legal Net Neutrality Has Been Repealed!

[DaveX]

I just read that...

F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules
WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies the power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.

The agency scrapped the 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 service.

Full Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html

How will this change things?

 

[Kate]

You children should read what happened to the Bell Telephone System. Under neutrality there was ONE phone company in the USA.

Comparing apples to oranges. Back in 1984 the govt broke the telco monopoly. That wasn't neutrality at all, that was monopoly.
Repealing net neutrality means fewer protections for consumers. Net neutrality does not hinder competition at all. Actually, it provides a level playing field. Providers already had all the flexibility to operate.
Remember that some of the stakeholders have been investigated (and fined heavily) for abusing their position of dominance.
Stop thinking the market will always regulate itself in your favor. By the way, changing ISP (if you don't like their policies) is not that easy. Depending on where you live, your options may be few.

Also, imagine if the phone system was run like the 'new' US Internet, and phone calls get prioritized (or declined) depending on your subscription, the purpose and your net worth while we are it. Imagine Baby Bell deciding if your call is worthy/important and how or whether to handle it. Or maybe put you in a queue until more 'important' calls are completed. Yeah. Would you enjoy such a two-speed system ? I doubt.

 

[Arca]

It will hamper entrepreneurial activity and startups if small business lack the ability to compete and provide services and content at the same speed as large corporations without having to pay more for it. Net neutrality ensures that it is relatively cheap to start an online business. If a startup or small business has to pay to reach an internet service provider's subscriber, it changes the current economic circumstances of the internet unfavorably for startups and small business, which in turn will hurt online innovation (and demand for domain names).

Just because something does not impact directly me does not mean I don't care about it.

US net neutrality may not affect us directly as internet users outside of the US, but net neutrality (or the lack thereof) has direct implications for us as domain investors.

 

[mr-x]

Why not consider an equivalent disaster - when a ship's anchor cut undersea cables and millions of folks were cut off from servers from Asia?

Ok, that hasn't happened either.

 

[mr-x]

You're claiming the exact opposite. Until the phone lines were nationalized and opened up, Bell Telephone had a monopoly. Only when other entities were given equal and unfettered access to the "pipes" that competition arose and bell's monopoly was broken. What neutrality are you talking about that Bell enjoyed?

1) No I'm not. Bell's monopoly was crushed by a lawsuit and enforced by the FTC.

2) Phone lines were not nationalized. New phone companies paid Bell for access.

3) After the forced break up of Bell Systems, new companies offered new services and started to upgrade service lines and software.

 

[Arca]

I do not understand why some users here take such a blanket negative view towards regulations. Regulations are needed to protect consumers from the unfettered economic greed of corporations.

We as domainers benefit from domain name regulations. For example, ICANN has frozen .COM (operated by Verisign) registration and renewal prices until 2024, and thanks to this piece of regulation, we can pay relatively affordable .COM fees.

In contrast, a price freeze is not in place for .NET domains (also operated by Verisign), and they are allowed to increase prices by 10% yearly. Verisign has increase the price at every opportunity they have had so far (the wholesale price was just $4.65 in 2011), and in 2023, .NET is going to renew around $15-16 retail unless Verisign stops hiking the price every time they have the chance, while .COM is still going to renew at $8-9. If there was not a price freeze regulation in place, or if Verisign had any kind of option to increase .COM prices they would have increased prices as much as possible at every opportunity; the history of .NET price increases have shown us that. It's merely thanks to regulations that we still just pay $8-9 for our renewals, not due to the benevolence of Verisign...

Now if we move into the area of unregulated domains, in terms of registration and renewal prices, we have the ngtlds, that register and renew at $5 $50, $500, or even $5000 if the registry is greedy enough. And the renewal price may change from $50/year to $500/year based on the greedy whims of the registry. The ngtld space is a complete mess and will never succeed due to the unregulated nature of the ngtld program, where registry greed goes completely unchecked.

 

[mr-x]

Comparing apples to oranges. Back in 1984 the govt broke the telco monopoly. That wasn't neutrality at all, that was monopoly.

it was another company that wanted to complete with Bell Systems that sued in federal court to end Bell's monopoly. They paid Bell to transport calls for years.

Repealing net neutrality means fewer protections for consumers. Net neutrality does not hinder competition at all. Actually, it provides a level playing field.

Providers already had all the flexibility to operate.
Remember that some of the stakeholders have been investigated (and fined heavily) for abusing their position of dominance.
Stop thinking the market will always regulate itself in your favor. By the way, changing ISP (if you don't like their policies) is not that easy. Depending on where you live, your options may be few.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

1) Nobody expects the market to regulate itself. There are laws that make anti-competitive behavior illegal. The FTC makes rules based on those laws.

2) I'll continue thinking as I please until proven wrong by evidence, not your opinion.

3) 5G is coming to mobile. 20 GBS is many times faster than what I have now .

Also, imagine if the phone system was run like the 'new' US Internet, and phone calls get prioritized (or declined) depending on your subscription, the purpose and your net worth while we are it. Imagine Baby Bell deciding if your call is worthy/important and how or whether to handle it. Or maybe put you in a queue until more 'important' calls are completed. Yeah. Would you enjoy such a two-speed system ? I doubt.

1) Net Neutrality classified ISP's as phone companies, which they are not.

2) Your imagined scenarios are prevented by current law.

3) Who would pay for a system like you imagine? No-one I know.

 

[mr-x]

This will kill the internet.... Definitely for worse

People are going to DIE! Wait.. how did the Internet work before 2014?

 

[mr-x]

I wonder how many of these thought leaders supported the U.S. Government transfering the management of the domain name system to ICANN ?

Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Wozniak and other internet luminaries had something to say on this matter:

Internet Pioneers and Leaders Tell the FCC: You Don’t Understand How the Internet Works

Internet creators and leading figures ask the FCC to cancel its vote repealing Net Neutrality protections



The Honorable Roger Wicker
Chair, Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet

The Honorable Brian Schatz,
Ranking Member, Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet

The Honorable Marsha Blackburn,
Chair, House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology

The Honorable Michael F. Doyle,
Ranking Member, House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology



Senator Wicker:
Senator Schatz:
Representative Blackburn:
Representative Doyle:


We are the pioneers and technologists who created and now operate the Internet, and some of the innovators and business people who, like many others, depend on it for our livelihood. We are writing to respectfully urge you to call on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to cancel the December 14 vote on the FCC’s proposed Restoring Internet Freedom Order (WC Docket No. 17-108 ).

This proposed Order would repeal key network neutrality protections that prevent Internet access providers from blocking content, websites and applications, slowing or speeding up services or classes of service, and charging online services for access or fast lanes to Internet access providers’ customers. The proposed Order would also repeal oversight over other unreasonable discrimination and unreasonable practices, and over interconnection with last-mile Internet access providers. The proposed Order removes long-standing FCC oversight over Internet access providers without an adequate replacement to protect consumers, free markets and online innovation.

It is important to understand that the FCC’s proposed Order is based on a flawed and factually inaccurate understanding of Internet technology. These flaws and inaccuracies were documented in detail in a 43-page-long joint comment signed by over 200 of the most prominent Internet pioneers and engineers and submitted to the FCC on July 17, 2017.

Despite this comment, the FCC did not correct its misunderstandings, but instead premised the proposed Order on the very technical flaws the comment explained. The technically-incorrect proposed Order dismantles 15 years of targeted oversight from both Republican and Democratic FCC chairs, who understood the threats that Internet access providers could pose to open markets on the Internet.

The experts’ comment was not the only one the FCC ignored. Over 23 million comments have been submitted by a public that is clearly passionate about protecting the Internet. The FCC could not possibly have considered these adequately.

Indeed, breaking with established practice, the FCC has not held a single open public meeting to hear from citizens and experts about the proposed Order.

Furthermore, the FCC’s online comment system has been plagued by major problems that the FCC has not had time to investigate. These include bot-generated comments that impersonated Americans, including dead people, and an unexplained outage of the FCC’s on-line comment system that occurred at the very moment TV host John Oliver was encouraging Americans to submit comments to the system.

Compounding our concern, the FCC has failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests about these incidents and failed to provide information to a New York State Attorney General’s investigation of them.

We therefore call on you to urge FCC Chairman Pai to cancel the FCC’s vote. The FCC’s rushed and technically incorrect proposed Order to abolish net neutrality protections without any replacement is an imminent threat to the Internet we worked so hard to create. It should be stopped.


Signed,

Frederick J. Baker, IETF Chair 1996-2001, ISOC Board Chair 2002-2006

Mitchell Baker, Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation

Steven M. Bellovin, Internet pioneer, FTC Chief Technologist, 2012-2013

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web & professor, MIT

John Borthwick, CEO, Betaworks

Scott O. Bradner, Internet pioneer

Vinton G. Cerf, Internet pioneer

Stephen D. Crocker, Internet pioneer

Whitfield Diffie, inventor of public-key cryptography

David J. Farber, Internet pioneer, FCC Chief Technologist 1999-2000

Dewayne Hendricks, CEO Tetherless Access

Martin E. Hellman, Internet security pioneer

Brewster Kahle, Internet pioneer, founder, Internet Archive

Susan Landau, cybersecurity expert & professor, Tufts University

Theodor Holm Nelson, hypertext pioneer

David P. Reed, Internet pioneer

Jennifer Rexford, Chair of Computer Science, Princeton University

Ronald L. Rivest, co-inventor of RSA public-key encryption algorithm

Paul Vixie, Internet pioneer

Stephen Wolff, Internet pioneer

Steve Wozniak, co-founder, Apple Computer


Cc:

Members of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet

Members of the House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology

Federal Communications Commissioners


Source:
https://pioneersfornetneutrality.tumblr.com/

 

[mr-x]

I think most net neutrality dooms day scenarios, including the death of the Internet as a free market, do not take into account improving / new technology.

 

[Steven McEvoy]

I blame crypto currency!

 

[DaveX]

those that don't realize the impact of this, are on a pink cloud. I can already see "PLEASE UPGRADE TO READ FULL TEXT".....

Yes, I noticed first thing this morning that one of my favorite reads has changed to charging for full articles. At first this morning, unusually, the site was showing yesterdays news. When the site finally updated, many of the articles are only previews now. By the way, its WashingtonPost.com.

 

[E-Promote]

Rebel without a cause.

My cause is keeping our Country and the Internet out of the hands of multi-billion dollar Corporations, your cause appears to be quite the opposite.

 

[DaveX]

I still am not 100% clear on the full scope of ramifications, but I can tell you on a practical level, it appears that content providers are already ramping up monetizing their content. I can only imagine that ISP's are looking for ways to monetize in the absence of Net Neutrality laws.

Am I right about this?

 

[mr-x]

My cause is keeping our Country and the Internet out of the hands of multi-billion dollar Corporations, your cause appears to be quite the opposite.

I like billion dollar corporations. They built the foundation and laid the "pipe" for the Internet you're using to complain..

 

[Jasonn]

I think most net neutrality dooms day scenarios, including the death of the Internet as a free market, do not take into account improving / new technology.

People like yourself keep saying innovation and new technology but never say how getting rid of net neutrality will accomplish this.

I like billion dollar corporations. They built the foundation and laid the "pipe" for the Internet you're using to complain..

Not entirely true but regardless...if these billion dollar corporations don't do the following, maybe it won't be so bad

- take money to make some sites faster than others
- block competitor apps or sites
- take money to block sites or block sites themselves for political or monetary reasons
- chop up the internet and start charging for certain access like facebook subscription, twitter subscription, netflix, etc

 

[mr-x]

People like yourself keep saying innovation and new technology but never say how getting rid of net neutrality will accomplish this.

New tech can disrupt business models, higher speed lines, new competitors, etc. NN is an unneeded regulation in my opinion.

Google is deploying an open air, as in no-wires, data network using lasers. 5G is around the corner, 10 gigabits per second!

Not entirely true but regardless...if these billion dollar corporations don't do the following, maybe it won't be so bad

- take money to make some sites faster than others
- block competitor apps or sites
- take money to block sites or block sites themselves for political or monetary reasons
- chop up the internet and start charging for certain access like facebook subscription, twitter subscription, netflix, etc

The last three on your list are already illegal.

 

[think]

Major internet providers slowing traffic speeds for thousands across US
Study finds significant degradations of networks for five largest ISPs, including AT&T and Time Warner, representing 75% of all wireline households in US

Sam Thielman in New York
Monday 22 June 2015 10.58 EDT

Major internet providers, including AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon, are slowing data from popular websites to thousands of US businesses and residential customers in dozens of cities across the country, according to a study released on Monday.

The study, conducted by internet activists BattlefortheNet, looked at the results from 300,000 internet users and found significant degradations on the networks of the five largest internet service providers (ISPs), representing 75% of all wireline households across the US.

The findings come weeks after the Federal Communications Commission introduced new rules meant to protect “net neutrality” – the principle that all data is equal online – and keep ISPs from holding traffic speeds for ransom....

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/22/major-internet-providers-slowing-traffic-speeds




Verizon caught throttling Netflix traffic even after its pays for more bandwidth
Joel Hruska on July 20, 2014 at 7:08 am

• 165 Comments

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...raffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth




4 bad things Internet companies can't do anymore -- if the FCC gets its way
by Jose Pagliery @Jose_PaglieryFebruary 5, 2015: 2:01 PM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/05/technology/fcc-net-neutrality-cases/index.html



Currently the US ranks 46th in average internet speeds right behind

Yes, I noticed first thing this morning that one of my favorite reads has changed to charging for full articles. At first this morning, unusually, the site was showing yesterdays news. When the site finally updated, many of the articles are only previews now. By the way, its WashingtonPost.com.

WaPo is Amazon....

I wonder how many of these thought leaders supported the U.S. Government transfering the management of the domain name system to ICANN ?

 

[think]

Whatever dude....

 

[DaveX]

I am 100% certain that as of yesterday my internet speed slowed dramatically. I actually had to reset my connection and finally got it moving but it definitely was slowed from the provider level.

Not sure whats actually happening.

 

[mr-x]

Whatever dude....

Gnarly bro