FCC Approves Internet 'Nutrition Label' Proposal (axios.com) 53
The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve a proposal that would require internet service providers to share details about their plans in easy-to-read nutrition labels, similar to those on food. From a report: The FCC action, required by law and included in President Biden's executive order on competition, is meant to address consumer complaints about surprise pricing and fees, and make it easier to comparison shop for an internet provider. The proposal would require ISPs to include information about prices, internet speeds, data allowances and other details on the label. "With these broadband nutrition labels, we can compare service providers and plans, hold broadband providers to their promises and foster more competition, which means better service and better prices," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the agency's meeting.
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Re:Public officials are morons! (Score:4, Informative)
This is bad but so is that other thing so let's do nothing!
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My issue, this is a solution(nutrition labels?) that probably tested really well in the trendy focus groups. But in the end
You confuse the idea itself with the (currently non-existent) implementation of an idea... not something a bright person should do. Double so when throwing around words like "moron"
The idea is wonderful.
Comparing apples to apples, and oranges to oranges, is exactly the type of thing us tech types do when looking at ISP options.
Then we proceed to bitch about the process because so much of that data is either worded too vague to be useful, or outright hidden.
If implemented like nutrition labels on food, wit
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Agreed. I have two options in my local area - Fiber and xfinity. Both offer Gigabit tier service, but you have to dig deep to find that xfinity's service is asymmetrical (1200mbps/35mbps) while the fiber is symmetrical (1000mbps/1000mbps). xfinity stealthfully lists their upload and download speeds in their network management [xfinity.com] details. Comcast also has data caps and additional fees for exceeding them, while the fiber company is unlimited.
Requiring all ISPs to list their offerings in a standardized format
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Good. now do it for healthcare. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sorry, but the healthcare industry is fully paid up on it's bribes, whoops I mean political contributions, to both parties, and our representatives are heavily invested in healthcare stocks. And we the people pay for their top notch health care plans. So no. There will be no regulation of that industry.
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Trump got this ball rolling for hospital costs and big healthcare had a nutty. Hospitals have trotted out every excuse possible of why this is a bad idea or wouldn't lower prices.
Since then they have been doing everything possible to not comply. They've posted incomplete or bogus data, sued to stop/delay enforcement and others have ignored it completely.
Re:Good. now do it for healthcare. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump left the loopholes on purpose. He's the master at doing something that achieves nothing.
What we really need with the hospitals is truth in pricing, not open pricing. Simply make special deals illegal. One documented price for all and no coding tricks to give something that is essentially the same two different prices depending on the code. This would remove the advantages from insurance companies that trap people in their services. It would also remove any advantage from all of the separate billing systems so that there would be no barriers to merging billing systems. That would in turn truly reduce the expense of care.
I had an experience that demonstrated this need in an undeniable way. I had a procedure that billed my insurance $8K. After insurance had paid, a snafu caused my insurance to be retroactively voided. The hospital paid the $8K back and billed me about $64K knowing I had no way to pay that much. I believe they did it so that they could claim a $64K loss which could actually save more than $8K on their taxes. Luckily, I appealed and had the insurance reinstated.
One price for all would stop all of this nonsense. Many could then drop insurance altogether as paying around $8K per year for insurance would have little benefit. It would be cheaper or the same in most cases to pay the bills directly.
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What you need is universal healthcare.
When you are ill they have you over a barrel. If you don't get better you might not be able to work, or you might suffer and eventually die. You will pay pretty much whatever it costs to get better.
That massive power imbalance makes any kind of fair negotiation over cost impossible. It distorts the market and prevents effective competition. No market based solution will ever work.
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and how local will they force it to be? (Score:2)
ATT says your TOWN has fiber to the home but it's really an small part of it.
Comcast says UP TO but that can very node to node.
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My mom got slammed into a high end internet package she doens't need. I think it's 500+Mbps, and she only does light web browsing and no streaming except facebook church service on Sunday. It's AT&T, they came out and put up some sort of dongle up on the telephone pole, drilled a new hole in the side of the house, and told her it was cheaper. They didn't tell her in a way that an elderly person would understand that the price will zoom up after the first year. Really pissed at this sort of exploitati
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I don't think banning really helps. They'll just find some other similarly misleading term. People need to remember that "up to" means "no more than".
what is typical latency? (Score:2)
can my ISP just measure the latency between my house and the cabinet down the street and report it as 0.001 ms?
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Latency to/from where?
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I mean to say that it would be difficult to define a useful statistic for 'typical' latency. (assuming you mean something other than the nearby access equipment)
However, there is some requirement for ISPs to report on whether they can reach a type of performance benchmark.
https://www.fcc.gov/general/me... [fcc.gov]
No idea how hard or easy it is to meet said benchmark, just saying that there is one.
The problem isn't the format of the information (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the accuracy of the information.
This is a 1st step to enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether that enforcement action happens depends on who we elect. Show up to your primary election kids. Google the candidates and look for pro-consumer candidates.
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This 'information consistency' rule is appearing because Biden knows the tel-cos are being dishonest. So, no punishment for past fraud, no FCC expose of their dishonesty, no standards body to define what future advertising must contain, only a vague bill that tel-cos must publish the 'truth'. It's literally begging thieves to stop stealing stuff.
This is what electing somebody has gotten US consumers. Until the big issues like pro-gun culture and police brutality, employee rights, healthcare and childca
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This 'information consistency' rule is appearing because Biden knows the tel-cos are being dishonest.
Biden doesnt even know words.
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Whether that enforcement action happens depends on who we elect.
It doesn't happen under either party.
its really not that hard (Score:2)
Least in my area do I want to pay out the ass for 20Mb DSL or pay out the ass for 200Mb cable
given the exact same price of both services ...
"Up to" doesn't mean "will hit" (Score:2)
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Go figure why you aren't getting 100 MB/s! 100 MB/s is roughly equivalent to a Gigabit connection or very comparable anyway...
All companies that I know of advertise in Mb/s and 100 Mb/s is equal to 12.5 MB/s
Still confusing for users downloading files when most software show download speed in MB/s although...
1 Byte (B) == 8 bits (b)
Can we try this with privacy next? (Score:2)
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You find it hard to tell how many calories are in a serving of an item based on the nutritional information label?
The same question can be asked for any of the other items listed on the label (e.g. fat, cholesterol, sodium, etc.). The only real problem is that people don't bother to look at the label and make sure that they understand what the recommended portion size is.
If you are expecting the label to come right out and say whether the item is healthy to eat or nutritionally valid then I think you are ex
Why won't it read?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems quite obvious that people don't read their agreements. If they did they'd see that some of the Ts&Cs aren't what they would like and are only shocked when they get an invoice. Here's an idea, instead of a stupid label, why not mandate a set of rights that users have and simple billing with straightforward language?
Re:Why won't it read?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean, like a nutrition label?
They're called nutrition labels because they lay everything out that you need to know in a standard format, with simple words and everything.
You'll find it in everything - when you borrow money, there will be a set of boxes that tell you everything at a glance from your payments, how many payments, the interest rate, etc.
It's in a standardized format so you can compare and get everything you need to know at a glance, or exactly your proposal - straightforward billing and simple language.
And it's meant so you can compare between services - sure most people only have a choice between terrible and lousy, but it's still something you can look at. And if you move, you can compare the service at the new place with your current one.
This is better than simple language because you can weasel word your way around things. This way it's all up in front of you - what you get, what you pay, what the taxes and other fees are, etc.
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Do people gain anything by reading the T&Cs? When there is only one ISP to choose from, you options are no internet access or accept whatever they can legally get away with.
Only one problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
They are presuming one has the choice of ISPs. If you're lucky you have two choices, and both offer the same slow speeds for the same high prices.
Until there are at least three providers, prices will not come down and service will not improve.
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I'm genuinely curious if anyone can name a specific internet related regulation that has had a net positive impact, without large negative unintended consequences that are worse than the "fix". I'm not saying there aren't any "good" ones - I just can't think of any off the top of my head.
Local governments are the one thing that you have a reasonable ability to impact the outcome. You don't like the fact that your town is allowing a monopoly to continue? Get involved. Make phone calls, go to meetings, etc. Y
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That's a remarkably bad argument. Regulation isn't a case where you can easily point at one thing and look at its effects. The results of regulation are the sum total of a variety of regulations working together, often in complex ways.
The fact is that what we really want is an efficient system. There are two general ways that society has found to make efficient systems: 1) Use light regulation which encourages competition, 2) Enforce a monopoly which is tightly-regulated. If you want the worst of both w
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blah blah blah
You just put a lot of effort, mental gymnastics, and even tarnished your reputation with dishonesty, in order to justify why you shouldnt get involved and work to solve your local problem locally.
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There really aren't very many internet regulations. Everything that comes to mind is either a telecom regulation, or something related to computers in general, or copyright stuff like the DMCA. The CDA was quickly declared unconstitutional and I'm not sure how much of that remains, if anything. What regulations can you think of?
In think this is probably a good thing. The regulations discussed here aren't "internet regulations" they are rules telecom monopolies.
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You don't like the fact that your town is allowing a monopoly to continue? Get involved. Make phone calls, go to meetings, etc. You have the power to resolve the situation - use it.
You presume incorrectly that these towns didn’t sign decades-long exclusivity contracts with what were at the time local ISPs, but which were later bought out by regional and national ISPs. The fact is, in many cases, no, we don’t have the power to resolve the situation. Unless a law or regulation comes down from a state or federal level to invalidate those contracts, many Americans are stuck with what they have, even if the people who thought those contracts were a good idea we’re voted o
maybe now we'll understand where the issue is (Score:2)
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If you can find a web site that hasn't change in the last 15 years and is still the same as it was when modems were the fastest Internet connection you may see that things are faster. The big problem is that the faster the Internet gets the more crap that gets crammed onto website which in turn just slows things down to the same speeds as always.
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I have a 200MB connection.
So, you have roughly a 1,6 Gb/s connection? Nice, which provider are you dealing with? Most provider I know rate their connection in b/s and 1 byte (B) == 8 bits (b)
That said, it's true that with a fast enough connection, you come to notice web servers speed a little more. Keep in mind that most web servers serve many requests at the same time thus the bandwidth they have is split between all clients requesting web pages. A lot of websites also limit the bandwidth available by request even if they have more
Federal Communication Commission (Score:2)
So this is the Federal Communication Commission requiring nutritional labels. Anyone else see the problem here? Can you say "overreach" or maybe "bloat".
More bureaucrats on the pile (Score:2)
Great. Pass a law that wasn't necessary, cause the target of the law to have to spend money to comply with it which gets passed on to the customer, hire more government bureaucrats to ensure compliance at taxpayer expense. Man, I wish I could do that and get rich in the process.
They should be required to show regular prices (Score:2)
My biggest complaint with ISPs is that it's very difficult to find their regular, non-discounted prices of their services.
They'll always tell you their special, first-year price, but nowhere can you find that the price will triple after that.
I'd like to shop for service based on actual costs over several years.