If the net neutrality repeal vote goes through
" /rolls eyes I was able to play PoE without issues prior to Net Neutrality and will be able to play it without issue after it's gone. This is such a silly argument. ISPs have to compete and people will be watching for throttling and other unfair practices. If ISPs actually have to compete with one another, they will refrain from partaking in such practices. ISPs should be a lot more like mobile carriers, which have been improving drastically over the last few years, but they're not. My internet speeds haven't improved one damned bit over the last few years, and in fact, my cable internet speeds aren't much better than that of my mobile hotspot, despite paying roughtly $120 USD a month for 'high speed broadband'. Getting rid of Net Neutrality is a good thing. Still in the alpha stage, but at least build diversity isn't an issue: https://wolcengame.com/home/
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There's no competition. That's the problem. There's very little that can be done about that. It's just how the utility works. That's why we need regulation.
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" I won't dispute that, but that's the whole point. By de-regulating the market, as mobile carriers have been for years, the market can allow smaller ISPs to jump in and compete. Currently I have two choices for highspeed broadband in my area: Spectre and AT&T. That should not be the case. They are monopolizing the business essentially, which is why they can get away with charging me $120 per month for cable/cable internet, promise speeds (up to) 20 GB/S, and deliver a lackluster 9 GB/S at best. I can whip out my LG G3 with Boost Mobile (Sprint) right now, turn on my WIFI hotspot, and get a solid 5 GB/S....and I only pay $45 a month for that. A few years back, that was a pipe dream with mobile phones, which just goes to show how much regulation is holding the broadband market back. Still in the alpha stage, but at least build diversity isn't an issue: https://wolcengame.com/home/
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" Not an expert on ISPs in america at all, but IIRC the issue with letting competition regulate the ISP market is that in most of the regions of america you can choose between your ISP and fuck all. So the issue is, how high is your pain threshhold before you'll accept no internet versus internet that charges you more, depending on which sites you visit. (or charges certain sites more, which in turn will get more expensive) So, the two scenarios that could be true is either: a. The change was short sighted, and the FCC just didnt consider the state of the market. b. The change was deliberate and someones palms just got greased because ya'll americans are going to get fucked by your ISPs. *shrug* |
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Great. Do it. Start an ISP. Then get back to us.
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" How do smaller ISPs "jump in and compete" without billions of dollars of physical infrastructure they're not legally permitted to build even if they could begin to afford to? Big Telecom controls the equipment. Without the equipment, there is no second choice. Without a second choice, there is no competition. Capitalism takes as a fundamental truth, an absolutely required core assumption, that "The Market" serves the best interests of the customer in the end because the customer will always take the best deal they can get, so someone coming along and finding a way to offer a better deal gets the business and Society Advances. This is why monopoly laws are passed and why they should be taken more seriously than they are I'm looking at yougle, Google. One cannot offer a better deal to customers if they are not able to physically build the required equipment. One cannot offer a better deal to customers if they are actively and maliciously prevented from reaching customers to let them know a better deal exists. People keep saying "Ohhh, the end of Neutrality means ISPs will invest in their infrastructure and we'll all get better Internet!" No. No they will not. They did not invest in their infrastructure before, they won't do it now. Building new equipment is enormously expensive. Infiltrating regulatory bodies with their predatory attack lawyer and permanently abolish any sort of regulation or oversight so they're allowed to fleece their customers freely is a vastly better return per dollar for these companies, and since they have no fair and honest competition to try to beat, they have no reason to ever offer service any better than what they do now. Landline Internet may not be getting any better, but Neutrality kept it from getting worse. Now we're looking at a downward spiral of bullfuckery with no silver lining in sight, and yet people still somehow persist in saying "this is all overblown it's going to be fine. Really, the ISPs aren't out to fuck everyone over and even if they do, a plucky li'l startup will show up to make them eat their decisions!" How does it feel to be that innocent? I bet it's nice, being able to believe that sort of thing... She/Her
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If you think the Net Neutrality rules were unnecessary, you're the one buying propaganda. The whole "the internet was fine before 2015" line is a lie fed to people with short memories and shorter attention spans. It's trivial to find examples of why net neutrality is important. This has been a battle ongoing since the early 2000s.
Deregulation is helpful to nobody and no-one except ISPs and their parent companies. NN repeal apologists are shills or unwitting fools who have bought their garbage. "MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today. COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers. TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites. AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009. WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results. MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices. PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites. AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing. EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace. VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction. AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products. VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments. The court struck down the FCC’s rules in January 2014 — and in May FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler opened a public proceeding to consider a new order. In response millions of people urged the FCC to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers and in February 2015 the agency did just that." |
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" Bold prediction. I'm going to hold you to this. When do you expect to see the price hike? |
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" If there is no competition, there is nothing to stop the ISP from charging you more already with or without NN. NN doesn't stop ISP from charing you base on geography (less competition->charge more). Non does it stop ISP charging you for bandwidth, or not giving you access to certain websites, unless you paid special package, among many other ways they can charged you more. At best without NN, they have one more possibility to charge you, & many of the existing ways are easier too! Also funny, many people who claimed never to trust the government, somehow can support the same government to be fair in regulation. Note, regulation can't come without control, & ISPs, & indirectly the people, will be at the will of the government. |
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" The government only screws people over when Big Corporate is paying them to screw people over. "Government corruption" assumes a government official or officials is making decisions against the interests of their constituents, in actually-illegal violation of their mandate. They have no reason to do this on a lark for the jollies; they only have reason to risk their jobs and their reputations if they're being provided a back-room payoff for screwing people over. Who has the money to make backroom payoffs, the motivation to make those payoffs, and the economic positioning to profit from paying off the government to remove limitations on Big Corporate's ability to be a bunch of vampiric assholes? Here's a hint: it's Big Corporate. The worst you can expect from the government, by itself, is apathy. Or, as of late, just regular ol' incompetence. Nobody in government has a reason to be actively malicious towards its constituency. Big Corporate has all the reasons to be actively malicious and as toxic as it can get away with in its business practices, and is deeply invested in ensuring that the "as it can get away with" part keeps increasing. Wherever there's a dirty dollar to be made by dishonest people who delight in the misery of others, you'll find a businessman willing to cut someone a deal to make that dirty dollar happen. She/Her
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