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from the so-long,-interwebs,-it-was-nice-knowing-you dept.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission next month is planning a vote to kill Obama-era rules demanding fair treatment of web traffic and may decide to vacate the regulations altogether, according to people familiar with the plans.
The move would reignite a years-long debate that has seen Republicans and broadband providers seeking to eliminate the rules, while Democrats and technology companies support them. The regulations passed in 2015 bar broadband providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from interfering with web traffic sent by Google, Facebook Inc. and others.
[...] Pai plans to seek a vote in December, said two people who asked not to be identified because the matter hasn't been made public. As the head of a Republican majority, he is likely to win a vote on whatever he proposes.
[...] The agency declined to comment on the timing of a vote. "We don't have anything to report at this point," said Tina Pelkey, a spokeswoman for the commission.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @08:01PM (8 children)
You're saying that by default, the OP's comment shouldn't even appear as part of the discussion.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @08:29PM (7 children)
Yes, that is what we are saying. And thank goodness, net neutrality has been neutralized, so now there are no obstacles to us just denying free-market-fanbois libertariantards access to the discussion. Unless they want to pay, and pay lots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:02PM (2 children)
So, I guess it will all work out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:46PM (1 child)
You do realize the greatest percentage of US GDP comes from California right? We'll just adjust prices accordingly! Just keep deluding yourself that conservatives / libertarians are the backbone of the US, it makes you easy to manipulate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:50PM
Most big wig entrepreneurs in California didn't come from California.
(Score: 4, Touché) by tangomargarine on Thursday November 16 2017, @10:35PM
Oh come on: Libertardians! That's just too easy.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @10:36PM (2 children)
Do you actually realize what that poster is saying at all? I personally might not agree with them, but their argument isn't invalidated simply because you don't like it.
His argument is that if the government didn't restrict and regulate the ISP market so much, there wouldn't be much of a problem with net neutrality being removed de facto. The reason being would be because, due to competition and much greater variety of service providers being available to consumers, it would be in ISPs interests to provide as much service as possible, with little restriction, for as cheap as possible.
A good argument for why it wouldn't work would be that due to the current size of telecom companies, they would easily continue to dominate and restrict the market, resulting in nothing changing.
I think the most well balanced approach (probably extreme to others) is to keep the net neutrality rules in place, remove the current restrictions preventing market competition, and breaking up the current major US telecom companies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @03:14AM
I want a plant that gives me 3 Mb/s for general Internet, but 40 Mb/s for Netflix (as long as it's less than I'd have to pay for general 40 Mb/s).
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday November 20 2017, @03:14PM
Of course it wouldn't work "due to the current size of telecom companies". But you're deluding yourself if you think that a removal of government regulations would make the companies smaller. As it stands, the FCC (or is it the FTC? why is jurisdiction so hard) is the only one standing in the way of the big players getting even bigger. Comcast + Time Warner and Sprint + T-Mobile were successfully blocked, and AT&T + Time Warner is in the fire right now.
What would naturally happen if there were no regulation is that one company would come to own all the infrastructure and operate as a de facto totalitarian government in control of telecommunications access. This is not just my imagination; Bell used to be exactly this. The result was artificially inflated prices, decades of stagnant innovation, and laughable security holes throughout the entire telephone network.
Of course, it's possible that when you talk about "remov[ing] the current restrictions preventing market competition", you're referring to the way that the federal government spends more time getting cozy with regulated businesses than enforcing the law, and not the very anti-trust regulations that are meant to prevent private corporations from growing larger than publicly-accountable government. In which case, great! But I've heard this "drain the swamp" rhetoric before, and it turns out I was right not to believe the speaker last time.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?