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The Internet Communications Government Network Republicans United States

FCC Plans December Vote To Kill Net Neutrality Rules (bloomberg.com) 116

Posted by BeauHD from the gutting-the-rules dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission under its Republican chairman plans to vote in December to kill the net neutrality rules passed during the Obama era, said two people briefed on the plans. Chairman Ajit Pai in April proposed gutting the rules that he blamed for depressing investment in broadband, and said he intended to "finish the job" this year. The chairman has decided to put his proposal to a vote at the FCC next month, said the people. The agency's monthly meeting is to be held Dec. 14. The people asked not to be identified because the plan hasn't been made public. It's not clear what language Pai will offer to replace the rules that passed with only Democratic votes at the FCC in 2015. He has proposed that the FCC end the designation of broadband companies such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. as common carriers. That would remove the legal authority that underpins the net neutrality rules. One of the people said Pai may call for vacating the rules except for portions that mandate internet service providers inform customers about their practices. The current regulations forbid broadband providers from blocking or slowing web traffic, or from charging higher fees in return for quicker passage over their networks.
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FCC Plans December Vote To Kill Net Neutrality Rules More

FCC Plans December Vote To Kill Net Neutrality Rules

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  • Mine is pro net neutrality already.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      We're Sorry your Dual Citizen Congressman is in Tel Aviv right now, please leave a message after the beep

    • Better yet, if your congress critter is voting to repeal Net Neutrality, then the next time he or she is up for reelection, vote for their opponent.

      • I think it is just the FCC changing definitions... nothing to do with congress voting on anything. Congress already vested authority to do this sort of thing to the Executive Branch via the FCC. Or am I misunderstanding how this works.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        You got be a little more 'GRRR' than that, let them know, not only will you vote against them, you will actively support their opponent, with donations, street signs, stickers and you will spread far and wide, that they sold out the digital rights of the people to communicate and profitability of millions of companies sold down the river to serve a tiny handful of companies. Tell everyone how they turned the digital highway, into a clamped down pot hole infested toll road, with never ending billboards with

  • Here's hoping... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here's hoping that these decisions can be reversed completely and quickly when this absurd administration is left amidst the most shamed corners of the history books.

    I'm sure Ajit Pai will sit comfortable and rich when it's all over though - happy in the thought of the damage he did to industries and people everywhere.

  • I can hardly wait for the promos (Score:5, Insightful)

    by speedlaw ( 878924 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @05:16PM (#55557673) Homepage
    "put your business first on the internet" "your website will load just as fast as your competitors" "make sure your potential customers don't die of old age waiting for your site to load" This wonderful package is available for only XX99.99 more than your current package. Call Today !!! bastards

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by denis-The-menace ( 471988 )

      Damn! where are my mod points!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mi ( 197448 )
      It worked for Yellow Pages, why is wrong for Internet providers?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by green1 ( 322787 )

        Yellow pages is hardly a thriving business at this point...

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mi ( 197448 )

          Yellow pages is hardly a thriving business at this point...

          That may be a reason for business not to do it. But it does not answer the question of why it is wrong — immoral, unethical — and ought to remain illegal.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by grimr ( 88927 )

        Because Yellow Pages were given to you free but you pay for your internet service.

        Here's a better example than Yellow Pages. You set up an account with FedEx and have all deliveries to your address charged to your account instead of to the shipper. Then you start calling a bunch of businesses and start ordering stuff.

        Now FedEx starts going to those businesses and telling them "Pay us money or your shipments will take longer to customers where you're not paying the delivery charge".

        Since they have no other

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mi ( 197448 )

          Because Yellow Pages were given to you free but you pay for your internet service.

          Wha?..

          You — a business — paid for your telephone service. For the customers to be able to call you. And your number was listed in the phone book.

          To be listed prominently you had to pay the phone book publisher extra — the phone company itself.

          Now FedEx starts going to those businesses and telling them [...]

          The only thing stopping FedEx from quadrupling their fees every week is the fear of competition.

          Since

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by grimr ( 88927 )

            You — a business — paid for your telephone service. For the customers to be able to call you. And your number was listed in the phone book.

            Yes, but the person who wants access to that information gets it for free. That's not the situation with internet access as both parties are paying.

            To be listed prominently you had to pay the phone book publisher extra — the phone company itself.

            That's more in line with SEO so bad analogy there.

            The only thing stopping FedEx from quadrupling their fees every week is the fear of competition.

            That's the point. There's competition and all of them have equal access to the road network. With the internet there's usually only two choices which is phone company and cable company.

            They do have a choice — there is UPS, there is USPS, and a bunch of smaller guys ready to offer themselves as the alternative.

            The big ISPs are all doing the same thing. The little ISPs are either resellers of the big ISPs or have to use the last mile

  • Not Common Carriers... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ... so responsible for every byte that traverses their network, right?

    So if a terrorist sends a threat using an AT&T cell phone, that means AT&T management goes to gitmo, right?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      That would be a "nope." They're all on the Comcast tip and the carriers expect the best of both worlds; no common carrier obligations and no liability either.

  • Um, where? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @05:20PM (#55557695)

    ... gutting the rules that he blamed for depressing investment in broadband.

    Things are depressing alright, but I don't think it's in investment. But, maybe, with fewer burdensome regulations, carriers will pass any savings onto their customers. [ See, now you don't know whether to mod me informative or funny. :-) ]

    • Re:Um, where? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ourlovecanlastforeve ( 795111 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @05:24PM (#55557733)
      You don't take away basic civil rights to placate megacorporations into improving their service.

      If you do it once they'll use that trick to get what they want every time.

      "If you don't do X we won't invest in broadband. If you don't do Y we won't invest in broadband."

      And so on.

      • Re:Um, where? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @05:30PM (#55557769)

        You don't take away basic civil rights to placate megacorporations into improving their service. If you do it once they'll use that trick to get what they want every time. "If you don't do X we won't invest in broadband. If you don't do Y we won't invest in broadband." And so on.

        Exactly. Don't negotiate with terrorists or corporations.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xyrus ( 755017 )

          But is this not what America wanted? Is this not what Americans voted for?

          An administration that puts corporations and the rich before everyone else. That's what America wanted. It wasn't some secret or some bait and switch. Any idiot with at least a handful of functioning brain cell could figure out what was going to happen if Trump got elected, and Trump has not failed to deliver.

          You voted for this. You got it. No use bitching about it. Maybe next time consider the consequences of electing an asshole like

          • No. It's not what the majority of America wanted. Nor is it what the majority of Americans voted for.
          • I'm not sure if you're aware of this but your vote doesn't matter in the US.

            Take a look at the current battle with the FCC.

            There was overwhelming, undeniable objection to the FCC's reversal of net neutrality rules.

            And the FCC be like ":D whatevs".

      • You don't take away basic civil rights to placate megacorporations...

        Someone should probably tell our elected officials that.

        About thirty fucking years ago.

      • If you do it once they'll use that trick to get what they want every time.

        They've been doing that since forever you and americans don't seem very informed on this issue. You guys are up to your ass in free market fairy tales down there.

        Elites respond to Crisis of democracy - aka double down and propaganda and misinformation

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYFxtNgOeiI [youtube.com]

        Testing theories of representative government

        https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf [princeton.edu]

        Our brains are much worse at reality and

    • AT&T wanted to expand their network and asked the government if they wanted to go halfsies. The government agreed, but told AT&T they would have to play fair and couldn't use their new network to fuck people over. AT&T promptly lost interest and blames the government for their loss of interest.

    • Funny, definitely!
      As if Verizon, Time-Warner, and Comcast aren't already loaded. They have more than enough resources with which to "invest", but they choose not to. Removing the regulations will only serve the shortsighted shareholders further.
      I was stunned one time, a few years back, when we got a call because our payment was late; at the time, the economy was lousy and I was having to deal with some furlough days on top of that; but the rep actually had the gall to try to shame me, suggesting poor, w

  • Greed will triumph over good. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nuckfuts ( 690967 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @05:38PM (#55557825)
    It's how the USA (currently) operates.
  • has more to do with greed than anything else. fiber won't get installed, unless it gets forced by governments at this point. Don't expect Telecom which lobbies congress nearly as hard as the healthcare industry to fight any kind of legislation that might protect consumers from them.
  • Is he putting it to a legitimate vote, or putting it to a "vote"?

  • this will suck (Score:3)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @06:41PM (#55558247)
    the internet should be a utility like electricity or water, not a commodity, make the internet as fast as practical but it should be a utility

  • Oh well, it was fun while it lasted (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @07:25PM (#55558509) Journal
    I remember when I got "@home" broadband; it was such a startling change from 56k dialup. Then there was 1.5Mbit asymmetric DSL, and then more cable-based broadband. I remember Napster, and downloading music 24/7 for *weeks*, and all the filesharing sites that were under the radar for a while. I remember being able to look up all sorts of stuff I never knew existed, and most of all, playing all the versions of DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft 2, and a plethora of other games, online, against total strangers, until the wee hours of the morning. Fun, fun, fun.

    No matter. The Internet has been going to shit for a while now, and some piece of crap like Ajit Pai is dead set to pound the last nail into it's coffin. Sure, after Trump and his administration are all tossed out of office and/or convicted of some crime or other, we'll get someone else in the Whitehouse that will start to clean up the mess, but it'll take years, if not decades, to repair all the damage done to everything, all over the Country, and once the ISPs and other asshole corporations get their hooks into the Internet the way they've always wanted to, we may never be able to get things back on track again.

    Well, guess when the end comes, I'll have more time to read..

    • I'm still looking for a thoughtful, non-hyperbolic answer to my oft-repeated question on this subject: why is there any rational reason to think the sky is suddenly going to fall when this simply rolls us back to the status quo as it existed in 2015, less than two years ago?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Net neutrality rules existed as unwritten agreements made between engineers for a long time. They only needed to become law because ISP's started breaking them in the name of profit.

      • I'll answer your question with a question for you to ponder: What makes you think this isn't just the beginning?

        • Hmmm. I asked if there was a rational reason to think the sky would suddenly fall by reverting back to the 2015 status quo, and you replied by essentially asking how I know there's not a boogeyman under my bed.

          My search continues for someone who can actually point to a meaningful, real-world problem rather than the byproduct of an over-fertile, paranoid imagination.

          • Oh for fuck's sake.. you won't find what you want predictively using those parameters, you'll only find historical data later.
            Try this instead: Look at the trend of Ajit Pai's overall policy decisions, and who constitutes the current FCC board and their political leanings, and add in the obvious intent of this upcoming vote to roll back Net Neutrality rules. Now take into consideration what, historically speaking, ISPs have wanted, what they've demonstrated they're willing to do to their customers in the

            • you won't find what you want predictively using those parameters, you'll only find historical data later.

              At least you admit you're seeking to fix a non-existent problem. For bonus points, reflect a bit on why it might not be the smartest thing in the world to allow the administrative state to seize control of an entire industry based solely on fear-mongering and FUD.

              What makes you think this isn't just the beginning?

              Because this isn't the beginning of anything. It's simply rolling back the state of regulation to what it was in 2015, before Wheeler's land grab. Your irrational paranoia isn't allowing you to see that.

  • This is what us techies get (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @07:28PM (#55558531)
    for abandoning the blue collar guys to their fate while chanting 'update your skills'. They voted an administration into office who couldn't care less about them or us, but they really didn't have anything to lose. They're picking us workers apart. Putting us against each other and laughing all the way to the bank.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What the hell is happening to my country? This is a simple utility. It replaced utilities that were already regulated.

      This is like your electric company charging you extra if you want to make coffee, or use your toaster. This is insane.

      Is this really what the People of the United States of America want?

      • Electric companies charge you more if you use electricity at certain times of the year or at certain times of the day. They charge you higher rates if you use more. They also charge absurd delivery fees, and these can vary based on where the electrons you're getting are coming from.

        Yeah, it's bullshit. But it's not unusual.

      • good paying ones at that. And ones they can already do. Nobody's gonna feed, house and cloth them while they retrain and they're too tired from a 40-60 hour work week to add retraining for a new career on top of that. And that's before they start taking care of the kids they had before everything went overseas.

        If you want bad stuff like this to stop happening you have to vote for a country where _everyone_ is taken care of no matter what. We've got the money to do it, but most folks don't want to. For o

    • It's not like people weren't warning about this decades ago.

      "What the commission is concerned about are the unskilled workers in our society in an age in which unskilled workers have far too few opportunities open to them. When immigrants are less well-educated and less-skilled, they may pose economic hardships to the most vulnerable of Americans, particularly those who are unemployed or under-employed."

      Barbara Jordan, civil rights icon and first black woman elected to Congress from the South. [youtube.com]

  • Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @08:31PM (#55558911) Homepage

    maybe Google and other tech companies will put money where their mouth is and finally create their own ISP with cheap rates and real 1G speed, eliminating the pro-NN people.

  • Wait... (Score:3)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @09:44PM (#55559331)

    ...if there isn't any investment in broadband, why am I not still using DSL and an Edge-network flip phone?

    • Because you live in an area where that is feasible. Rural communities, in many areas, still don't have anything better than 56k dialup or slow DSL. There are still areas that I drive in where no cell service exists. Companies only put money where populations are, and therefore can skip other areas because the "average" coverage for the state, county, or region is enough.

      This is why you see municipal broadband taking off in areas where it can (e.g. Colorado). The big telco/cable monopolies don't want to run

  • Press the issue (Score:3)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Thursday November 16, 2017 @11:27AM (#55563107) Journal

    Arrest the cable companies for fraud. If they tell me they're selling me X bits per second for a certain price, then break my connection to Netflix unless Netflix gives them a cut of the money I give Netflix, that's fraud.

    Let's see how far they get being forced to put in blinking lights on the top of your contract, "The price we charge is not the full price we extract from your wallet. We will actually slow down your connection to Netflix unless Netflix gives us some of the money you give Netflix. That amount comes to $2.50 out of your ever-increasing Netflix payment."

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