from the sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense dept.
California can enforce net neutrality law, judge rules in loss for ISPs:
California can start enforcing the net neutrality law it enacted over two years ago, a federal judge ruled yesterday in a loss for Internet service providers.
Broadband-industry lobby groups' motion for a preliminary injunction was denied by Judge John Mendez of US District Court for the Eastern District of California. Mendez did not issue a written order but announced his ruling at a hearing, and his denial of the ISPs' motion was noted in the docket.
Mendez reportedly was not swayed by ISPs' claims that a net neutrality law isn't necessary because they haven't been blocking or throttling Internet traffic.
"I have heard that argument and I don't find it persuasive," Mendez said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "It's going to fall on deaf ears. Everyone has been on their best behavior since 2018, waiting for whatever happened in the DC Circuit [court case over the FCC's repeal of net neutrality]. I don't place weight on the argument that everything is fine and we don't need to worry."
Mendez, who was nominated by President Bush in 2008, also said, "This decision today is a legal decision and shouldn't be viewed in the political lens. I'm not expressing anything on the soundness of the policy. That might better be resolved by Congress than by federal courts."
The industry lobby groups' lawsuit against California will continue, but the state can enforce its law while the case is still pending. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra praised the ruling, saying it means that "California can soon begin enforcement of SB 822," the net neutrality law.
"The ability of an Internet service provider to block, slow down, or speed up content based on a user's ability to pay for service degrades the very idea of a competitive marketplace and the open transfer of information at the core of our increasingly digital and connected world," Becerra said.
Also at The New York Times, The Verge, and The Hill, among others.
Related Stories
The Federal Communications Commission has scheduled an April 25 vote to restore net neutrality rules similar to the ones introduced during the Obama era and repealed under former President Trump.
"After the prior administration abdicated authority over broadband services, the FCC has been handcuffed from acting to fully secure broadband networks, protect consumer data, and ensure the Internet remains fast, open, and fair," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said today. "A return to the FCC's overwhelmingly popular and court-approved standard of net neutrality will allow the agency to serve once again as a strong consumer advocate of an open Internet."
[...]
In a filing with the FCC, Turner wrote that "ISPs have been incredibly bullish about the future of their businesses precisely because of the network investments they are making" and that the companies rarely, if ever, mention the impact of FCC regulation during calls with investors."We believe that the ISPs' own words to their shareholders, and to industry analysts through channels governed by the SEC, should be afforded significantly more weight than evidence-free tropes, vague threats, dubious aggregate capital expenditure tallies, or nonsensical math jargon foisted on the Commission this docket or elsewhere," Turner wrote.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:32AM (11 children)
Bitch all you want about verizon, comcast, charters, etc.
AT&T takes the cake. The old AT&T, as nasty as they were, poured some of their monopoly profit into R&D and produced some genuine science/tech innovation. This new AT&T is a straight-up parasite - it sucked dry consumers' pocket and didn't produce not a single worthwhile thing.
Fuck AT&T.
Fuck Ajit Pai, cocksucker.
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:54AM (9 children)
Someone downvoted you. I can't imagine why.
Does someone out there love these shitty ISPs that provide the worst possible service for the maximum possible money?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @03:12AM (3 children)
It seems like you have an overactive imagination.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:39AM
I would've said underactive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @07:28AM (1 child)
Nah I've seen the same thing. Either a bug in the code, or a downmod reversed by some staffer.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 25 2021, @10:33AM
There has been a single moderation - and that was up to Insightful. No moderations have been changed. ACs start at 0 - what makes you think that it was downvoted?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @06:31AM (1 child)
Interesting aside.
AT&T : Owns CNN
Comcast : Owns NBC
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:09PM
Disney owns ABC
Murdoch owns Fox News
Roberts family owns Comcast
How about some merger action?
In the future, the US Government will be a wholly owned subsidiary of a large conglomeration which includes MPAA, RIAA, ABCNNBCBSyFi and MSNBCartoonNeTCM and AT&T-MobSprintizen and WhatsGooInstaFaceTwitMicroApple.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug into other computer. Right-click paste.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:18PM (1 child)
Identity Politics. Certain folks' only ideology is to be anti-anything-liberals like, even when it would benefit them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @10:20PM
Where are they? Nobody downvoted OP.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @08:43PM
>> Someone downvoted you. I can't imagine why.
Ajit Pai's got time on his hands since leaving the FCC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @03:20AM
Partnered with China Telecom. [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by js290 on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:34AM (12 children)
resource neutrality is not technically desirable...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @02:54AM
"resource neutrality"? What does that term even mean?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:43AM (10 children)
Of course it's technically desirable - it's actually the simplest implementation.
Rather than having to inspect packets, port numbers, etc and prioritising traffic depending on the individual configuration of each user, everything just passes through equally. This provides a net benefit in terms of sheer volume of throughput for the ISP. You might say that Torrenters will hog the bandwidth and impact on people watching 4K streams - that's a problem for the provider's capacity and pricing structure based on volume. Should your water cost more depending on whether you are showering, cooking or brushing your teeth?
Resource neutrality is not desirable from a profit perspective, because the Telcos don't get to screw people over for supplying something they already had before as a 'premium' service to them.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:58AM (3 children)
The ISPs want to provide "added value" by limiting certain packets.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:15PM (2 children)
When they do that it is "subtracted value" not "added value".
Why can't ISPs just focus on their primary mission. What it started out as. BIG DUMP PIPES
Focus on being the best, the cheapest, the fastest, the most reliable Big Dump Pipes there ever were.
It's a time honored way of doing business. Like a bakery trying to make better cakes than its competitors. Without also trying to offer its cake icing as an engine lubricant, fuel additive, floor wax and shampoo, all in one!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug into other computer. Right-click paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:44PM
"Added value" does not mean to ISPs what it means to you. By asking clients to pay premium for removal of limits on certain packets, they have added additional value to these packets over what they were already paid for transporting them.
As for your silly idea of "competition", you have big government to help you out with that.
(Score: 1) by js290 on Tuesday March 02 2021, @09:29PM
"Net neutrality" is a complete distraction from getting ISPs to provide business level connections to the home consumer, i.e. contracted CiRs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @06:52AM (5 children)
I suspect you might not understand how internet access works.
When you buy a package that offer's let's say 100Mbps speed, that 100Mbps is not a technical factor of the line being run to your house. The line run to your house is the exact same one as the guy down the street on a 10Mbps connection. The way the speed is enforced is through software filtering that either drops or queues up packets to create a throughput that will never exceed the specified target.
This gets even more fun because maybe you're thinking 'What about fiber to the home type connections'? In most cases that's not fiber to the home. If you have a connection like that, trace the line and more often than not you'll find it's plain old copper. Just like everybody else. And in fact you'll find the entire architecture is likely identical to what it was before they started offering that expensive 'fiber to the home' connection. It's not a complete lie, just misleading. It's actually fiber optic to a centralized hub and then plain old copper for the 'last mile' wiring. So they're bringing a fiber optic connection to your home, using copper wiring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @08:44AM
It is a lie, though, and one worth billions in government grants they received for the purpose of actually running fibre to people's homes back in the late '90s. AT&T even lobbied to kill a startup that was building such a system. That old network is now the backbone of Google's FTTH network.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @09:06AM
Rate limiting doesn't require any kind of deep packet inspection, just a counter and a timer. It also depends on the network. Cable modems are assigned a certain number of time slots on their local loop based on their contracted speeds. Any packets that don't fit get dropped. IIRC DSL modems vary their carrier frequency so they can operate at longer distances or across lower quality lines, and yes that does limit their transmit speed.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday February 25 2021, @09:24PM (1 child)
I understand how internet access works very well (worked for a Telco for a number of years).
The reason that ISPs want to kill Net Neutrality is to make more money selling you what you already have (and also to hold various companies to ransom by charging them extra to not slow their service down to all customers). The reason that they give to people is that there are these nasty torrenters on the platform using up all of the bandwidth and slowing down your Netflix. To a degree that can be true if the ISP hasn't invested in sufficient backhaul, however the truth is that they simply need to buy enough wholesale bandwidth (or invest in their networks enough) to supply what they have promised their customers.
My point remains - it's less technical effort for ISPs to just let all traffic flow equally (subject to the speed and data caps of the plan you've bought) than to start filtering Facebook vs Yahoo traffic, Netflix vs Disney+, Teams vs Zoom etc.
(Score: 1) by js290 on Tuesday March 02 2021, @09:17PM
you must have worked in the back of the telco... resource neutrality leads to contention, whether for RAM, CPU, bandwidth, etc. If there's one thing that will breaks the interwebz, it's network congestion due to neutrality: the porn torrent packets are just as important as E911 VoIP.
(Score: 1) by js290 on Tuesday March 02 2021, @09:26PM
Consumer grade internet does not have a contracted committed information rate (CiR) from the ISP, which is why the propaganda always always says "speeds up to...".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @03:00AM (1 child)
"This decision today is a legal decision and shouldn't be viewed in the political lens. I'm not expressing anything on the soundness of the policy. That might better be resolved by Congress than by federal courts."
This judge is doing his job as it is meant to be done. It isn't the judicial branch's place to determine what state policy should be, but if that policy is legal or not.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:21PM
I like the argument that the law itself is invalid because they haven't broken it yet!
Speed limits are unconstitutional because I am currently driving under the speed limit!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday February 25 2021, @08:43AM
So let me see if I've got this right: the ISPs launched a lawsuit to shoot down California's net neutrality laws, on the grounds that (they claim) they're not be doing anything that would violate those laws? And they were hoping someone would fall for that?
While we're at it, can we toss out the laws against robbing banks? I pinky-swear I'm not currently robbing any, and currently have no plans to do so. (...so long as it remains illegal)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 25 2021, @04:19PM (1 child)
Deep Packet Inspection is the camel's nose under the tent.
The next logical step is to alter the traffic.
Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember this on: an ISP that was altering HTTP responses to inject JavaScript and Ads that were NOT from the web server the ISP's customer had visited.
I wonder if Starlink will follow this pattern, or it will simply route traffic like a big dump pipe is supposed to do.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug into other computer. Right-click paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @09:47PM
>> I wonder if Starlink will follow this pattern
Starlink's planning to replace all your downloaded porn with Elon's dick pics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @10:36PM
We'll just handle it the way that CA laws are always handled.
Today we're announcing that we have created a new non-profit called: "the network ambivalence technology trust". All the members of the CA government who currently oversee the NN initiative, will find themselves new cushy "consulting" positions there at three times their current pay rate, and we'll make sure the guys that replace them "play ball".
We would like to assure our users that our great service levels will not be interfered with by a bunch of communist swine, and that you can depend on our hacking, er... complimentary services will be with you forever and ever until you die. But don't worry, your childrens minds will be left to our benevolent care.
-Thanks again!
-The fraternal association of california cable providers.
/j /s