Current Events > Biden's FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality by 3-2 Vote

(+) Yeah! (+)

Asked this in another thread but I'm confused what Net Neutrality even gets us at this point. I'm very aware of the horror stories of a carved up internet but we were without net neutrality for 7 years and never got anything even remotely similar. I'm not against regulation where warranted but I'm not sure this one particularly is.

Its probably nothing people would notice, but it probably makes it easier for people to gather and sell or just straight up look at your info with cookies,

You want to convince conservatives that net neutrality is essential? Explain to them that without it, Comcast could block you from news from everywhere but NBC.

Cartoon_Quoter posted...

You want to convince conservatives that net neutrality is essential? Explain to them that without it, Comcast could block you from news from everywhere but NBC.

Or find their illegal photos from their HD

Cartoon_Quoter posted...

You want to convince conservatives that net neutrality is essential? Explain to them that without it, Comcast could block you from news from everywhere but NBC.

The conservative counter to this that regional ISP monopolies need to end so that more competition can come in and allow for more consumer choice. I thought it was a dumb argument at the time and even wrote my rep arguing as such because I had only ISP choice at the time for true broadband. Since then one company installed fiber with two others planning to offer fiber services in the area sooner or later. Unless they all conspire to price fix (which is illegal) it would be very hard for this to occur. Again not against Net Neutrality conceptually just not sure it is actually needed in practice because any ISP doing what you describe would be decimated by people leaving for the competition.

Between this and the Tik Tok banning...isnt this becoming a trend for the government to try and control what we watch?

CARRRNE_ASADA posted...

Between this and the Tik Tok banning...isnt this becoming a trend for the government to try and control what we watch?

Typical before big wars or financial crises

CARRRNE_ASADA posted...

Between this and the Tik Tok banning...isnt this becoming a trend for the government to try and control what we watch?

Net neutrality is a good thing

CARRRNE_ASADA posted...

Between this and the Tik Tok banning...isnt this becoming a trend for the government to try and control what we watch?

Gotta love when right wingers try and spin that net neutrality is bad.

And if you try and claim you're not a right winger then do yourself a favor and learn what something is before you run your mouth and spew Republican talking points.

Is there a valid government reason that the order for this to happen was given in 2021 and the actual vote happened in 2024 six months before the election?

get fucked, Ajit Pai

This issue used to mean a lot to me during the Bush Jr days. Now Im kind of pessimistic about the whole thing and just assume ISPs will find a way to fuck us regardless of laws.

Doe posted...

Is there a valid government reason that the order for this to happen was given in 2021 and the actual vote happened in 2024 six months before the election?

"Government actually did a good thing. I must try my hardest to turn it into a bad thing."

Dudebusters posted...

"Government actually did a good thing. I must try my hardest to turn it into a bad thing."

I think my question is reasonable lol. If that's just how hard it is to get to a vote on something like this then fine. It's healthy to have some skepticism about the US political system.

Deegs posted...

Asked this in another thread but I'm confused what Net Neutrality even gets us at this point. I'm very aware of the horror stories of a carved up internet but we were without net neutrality for 7 years and never got anything even remotely similar. I'm not against regulation where warranted but I'm not sure this one particularly is.

https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix
-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/

Net neutrality regulations came into play because multiple US ISPs were throttling traffic to Netflix. Netflix eventually paid money to those ISPs to get them to stop throttling traffic and then passed the cost of those payments down to Netflix subscribers by increasing the subscription fee.

The state of the internet is better in 2024 than it was in 2014 in that high fiber is much more prevalent in ISP networks. However, without net neutrality regulations in place, we're just trusting ISPs to not do that again.

A lot of people are saying things in this topic that have zero to do with Net Neutrality and I don't know why that is.

All Net Neutrality means is that ISP's are not allowed to engage in blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization of traffic.

A good analogy is that an ISP is like the Post Office in this case. All your internet traffic is bundled into packets that are all the same size like a standard letter.and the ISP is responsible for delivering these messages back and forth between people.
Blocking would mean that I can send mail, but if I send mail to Phil they just throw it in the trash, blocking it.
Throttling would be where if I send mail to Phil they put it aside in a box and don't continue trying to deliver it until tomorrow.
Paid prioritization, is actually a thing the Post Office does (next day air, priority mail, etc), but the key difference is that those services have no impact on the regular post mail.

Paid prioritization is the most tricky, and also hard to directly relate to the Post Office because the ISP fear is that they combine throttling with prioritization to squeeze consumers. The Post Office is not going to be able to slow down the regular post in order to drive sales of priority.
For an ISP it is as simple as them deciding Phil get too much mail, if you want to mail Phil you need to pay us extra or it will take a long time to get there.

I still don't know what this is

Telemetry, privacy harvesting, consumer-as-product ToS's stem from laws that are not neutrality. Sadly we are not free of that, a common misconception I see in this topic or discussions about it.

This bill effectively reverses market specific throttling/caps, artificial broadband barriers and tiered monthly plans bundling "priority" to other shit (e.g: Verizon w/ Netflix, Comcast w/ Disney+) all actually ran a tiny bit better when purchased that way. I'll try to dig up the benchmarks from the old overclock forums. There was the infamous Netflix bitrate problem that still persists to this day depending on what ISP, app/program/browser you use to watch. That's NN stuff.

Now it's back to the 2010-2015ish ISP plans. Fixed speed, fixed price, modem/router rental fee being the only hidden cost allowed, etc. Some have monthly data limits, some don't, has always been allowed. It's theoretically a bit more difficult for them to track your VPN, but that was back then, nowadays ISP technology has caught up to that shit tremendously anyway.

I look at things like this. 'We don't need this rule because we'll police ourselves' has essentially been thrown out the window for good. We need strict guidelines and regulations about anything and everything that may be exploited. All the norms of the last generation have been bastardized and destroyed, so now everything needs to be in writing.

Why did it take so long?
A Shit Pie got it removed in Trump's first year.

On the subject of shit that's taking too long... Did Trump's horrible USPS pick get booted yet? I gave up asking after 2 years, but seriously.... is he gone, yet?

streamofthesky posted...

Why did it take so long?
A Shit Pie got it removed in Trump's first year.

The bureaucratic hell that is US government lol

Why are people posting in here about stuff that doesn't have anything to do with net neutrality, like data collection, privacy, and regional ISP monopolies/oligopolies?

C-zom posted...

The bureaucratic hell that is US government lol

Even without that, it takes a hell of a lot longer to make things than it does to break things. Even before Trump came in and made a bigger mess of things than most other right-wing POTUSes before him, the Republicans could metaphorically light all the fires they wanted within our government, because they knew that every time the Democrats managed to get back into power, they'd lose it to the Republicans again before they even managed to put out half of those fires, let alone made any progress in repairing the institutions that the GOP just casually ruined.

CableZL posted...

https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix
-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/

Net neutrality regulations came into play because multiple US ISPs were throttling traffic to Netflix. Netflix eventually paid money to those ISPs to get them to stop throttling traffic and then passed the cost of those payments down to Netflix subscribers by increasing the subscription fee.

The state of the internet is better in 2024 than it was in 2014 in that high fiber is much more prevalent in ISP networks. However, without net neutrality regulations in place, we're just trusting ISPs to not do that again.

Am I reading in that article that this wasn't covered by net neutrality rules that were in place at the time? Do the new rules that were just adopted or the ones that were discontinued in 2017 address peering issues like this?

Kyle1022 posted... Why are people posting in here about stuff that doesn't have anything to do with net neutrality, like data collection, privacy, and regional ISP monopolies/oligopolies?

You're right data privacy and collection has nothing to do with Net Neutrality. The argument though that we need Net Neutrality to protect against ISP throttling fuckery is in part because a lot of ISPs have a monopoly in their service area.

Deegs posted...

Am I reading in that article that this wasn't covered by net neutrality rules that were in place at the time? Do the new rules that were just adopted or the ones that were discontinued in 2017 address peering issues like this?

If I remember correctly, there was an effort by several ISPs and phone carriers to ignore the established net neutrality rules, arguing that they only applied to internet over phone lines.

Cartoon_Quoter posted...

If I remember correctly, there was an effort by several ISPs and phone carriers to ignore the established net neutrality rules, arguing that they only applied to internet over phone lines.

I'm sure there was push back. Reading that linked article the original rules were challenged and thrown out in 2013/2014 but those rules wouldn't have prevented what Netflix did by paying comcast. That was a peering issue not a net neutrality issue if I'm reading it correctly. Comcast didn't slow netflix because they wanted to pick on Netflix. Comcast slowed netflix because their network couldn't handle the netflix traffic at the time without additional infrastructure to handle it so they made Netflix pay for that.

The example used was:

If that slowdown is because the waiters decide customers shouldnt get that particular menu item, or that there are other menu items that should be delivered in a more timely manner thats a net neutrality issue.

But if that awesome food is slow to the table because there simply arent enough waiters and no off-work waiters are willing to come in for a few hours to help out because its their night off thats a peering issue. (Netflix paid for more staff in this hypothetical).

Deegs posted...

Unless they all conspire to price fix (which is illegal) it would be very hard for this to occur.

Did anyone break the bad news to you since you posted?

Let me scroll back up and check...

Cartoon_Quoter posted...

You want to convince conservatives that net neutrality is essential? Explain to them that without it, Comcast could block you from news from everywhere but NBC.

Lol they will just argue that they deserve affirmative action and thought diversity over minorities.

DoesntMatter posted...

get fucked, Ajit Pai

If only we could make Louis DeJoy seethe as hard.

SauI_Goodman posted...

I still don't know what this is

You must be deliberately trying not to know at this point.

ClayGuida posted...

All the norms of the last generation have been bastardized and destroyed, so now everything needs to be in writing.

What? No! We can trust that conservatives will still operate on the core gentleman's agreements that have made democracy function for 250 years. After all, they call them gentlemen in committee and on the floor.

Surely they wouldn't betray that title and trust placed in them!

(...too much?)

DnDer posted...

Did anyone break the bad news to you since you posted?

Let me scroll back up and check...

EDIT: No one really did. So I'll tell you that no only did they agree to price fix, but they agreed to carve up territories to create local monopolies that weren't functionally different in price anyway, but protected their markets from having to lower their prices through direct competition with each other.

I don't think you have this quite correct. Municipalities definitely have entered into exclusivity deals with ISP that much is true but price fixing is an illegal practice. If multiple ISPs in a region conspire to fix prices this would result in a lawsuit. Open to reading more on this but there has no such price fixing scheme brought to light legally speaking that I'm aware of.

Deegs posted...

Asked this in another thread but I'm confused what Net Neutrality even gets us at this point. I'm very aware of the horror stories of a carved up internet but we were without net neutrality for 7 years and never got anything even remotely similar. I'm not against regulation where warranted but I'm not sure this one particularly is.

And in those 7 years we've seen the internet get super sanitized.

dave_is_slick posted...

And in those 7 years we've seen the internet get super sanitized.

Examples?

Nice

Deegs posted...

If multiple ISPs in a region conspire to fix prices this would result in a lawsuit.

John Oliver and other news outlets covered a scandal in the NY area where a pair of cable monopolies did just that.

Remind me, and I'll try to get you articles or the episode later.

Deegs posted...

I don't think you have this quite correct. Municipalities definitely have entered into exclusivity deals with ISP that much is true but price fixing is an illegal practice. If multiple ISPs in a region conspire to fix prices this would result in a lawsuit. Open to reading more on this but there has no such price fixing scheme brought to light legally speaking that I'm aware of.

It wouldnt necessarily result in a lawsuit. Weve seen in this play out in real life already. Neither Spectrum or AT&T wanted to offer gigabit internet service to residential users and coordinated with each other in this effort. At my moms house in Austin, TX, those were the only two options.

2013: https://www.wired.com/2013/02/time-warner-cable-2/

On Wednesday, at a conference in San Francisco, Esteves downplayed the importance of offering a service to compete with Google, as reported by The Verge. "We're in the business of delivering what consumers want, and to stay a little ahead of what we think they will want.... We just don't see the need of delivering that to consumers," she said, referring to gigabit-speed internet connections.

April 9, 2013: Google Fiber announced that they were going to deliver gigabit internet service in Austin, TX
https://money.cnn.com/2013/04/09/technology/innovation/google-fiber-austin/

October 1, 2013: AT&T unveils plan for service to compete with Google Fiber
https://www.wired.com/2013/10/fiber-austin/

April 21, 2014: AT&T said they were going to beat Google to the punch
https://venturebeat.com/business/att-wants-to-beat-google-fiber-to-the-punch-in-21-new-cities/

As a result, Austin, TX went from largely either being able to choose from having a 50 Mbps max download speed from either AT&T or Spectrum to having Google Fiber offer 1 Gbps, AT&T offer 1 Gbps, and Spectrum offering either 1 Gbps through fiber or 930 Mbps down and 35 Mbps up through coax. For around the $70 price point that Google was offering.A smaller ISP in the area named Grande also started offering gigabit internet after Google Fibers announcement.

As far as I know, no one sued Spectrum or AT&T for keeping speeds low at a price they could have offered gigabit service until Google Fiber made their announcement and started delivering service.

CableZL posted...

It wouldnt necessarily result in a lawsuit. Weve seen in this play out in real life already. Neither Spectrum or AT&T wanted to offer gigabit internet service to residential users and coordinated with each other in this effort. At my moms house in Austin, TX, those were the only two options.

2013: https://www.wired.com/2013/02/time-warner-cable-2/

On Wednesday, at a conference in San Francisco, Esteves downplayed the importance of offering a service to compete with Google, as reported by The Verge. "We're in the business of delivering what consumers want, and to stay a little ahead of what we think they will want.... We just don't see the need of delivering that to consumers," she said, referring to gigabit-speed internet connections.

April 9, 2013: Google Fiber announced that they were going to deliver gigabit internet service in Austin, TX
https://money.cnn.com/2013/04/09/technology/innovation/google-fiber-austin/

October 1, 2013: AT&T unveils plan for service to compete with Google Fiber
https://www.wired.com/2013/10/fiber-austin/

April 21, 2014: AT&T said they were going to beat Google to the punch
https://venturebeat.com/business/att-wants-to-beat-google-fiber-to-the-punch-in-21-new-cities/

As a result, Austin, TX went from largely either being able to choose from having a 50 Mbps max download speed from either AT&T or Spectrum to having Google Fiber offer 1 Gbps, AT&T offer 1 Gbps, and Spectrum offering either 1 Gbps through fiber or 930 Mbps down and 35 Mbps up through coax. For around the $70 price point that Google was offering.A smaller ISP in the area named Grande also started offering gigabit internet after Google Fibers announcement.

As far as I know, no one sued Spectrum or AT&T for keeping speeds low at a price they could have offered gigabit service until Google Fiber made their announcement and started delivering service.

This is an example of competition driving advancement though. Neither AT&T or Spectrum wanted to try so Google, a competitor, came in and pushed them to do so. Now if Spectrum and AT&T had some kind of agreement in play that neither one would offer something better than the other that is different but simply not wanting to try isn't illegal.

Deegs posted...

This is an example of competition driving advancement though. Neither AT&T or Spectrum wanted to try so Google, a competitor, came in and pushed them to do so. Now if Spectrum and AT&T had some kind of agreement in play that neither one would offer something better than the other that is different but simply not wanting to try isn't illegal.

It's both an example of ISPs coordinating with each other to keep speeds low and prices high and an example of competition driving advancement. No one sued Spectrum or AT&T for the former.

Not to mention the fact that AT&T and other ISPs have literally filed lawsuits in multiple areas to prevent more competition from providing service in their service areas.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-and-comcast-win-lawsuit-they-filed-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville/

https://www.wdrb.com/news/business/at-t-sues-louisville-over-utility-pole-
law-adopted-for-google-fiber/article_32a7cdd8-dd5b-5397-8cd8-b56769e2e4e9.html

CableZL posted...

It's both an example of ISPs coordinating with each other to keep speeds low and prices high and an example of competition driving advancement. No one sued Spectrum or AT&T for the former.

This has to be proven though. Where is the link that they were coordinating together to keep speeds and prices low? Google came in, and played the role of market disruptor causing both AT&T and Spectrum to innovate. This is why for a true competition to exist you need at least 3 parties. Often times a Duopoly isn't much better than a monopoly because neither party has to be substantially better than the other.

CableZL posted...

Not to mention the fact that AT&T and other ISPs have literally filed lawsuits in multiple areas to prevent more competition from providing service in their service areas.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-and-comcast-win-lawsuit-they-filed-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville/

https://www.wdrb.com/news/business/at-t-sues-louisville-over-utility-pole-law-adopted-for-google-fiber/article_32a7cdd8-dd5b-5397-8cd8-b56769e2e4e9.html

These are some very specific lawsuits to be fair here. It isn't exactly wrong for AT&T not wanting a third party company to touch their wires/equipment. Infrastructure that they own. Now you can argue the merits of this but it is more than "AT&T just wanted to be assholes."

Deegs posted...

This has to be proven though. Where is the link that they were coordinating together to keep speeds and prices low? Google came in, and played the role of market disruptor causing both AT&T and Spectrum to innovate. This is why for a true competition to exist you need at least 3 parties. Often times a Duopoly isn't much better than a monopoly because neither party has to be substantially better than the other.

It's not a coincidence that neither ISP offered more than 50 Mbps throughout the city. The ISPs are also well aware that they don't have to be substantially better than the other in a duopoly. It's like you're arguing that they were coordinating with each other while trying to argue that they aren't coordinating with each other.

CableZL posted...

It's not a coincidence that neither ISP offered more than 50 Mbps throughout the city.

Coincidence doesn't equal coordination you have to prove this. You can't just say they were because they didn't try. When Google came in they did but only enough to match Google. Google certainly wasn't conspiring with AT&T or Spectrum.

Deegs posted...

Coincidence doesn't equal coordination you have to prove this.

I said it's not a coincidence, not that it is. You yourself said this:

Deegs posted...

Often times a Duopoly isn't much better than a monopoly because neither party has to be substantially better than the other.

Do you think ISPs aren't aware of this or something? Do you really think, with two separate technologies that have entirely separate physical limitations on bandwidth, it's a coincidence that neither AT&T or Spectrum offered more than 50 Mbps? AT&T and Spectrum were both well aware that they existed in a duopoly in most of the city and didn't have to be substantially better than the other. Time Warner's CTO put out a blatantly false statement about customers not wanting higher speeds and AT&T followed suit. It's plain as day.

All of a sudden when Google Fiber comes to town, Spectrum starts increasing their speeds. If they truly thought customers didn't want higher speeds based on an actual legitimate poll instead of whatever bullshit they cooked up to justify the statement, they never would have bothered and their customers would have been happy staying with their lower speeds.

Suddenly Spectrum starts giving their customers free upgrades to 100 Mbps and then 200 Mbps. They didn't do that out of the goodness of their hearts. Then AT&T starts planning for Gigabit service. Then Spectrum starts offering 930 Mbps/35 Mbps over coax.

If Spectrum had actually done a legitimate poll of their customers or done some actual research, they would have known that there was a ton of desire for higher bandwidth at the time.

Coordination doesn't have to be explicit to be coordination.

If it was truly a matter of competition, Spectrum, in 2013, COULD have:

• Increased bandwidth for customers from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps FOR FREE (as they did after Google Fiber came to town)
• AT&T would have then had to follow suit and offer better service to compete
• Increased bandwidth for customers from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps FOR FREE (as they did after Google Fiber came to town)
• AT&T would have then had to follow suit and offer better service to compete

Instead, Spectrum chose to rest on their laurels because they knew AT&T wasn't doing anything either and vice versa. If they truly wanted to compete, they easily could have offered better speeds to gain marketshare, but they were actively not doing so.

CableZL posted...

If it was truly a matter of competition, Spectrum, in 2013, COULD have:
* Increased bandwidth for customers from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps FOR FREE (as they did after Google Fiber came to town)
* AT&T would have then had to follow suit and offer better service to compete
* Increased bandwidth for customers from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps FOR FREE (as they did after Google Fiber came to town)
* AT&T would have then had to follow suit and offer better service to compete

Instead, Spectrum chose to rest on their laurels because they knew AT&T wasn't doing anything either and vice versa. If they truly wanted to compete, they easily could have offered better speeds to gain marketshare, but they were actively not doing so.

So you end up with a market disruptor like Google to come in and change the game. I get what you're saying, AT&T and Spectrum COULD have done this sooner on their own but they had no reason to until Google showed up. That isn't inherently illegal though. Being an archaic, lazy business isn't illegal UNLESS both companies are directly coordinating and conspiring together to offer the same service at the same price so neither one has do put in any effort. Usually lazy, archaic businesses get slaughtered but following 2008 and too big to fail that isn't always the case. That's a government regulation problem though not a market problem. In any event, this isn't something that Net Neutrality solves.

Deegs posted...

Asked this in another thread but I'm confused what Net Neutrality even gets us at this point. I'm very aware of the horror stories of a carved up internet but we were without net neutrality for 7 years and never got anything even remotely similar. I'm not against regulation where warranted but I'm not sure this one particularly is.

Nothing changed because the penalties for violating net neutrality were already trivial. Service providers just took the fines and kept their non-neutral policies in place.

An example was T-Mobile's BingeOn plan that throttled speed after a certain amount data usage, EXCEPT for on websites like YouTube and Netflix, which retained normal speeds always. Blatantly non-neutral. They got fined... then kept doing it anyway.

Diceheist posted...

Nothing changed because the penalties for violating net neutrality were already trivial. Service providers just took the fines and kept their non-neutral policies in place.

An example was T-Mobile's BingeOn plan that throttled speed after a certain amount data usage, EXCEPT for on websites like YouTube and Netflix, which retained normal speeds always. Blatantly non-neutral. They got fined... then kept doing it anyway.

This is a fair example. Found some more details here: https://techpp.com/2016/01/14/t-mobile-binge-on-net-neutrality-fcc/

It doesn't seem as relevant anymore since T-Mobile offers unlimited data now but definitely sounds like a violation of sorts.

Deegs posted...

So you end up with a market disruptor like Google to come in and change the game. I get what you're saying, AT&T and Spectrum COULD have done this sooner on their own but they had no reason to until Google showed up. That isn't inherently illegal though. Being an archaic, lazy business isn't illegal UNLESS both companies are directly coordinating and conspiring together to offer the same service at the same price so neither one has do put in any effort. Usually lazy, archaic businesses get slaughtered but following 2008 and too big to fail that isn't always the case. That's a government regulation problem though not a market problem. In any event, this isn't something that Net Neutrality solves.

They DID have a reason to, though. They would gain market share by improving their service. More market share = more revenue. They both blatantly chose not to. I never said it was inherently illegal, but they were most certainly coordinating to keep speeds low and prices high. I also never said this was a net neutrality issue. I was just responding to your claim:

Deegs posted...

if multiple ISPs in a region conspire to fix prices this would result in a lawsuit.

It wouldn't necessarily end in a lawsuit.