FCC revised net neutrality rules reveal cable company control of process

Re: The Solution

May not be what you saw/used but I run TrackMeNot on Opera.

Logo is a blue circle with TWN, there is another named exactly the but different.

Also run Opera VPN attached to PrivateInternetAccess[.com] VPN so I have linux, windows and android covered on 5 devices at a reasonable price and number of entry points all over the world.

No slow speeds and few issues out side of having to configure my hosted web site email.

AMF: TMN has settings for words, include what NSA watches, and hits list of search sites from 10/sec to 1/hr.

>politicians

Methink calling Pai a politician is an insult to politicians.

What I wonder is, are some of the other bigwigs in the Trump cabinet so transparently acting in favor of their lobbyists and special interests? I mean, we are highly cognizant of Pai's, pretty unbelievable, degree of bias.

What are the other ones up to? What's EPA dude, the one who wanted it gone, up to? What about Mr Obamacare replacement? Rewritten as per the biggest HMO donor? I can hardly see how anyone would be worse than Pai but since he's not been dressed down, you figure that he's following script.

I wonder when the people who elected Trump to re-empower them from Washington and economic decay will wake up and smell the coffee. Not anytime soon is my guess, but it will hurt when they realize they've been sold a bridge.

If you read Ars, which is much more US than Reg, their commentards are even more rabidly anti Trump than here.

Re: Is an agreement possible?

If NN is like a road that anyone can drive anything on and at any time, how do the roads get built and maintained to ensure availability and at a cost point that anyone sees as economic?

The road construction and maintenance is paid for by your broadband subscription. If you want to continue the road analogy, think of it like this.

With Net Neutrality, everybody pays a toll to use the road, and everybody pays the same toll. If you have a delivery expected, then it doesn't matter which delivery company drops it off, as they will all pay the same road toll.

Without Net Neutrality, the toll might be different depending on what type of traffic wants to use it.

If you have a delivery expected, you might struggle if you want Amazon or Fedex to deliver it, as they get charged a higher toll than say UPS to use the same road.

Re: Is an agreement possible?

@JustSomeBloke

"I'm no expert here (which no doubt someone will confirm) but isn't there some genuine issues that NN causes?

If NN is like a road that anyone can drive anything on and at any time, how do the roads get built and maintained to ensure availability and at a cost point that anyone sees as economic?"

I'll take a quick stab at an answer. There are no issues NN causes. In the U.S., Internet connections are typically made over existing telephone lines. Consumers pay their phone provider to connect them to the public Internet. When the phone providers had no content to sell over the Internet, there were no issues. Over the last couple of decades, small local providers have been bought up by larger communications companies, and cable companies have moved in to supply Internet connections over their wire. Both of those entities want to sell their own content over the Internet. They would like to have an unfair advantage by virtue of controlling the consumer's connection to block or impede any content they think directly competes with their content. What many of us worry about is that it won't stop there. There are a lot of rich organizations that could buy up small and regional providers and control the content that people see.

Note in the above answer that the analogy of a road doesn't figure in. There are lots of analogies to use, all have some use but all have some flaws. In the case of roads, note that unlike roads, the Internet infrastructure is not degraded by traffic. Also note that the consumer is paying for the pipe into their house, and content providers are paying for pipes into their businesses. No common infrastructure is involved, though taxpayers money has been lavished on providers to build infrastructure. Also note that back end infrastructure isn't mentioned. That is an important part of the Internet but NN doesn't play much of a role there.

Re: Is an agreement possible?

Here is a better analogy. The internet is a series of highways and the ISPs maintain them by charging you a toll. NN prevents an ISP from saying that Fords are allowed to use the road for free, and can go as fast as they want (because the ISP owns Ford), but every other car has to pay the toll and is limited to going 35 MPH. That is an unfair competitive advantage. Everyone will be compelled to buy a Ford to avoid the tolls and go faster.

This stifles innovation and is very ANTI-capitalism. Capitalism is a Darwinian-esque survival of the fittest ON A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. If a new and better car, say Tesla, enters the field it should be able to compete with other cars based on its merits. Not be immediately worse because Ford and Chevy own the roads and limit it to a top speed of 35 MPH unless you pay them too.

That is what NN does. It ensures that the roads can't be bought by the car companies. So new companies with better tech can come out and compete. If Pai and his ISP cronies get their way they'll be able to throttle Netflix, Hulu and HBO while offering their own streaming services for the same price that delivers HD programming at top speeds. Or they'll just hamstring Netflix and force them to pay millions of dollars of protection money to not be throttled so they can compete (like they did before NN). Or they'll offer unlimited plans at high prices but throttle you to DSL speeds when you try and access certain online services like streaming video, audio or gaming.

All of this is bad. ISP's SHOULD be considered Common Carriers like water, gas an electricity. My water company can't cut my water pressure because I am using a GE washing machine. Or charge me more because I didn't purchase their brand of sinks and shower heads. They charge me a flat fee based on my usage and do nothing to impede it. ISP's should do the same. Charge me a cheap, competitive rate for my internet usage and have nothing to do with what sites or content I am visiting.

Re: Class Action?

Simple, it's not legal. The problem is getting enough evidence as not many folk who didn't make a comment will bother or quite possibly know how to check to see if one was made for them. That's the point of the comcastroturf site, it makes it easy to check and gather any evidence that does exist.

For some reason I can't seem to find any of the original "The unprecedented regulatory power..." comments but there are a great number of identical "Title II" comments with two distinct flavors with one being pro-Title II and the other against. The pro version begins "I stand firmly against this proposal. Preserving net neutrality is imperative..." and the against starts "Obama’s Title II order has diminished broadband investment, stifled..." Clearly these are all of the form letter type and a few even have evidence of an actual person adding personal comments to them which seems to indicate they are real.

Unfortunately it would be possible for people to not know they have posted a comment because all it takes is a button on a web page. If it happens to read "Click here to [support, vote for, like, etc.] an open internet!" there is no way to know which form letter goes out or even if one goes out. That's part of the problem of putting much stock in online comments, they are too easy to fake and they say "I don't really care but it sounds ok so what the heck I'll give it a click". Think of it as a 'like' on FB.