Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Friday June 19 2015, @05:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-lawyer-you-may-like dept.

El Reg reports

America's broadband watchdog the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has named its first net neutrality ombudsperson--and she'll be your first point of call when your ISP breaks the new rules.

Parul Desai has been the FCC's director of consumer engagement for the past eight months, and before that she worked in the FCC's media bureau for two years.

In her new role, she will have two basic duties: first, to help Joe Sixpack and businesses navigate the FCC's complaints process; and second, to carry out investigations and analyses of both open internet complaints and the broader market and report to the commission on her findings. She won't be allowed to act as an advocate, or an officer of the FCC with a right of approval.

[...] the FCC outlines the "open internet" structure as: "Broadband service providers cannot block or deliberately slow speeds for Internet services or apps, create special 'fast lanes' for content, or engage in other practices that harm Internet openness."

So if you feel your broadband provider is blocking access to particular websites or applications, throttling your traffic or prioritizing traffic from specific sources, or if you feel they are more generally up to no good, then you can head over to the ombudsperson to find out how and where to complain. Hint: go to consumercomplaints.fcc.gov.

What may be more interesting, however, is that broadband providers are also required to provide "sufficient information" about speed, price, and network management to enable citizens to make an informed choice. Cable companies are notorious for playing fast and loose with prices and speeds to get as much out of consumers as they can--something that has contributed to them being the most disliked and complained-about companies in the United States today.

If Desai decides to take on that issue as part of her role, she has her work cut out for her. The FCC declined our request to interview Desai.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Justin Case on Friday June 19 2015, @11:10AM

    by Justin Case (4239) on Friday June 19 2015, @11:10AM (#198187) Journal

    My ISP freaks out if I have port 80 (etc.) open. They want me to upgrade to a "business" account which includes the extra special "service" of not freaking out.

    Does net neutrality end this?

    > Cable companies ... the most disliked and complained-about companies in the United States today.

    So how's that monopoly-and-regulate strategy working out for you?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Friday June 19 2015, @02:16PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2015, @02:16PM (#198234)

    I would argue that it depends on what you are using it for. If it's for business then their request is valid. If it's personal, then they can just go away. Even though the service is probably identical for both business and non-business, i see nothing wrong with a different rate. So many other industries do it and people accept it. Student pricing for software is a huge one.

    Honestly, i think what you do is none of their business. Whether your packets arrive at port 80 or port 23, it is the same number of bits and it is nobody but the end-points have a right to know what the contents of those packets are.

    --
    SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 19 2015, @02:24PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 19 2015, @02:24PM (#198240) Journal

    How did they even find out that you had port 80 open? You didn't block incoming on port 80 from local IPs?
    Another tip is to go for port 443 right away..
    Or .onion

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @09:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @09:28PM (#198439)

    So how's that monopoly-and-regulate strategy working out for you?

    If they ever start regulating them I'll let you know.