FCC votes to repeal net neutrality

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Post by felter » Thu, 14. Dec 17, 19:44

This is one that should have it's own thread but still.

America has went ahead and started to dismantle net neutrality with the FCC voting 2 to 3 in favour of removing restrictions, a vote that in any other country would be deemed illegal as it has been bought by the big American ISP companies and is not the wish of the people of the USA, so much for draining the swamp.

To me I'm wondering just how much this is going to effect the rest of the world, as a lot of content is streamed directly from American servers and now those ISP's will be able to restrict that data content. To me I think it may be a good thing for the rest of us, as these companies that are being restricted will probably move their servers away from America and hosting them elsewhere, so it does not restrict them outside of America. This of course will create jobs for the rest of us while America will lose out plus it will remove a lot of the grip America has on the internet, which can only be a good thing.

Any Americans not got a VPN now would be a good time to look into getting one.
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Post by muppetts » Fri, 15. Dec 17, 08:59

The main population either does not know or care but this is (for once) something that has a legitimate scary angle to it. This is going down the path of a China or North Korea, now you have people who choose what you can or cannot see, they can choose what politics you can or cannot see, they can block content such as anti government activists (regardless of who is in power).

Now you will have to choose a provider based on them having the same viewpoint as you.

Again I reckon 95% (wild number pull I admit) of Americans are so apathetic they neither know or care but right there, they are giving up a freedom, which they crap on about all the time (guns).
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Post by Morkonan » Fri, 15. Dec 17, 19:51

muppetts wrote:The main population either does not know or care but this is (for once) something that has a legitimate scary angle to it. This is going down the path of a China or North Korea, now you have people who choose what you can or cannot see, they can choose what politics you can or cannot see, they can block content such as anti government activists (regardless of who is in power).

Now you will have to choose a provider based on them having the same viewpoint as you.

Again I reckon 95% (wild number pull I admit) of Americans are so apathetic they neither know or care but right there, they are giving up a freedom, which they crap on about all the time (guns).
The providers can not "block" websites on a whim, but they can throttle them to practically non-loading status...

They can, however, throttle anything they want, including any comm method they don't like. So, if they felt like throttling P2P services, they could. And, they can block those, too.

There is really no such thing as "choosing" and internet service provider in the US. Broadband ISP providers generally, and illegally, divvy up market share except in regions where there are lots of customers/high density of subscribers. For many other places, the broadband "cable" provider is a monopoly. It's very infrequent that cable broadband providers "go to war" in competing for customers. Why? The initial startup costs in laying and maintaining cable is high and recouping that cost is difficult enough without having to price/service compete with an already established competitor.

Local governments don't give a rat's @$$ about this because they don't want to make an enemy of the cable industry. The Fed doesn't care, since the cable industry supports this behavior, since it saves them money most of the time, and because it donates a lot of money to politicians.

What's going to be the result? Preferred service plans, heavy "preferred" fees for services like Netflix, Amazon, streamers and the like. ISPs will likely start on the "back-end" with only the big ones being able to command hefty promo fees from established high-bandwidth sites.

Later, they'll front-load fees with "packages" designed to "enhance" the end-user experience. Why later? Because, first the subscriber has to experience the gradual turn-up of the throttling they're going to do...

Some have maintained that all this is wrong and that it's really about the demands of the underlying infrastructure and that the ability to split up traffic based on its actual load and price service for that traffic accordingly is what this is all about. Well... that's a load of crap. Providers want to be treated, in some ways, like they are "utility" companies, but don't want any of the responsibility or oversight that title commands.

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Post by Chips » Fri, 15. Dec 17, 21:54

Golden_Gonads wrote:Disney have indeed bought out Fox (except for Fox News, sports and a couple of other minor bits) for $66.1 Billion... Though it still has to be confirmed by anti-trust/monopoly folks.

66,100,000,000 Dollars...
Just to think Apple is sat on a physical cash reserve of over $250,000,000,000 by comparison.

That'd nearly pay off Greece's debt!

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Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 15. Dec 17, 22:45

I've got a question about this net neutrality thing. A lot of people are viewing it as the sky is falling, etc, but AFAIK the rules that have just been revoked were only introduced two years ago? Were the US ISPs doing the horrible stuff people are saying they can do now back in 2014?

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Post by felter » Fri, 15. Dec 17, 23:33

pjknibbs wrote:I've got a question about this net neutrality thing. A lot of people are viewing it as the sky is falling, etc, but AFAIK the rules that have just been revoked were only introduced two years ago? Were the US ISPs doing the horrible stuff people are saying they can do now back in 2014?
As far as I remember but don't hold me to this. Several years ago the American ISP's noticed that the likes of netflix and youtube used up more bandwidth than others, so they decided that they would charge them for doing so. Up till then everything was hunkeydory, but of course google and netflix amongst others thought that this was unfair, as they were being picked on. Eventually this led to two years ago and the American FCC saying, yes it was unfair. Now zoom forward up to the other day there, where Donald Trump's corrupt FCC decided to change this, as it had been explained to Trump that there was money top be made from getting rid of Net Neutrality. This is is where the Americans are right now, they are trapped in crooked system that does not care about the population, one that only cares for the rich and corporates, where money is the god of all things.
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Post by Morkonan » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 00:25

pjknibbs wrote:I've got a question about this net neutrality thing. A lot of people are viewing it as the sky is falling, etc, but AFAIK the rules that have just been revoked were only introduced two years ago? Were the US ISPs doing the horrible stuff people are saying they can do now back in 2014?
This specific idea of "Net Neutrality" started back during the Clinton administration. The current crop of asshats just refer to "Obama" because... everyone is supposed to hate Obama, amiright? /sigh

Before that, it was a standard, too, but was only loosely regulated and wasn't really thought about much, since the loads weren't like they are now.

Then, the great ISP vs "Teh Interwebz Anons Unite" Crapstorm" surrounding peer-to-peer (P2P) protocols started... "File Sharing Apps" (Illegal downloading of movies, music, porn, etc) took the interwebz by storm. (Don't even get started on music sharing apps and DCMA outrage, either.)

The issue was - One single node (user) on their network could potentially generate and pass data through scores of connections on the same network with other users, using the same app and stream, who also generate scores of connections with other users on the same network, who may also generate even more connections there or, just like anyone else in their app, branch out and request connections to many other users on different networks, ad infinitum...

In other words, "bandwidth" went through the roof and ISPs scrambled to deal with it. To top it all off, then a bunch of people got together (DCMA precurors) and wanted to sue everyone, starting with the ISPs for aiding theft, ultimately trickling down to the users and federal courts...

Most of this is BS as far as normal traffic is concerned, but the ISPs did have to deal with unusually high internal traffic which did have an effect, at that time, on "subscriber experience" for other internet protocols. Why? Because it was all going through the same pipe and no matter the protocol it had to be treated the same as any other communication, due to old regulations not worded very well that applied to telephone connections.

So, the ISPs started throttling P2P connections and the crapstorm hit the fan. Bajillions of kids trapped in their basements and surrounded by P2P music downloads and free copies of thousand-dollar software got mad because their porn download was throttled... And a few other people, too.

Teh Gubbermint put a "stop" to this by telling ISPs it had to treat all traffic "the same" 'cause "telephone" and that was the end of it, sort of.

Then, the ISPs pointed out their service contracts and said "It says right here we have the right to maintain our own systems and to make changes for quality and legitimate service concerns if we have to." Teh gubbermint said "OK, just so long as you don't target specific protocols and only make such decisions based on network load or individual user-data plans."

"OK, fine," said the ISPs. "For now."

The Obama Administration said "We are teh gud guys and young peoples love us!" So, they passed something official and something that targetted this specifically, far beyond the basic telephone legislation that had gone before, since ISPs were not "utility companies." Net Neutrality was then officially born. Now it was official - ISPs could not prioritize any commercial traffic based on something other than "network maintenance and QA necessity" as outlined in their individual service plans.

Tech has drastically improved, though. Now, bandwidth is greater than it ever has been, even with additional loads. ISPs don't bother doing much in the way of monitoring any sort of "data limit" in user-subscriber plans. They don't care, bandwidth is cheap. They will, however, pay attention if the user starts with P2P stuffs or they get DCMA letters and the like.

But, even though they have all this relatively cheap bandwidth, that cheap cost isn't making them any more money... And, with the surge in tons of new protocols and apps, the opportunity to make money is greater than it has ever been, ever, ever, ever.

There's one more way they can make huge amounts of cash and that's by figuring out how to charge content providers (Youtube, etc) actual "real money" to push their service through the pipes to the end-user. They have to pay CNN in order to broadcast their channel, why shouldn't Youtube have to pay them to provide Youtube with customers from their entirely and illegally protected stable of slobbering netizens?

Enter Asshat of the Year, Ajit Pai, a corporate shill from Verizon. He was appointed by Trump because "he knows internetz." So, Pai shows up with a grand chuckle, sets down his friggin over-compensating (he has a tiny pee-pee, this is well documented 'cause teh internetz said so) Reese's coffee mug and announces he's going to revolutionize "opportunity and innovation" by repealing "Net Neutrality", the very last hurdle in the ISP's scheme to make more money, right behind having oversight turned over to the Federal Trade Commission, since ISPs want the considerations given to true "Utility" providers, but don't want any of the regulations that keep them from bilking their customers out of every darn bit of cash they can get...

There's a bunch more. But, the focus is this: Now, US ISPs can completely control their traffic and can, if they feel like it, charge anyone that uses their service in any way, back-end or frotn-end, anything they want to charge them and there is not a damn thing they can do about it.

If Youtube didn't want to pay Verizon a dime so their customers could access its site, Verizon could say "Screw you" and then throttle the bandwidth down to "non-existence" without having to answer to anyone at all, ever. And, just in case you think that Verizon's customers could protest by leaving their service, think again - The ISPs do not compete in hardly any markets. They, instead, illegally set up monopolies so they don't have to compete. The only markets they actually compete in are high-density markets where laying pipe is a bit easier, because more people per mile, and the profits are better, because of more subscribers per mile of cable.

Note: This is likely to get a quick injunction and its likely this will go to court, so all is not lost. But, I am afraid that it's also likely morons will decide on compromise agreements that only effect "end users" so that Facebook, Youtube/Google/Alphabet, etc, are protected from extra charges. They, however, may get a bit of decency and decide it's smart to lobby for their users, so they can get more advertisements seen per hour, but I wouldn't bet on it if they don't actually get hit with any big drop in page-hits.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, US users should start to expect their rates to increase. AT THE SAME MEETING, they did away with a regulation that required ISPs to notify users of service contract and charge changes....

I am not kidding. They got the ability to charge whoever they want, whatever they want, and they no longer have to personally notify, by mail, their customers of rate increases or contract changes. Congrats you - Surprise bill.

No kidding. I'm srsly...

PS - Post designed to answer as many questions as feasible without spawning a bunch of other posts on the subject. Happy to take it to another thread, though, if necessary. Prob not, since this is only for US. But, if Egosoft's connection strays across the US border... then its subject to these same laws. International Trade/Comm acts will still provide shelter for Egosoft, but not for me if I connect to it.

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Post by silenced » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 06:46

I personally think, that nothing will change regarding net neutrality outside the US. The 'rest' of the world should not be that stupid and give some ISPs so much power. I think the FCC does not even know what they did.
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Post by Morkonan » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 07:00

silenced wrote:I personally think, that nothing will change regarding net neutrality outside the US. The 'rest' of the world should not be that stupid and give some ISPs so much power. I think the FCC does not even know what they did.
They know exactly what they did. The vote was 3 vs 2, split right along party lines.

And, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the US has one of the most profitable internetz industries in the world. Why? Because it's not heavily regulated. Now, the rest of the world is going to see just how much businesses can profit if the regulations are in their favor. (AND, only if those new regs actually survive court scrutiny, if this goes to court that is.) Do you think non-US companies are going to want to leave all that money on the table after they see the profits US companies can make? Heck, they'll move their whole darn operation and end up making phat-lewtz cash... if they can get mainline trunk ISPs to agree to let them come play.

But, put it this way - If a user from the US tries to access Egosoft's site, their connection is going to be subjected to this new development.

My ISP can decide that I am an opinionated blowhard who bloviates far too much on an innocent game designer's forum and it could take steps to throttle my connection or charge me more for the privilege of annoying you fine folks...

Egosoft would rejoice, no doubt. :) But, if they were Youtube and I was connecting to a German node, which my ISP doesn't like, 'cause 'Murica, then Youtube wouldn't be able to serve me so many delicious adverts, would they? Youtube Red wouldn't be a choice for me, since everything is a slideshow and I'm not going to pay for that.

And, if you're accessing a US site? Congrats, as soon as your connection passes through an ISP that feels like playing with the site you're trying to connect to, they can throttle it if they feel like it and demand the destination site pay up some cash to keep its customer base happy...

They want to blame all this on "the backbone" crap, engineering wise, but that's a load of hooey. They're in it to make money and they just "bought" a decision that, if it stands, will make them bajillions of monies.

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Post by pjknibbs » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 10:38

OK, so the ISPs *are* trying to push this further than they did a couple of years ago when this law was introduced. You could have just said that rather than making me read your life story, Mork. :wink:

Have to say I've never quite understood how the US ISPs get such an easy monopoly position--the UK government cracked down hard on that a long time ago, so while BT technically still controls all the actual hardware that our Internet connections go over, any ISP is free to sell their services over those connections and BT isn't allowed to, say, charge them more to make BT's own Internet services look better. Seems to me Obama would have been better off introducing a law that would force the American phone companies to do the same thing rather than doing this whole "net neutrality" thing, but I guess the likes of AT&T and Verizon have a lot of political power!

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Post by mrbadger » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 13:24

This, as far as I can tell means the following


America has just signed away its ability to lead the Net, just as it signed away it's lead in Physics in the 80's by closing the Superconducting Super Collider before it was finished being built, even though it was not only nearly done, but was also ahead of budget.

So whatever else happens in the short term, some companies might make more money (and that is the motivation), but long term they've given up the chance to be in on the front seat with the next great leap.

At best they might get to patent some scraps and argue over those.

I know the immidiate commercial implications are more complex, but I don't care about those, just as the implications in the world of Physics were more complex in the 80's about the Collider, it's the long term effects that ultimately mattered.

Companies will start top shift hosting, people will complain, then the new pricing plans for different forms of web access in the US will be the new normal and the rest of the world will wonder what happened to the country that once gave the world the internet for free.

But I live in Europe, so it doesn't really matter what I think. It's the Americans who have let Commercial entities essentially take over their government who need to worry, and about more than this issue.
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Post by Morkonan » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 01:57

pjknibbs wrote:OK, so the ISPs *are* trying to push this further than they did a couple of years ago when this law was introduced. You could have just said that rather than making me read your life story, Mork. :wink:
Answers aren't always simple. If you read the post, then now you have all the info required for logical followup questions. :)
Have to say I've never quite understood how the US ISPs get such an easy monopoly position--the UK government cracked down hard on that a long time ago, so while BT technically still controls all the actual hardware that our Internet connections go over...
Ahem...

"...so while BT technically still controls all the actuall hardware..."

There ya go. The UK is a different animal. It has a long history of government control over media and communications. That's also why UK citizens are the most surveilled citizens in the World, even surpassing Chinese citizens. This is also why when the US wants to spy on someone, they don't do it from home, but go to the UK... When it comes down to government control of telecom, the UK is an "Iron Fist" IMO. Because of its regulatory environment, the UK has the preeminent communications intel in the entire World, even surpassing that of the NSA. Though, "capability" can be argued, the UK can "legally" do things that many agencies of other countries can not. It's not because of any tech advantage, though they've built on that, it's because of the regulatory differences.

This is just an example of how government regulation can effect things... All it's allies go to the UK for internet and communications intel, not because they're better, but because the regulations have given birth to an intel system that one of the most competent, certainly the most pervasive, in the world.

So, you're not comparing apples to apples, here. It's a very different regulatory environment, especially where commercial communications is concerned. There is no government monopoly on communications services. Commercial companies in the US benefit from the freedom they have to innovate and expand services and to take advantage of new ways to make profits, which makes US telecom companies some of the most affluent and powerful in the World.

So, yes, the lack of heavy government control has spurned on innovation and commercial success, which the ISPs argue is "A Good Thing ™" and one that should be defended. But, there are times when government regulation is necessary in order to preserve the rights of the people and to prevent dangers to fair competition and obstacles to innovation.
mrbadger wrote:This, as far as I can tell means the following


America has just signed away its ability to lead the Net, just as it signed away it's lead in Physics in the 80's by closing the Superconducting Super Collider before it was finished being built, even though it was not only nearly done, but was also ahead of budget. ...
We've been steadily doing that for awhile, now. (ICANN/IANA oversight issues)
... It's the Americans who have let Commercial entities essentially take over their government who need to worry, and about more than this issue...
Our prosperity and continued support of it has created out own monsters... But, there are plenty of people in the world who benefit from what these monsters can do. Unfortunately, monsters don't like being caged.

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Post by Observe » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 08:25

I don't see any big problem. The worst that might happen, is that internet access will become even more expensive and/or restricted and people won't use it as much. That's not necessarily a bad thing! I don't see the world being greatly improved since internet access came along.

Then, there's always a possibility that someone will come up with an idea to replace the internet as we know it. After all, necessity (or high prices) is the Mother of invention.

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Post by Antilogic » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 11:05

Observe wrote:The worst that might happen, is that internet access will become even more expensive and/or restricted and people won't use it as much. That's not necessarily a bad thing! I don't see the world being greatly improved since internet access came along.

Words can not fully express how awful this statement is.

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Post by mrbadger » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 11:14

Morkonan wrote: There ya go. The UK is a different animal. It has a long history of government control over media and communications. That's also why UK citizens are the most surveilled citizens in the World, even surpassing Chinese citizens.
This is true, and yet, when the US came here and demanded the UK institute IP based piracy prosecutions, which as you rightly pointed out, could easily be done, they got shown the door.

The ability to do a thing does not always signal the willingness to do a thing.

Such a move would be wildly unpopular. Dangerously so for the sitting government that implemented it and any company that carried it out.

British Telecom own the hardware, true, but they do not own all the companies that use it. Any company that started sending out 'you're busted' letters might just as well have started closing up shop.

They got close to passing the bill, it's true, but our politicians are less easily bought. Not impossible to buy, but less easy to buy.

And it was a case of them trying to 'buy' passage of the bill.

All we got in the end was warning letters I think, and those sent infrequently, by the bigger companies only, and never followed up.

There is too much fear of the public outcry that might follow an event like in the US where elderly people or single mothers were taken to court for vast sums of money over single files (not looking up the exact cases, but you probably know what I mean, it was bad).

We're just just not as litigious as Americans are, we lack the mindset to accept this sort of thing.
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Post by felter » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 14:36

As far as I'm aware, even though they voted to make these changes they haven't actually came into effect and the decision could be reversed. It turns out that 85% of the American public and 75% of the republican party are against it happening, So we will have to see.

The 85% is quite interesting as I wouldn't have thought 85% used the internet, just shows you how important the internet is.
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Post by mrbadger » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 15:00

It was a commercially financed decision. But there have been plenty of those in the US that have easily made into law, going back decades, even when the result was actively harmful to the US as a whole but benefited the specific sponsors.

So, we'll have to see. I'm not optimistic. Guess the swamp is quite healthy.

Edit:

85% may not use the internet, but a lot of small businesses rely on it, and there are a lot of those, could they not account for a lot of these extra objectors through action groups?

I know my small business owning friend groups together with other local business owners when she wants to object to something, and sometimes it has an effect.

You mustn't just dismiss those people, even if they aren't Facebook fanatics or heavy net users, an internet geared towards large commercial interests will be just as bad for small business as Shopping Malls
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Post by A5PECT » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 19:55

mrbadger wrote:...could they not account for a lot of these extra objectors through action groups?
The government has been shrinking collective legal action for consumers for awhile now. The recent developments with the FCC and net neutrality are another page in that long story.
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Post by mrbadger » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 20:27

Has no-one stopped to think how much this is going to hurt the future development of the nation?

Honestly, It's like they are actively trying to hand their lead in the world over to places like China.

In the UK we have been benefiting greatly from some of the bizarre decisions made in the US in recent decades.

Such as after 911, they made it vastly harder for Chinese people to get education Visas, so they shifted en mass to Europe. Why on earth did they do that? I imagine there must have been some other reason and they used 911 as an excuse to push it through. The decision nearly crippled some Universities in America financially, but they still did it.

Is that still true? I don't know, but the damage is done, our universities are still filled with Chinese students, we collaborate with their universities on research that makes us millions (definitely the case at my uni).

Those students will have children and want those children to study abroad, and where will they send them? To the place they know.

And almost every UK university has people heavily recruiting in China now, plus our government won't be shutting that down for any stupid reasons.

They can't, we want all that money.
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Post by Observe » Sun, 17. Dec 17, 20:41

Antilogic wrote:
Observe wrote:The worst that might happen, is that internet access will become even more expensive and/or restricted and people won't use it as much. That's not necessarily a bad thing! I don't see the world being greatly improved since internet access came along.
Words can not fully express how awful this statement is.
How so? I didn't want to offend.

Whatever we now have, will surely be replaced by something else before long. Perhaps quantum entanglement or something will obsolete the wired/wireless system that we have now; just as cellular communications have largely replaced land-line phones.

We can be confident of only one thing - change. Well, two things: greed and change.

I am in my 70's and reached adulthood before the internet became widely available. I've had a long career in electronic and computer engineering - so I'm not averse to technology. That said, I see little benefit from the internet and frankly, a lot of downsides overall.

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