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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Broadband providers made it clear this week: they wholeheartedly support net neutrality... but they want to overturn those pesky net neutrality rules and replace them with something that isn't so strict.
In fact, the way to truly protect net neutrality is to keep the Internet free of regulations, Internet provider CenturyLink wrote. "Keep the Internet Open and Free—Without Regulation" was the title of CenturyLink's blog post Wednesday.
"Reversing the FCC's 2015 Internet regulation order will do several positive things: Increase customer choice, spur innovation and investment, [and] create lasting consumer and competitive protections," CenturyLink wrote.
Comcast, meanwhile, accused net neutrality supporters of "creat[ing] hysteria."
This was part of a flurry of activity by ISPs and broadband lobby groups in response to yesterday's "Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality," a protest of the Federal Communications Commission plan to deregulate broadband and eliminate or replace net neutrality rules. All of the ISPs and lobby groups claimed to support net neutrality even though they have fought against the FCC's attempts to enforce rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.
The Day of Action resulted in more than 3.4 million e-mails to Congress and more than 1.6 million comments to the FCC, protest organizer Fight for the Future said yesterday. "More than 125,000 websites, people, artists, online creators, and organizations" signed up to participate in the protest, the group said.
The net neutrality docket now has 7.3 million comments.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:28PM (2 children)
Comcast is so great because it's everywhere. When I go to somebody's place of business for an on-site visit, 99% of the time they have Comcast Business and I know my VPN will pass right through. When I stop in a coffee shop, whatever kind of captive portal they use on the local Wi-Fi, 99% of the time Comcast is backing the connection and I know my VPN will pass right through. Even if the closest wi-fi signal isn't Comcast but there are any residences in range, 99% of the time someone will have Comcast home internet and there will be xfinitywifi and I know my VPN will pass right through.
Yes indeed a Comcast monopoly is great because it means a consistent firewall ruleset is deployed everywhere and after you scan it once then you can configure your VPN to use the holes which are the same everywhere.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)
Net Neutrality is like Free Love and I always do anal because when I want a fuck, 99% of the time the other person has an anus and my cock fits right into that shit.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @06:22PM
I guess some of us are more endowed than others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @06:12PM (1 child)
Hey, if it works, you go with it. The ends justify the means. And besides, just watch how hysterical Comcast gets when threatened with real competition.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @12:26PM
Hysteria seems to be business as usual in political debate - if some people don't get hysterical about it, it must not matter enough to care about.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:12PM (3 children)
do as comcast say, free them from every regulation, except of course those regulating the sale of an item. It must match the description.
Therefore if it does not let you access the whole IP space, plus all the other protocols built on TCP, you CANNOT call it Internet Access. If packets get scanned mangled, you CANNOT call it Internet Access. If you sell MY access stats you get to jail for dissemination of private information and become responsible for every damage I incur from it, now to eternity.
Then, you also free the comcast customer from any silly obligation comcast may put in its contracts. I have Internet Access, i can share, resell, spam, do whatever I want, because hey no regulation for you, no regulation for me. If I do bad things or the judge suspects so, let the police scan every packet and give them my address. It is only fair.
Sign me up.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:16PM
The Terms of Service would like a word with you. You, under no regulation, agreed to be repeatedly fucked up the ass with a 10 inch diameter cactus. See, isn't free market, where gentlemen can make agreements amongst themselves, so great?
Now, bend over because 30 seconds have passed and it's cactus-up-your-bum-time again...
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Saturday July 15 2017, @08:40PM
So they'll call it "online access" or some such and still give shitty, databloacked service. And most people won't know the difference. How is your solution better than stupid?
That is all.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday July 16 2017, @05:17PM
I'm already having a problem with Comcast blocking ports. Whatever port Acer uses for security upgrades is blocked, as is whatever port Microsoft uses to repair MS Office.
Seriously thinking about DSL. I wish there was a lot more competition.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:14PM (1 child)
Turd salesman says anyone asking for non-turd stuff is wrong...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @08:22PM
I once read a novella about a space program that paired human astronauts with alien dung beetles on an intergalactic journey. The mission failed when the humans didn't want dung beetles strapped to their asses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:24PM (6 children)
Error message:
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:18AM (4 children)
Yeah, isn't the problem that big ISPs sues cities and municipalities that tries to build last mile access? How is it with co-operatives? are they fought tooth and nail too by big ISPs using local politicians as goons?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @05:39AM (3 children)
I know a guy who brokered the deal for an ISP to get exclusive rights to a mid-sized Australian city's customers from 1996 to 2006(ish) - just his tiny slice of that deal was enormously valuable, like one small aspect of this wealth was: he never flew coach again, ever.
The utilities business doesn't have to be lock-up monopolies. Houston figured out how to allow a dozen or more electric service providers to compete for the right to service every home, one infrastructure, they shared the costs of maintenance and expansion, and the customers had real choice at rates slightly favorable when compared to nearby monopoly schemes.
Most of the utility monopolies are created by local politicians, elected officials - too bad that people can't manage to care enough to elect officials that will improve that situation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday July 16 2017, @09:13AM (2 children)
There are entire countries that follow the Houston model. Who owns the infrastructure in Houston then? the neighbor cooperation? municipality? state?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @11:45AM (1 child)
I never dug into it, should be easy enough to do via Google... two semi-interesting things about that, though:
Our house, and about a dozen neighboring houses, had huge backyards due to the addition of land from a utility easement. I surmise that the utilities were probably granted this land back when it was very low cost, held it, and decided they weren't going to need it so sold it off, presumably after it had appreciated considerably - much like the early railroads all over the country (world?) were granted much more land than they needed for tracks and were able to sell off much of it for profit after they increased its value by providing rail access.
Also, while we were there (2003-6), among the options of providers one could select a company that purchased their generation capacity from wind and solar sources, back then it was a slight (like 10%) premium cost over the conventional provider companies. Other options mostly centered around tiered payment plans, some with low cost low usage with higher costs beyond a threshold, others had a more of a flat rate, though most seemed to have some tiering. Other service rates minimum usage fees, reconnection charges, etc. varied, but not by life changing amounts.
All I remember was that, after choosing a provider, our call for service turn-on went just about the same as the single provider situation, except in this situation the power had actually been turned off before closing whereas every home we've bought in single provider markets they don't ever get around to shutting down service like they say they will. Otherwise we paid the bill and service was provided more or less the same as everywhere else. Never thought about it again after the initial choice.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @10:16PM
In North Texas the electricity network is maintained by a company called Oncor, and all plans have a fixed cost to cover connectivity and maintenance.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @12:29PM
One of the most impressive things about the internet to me in 1996 was that I was using my current sucky ISP to shop for deals with their replacement candidates.
May that NEVER change.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @10:50PM (3 children)
That's a laugh, when in most places a customer has only one choice for an ISP!
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:07AM (1 child)
To Comcast "increase customer choice" means "chose between different Comcast offerings."
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:09PM
Also, speaking with a Comcast customer service representative basically amounts to: "How may I help you get into a more costly plan today?" They have all sorts of promotions, tiers, bundles and incentives, but if all you want is basic internet access - that costs (today) about $65 per month. Any promotions you might get are short term "introductory rates" to higher priced plans with more services - services we've never found any value in, but when that introductory period is over, your rate is always jacked up even higher than the basic, unbundled internet.
Although, there was a period of some years where Comcast would actually give you internet service plus basic television for less than internet service alone, but those days seem to be past.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:04PM
In the early dialup days, technically inclined guys ran ISPs out of their garages, would scale up to about 100 to 1000 subscribers and get bought/consolidated into larger more professionally equipped operations. The system had pluses and some big minuses, but the key was that the ISPs were independent of the physical lines, they just sold service over the toll-free local calling lines. My, and many of my friends' experience was that we would cycle through about 3 or 4 providers before we found a decent one, that would run a couple of years, they'd get bought, service would generally suffer after the acquisition and the search would start over.
In my case, my "good" dialup ISP carried me all the way to when broadband was starting to become available, the big difference with broadband was that the service providers also owned the physical infrastructure. Our choices were the local phone company with DSL and the cable company with essentially ethernet over coax - in the early days, DSL was out-performing the cable, not because the wires were better, but because the phone company ran better switching systems - the cable companies really didn't have a clue about the technical side of the business. Finally, about 10 years later (in our neighborhoods), the physical advantages of the coax started to win out as cable companies sort of figured out how to use them properly. But, still, we're stuck with cable minded "bundles" and "introductory periods" and "tiered service" that really isn't tiered at all - when we paid for the "super blast" or whatever the hell high tier service, it was just as flaky and unreliable as basic service, they just turned the throttling on our connection up a little - in fact, reliability actually seemed to go down for the premium service.
We've got a problem that the last mile wiring quality is still not a reliable commodity, and I'm sure the incumbents know that they have to keep it that way unless they want the municipalities to step in and take over the infrastructure and put ISPs back in competition with each other, the way it was in the "good old days" of dialup.
🌻🌻 [google.com]