So long Net Neutrality!
 

Federal court strikes down FCC net neutrality rules | The Verge

This is bad for the consumer. Very bad.

After reading the judge's ruling, it appears that all the FCC has to do is reclassify broadband providers as "common carriers" to get around it.

The FCC can't just deem ISPs a common carrier; Congress would have to modify the Telecommunications Act. Under the current definition, I'm not sure ISPs can't be defined as common carriers, even though the FCC has treated them as such.

I've had a hard time getting my arms around net neutrality from the beginning. In most respects it seems like a noble goal. In other respects, it seems unrealistic and counterproductive.

You're kidding, right? How is ensuring that you have access to content you want "unrealistic and counterproductive"?

Maybe he trusts his ISP to decide what content he can get and the speeds he can access that content?

And if the ISP breaks that trust, he can just select another broadband provider.

Which is easier said than done in many cases (and locations).

Exactly

Seems to me that the issue is that the FCC did net neutrality under legally dubious means. We need to get Congress to actually vote on this.

Is there a realistic answer to the local cable/ISP monopolies in most areas where you have, at most, one cable company (Time Warner, Comcast, etc), one phone company (AT&T or Verizon), and satellite providers (basically tv only, tho)?

SI

Someone's sarcasm meter broke for a second. :D

Shitty news. The internet is so ingrained in the daily life of people worldwide, handing over control of it to your ISP would be akin to car dealerships selling cars with wooden wheels then marking up the costs of rubber tires to balance the P&L.

Which is exactly why broadband should be designated as a common carrier.

uuuuuuugggggh.

Just wait till politicians realize that killing net neutrality means their ISPs will be able to throttle/block off their porn - we'll see a net neutrality bill soon enough after that.

I'd say municipal broadband, but it isn't realistic in a lot of places where telecom lobbyists have had it killed.

I'm wondering what happens when cable companies (many of which control our high-speed internet) start seeing greatly declining revenue from channel packages due to NetFlix/etc.

Unless there's a fix here, there's considerable potential for a war that can only be solved by the path of 1,000 lawsuits.

I think this will end up getting solved by higher prices for bandwidth usage. But without net neutrality, it will get ugly out there fast.

I wish there was a public option. After all, business should be able to do it quicker and cheaper with their profit motive and all.

SI

Probably bandwidth capping with on demand services from the cable providers that don't count towards the cap, along with throttling Netflix and Amazon with no merry neurality rules. And it wouldn't surprise me if in the case of throttling customer service reps would be telling people it is a problem with Netflix's end because they're just not at as fast as Comcast on demand.

Indeed, but in my defense there are multiple options where I live. Not many, but at least three (Comcast, CenturyLink, Dish).

I have two options for "high speed" internet. Comcast, and a regional company who advertises blazing fast 250kbps download speeds. In-laws have the latter, it caused them to cancel Netflix. Can't wait for Comcast to start throttling video on demand services.

Well Xfinity On-Demand will be there to save you from slow loading movies! And instead wasting your money by having to pay for everything in the Netflix library with Xfinity you're in control and can chose what you want to pay for! Movies start at just $4.99* ($5.99 for HD)!

*Requires subscription to Xfinity TV service, plans start at just $69.99

Bad news for consumers here. Just the country falling farther and farther back in this area. It's already embarrassing to not be able to compete with the rest of the first world.

ISPs wouldn't be fighting so hard for this if they didn't plan on throttling traffic or charging companies for preferred access. Will be a few years down the road but we can all expect services like Netflix to get much more expensive in the near future.

Yup

It's also ironic that Verizon wants government to not intervene in their business. They have not paid taxes in over 5 years despite making billions in profits. This is due to the ridiculous amount of tax breaks ISPs receive. The taxes that consumers have to pay for services that are supposed to go into building infrastructure that is not.

So lets make a deal. Government gets out of their way and that includes all the special tax breaks.

My home ISP is Comcast. I do not trust them.

Verizon also has no problem with government intervention of ISPs when it comes to the government stopping municipalities from creating broadband networks, like the law they lobbied for and helped pass in Pennsylvania.

I can't wait until FOFC, OOTP, FOBL, Solecismic have to pay protection money to broadband providers just to keep sites accessible.

Don't worry, if your favorite websites doesn't offer you premium service on Xfinity you can give it an Xfinity Powerboost by adding it on in a bonus tier subscription plan!



And just wait to download a game on your XBox when your ISP has already made an exclusive digital content deal with Sony.

One more reason I'm glad I get to sign up for Google Fiber in March.

Won't help if a site you visit a lot throttles Google in favor of giving preferential traffic to another ISP.

Can't they just do the same thing? Just slow down the App store for Apple or something?

It's a problem I'm willing to deal with compared with the other options out there. They can go ahead and throttle some sites back to 100MB from 1GB. Beats less than 5 MB I'm getting from most providers right now.

That's one of the big misconceptions with having a big internet pipe. One of my customers has a 100MB fiber connection. That doesn't mean they can access sites at 100MB. Most of them top out at 10MB, because that is the speed of the site's colo cross-connect. Even DL'ing from Microsoft tops out around 45MB. That Google Fiber connection is just 1GB from you to the Google local site. After that it quickly gets bottlenecked by carrier connections and then bandwidth limitations of sites. It will just get even worse when side deals start to get worked out if Net Neutrality doesn't get approved.

I have three friends with Google Fiber already. Worst speed I've seen at the three houses is around 300MB. It slows to that speed if you have TV on while perusing the internet. That's a problem I'm willing to have.

Of course you do... you are one of them... ;)

That's pretty impressive that they're getting speeds nearly 2.5x faster than Google Fiber provides.

They said 'up to' because obviously they provide more than one service. But if you want it and have the proper routers, high speeds are definitely available. One of my friends was frustrated initially because he couldn't get any more than 100MB/s. Figured out that his routing gear was causing a bottle neck. Once he resolved that, he was getting much higher speeds even with the TV on.

1000 Mbps is about 128 MBps, so 100MBps is already coming close to maxing that out.

Is the issue dead? Is there an appeal process to the decision? Can it be taken to a higher court?

I can barely get to 10 even if I pay for 20.

You win the computer speed capitalization correction contest.

And you win for confusing people with inaccurate numbers.

It could still be appealed to the Supreme Court, but based on the written decision, I don't think they would take the case and if they did, overturn it. It is probably going to fall back on Congress to handle it legislatively.

I have been thinking about this and I am on the fence about net neutrality. On first brush, it seems like a really great idea - why should those ISPs be allowed to discriminate and destroy companies that they are competing with? On the other hand, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, etc, don't really have to pay the true cost of the bandwidth they use. They get to pay equal amounts as what a website with all text on it pays and the ISP is left footing the bill.

It tends to make the ISPs into de facto utilities and perhaps that's the goal, but that doesn't mean the price is going to go down anytime soon (or service go up) if that's the direction we want to go. In the end, we have to make a decision what we'd rather want.

And of course, if net neutrality is upheld, I have a feeling data caps will finally come to ISPs.

And once that happens you can pretty much stick a fork in the internet as we know it. As a pervasive influence it'll be a dead duck, as will any sort of creative programming that requires heavy loads.

Indeed. So the issue may not be as cut and dried as some would like.

Among the things that seem likely to die an unintended death from this would be the trend toward government operations (like filings, registrations, renewals, etc) online.

ISPs will offer it up for free just like payphones and stuff let you call 9-1-1. Pretty easy to just whitelist all .gov sites.

Except where is their motivation (currently) to do so?