California Senate Votes To Restore Net Neutrality (theverge.com) 116
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The California Senate voted on Wednesday to approve a bill that would reinstate the net neutrality regulations repealed by the Federal Communications Commission in December. The bill, S.B. 822, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), was introduced in March and passed through three committees, all along party-lines. The bill was approved 23-12 and will now head to the state Assembly. The bill would reinstate rules similar to those in the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order. It forbids ISPs from throttling or blocking online content and requires them to treat all internet traffic equally. But the bill also takes the original rules further by specifically banning providers from participating in some types of "zero-rating" programs, in which certain favored content doesn't contribute to monthly data caps. If the bill goes on to pass in the Assembly, providers will no longer be able to obtain government contracts in the state of California without obeying the regulations.
Wish I could say I was "first" (Score:1)
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If Europe is for Europeans and Asia is for Asians, wouldn't America be for Native Americans, Canada for Inuit, etc? The white people should fuck off back to Europe?
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Omnipresent regulation and laws detailing all aspects of life in the pursuit of the ongoing Perfecting of Mankind will grow to such a ponderous burden that progress in technology will start slowing, approaching the rate under dictatorship or failed state. No one can do anything without securing difficult permission from the overlords.
Good luck with perfecting people. I'm sure there's a regulation somewhere that saying Mankind is worthy of firing, or if you're lucky, merely being sent to a re-education cam
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I have no mod points or I would have selected 'Informative'.
So many layers of this and its very hard to see the forest because all the trees are in the way kind of thing too. Each individual retreat from freedoms may only be small or incremental but over time, generally longer times, you end up with nothing wondering 'how did this happen? who do we blame?'.
The single biggest reason I was happy for the repeal of the imposed NN rules was that there was hardly any big pipe infrastructure being constructed si
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you could not charge larger users more than lesser users.
This is complete bullcrap. Why would you believe something so stupid and nonsensical? Do you have any idea what NN is?
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you could not charge larger users more than lesser users.
This is complete bullcrap. Why would you believe something so stupid and nonsensical? Do you have any idea what NN is?
I think it's clear the answer to that is a resounding "NO"!
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Good grief, trunking/peering costs, not costs to end users. Hence the statement about hardly any infrastructure upgrades since the original NN was imposed. As an example of 1, Google stopped rolling out both its fiber and its wireless programs country wide, aggregate reason given was 'couldn't compete' for various reasons, costs, entrenched monopolies, etc etc.
People get hung upon end users and completely forget the other parts of the NN question.
Jump to the wrong conclusions and lash out like children r
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It's the government saving us from evil corporations.
We don't need to know more than that.
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Little known fact - Netflix's entire Internet costs would be $100 per month if NN were in force!
NN was in force for years. Did Netflix pay $100 per month during that time? Of course not, because you are full of crap.
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Little known fact - Netflix's entire Internet costs would be $100 per month if NN were in force!
Yeah, NN would require that an ISP charge the same rate for a 4 Mbit service or a 100 Mbit service. And, NN also meant that an ISP couldn't buy more upstream bandwidth if their customer base quadrupled.
You're either a troll or an idiot. Likely both.
NN was in force for years. Did Netflix pay $100 per month during that time? Of course not, because you are full of crap.
What? They don't have sarcasm on your planet?
Re: Wish I could say I was "first" (Score:1)
I do not think that nn worked that way. ever. you want OC-3? you get it, but you paud for it, and still do. But now Comcast, Verizon etc. can still fuck with the bandwidth and extract more "Quality of Service" $ from you. Oh, we see you have a good amount of VoIP traffic? well, for an extra $1000/mo we can (try to) help "ensure" you never miss another incoming call! etc etc etc. I'm sure at the top of the SLA that comes with an OC-3 there are various metrics that the provider says they will be keeping up, e
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Little known fact - Netflix's entire Internet costs would be $100 per month if NN were in force!
I'm surprised you posted this under your username. Most people who spout obviously false garbage on slashdot are savvy enough to do so as ACs.
Yeah, NN would require that an ISP charge the same rate for a 4 Mbit service or a 100 Mbit service.
That's not only wrong, it's also incredibly stupid. Seriously, you have no idea what you're talking about.
You're either a troll or an idiot. Likely both.
Oh, the irony.
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Little known fact - Netflix's entire Internet costs would be $100 per month if NN were in force!
I'm surprised you posted this under your username. Most people who spout obviously false garbage on slashdot are savvy enough to do so as ACs.
Yeah, NN would require that an ISP charge the same rate for a 4 Mbit service or a 100 Mbit service.
That's not only wrong, it's also incredibly stupid. Seriously, you have no idea what you're talking about.
You're either a troll or an idiot. Likely both.
Oh, the irony.
What? They don't have sarcasm on your planet?
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What? They don't have sarcasm on your planet?
On my planet, people are generally smart enough to know that textual representations of sarcasm are difficult to deliver effectively. The audience must know something about the speaker's worldview in order to surmise how to interpret the current statement, or some obvious cue has to exist (body language and intonation being absent) in order to understand the sarcastic intent.
But that's just my planet. Maybe you'll do better if you stay in yours.
Re:Wish I could say I was "first" (Score:5, Informative)
Omnipresent regulation and laws detailing all aspects of life
Burdensome regulation is bad. But regulation to prevent abuse of monopoly power is justified. If I had a choice of a dozen ISPs, then the market could sort this out. But I have a "choice" of one.
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I'll take citizen choice over corporate profits for 1000 chuck!!
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The Senate voted to not repeal it. The House has not,
Re:What am I missing? (Score:4)
AND, Trump hasn't signed it...
To reverse the FCC on this is basically the same as making a law. Both houses must pass the bill and the president must sign (or the veto over ridden in the senate)...
This is why we are a Republic (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, This is exactly what being a Republic is all about.
States can do this. So now what happens is we get to see how this affects the speeds and the revenue. If it is overall positive, then it can be reconsidered at the Federal level. If it turns out to suck, then maybe not.
It's how America was designed to work.
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Does an ISP like Comcast have the ability to provide different services to different regions or even individual homes? It sure seems so to me since I have standard internet speeds while my neighbor gets their high speed internet. So it should be no problem for them whatsoever to follow the laws of each state in regards to access. Or am I wrong in this line of thought?
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If you bought X speed, should Comcast be able to degrade your Netflix speed to X - ExtortionAmount unless Netflix pays them a cut of what you pay Netflix?
That's where the lying by big ISPs comes in. The amount Comcast charges you is a lie -- they demand a cut of what you pay Netflix too.
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Comcast has that ability, but they mostly use it to provide different service quality to different types of traffic, or traffic to/from different places. This whole lynching of net neutrality was, for them, primarily in effort to just change the law to make legal what they were already getting away with illegally on a wide-spread basis. That their service quality differs so much between individual regions is possible to be something they control with the same technology, but in the case of Comcast specifi
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In general, all economic activity, regardless of it is done at an individual level or the economic activity is restricted to within a single state, is economic activity that can be regulated via the Interstate Commerce Clause as the failure to participate in an interstate market is itself an interstate economic decision. That is the conclusion that was reached in the Supreme Court case Wickard v. Filburn.
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What am I missing?
What you're missing (along with many other partisan "rah-rah-team" types here) is the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution.
SCOTUS, particularly now with Gorsuch on the bench, will slap CA down. Hard. The same thing that's going to happen to "sanctuary cities" and the criminals in office who are criminal accessories both to violations of Federal immigration law, but also accessories to every crime committed by illegal aliens they've allowed to continue breaking the law by remaining illegally.
If AZ can't e
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They could however charge them a $1,000,000 landing fee at all airports, other than in an emergency :D
That is a lie. Such a fee would be slapped down in federal court (if not just by the FAA) due to the large amount of federal funding used to pay for those airports.
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They can also refuse Federal airport funds or take a cut in funding.
Note that local airports do have restrictions. LaGuardia in NYC has forbidden flights over ~2000 miles -- I think the longest flight out of LGA is to Denver. All West Coast flights have a stopover.
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They can also refuse Federal airport funds or take a cut in funding.
You should stop making knee-jerk responses in things you so clearly do not understand.
According to Wikipedia, MSY (New Orleans International Airport) has more than 5.5 million "enplanements" per year. New Orleans (the operator of that airport) is not going to lose its federal control tower, TSA services, or any other federal funding in a stupid attempt at banning jet aircraft from the state. Nor will any of the other cities that run airports. That includes general aviation airports that exist primarily due
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A large amount of federal funding was used to pay for the network infrastructure, too. By your own logic, Net Neutrality needs to be reinstated because of that alone.
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A large amount of federal funding was used to pay for the network infrastructure, too. By your own logic, Net Neutrality needs to be reinstated because of that alone.
Wrong. The strings attached to federal funding of included prevention of such nonsense as $1 million landing fees. There were no strings regarding net neutrality in any federal funding for federal infrastructure, and most of the complaints about NN are over private networks and corporations.
If it WERE an argument to reinstate NN, then it is an argument to do so at the FEDERAL level, not using a patchwork of state and local regulation.
In any case, the DESIGN of the network includes the differentiation of t
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CA OR WA all your Net is belong to us (Score:1)
Get used to it!
Seems it would hurt the consumer (Score:2)
So T-Mobile won't be able to offer Netflix with its service?
AT&T won't be able to offer DirecTV?
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Sure, they can offer it. But they have to charge its usage against data caps just like they do all other services. That would be a great reason to extend the data caps to something reasonable (say, 1 exabyte a month), or do away with them altogether.
Re:Seems it would hurt the consumer (Score:4, Informative)
To put it another way, Netflix will have to compete directly with DirecTV, rather than making exclusivity deals with cell providers. Right now, Netflix (to pick a party at random) gets a chunk of customers (in turn improving its negotiating power and company value) just by having a deal with T-mobile, and they don't have to actually improve service for it. Long-term, consumers still lose, even though it's promoted as being a "free" deal.
Re:Seems it would hurt the consumer (Score:4, Informative)
Could you elaborate? I'm not sure how preventing ISPs from omitting services from their data caps or treating services differently otherwise through throttling or QoS methods has anything to do with what you mentioned.
Netflix isn't an ISP, it's a service. T-mobile isn't an ISP, it's a cellular network and is exempt from these rules as it's "different." DirectTV isn't an ISP, it's a satellite TV / psuedo ISP that plays by different rules as well as far as I can tell. This should only affect landline phone, cable, and fiber customers. (ATT Uverse, Comcast, Charter, Google Fiber, etc)
All it should mean is if say... Comcast has a data cap for service tiers, they can't exempt their own programming or Hulu from that cap but include Netflix or others in data for that cap. They also can't throttle Netflix.
Am I missing something?
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A minor correction: DirecTV just resells other ISP services in a bundle with it's satellite service. They don't own any internet infrastructure of their own. That's why they get to play by different rules. They don't even bundle the same ISP's service in every region... though since they were recently bought by AT&T, I think the result of this whole net neutrality fiasco will probably affect how they continue to restructure the company and their services going forward.
Re:Seems it would hurt the consumer (Score:5, Insightful)
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Let's get real. Netflix is everyone's enemy here. Nobody is gonna prioritize them over any of their own services, ever. The scenario you outline is perfectly reasonable except for the completely disingenuous placement of Netflix in this scenario as the beneficiary of shady illegal government lobbying.
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Useless without their names.
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Yeah, I mean, who wants the world's 5th largest economy, anyway?
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Votes to protect (Score:2)
Time to allow some innovative community broadband and real networking competition.
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Keep dreaming. Harris has all the downsides of Clinton plus some extra.
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Recession will likely hit in 2019-20, if not sooner. Trump will end up unelectable even as a county dog-catcher. Should be entertaining to watch.
OTOH, a consumer advocate like Harris, willing to stick it to the big corps, should go over nicely. Enjoy the ride!
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If he runs in 2020. I'm still thinking this presidential gig is a bucket list thing for him. Now that he has crossed it off his list, I'm betting he will not run again in 2020.
Not factoring his his ego of course. I watched his speech last night in Nashville. The man loves to hear himself talk.
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True. Of course, it's true of all politicians....
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I'm not actually sure if he expected to win, BTW, or if it was a reality TV stunt gone too far... Flag as Inappropriate
With his ego? No doubt in my mind when he came down that escalator in 2015 he expected to win.
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The Dems have learned nothing from losing to Trump and will find a way to do it again. Probably by trying to run Kamala Harris for instance. So they lose everyone not cool with 'equality is racism/sexism and white men are evil' and eliminating all due process for sex crimes (particularly on college campuses) to staying home or even going (R), then doubly alienate everyone concerned with civil r
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Harris's record is at best mixed. Her Backpage witch-hunt is a negative, obviously, but she's pro-freedom in other ways:
(1) She's pushing marijuana reform at the Federal level.
(2) As San Francisco DA, she started a treatment program for addicts that helped them avoid prison
(3) As SF DA, she also chose not to go for the death penalty, even in a "heinous" cop-killing case. She stuck to her principles despite everyone calling for a sentence of state-sanctioned murder, and the killer ended up avoiding a de
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National polling is meaningless for Congressional races. Most Democrats live in concentrated areas geographically, generally known as the 80/20 Rule; i.e. 80% of registered Democrats live in 20% of the country. If a national poll is split 50-50 on a generic candidate that means Republicans have a sizeable lead in total congressional races.
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