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Trump FCC Head Cancels Net Neutrality Zero Rating Investigations

30 points by apress 10y ago

mikeyouse 10y ago
The difference in time and effort between creating something and destroying something is going to be made painfully clear in the next few years.
- ebcode 10y ago
  When I was five years old, I made a little play-dough man by unbending paperclips, winding them together and wrapping the play-dough around the wires. I must have spent at least a half-hour on it. I went out onto my street and showed it to a neighborhood kid, who promptly grabbed it away from me, crumpled it up, then threw it on the sidewalk and stepped on it. So, yeah.
BoorishBears 10y ago
Most laypeople I know have no problem with Zero Rating and were sold on net neutrality with unreasonable examples like "without net neutrality an ISP can kill small sites by making them slow unless they pay" (no one tell whoever started peddling that dystopian extreme how locating a datacenter near an internet backbone works). I support net neutrality but I wouldn't surprised if the average American is fine with zero rating.
- kem 10y ago
  I agree about the zero rating thing being ok to most people, but my guess is the FCC was trying to walk a line clearly and didn't want to create any grey areas. Net neutrality means net neutrality means net neutrality and so forth. The problem is really that once you allow any sort of packet discrimination, for lack of a better way of putting it, you open up questions about what's "slow", as it's all relative anyway. Better to just not go there. I'm a strong supporter of net neutrality, but don't see that as being the only way. I just am deeply skeptical that the FCC and government would enforce the sort of antitrust regulation and encouragement of competition that's needed to achieve the same aims another way. If the FCC and federal legislators were encouraging antitrust suits, and banning bans on municipal broadband, etc. I would feel totally differently. But to me it seems like it's obvious they're there to protect entrenched corporate interests at the expense of small business and consumers. I sincerely appreciate Pai's comments about regulation inhibiting expansion of new ISPs and broadband delivery, but it seems like a con to me without concrete examples, and without doing other things that are consistent with that. If he gave a damn about expanding broadband access he would be fighting tooth and nail to support municipalities that have wanted to do it but haven't been able to. Maybe he has and I'm not aware of it, but his rhetoric seems empty and one-sided.
skeptical1984 10y ago
he says they will focus on "expanding broadband deployment" - i assume that means like this: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad... "encouraging innovative service offerings" sounds to me like they mean - "encouraging innovative service offerings... but only from the now further subsidized natural monopolies that we have already decided will win."

30 points by apress 10y ago

The difference in time and effort between creating something and destroying something is going to be made painfully clear in the next few years.

ebcode 10y ago
When I was five years old, I made a little play-dough man by unbending paperclips, winding them together and wrapping the play-dough around the wires. I must have spent at least a half-hour on it. I went out onto my street and showed it to a neighborhood kid, who promptly grabbed it away from me, crumpled it up, then threw it on the sidewalk and stepped on it. So, yeah.

BoorishBears 10y ago

Most laypeople I know have no problem with Zero Rating and were sold on net neutrality with unreasonable examples like "without net neutrality an ISP can kill small sites by making them slow unless they pay" (no one tell whoever started peddling that dystopian extreme how locating a datacenter near an internet backbone works). I support net neutrality but I wouldn't surprised if the average American is fine with zero rating.

kem 10y ago
I agree about the zero rating thing being ok to most people, but my guess is the FCC was trying to walk a line clearly and didn't want to create any grey areas. Net neutrality means net neutrality means net neutrality and so forth. The problem is really that once you allow any sort of packet discrimination, for lack of a better way of putting it, you open up questions about what's "slow", as it's all relative anyway. Better to just not go there. I'm a strong supporter of net neutrality, but don't see that as being the only way. I just am deeply skeptical that the FCC and government would enforce the sort of antitrust regulation and encouragement of competition that's needed to achieve the same aims another way. If the FCC and federal legislators were encouraging antitrust suits, and banning bans on municipal broadband, etc. I would feel totally differently. But to me it seems like it's obvious they're there to protect entrenched corporate interests at the expense of small business and consumers. I sincerely appreciate Pai's comments about regulation inhibiting expansion of new ISPs and broadband delivery, but it seems like a con to me without concrete examples, and without doing other things that are consistent with that. If he gave a damn about expanding broadband access he would be fighting tooth and nail to support municipalities that have wanted to do it but haven't been able to. Maybe he has and I'm not aware of it, but his rhetoric seems empty and one-sided.

skeptical1984 10y ago

he says they will focus on "expanding broadband deployment" - i assume that means like this: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad... "encouraging innovative service offerings" sounds to me like they mean - "encouraging innovative service offerings... but only from the now further subsidized natural monopolies that we have already decided will win."