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Ajit Pai promised faster broadband expansion:
2019 was the second straight year that Comcast lowered its overall cable capital expenditures (though Comcast's spending on line extensions and scalable infrastructure rose in 2018).
This wasn't supposed to happen, according to claims that ISPs and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai made in order to push through the repeal of net neutrality rules and other deregulatory measures. Pai, who just today released an 11-page list of his accomplishments as FCC chair, repeatedly argued that net neutrality rules caused broadband providers to reduce capital expenditures. After his net neutrality repeal took effect in June 2018, he claimed that the repeal and other FCC deregulation caused investment to rise.
But Comcast isn't the only major ISP cutting investment, as AT&T projects that it will reduce capital spending from $23 billion in 2019 to $20 billion in 2020. Charter Communications said in October that its capital expenditures excluding mobile services would total $7 billion in 2019, down from $8.9 billion in 2018. Verizon reported a small increase in capital expenditures in the first nine months of 2019.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @04:57PM (15 children)
I've been hearing about this scenario being right around the corner for over a decade now.
Isn't a locked down internet what you people want anyway? To prevent "fake news" from influencing people into hating establishment Democrats?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @05:37PM (2 children)
You're saying that the Net Neutrality repeal done under a Republican president by a Republican chair of the FCC is enacting a Democrat policy? Really?
I hate the Democrats, by the way. But your logic there... that's a little wacky. Let me guess, you're anti-vaccine and a flat earther?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)
No, that's not what I said at all. But don't let reading comprehension get in the way of simplifying the debate to one you're comfortable engaging in.
What I said was this bullshit hasn't happened, isn't going to happen, and if anything would feed into the exact sort of patronizing, censorial world-view of the people opposing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 05 2020, @10:19PM
Facebook has certainly tried to present it in other parts of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @06:08PM (5 children)
Your idiocy aside, as pointed out by the other AC, they use the boiling frog method to keep the herds passive. They creep up the costs and fractured service plans nice and slow, otherwise people might flock to their competitor.
OR WORSE! They might push the politicians to actually re-regulate!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @06:46PM (4 children)
So why didn't they just boil this frog sometime between the mid 1990s and 2015, when net neutrality didn't exist? Why didn't the internet turn into a bastion of freedom from 2015 until now? And why is it that we've spent years entertaining the idea of the internet turning into the television industry when the exact opposite is actually taking place?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @07:47PM (2 children)
Because the internet wasn't that big of a deal back then, and yes they have been boiling the frog the whole time! Telecom prices and service have always been pretty shit in the US, and they stole billions in government funding that did not go into the infrastructure.
If you don't notice the compartmentalization of the internet the last few years then you're blind as fuck. They already started with their different promo campaigns / tiered services, but go ahead and keep boiling, you're probably warm and comfy right about now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @11:25PM (1 child)
Tiered services? Bro, the internet has had tiered service levels since before Trump's fourth bankruptcy, long before he was president. Do you mind pointing out which part of "net neutrality" was supposed to put a stop to that, and why it never happened in the years that it was a law?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:59PM
You are right, I was referencing the further split like allowing full bandwidth for their partner services like HBO, Netflix, whatever.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday February 04 2020, @06:54AM
https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history [freepress.net]
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Monday February 03 2020, @06:16PM (4 children)
They need to be entrenched securely before they start fucking you because you'll rise up and make popular things like net neutrality into LAW. It undermines their enemies if they don't jump instantly into raping their customers.
You already must have data caps with fines for going over? I didn't get those until Trump took over; now I have to pay if I go over my cap-- naturally they don't present it as a fine... but that is that it is; they also don't advertise unlimited anymore. The other company they now somewhat have to compete with is the phone company here which is actually worse to deal with and has gotten in trouble for "accidentally" billing people... just not as much as comcast who did the same thing. I've gotten money back twice now after they both screwed me over. I'm just going with the lesser of the two.
Make sure you call their tech support lines for at least 20 minutes two times per year during work hours (so you get Americans) because that eats up their whole profit from you for the year (that is old info but an employee told me that years ago.) Yes, if we all did, it would raise prices... but that won't happen so you can rob them of their profit on you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @06:55PM (3 children)
Trump didn't invent data caps and neither did the repeal of net neutrality. Charter started imposing data caps in 2010, and lifted them in 2016, which is basically the opposite of the relationship you're trying to illustrate.
Orange man bad, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @10:29PM (2 children)
Orange man installed corrupt Pai, telecoms then realized they were safe from reprisal and started doing the nasty with their spreadsheets. We already have plans that include #OUR_SPECIAL_SERVICE_NO_DATA_LIMIT#
I doubt Trump could coherently speak on the topic without a prepared speech so I don't blame him for personally doing these things, but he is the one who controls who is appointed where and I recall him saying something about draining the swamp? Instead he is filling it with piranhas, alligators, and I hear his good friend Escobar donated a hippo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @11:21PM (1 child)
Again, telecoms were being nasty before, after and during "net neutrality". OP specifically said:
A quick Google search will tell you, yes, data caps existed before Trump took over. I'm not going to argue Trump has done anything good for things, but you're a blind fool if you think this starts and ends with him, or that "net neutrality" ever had the teeth to reel in this sort of misbehavior to begin with.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:08AM
I do not, but he certainly made things worse installing that turd Pai, along with tearing down the last shred of pretense behind corruption. The upside is this has let citizens see the total corruption, but the downside is it ramped up the corruption 10x.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:22AM
Comcast has already throttled bittorrent in the past. They and others have also done other, similar things which would violate net neutrality. This isn't even theoretical.