46 ms·

F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• w0m 9y ago
  fuck
• deadmetheny 9y ago
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  • sova 9y ago
    Your comment is a Harbinger of days soon to come. Ah my nation, how I weep for thee.
• brian-armstrong 9y ago
  If you voted for Trump, this one's on you.
  • phkahler 9y ago
    He did run on "drain the swamp" which meant getting rid of people that do things like this. The problem is that people believed him.
    • zavi 9y ago
      "Drain the swamp" means different things to different people.
      • InitialLastName 9y ago
        One of the joyous things about political messaging lately! Other dual-meaning phrases that have been abused of late: * Fake news * voter fraud * Election rigging * Collusion * Corruption What else do we have?
      • adrr 9y ago
        Never got the meaning to "drain the swamp". Is there a negative perception about having wetlands?
        • olympus 9y ago
          Swamps have a lot of standing water which creates a lot of mosquitoes that carry diseases. Draining a swamp reclaims land and prevents kids from dying.
          • alexozer 9y ago
            I see. I always thought it was just, "swamps are smelly, okay?"
        • milcron 9y ago
          "The swamp" is a metaphor for DC politics. Unpleasant to navigate and very slow moving.
    • api 9y ago
      A lot of politicians go to Washington wanting to drain the swamp. They quickly discover that it isn't a swamp. It's a jacuzzi with free champaign.
    • fnoiw22 9y ago
      Yes, they believed him. Despite numerous examples from his history that he shouldn't be believed.
      • turc1656 9y ago
        Yeah but in fairness, the other candidate was someone who was also a proven liar, had the Benghazi scandal under her belt, and had the FBI declare publicly that she violated laws related to the handling of classified information. As South Park put it, it's the choice between "Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich".
  • awinder 9y ago
    Non-voters / people on the “there’s no difference” train also deserve a moment of reflection about whether their reality is true.
    • toomuchtodo 9y ago
      I abstained from voting. I'm still happy with my decision. People actually care about politics again [1]. Maybe next time don't railroad my candidate (Sanders) during the primaries. I will never vote for a neoliberal or corporate Democratic candidate, even if you hold my country hostage. [1] Alabama has a Democratic state senator for the first time in decades.
      • matt4077 9y ago
        I killed a man in Reno, just to watch their family start caring about the justice system!
      • Pxl_Buzzard 9y ago
        Do you feel that you care about politics if you aren't making your voice heard by voting?
        • toomuchtodo 9y ago
          I donate to campaigns I'm passionate about (I max out my contributions per FEC regs). My dollars are more effective than my votes.
      • ceejayoz 9y ago
        Alabama's new Democratic Senator won because the choice was literally "this guy or a pedophile?" That seat'll almost certainly go overwhelmingly red again in 2020. Sessions won the seat in 2014 with 97.3% of the vote. There's probably a Democratic wave happening nationally, but the Alabama special election is really poor evidence to use for it.
        • kaendfinger 9y ago
  • wdewind 9y ago
    Please don't bring divisive politics into HN. Fwiw Ajit Pai was appointed to the FCC by Obama not Trump.
    • jread 9y ago
      He was designated FCC Chairman by Trump.
    • nocut12 9y ago
      This is a bit misleading... He was appointed by Obama, but not as chairman -- and was a recommendation from McConnell. Obama was pretty clearly pro net neutrality.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    • olympus 9y ago
      He was appointed at the direction of Republicans to occupy one of the Republican seats on the Commision.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      Pai was appointed by Obama and confirmed by the Senate as a Republican under law limiting the number of members of one party to a bare majority and a long-standing, strong tradition that the President defer to the leadership of the other party in the Senate in appointing members filling the seats which must be filled by members not of the President's party. (Which Trump slow followed when renominating Democratic former commissioner Rosenworcel.) [0] Blaming Obama for Pai being on the committee, rather than the Republican Party, is like blaming Elizabeth II for acts of the British Government rather than the parliamentary majority party. OTOH, where no such legal or traditional constraint limited his choices, Trump selected Pai as FCC Chair, so blaming Trump for Pai’s current position and his reasonably direct endorsement of Pai’s long-overt goals for the FCC is appropriate. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/trump-to-nominate-democrat-jessica-rosenworcel-for-empty-slot-at-fcc/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201...
  • colept 9y ago
    Sorry but the two are not correlated, as much as I'd like to agree. Trump appointed Carr. Obama appointed O'Rielly and Pai. This one is on all of us. We let Congress become a swamp in the first place.
    • pythonboi 9y ago
      The FCC is required to be split with the Executive Office filling in the gap for the Commissioner. 2 R, 2 D, and 1 whichever party wins the Presidency.
    • bonzini 9y ago
      Pai was recommended by the Republican party; the FCC has two commissioners for each party, plus the chairman who decides split votes. Obama's chairman was in favor of NN, Trump's was solidly against, and that's all that matters.
  • purplezooey 9y ago
    Ayup.
  • tmat 9y ago
    You say this as if Hillary would have been so much better.. No, this ones on all the people who continue to stick their head in the sand and try to blame the other team.
    • cevn 9y ago
      > The FCC is required to be split with the Executive Office filling in the gap for the Commissioner. 2 R, 2 D, and 1 whichever party wins the Presidency. (from pythonboi) 2 democrats voted against repealing NN. If we had 3 D's in the FCC, if we had Hillary, you would have seen the opposite result. Please stop peddling this "there's no difference" narrative. It's clearly untrue in this case. Otherwise, why would the split be on party lines? Republicans voted to repeal NN, not democrats.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      Every FCC vote on net neutrality since the 2010 rules has been straight party-line. The Republican majority is a direct result of having a Republican President. It's pretty clear that a Democratic administration would have been different on this issue, whatever other areas there might be where that question would be murkier.
  • dang 9y ago
    Please don't post political flamebait to HN. Even assuming you're right, posting like this destroys this site. Everyone commenting here needs to take responsibility for not doing that. Just like it's even more important to guard against sparks when the forest is already dry, it's even more important to take this responsibility when the topic is already politicized. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • brian-armstrong 9y ago
      I'm a little shocked that you removed and commented on this fairly benign comment but apparently don't have time to remove outright bigotry that I've flagged in the past. It feels like the moderation here is very much in the pocket of the alt-right.
• pmoriarty 9y ago
  Would anything stop the next administration from reinstating net neutrality?
  • api 9y ago
    No, nor will the next congress (likely Democratic or leaning that way) be prevented from passing laws that reinstate it at the legislative level.
    • phkahler 9y ago
      Same thing with Obama Care and any other wide reaching law. If this happens enough just the lack of stability will make people and companies leave.
      • checker 9y ago
        Is this one of those things that is just never going to work? It seems like our system can't execute on things that are all-or-nothing. We shoot for the all, water it down with compromise, and then we're surprised when things fail. This happens in many situations, such as public transit. Build half a subway line so that it goes to nowhere and it fails, thus getting ridiculed as a failure from the start. How are we supposed to accomplish anything big or complex in this system?
        • Filligree 9y ago
          Probably your can't. Why are you doing that? You need to stop.
    • mehrdadn 9y ago
      > No, nor will the next congress (likely Democratic or leaning that way) be prevented from passing laws that reinstate it at the legislative level. Merely leaning Democrat isn't enough when the president can veto legislation. (I'm also not so sure it will be leaning Democrat in the first place, but that's secondary.) Edit: To everyone downvoting: what did I say that was wrong...?
• depeters 9y ago
  American will no longer be a place of innovation. Another country will have to lead the world now
  • yostrovs 9y ago
    Right, it'll go back to being what it was before 2015 when net neutrality was instituted. The dread is unrelatable.
    • jasongill 9y ago
      Correct, a place where innovative companies like Netflix were blocked and throttled by ISPs due to conflicts with their legacy business models. I don't know how anyone could honestly say that taking away an important consumer protection is going to help innovation, outside of innovative new billing practices by ISPs.
      • blfr 9y ago
        This is OT but I don't see the innovation of Netflix. It's TV on the Internet. They were actually a more innovative, or at least weirder, business when they were mailing DVDs around. It's like Russ Hanneman (Mark Cuban, right?) on Silicon Valley. We can take this thing called the "radio" and put it on this new thing called the "Internet". Not as mind blowing as he believes.
      • yostrovs 9y ago
        But in reference to the original comment, it was in the U.S. that Netflix succeeded, though it was supposedly stifled here. It just makes no sense.
    • interdrift 9y ago
      right, obviously it doesn't matter that they went through and voted for something nobody really liked. how ignorant can you be?
    • fossuser 9y ago
      NY AG Schneiderman had a good response to this in the earlier AMA (which I've pasted below). "As a preliminary matter, it’s important to recognize that net neutrality principles and protections in different forms have actually been around since 2005 and even earlier. So the flourishing of the internet and everything relying on it during that time occurred under the protections. A few years ago, however, the courts struck down one form of net neutrality protections (those that had relied on Title I of the Communications Act), so then in 2015 the FCC put net neutrality protections back in place under Title II instead (they also expanded the earlier protections, e.g., to include protections against abuses related to interconnection, which had not been the subject of net neutrality protections before 2015). Now, in 2017, the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to repeal net neutrality protections altogether (and the courts’ earlier decisions effectively foreclose a return to net neutrality protections under Title I). So that would be entirely new territory for the internet. Why do we think that’s bad? Well, as I explained in my own public comment in the current proceeding (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10717583023587/FINAL%20RIF%20Co... https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10717583023587/FINAL%20RIF%20Co...), we’ve seen how companies behave in the absence of net neutrality protections, specifically in the area of interconnection before it was regulated in 2015, and their unregulated conduct harmed consumers. In essence, they made a deliberate business decision to let the quality of internet access degrade, knowing that it hurt consumers, to try to squeeze revenue out of edge providers like Netflix and backbone providers like Cogent and Level 3. Plus, we know that many consumers have few ISPs to choose from, so competition isn’t as effective a check as in other markets. So I believe strong net neutrality regulations are needed to avoid harms to consumers." The AMA: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15853374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15853374
• SauciestGNU 9y ago
  Edit: You know what, fuck it. I don't think I can say anything here that hasn't been said a thousand times already.
  • sova 9y ago
    Most people don't fit into either party's value system. I hardly think boiling it down to R vs D is going to help anyone, we need to inform our populous.
    • SauciestGNU 9y ago
      Despite how my above comment appears, I really don't want to turn this into partisan shit-flinging. I am no Democrat, I fall well to the left of where they live, and I disagree about gun rights and a number of other things. That being said, I think it's pretty clear that more harmful policies proposed in recent times have come predominantly from a single source, and I think it's more important to work in opposition to that harmfulness than to find a group that perfectly represents you. Especially with a first past the post electoral system in which fractiousness dilutes the value of your vote.
      • sova 9y ago
        Amen, may the ranked ballot reign supreme one day. First past the post always trends towards Bicameralism, and if we could rank our options on the local, state, and national level I think we would see a lot more accurate reflection of our ideals in our representative government. Ranked Ballot Choices means no more wasted votes. Thanks for your comment, these are strange and exciting times. May peace prevail
  • cabaalis 9y ago
    It's been mentioned already in this thread, Ajit Pai was appointed to the FCC by President Obama, a democrat.
    • SauciestGNU 9y ago
• Aron 9y ago
  I hope all the loud voices that are against this move have codified their predictions in a way that they can look back and see if they were accurate.
  • dicroce 9y ago
    Here is my prediction: they will begin slowly, but eventually ISP's will be priortizing the traffic of their shitty versions of various internet services (youtube.com, DropCam, etc...)... This will impact small new businesses the worst because large entities will be able to afford to pay... So, we'll just have less new internet startups... Will be quite hard to quantify.
• maskedinvader 9y ago
  Next step lawsuits, hopefully Congress can enact a law to settle the issue once and for all.
• omginternets 9y ago
  Europe has it's problems, but I don't regret moving to London. Not one bit. The innovation here is real and tangible, by and large unencumbered by this kind of crap.
  • snuxoll 9y ago
    I really should get the paperwork going for my wife's Italian citizenship, the US national archive sent me an un-certified copy of her grandfathers naturalization papers even though I requested a certified copy and I've been too lazy to try again. Anyone have advice on tech hotspots in the EU that are willing to put up with English-speaking engineers? I've thought about Finland a couple times, good schools for my daughter, ample hunting and fishing opportunities and from what I can tell pretty good broadband infrastructure.
    • corford 9y ago
      In no particular order: Berlin, Lisbon, London, Paris (might need a little bit of French), Amsterdam, Dublin. Each one has different pros/cons depending on whats important to you: type of work, money, work/life balance. All of them are good (and, aside from London soon, easy to move between once you're resident in Europe or here on a long visa).
      • snuxoll 9y ago
        > In no particular order: Berlin, Lisbon, London, Paris (might need a little bit of French), Amsterdam, Dublin. Thanks, I'll have to take a look. Still debating whether I'd want to move across the pond from my family, especially with a 5 year old in tow - but I've thought about moving to the EU for roughly 10 years at this point. > (and, aside from London soon, easy to move between once you're resident in Europe or here on a long visa). That part's pretty easy for me, my wife inherited Italian citizenship through her bloodline - we just need to get all the paperwork taken care of to get it recognized.
        • corford 9y ago
• EGreg 9y ago
  Did anyone really think that public outcry or "blacking out" the web would sway this administration? We have to get Congress to pass that law: https://www.wired.com/story/after-fcc-vote-net-neutrality-fight-moves-to-courts-congress/amp https://www.wired.com/story/after-fcc-vote-net-neutrality-fi...
• electic 9y ago
  It is time to make the Internet a utility. Unfortunately, it wont happen until we get Democrats back into the Senate and House.
  • craftyguy 9y ago
    Democrats had a chance to when they controlled both, and they didn't. This problem may not be as partisan as you think..
    • moosey 9y ago
      Due to the way contemporary news media works, I think that Democrats (for the time being) have rapidly depreciating political capital after any election. Last time they regulated health care, despite knowing it would cost them many seats in the coming election. To say that 'they had a chance' I think ignores a few important facts about the contemporary US electorate.
    • wishinghand 9y ago
      Democrats controlled both for a very short amount of time. Al Franken was part of their majority but had his membership delayed by a recount. Ted Kennedy then died and his seat went to a Republican. They never actually had a true supermajority.
    • vorotato 9y ago
      That's exactly right. This is why we need to collaborate across party lines.
  • CodeWriter23 9y ago
    I think you might want to run that thought through followthemoney.org
• wtf_is_up 9y ago
  Finally, something good came from the Obama administration. Appointing Pai to the FCC was probably their greatest accomplishment.
  • berbec 9y ago
    Obvious troll is obvious.
    • wtf_is_up 9y ago
      >if you don't agree with me you're an obvious troll
      • kleer001 9y ago
        if you don't reply with reason you're a troll
      • dang 9y ago
        If you don't restrict yourself to civil, substantive comments from now on, we will ban you. Any good-faith view you have is possible to express thoughtfully, and that's what you owe to the community here in exchange for the right to post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
    • dang 9y ago
      That comment broke the HN guidelines but so does this one, as you'll see if you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The better thing to do is flag; how to do this is at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
      • berbec 9y ago
        Sorry, baser instincts got the better of me. I did not know how to flag; I thought I had not reached the Karma threshold. I appreciate the link with instructions.
• ikeboy 9y ago
  Friendly reminder that economists surveyed are far more likely to be for paid prioritization than against http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii
  • charter_sucks 9y ago
    yeah....i mean i feel a big part of this is because these people made it without the internet and feel it's not as necessary as people rely on it today.
    • pzone 9y ago
      I can assure you that like all academics, economists are thoroughly reliant on the internet.
  • woodrowbarlow 9y ago
    > Net neutrality is a fiction. Hire Akamai (et al.) to mirror your servers worldwide to speed content to your users. - David Autor this is an infuriating argument. distributing your content throughout a network of servers to decrease rtt and increase cache hits is how the internet is supposed to work. giving priority to powerful corporations in an already congested network infrastructure, on the other hand, is anti-consumer and promotes monopolization.
  • raverbashing 9y ago
    They are also in favour of letting people starve, on environmental externalities to be ignored and to nickel and dime people for short term profit ignoring long term consequences
    • ikeboy 9y ago
      Do you have links to the IGM polls showing that?
  • soundwave106 9y ago
    In a fully capitalist market for broadband, I would indeed feel net enforced neutrality is not quite as necessary and would agree with the pro-market economist comments more. Generally speaking, I would expect that consumers could have a choice between various tiers and qualities of service. I'm fairly sure a "net neutrality" type tier would be one of the options here (there's enough for demand for it.) The current marketplace is a different story. In many places in America, Internet service is a defacto monopoly. And the current legal landscape is anti-competitive and protects the big players. States can't experiment with their own net neutrality policies [1]; heck, legislation is in place in many states to defacto prevent municipal broadband alternatives [2]. And even with private players like Google Fiber, the "big players" show every willingness to use nuisance lawsuits in attempt to delay that pesky capitalist competition from coming into play. [3] I did notice that a lot of the comments in that survey of economists brought up both the anti-competitive nature of the current broadband market, as well as the worry about vertical integration (which also is a monopoly concern). So it's not like they aren't aware of some of the strongest reasons (MHO) for needing net neutrality style regulations at the moment. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-order-states-to-scrap-plans-for-their-own-net-neutrality-laws/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-or... [2] https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/brief_broadband.pdf https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/brie... [3] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171101/10474538530/att-backs-off-nuisance-lawsuit-intended-to-hamstring-broadband-competitors-like-google-fiber.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171101/10474538530/att-b...
• slg 9y ago
  This has been asked a few times but never fully answered, can someone explain why this vote in particular is a problem? I understand net neutrality and I am all for it, but there was considerable public doubt before reclassification that this was the proper way to go about it. It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster. Would we better off focusing our efforts on increasing competition among ISPs? The major problem in all the pre-2015 net neutrality issues was that people often did not have any other ISP to use if their current ISP introduced a policy that was anti-consumer.
  • microcolonel 9y ago
    > Would we better off focusing our efforts on increasing competition among ISPs? The answer is, of course, yes. But people like to think in terms of black and white, ingroup and outgroup, friend and enemy. The public is now thoroughly convinced not only that the reclassification had the intended effects (and it's not clear that's the case), but that reinstating the reclassification is the only way to address the issue. Anyone who says anything against this norm will be hounded until they shut up.
    • aisengard 9y ago
      Actually, the public has been convinced that regulation on ISPs is a good thing, and that repealing that regulation without replacing it with anything is a bad thing. And I think that's a pretty fair thing to think.
      • microcolonel 9y ago
        The way I look at it, the existing regulation only really held things back a bit from getting much worse. For things to get better, there needs to be an impetus. I talk with a number of Americans (especially on Freenode and over mailinglists) whose only options are satellite (which explains partly why they're still on IRC) or installing their own point to point radio network. All the current rules mean is that their only available ISP has to tell them explicitly that they'll be sabotaging BitTorrent traffic. Leased highway conduit space or leased dark fiber, and a loosening of (other, more administratively significant) regulations would have an outsize impact on the cost of the last miles of radio and/or fiber backhaul, instead of just adding pages to the subscriber agreement.
• charter_sucks 9y ago
  does this mean anything yet? i mean with all the lawsuits that will be incoming. can cable companies start their bullshit?
• patwalls 9y ago
  I don't care too much for politics, but this one hurts. :(
• shmerl 9y ago
  This whole discussion is missing one point. Why are FCC members supposed to represent some parties, instead of being independent experts? It's the root of the problem. Instead of objectively addressing the issue, FCC is dominated by dumb partisan politics.
  • RoboticWater 9y ago
    How do you expect those independent experts to be chosen? Even then, how do expect these experts to "objectively address" the issue? I don't agree with partisan politics, but the solution isn't demanding independent, magical objectivity, because that doesn't exist, regardless, everyone would claim to have it, the liars and the idiots especially. If we want better representation of the facts and the People's opinion, we need better representation. The current system lacks nuance and seems to be subject to Elite interests over popular ones.
• Dangeranger 9y ago
  This is proof positive that the current FCC commission has ignored the will of the voters on this issue. Support for Net Neutrality was overwhelming and bi-partisan, yet Ajit Pai just plowed forward without consideration for what the citizens demanded. This is government at its worst.
  • ikeboy 9y ago
    It's funny, the FCC's mandate isn't to poll the public and do whatever most of them want. Strange how people seem to think it's a numbers game, at least when they feel the numbers are on their side
    • bllguo 9y ago
      Why did they solicit public feedback then? And why did they misrepresent public feedback and refuse to acknowledge that most people want net neutrality? Obviously they aren't beholden to what the public wants, but the latter is clearly scummy, is it not?
      • sflicht 9y ago
        Isn't it because this is required by the Administrative Procedures Act?
        • dragonwriter 9y ago
          Soliciting and addressing public feedback is; ignoring and/or misrepresenting it is not (and may, in fact, help support a finding that the act was arbitrary and capricious in the light of the information available to the agency at the time of the decision, though that's—even with that fact established—a fairly difficult case to make.)
        • Delmania 9y ago
          Yes, the intent is to let the public weigh in, help the committee make an informed decision as opposed to a capricious and arbitrary one. The decision is clearly arbitrary, as Pai has stated from the beginning he's going to do this, has blatantly ignored everyone, and is now on record as having insulted us. In terms of capricious, that's harder to prove. Between the EFF and the various attorneys general, this will be tied up in federal court.
• jackfrodo 9y ago
  This has made me feel pretty damn powerless, as pretty much every site/person of significance has stated their opposition to such a repeal, and yet they went through it anyway. Just a gut feeling that our democracy isn't working properly when such a loud and clear, great majority of the population messaging is completely ignored.
  • simplify 9y ago
    Keep in mind the FCC is not accountable to the public – we don't vote them in. However, we as the public still have power to push our representatives to encode NN as law. Now that NN has unfortunately been repealed, we can cue in Congress to act.
    • aphextron 9y ago
      >Now that NN has unfortunately been repealed, we can cue in Congress to act. lol
  • fnoiw22 9y ago
    Don't give up. Our democracy isn't working properly. Too many are complacent.
  • rkuykendall-com 9y ago
    > our democracy isn't working properly Democracy doesn't work through public declarations, it works through elections. One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality [1]. If a population wants to send a different message, they must do it in the next election [2]. [1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/532608358508167168 https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716... [2] https://swingleft.org/ https://swingleft.org/
    • scrollaway 9y ago
      You're just saying your democracy isn't working properly, just for different reasons. Most Trump supporters did not elect trump "knowing ... he would end Net Neutrality", and a statement from 2014 does not disprove that (a cursory glance at r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/ kinda makes the point). The US public is atrociously misinformed as a whole, either due to lack of education or bad media incentives or both. In order to function, a democracy requires an informed public.
• sq_ 9y ago
  Now, to wait for the EFF and friends to sue. From what I've read, it seems like they've got some pretty good arguments against the FCC, so hopefully something good will come of that.
• dontyouremember 9y ago
  Washington state is fighting it: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-gov-jay-inslee-promises-state-action-on-net-neutrality-protections/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-gov-jay... Washington state will act under our own authority and under our own laws and under our own jurisdiction to protect the very important measure of net neutrality for all Washington citizens,” he said. “We are not powerless.
  • acjohnson55 9y ago
    It'll be interesting to see how that goes, whether other progressive states adopt similar rules, and whether we end up for some time in a country where some states are much more attractive to internet users and startups.
• ransom1538 9y ago
  Comcast board meeting (RIGHT NOW): "First things first, how do we charge more for netflix streaming."
  • Gaelan 9y ago
    Joke? If not, source?
    • dgritsko 9y ago
      Obviously a joke, but probably not terribly inaccurate from what we can expect in the future.
  • judah 9y ago
    They're free to do so; companies exist to make money. Cable internet carriers probably will attempt something like this. The next thing that will happen is, when Comcast goes too far, another provider (cable? wireless carrier? satellite broadband? something new from a startup?) disrupts the market by offering an alternative to Comcasts' egregious policies. Comcast loses subscribers and is monetarily forced to be more consumer-friendly.
    • raverbashing 9y ago
      Except due to regulatory capture and lobbying of enough municipalities this has become harder Selling a plain service and doing it well for a fair price should have won most consumers but they will switch companies for minor discounts or the shiniest cellphone then complain they get shafter
      • judah 9y ago
        Yes, you're right, regulations make it more difficult. But if startups have taught us anything, it's that businesses find a way to disrupt existing economies even in the face of regulations. Ironically, Net Neutrality (NN) is itself a regulation. One of the reasons we reject NN is because creating regulations often has unintended consequences. We believe it's better to not have the regulation and let the free market and open competition sort out the details.
• khazhou 9y ago
  He brings shame to the Indian tech community.
• zardo 9y ago
  Is anyone working on market based routing over mesh networks with crypto currencies? Would that have been disallowed under the network neutrality rules?
  • sam0x17 9y ago
    No, net neutrality just makes it so ISPs can't throttle/block/charge-extra-for particular websites, like they do in Portugal: https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/923701871092441088 https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/923701871092441088
    • sam0x17 9y ago
      edit: made
    • zardo 9y ago
      I don't think the regulation was limited to http traffic.
• berbec 9y ago
  I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
  • bovermyer 9y ago
    Oh man, this analogy could be carried much further.
• mcast 9y ago
  A relevant and interesting discussion on net neutrality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKD-lBrZ_Gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKD-lBrZ_Gg
• mrcabada 9y ago
  R.I.P. innovative America, everything there is dying for people to innovate :-(
  • harpiaharpyja 9y ago
    Unless of course you mean innovative new ways of rent-seeking.
• w0m 9y ago
  Fuck
• southphillyman 9y ago
  If "nothing is going to change" then why the repeal? What benefit will this repeal actually bring? Either they pushed for this to be petty and undo an Obama era bill or something dastardly is in the pipeline.
  • jonbronson 9y ago
    We have years worth of instances of telcoms already trying to throttle and filter traffic to their choosing. They were blocked each time. So we know exactly what they will do now that they are legally off the hook.
• exabrial 9y ago
  Unpopular opinion: Title II is not a great solution to Net Neutrality. The only thing I disklike is there isn't a better option already in place. I would rather see the FTC address EULAs. If a company says, "we may from time-to-time limit your bandwidth" I think they should be on the hook to produce a report every month when and why they limited you. This is not much different than the report you get from your investments, or your cell phone carrier report when you place a call or send a text message.
  • snuxoll 9y ago
    Limiting bandwidth is one thing. My local Cable company is proish-NN (they have publicly stated that they have no plans to implement prioritization even if the FCC passed this vote), they still impose data caps and network management practices on consumer plans. While I hate these practices (hence paying extra for a business connection), that's not what the NN issue is about. Comcast refused to upgrade their peering connections to the networks used by Netflix (Level3 I believe was one of them?) to extort money from them. Netflix doesn't get service from Comcast, yet Comcast decided it could charge them to get access to their customers. The internet is built upon no-fee exchanges between Tier 1 providers, but since Comcast (and some others like CenturyLink, Verizon, AT&T) is both a consumer ISP AND a major transit provider they try to make arguments like "you're sending us more traffic than we send you, this isn't fair" even though their customers are the ones requesting the data. It's total bullshit, and they will milk this for everything it's worth.
    • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      As with any other system where a product is delivered over someone else's product, a negotiation will take place, money will change hands, and business will resume. That's normal. Google and Netflix wanted to implement rules prohibiting a perfectly normal transaction in business because it would cost them money, and framed it as the public good. I'm entirely okay with the two giants having to pay more, it provides Google and Netflix's competitors additional room to breathe and innovate.
      • 9y ago
• idibidiart 9y ago
  If we stage a nation-wide boycot of Amazon, Walmart.com, and a few other big retailers (and stop using Google, Bing et al) I can almost guarantee it that they will move mountains to bring back net neutrality. You have to get the big corporations a profit motive to get anything done in this country.
  • sam0x17 9y ago
    Except everyone you listed is for net neutrality, and yet the decision still passed
    • idibidiart 9y ago
      If they start losing money they will have a much stronger motivation to act. I feel like they say they are for it but they are not spending considerable resources (they should be) to stand up to the FCC.
  • bennettfeely 9y ago
    Who is "we"? People who read Hacker News? Yeah that will surely change things.
    • idibidiart 9y ago
      "We" is "we who get others onboard"? No point in being a pessimist.
• deedubaya 9y ago
  I believe this is the Stratechery article Pai quoted and used for justification of the rollback. https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/
• jermaustin1 9y ago
  Will the "new walled internet" have a better user interface than America Online?
• Clanan 9y ago
  Here are the salient quotes from the repeal which, I think, indicate the tech reaction to it might be overblown and might be "encouraged" by big tech players who aren't doing this for altruistic reasons. The key here is that the repeal allows the FTC to regulate things, and it's better at breaking monopolistic practices. (I'm still not sold on the argument that this will push innovation, though.) > 500-504 The FTC’s unfair-and-deceptive-practices authority “prohibits companies from selling consumers one product or service but providing them something different,” which makes voluntary commitments enforceable. The FTC also requires the “disclos[ur]e [of] material information if not disclosing it would mislead the consumer,” so if an ISP “failed to disclose blocking, throttling, or other practices that would matter to a reasonable consumer, the FTC’s deception authority would apply.” > 507-508 Many of the largest ISPs (Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Cox, Frontier, etc.) have committed in this proceeding not to block or throttle legal content. These commitments can be enforced by the FTC under Section 5, protecting consumers without imposing public-utility regulation on ISPs. > Invokes Sherman Antitrust acts FCC also reserves the right to return to Title II classification, which AT&T tried to block in this: > 176. We also reject AT&T’s assertion that the Commission should conditionally forbear from all Title II regulations as a preventive measure to address the contingency that a future Commission might seek to reinstate the Title II Order.647 Although AT&T explains that “conditional forbearance would provide an extra level of insurance against the contingency that a future, politically motivated Commission might try to reinstate a ‘common carrier’ classification [2015 Net Neutrality Regulations],”648 we see no need to address the complicated question of prophylactic forbearance and find such extraordinary measures [are] unnecessary. Edit: the vote also keeps the government from classifying the internet as a public utility. I think that's a good thing because the govt could otherwise step in and "regulate" content it doesn't agree with.
  • russdill 9y ago
    I can't be both heavy handed regulation and something that when removed, won't change industry behavior. Also, the commitments provided are not eternal and unchangeable. They committed to treat all content equally when it was the law of the land. Now that it's not, they can easily change that stance.
  • murph-almighty 9y ago
• bjt2n3904 9y ago
  Common response on HN for the past two months has been nothing short of hyperbolic. "The world will end if NN is repealed". Speaking as a conservative: When Obama was president, I got told the same thing about the ACA. The world will end, the sky is falling, America is finished. But eight years later, here I am, nothing's that much worse. I have no reason to believe this is "the beginning of the end" of anything. Life will carry on as normal. Disproportionate reactions (like HN is doing right now) is not good for anyone. Take a step back from politics. Take a deep breath. Take a walk outside. This isn't the end of the world.
  • lcfcjs2 9y ago
    Wow, typical response from an ignorant Republican. Read about net neutrality so you can comment on it intelligently.
  • wvenable 9y ago
    The ACA was actually a conservative plan that is actually good for people. In some sense, you could argue that everybody agreed with it until it became a partisan issue. NN is also good for people and also has bipartisan support (from constituents) but just got repealed. Yes, the sky won't fall but it is now a little darker.
    • noetic_techy 9y ago
      Depends on how you spin it. Yes it was a conservative plan originally. The reasoning went something like: "Too many poor people are showing up to hospitals without health insurance and getting treated for free, driving up the cost for everyone else. We need to FORCE them to buy health insurance or else there is a penalty!" Doesn't sound that great in those terms, but that's exactly what you got. Change the way you talk about it, sprinkle in a couple keywords like "affordable", mix in some coverage for pre-existing conditions, and suddenly its more palatable to liberals.
      • sliverstorm 9y ago
        As unpalatable as you think that sounds, it's also exactly what we do with car insurance, and has worked mostly fine there for decades, excluding enforcement problems and illegals.
• tptacek 9y ago
  The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican laissez-faire regulatory strategy (at least, once we got past 1991 or so), it is more than a little aggravating to see us as a community winding ourselves in knots over market-based regulation of telecom at the same time as the (largely unprincipled) Republican congress is putting the finishing strokes --- literally in ball-point pen --- on a catastrophically stupid tax bill that threatens universal access to health insurance, not just for those dependent on Medicare but on startup founders as well. If you care deeply about this issue, stop pretending like filling out forms and putting banners ads is going to persuade Republican regulators to act like Democrats. "Net Neutrality" isn't my personal issue --- I worked at ISPs, have backbone engineer friends, and candidly: I think this issue is silly. But if it's yours... sigh... fine. But do it right: get out there, to your nearest seriously threatened D districts or to the nearest plausibly flippable R district (the suburbs are great for this), open up your damn wallets, and donate. The FCC may very well be right that it's not their job to impose our dream portfolio of rules on Verizon (certainly, a lot of the rules people are claiming NN provided were fanciful). It doesn't matter how dreamlike the rules are: Congress can almost certainly enact a law, which the FCC can't revoke. But otherwise, be clear-eyed: elections have consequences. We elected the party of deregulation. Take the bad with whatever the good is, and work to flip the House back.
  • russdill 9y ago
    Yes, I think the biggest take away of this is to push the fact that republican legislators did not listen to their constituents. At all. They did not put their constituents first. At all. The chairman actually talked about consumers working with the FCC to enforce regulations as a bad thing.
    • tptacek 9y ago
      I do not agree. I believe Republican voters do not in fact want the government extensively regulating the Internet. It is very difficult to argue in 2017 that the Republican party is the party of a pragmatic, consumer-protected regulatory state. The Republicans believe that the market will take better care of Internet users than any regulatory agency. On this one issue, it's possible they're even right.
• strayamaaate 9y ago
  Democracy at its finest! One minor positive is the requirement for disclosure, but time will tell if this is actually enforced. As an Australian, I feel a mounting sense of fear that we’re next...
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• pknerd 9y ago
  there should be black bar for this.
• matmo 9y ago
  If we had Fiber everywhere, would bandwidth arguments still be applicable?
• niftich 9y ago
  Pai says he is "helping consumers and promoting competition". Unfortunately, half of the states have laws and regulations that hamper efforts of local governments to build out municipal broadband [1] to take their own broadband access into their hands. Republican politicians are often [2][3] at the forefront of these state bans, despite citizens of all political leanings in favor of localities being allowed to do this [4][5]. [1] https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-by-state/ https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-lawmaker-has-proposed-banning-municipal-broadband-networks/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-la... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-lawmaker-has-proposed-banning-municipal-broadband-networks/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/another-state-la... [3] https://www.fischer.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/81c82846-aa7c-42fe-be4d-11b0f9527db0/12.11.15-letter-to-fcc-chairman-wheeler-on-municipal-broadband-final.pdf https://www.fischer.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/81c82846-... [4] https://muninetworks.org/content/pew-survey-reveals-overwhelming-support-local-authority https://muninetworks.org/content/pew-survey-reveals-overwhel... [5] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/10/americans-have-mixed-views-on-policies-encouraging-broadband-adoption/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/10/americans-ha...
• juris 9y ago
  This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we should pursue antitrust legal and foster competition in this space. Comcast didn't realize it, but net neutrality was their own safety net.
  • Someone1234 9y ago
    The "last mile" is a utility, and by its very nature will always result in monopolistic control. It is impractical and irrational to wire up a home to multiple ISPs with their own fiber channels. Each channel could cost tens of thousands to install. Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repairing defects in it. The ISP is responsible for everything that happens from the exchange upon up (inc. pricing, support, peerage agreements, interconnects, etc). This way you can still choose Comcast if you wish but may also have several local ISPs competing for your business. When you choose to change no engineer needs to come to your house, they just plug and unplug you at the exchange.
    • microcolonel 9y ago
      > Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. That's an interesting idea, kinda like Interac for telecom. From what I hear, Interac has a bit of an issue with being fairly closed to new peering agreements, so I wonder how that could be solved for the telco space, maybe constitute the maintenance corporation to be open to bids from new ISPs.
    • juris 9y ago
      I think that would be a good value proposition for a city that does not already prefer one ISP over another. Interesting idea to spin something like this up.
• econner 9y ago
  What can I do now to help?
• kin 9y ago
  I'm surprised I haven't heard anything along the lines of Ajit being hacked or receiving death threats. My only hope from this is that as soon as cable companies start their bullshit, people become aware of how this all happened and maybe we can reverse the damage in the long run. I'm also hoping things like Google Fiber get more aggressive or Musk keeps his promise of launching his internet satellite.
• Fede_V 9y ago
  As I've previously said: for people that believe Pai acted according to good faith, are you willing to bet that, as soon as he is legally allowed to do so, Pai won't be given a VP-level sinecure at Verizon or Comcast?
• MrGando 9y ago
  Are the big companies really in favor of neutrality? At least in the short mid-term I believe it’s more helpful for them to get their silos even more consolidated... Also... they haven’t been super loud for neutrality and this happened. It almost felt as if they did not care. It’s a sad day.
• Exuma 9y ago
  Violence isn't the answer but boy would I love to smash that smug asshole's kneecaps.
  • dang 9y ago
    Please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• aaronbrethorst 9y ago
  Call your Congressperson and Senators today and tell them that you want them to enshrine NN into law. And then vote against them next time they’re up for re-election if they don’t. In the case of your Congressperson, this will be next November. Phone numbers are here: https://www.battleforthenet.com/ https://www.battleforthenet.com/
• ulkram 9y ago
  In case you want to hear both sides of the argument: http://exponent.fm/episode-133-two-terrible-options/ http://exponent.fm/episode-133-two-terrible-options/
• mtkd 9y ago
  It may be for the best over time - the innovation that comes from the decision is likely an increment over where we are now - and possibly have wider benefits that just enabling NN.
• akerro 9y ago
  Why are meshnets not popular and why is no one talking about them? Can we start some discussion about software like cjdns?
• akerro 9y ago
  Comcast is committed to free and open Internet, nothing to worry for now https://imgur.com/gallery/RPgJf https://imgur.com/gallery/RPgJf
  • lucb1e 9y ago
    Archive.org link? I don't trust some random imgur screenshots.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  > Ajit Pai, the F.C.C. chairman, said the rollback of the net neutrality rules would eventually help consumers because broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast could offer people a wider variety of service options. Sure, they can. At different paid tiers.
• Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  Write to your governor and ask them to propose net neutrality protections at the state level. Text RESIST TO 50409 and you can have your letter written and faxed to them in <2 mins for free.
• nlperguiy 9y ago
  I don't get it. Aren't Republicans for less regulation?
  • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    Nope. Otherwise they'd be getting rid of the regulations that allow Comcast to be a defacto monopoly ISP.
  • wavefunction 9y ago
    Republicans are not for what they state their principles are.
  • gorbachev 9y ago
    They're for less regulation when it benefits them. They're for more regulation when it benefits them. It's pretty obvious when you contrast their stance on drug legalization and abortions vs. environmental protection or consumer protection laws. The Republicans have absolutely no consistent principles or values. Other than "whatever keeps us in power".
• yters 9y ago
  How will this actually impact me? I saw one graphic which suggested this may make it cheaper for me to pay for just the services I need.
  • bo1024 9y ago
    We don't know yet. You might have almost no change, you might find half the internet censored by default. If ISPs wanted to make it cheaper for you to access a simpler level of services, they could have already done so by offering you lower internet speeds and small data caps. They kept prices high because you were willing to pay them and there wasn't (much) competition. They're not going to give up those profits willingly unless the new pricing plan can make them more money overall. So I wouldn't get too optimistic.
    • yters 9y ago
      Can the ISPs actually censor content? On the other hand, I'm not opposed to censoring some things, like porn.
      • bo1024 9y ago
        They absolutely have the technical ability, and now they have the legal ability as well. If a page is http, not https, then they can arbitrarily modify the page in transit. Otherwise, they can simply decide not to serve pages from any site they want. > On the other hand, I'm not opposed to censoring some things, like porn. This is how censorship tends to start. Porn, copyright, and/or terrorism. You are opening yourself and your country up to a world of abuses by those in power once you start letting them censor. (Also, why is it any of your business or mine if other people watch porn? And if it is, the path to change practices we disagree with is through dialogue and education, not authoritarianism.)
        • yters 9y ago
          Porn has horribly messed up our society. Have you been watching the news and all the sex abuse scandals? Plus all the stats regarding broken families, abuse of minors, etc. It's just all bad, and all due to porn. Cutting off porn would fix a whole lot in our society.
• shiado 9y ago
  Is there anything that can be done at the protocol level to make the anti-NN goals of the ISPs unfeasible? Would a sudden surge in IPV6 adoption make the databases used to locate and label certain traffic useless? What about at the DNS level? BGP? Perhaps the best way to enforce net neutrality is by forcing the adoption of protocols that ensure it.
• diyseguy 9y ago
  Is there any recourse? clever technical workaround? switch to tor network?
  • diyseguy 9y ago
    I'm picturing some kind of euware/(non-mal)ware for personal routers that will route unthrottled traffic on the side in some sort of peer-to-peer manner.
• 40acres 9y ago
  VOTE. As I've grown older I've realized more and more that this is the only way for citizens voices to be truly heard. You aren't going to outspend the big donors and you aren't going to out influence the lobbyists. If you want a particular rule set or laws to be enacted you'd better vote for the politicians who agree with your worldview. Mad that the FCC has repealed net neutrality? Vote for congress members who are pro-NN. Mad that national parks have had their land area significantly reduced? Vote for pro national park congress members. Mad that we're giving a huge tax cat to billionaires and corporations and yet the middle class gets a temporary reprieve? Vote for congress members who want to deliver true tax reform. I could go on and on but I think you get the point.
  • someone7x 9y ago
    But what about the iterated version of this game? Ideally you pick all your issues and find at least one candidate on your side. Unless it's the same candidate (lucky you), you'll need to prioritize your issues. We quickly arrive at the status quo: wedge issues drown out everything. The answer isn't to just VOTE, the answer is electoral reform. More speficially, prioritize electoral reform as the top wedge issue. It's like this country has been in a 200 year sprint and refuses to have a retro.
• kotrunga 9y ago
  In that article, a quote... "We are helping consumers and promoting competition," Mr. Pai said in a speech before the vote. "Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to underserved areas." Please, Mr. Pai. Help consumers? That's a lie.
• neo4sure 9y ago
  I think the cable guys just awakened the sleeping giant. By making sure they can tighten the screws on Silicon Valley they have spawned out a multitude of startups that will topple them one day. The cable companies make money by making something scarce. They will milk every penny of their investment and give it back to the investors without much reinvesting it back to create cheaper broadband for the masses. Silicon Valley’s whole business model is based on cheap access to the internet that's why google Facebook etc is investing so much to connect the third world. I believe they were hedging against net neutrality dying someday. I can't imagine after winning the first battle they took a timeout. The investments in the 3rd world internet may ultimately lead to newer cheaper ways to connect the world. Cabel companies clocks started to run out the day they attacked net neutrality. Let's see how they survive in about 10 years’ time.
• skate22 9y ago
  What a joke
• GrumpyNl 9y ago
  Wow, so the US just gave away the internet to the telco's and providers. Wanna see Netflix, pay, wanna see facebook pay.
• Karunamon 9y ago
  What's a person to do if you're generally for the concept of net neutrality (knowing the mendacity of outfits like Comcast), but you're also generally against regulating ISPs like telecoms (knowing the slowness, quantity of bureaucracy, and general incompetence of the federal government when it comes to tech)? The FCC's Open Internet Order was damn good, and had it survived legal challenge, was one of the better and realistic options (aside from local loop unbundling which is never gonna happen). I think that legal decision was one of the worst ones in recent memory.
• crtqt3 9y ago
  Good. this is good
• tnolet 9y ago
  As European bystander this is amazing and scary. Does anyone have any insights if/what this means for trans-atlantic traffic?
• tedwasright 9y ago
  Ben Shapiro Breaks down net neutrality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrZ_CPgm7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrZ_CPgm7o
  • dlp211 9y ago
    And he is wrong with his break down, but what else is new.
    • tedwasright 9y ago
      No. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-16/net-neutrality-–-end-googles-biggest-subsidy http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-16/net-neutrality-–-en...
• asurty 9y ago
  Perhaps this will only spur the global do gooders of the world to come up with better (more permanent) solutions for promoting privacy, free speech and innovation. As a reader of HN I feel like there is already great work being done here (eg/ lets encrypt). ahem pineapple fund, if you are a real thing, maybe you can put something under EFF's tree for xmas?
• bitL 9y ago
  How often do we see a person from a 3rd world country being installed at the top of an organization with the intent to subvert it? I have seen it happening in at least 3 corporations that tanked a year-two after that. It seems like natives don't want to do dirty work (nobody wants to be Elop), so external ones with a different philosophy and conscience are brought in.
• nkkollaw 9y ago
  Can someone explain if this will affect anyone outside of the US, and how..?
• at-fates-hands 9y ago
  Honestly, I don't care either way. Even after the NN rules were in place, I saw absolutely no difference in my area (I live in a major metro area in the midwest) and saw no advantage either way. The gloom and doom stuff people talked about prior to NN I never experienced, and post NN being enacted, I didn't experience any of the benefits either.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• polygon-pusher 9y ago
  Time to take down the internet. A simple solution to a stupid problem.
• iain_r 9y ago
  GG
• paiisgod 9y ago
  https://infostormer.com/fcc-ends-net-neutrality-despite-security-threat/ https://infostormer.com/fcc-ends-net-neutrality-despite-secu...
• paiisgod 9y ago
  The Federal Communications Commission just ended net neutrality by a 3-2 vote despite a security threat that temporarily disrupted the proceedings. All this does is return things to the way they were back in 2015. You would think that with all the hysterics coming from the Jews, Silicon Valley and a variety of Marxist terrorists that this was the end of the world. It is not the end of the world. In fact, it is better that net neutrality regulations are repealed. It is interesting that the 3 men on the panel voted to repeal it and the 2 women on the panel voted against it. Women are by and large a bunch of idiots and don’t know shit about technology. Women who have tried to run large technology firms have failed. It only took Marissa Mayer a few years to destroy Yahoo and she got paid many millions of dollars for her efforts. The fact that we have women at this high of a level within the FCC is dumb beyond imagination. Either way, it is good that net neutrality regulations are repealed. Net neutrality regulations have not prevented Internet censorship from the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other Silicon Valley firms. Of course, we didn’t see any of those leftists crying as these sites banned all sorts of people from their services for political reasons. Repealing these rules also gives more incentive to new players entering the service provider market. More competition means more choices and more options. The Internet was a better place in 2015. It is far worse now. This is just one step that will hopefully help improve things. These leftist retards are going to look awfully silly when they’re still able to access the web like they did prior to this decision. It is funny to see the hysterics though. There’s a community meltdown happening on Twitter, Reddit and the other safe space social media sites as we speak. Keep crying faggots!
  • lakechfoma 9y ago
    can someone flag this please...
    • dang 9y ago
      Instead of posting like this, flag it yourself by clicking the comment's timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag' at the top. In egregious cases like the above, you're quite welcome to alert us at hn@ycombinator.com too. We catch up with the flagged comments eventually, but email is the hotline.
• jasonrhaas 9y ago
  So let me get this straight: This (potentially) means that whomever pays the most money to the ISP gets special privilege? Sounds right in line with how the rest of America works.
• alexpetralia 9y ago
  Can someone clarify this for me? Perhaps my assumptions are incorrect: > 1. Bandwidth is limited > 2. Real-time streaming services, such as video, consume much more bandwidth (by sending more packets through the pipeline) than non-streaming services > 3. Net neutrality guarantees that each packet is delivered with the same priority Say Netflix takes up 20% of the bandwidth through its streaming services - each packet must have the same priority as any Netflix or non-Netflix packet. That leaves 80% for everyone else. People begin streaming more Netflix and it now takes up 40% of the bandwidth. This means 60% for everyone else - fewer of their non-Netflix packets are making it into the pipeline. This means their download speeds slow down. ISPs can either (1) increase bandwidth in order to increase the amount of non-Netflix packets get through, (2) throttle Netflix or (3) neither increase bandwidth nor throttle Netflix, resulting in non-Netflix content slowing down. Is my analysis incorrect here? Perhaps I am missing something obvious? To me, it looks like Net Neutrality is (3). In this case, streaming services (and those consuming them) get a free ride to due to the rule mandating that packets must be delivered at the same time (so you benefit if you simply stuff the channel with a ton of your packets, a la Netflix). It would also make sense why Big Tech would support this (they receive the benefit), while Big Telecom would oppose this (they incur the costs). In an economic sense this would seem to be an inefficient market (as regulation tends to do). However there are always noble reasons behind regulation (even if they are not implemented properly). I don't see (2) as particularly bad in an economic sense, but because these telecoms are notoriously anti-competitive, perhaps the ideal of a competitive market goes out the door? Would greatly appreciate if anyone could clarify.
  • dicroce 9y ago
    You're not wrong. But when you open the door to private companies throttling, then scenarios like this become possible: www.comcasttube.com - like youtube.com, but faster... because we're slowing down youtube.com
  • ddebernardy 9y ago
    > ISPs can either (1) increase bandwidth in order to increase the amount of packets that get through, (2) throttle Netflix which they can't do under net neutrality, (3) charge Netflix (and Google, Facebook, etc.) to not get throttled which they can't do under net neutrality either, or (4) neither increase bandwidth nor throttle Netflix, resulting in all content slowing down and them losing customers to ISPs that will invest in new bandwidth as they should. FTFY
• jasonrhaas 9y ago
  So let me get this straight: It (potentially) means that whomever pays the most money to the ISP gets special privilege? Sounds right in line with how the rest of America works.
• chinathrow 9y ago
  Can we have a black bar on top?
• cortexio 9y ago
  exciting times :)
• briga 9y ago
  Here's my question: why was such a momentous decision decided by a board of five people? A decision that will affect hundreds of millions of people was decided by five people. Isn't that insane? Whatever happened to democracy in America?
  • nkkollaw 9y ago
    That's exactly how democracy works.
  • supermdguy 9y ago
    America is not a democracy. It's a representative democracy.
    • briga 9y ago
      I find it hard to believe that the will of the people is adequately represented by five people. Not that it really matters--with the massive split between the Republicans and Democrats basically the party with the most board seats will win.
  • heurist 9y ago
    This is what American voters chose last year.
    • briga 9y ago
      That is arguable, considering Trump lost the popular vote.
    • nickik 9y ago
      People need to stop pretending that 'the people choice' about everything when they got to vote once. Even that one vote was basically sounded with lots of pre-voting and all sorts of other things. If you look into the actual political economy of the situation it is quite clear that 'the will of the people' has little to do with the outcome of the political process. That is just a reality. The fundamental problem is not the alt-right on twitter but the american political system with its layers of Byzantine rules and insane bureaucracies.
• callmeed 9y ago
  Can states enact their own Net Neutrality rules? If so, is there any likelihood of it happening in places like NY or CA?
  • smileysteve 9y ago
    Public commissioners could include it as a requirement for RFP
  • jonbronson 9y ago
    California has announced they plan to.
  • TimJRobinson 9y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. If they can then this doesn't seem to as big of a deal as I originally thought. They can enforce NN which will ensure that entrepreneurship on the internet flourishes in those states, which will encourage more entrepreneurial Americans to move there, which will make them more prosperous.
• LeRieur 9y ago
  It's just like they are treating the Internet bandwidth as a tragedy of commons, while it's not.
• turc1656 9y ago
  Net neutrality was a band-aid from the start for a larger problem that was unaddressed. ISP's, big telecom, etc. are/were committing acts that are illegal under existing law. For example, they were blocking certain sites/services that were competing with their own. That's a clear cut felony of restraint of trade. And possible other felonies related to monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. The correct solution to this was to put the people responsible for approving those actions in jail for those crimes. But we didn't do that. Instead, we got net neutrality. The Rule of Law continues to be ignored in the US and with net neutrality the offending companies were simply forced to wine and dine us with a fancy dinner before deciding to fuck us whenever they wanted.
• gt_ 9y ago
  My mother lives in a rural part of Kentucky. While staying with her over the summer, I visited the office of the local DSL broadband provider, ‘Brandenburg Telephone’ and it was like a step back in time. This is one of the areas Comcast deemed unworthy of serving and the result is very affordable max 5mbps internet with top notch customer service. I wonder how this region will be affected. Anyone have predictions?
• jayess 9y ago
  In 24 hours no one will be thinking about this and literally nothing will happen, despite the absolute mouth-foaming hysteria we're seeing today.
  • nickik 9y ago
    I think the long term price structures will get worse, and ISP will do even more stupid shit like blocking torrents, opening up https connections. But of course you are right that for the majority of people nothing will change.
  • jonbronson 9y ago
    The lawsuits have already started. The lawsuits will be covered by consumer interest groups, tech blogs, and tech news sites. So we will in fact be hearing a lot about this for the foreseeable future.
• drawkbox 9y ago
  Unfortunately telcos have had a great year in power consolidation in spite of everyone's opinions or demands. Representatives in government have represented the ISPs/telcos over individual demands, voting in favor of their bribes over what nearly everyone wants. Jeff Flake started this destruction in the senate where he pushed through the ISP privacy bill that allows them monopoly power and first rights to users info that they have no choice in excluding. Google/Facebook/Amazon earned your data by giving you a service you wanted, ISPs just default get it first now and you have NO CHOICE in the matter. Ajit Pai has now handed the keys to the ISPs further in removing title II protections and common carrier status. Net neutrality is now gone. Underneath all the madness of 2016/2017, telcos/ISPs have been slashing and burning the internet and privacy. They better hope competition is held back for some time because people will not forget this. ISPs are not a service friendly to consumers who want fair internet or small/medium business that want fair representation in the markets.
  • nickik 9y ago
    Satellite internet is coming fast and and from people who want you to hate your local provider and their PR will say 'we will give you free access'. Hope it will work out, the plans SpaceX and OneWeb have announced are pretty crazy.
• gt_ 9y ago
  When I first moved to Portland, Oregon about 10 years ago, the inner sections of the city has free city-wide wireless. I was broke and in school, but still basking in what I believed the future would be like. 2 years later, they pulled the plug so I had to get a Comcast account and forgo having internet at my art studio. And now this.
• socrates1998 9y ago
  Slowly but surely, our open internet will get choked. This is just one step in horrible path that will lead to our largest corporations controlling almost everything in our lives with very little competition. I am blaming the tech giants for this ruling. They are the only ones with enough power to challenge this horrible ruling and they sat idle and watched it happen. They may have given lip service to net neutrality, but their lack of enthusiasm and almost zero effort speaks volumes on their true opinions. Microsoft crossed over to the dark side a long time ago. Now, Google, Apple, Facebook join them in completely abandoning the ethos upon which the companies were founded. I have been skeptical of their true intentions for years, and facebook has probably been corrupt since day one, but I thought if they were able to keep net neutrality, then I would think there was a chance for them. No longer. They are gone. Truly sad day for the world.
  • adventured 9y ago
    21 of the last 23 years of the Internet in the US, there has not been net neutrality. Turned out really bad huh. Net neutrality didn't exist in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015.
    • guelo 9y ago
      Lies
      • dang 9y ago
        Could you please stop posting flamebait to HN? We've asked you before. Eventually we ban accounts that keep breaking the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
    • Retroity 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#FCC_attempts_at_enforcing_net_neutrality_(2005%E2%80%932010) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S... It's been there far longer than you think, just in different forms. It's changed as the internet has.
• ausjke 9y ago
  Most of the time you really only have one ISP to choose from, so it is kind of monopoly already in practice, now with this brain-dead repeal, what will happen then? Don't like this at all.
• abpavel 9y ago
  Demand for Cisco SCE and similar will explode. These boxes are specifically tailored for per-user traffic management on carrier scale, and can throttle and account traffic per URL per user. Network vendors producing carrier grade equipment should profit.
• ansible 9y ago
  There was a discussion about all this during NPR's Morning Edition. The FCC chair talked about how there was very loose regulation of the Internet back in 1996 during the Clinton Administration. And this should be a model for regulation of the ISPs going forward. Except that the world was quite different in 1996. You actually had a lot of competition with ISPs, because most people were doing dialup. If I didn't like AOL, I could just switch to Prodigy (yes, I know), or one of the local ISPs. That was easy. People like me can and did switch ISPs on a regular basis. In my case, looking for a reliable Net News feed. Compared to today, where there is only one (or if you are lucky) two ISPs for the area. You don't have a choice, so these ISPs are defacto monopolies. The reasons given for repeal are just wrong, and this is a transparent attempt by the big ISPs to make more money, without benefit to the average citizen or even the other Internet companies which made the Internet awesome to begin with.
  • okreallywtf 9y ago
    It does remind me a bit of the trickle down economics. They are making it sound like that the only thing holding them back from massive innovation is profits lost to regulations and as soon as we get rid of those the floodgates will open - but they never do. The ISPs are going to use that money to consolidate their power, buy more companies that depend on their infrastructure and shovel money back to their shareholders and drive their stock price up. This is exactly what is going to happen with the tax bill (and is already happening due to the expectation of a tax bill), we're being sold that companies have been right on the cusp of increasing wages and hiring if it weren't for those pesky taxes they had to pay. When the jobs and wages don't come, they'll blame something else and down the road they'll take away another important thing, like labor protections or something. And we'll fall for it (collectively), its like a mystery box or something, we can't resist the idea of the free market as this chained beast that just has to be released and it will solve everything with no oversight or maintenance.
    • ansible 9y ago
      This is exactly what is going to happen with the tax bill (and is already happening due to the expectation of a tax bill), we're being sold that companies have been right on the cusp of increasing wages and hiring if it weren't for those pesky taxes they had to pay. Exactly. I know business. Extra profits are extra profits. Wages won't rise unless there is a labor supply shortage.
• tazelo123 9y ago
  I think all comments so far have missed the point. So called "net neutrality" is really just a big government handout to Google, Facebook, Amazon and others who want a free ride on the infrastructure built over decades by private company investments of billions of dollars. Putting a chokehold on the telcos has made it so these large companies don't have to make similar investments and put large infrastructure assets on their balance sheets that would depress their stock prices dramatically. If Google, FB, etc. want a free rider internet, they can go pay for it themselves. All of these companies have enough cash on hand to make the investment right now if they wanted to -- it would just make the billionaire ceos a lot less wealthy. I'm surprised nobody has pointed this out yet.
  • fictionfuture 9y ago
    Because, 1. The companies you mention also have a monopoly on internet content distribution 2. Most people are herd thinkers, don't know anything about NN, only that "it's bad" because the content they see says "it's bad" Propaganda works.
  • ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    Repealing net neutrality helps FANG. They can afford to pay the consumer ISPs rent-seeking. Nascent competitors can't. That's the future - where Comcast customers get enough bandwidth to stream 360p videos only from sites that pay Comcast for the privilege.
  • asdffdsa321 9y ago
    I pay for a certain download/upload speed. Why does it matter where it comes from?
  • jonbronson 9y ago
    You have it backwards. These companies can benefit financially from the repeal. But that's short-sighted, and they know it. Innovation will suffer without Net Neutrality, and these companies are more worried about that long-tail loss than any short-term windfall that this would cause.
• r2dnb 9y ago
  From my perspective, the positive to this is that it will incentivize tech giants to accelerate the development of the web platform (WebRTC, WebGL, Web Assembly, Web Torrent and the like) as stuffing everything in HTTP and using encryption will protect them from the dirty blocking of services, and will allow them to focus their efforts on fighting throttling. For this reason, I hope Comcast and others will scare the hell out of them and do some big time media-covered dirty throttling. I can already see for-a-better-web.org where Apple, Microsoft, Google and others explain why they have finally decided to move their ass and get serious about implementing the modern web in their browsers. With their level of funding, the time all of this is taking is ridiculous. When Netflix and YouTube get their first bill from tier 1 providers, Web Torrent and libtorrent will receive a pull request within a week and chrome will be patched overnight. I do not think that the small guy will be hit by these rules, mostly because I think that by the time it comes to that, politics will have changed. The end result will be that everybody will benefit. Implementing the modern web seriously is the one thing that web giants can do to protect themselves, as it would enable a fully decentralized web. The difference between that and NN is that the modern web would actually help the small guy by making it easy to for example start a decentralized YouTube. So it's easier to cry fool on NN, and look like you're concerned about the small guy when in reality you too are concerned about protecting your interests in the most convenient way possible. Not saying all of this is a conspiracy, just saying tech companies are far from being disarmed, they also have their monopolies they want to protect. Keep it in mind before crying over this vote, or spending money and time on volunteering. Let Tier 1 dudes give them the hardest time of their life and watch. If it gets to hitting the average Joe, do something but my take is it won't have the time to get to that.
  • threeseed 9y ago
    Sorry but none of what you said really makes sense. 1) Websites work using FQDNs. ISPs can just throttle on that irrespective of whether the traffic is encrypted or not or what web technology is used. VPNs make that traffic somewhat hidden. But we could just see those banned outright unless you purchase a "business plan". 2) Apple, Microsoft, Google etc have already implemented the modern web. They have deviations in certain areas but there isn't some magical technology that makes it "modern". 3) The small guys absolutely will be hit the hardest. You will pay more as Netflix, Hulu etc are asked to pay more and it translates to higher subscription prices. Likewise you are going to see the richness and diversity of the web suffer as it becomes harder for startups to compete.
• mwilliaams 9y ago
  It's not democratic. It's republican. Remember that America is a republic, not a democracy. Each state has 2 senators/electoral votes because this country was founded as the United States. It was supposed to be more of a coalition of states united under a federal government, than a single nation. Also, California has a huge population with tons of representatives, and basically every elected official is democratic. I don't think you should complain.
  • 8note 9y ago
    what does the lack of a monarch have to do with how much representation an area has. truly, the US is an oligarchy. regardless of what votes say, actual decision making and power rests with the wealthy nobles, like the Trumps and Kochs.
    • nv-vn 9y ago
      Which is why ObamaCare was passed? If they had total control of our country, don't you think that politics would fit their side a little bit better?
  • plussed_reader 9y ago
    How many people should a single representative represent?
  • kuschku 9y ago
    > Remember that America is a republic, not a democracy Republic. Aka, Res Publica. "Thing of the people". A form of government where all political power originates with the people, directly or indirectly. Democracy. Demos Kratia. "Rule by the people". A form of government where all political power originates with the people, directly or indirectly. These two terms are not about how decisions are made. They do not discuss who elects whom, and how, or if everything is directly chosen. They exist to differentiate the systems from previous feudalistic rule, where the power came from the fact that the leader had the power to protect you from other leaders (the power was justified through the strength), and from monarchies (including both earlier ones, e.g. the ancient egyptian dynasties, and later ones, e.g. french absolutism – both justifying their power as being chosen by a god, or descended from one). Now, the US itself has a governmental form called "Representative democracy", meaning that all choices are made by representatives, chosen by the population, and whose power comes from the people, who have to respond to the people, and who have to represent the will of the people. Also, what you’re thinking of is the question between direct nation-wide rule, or a federal rule. Germany is a federal republic, and also representative democracy. Yet it manages to solve this exact issue – by electing the first chamber of parliament, the Bundestag, entirely with MMP, meaning it is chosen independent of states, and the second chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat, represents each state. This guarantees that all decisions have to be backed by > 50% of states, and > 50% of population. This guarantees both the democratic principle, that power has to come from all the people, and also the federal principle, ensuring that states also have power. TL;DR: You’ve misrepresented everything you’ve said, and your argument isn’t even conclusive. You can have a more representative system without losing the power granted to the states, e.g. the German system.
• paul7986 9y ago
  Where was Google and Facebook.. they did nothing vs. them previously taking action against SOPA.
• dpierce9 9y ago
  Congress can override the FCC using the Congressional Review Act. Simple majority in each house. The CRA also prohibits the agency from introducing similar regulations ever again. Call your Congressperson! Particularly if your members are on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
• peterwwillis 9y ago
  I don't think any Net Neutrality advocates have yet addressed the fact that last mile ISPs can't find new ways to subsidize broadband roll-outs and upgrades. The only way to pay for it is to charge you more. So while the internet access stays "fair" (which is already questionable at best), you pay more money, and service roll-out continues to be slow and crappy. Some form of compromise regulation is needed to both retain the fairness of access, but also allow ISPs to find new ways to monetize. But most people don't seem open to talking about this.
• stestagg 9y ago
  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRCPuPPXkAADRML.png:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRCPuPPXkAADRML.png:large
• brondeau 9y ago
  SAD.....
• acjohnson55 9y ago
  I'm curious how this could impact the cryptocurrency space. If the government is effectively showing willingness to hand the Internet over to moneyed interests, does that damage the assumption that the Internet is a failsafe medium for cryptocurrency networks to operate? Should we also fear the banks using similar leverage to protect their interests if it looks like cryptocurrencies stand a reasonable chance of circumventing their oligopoly? Anybody counting on the Internet for their disruptive future plans should hear this message loud and clear.
  • AlwaysBCoding 9y ago
    Check out Nick Szabo and Elaine Ou's talk from Scaling Bitcoin about broadcasting Bitcoin blocks over shortwave radio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYXPJMqBNk&feature=youtu.be&t=1h22m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYXPJMqBNk&feature=youtu.be...
• LeicaLatte 9y ago
  Congrats I guess.
• Parcissons 9y ago
  If one wants to upkeep civilisation, one needs to train its citizens to protect the infrastructure, the backbone, one needs to train the citizen, to repair, to provide, to create, to fight, against all that corrodes. So if liberty dies, one cell every day, it can rise again, harder and stronger, recreated not by a goverment, which can turn sour any day in power- but by something - which to erradicate, would mean the end of the nation.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• arstin 9y ago
  Does anyone know about grassroots efforts to provide internet in major cities? Any links to follow updates or just for more info? Being completely ignorant, it should be feasible with so many people in a few square miles. I would absolutely contribute to an internet coop in Chicago were such a thing to get going. Even just to avoid the annual two hour phone calls to Comcast when I discover they added $100 worth of shit I didn't order to my bill without asking me.
• rdxm 9y ago
  so a few things: 1) i'm somewhat skeptical that this will result in noticable price or service degredation scenarios. 2) there is now way in hell trump gets a second term so pai wil be gone soon, i.e. this was a tempest in a teapot. 3) it's fundamentally unclear that this will actually be harmful. of course the investment argument is total bull shit, but realistically, wireless is going to obviate classical monopoly power that exists today for incmbents. maybe my views are silly, but, most peopel really won't notice a difference..
• erlich 9y ago
  This is really good because now we can see if all the outrage was justified.
• gaius 9y ago
  Good for The People - bad for Google. Actually those are the same thing.
• grizzles 9y ago
  Some bad policy there from the FCC. The best outcome now would be if Google + Facebook + AWS, etc partnered and started charging domestic ISPs a price to access their content. Amazon is the elephant here because they can introduce a clause in the AWS agreement giving themselves the power to negotiate like this. If they did it now, at the outset of this policy, it would be hard for ISPs to claim "antitrust" since the four horsemen would effectively be protecting smaller websites. The alternative is the charge going the other way, with ISPs gaining the power to slice and dice the internet up, with small websites possibly having to pay more than one ISP.
• Crontab 9y ago
  Corrupt as hell.
• jonhuber 9y ago
  Net neutrality is the solution to a sub problem. Content companies having a monopoly on the last mile. We should really be pushing for structural separation and ownership rules of communications infrastructure, which I suppose is the end game of net neutrality anyways. Like roads, it doesn't necessarily make sense to have competition in the last mile space, two fibers/cables/etc running to the same dwelling. New Zealand and Australia have created infrastructure companies for creating a whole sale last mile network. Like deregulated electric or gas, the infrastructure provider is responsible for handling the physical connection while service provider provides the actual service over the infrastructure. In the case of internet in Australia, the NBN provides the fiber connection and the ISP provides network connectivity. It is even possible to have two ISPs over the single fiber. Got a terrible ISP. Churn and burn. However, if all the ISPs are terrible, then you probably still need net neutrality. Really, you need both. Structural separation, so at least there is some choice. Net neutrality rules, so companies can't monetize their customer. Disclaimer: Australia's NBN is a bit of a mess due to politics, but New Zealand did it right with UFB.
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    > We should really be pushing for structural separation and ownership rules of communications infrastructure, which I suppose is the end game of net neutrality anyways. Right: eliminating the synergies between owning content and owning ISPs makes it so there is little reason for a firm to want to be both an ISP and a content provider; it won't instantly cause existing combined entities to split up, but firms seeking to concentrate on lines of business with natural synergies will eventually head that way.
    • jonhuber 9y ago
      Well said, to that point we should at least be disincentivizing the combination of content and ISP.
• diebir 9y ago
  Your public lands? Under attack. Your Internet? Under attack. Your government funding? Under attack. What do you get? Nothing. Prepare to get f$cked over by your friendly republican majority.
  • ogre_magi 9y ago
    This is a thoughtful and informative comment.
  • jonbronson 9y ago
    Accurate. It's bizarre that a large segment of the country considers these things "differences of opinions" or merely politics.
• macinjosh 9y ago
  Amazingly good news! The argument that net neutrality protects the little guy, the small startup, etc is backwards. Internet giants like Facebook, Google, Netflix et al. only want net neutrality so that their current business model is protected through government force. There are plenty of mechanisms in place to keep telcos in check. (e.g. FTC, customer choice). If we really want to reform Internet policy create more competition in the marketplace by making it easier to start an ISP not harder.
• nusu 9y ago
  I wonder just one thing, why Google, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix didn't do real move about this?
• cdancette 9y ago
  So This Is How Liberty Dies... With Thunderous Applause
• neuronexmachina 9y ago
  My prediction: One of the first actions ISPs will take will be to block ads from specific DNS names and IP addresses. Opposition to this will be fairly limited since nobody likes ads, but after the precedent is set they'll then allow ad providers who pay a toll to the ISP, and from there it'll spread to blocking/throttling of other content. A couple years ago there was an ISP in the Caribbean who did something similar for Google and Facebook ads: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151001/06351732404/isp-announces-blocking-all-facebook-google-ads-until-companies-pay-troll-toll.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151001/06351732404/isp-a...
• makecheck 9y ago
  It should have been impossible to make a decision on something like this without first solving the fundamental problem of giving users control over data consumption. Just try visiting a web site or installing an app on your phone, while using a limited-data or pay-per-use plan (such as a typical cell phone plan or international “data roaming”): you will rack up insane costs BEFORE you have any idea how much data was going to be required for what you wanted to do! That’s insane!! There is no practical way to find out how much data an action will take, no regulation of web sites and apps, etc. to force them to invest in minimizing their data footprint, and tools such as content blockers are fought tooth and nail in the name of “revenue” and other such crap. Ironically, the idea of paying more for an Internet “fast lane” is exactly what companies should have done — to their own employees, investing in R&D to make their sites smaller, faster, with better experiences for everyone. Instead, those same companies will probably shovel the same money or more, except into ISPs and other entities to make their bloated experiences “fast”.
• arunc 9y ago
  Lobbying and money can do anything? American policy makers are more messed-up than I thought. How worst could it get? Interesting to watch it's impact in US in the long run. At least the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India listened [0]. If not the situation in India would be really bad. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_India
• unemployed1 9y ago
  Good
• kurheim 9y ago
  still don't regret not moving to US as a programmer.
• einrealist 9y ago
  Now, the US telco market has to prove that it works without these rules. We will see...
• ziyadparekh 9y ago
  Can you bypass ISPs with a P2P network such as a mesh network?
• trisimix 9y ago
  Inb4 rip that tmobile startup thing
• dingo_bat 9y ago
  Awesome. I really appreciate how professional Ajit Pai has been through all the internet hate. Finally a step in the right direction for government policy.
• melq 9y ago
  {Error: please contact your ISP to upgrade to their HN+ service in order to see this premium comment}
• lwansbrough 9y ago
  I’m in Thailand right now and everywhere I go I see about 100 wires being routed along each telephone pole. 3 utility lines across the top for power, then the most incoherent mess of cables I’ve ever seen. One pole I saw had become a literal birds nest. These are fiber and copper lines for individual ISPs. That’s what the internet looks like in a free market. I wish this image of free choice of ISP was used as an argument against repealing net neutrality. Nothing speaks to republicans more than showing them how their decision will fuck up their nice neighborhoods.
  • scott_karana 9y ago
    Except that the incumbent ISPs virtually always have right-of-way agreements with municipalities, granting them exclusive cable rights. Many states even legally prevent municipally-run lines, which is frankly ridiculous. Thailand is lawless individualic striving gone out of control. The USA is monopolistic lobbying and cronyism out of control.
• gkanai 9y ago
  Ben Thompson who writes Stratechery, which is often posted here, had a piece on Net Neutrality a few weeks ago which was quite controversial. Thompson is pro neutrality, but anti-title II. https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ Because that article was so controversial, he wrote an update as well: https://stratechery.com/2017/light-touch-cable-and-dsl-the-broadband-tradeoff-the-importance-of-antitrust/ https://stratechery.com/2017/light-touch-cable-and-dsl-the-b... Pai was on Marketplace Tech before the vote and specifically mentioned Thompson as for Pai's stance. marketplace tech with molly wood; 12/13/2017: Ajit Pai on what his internet will look like https://overcast.fm/+F6tgDywN0 https://overcast.fm/+F6tgDywN0 I thought it was fascinating that Pai cited Thompson by name.
• nautilus12 9y ago
  This is the biggest story of the year. Whoever got to posting this first is now a hacker news god.
• opensports 9y ago
  Could someone at Y Combinator please find a revolutionary ISP startup and add it to the W18 batch? We got a feature request today: "My next request would be for you to save net neutrality in the U.S. Thanks."
• croatoan 9y ago
  Even Hacker News doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about? You people too huh? Can't be bothered to read the regulations that you supposedly give a shit about, you too?? Fuck man, the amount global social media companies can brainwash people is STUNNING!! READ THE FUCKING DOCUMENTS! The Net Neutrality regulation passed on Feb 26 2015: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015... The 2015 regulation that allows global tech companies to monopolize all information on the internet, strips the FCC of its power to prevent censorship and monopolization, and hands control of the internet to the EU. The Net Neutrality repeal set to be decided on Dec 14 2017: https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1122/DOC-347927A1.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/201... The 2017 repeal of the 2015 NN regulation reverts all the bullshit from the 2015 regulation, eliminates global tech companies control of internet, prevents censorship, and returns the FCC its previous powers(the powers they had for the 20 years before 2015 and never once abused or censored or blocked or throttled with, just like theyve done with radio & phone for 83 years and tv for 50 years). TLDR: READ PAGES 82-87 IN 2017 NN REPEAL.
• dirtbox 9y ago
  This seems like a last gasp attempt to tighten the monopoly, and it's doomed to fail. If nothing else, this will set the wheels in motion to bypass the established ISPs altogether, whether it's via node distribution or banking on Musk's satellite network. Or holding out hope that Google will pick up their fiber business again. Whatever happens, it's going to be interesting.
• sandGorgon 9y ago
  India now becomes the largest consumer internet market in the world with net neutrality enforced - without China and the US in play.
• Exuma 9y ago
  Can someone explain the rebuttal to/flaws in this article? I'm sure the EFF and many other large organizations wouldn't back NN if it weren't truly a good idea, but then again this article also seems to make some good points. http://hustlebear.com/2011/01/05/why-net-neutrality-regulation-is-the-path-to-ending-net-neutrality/ http://hustlebear.com/2011/01/05/why-net-neutrality-regulati...
  • eranation 9y ago
    Interesting read with some interesting points, some make some sense, and I'm all for a fresh look. The article lost me on this quote: "What we need to understand is that while ISPs aren’t currently regulated by the government, they are already severely regulated. Not by government. They are regulated by YOU. You are their customer. You are the boss. You hold the checkbook. ISP companies are regulated by profits. That’s right, profit is the regulator. Like every company that is in business for profit, they have to answer to their customers. All successful businesses are constantly sniffing; trying to figure out what customers want. Profit makes them care about you. Customers will only voluntarily hand over money if it’s worth it. Right now we have de-facto Net Neutrality, because that’s what you want. That’s what we all want." This is the same worn-out saying around "the invisible hand" and "competition will force ISPs to keep net neutrality" Well, it's not like they never tried... there rules are there for a reason. I mean, maybe it will work, but if all ISPs start offering "internet fast lanes" and "social package" (and it's not like companies didn't collude before) then the invisible hand will be infeasible.
• gcb0 9y ago
  why everyone thinks ISP will start to sell internet as tiered tv channels? this is not happening and will not happen. what will, and is happening for the last 3 decades, is that ISP charge to do something they used to beg for: co location of high traffic services. contente providers, lets pick netflix as an example, uses ton of bandwidth. but they already paid for their uplink. now, customers pay for the downlink. and ISP now see their oversold pipes actually being used (what a surprise). so they beg netflix to pretty please place some edge servers on their data centers so they dont pay the expensive outbound traffic. and netflix gladly did that because that cut latency from 300ms to 2ms for those customers. everyone happy. then ISPs started to sell that as a feature for the reduced latency. but if nobody bougth, they would still fall back to begging for them to do that for free. and everyone still happy. now they can outrigth limit how much expensive outbound bandwidth they will spend on netflix content. no matter that the ISP own customers already paid for bandwidth for that service or another. so netflix and all other providers will have to pay a huge premium for colocation (for that great latency reduction feature) or a still high premium simply to not be blocked! the client will just see that they can't connect to netflix. the isp doesnt even have to warn their own users, because there is nothing they can do. netflix is the one who have to pay up. so they will have to charge more and pass that to ISPs. and that is the ISP end game. they can still be afloat after cable cutters moved to streaming platforms they dont own and operate (which is the likely outcome, since all their attempts are falling flat on their faces)
• philonoist 9y ago
  Thank god! Thank Heavens! Thank TRAI (Telecom regulatory authority of India) We specifically opposed tampering net neutrality just this year. But is it just a matter of time for India to follow suit?
• netn123 9y ago
  I haven't seen anyone else post anything along these lines, but doesn't this make it legal for the the government to ask/force/pay ISPs to hide sites (e.g. wikileaks, etc)? Maybe that is why politicians didn't really try to stop it?
  • bo1024 9y ago
    This is one of my biggest medium-to-long-term fears with net neutrality. I doubt that is explicitly in many politician's current game plan, but they will catch on to the possibilities sooner or later. It will start with ISP voluntary censorship of some high-profile clearly controversial sites, probably the Pirate Bay will be the first one to go. Then there will be a gradual creep (not sure what time scale to predict here), and eventually politicians will start reasoning that if ISPs are blocking sites anyway, we might as well order them to block certain others.
• jmswan 9y ago
  All I have to say is this is no longer a free market society. You can buy whatever you want not excluding popular vote... I can't believe we have come to this, but revolution may be the only way out.
  • jy1 9y ago
    Free market means you _can_ buy anything.
    • jmswan 9y ago
      that may be true, but what do you have to offer as a better alternative?
• stevefan1999 9y ago
  This is the darkest day of the Internet. We the customers are now accused for not buying better services, instead of being treated equally and anonymously.
• ziikutv 9y ago
  Heres a thing, I see a lot of comments about starting an indie-ISP of sorts. Simple question: if the monopolies were finally able to break net neutrality laws, don't you think they can likely introduce some bullshit legislation to kill indie-ISPs?
• lsllc 9y ago
  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" This wasn't a fairy tale.
  • Aeolun 9y ago
    "Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses." Or in this case, pizza and Netflix. People will probably start moving once they start visibly messing around with one or the other.
• Proven 9y ago
  Good riddance!
• tomvon 9y ago
  Sorry, I'm calling bullshit on this vote.
• maruhan2 9y ago
  Someone help me find better information on this. Regardless of how "good" the NN regulation is, I think it's a very fair point that this is a regulation for a preemptive and hypothetical scenario that had so far not occurred. Are there enough proof that the scenario isn't hypothetical, and companies have already been doing something unfair?
• febin 9y ago
  I hope this will make innovators build a new powerful internet that is not dependent on telecos. Trump is not going to like it.
• Blazespinnaker 9y ago
  It’s a lot of hang wringing over nothing. Google, amazon, even Apple and Msft rely on a healthy internet. They represent over 2 trillion market cap. They can easily compete with the telecoms.
  • bo1024 9y ago
    First, it's not an issue of "competing with" unless they start their own ISPs or, in the case of Google, restart development on their ISP. Water doesn't compete with the pipe. It just hopes the pipe decides not to squeeze. Second, I doubt many people are crying over Google, Amazon, or someone like Facebook. They already are working on walled gardens and are happy to pay to eliminate competition. They actually don't rely on a healthy (in the sense of open, competitive, or free) internet at all. Small startups and free speech on the other hand does.
• jgeerts 9y ago
  Democracy is fundamentally broken, the examples go far and wide accross the globe. Lobbies are winning from the population and governments don't give a damn about the people who put them in office. How can we fix it?
• maruhan2 9y ago
  The argument of NN being a preemptive regulation on hypothetical future problems and thus could lead to unintentionally hurting "good" entities got me thinking why there can't be a new regulation scheme. I'd call it "conditional enactment". Basically, let us assume we want to regulate A because of a, b, and c reasons. We'll create a "conditional enactment" where it states the regulation proposal with reasons for regulating and the penalty for not abiding by the regulation. This basically acts as a save point where if some entity eventually does do A and qualifies one of those a,b,and c reasons, we'll continue on from that "save point". Now that we'll have more info, we can talk about what the pros and cons of regulating A are, adjust the regulation terms, adjust the punishment, and vote on the revised proposal. If the regulation passes, that entity is now subject to punishment even if the regulation passed after the entity's action was done. Any other entities that did A before the regulation passed is not subject to punishment. This would potentially prevent the unintended side effects of the regulation and allow us to evaluate the state of the regulation while still putting the entities that could create harm in check.
• averagejoe-2018 9y ago
  I’m surprised I haven’t seen more mention of the Neighborhood Network Construction Kit: http://communitytechnology.github.io/docs/cck/ http://communitytechnology.github.io/docs/cck/ I believe it has been partly created by the folks who are building their own internet service in Detroit (more about that at https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kz3xyz/detroit-mesh-network https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kz3xyz/detroit-me...) While the fight rages on for the major providers to commit to being open and fair, I believe it is probably very prudent to simultaneously begin sorting out how we could go about 1) fostering competition and 2) creating community-backed local networks and making them appealing enough (even if just to us tech folks at first) that they start to catch on. If we start at the foundational level (i.e. getting peoples’ homes connected or connectable on a locally-controlled network, wireless or otherwise, regardless of whether that network still links up to a major provider’s backbone in turn, which it would), then we are in a better position to then start looking at linking up those local networks directly to one another (forming regional networks, etc) and also to backbones provided by companies/organizations that commit (in writing) to an open and fair internet. To that last point, I think it might be worthwhile to also explore the possibility of a non-profit organization with values similar to Mozilla finding a way to purchase, build, or otherwise control some of the internet backbone/internet access in America (forgive me, I know very little of what’s all involved at that level, I'm sure it's a herculean task). In any case, this all seems daunting. But I propose that the initial approach is to start small, start local, but use a multi-pronged strategy (e.g. crowdfunding for projects, raising up wireless community networks, advocacy and marketing help for fair and privacy-conscious ISPs, exploration of non-profit backbone formation, etc), and pick up momentum. If there is no real market competition, and we’re subject to monopolies, and those monopolies directly go against the loudly voiced will of their customers and what appears to be the majority of American citizens, then let’s give ‘em hell. It’s not a short-term project. But everything starts somewhere… On my soapbox ------------- We are talking about who controls access to free speech here. As benign as it may seem to some people that an internet provider might be allowed to throttle some bandwidth and block some sites, their monopoly nature means that, under these new rules, they pose a threat of direct censorship of speech that reaches the masses, which in turn directly threatens the liberty of the American citizen. It’s important, both for us and for future generations, to fight this tooth and nail and to even go so far as to rebuild internet access ourselves over the course of years under a new charter if that’s actually what it takes. The internet is the greatest free speech tool we have as citizens. And regardless of whether we believe in regulation or de-regulation, the reality is that a group of monopoly controllers of internet access pushed hard for rules allowing them to throttle, censor, and use our data in ways that make many of us feel uneasy. They wouldn't push that hard if they didn't intend to use these allowances in some way. It’s a legitimate threat. Overcoming this threat is a cause that’s worth thinking about, and acting on behalf of, in big and bold ways. And perhaps we could also solve for some of our ongoing privacy concerns along the way. Because, my god, what person does not wonder if we are slowly sliding away from being citizens who are truly free to speak our minds and not be spied on arbitrarily with a privacy situation such as we are facing, a situation which is already unreasonable and is getting worse. Aren’t you tired of being leveraged against? Hope is not lost. We just have to take it into our own hands and fight the fight. Because that’s what happens when you’re tired of it. In the interim… ...while this gets started, we need to compile a list of internet service providers who will commit in writing on their customer agreements that they will not block or throttle access to content which is lawful. Perhaps we could also find providers willing to commit in writing that they will treat their users’ data as private, not sell our data to third parties, etc. We then need to become loud advocates for these companies. We need to effectively help them with their marketing by raising their visibility up and by encouraging people to switch to them. Imagine how many people would be interested in starting an ISP if they knew that they would get free marketing! In other words, I propose that we mourn the state of things quickly and then transition into action. If nothing else, that might just be the most effective form of protest we could engage in. In fact, I think this might be the form of protest that works best today in a variety of realms...don’t just hold signs and march, don’t just voice frustration in venues, instead simply begin creating what you want to see...and don’t give up.
• mlindner 9y ago
  Good riddance.
• HappyDreamer 9y ago
  Soon more and more people will have access to Facebook & such stuff only, but not the real Internet? It'll get simpler, in the next presidential election in the US, for Trump and Putin to win again, via Facebook propaganda & ads?
• hajderr 9y ago
  That's a great country
• putinontheritz 9y ago
  >I worked at ISPs, have backbone engineer friends, and candidly: I think this issue is silly. But if it's yours... sigh... Reqlly? Why?
• ainiriand 9y ago
  Can't we just interconnect our routers using wifi and deliver the content ourselves? Using our own network. Using a blockchain to deliver p2p data like Ethereum does. I wish we could do that and screw the telecoms.
• gerbilly 9y ago
  What I don't get, is how come the advertising industry isn't opposing this? How are the ad trackers going to track you across the entire internet now if ISPs are going to partition it into packages? If you don't get the facebook package, or whatever, doesn't that mean that facebook won't get to know all the other sites you visit?
• nautilus12 9y ago
  So can someone explain what this could mean on the consumer side? I've been mostly thinking about it from the producer side and how tech companies will have to pay a premium for fast service to be delivered to users, but I'm seeing the packages and wondering if as a consumer I would have to call up my ISP to add a random site that I want to access to my service. How would like aggregation sites like Reddit or Ycombinator even work then? I dont know enough about what ISP's can and cannot do to answer this question for myself.
• jonnycomputer 9y ago
  wow, that's a lot of comments. (: