21 ms·

The Repeal of Net Neutrality Is Official

633 points by mcargian 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Bakary 8y ago
It will be interesting to see whether American and European views of the internet converge or diverge in the long term. I've noticed that American norms tend to flow towards the old world, and the reverse is rarely true, the GDPR being the most impressive counter-example I've seen. Or perhaps we will all move towards something similar to the Chinese model?
- MichaelApproved 8y ago
  The story isn't over within the United States. Many states are defying the FCCs interpretation and enacting their own version of net neutrality. It's going to be interesting to see if the FCC tries to strike those local laws down and how ISPs will handle the things from State to state.
  - juliangoldsmith 8y ago
    I don't think the FCC would have the power to strike down local laws, if they even had any desire to. The best they could probably do would be a lawsuit, but the states would be well within their rights to add new laws on top of federal ones.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      What makes you so confident the FCC couldn't win in court? My understanding is that states have some right to additionally regulate, but only to the extent that federal law allows it.
      - blind_boy_grunt 8y ago
        In Tennessee v. FCC, [1] the FCC, under the authority of §706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, attempted to preempt state laws that prohibit municipalities from building their own broadband networks under certain circumstances (these laws were obviously lobbied and passed by ISPs in the state legislatures). This was struck down by courts because, although the supremacy clause means that federal law supplants state law, the federal law at hand was so far removed from what the FCC was doing in this particular case, that the FCC was essentially creating "directives" which overruled state law in pursuit of a vague goal that was defined in federal law. In essence, federal administrators/bureaucrats had the power to overrule state law. Although the ISPs "won" in that decision, it cuts both ways -- which means that any attempt by the FCC to preempt net neutrality regulations under §706 is likely to fail as well. Sorry if my take is a little confusing, here is some more coverage: [2], [3]. [1] http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/16a0189p-06.pdf http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/16a0189p-06.pdf [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/10/fcc-loses-bid-to-preempt-municipal-broadband-laws-in-tennessee-n-c/#7e9e24a64e7f https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/10/fcc-los... [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-muni-broadband-fcc-loses-bid-to-overturn-state-laws/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-muni-...
        Avshalom 8y ago
        Problem is: if New Mexico passes a Net Neutrality law but all of the Netflix data centers are in Arizona it's suddenly going to be "interstate commerce"
        ashelmire 8y ago
        Something being interstate commerce does not prevent states from legislating on it. Under that logic, states couldn't regulate the sale of anything produced in another state, which is obviously untrue.
        Avshalom 8y ago
        no it just means that the federal government has constitutional power to over rule it if they feel like it, no need to argue on the basis of any existing case law.
    - cavanasm 8y ago
      So it's a little more complicated than that? In their repeal, the FCC argued that the FCC had no authority to enact net neutrality or regulate ISPs. Prior to that, the FCC was considered to have had absolute authority over the issue and it was generally felt states had no standing on the issue. So states are seizing on the FCC saying they can't regulate it, while the FCC is now trying to claw back their argument and claim ISPs exist in a regulatory void where no one can regulate them until Congress passes new legislation.
      - juliangoldsmith 8y ago
        >the FCC is now trying to claw back their argument How so? Based on what I've read, I've gotten the impression that the Internet will be primarily regulated by the FTC, instead of the FCC. That would mean that ISPs aren't able to engage in anticompetitive practices, but are pretty free otherwise. I haven't heard anything about states' standing on the issue. Unless there are explicit federal laws saying that the government can't regulate the Internet (which seems unlikely), it's pretty cut-and-dried that states would be able to pass legislation to affect ISPs in their jurisdiction.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      There's a concept called "preemption" in US law. If a state and the federal government has laws that conflict, federal law wins and the state's law is voided. What this means is that if the federal government wishes to regulate something, it can direct that the states' regulations are circumscribed or voided. The FCC first tried to regulate net neutrality, but that was struck down by a court as beyond its remit, since ISPs weren't common carriers. So the FCC declared that ISPs were in fact eligible for Title II regulation, which effects preemption of state-level regulations. Except the current administration has had the FCC declare that ISPs are not Title II carriers, and therefore FCC has no right to regulate them... which makes it difficult to argue that the federal regulations (which no longer exist) can preempt state regulations.
      - 0xfeba 8y ago
        > Since ISPs weren't common carriers Cable ISPs weren't/aren't. Dial-up ISPs have been under Title II since the 90s. That is, net neutrality applies if you access the internet via dial-up, but not via cable/fiber.
        0xfeba 8y ago
        Correction -- Dial-up ISPs have been under Title II since the 80s up until 2005.
  - 0xfeba 8y ago
    > states are defying the FCCs interpretation and enacting their own version of net neutrality. Just for internet access from government entities, schools, administrations, etc.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > It will be interesting to see whether American and European views of the internet converge or diverge in the long term. I've noticed that American norms tend to flow towards the old world, and the reverse is rarely true, the GDPR being the most impressive counter-example I've seen. This is a pretty common meme, but it's hardly true. For example, from a proposal introduced (ironically) on the same day GDPR enforcement began: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/eus-copyright-proposal-extremely-bad-news-everyone-even-especially-wikipedia https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/eus-copyright-proposal.... On the matter of copyright: while the US takes a lot of flak for its treatment of copyright law in a number of high-profile cases, in a lot of ways, Europe has consistently led the trend towards more corporate-friendly copyright law. The first extension of copyright terms in the US was actually done explicitly to harmonize US law with European law at the time (though it's since been extended further). Furthermore, several EU countries already have much stricter laws or stricter enforcement of laws that make it more difficult to access content over Bittorrent - including content shared legally! - compared to the US. The UK already has passed laws banning a whole slew of pornography that's legal in most of the world (including the rest of the EU and the US), and laws requiring identity verification for accessing pornographic sites.
  - Bakary 8y ago
    Thanks for alerting me to this. Regarding the UK, it does indeed appear to be on a different track than the other European nations and the US, but I might be operating under an incorrect impression as before.
- wooter 8y ago
  If the "new world" involves anti free speech laws which get you a visit from the police for nonviolent facebook posts, bans on porn, the regressive gdpr law, useless cookie laws, tragic lack of startups, etc. I'll take the American system please and thank you.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    You mean like being jailed for your dog giving a Nazi salute, or becsuse you blogged on some rapists and mentioned their religion? Yes, American system is vastly preferable to that.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Please don't feed the trolls.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I think we need a "US vs EU whataboutism" equivalent of Godwin's Law, based on the fact that every single discussion on this site seems to devolve into this in short order.
colanderman 8y ago
Kudos to the NYT for leading with an accessible and informative description of the discriminatory consequences of the repeal of net neutrality, rather than the nonsensical, meaningless, and ultimately harmful "it will allow ISPs to charge more for faster service!" line that is often parroted by the media.
fortythirteen 8y ago
I'm interested in whether one of the two extreme sides of this debate will admit they were wrong when their prediction doesn't pan out. Either we wind up with a tiered, cable package style internet or we don't. I'm in the "we won't" camp", but I'm also more disturbed by the monopolistic nature of ISP's that the regulations emboldened.
- nsxwolf 8y ago
  And what if we get tiered internet... and consumers like it? "All the websites I use for one low price? Wow!" Internet nerds assume the public at large shares their romantic ideals of the open web but that might not be true.
  - rc_mob 8y ago
    Yeah the general public can be really stupid at times.
  - bthrm 8y ago
    Count me in. I never watch HD video, which is a huge % of all the traffic of every ISP. I wish I could pay less money for an internet connection that was cheaper in exchange for not being able to watch HD video.
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      Do you really want a slower connection, or just a smaller data package? I'm ok with the latter - pay for what you use. The former, especially if it's bundled by content provider, worries me.
    - hexane360 8y ago
      You can already do this.
  - zoul 8y ago
    This is already happening here in the Czech Republic with some of the mobile carriers. They exclude some websites or services from the mobile data limit, spinning it exactly as you said: as a service to the subscriber. Looks like an obvious neutrality violation to me, but the current EU legislation seems to be too weak to strike it down immediately. What’s worse, the media don’t seem to care.
aswanson 8y ago
I want to take the devils advocate position here and ask: why shouldn't a vendor be allowed to charge more for tiered service? With FANG and other tech companies sitting on so much cash, why cant they build out competing networks if the prices get too high or the services they want to deliver require them? Wont the consumer benefit from this?
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  The standing argument tends to claim there's not enough competition and therefore there aren't ways to get non-tiered service. Allegedly. Personally, I think there's a ton of possibilities for non-neutral Internet service. For instance, arguably, you could sell single-purpose wireless connections for some types of devices, say an IoT device, which has predictable data usage patterns, potentially subsidized by an IoT vendor. But with net neutrality, it'd likely be illegal to prevent someone from popping that SIM card in their phone and streaming Netflix with it. Right now, the choice for home users tends to be "low speed" or "high speed". Unfortunately, that means low usage users like my grandma, either have to pay as much as I do for Internet, or have slow-as-frozen-molasses Internet access. Whereas if she could pay for a plan that didn't work with Netflix and YouTube, but was delivered at high speed, she'd be all set since she doesn't use streaming video.
  - smt88 8y ago
    Net neutrality didn't stop pricing based on the amount of bandwidth used, which solves the problem you're describing.
  - swebs 8y ago
    Or you could just keep everything the same for end users, but start charging Netflix and Google for their share since they use up over 90% of all internet traffic.
    - hexane360 8y ago
      Here's how you can tell someone knows nothing about the economics of the Internet.
zer0faith 8y ago
Does this mean that ISPs can block users from connecting to known VPNs or the TOR/P2P type networks without any recourse?
- ddalex 8y ago
  yes, you'd probably need to pay for a business account to get VPN access anyway
  - chx 8y ago
    I am intrigued: do you know of any good writeups on how to discern the SSL-VPN traffic of Cisco AnyConnect from SSL-HTTP traffic of a browser?
    - erikb 8y ago
      I have no details but wouldn't be surprised if especially Cisco announces as metadata something like "this package is encrypted by Cisco AnyConnect version 1.2.3 https://cisco.com/" https://cisco.com/".
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      Studying TLS encapsulated traffic has been around for a long time. I remember one thing that was really obvious to detect was a TCP handshake occurring inside a TLS session. That's how China is able to block TLS VPNs. Although the practice is a bit of a continuous arms race between obfuscation and detection.
- ep103 8y ago
  This comment has been blocked from submission by the Comcast political encouragement network.
duxup 8y ago
I do not look forward to having to pay for a "performance gaming" or "performance VPN" or "awesome streaming video" package... I have one ISP in my area that offers speeds above 5m consistently :(
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  There's absolutely nothing wrong with vendors offering different QoS for different scenarios. Why would no not what a specialized network option for 'super low latency' for things like games? Or if you don't use any kind of streaming, then why not get cheaper rates for 'super high latency'? This is good, it's their job. Where it gets ugly is if they start discriminating between customers, i.e. Netflix has to pay $X while their parent companies other asset, HBO only has to pay $Y. Or if you have a 'Facebook package' that optimizes for FB or something like that. So QoS, yes, content discrimination, no.
  - calcifer 8y ago
    Because all I want is a dumb pipe. I don't pay the water company based on how wide their pipes are (backbone bandwith) or how far I am from their treatment center (latency); I pay based on consumption alone, as it should be. Why do you think Internet access needs to be treated any differently?
    - hokumguru 8y ago
      But you do pay the water company based on how much water you use. Why shouldn't certain providers like, say, Netflix, not have to pay more when they use nearly 40% of the pipe? (https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-bandwidth-usage-internet-traffic-1201507187/ https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-bandwidth-usag...).
      - calcifer 8y ago
        > But you do pay the water company based on how much water you use. Yes, I do as the consumer of that water. In this analogy Netflix would be the dam operator, so why would a particular dam pay more to the pipe company than another dam?
WallWextra 8y ago
I think what we'll really see in practice is this being used for political purposes, with pressure groups getting ISPs to block so-called "hate" or "extremist" sites. The stuff about service tiers seems less likely and less concerning.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I think blocking content and net neutrality are mostly totally different issues. (Although content blocking I guess is one subset of NN). It's interesting because, due to free speech laws in the US, ISPs can't really block anything. But they are required to monitor and report people who transfer illegal content: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/microsoft-employees-child-abuse-lawsuit-ptsd https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/microsoft... That being said, big tech does have the power to squish people they don't like, as I wrote about a while back: https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-censorship/ https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-...
  - WallWextra 8y ago
    What are the free speech laws that prevent ISPs from blocking controversial content?
goombastic 8y ago
The USA is effectively becoming an innovation black hole from all angles of late. I predict people moving away until only the ultra right remains.
- pweissbrod 8y ago
  Doubtful. You underestimate the inertia of resources. Wages for tech are more competitive in the US. I also bet if your prediction started to become true then lobbyists would push regulations to reduce the brain drain. That being said I'm a US citizen that thinks about moving increasingly all the time.
  - Retric 8y ago
    US is already experiencing a significant brain drain. This is currently offset by new immigrants, but if you look at how many talented people are leaving it's shocking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_Sta...
    - drukenemo 8y ago
      Do you have have any data on that? Asking as I'm considering moving to the US and the climate there matters to me.
      - Retric 8y ago
        Exact numbers are hard to come by. The United States does not keep track of emigration, and counts of Americans abroad are thus only available courtesy of statistics kept by the destination countries. As of June 2016, the State department's consular section estimated that there are 9 million non-military U.S. citizens living abroad,[3][4] an increase from the 4 million estimated in 1999. The above includes many retirees, who find their retirement incomes stretch further abroad. But, it also includes a lot of PHD students who have troubles finding academic jobs inside the US etc.
      - dv_dt 8y ago
radisb 8y ago
"Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited." That begs the question: Why then do they oppose the rules if only to start engaging in the practices they prohibit?
- imran3740 8y ago
  The argument goes that ex-ante regulation imposes unnecessary costs in the form of regulatory compliance for smaller businesses, erecting a higher barrier for entry into the ISP market. Or something like that.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    I'd be more sympathetic to that if this FCC had done anything productive to expand the competitive landscape for ISPs. Where I live we have exactly two choices, and one is satellite based.
    - imran3740 8y ago
      I mean, that is what Pai claims to be doing here: reducing regulatory burden on smaller ISPs so that more can compete. "Monday, we are ending this flawed approach and allowing smaller internet service providers to focus their efforts on deploying more broadband, connecting more Americans with digital opportunity, and offering more competition in the marketplace." [1] [1]: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect-a-free-and-open-internet/ https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect...
      - striking 8y ago
        Right, but many areas have entered into township agreements where only one provider is allowed to provide service to residents. These agreements carry fun legal print like requiring the town to reconvene with the provider before the agreement can be terminated... at which point, the provider will give whatever benefits the smaller provider was intending to provide and then some. I don't buy it. This won't change anything. Except for how less useful your internet connection would be. If the focus were on smaller ISPs, why not make the new rules target only smaller ISPs instead of all of them?
baggachipz 8y ago
> “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation, which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-competitive monopolist” Mr. Pai said So clearly we have no established precedent(1) of this sort of behavior in the past and happening again before our very eyes. Suggesting that these rules were conjured out of hysteria is not only wrong, it's insulting. But that's to be expected from a corporate shill. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
- croon 8y ago
  A short summary of events spanning from 2005 up to now: https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...
- ep103 8y ago
  Corrupt bureaucrat. We're talking about a man who flew to Barcelona to collect a bribe before passing this regulatory change.
  - acdha 8y ago
    Do you have a citation for that? It’s a serious enough charge that it should never be made without one.
    - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
      I googled for it. I believe the other person is referring to the dinner meeting mentioned here: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Met-With-Ajit-Pai-in-Barcelona-Shortly-After-Cohen-Payment-141844 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Met-With-Ajit-Pai-in-...
    - badkungfu 8y ago
      https://www.americanoversight.org/watchdog-demands-details-of-private-meeting-between-fcc-and-att-executive-who-hired-trump-lawyer https://www.americanoversight.org/watchdog-demands-details-o... "[F]lew to Barcelona to collect a bribe before passing this regulatory change" seems too strong a claim, but there should be serious questions after AT&T paid Cohen and also got a meeting that was off the record. I don't imagine it actually changed Pai's opinion, but it seems unethical.
justherefortart 8y ago
They're blocking it already and have been for years. I have to pay for "business" internet so I can run my own servers. The internet isn't remotely open, just another cash cow for businesses to soak every last dollar along the way.
sandworm101 8y ago
Incorrect title. Americans thave opted out of net neutrality. We canadians are keeping it, so too many other countries. It is still a thing for much/most of the world. Title should reflect that this is happing in only one country. The rest of us are watching rome burn. We would like to help put out the fire, but the romans seem intent on burning down thier own houses. Just over half of them seems rather happy about the situation. The rest arent putting up much of a fight.
- ep103 8y ago
  35% of the country is being taught to burn down their own houses, to make room for Versailles imitations after they leave.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  The headline if for an article written by an American newspaper about an American situation. It isn't necessary for EVERY single article written in America about an American situation to specify it as being 'in America' in the headline. 90% of the headlines would have to include 'in America'. The article makes it clear who they are talking about.
- frockington 8y ago
  Is that why I see all of the tech innovation happening in Canada? I couldn't even name one Canadian tech company
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micah63 8y ago
I feel very happy to be a Canadian right now. The CRTC's (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) laws on net neutrality are considered to be some of the strictest laws in the world. Here is a great quote from a 2017 music streaming case requiring all data to be counted against a user's data cap, regardless of its source: "the aim [of] the decision was to encourage Internet service providers to compete on price, speed and network quality instead of acting as a gatekeeper." - Chairman of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais
- riquito 8y ago
  And yet Canada has one of the highest costs for Internet bandwith (~80 CAD for 75 Mbps, data capped at 500gb), no phone costs covered (another ~80 cad month)
  - WhiskeyJack88 8y ago
    Ya, it's pretty bad. Resellers are at least at a little nicer. There's rules regarding how much Canadian Telecoms have to charge resellers access to the network. I get 150Mbps for $70 no data cap from a reseller called VMedia. But we are generally hosed in Canada for internet services.
    - orthecreedence 8y ago
      I'm in the heart of San Francisco, and I get 40Mbps at $90/mo USD (Comcast). Kind of pathetic that that's my only option in the tech capital of the world.
      - jteppinette 8y ago
        I get 1Gbps up/down at $60 per month through webpass... also live in San Francisco
        orthecreedence 8y ago
        Not available where I am =[
iron0013 8y ago
I'm having a hard time finding a link to the results of congressional votes related to net neutrality. Does anyone know which politicians voted for it, and which against? Which party did most of the pro-neutrality politicians belong to, and which party did most of the anti-net neutrality politicians belong to? I'm eager to vote for pro-NN politicians, so I'd like to know.
- iampims 8y ago
  Let’s vote all of the anti-NN out of office, that’s the only leverage we have left.
  - iron0013 8y ago
    I agree! We can talk ourselves blue in the face, but the only thing that will result in real positive change is to vote against anti-net neutrality politicians in November. I have some vague idea, but I'd like to see the actual vote counts by party affiliation. Does anyone have a link, or could provide this info?
    - hexane360 8y ago
      https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/50-senators-will-vote-for-net-neutrality-but-they-need-one-more-republican/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/50-senators-will... http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/net-neutrality-legislation-in-states.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-informat... All Democrats and only one Republican supported it in the Senate. In state legislatures, all bills were proposed by Democrats. There's one party that is destroying Net Neutrality, and one party that is trying to save it.
      - iron0013 8y ago
        Good to know, thanks! It seems like the only rational thing for a Net Neutrality supporter to do is vote the Republican politicians in Washington out of office this November.
shmerl 8y ago
> “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation, which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-competitive monopolist” Mr. Pai said No need to presume. Most of ISPs are. So US is making a shift from having some (not even sufficient) safeguards, to letting those monopolists abuse their monopolistic position to fleece their users left and right and limit their choices. Too much weasel wording Mr. Pai?
brokovich2323 8y ago
I am surprised that no one on HN is discussing what I consider an important point of the repeal, namely clipping the wings if the federal government (a good thing), and letting states decide for themselves how they want to regulate internet access. Heck, I'd even be in favour of this being regulated at the municipal level, to curtail state power.
- detaro 8y ago
  How is it "clipping the wings of the federal government" if a federal agency decides itself to stop making rules about something? It can unfold it wings again at any time.
  - brokovich2323 8y ago
    Doesn't really matters if it's self-inflicted. The result is the same: the fed have removed a regulation at the federal level. The state are now free to choose what they do. States who make the "wrong" choice will get get punished economically. Free market. Nothing bad about it.
    - arrosenberg 8y ago
      Meanwhile, the people in those states suffer. How is that better for the people of this country? Without getting too deep down the rabbit hole of representation and balance of power in many states, Federal regulation generally exists to protect people in States that refuse to make the "right" choice, as you put it. Removing Federal regulation isn't a net-good by default — in this case the regulation served a legitimate purpose to protect consumers and should have been left alone.
- bmpafa 8y ago
  Saying a curtailment of federal authority is necessarily a good thing makes you sound like an ideologue. Government isn't intrinsically good or bad, and there is no ideal amount of it. Case by case we should decide when the public's interests are served by having a voice in a marketplace besides the money we spend.
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segmondy 8y ago
How I plan to protest. I'll use as little internet as possible if need be. I'll not upgrade to any expensive "special package". I'll support municipal broadband and will volunteer time and efforts even for cities not near me.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  I considered shamming people working for these companies. I give my dad a hard time for working at Blue Cross. Remember that these organizations are people, every cog is responsible this.
tzs 8y ago
> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited That's because those practices were prohibited by the 2010 rules. There was only a year between the court striking down the 2010 rules in early 2014 and the FCC adopting the 2015 rules in early 2015. The court that overturned the 2010 rules told the FCC how they could fix them, and the FCC got to work on that right away, so the ISPs knew that replacement rules would come out soon. Of course no sane ISP made any changes during that year.
- aphextron 8y ago
  > Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited This whole thing just has me stumped as to how we even got into this position. How in the hell does a single bureaucrat have this kind of power in the US to make a unilateral decision affecting millions of people and billions of dollars in commerce?
  - huntertwo 8y ago
    He’s the scapegoat for all the other government officials on both sides of the aisle who have had their pockets filled up by the telecom industry.
    - foobarbazetc 8y ago
      Came for “both sides”, was not disappointed.
    - sdhgaiojfsa 8y ago
      If they are really filling the Dems' pockets, the money's not buying them much influence, is it?
      - stickdogg 8y ago
        Lol. I don't know if they necessarily care about influence on this topic more than they do money in their pockets.
rconti 8y ago
Cool. Now where's my FTTH?
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited. But this is a bald-faced lie, and the proof is in the public record; while there was en evolving approach to enforcing the open internet principles prior to the 2015 Title II rules (in large part because the prior approaches were struck down by the courts, forcing changes in approach), there is a long line of enforcement actions by the FCC against ISPs for actions that would be in violation of the 2015 rules. ISPs blocking legal P2P traffic, ISPs blocking legal VoIP services, etc.
Zentgraf1 8y ago
Just leave that country.. It is as good or mehr in literally any other developed country.
itissid 8y ago
Will our institutions be incompetent under this administration? Maybe. Can they be incompetent, period? Sure, its like swinging a dead cat and hitting the target. Checkout exhibit A: https://www.propublica.org/article/us-immigration-agency-will-lose-millions-process-visas-fast-enough https://www.propublica.org/article/us-immigration-agency-wil...
amachefe 8y ago
A fair reporting of the news. Really understand both sides
booleandilemma 8y ago
Naive question: is it foreseeable that Google or someone else could take advantage of 5G technology and we could all just abandon cable/DSL companies and handle all our data needs wirelessly?
diebir 8y ago
As usual, the republicans work against the will and simply against the American people. The environment, the Internet, the economy. Just vote the SOBs out next time around, please.
robertwalsh0 8y ago
Welp, the Senate did what they could to overturn this. Thanks House of Reps https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/16/611598361/senate-approves-overturning-fccs-net-neutrality-repeal https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/16/611598361...
daveheq 8y ago
The proper rules are Congress writing updated laws for the internet and VOIP (and then letting the proper agency/ies regulate them) but of course they're too out of touch and bought-off to make anything sensible.
olleromam91 8y ago
If the United States want's to compete with other nations...its best bet is to have an informed population. An internet where information is on a pay to play basis will cut out the poor and weakest links...leaving a massive portion of the population under-informed. How does this make sense in a national security capacity?? Completely backwards .
- smogcutter 8y ago
  What's information on now, an SEO to play basis? A buy targeted ads to play basis? Not arguing against net neutrality by any means, but if an informed populace is really the goal then the ISPs are a side show.
transfire 8y ago
Let the deconstruction of the Internet begin! "And with your Internet package, which search engine would like? ... And which streaming services? ... Oh, Netflix is only available in our premium package which will cost $20 more a month..."

633 points by mcargian 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

It will be interesting to see whether American and European views of the internet converge or diverge in the long term. I've noticed that American norms tend to flow towards the old world, and the reverse is rarely true, the GDPR being the most impressive counter-example I've seen. Or perhaps we will all move towards something similar to the Chinese model?

MichaelApproved 8y ago
The story isn't over within the United States. Many states are defying the FCCs interpretation and enacting their own version of net neutrality. It's going to be interesting to see if the FCC tries to strike those local laws down and how ISPs will handle the things from State to state.
- juliangoldsmith 8y ago
  I don't think the FCC would have the power to strike down local laws, if they even had any desire to. The best they could probably do would be a lawsuit, but the states would be well within their rights to add new laws on top of federal ones.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    What makes you so confident the FCC couldn't win in court? My understanding is that states have some right to additionally regulate, but only to the extent that federal law allows it.
    - blind_boy_grunt 8y ago
      In Tennessee v. FCC, [1] the FCC, under the authority of §706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, attempted to preempt state laws that prohibit municipalities from building their own broadband networks under certain circumstances (these laws were obviously lobbied and passed by ISPs in the state legislatures). This was struck down by courts because, although the supremacy clause means that federal law supplants state law, the federal law at hand was so far removed from what the FCC was doing in this particular case, that the FCC was essentially creating "directives" which overruled state law in pursuit of a vague goal that was defined in federal law. In essence, federal administrators/bureaucrats had the power to overrule state law. Although the ISPs "won" in that decision, it cuts both ways -- which means that any attempt by the FCC to preempt net neutrality regulations under §706 is likely to fail as well. Sorry if my take is a little confusing, here is some more coverage: [2], [3]. [1] http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/16a0189p-06.pdf http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/16a0189p-06.pdf [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/10/fcc-loses-bid-to-preempt-municipal-broadband-laws-in-tennessee-n-c/#7e9e24a64e7f https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/10/fcc-los... [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-muni-broadband-fcc-loses-bid-to-overturn-state-laws/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-muni-...
      - Avshalom 8y ago
        Problem is: if New Mexico passes a Net Neutrality law but all of the Netflix data centers are in Arizona it's suddenly going to be "interstate commerce"
        ashelmire 8y ago
        Something being interstate commerce does not prevent states from legislating on it. Under that logic, states couldn't regulate the sale of anything produced in another state, which is obviously untrue.
        Avshalom 8y ago
        no it just means that the federal government has constitutional power to over rule it if they feel like it, no need to argue on the basis of any existing case law.
  - cavanasm 8y ago
    So it's a little more complicated than that? In their repeal, the FCC argued that the FCC had no authority to enact net neutrality or regulate ISPs. Prior to that, the FCC was considered to have had absolute authority over the issue and it was generally felt states had no standing on the issue. So states are seizing on the FCC saying they can't regulate it, while the FCC is now trying to claw back their argument and claim ISPs exist in a regulatory void where no one can regulate them until Congress passes new legislation.
    - juliangoldsmith 8y ago
      >the FCC is now trying to claw back their argument How so? Based on what I've read, I've gotten the impression that the Internet will be primarily regulated by the FTC, instead of the FCC. That would mean that ISPs aren't able to engage in anticompetitive practices, but are pretty free otherwise. I haven't heard anything about states' standing on the issue. Unless there are explicit federal laws saying that the government can't regulate the Internet (which seems unlikely), it's pretty cut-and-dried that states would be able to pass legislation to affect ISPs in their jurisdiction.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    There's a concept called "preemption" in US law. If a state and the federal government has laws that conflict, federal law wins and the state's law is voided. What this means is that if the federal government wishes to regulate something, it can direct that the states' regulations are circumscribed or voided. The FCC first tried to regulate net neutrality, but that was struck down by a court as beyond its remit, since ISPs weren't common carriers. So the FCC declared that ISPs were in fact eligible for Title II regulation, which effects preemption of state-level regulations. Except the current administration has had the FCC declare that ISPs are not Title II carriers, and therefore FCC has no right to regulate them... which makes it difficult to argue that the federal regulations (which no longer exist) can preempt state regulations.
    - 0xfeba 8y ago
      > Since ISPs weren't common carriers Cable ISPs weren't/aren't. Dial-up ISPs have been under Title II since the 90s. That is, net neutrality applies if you access the internet via dial-up, but not via cable/fiber.
      - 0xfeba 8y ago
        Correction -- Dial-up ISPs have been under Title II since the 80s up until 2005.
- 0xfeba 8y ago
  > states are defying the FCCs interpretation and enacting their own version of net neutrality. Just for internet access from government entities, schools, administrations, etc.
chimeracoder 8y ago
> It will be interesting to see whether American and European views of the internet converge or diverge in the long term. I've noticed that American norms tend to flow towards the old world, and the reverse is rarely true, the GDPR being the most impressive counter-example I've seen. This is a pretty common meme, but it's hardly true. For example, from a proposal introduced (ironically) on the same day GDPR enforcement began: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/eus-copyright-proposal-extremely-bad-news-everyone-even-especially-wikipedia https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/eus-copyright-proposal.... On the matter of copyright: while the US takes a lot of flak for its treatment of copyright law in a number of high-profile cases, in a lot of ways, Europe has consistently led the trend towards more corporate-friendly copyright law. The first extension of copyright terms in the US was actually done explicitly to harmonize US law with European law at the time (though it's since been extended further). Furthermore, several EU countries already have much stricter laws or stricter enforcement of laws that make it more difficult to access content over Bittorrent - including content shared legally! - compared to the US. The UK already has passed laws banning a whole slew of pornography that's legal in most of the world (including the rest of the EU and the US), and laws requiring identity verification for accessing pornographic sites.
- Bakary 8y ago
  Thanks for alerting me to this. Regarding the UK, it does indeed appear to be on a different track than the other European nations and the US, but I might be operating under an incorrect impression as before.
wooter 8y ago
If the "new world" involves anti free speech laws which get you a visit from the police for nonviolent facebook posts, bans on porn, the regressive gdpr law, useless cookie laws, tragic lack of startups, etc. I'll take the American system please and thank you.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  You mean like being jailed for your dog giving a Nazi salute, or becsuse you blogged on some rapists and mentioned their religion? Yes, American system is vastly preferable to that.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Please don't feed the trolls.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I think we need a "US vs EU whataboutism" equivalent of Godwin's Law, based on the fact that every single discussion on this site seems to devolve into this in short order.

colanderman 8y ago

Kudos to the NYT for leading with an accessible and informative description of the discriminatory consequences of the repeal of net neutrality, rather than the nonsensical, meaningless, and ultimately harmful "it will allow ISPs to charge more for faster service!" line that is often parroted by the media.

fortythirteen 8y ago

I'm interested in whether one of the two extreme sides of this debate will admit they were wrong when their prediction doesn't pan out. Either we wind up with a tiered, cable package style internet or we don't. I'm in the "we won't" camp", but I'm also more disturbed by the monopolistic nature of ISP's that the regulations emboldened.

nsxwolf 8y ago
And what if we get tiered internet... and consumers like it? "All the websites I use for one low price? Wow!" Internet nerds assume the public at large shares their romantic ideals of the open web but that might not be true.
- rc_mob 8y ago
  Yeah the general public can be really stupid at times.
- bthrm 8y ago
  Count me in. I never watch HD video, which is a huge % of all the traffic of every ISP. I wish I could pay less money for an internet connection that was cheaper in exchange for not being able to watch HD video.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    Do you really want a slower connection, or just a smaller data package? I'm ok with the latter - pay for what you use. The former, especially if it's bundled by content provider, worries me.
  - hexane360 8y ago
    You can already do this.
- zoul 8y ago
  This is already happening here in the Czech Republic with some of the mobile carriers. They exclude some websites or services from the mobile data limit, spinning it exactly as you said: as a service to the subscriber. Looks like an obvious neutrality violation to me, but the current EU legislation seems to be too weak to strike it down immediately. What’s worse, the media don’t seem to care.

aswanson 8y ago

I want to take the devils advocate position here and ask: why shouldn't a vendor be allowed to charge more for tiered service? With FANG and other tech companies sitting on so much cash, why cant they build out competing networks if the prices get too high or the services they want to deliver require them? Wont the consumer benefit from this?

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
The standing argument tends to claim there's not enough competition and therefore there aren't ways to get non-tiered service. Allegedly. Personally, I think there's a ton of possibilities for non-neutral Internet service. For instance, arguably, you could sell single-purpose wireless connections for some types of devices, say an IoT device, which has predictable data usage patterns, potentially subsidized by an IoT vendor. But with net neutrality, it'd likely be illegal to prevent someone from popping that SIM card in their phone and streaming Netflix with it. Right now, the choice for home users tends to be "low speed" or "high speed". Unfortunately, that means low usage users like my grandma, either have to pay as much as I do for Internet, or have slow-as-frozen-molasses Internet access. Whereas if she could pay for a plan that didn't work with Netflix and YouTube, but was delivered at high speed, she'd be all set since she doesn't use streaming video.
- smt88 8y ago
  Net neutrality didn't stop pricing based on the amount of bandwidth used, which solves the problem you're describing.
- swebs 8y ago
  Or you could just keep everything the same for end users, but start charging Netflix and Google for their share since they use up over 90% of all internet traffic.
  - hexane360 8y ago
    Here's how you can tell someone knows nothing about the economics of the Internet.

zer0faith 8y ago

Does this mean that ISPs can block users from connecting to known VPNs or the TOR/P2P type networks without any recourse?

ddalex 8y ago
yes, you'd probably need to pay for a business account to get VPN access anyway
- chx 8y ago
  I am intrigued: do you know of any good writeups on how to discern the SSL-VPN traffic of Cisco AnyConnect from SSL-HTTP traffic of a browser?
  - erikb 8y ago
    I have no details but wouldn't be surprised if especially Cisco announces as metadata something like "this package is encrypted by Cisco AnyConnect version 1.2.3 https://cisco.com/" https://cisco.com/".
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    Studying TLS encapsulated traffic has been around for a long time. I remember one thing that was really obvious to detect was a TCP handshake occurring inside a TLS session. That's how China is able to block TLS VPNs. Although the practice is a bit of a continuous arms race between obfuscation and detection.
ep103 8y ago
This comment has been blocked from submission by the Comcast political encouragement network.

duxup 8y ago

I do not look forward to having to pay for a "performance gaming" or "performance VPN" or "awesome streaming video" package... I have one ISP in my area that offers speeds above 5m consistently :(

sonnyblarney 8y ago
There's absolutely nothing wrong with vendors offering different QoS for different scenarios. Why would no not what a specialized network option for 'super low latency' for things like games? Or if you don't use any kind of streaming, then why not get cheaper rates for 'super high latency'? This is good, it's their job. Where it gets ugly is if they start discriminating between customers, i.e. Netflix has to pay $X while their parent companies other asset, HBO only has to pay $Y. Or if you have a 'Facebook package' that optimizes for FB or something like that. So QoS, yes, content discrimination, no.
- calcifer 8y ago
  Because all I want is a dumb pipe. I don't pay the water company based on how wide their pipes are (backbone bandwith) or how far I am from their treatment center (latency); I pay based on consumption alone, as it should be. Why do you think Internet access needs to be treated any differently?
  - hokumguru 8y ago
    But you do pay the water company based on how much water you use. Why shouldn't certain providers like, say, Netflix, not have to pay more when they use nearly 40% of the pipe? (https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-bandwidth-usage-internet-traffic-1201507187/ https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-bandwidth-usag...).
    - calcifer 8y ago
      > But you do pay the water company based on how much water you use. Yes, I do as the consumer of that water. In this analogy Netflix would be the dam operator, so why would a particular dam pay more to the pipe company than another dam?

WallWextra 8y ago

I think what we'll really see in practice is this being used for political purposes, with pressure groups getting ISPs to block so-called "hate" or "extremist" sites. The stuff about service tiers seems less likely and less concerning.

djsumdog 8y ago
I think blocking content and net neutrality are mostly totally different issues. (Although content blocking I guess is one subset of NN). It's interesting because, due to free speech laws in the US, ISPs can't really block anything. But they are required to monitor and report people who transfer illegal content: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/microsoft-employees-child-abuse-lawsuit-ptsd https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/microsoft... That being said, big tech does have the power to squish people they don't like, as I wrote about a while back: https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-censorship/ https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-...
- WallWextra 8y ago
  What are the free speech laws that prevent ISPs from blocking controversial content?

goombastic 8y ago

The USA is effectively becoming an innovation black hole from all angles of late. I predict people moving away until only the ultra right remains.

pweissbrod 8y ago
Doubtful. You underestimate the inertia of resources. Wages for tech are more competitive in the US. I also bet if your prediction started to become true then lobbyists would push regulations to reduce the brain drain. That being said I'm a US citizen that thinks about moving increasingly all the time.
- Retric 8y ago
  US is already experiencing a significant brain drain. This is currently offset by new immigrants, but if you look at how many talented people are leaving it's shocking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_Sta...
  - drukenemo 8y ago
    Do you have have any data on that? Asking as I'm considering moving to the US and the climate there matters to me.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Exact numbers are hard to come by. The United States does not keep track of emigration, and counts of Americans abroad are thus only available courtesy of statistics kept by the destination countries. As of June 2016, the State department's consular section estimated that there are 9 million non-military U.S. citizens living abroad,[3][4] an increase from the 4 million estimated in 1999. The above includes many retirees, who find their retirement incomes stretch further abroad. But, it also includes a lot of PHD students who have troubles finding academic jobs inside the US etc.
    - dv_dt 8y ago

radisb 8y ago

"Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited." That begs the question: Why then do they oppose the rules if only to start engaging in the practices they prohibit?

imran3740 8y ago
The argument goes that ex-ante regulation imposes unnecessary costs in the form of regulatory compliance for smaller businesses, erecting a higher barrier for entry into the ISP market. Or something like that.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  I'd be more sympathetic to that if this FCC had done anything productive to expand the competitive landscape for ISPs. Where I live we have exactly two choices, and one is satellite based.
  - imran3740 8y ago
    I mean, that is what Pai claims to be doing here: reducing regulatory burden on smaller ISPs so that more can compete. "Monday, we are ending this flawed approach and allowing smaller internet service providers to focus their efforts on deploying more broadband, connecting more Americans with digital opportunity, and offering more competition in the marketplace." [1] [1]: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect-a-free-and-open-internet/ https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect...
    - striking 8y ago
      Right, but many areas have entered into township agreements where only one provider is allowed to provide service to residents. These agreements carry fun legal print like requiring the town to reconvene with the provider before the agreement can be terminated... at which point, the provider will give whatever benefits the smaller provider was intending to provide and then some. I don't buy it. This won't change anything. Except for how less useful your internet connection would be. If the focus were on smaller ISPs, why not make the new rules target only smaller ISPs instead of all of them?

baggachipz 8y ago

> “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation, which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-competitive monopolist” Mr. Pai said So clearly we have no established precedent(1) of this sort of behavior in the past and happening again before our very eyes. Suggesting that these rules were conjured out of hysteria is not only wrong, it's insulting. But that's to be expected from a corporate shill. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

croon 8y ago
A short summary of events spanning from 2005 up to now: https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...
ep103 8y ago
Corrupt bureaucrat. We're talking about a man who flew to Barcelona to collect a bribe before passing this regulatory change.
- acdha 8y ago
  Do you have a citation for that? It’s a serious enough charge that it should never be made without one.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    I googled for it. I believe the other person is referring to the dinner meeting mentioned here: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Met-With-Ajit-Pai-in-Barcelona-Shortly-After-Cohen-Payment-141844 http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Met-With-Ajit-Pai-in-...
  - badkungfu 8y ago
    https://www.americanoversight.org/watchdog-demands-details-of-private-meeting-between-fcc-and-att-executive-who-hired-trump-lawyer https://www.americanoversight.org/watchdog-demands-details-o... "[F]lew to Barcelona to collect a bribe before passing this regulatory change" seems too strong a claim, but there should be serious questions after AT&T paid Cohen and also got a meeting that was off the record. I don't imagine it actually changed Pai's opinion, but it seems unethical.

justherefortart 8y ago

They're blocking it already and have been for years. I have to pay for "business" internet so I can run my own servers. The internet isn't remotely open, just another cash cow for businesses to soak every last dollar along the way.

sandworm101 8y ago

Incorrect title. Americans thave opted out of net neutrality. We canadians are keeping it, so too many other countries. It is still a thing for much/most of the world. Title should reflect that this is happing in only one country. The rest of us are watching rome burn. We would like to help put out the fire, but the romans seem intent on burning down thier own houses. Just over half of them seems rather happy about the situation. The rest arent putting up much of a fight.

ep103 8y ago
35% of the country is being taught to burn down their own houses, to make room for Versailles imitations after they leave.
cortesoft 8y ago
The headline if for an article written by an American newspaper about an American situation. It isn't necessary for EVERY single article written in America about an American situation to specify it as being 'in America' in the headline. 90% of the headlines would have to include 'in America'. The article makes it clear who they are talking about.
frockington 8y ago
Is that why I see all of the tech innovation happening in Canada? I couldn't even name one Canadian tech company

deleted 8y ago

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micah63 8y ago

I feel very happy to be a Canadian right now. The CRTC's (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) laws on net neutrality are considered to be some of the strictest laws in the world. Here is a great quote from a 2017 music streaming case requiring all data to be counted against a user's data cap, regardless of its source: "the aim [of] the decision was to encourage Internet service providers to compete on price, speed and network quality instead of acting as a gatekeeper." - Chairman of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais

riquito 8y ago
And yet Canada has one of the highest costs for Internet bandwith (~80 CAD for 75 Mbps, data capped at 500gb), no phone costs covered (another ~80 cad month)
- WhiskeyJack88 8y ago
  Ya, it's pretty bad. Resellers are at least at a little nicer. There's rules regarding how much Canadian Telecoms have to charge resellers access to the network. I get 150Mbps for $70 no data cap from a reseller called VMedia. But we are generally hosed in Canada for internet services.
  - orthecreedence 8y ago
    I'm in the heart of San Francisco, and I get 40Mbps at $90/mo USD (Comcast). Kind of pathetic that that's my only option in the tech capital of the world.
    - jteppinette 8y ago
      I get 1Gbps up/down at $60 per month through webpass... also live in San Francisco
      - orthecreedence 8y ago
        Not available where I am =[

iron0013 8y ago

I'm having a hard time finding a link to the results of congressional votes related to net neutrality. Does anyone know which politicians voted for it, and which against? Which party did most of the pro-neutrality politicians belong to, and which party did most of the anti-net neutrality politicians belong to? I'm eager to vote for pro-NN politicians, so I'd like to know.

iampims 8y ago
Let’s vote all of the anti-NN out of office, that’s the only leverage we have left.
- iron0013 8y ago
  I agree! We can talk ourselves blue in the face, but the only thing that will result in real positive change is to vote against anti-net neutrality politicians in November. I have some vague idea, but I'd like to see the actual vote counts by party affiliation. Does anyone have a link, or could provide this info?
  - hexane360 8y ago
    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/50-senators-will-vote-for-net-neutrality-but-they-need-one-more-republican/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/50-senators-will... http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/net-neutrality-legislation-in-states.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-informat... All Democrats and only one Republican supported it in the Senate. In state legislatures, all bills were proposed by Democrats. There's one party that is destroying Net Neutrality, and one party that is trying to save it.
    - iron0013 8y ago
      Good to know, thanks! It seems like the only rational thing for a Net Neutrality supporter to do is vote the Republican politicians in Washington out of office this November.

shmerl 8y ago

> “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation, which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-competitive monopolist” Mr. Pai said No need to presume. Most of ISPs are. So US is making a shift from having some (not even sufficient) safeguards, to letting those monopolists abuse their monopolistic position to fleece their users left and right and limit their choices. Too much weasel wording Mr. Pai?

brokovich2323 8y ago

I am surprised that no one on HN is discussing what I consider an important point of the repeal, namely clipping the wings if the federal government (a good thing), and letting states decide for themselves how they want to regulate internet access. Heck, I'd even be in favour of this being regulated at the municipal level, to curtail state power.

detaro 8y ago
How is it "clipping the wings of the federal government" if a federal agency decides itself to stop making rules about something? It can unfold it wings again at any time.
- brokovich2323 8y ago
  Doesn't really matters if it's self-inflicted. The result is the same: the fed have removed a regulation at the federal level. The state are now free to choose what they do. States who make the "wrong" choice will get get punished economically. Free market. Nothing bad about it.
  - arrosenberg 8y ago
    Meanwhile, the people in those states suffer. How is that better for the people of this country? Without getting too deep down the rabbit hole of representation and balance of power in many states, Federal regulation generally exists to protect people in States that refuse to make the "right" choice, as you put it. Removing Federal regulation isn't a net-good by default — in this case the regulation served a legitimate purpose to protect consumers and should have been left alone.
bmpafa 8y ago
Saying a curtailment of federal authority is necessarily a good thing makes you sound like an ideologue. Government isn't intrinsically good or bad, and there is no ideal amount of it. Case by case we should decide when the public's interests are served by having a voice in a marketplace besides the money we spend.

deleted 8y ago

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segmondy 8y ago

How I plan to protest. I'll use as little internet as possible if need be. I'll not upgrade to any expensive "special package". I'll support municipal broadband and will volunteer time and efforts even for cities not near me.

mkirklions 8y ago
I considered shamming people working for these companies. I give my dad a hard time for working at Blue Cross. Remember that these organizations are people, every cog is responsible this.

tzs 8y ago

> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited That's because those practices were prohibited by the 2010 rules. There was only a year between the court striking down the 2010 rules in early 2014 and the FCC adopting the 2015 rules in early 2015. The court that overturned the 2010 rules told the FCC how they could fix them, and the FCC got to work on that right away, so the ISPs knew that replacement rules would come out soon. Of course no sane ISP made any changes during that year.

aphextron 8y ago
> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited This whole thing just has me stumped as to how we even got into this position. How in the hell does a single bureaucrat have this kind of power in the US to make a unilateral decision affecting millions of people and billions of dollars in commerce?
- huntertwo 8y ago
  He’s the scapegoat for all the other government officials on both sides of the aisle who have had their pockets filled up by the telecom industry.
  - foobarbazetc 8y ago
    Came for “both sides”, was not disappointed.
  - sdhgaiojfsa 8y ago
    If they are really filling the Dems' pockets, the money's not buying them much influence, is it?
    - stickdogg 8y ago
      Lol. I don't know if they necessarily care about influence on this topic more than they do money in their pockets.

rconti 8y ago

Cool. Now where's my FTTH?

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited. But this is a bald-faced lie, and the proof is in the public record; while there was en evolving approach to enforcing the open internet principles prior to the 2015 Title II rules (in large part because the prior approaches were struck down by the courts, forcing changes in approach), there is a long line of enforcement actions by the FCC against ISPs for actions that would be in violation of the 2015 rules. ISPs blocking legal P2P traffic, ISPs blocking legal VoIP services, etc.

Zentgraf1 8y ago

Just leave that country.. It is as good or mehr in literally any other developed country.

itissid 8y ago

Will our institutions be incompetent under this administration? Maybe. Can they be incompetent, period? Sure, its like swinging a dead cat and hitting the target. Checkout exhibit A: https://www.propublica.org/article/us-immigration-agency-will-lose-millions-process-visas-fast-enough https://www.propublica.org/article/us-immigration-agency-wil...

amachefe 8y ago

A fair reporting of the news. Really understand both sides

booleandilemma 8y ago

Naive question: is it foreseeable that Google or someone else could take advantage of 5G technology and we could all just abandon cable/DSL companies and handle all our data needs wirelessly?

diebir 8y ago

As usual, the republicans work against the will and simply against the American people. The environment, the Internet, the economy. Just vote the SOBs out next time around, please.

robertwalsh0 8y ago

Welp, the Senate did what they could to overturn this. Thanks House of Reps https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/16/611598361/senate-approves-overturning-fccs-net-neutrality-repeal https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/16/611598361...

daveheq 8y ago

The proper rules are Congress writing updated laws for the internet and VOIP (and then letting the proper agency/ies regulate them) but of course they're too out of touch and bought-off to make anything sensible.

olleromam91 8y ago

If the United States want's to compete with other nations...its best bet is to have an informed population. An internet where information is on a pay to play basis will cut out the poor and weakest links...leaving a massive portion of the population under-informed. How does this make sense in a national security capacity?? Completely backwards .

smogcutter 8y ago
What's information on now, an SEO to play basis? A buy targeted ads to play basis? Not arguing against net neutrality by any means, but if an informed populace is really the goal then the ISPs are a side show.

transfire 8y ago

Let the deconstruction of the Internet begin! "And with your Internet package, which search engine would like? ... And which streaming services? ... Oh, Netflix is only available in our premium package which will cost $20 more a month..."