FCC Proves yet again it is out to kill net neutrality

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FCC Proves yet again it is out to kill net neutrality

More of th same... doom and gloom

tangor

1:37 am on May 16, 2014 (gmt 0)

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, despite weeks of backlash, still wants to allow Internet Service Providers like Comcast and Verizon to “offer” different levels of service to internet companies, although he refused to call them a “fast lane” and a “slow lane” and refused to recognize how those arrangements up the food chain affect consumers and a neutral internet.

He is refusing to recognize reality.

[wired.com...]

Instead of charging more of the download hogs, why not give rate breaks to those who use less? I mean, that's a win win for everyone, right? Look how little I use! Give me back 10 (dollars, pounds, deutchmarks, etc). I can use less than my neighbor! I'm a greenie!

Not sure which is right. All for everyone. Or less for everyone. Or ... dare say it... ? What the market will bear if I can just get away with it and make castor oil taste like vanilla pudding?

engine

11:24 am on May 16, 2014 (gmt 0)

That's just messing with it. It's clear the FCC don't want to go one way or the other until they've heard from everyone. Whatever they decide will probably end up being mirrored in one shape or form elsewhere.

aristotle

6:28 pm on May 16, 2014 (gmt 0)

The title of this thread is misleading. First of all, the FCC isn't one person, it has five members, and there are sharp differences between them. Also, Chairman Wheeler and the other two democrats are not "out to kill" net neutrality at all. In fact, they're trying to save as much of it as they can, while still accomodating the realities of the marketplace and taking account of past and possible future court decisions. They've even threatened to use the "nuclear optiom" (returning to Title ll) as a last resort. It's a very complicated issue, and there's still a long way to go. But it's wrong to say that the FCC wants to kill net neutrality.

tangor

9:31 pm on May 16, 2014 (gmt 0)

The title of this thread is misleading.

Title of this thread is the title of the wired.com article, thus not misleading.

The FCC is, of course, caught between the rock and the hard place... danged if they do and danged if they don't, but changing anything now would "kill" the status quo... and therein lies many of the arguments pro and con regarding the issue.

graeme_p

6:10 am on May 17, 2014 (gmt 0)

Instead of charging more of the download hogs, why not give rate breaks to those who use less?

Unless I misunderstood you, that is the entirely different issue of how ISPs charge there consumers.

They've even threatened to use the "nuclear optiom" (returning to Title ll) as a last resort.

Why is the obvious solution (it seems common sense to me that internet connectivity is a telecoms service, just providing data instead of voice) a last resort "nuclear option"?

aristotle

1:20 pm on May 17, 2014 (gmt 0)

Why is the obvious solution (it seems common sense to me that internet connectivity is a telecoms service, just providing data instead of voice) a last resort "nuclear option"?

That's what it is from the point of view of the big telecommications companies. It would severely restrict what they can do.

tangor

6:03 am on May 18, 2014 (gmt 0)

The brouhaha is whether big guys can stay big and demand more... or newbies have a reasonable shot at getting started instead of cut off at the knees from word go. There's a lot of mushy feel good speak involved and other extraneous... but it does get down to a single fact:

Some want to hold to the old days and ways and some want to challenge that... and reality is that neither can win and an ugly swamp will be created... in which all the lawyers will get rich and the end users will pay the bill.