Net Neutrality

[Harbringe]

Huge victory jus levelled by the FCC for Net Neutrality , it will now be treated as a public utility , there will be no fast or slow lanes by the dictates of any private entity of any kind . For the Nexus and what it is that goes on here , this is the best thing that could happen .

[HeyYou]

Awwwwww, the internet service providers aren't going to be able to extort money to give someones traffic 'priority'..... I am so depressed. :D (in a pigs eye.)

Edited February 27, 2015 by HeyYou

[Beriallord]

I think its a good thing, and I'm usually against the government getting involved in stuff like this. This is because I've seen the complete scummery by ISPs first hand.

 

There are too many de-facto corporate monopolies by ISPs. They make backroom deals with each other to stay out of each other's turf so they can charge more for those services in specific areas. Comcast and Time Warner used to have a deal like that. Someone figured out it was more profitable to have monopolies over a certain # of regions than to compete with each other everywhere. Of course the Republican party are shills for corporate special interests because they grease their palms with campaign contributions.

 

Its even worse for rural ISPs. If you live a few miles outside of town, you'll be stuck with low speed DSL or low data cap satellite internet. We're talking speeds as atrocious as 768k-1.5mb DSL. That was decent in 1997, but its 2015 now and data sizes have went from a few dozen to few hundred MBs to a few dozen GBs for things like movies and games. This has a lot to do with utility companies who own access to the poles blocking competition out while at the same time being the ones who happen to provide internet access, like AT&T. If they're forced to give access to competition, then things might open up.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Beriallord

[HeyYou]

What happened to Comcast BUYING Time-Warner? Did that get nixed?

[Vagrant0]

What happened to Comcast BUYING Time-Warner? Did that get nixed?

I believe that was put on hold pending an anti-trust hearing.

[Harbringe]

Its even worse for rural ISPs. If you live a few miles outside of town, you'll be stuck with low speed DSL or low data cap satellite internet. We're talking speeds as atrocious as 768k-1.5mb DSL. That was decent in 1997, but its 2015 now and data sizes have went from a few dozen to few hundred MBs to a few dozen GBs for things like movies and games. This has a lot to do with utility companies who own access to the poles blocking competition out while at the same time being the ones who happen to provide internet access, like AT&T. If they're forced to give access to competition, then things might open up.

 

Actually its worse than that . A friend of mine works in IT support for various ISP's , mostly from the US and he described how in the US there were still areas (in the country) that didn't even have high speed access but were being charged not as much but pretty close to those who did have high speed access and when he told how large some of the communities were in the country (20 - 30 thousand) I was shocked . I mean some of these places were as large or larger than where I live in Canada (Where we decided everyone was to have equal access many years ago , falls under public utility laws) . So I asked why would they be doing this , it didn't make any sense to me and he explained that by limiting bandwith to so many people it was freeing up capacity to then turn around and offer expanded data transfer packages to bigger players in the market like other Corporations or the Government . So those who were subject to this are really subsidizing the costs for bigger players in the market and the ISP is scooping up bigger profits while not having to make any investments in infrastructure . Thats what this whole fast lane , slow lane access being pushed by the likes of ATT , Comcast and others was really about . Its about one group that you disadvantage to subsidize the costs for another and the profits that can be garnered betwixt the two .

 

If they had of succeeded (fast lane/slow lane thing) I doubt the Nexus with its model that it has built would survive such a thing , cause I don't think they would be granted fast lane access and given the amount of files that fly around this place they would likely have to institute some kinda fee or subscription based systems and in games where people are offering up mods and their skills for free , that jus wouldn't work . It would be bye bye Nexus.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Harbringe

[Vagrant0]

If they had of succeeded (fast lane/slow lane thing) I doubt the Nexus with its model that it has built would survive such a thing , cause I don't think they would be granted fast lane access and given the amount of files that fly around this place they would likely have to institute some kinda fee or subscription based systems and in games where people are offering up mods and their skills for free , that jus wouldn't work . It would be bye bye Nexus.

 

 

You forgot the part where these companies would be offering additional packages to allow fast lane access to certain sites, like youtube, netflix, hulu, ect while forcing these sites to slow lane traffic without. This additional package becoming a means of not only limiting the amount of bandwidth that these sites use by normal members (their cost), but also as a way of both getting money from these sites which compete with their own television package as well as getting more money from people wanting to access these sites at a reasonable rate. Without net neutrality, these companies could literally sell access to "premium" sites, just like they were doing with television channels, meanwhile using this model as a means of establishing multiple tiers of internet service options. It wouldn't just be that sites could be forced to a slower speed, they could also decide to block all access to that site and redirect you to a page telling you to upgrade your internet package to get access, essentially allowing them to decide what sites should or should not get traffic as well as how much more people should have to pay for using them.

[juderodney]

Am I the only one here that's disturbed by this? The FCC, a bunch of government officials who were never elected, just made a declaration that is now pretty much going to be treated like a law. This, in and of itself, is nothing short of illegal! The government just took more power unto itself without congressional approval.

[Harbringe]

Am I the only one here that's disturbed by this? The FCC, a bunch of government officials who were never elected, just made a declaration that is now pretty much going to be treated like a law. This, in and of itself, is nothing short of illegal! The government just took more power unto itself without congressional approval.

 

No actually its not illegal , the FCC was specifically created by Congress to regulate all public comunication airwaves , which includes all transmitter (radio) , TV (by whatever means that is done) and the same goes for telephone . The internet operates exactly by those mediums . The internet has actually been the odd man out . The FCC doesn't need Congressional approval for this because it was Congress who mandated this power to them long ago . They already had the power , but in the case of the internet they just weren't exercising it. At least so not in the US , other Countries (at least the idustrialized West) had their FCC like departments make these exact rulings years ago , some of them decades ago when the internet first began to get going.

[Beriallord]

The concern from the right seems to be that the government will use this to start censoring the internet, which is something the left should be concerned about as well. I don't think their concerns are without merit. Seeing as how the FCC is involved in censoring TV. Declaring the internet a ulitlity would in fact give them more authority to censor the internet. But people at least have ways of circumventing censorship, such as using VPNs/proxies. And the US government has no authority over websites hosted outside of their country. So censoring the internet wouldn't be as simple as censoring TV. I don't think they could get away with really draconian censorship policies, or it would get taken to court and likely lose. And I don't think the left or the right would support such measures.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Beriallord