What a bullshit "article"... nothing of substance, and just lots of wild, speculative "oh no it's bad!" crap. Here's the EFF's stance on the ruling: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/f ... ty-big-win You know, the one that he says they're concerned about.
I guess the EFF is just gonna vote the unelected FCC out? By what possible means do they think they're going to check the FCC? Electing a Republican president?
Use your head. It means they'll do it the same way they helped them make this, what I think is the correct decision; by maintaining visibility into the process and calling them on their shit, publicly. It's one thing to get bought off behind closed doors by big corporations, but it's another thing to do it in broad daylight in front of millions of people. The 300 page document they talk about has 8 pages of rulings, and the rest are basically questions/answers from the public "request for questions" that they got. People like the EFF are the ones responsible for making sure that everyone knew about and participated in that process.
See, comments like this is what makes me totally discount anything you have to say. You look at a fucked up situation, which the current ISP/Internet business/infrastructure is, and see active work in trying to unfuck it, and then call everyone socialists because they're trying to fix it and stop big corporation from fucking everyone as hard as they possibly can. The system is gamed, heavily in favour of the big-money corporations, and the population are the sheep that are getting fucked, and the shepherds are the politicians who have sold out. Having those sheep stand up for themselves every now and then doesn't make them socialists. The fact that you think that doing anything other than leaving it alone automatically makes everyone involved socialists boggles my mind. That kind of thinking makes me think of you as one of those "thanks Obama" retards.
No I see active work to make it worse. The FCC has no interest in improving the internet in the US. Tilting the game from the hands of big business to the hands of even bigger government is not leveling the playing field for us poor consumers. It sucks that the government created these monopolies in the first place, but giving the government more power isn't the way to fix it. This will just compound problems in the long run. The way to fix the problem is to end the monopolies through deregulation and market competition. Eliminate the crony laws, corporate subsidies, corporate taxes, etc. Reduce and eliminate barriers to new infrastructure. There are lots of ways to improve the situation without net neutrality regulation/laws.
Well, I think what's really important, and what most people want to know, is: will this make AT&T stop f-ing throttling my data once I exceed 5 GB, despite having had an unlimited plan for 10 years. Bastards.
What I see from your comments is that you don't understand the system, and are superficially judging things based on the sole fact that the government is getting involved. You're like a technical anti-vaccer.
Look, you say "just eliminate barriers to entry and regulation, simple!" like Ayn Rand wrote an economics book. It's NOT that simple, it never, ever is. I'd estimate it would cost in the realm of hundreds of millions to build the infrastructure to compete with, say, Comcast. They are the only cable/high speed internet available here. They built the infrastructure and, with zero regulation, would rape my wallet repeatedly, because no one could compete with them. Sure, I could go Satalite/DSL if I want connections that can't stream content or meet my basic needs, but that's hardly competition. If another provider wants to compete, they have to spend hundreds of millions to build their own cable infrastructure, because you can bet your ass that stuff Comcast built won't be "for everyone," it will be for Comcast. If you want to piggy back on their existing infrastructure, they'd make that cost prohibitive, too, in the interest of keeping their profits as high as possible, and leaving me, the customer, with a gaping goatse-like asshole for them to grab money from. So explain to me how you expect anyone to "compete" with an already existing monopoly like Comcast or Time Warner? How would deregulating result in competition. Who would compete? How? What incentives do competitors have to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure they won't see profit from for decades, at best? Plus, what incentive is there for an ISP to build infrastructure to more rural areas, where the return on investment would be very low, if it exists at all, essentially leaving large portions of the nation without internet coverage. Deregulation might mean minimal (at best) competition in cities where there are huge populations, but no one would build infrastructure for Bumfuck, Idaho, leaving them ostensibly in the dark ages for the foreseeable future. You seem to be under the delusion that just anyone could open up an ISP tomorrow and compete with Comcast or Time Warner or AT&T were it not for that pesky Government getting in their way, as if the government is the only barrier to entry. There are massive cost barriers that are impossible to eliminate... Unless, the government intervenes, of course, and forces Comcast to share their already built infrastructure (but again, you'd be against that, government interference and all). Then the questions of maintenance costs come up, as well. Look, two teens are in a room. One is 6'3" tall and weighs about 220 lbs, and looks like a football linebacker. The other is 4'6" tall and weighs 100 lbs soaking wet. The big kid is bullying the little kid, and threatening to kill him as soon as he gets a chance. Is your solution: A) give little kid a gun B) stand in between them and offer some protection to little kid C) leave the room and let them sort it out themselves. The government has gone ahead and done b, but you think they're doing A, so you're going to the other extreme, which is c. The only answer that doesn't end with a dead kid is b.
Really, that "hundreds of millions" would be tens of billions, I think. As well, you just don't wake up one day and say "oh, I think I'm going to go wire the US with new infrastructure"... you have to actually put that shit somewhere, and you have to negotiate for and pay for that right-of-way for your fancy wires. Some of the original infrastructure companies signed some very, very smart deals with railroad companies that gave them access to a 1' trench beside every railroad line... which was fucking genius. I mean, stop and think... the railroads go everywhere you want to lay cable... across the country, inside cities... just about everywhere. And they already own the national access rights, so you're just piggy-backing on them. And you get easy access to actually laying out the cables. This kind of thing is what provided a huge portion of the infrastructure currently being used: (it's a rail car built to dig a trench lay fiber conduit). And on top of that, they were smart enough to lay multiple conduits, with some being empty, just waiting for the next generation of fiber tech to be blown into it. And they've had the government pay for a huge portion of it in grants and tax breaks, all under the guise of "we'll give everyone the best service". The hurdles to building out new infrastructure today would not just be financial in nature... they would also require tons of bureaucratic negotiations as well. And, some big ISPs have bought legislation that outright forbids some jurisdictions from using anyone else but themselves... they've legally enforced a monopoly. There are some municipalities that are celebrating their right to NOT be forced to use Comcast or Time Warner or some other monopoly, and to set up their own services; much cheaper, much better performance. They took all the cash, built the infrastructure, but are now maximizing profits rather than offering the best service they originally promised. Again, go read any of the tons of in-depth analysis done by well-respected organizations and you'll see for yourself. But I keep forgetting... it's so much easier to just sit here and say "government bad, no more government".
You can read more about Qwest and their initial network building here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Founding And how SPRINT came from a railroad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Cor ... _of_SPRINT (Most people don't know SPRINT actually means: Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony)
D26 actually wrote everything I had in my post before I deleted it because this bad government stuff is full of so much wtf. Also, it's not like the government is enacting laws out of its ass to force monopolies or anything one way or another. It's the businesses you think would be fair in a free market lobbying and pushing the government to do stuff.
This is a hilariously naive view of the world. The government agents are just merrily going along doing everything to help everyone and these bad guys come along with money and everything gets fucked up! Maybe we can ban business and money and solve all of these problems.
No one said that! Christ almighty. Look, dude, the answer is never, EVER in the extremes. Complete deregulation is not the answer. If it was, you would have made even a half ass attempt to refute a single point I made. Nor is total regulation, because that is pure communism and we've seen that doesn't work. The answer always lies in the middle. Besides, looking back, your entire argument can be summed up in two words: "government, BAD!" You have offered exactly zero solutions and demonstrated no knowledge of economics short of saying "free market," with no real understanding of what that means or how it might apply to the current situation, and "barriers to entry," while demonstrating you don't actually know any of the barriers to entry into the world of ISPs, let alone any other industry that involves massive amounts of necessary infrastructure to function at even a basic level.
AdWeek article with another look at the situation. http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/f ... eds-163248
Look, if you want to argue the point, then argue it. But this is not what anyone in the thread said and it's a stupid argument. Nobody suggested the government is a wonderful panacea for the economy. But so far there have been many specific problems brought up with simply leaving companies to their own devices and it appears the best argument you can muster is rabblerabbleFREE MARKET GOVERNMENT EVILrabblerabble.
It's like you've never even heard of any free-market economist at all. Like say, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman. DSL and satellite internet might suck, but they meet basic "needs" (you say I use words without knowing their meaning?). People used DSL for years, and improvements in DSL have occurred. I understand that infrastructure is very expensive even without the massive regulatory cost increases and pocket lining needed to get it approved. Are FCC regulations just passed going to improve this problem? No one I've read has even suggested this as a possibility. Perhaps there are some things only big businesses can accomplish, which is ok. This internet being a need thing is just absurd. It barely existed 20 years ago. I say this as an IT professional. I don't think Comcast should be forced to allow other providers to use their infrastructure, even if Comcast benefited from some cronyism to build the infrastructure. Ban cronyism, not private property. Google is working to compete with them right? Have they had to overcome regulatory burdens? Undoubtedly. They've also had to face off against local government regulations, which I've railed against several times in this thread, and which is one of the key issues involved here. I just don't think unconstitutional federal actions are a good way to solve the problem. Google was able to overcome these barriers in some places and other companies could do the same. Well there are some incentives, but if everyone doesn't have fast internet it doesn't mean they're in the dark ages, and it doesn't mean they will stay that way. Should the rest of the country be forced to pay for internet service for rural parts? (I live in BFE, but I don't expect others to pay my tab.) When someone moves into the middle of nowhere, that's a compromise they're willing to make. Who would want to use Comcast's infrastructure? Comcast sucks balls. That analogy is ridiculous. But I thought this was a gun supporting forum. I'd choose A.