FCC votes to preserve an open and neutral Internet

You know that that means, kids? Victory is ours... and the Internet's too!

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6487305/fcc-approved-net-neutrality-open-internet

Don't start the mass celebration just yet. We need to read this 300 page ruling first.

Does that mean we can pirate shit easier now

Hopefully it will stand up against the inevitable challenges.

LInk to meeting Skip to 2:19:45 if you just want to see Tom Wheeler's speech before the vote.

Grab your wallets it is going to cost you more to used the internet. There was nothing really wrong with things the way they were. The government has their hands on the internet and nothing good will come of it.

That's a lie.

If Comcast had their way, ISPs all over the country would be charging internet companies for bandwidth, inadvertently raising prices on us through the use of services. We would still pay a price one way or another. Except without title II, Comcast's monopoly will reign supreme and they would have unrestricted power to controlling which websites get to compete.

Good, I'd much rather have the government own the internet than corporate America that's for sure.

Just feels right, whether I get called crazy for thinking this or not.

I love how in a country where monopolies are illegal, the big service providers have teamed up to artificially make monopolies through creating whole large spans of area where they don't compete at all. America's fucked, and it's dragging my all ready fucked up country down with it.

Take that Republicans.

@Toph_Girl250: You don't sound crazy. Just sound like your average dumb American who has no clue about the subject they are talking about. Not your fault in total though. They've been very good at confusing the general populace and throwing shit in their face that smells and tastes good, to keep them from breaking through the cloud of idiocy they throw at you daily. Corporations are people, and soon they may even have the right to uphold and build there services around a single ideology like Catholicism or Buddhism. I'd find it hard to understand what's going on too if shit like that was being dealt with by the highest courts in the land.

@ribstaylor1: Love your irony....

Arguments heard on conservative talk radio on my 30 minute drive home today:

"Everyone who wants to start a website will have to register with the government first."

"All information on the internet will flow through the government before it reaches it's destination."

"The government will decide who gets to have access to the internet, when, and for how long."

"Their lobbysists - Comcast, ATT, and GE [why they mentioned GE in this space, I have no clue] - wanted this to happen because now customers will have to go through them when they want to access the internet."

It's clear that Republican pundits, at least, have absolutely zero idea what net neutrality is or they're feigning ignorance. To what level this reflects Republican politicians and the electorate at large I don't know, but I'm not encouraged. At the very least, I implore you not to add to the existing ignorance on the issue.

Please, think of the children.

Exactly. ISP's don't own the internet like they think they do. It shouldn't be a avenue for the rich to provide information and the poor to be silenced and throttled. The internet should be a place where all avenues of information are given equal priority.

I can finally kick Comcast to the curb!

Shoo troll, shoo.

This is great news to me. I am aware that there could be complications and hidden regulations (it is over 300 pages...) but the idea is still very promising.

The rest of the pages are just fillers that say "Screw Flanders" over and over

Do you also think that Kinect is sending a 24/7 1080p stream of your living room to the NSA too?

Maybe satellite internet will get better and the 15 mbps top speed and 30 gb montly data limit will get better.

Oh wait no it wont..

Republicans are just blatently anti middle class these days and there are enough stupid/obvious people voting for them to keep things like this coming.

Can't say I fully understand net neutrality to make intelligent comments. It has something to do with price discrimination? Usually, I dont mind certain things being privatized because that leads to cheaper prices and better services. Usually when the government tries their hand in the private sector, it's disastrously bad like Amtrak, but if they're just setting guidelines, then maybe that isnt that bad.

Here's a list of the five things to know about net neutrality:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102460896

Basically, net neutrality has a principle of non-discrimination by ISPs in passing content from sources (websites etc) to consumers. So it says that an ISP can't pass through content from different sites differently (eg they can't make Google results come through faster than Bing results).

In principle, one might want to allow ISPs to charge content providers who use large amounts of data if it causes congestion problems (an externality of sorts). The real issue though is that the ISP market in the US is extremely uncompetitive (a lot of places, my city included, have only one ISP). This potentially creates an enormous problem with ISPs being a monopoly of service to consumers, but also in effect a monopsony of the ISP being the only person who can pass through content from the providers. When the ISP can act as a monopsony, the data passthrough charges stop being primarily about congestion (which is exacerbated by its monopoly power, meaning it does not have to improve its infrastructure to reduce congestion issues, so there's some extent to which the congestion externality is artificial) and become more about extracting rents from the content producers. It's extremely hard to see how this combination of facts can benefit consumers.

Net neutrality would probably be much less of an issue if there were any real competition. But until there is, it seems like a necessary regulation.

Good points. Didn't the FCC also pass rules that will allow smaller ISPs to be more competitive?

Not sure, hopefully though. I just want Google Fiber :P

I know there was a roadblock to Google Fiber being brought up north. Does this clear that up?

I think a lot of the problem is cities having contracts with ISPs for exclusive use of the phone poles etc. I think this may give companies like Google access to them.

No, they aren't. You can have a monopoly, but you can't leverage that monopoly to stifle competition.

A monopoly is when a company has exclusive control over a good or service in a particular market. Not all monopolies are illegal; for example, businesses that produce a superior product or are well managed may disadvantage their competitors while not violating antitrust law.

Monopolies are illegal if they are established or maintained through improper conduct, such as exclusionary or predatory acts. This is known as anticompetitive monopolization.

Link

The only thing that kind of concerns me is that the rules aren't public yet. I'm getting some deja vu.

ISPs and Telcos are required to offer their lines for lease to competitors. They're also required to set aside space in the Telco hub for competitors equipment.

Trust me, that's how I got my business up.

Look up Unbundled Network Element.

@MakeMeaSammitch: Net Neutrality is being pushed by Liberals just like the Fairness Doctrine was. The Fairness Doctrine ended all political debate on radio for over forty years. Net Neutrality is a way for the internet to be controlled. Liberalism to quote Jim Quinn " always generates the opposite of its stated intent".

Just fyi paint chips aren't meant for human consumption.

Thought this was relevant.

@foxhound_fox said:

Thought this was relevant.

LOL! That's funny, for a reference to Dressgate!

Fox News said this is a bad thing and means Obama's big gobment is now in control and over regulating...rofl

ITT

proof that social cons are dumb.

Or at least yourself and how you don't want to look like an even bigger idiot than you already do.