U.S. FCC Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

[engine]

Well, that's it, it's a done deal.

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.

The agency scrapped so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone services.

[nytimes.com...]

Earlier Report: FCC Head Plans to Overturn U.S. Net Neutrality Rules [webmasterworld.com]

[keyplyr]

Right now my home connectivity is 686 Mbps at $17.95 per month (my office is 3 times that at $144 per month.)

I'll be utterly amazed if that rate stays the same a year from now.

But the more important issue for all of us that have online businesses, is now that the ISPs *can* slow our websites, will they?

[tangor]

If your product/site is impacting their resources to the point they can't service their present customers, you can expect a letter, call or warning. Then again, that would happen with NN, too.

Meanwhile, I want your 686mbps and that price. It's not fair that I have to pay $40 for 12mbps (think of a several millions major metro area with all three of the big isps available and all charging pretty much the same price for similar speeds). Am I being throttled, or it is merely major corps at work? I suspect the latter. NN didn't protect me when active from 2015-2017 and I suspect nothing else will change in the near future.

[motorhaven]

Local government monopoly regulations have helped insure I pay $69/month for 23 mpbs.

[mcneely]

Local government monopoly regulations have helped insure I pay $69/month for 23 mpbs.

Local governments are yet another problem -- Always we find them with their arm out and their leg up wanting to cut the magic deal with an ISP for money to do business in their town. The pricing to do business in some municipalities can be pretty high and so can leasing space on the power pole from the electric company - and all of this already on top of regular cost, like actually installing the lines.

Still even on another note - I had a guy in town complaining the other day that Comcast was probably going to up the price on his data plan for streaming -- Wait, What? -- He had cut the cord on the Television portion of his plan, which effectively cut his bill in half and went with streaming Sling I think -- He didn't know that you can stream Sling, or even Youtube TV for as little as a measly 3 MB connection - He could drop to a 15 MB connection speed plan and still watch his precious TV via stream.

Back in the day, computer sales touted the size of the hard drive in order to make the sale. Telling someone the actual processing speed of the unit was a no-no --- Phones are weak - The A7 only clocks out at a whopping 1.85 GHz -- We can't move computers with processing speeds that slow - If we sold a new 64 bit machine with only a 1.85 GHz processor, we would be laughed out of the industry, but yet here we are, no one understands that the processing speed of the unit they're using has everything to do with how well, or not, their connectivity is or isn't. (many streaming services already know this and have written their services to help compliment those slower processors)

Network Neutrality is the bait -- All I've heard lately is people worried about not being able to have the speed they seem to think they need, yet all the while being quite oblivious to the fact that their unit may never go any faster than it already is -- Internet connection speed is a marketing hook (just like HD sizes back in the day) - Forget about the money you paid for that slow processor, lets go to the ISP instead and complain about not being able to stream a 3, 4, or, 7 MB service on our 50 MB service plans -

As an aside - I'd gladly pay 5 extra bucks a month for Facebook -- Talk is cheap, and if it's free, it's even cheaper than that. Have any of you been to Facebook lately? - It's a cesspool full of hatred and fake news - Twitter isn't so much different than that even. Maybe if people had to purchase a subscription, their written comments would be more clearly thought out and the overall noise of the platform would be decreased. Who knows? -- Facebook is the modern version of the old FFA pages IMO.

[lawman]

I got a MediaCom bundle with 200Mbps download. My smartphone handles it fine, but had to get a new network card for my desktop to handle the speed.

[edited by: lawman at 4:17 pm (utc) on Dec 18, 2017]

[Marshall]

ISP's will charge whatever they want, Net Neutrality not withstanding. This is especially true in areas where hard wired competition does not exist. My bill goes up an average $15.00 a month every year, though nothing about my service changes (only have internet and phone). IMHO, nothing is going to change in the immediate future until ISP's can figure out what they can get away with before their customers rise up. In fact, it may encourage competitors to hard wire an area they they previously would not consider.

[NickMNS]

Am I the only one that thinks it's crazy that one needs to run two or three or even four cables to each home, as suggested in comments such as one like the one made by Marshall just above and by others:

In fact, it may encourage competitors to hard wire an area they they previously would not consider.

It's as if you had a private companies selling you sewage removal from your home, and then saying to ensure competition we need to install three parallel sewage pipes to each home, and then three mains leading to three waste water treatment facilities. Sure you would get competition, but also a lot of waste (not the type of waste that is running in the pipes). Waste, in the sense of wasted resources that simply lie idle waiting for the customer to change carrier. What happens when technologies change? Triple the obsolescence, triple the waste, triple the cost to upgrade. Who pays for this? The corporations? No the customers, and since customers are paying for three times the infrastructure then the cost will increase three fold. And to say "Well I only pay for the service I use" is not true. For competition to exist the infrastructure must be in place, and customers will pay for it. This is simple math no econometrics required.

So statements like:

I guess we get to see what competition can do and history is on the side of competition

are ill informed. There is no doubt that competition is required in most areas of an economy in order to maintain it healths. But infrastructure is not one of them.
Triple the highways,
Triple the power grid,
Triple water pipes...

Why even stop at three, we should have seven of each, more competition lowers cost for the consumer.

[tangor]

When electricity was deregulated (a bit) some 15-20 years ago, the competition in providers went through the roof, and not one single additional bit of copper wiring was added to the mix (your existing "wire" did the trick). Billing RATES, however, went down for many and that is the benefit of competition.

My connection is limited to the type of wire installed, can't feed faster than 12mbs without upgrade ... and in that there's another "business" opportunity, but I digress, as we often do. :)

[motorhaven]

I had a guy in town complaining the other day that Comcast was probably going to up the price on his data plan for streaming -- Wait, What? -- He had cut the cord on the Television portion of his plan, which effectively cut his bill in half and went with streaming Sling I think -- He didn't know that you can stream Sling, or even Youtube TV for as little as a measly 3 MB connection - He could drop to a 15 MB connection speed plan and still watch his precious TV via stream.

Yeah, we were limited to 6 Mbps for a few years until they upgraded the infrastructure in our rural town. We watched Netflix just fine, even HD. The slowest speed tier here is 18Mbps, which is what I pay for but the connection is actually 23 Mbps. I don't use torrents, am not a gamer and anything I download is usually smaller open source stuff and almost never need anything more. I have incremental server backups stream over in the wee hours of the night, and its done long before I wake up --- that's the only thing I really need any speed for --- maybe the occasional Centos or other DVD image but not often enough to warrant paying for more speed.

I could go up to 75Mbps but honestly 99% of the sites I visit load in the blink of a eye.

[keyplyr]

As pointed out many times in this thread, competition does not apply to ISPs. Most everyone is stuck with the ISP that services their area.

So the argument that NN discouraged competition is invalid.

BTW - during the years of NN, we saw such innovations as 4g (and now 5g), streaming technology, HTML5, CSS3, WiFi Certified, huge improvements in broadband capabilities & speed, HTTP2, the implementation of HTTPS, the mobile technology explosion, etc.

So again, saying NN discouraged innovation is also an invalid argument.

[LifeinAsia]

during the years of NN, we saw such innovations as...

Huh?

I was streaming shows long before NN. HTML5 came out in 2014 (but was in development for years before that). CSS3 also pre-dated NN, Mobile technology started exploding before the Y2K scare.

[keyplyr]

Huh?

Yes, these all came into fruition during NN and continued to thrive.

[keyplyr]

Netflix just increased pricing 25%. They sure didn't waste any time.

[tangor]

Was going to happen anyway (Netflix price hike).... that's where they get the development funds for their entertainment creation biz. All the other stuff did not appear by magic in 2015-17 ... most of it had been in development (and use) for 5-10 years already.

[keyplyr]

of course

[lawman]

October article on Netflix price increase:

Netflix subscribers in the United States will probably see an increase in their monthly bill within the next few months.
[businessinsider.com...]

Now, instead of making spurious connections and two word responses, can we get back to arguing the merits of the situation?

[Brett_Tabke]

> It's as if you had a private companies selling you
> sewage removal from your home,

Sure, if they had different systems that had different benefits. Maybe a gravity system vs high presssure where the high pressure is smaller lines and not prone to corrosion.

Same with interent: Google is dropping fiber all over Austin TX while there are full cable TV/Internet connections, and good old DLS running down Ma Bell copper lines. So what!? Cable costs less than a penny a foot, copper 2 cents, and fiber is less than a penny per 10 FEET to build.

> highways, power grid, water pipes...

Water and sewer have been the same since the Romans. Most places they are owned/operated by the local govt. Not alot of need for innovation at this point. The high cost of installation make multiple services prohibitive.

Electricity is something else. There are parts of the country where you can choose your elec company.

Private internet/cable/tv/phone have changed and are changing radically in the last 10 years. Clearly, you can't run 1gig or dream of 100gig down a shared copper line of data.

> everyone is stuck with the ISP that services their area.
> So the argument that NN discouraged competition is invalid.

That makes no sense.

Because we are stuck with the ISP currently, why can't Apple - with it's $200 billion cash setting in the bank - start an ISP that could blow away TimeWarner/Comcast...etal? They done't have because NN guarantees them access to all their competitors connections.

>NN discouraged innovation is also an invalid argument.

My computer has a 10gbs ethernet card. Why is my connection to the internet not 10gbs?

Of course NN has buried competition. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft - all but Google have ridden gracefully on the backs of NN for years. Atleast Google saw the writing on the wall and started Google fiber to hedge their bets.

Now that NN is gone, you want one of the big 4 buy a cell phone company and prep for universal 5G wireless.

>Netflix just increased pricing 25%.

When you are a hammer - everything looks like a nail. Netflix assured their post NN future even before NN was enacted.
Netflix is rock solid with all the major ISP's. It signed agrrements with all and with hardware peeps 5 years ago.
It has netflix-in-a-box servers dropped at over 2500 isp locations in the US alone. They are not worried. [openconnect.netflix.com...]
They are simply taking advantage of the situation.

[Shepherd]

Well, if nothing else, there certainly seems to be no shortage of interpretations of the function of net neutrality.

[LifeinAsia]

Yes, these all came into fruition during NN and continued to thrive.

No, as I pointed out, they came of age years before NN. Yes, they may have continued to grow during NN, but that's not cause/effect. They grew before NN; they grew during. If they happen to die in the next new year or so (and not because of becoming obsolete from new advances), then we can have that part of the discussion again.

[thecoalman]

When was the last time you saw any innovation or outreach for new customers/services from those quarters?

You expect turning your modem into the modern day equivalent of a cable box is going to drive innovation? If the ISP's knew 20 years ago what was going to occur I'm sure we would had some great innovations like closed networks, propietary hardware.software to operate on their network etc etc.

What has driven the explosive growth and innovation of the internet is anyone having access to customers.

or ISPs will have to turn folks away (or into a tier) just to keep up with the demand

.

If I fill up my swimming pool I expect to pay more than someone that fills up their bathtub. I'm fine with that as long as the water company isn't dictating what brand pool or bathtub I can fill up.

[thecoalman]

Electricity is something else. There are parts of the country where you can choose your elec company.

...and the reason that works is because the distributor of the electric is required to carry the power of the generator you choose. It's probably one of the most perfect comparisons to NN there is. Depends on the state how they are compensated. Here in PA the power and distribution costs are itemized on the customers bill. Whether I'm buying power from the distributor or some other company the cost for distribution is the same. In Texas as another example the distributor charges the power generator but that fee can be no more than what they would charge the customer to carry their own power.

This has introduce competition into the power generation market(content providers) because the power distributor(the ISP) can no longer monopolize the generation.

[Brett_Tabke]

> It's probably one of the most perfect comparisons to NN there is.

The difference though, is that technology to deliver data continues to evolve. 1980's copper entered -> 1990's cable entered -> 2000's fiber entered ->2010's ? (I bet 5G Wireless)

...taking side bets on if/when Google buys a wireless company...

[thecoalman]

I think that's besides the point Brett, if the delivery of electricity had comparable improvements you would still not have a vast array of competitors to generate that electric if the distributor is not mandated to carry that power.

There is lot of people in this country that do not even have access to broadband let alone two or more companies. Even when there is competition you have a choice between Moe, Larry and Curly. :P If you live in area like that I don't think there should be any expectation you get service or are not going to pay and arm and a leg for it. The expectation you should have is when service is available the ISP will not be dictating to you what you can use that service for.

Where I live I have a choice between Comcast and Verizon DSL, cell service is not even possible. In fact I have extender so it goes over the internet. Is Comcast going to block my cell service extender for my Verizon cell phone? When I'm at my Grandmother's and use the Verizon DSL I pay for there and login ointo my Comcast account to watch a movie is that going to be blocked by Verizon? Am i going to be stuck wondering if there is something wrong with home network or is it because the ISP is simply blocking it?

There has been explosive growth of the internet over the past 20+ as we all know. That has been driven by two primary factors. Open standards and nearly anyone on the planet having access to the customers that sit on the other end of the ISP's network.