Do you have a broadband internet connection?

[shocka khan]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

😂😂 you're funny, if you were half as smart as you think you are, you might know something. You make me laugh so hard I'm crying. Twice. So do you work for a telecom, cable or tech company? Or did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?

[shocka khan]

Btw, Kung, the FCC is having a big bandwidth auction right now. They won't let you bid on a frequency, but the telecom and cable boys can. That means they can pick up more bandwidth at a insanely reduced price while they fight for their right to be able to gouge the public while throttling your bandwidth.

Ain't America great!!!!!!!

[1979Shocker]

FCC's Net neutrality plan puts wireless carriers on edge

http://www.cnet.com/news/fccs-proposed-net-neutrality-rules-put-wireless-carriers-on-edge/?tag=nl.e703&s_cid=e703&ttag=e703&ftag=CAD090e536

For once, Tom Wheeler is leaving wireless carriers wanting more.

In an op-ed piece published on Wired.com Wednesday, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission laid out his proposal to treat both wired and wireless data services as public utilities under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. If Wheeler's rules pass, broadband providers -- like Verizon and AT&T -- will have to deal with greater regulatory oversight compared with the "light touch" they get now as information services.

Wheeler waved an olive branch of sorts yesterday, saying he won't apply Title II's most onerous rules, including having the FCC tell broadband companies the rates they can charge.

[shocka khan]

Here's an article that outlines the ISP's opposition
http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7978313/fcc-net-neutrality-title-ii-reactions

[1979Shocker]

Here's an article that outlines the ISP's opposition
http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/797...e-ii-reactions

Fixed your link.

[1979Shocker]

Net Fix: 8 burning questions about Net neutrality

http://www.cnet.com/news/net-fix-8-burning-questions-about-net-neutrality/?tag=nl.e404&s_cid=e404&ttag=e404&ftag=CAD1acfa04

Depending on whom you listen to, the Federal Communications Commission is either about to save the Internet or destroy it.

The agency, led by Democrat Tom Wheeler, who was appointed as FCC chairman by President Barack Obama in 2013, is set to vote this week on important Internet rules after a year of discussion and table-setting. The FCC says its plan will protect the open Internet, the idea that Internet providers must give equal access to content and applications -- and not force content providers like Netflix to pay for faster delivery.

But those who oppose the FCC's plan say it may single-handedly destroy Internet innovation by implementing onerous rules that would choke off investment in wireless networks and the infrastructure that helps enable Internet service in the US.

[Kung Wu]

http://www.cnet.com/news/net-fix-8-b...tag=CAD1acfa04

The FCC will simply reduce it to the piece of crap it is in Europe.

[1979Shocker]

Net neutrality a reality: FCC votes to bring Internet under utility-style rules

http://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-a-reality-fcc-votes-to-bring-internet-under-utility-style-rules/?tag=nl.e404&s_cid=e404&ttag=e404&ftag=CAD1acfa04

It's official. The Internet will now be regulated as a public utility.

After months of anticipation and weeks of frenzied last-minute lobbying on both sides of the political aisle, the Federal Communications Commission has adopted Net neutrality regulations based on a new definition of broadband that will let the government regulate Internet infrastructure as it could the old telephone network.

At the FCC's monthly meeting Thursday the agency reinstated open Internet rules in a 3-2 vote split along party lines. The new rules replace regulations that had been thrown out by a federal court last year.

The new rules prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing down traffic on wired and wireless networks. They also ban Internet service providers from offering paid priority services that could allow them to charge content companies, such as Netflix, fees to access Internet "fast lanes" to reach customers more quickly when networks are congested.

[jocoshock]

My issue is when these Telecom Companies are lobbying for and also providing the legislation that are then sponsored and officially brought forth by their politicians that they give donations to. Like last year or two year ago when the Committee on Telecommunications tried to hear a bill snuck in that was written by a telecom lobbying firm that would make municipal broadband networks illegal in the state of KS.

Go look at that committee and look at their political contributions, guaranteed that they all have some money from AT&T, Cox, Sprint Nextel, etc.

For example, here is the Chair of the Telecom Committee's received contribution breakout. http://www.followthemoney.org/entity...ls?eid=6677634

Your concerns are quite valid. The telecom industry, specific the legacy Bell System companies, AT&T and Verizon are without peer when it comes to lobbying. They lived for years under regulation and know exactly how to pull the strings of power. They lobbied for and got divestiture which created 7 Baby Bells, there are now two giant companies instead of one. They also control wireless broadband. Years ago, I worked with (now Congressman) Pete Sessions of Texas, when he was a Bell System employee.

The Telecom and Cable companies are technology drug dealers who have been getting America hooked on their products with relatively low cost entry services, all the while knowing that once they hit critical mass, they could up the price. Broadband Internet is now a service that EVERYONE in America has to have to function in society. To use a legacy telecom term, it has become a lifeline service. In the old days, the government mandated that phone service be affordable because of that, and that was part of the bargain that went along with being a protected monopoly. So, when you see telecom and cable companies lobbying against municipal networks, they are in fact fighting to protect their protected turf, without providing protections to the consumers that are their captive prisoners.

Some have claimed the government will stifle innovation. That is possible, but no more so than the Telecoms themselves. I worked for what is now AT&T when we were supporting the entire Telecom industry to move to 800 number portabilitiy (You can take your 800 number with you from carrier to carrier). That was supposed to have occured in 1989, but it didn't happen until 1993-1994, because the telecoms could not agree to deploy to required technology on time. It took the government, holding a (figurative) gun to their heads to make it happen even then.

I have worked in and around the telecom industry my entire adult life in both regulated and non-regulated businesses within the major telcos. No one should kid themselves that the telcos are not pulling the strings. If they had succeeded in killing Net Neutrality, it would have been game over for innovation and creativity on the Internet, and it would not have been the government killing it.

I have also seen telecoms flush BILLIONS, not millions of dollars, down the tubes on wasted technology ventures that resulted in nothing but thousands of lost jobs and tens of millions of dollars in severance packages for doezens of individual CEOs and executives, who created the mess. After the Telecom Act of 1996, Competitive Local Exchange Carriers dotted the landscape with more than 100 starting up by 1999. By 2000, not a single one was profitable, and most either failed or were swallowed up by the major telco and cable companies.

Killing Net Neutrality would have given these companies a license to steal.

Smart phones are the Chrystal Meth of technology, and Net Neutrality was the last line in the sand protecting the little guy from the Drug Cartels of technology.

[1979Shocker]

How Net neutrality helped kill the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-net-neutrality-helped-kill-the-comcast-time-warner-cable-merger/?tag=nl.e703&s_cid=e703&ttag=e703&ftag=CAD090e536

[Rlh04d]

As Google Fiber spreads out to more cities, that will help loosen the monopoly of the cable companies.

http://www.cnet.com/news/google-fibe...and-nashville/

Google is quietly changing the status quo long-term in quite a few industries, IMO. The Google Phone's ability to automatically change mobile networks between Spring and T-Mobile based on signal strength is a similar game-changer in that industry.

I expect a lot of money to come flowing out of the industries that are going to be threatened in the coming years for political intervention. Realistically, the cable monopoly is done without government intervention (and bought-and-paid for politicians), and the mobile phone companies are likely to end up being far more infrastructure based than their current model.

The future is very bright for consumers, and very poor for many of these entrenched companies. The fight between what's good for the people and what's good for ineffective companies that can't compete in a changing marketplace is going to be interesting. And very indicative of what politicians are completely bought off.

There's some things about Google I don't like, but I'm very impressed with their long-term vision. They take a lot of chances and accept a lot of products and innovations that aren't immediately profitable by investing in long-term change.

[Rlh04d]

Illogical argument, "what is true of the parts is true of the whole."

You know that 'magic hand guiding competition' Adam Smith stuff that you blindly buy into? Corporations know what's best for us, the government only screws things up.

But since they have a virtual monopoly, there is no need to innovate or compete.

Which means you must like to live with the substandard broadband speeds the cable companies are sticking us with. They're not interested in innovation, they're interested in throttling throughput rates, giving us crappy service and gouging us for it.

To me, you look like you'd be perfectly fine with corporate America sticking us with a third world infrastructure. Have you checked how our broadband speeds stack up vs. the rest of the world lately? What about their customer service ratings (hint: Comcast and Time Warner are two of the worst companies in the most recent customer service survey lately). Then you would predictably ***** about how 'noncompetitive' America has become - all the fault of the government.

Regulation works when hit makes sense and you have an industry full of bad actors (like the broadband industry is).

Magic hand and corporate behaving in the interest of customers my ass!

Your first line is laughable given the rest of your post. I could copy that and put it right here and it'd be just as true.

You essentially just blew off capitalism in favor of communism because sometimes corporations become virtual monopolies.

Go too far in either direction and you have problems. An entirely free market and an entirely controlled market will both fail.

[shocka khan]

Your first line is laughable given the rest of your post. I could copy that and put it right here and it'd be just as true.

You essentially just blew off capitalism in favor of communism because sometimes corporations become virtual monopolies.

Go too far in either direction and you have problems. An entirely free market and an entirely controlled market will both fail.

Even more laughable is the guy in the military who disagreed with my original premise which was that government agencies do not (or are not the only ones ) who stifle innovation and screw things up😎,

Why did Comcast try to acquire Time Warner? So they could control 57% of the broadband market. So they could choke off innovation and make lots of money.

Corporations are not in the business of innovating or providing value, except to investors.

I'd like to see anyone defend Comcast's customer service and billing. If the merger had been allowed, I suspect things would have been worse for Time Warner customers. Corporations are not guided by the magic hand of competition and Adam Smith was dead wrong about that.

Comcast's merger with time warner was an attempt to make an end-run around net neutrality.

[Rlh04d]

Even more laughable is the guy in the military who disagreed with my original premise which was that government agencies do not (or are not the only ones ) who stifle innovation and screw things up,

I didn't actually disagree with your premise. I disagreed with your use of the phrase "what is true of the parts is true of the whole" in disagreeing with someone else's argument, while following that with an argument that seemed to amount to "the free market stifles innovation, because sometimes virtual monopolies are created by it." Your post read like an attack on free market economic principles due to an obvious benefit to limited government intervention in the market. In which case I could use the same statement to respond to your argument.

I can disagree with the WAY you made your point and still agree with your premise. Your premise is more or less good. Your phrasing was bad.

[Kung Wu]

Corporations are not in the business of innovating or providing value, except to investors.

I just realized that all this time you have no idea what a corporation even is. Congratulations on taking a piss on practically every entrepreneur that ever lived in America.