do that very often), Australia has it done at the ISP level and the government has been sluggishly trying to get legislation through to allow websites to be Refused Classification and blocked.

The US may have a sucky internet but we have a free one.

Not for very long if the MPAA has its way.

Yeah, and they're not getting it. They've tried and failed three times already.

I consider the possible increased ability to enforce copyright to be a small sacrifice for the benefits of Title II classification and net neutrality. Let's be frank: we may all hate the RIAA and MPAA for their heavy-handed protection of their IP, but they are not wrong about the massive amount of digital piracy out there.

@ Ramidel: I expect you're also including the numerous filters the British Government has ordered ISPs to install?

Go and have a look. I'm sure you'd hate it.

edited 3rd Feb '15 8:37:34 AM by Greenmantle

Didn't know about the British setup specifically, but sure.

So the good guys basically won?

Yup. And now the rest of the telecom industry really wants to tar and feather Verizon.

Sadly, this won't force the telecom companies to improve their service, but at least it's possible that it will improve (in its slow glacial way) without the possibility of fast lanes.

It could open the way to regulatory requirements that ISPs improve their capacity and service offerings, though. I mean, the FCC just reclassified "broadband" as 25 down, 3 up, which is over the average (and way, way over the median) in the U.S. That is a hopeful sign.

edited 3rd Feb '15 9:47:50 AM by Fighteer

"We don't offer broadband anymore." -Joint statement by every ISP in the nation.

Eh, there's too much money in it to throw it out the window. Otherwise the first ISP (Google!) who pushed it out would gain a huge market advantage.

After all, AOL said, "Fuck this high-speed thing; people love their 14.4 modems," and look where they are now.

edited 3rd Feb '15 9:53:32 AM by Fighteer

Well, they've got two choices now that the FCC has shown its fangs (or hopefully will in 2 days, anyway): they can play a clean game and hope that the FCC doesn't use the full arsenal afforded by title II classification (which seems to be Wheeler's means of "splitting the baby" even at this juncture: declare common carrier but do the bare minimum with that power), or they can throw a total bitch fit and fight like hell.

It's been implied someone will likely sue against Title II. (Don't be surprised if it's Verizon again.)

@Fighteer: They're doing that already, though. Because there is no competition (and they can use legal muscle on frivolous lawsuits to keep it that way), there's no alternative, and you'll pay $100 a month for your shitty 10 mbps and LOVE IT.

Still, it's telling that Google is getting into the ISP business. They clearly don't want to, but when they're offering free service for ten years that's good enough for your average user and gigabit service that's on par with Comcast's, that's a sign of just how pissed Google is at Big Telecom.

Suing against title II seems like a fool's errand, since the whole case that started this said "you could achieve your goal by using title II, but you're not, so we have to strike these regulations". The supremes would have to contradict themselves, which isn't outside the realm of possibility with this court but it'd be quite the long-shot.

As noted in the General U.S. Politics thread, the FCC has voted to classify ISPs as common carriers and to quash state laws limiting private broadband networks in cities.

edited 26th Feb '15 10:54:23 AM by Fighteer