Posted Jan 4, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC
I can't wait til Broadband reaches dial-up because then everyone will have high speed internet. That's the way it works, right?
**tl;dr: This is part of a five step process to turn broadband data in the US into the monetization platform cable had. This is due to cord cutting. Source : multiple contacts in the industry including myself to an extent **
Edit: Step 3 is happening way sooner than expected. Check out the video in another reddit thread and let me know if you notice anything interesting about the language used at the end
Most people are missing the bigger picture here, and it's not about slowing speeds across the board.
The real goal here is to get all data under one umbrella, then impose data caps (extremely low ones), then use the repeal of Net Neutrality to push cable-like packages for things like Netflix and Twitch to have those sites avoid counting against the cap.
The push to get all mobile and otherwise non-broadband data classified as broadband is to assure that any data you use on any device counts against a cap.
The slow and imminent death of cable is the cause of this. The reason ISPs didn't start down this path earlier was because cord cutting wasn't nearly as prevalent five years ago, and companies still didn't have a clear cut path to monetizing the internet.
So, this is just the next step. Look for language about caps to come up after midterms, and for aggressive bills to be pushed through allowing very low data caps nationwide.
You will also see some sort of push to completely remove the possibility of start up ISPs. This will take form in an infrastructure bill severely limiting access to poles and underground junctions by new companies without direct permission from the existing ISPs that have cable on those poles.
Step 1: repealing Net Neutrality. This allows them to offer packages that don't count against a data cap.
Step 2: push to classify all data under one umbrella, so all data counts against said cap.
Step 3: eliminate the possibility of local ISP startups by making access to infrastructure either impossible, unreasonably expensive, or take far too much time for a new company to feasibly compete. Edit: To clarify, and to take from another post that I wrote before I saw the new video trying to propagate against local startup/municipal ISPs:
As to the infrastructure side start looking for ads and bills being pushed to "focus on local safety and security" and to "improve infrastructure and roads", these are ways to pass things that don't let upstarts near the junctions, poles, and do the required splicing to actually get access to the existing network.
Step 4: implement data caps. This will be the time where aggressive shilling will take place on the form of "everyone is using so much internet we have to. You can't just let these people take your internet!"
Step 5: this is the end game that we are talking about when NN got thrown out. Majority of plans will have a 10-20 GB data plan monthly. Going over will be extremely expensive. Packages will be offered for different websites to not count against that cap. This is where you can expect to pay over 100$ a month for just internet for the same speeds you have now for unlimited access to only certain sites. Torrenting will clearly be hit extremely hard here.
Source: Have family who work in the industry and also work for an electrical contractor who does work for some ISPs, the plans are starting to get out.
edit: Clarified the infrastructure part as its actually immediately relevant due to another post on the front page as we speak.
This is the kind of thing that is going to make me want to leave the country. Especially when/if the FCC makes municipal fiber illegal as it would "interfere with businesses and hinder market growth."
Country A has 1gig speeds, no data cap, and costs $40 per month.
Country B has 10mbps speeds with a 20gb data cap for $40 per month, or tiers up from there where 1gig speeds with no data cap costs you $500 per month with foreign sites being throttled (to stop torrents).
If this is what the Free Market looks like, I'll take German "socialism".
I don't think you'll need to leave the country, there may be enough traction to stop this. At some point people will begin raging into Comcast offices and screaming about it collectively. At this point, many Americans are pacified by streaming video. Remove that and they will get almost as angry as an uncontrolled food price increase.
The rage that people have towards this impending possibility even now before it has reached a classifiably draconian level is almost enough to bring this concern mainstream. I don't think ISPs are aware at the visceral reaction they will receive if and when they toy with/retract access to near-total information access.
I've read that societies can approach instability when food prices surge, probably because food is one of the few common denominators that link us all. Access to online information is closely approaching as common of a denominator as food because of the huge range of reasons people want and need access to an unfettered internet connection at an acceptable rate of speed.
ISPs I dont think are fully thinking through the implications of restricting a system that connects people to entertainment, communication, bill payment, education, business endeavors and so so so much more. Such an effort to restrict the web could lead to one of the largest socially connected backlashes we've seen in a long time. We just don't see it yet because very few people compared to the 300+ million in America monitor techno-political issues as close as our demographic.
Once an ISP prevents little Billy or Sally from doing their homework, and grandma from accessing her recipe, and significant others from communicating over Skype, or professor from teaching their course, or engineer from implementing their cloud innovation, or programmer from disseminating their code or program, etc., shit is going to hit. The. Fan.
And I can't imagine what will happen when they try to restrict porn.
Tl;dr ISPs may be about to kick the hive in a way they don't and can't yet even fully comprehend. The backlash of taking away the bees' ability to better understand and enjoy their hive by stifling one of the bees' largest recent innovations will cause a swarm of incalculable financial, reputational, and other pain for the cable industry. Such stings could deliver enough venom to force the threat to retreat.
I want to believe that. They did it on mobile networks though and nobody batted an eye. But, we've been used to unlimited broadband since the beginning and that's been a long, long time. Mobile networks didn't really have unlimited for that long before they reigned it in. We're so used to having unlimited at home and work, it's not like we won't notice the tremendous impact and effect.
The inherent problem with trying to monetize internet like TV is that you can't. There are billions of internet sites which doesn't even take into account all the different services like VPNs, VOIP, streaming, IoT, etc.
If you try to force packages like "oh, you like to stream? Yeah, we hear you, how about our streaming package which gives you netflix, hulu, prime, youtube, and twitch?" you'll get a bunch of people pissed off because some little known random streaming site happens to be their most used site out of the entire internet. You have to pay for a porn package to get porn? Every married man in the country is now up in arms. Your porn package only includes big name companies' sites? Yeah, that's definitely not going to fly with anyone. You try to get every porn site you can find under that package? Again, not flying; even governments that have tried to block all porn in their countries can't even scrape the tip of the pornberg in their blacklists. Hell, good luck even compiling a full list of all the different fetishes out there, never mind all the sites catering to those fetishes.
Forget IoT devices. So many people will get pissed wondering why they've lost all their data because they don't realize their HD baby monitor or live stream refrigerator camera is eating up what little data they have.
A big reason people are up in arms about packaging of internet service is that it wouldn't just be terribly expensive, it would kill the internet. Even if someone paid for every package, they still wouldn't have even 1% of the access they used to. And obviously every tech company is going to be pissed that they've lost 300 million consumers because no one's able to use their sites, services, or devices anymore. So it's not just consumers that would be up in arms, it would be pretty much every other non-ISP company in the country.
Yes. This. The chemical feedback people get from a lot of internet content is too powerful. Take it away and there’ll be a lot of people with junky-level addiction to the internet screaming about it. The more the government shakes the tree on behalf of donors the harder the fruit will fall on their heads.
Rage does not translate into power when the markets are uncompetitive and the government responds to money rather than public opinion.
Yah...except the ISPs will just eliminate searches for ISP physical locations and all anti-ISP speech. Because they can do that. Because Net Neutrality is no more.
I don't think you'll need to leave the country, there may be enough traction to stop this.
We've said that about every single battle we've lost against the ISPs. Losing Net Neutrality is not some isolated failure, we lose a little bit of ground every single year.
Except people have accepted worse things historically.
Once an ISP prevents little Billy or Sally from doing their homework, and grandma from accessing her recipe, and significant others from communicating over Skype, or professor from teaching their course, or engineer from implementing their cloud innovation, or programmer from disseminating their code or program, etc., shit is going to hit. The. Fan.
Ok, I see where you’re going with this.
And I can't imagine what will happen when they try to restrict porn.
That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time! Glad you’re on the same page as me.
I think you might be right. When people talk about the populations complacency someone always brings up the “bread and circuses” line. Well for pretty much everyone that isn’t hovering around retirement age the internet is our circuses. You take that away and people might actually get off their ass.
I think you have too much faith in people
there may be enough traction to stop this.
As long as people elect republicans nothing will stop this shit. And if it's not this shit, it'll be something else to give money, power, and control to companies and the wealthy. That's basically their party platform.
Only way to change anything is to vote, and to make sure you're not voting for republicans and conservatives.
there may be enough traction to stop this.
how naive. the majority of people wanted to keep net neutrality laws and look how that ended.
they will pass laws masked as good things and then bring the hammer of data caps once the structure is set up. that way the data cap vote isn't blockable or stoppable.
I think you underestimate that the majority of the people barely know how to use a computer, and have absolutely no clue how hard the system is fucking them over. My grandparents and my rich aunt and uncle (who aren't even that old) will pay for whatever the isps tell them to, and will do it with a smile on their face because they think this is the way things are and everything all hunky dory. Rich people will pay because they can't be bothered, and the majority who are poor will pay, because they don't know any better..
There's a good analogy about boiling a frog. I think it is a good counterargument to your prediction
No, there is a lot of rage about it on the internet, but no one is willing to show up and do anything about this in person. Most people aren't even aware this is happening. Source: Everyone over the age of 30 I've spoken to.
Check out the video in another reddit thread
I really don't think there will be enough outcry, or that they won't listen. I generally have the sort of think that our leaders don't listen to us any longer... And that we've been sold out to lobbyist interests that are what make the scenario in the above post possible.
But let's ignore that and think of a scenario of what happens when the above steps are taken into action.
Scenario A: We start to receive broad band throttling, and the major websites slow down. They cave (like they have in the past, when netflix paid verizon), because lets face it, they have enough money to pay the ISPs (Netflix, facebook, youtube) because otherwise every second without service is a second without money being made. And the ISPs can lie and blame those companies for having server issues. So what happens if they don't pay? ISPs offer an appealing enough package for Americans go to the convenient ISP video sites. Until eventually the major companies pay (I think they already thought of this scenario, so they will just immediately pay). Eventually, a majority of America keeps using what they use 90% of the time so all looks good under the surface! The other websites, they slow down enough to the point that we still use them fine, and we use netflix/facebook/youtube w/out bandwidth issues so maybe we never see the bandwidth issues on those sites at all! After all, we're a bunch of zombies and americans do watch the most TV/consume mindless media for a majority of their time. So looking at the average numbers, we don't have any immediate complaints from most people. Where it hits the most, are the smaller companies that can't afford to pay. Eventually, their websites just get swallowed by the bigger conglamorates who can afford to pay more to have their website more accessible. Welcome to the death of small companies in America where only the big companies can make successful startups! This is probably when you and I leave the nation.
Scenario B: We start to receive throttling, similar problems as the above. no one listens. But we resort to a black market economy and criminalize the internet as we once knew it. A majority of the non-average Americans who really need that unlimited internet access, use smart computer tools which obfuscate data and make it look to the ISP as though its passing to sites like youtube/facebook/etc but actually go to other sites. I'm not a networking expert, but I figure we need this type of sophisticated tooling. It because a game of cat and mouse where we make tools to get around ISP blocking, and they make tools to block the newest tool. Criminal economy. Eventually, this may become a big enough hastle that you have to leave too.
It would be just terrible if there was a nation wide movement of people destroying private ISP infrastructure and assets.
Internet service should be a public utility, and have equal access to content for everyone.
We should absolutely vote out the politicians who do not serve the people. And if that isn't enough, then people should take matters into their own hands. Or both.
I'd like to believe this too...but the reality is there's a chance it won't play out like we want it to. That's why it's as important as ever to make sure ordinary people are aware of what's happening. Better awareness = more people up in arms
Nah... It's harder than that. They're taking 3 inches and will be forced to give back 1 inch.
Yes, because the American public getting pissed at massive corporations worked out so well for us the first time.
People might say that the ISPs know who they're fucking with but honestly I don't know. These decisions are in the hands of a few greedy sociopaths that can't see through their greed.
And I can't imagine what will happen when they try to restrict porn.
This is secretly why Republicans in red states are against this.
I don't think you'll need to leave the country, there may be enough traction to stop this.
There won't be. We lost, man. The FCC is dead. Ajit Pai fucking killed it. 30 pieces of silver...
Even worse, all of our representatives have been bought. We're done. It's over.
I don’t personally advocate destruction of property, virtual or otherwise, but I wonder what the Boston Tea Party equivalent looks like here ...
This isn’t true. They will be sure to keep it just this side of where it truly restricts people’s health and safety. A 10mb down with a 10gb cap is plenty for anyone to conduct critical life stuff. Another $20 for the Comcast Tv channel package. Another $9.99 for unlimited fab and Twitter. Add photo sharing, a sports subscription , etc. for another $19.99, and anything over your cap is now $10/GB.
The world won’t revolt over paying an extra $20 for Netflix or having to switch to your ISP’s tv solution. It’ll just be one more way that corporations are controlling what we see, but, and think, limiting our ability to communicate and organize, and preventing the US from being competitive with the rest of the world.
Especially since Netflix has proven with their continued increase in content generation at their low low price that the old cable system was heavily gouging consumers. Good point in the streaming pacification phenomenon , taking that away or heavily increasing the rates to access will be like the bread price spike that brought about the Arab spring... and I don't know how they can justify it, they are still earning greater profits every year in broadband. Just because their old business model is collapsing doesnt justify transferring those costs to a product that is already profitable, it's the same as a pharmavulture picking up an existing drug patent and upping the price 1000%
They will just do it gradually enough that no one has a sharp enough change to get them angry.
Remember when YouTube had no ads before your video would play? They added them so gradually that I almost didn't notice. Now there are unskipable ads and they are offering a paid ad-free version.
Bread and circuses. They're coming for the circuses.
Lmao enough traction to stop this, just like we had enough traction to prevent the repeal. This optimism is ruining the USA
The days of revolution in America are over. No one in America gives a shit unless it affects them.
Since this won’t affect people with money since they can just pay for better plans, they’ll just deal with it.
yes, telecoms are really close to pushing a true majority of citizens over the edge of activism. This issue will possibly spark the shift to the newer generations taking the reigns of governance from the crusty old farts who can't seem to grasp the fundamental necessity that high speed internet is (or is becoming to the slow adopters out there). I am in my 40's and have plenty of medical expenses but would much rather see internet taken out of private hands than healthcare.
At some point people will begin raging into Comcast offices and screaming about it collectively.
Doubt it. I mean if we haven't already, and they continue their tiered approach to fucking our asses, the public will (continue to) slowly submit.
Or hell, what about businesses? While I don't think you're wrong, one point you didn't mention is how this would cost every single business outside of ISP's more. Even small businesses these days have their own websites, order things online, email all throughout the company, etc.
You're screwing nearly every citizen in the country? Whatever, put some money in the right pockets and the politicians can spin it about how "I fought for all of your best interests! It's all the other guys that are corrupt!" But if you turn this into ISP's vs damn near every other business in the country, it won't happen.
You're dreaming man - look at how the internet tried to react against Net Neutrality, and it still passed. I've never seen such a wide cross-section of the internet coming together like that, and what did it do? Nothing.
The Wild West era of the Internet is coming to an end. And it fucking sucks.
I don’t think I can believe that. Americans are incredibly stupid, and education isn’t improving.
It would be nice. But I don't see that happening. America voted for a guy who actually told them one of his goals was to remove healthcare. If people can't be bothered to speak up when it's about their health, why would they speak up about the internet?
On top of that, how do they expect us all to pay more? Many of us are basically dealing with barely positive or even negative cashflow situations as the it is with the current progression of the class warfare that has been waged in this country for decades.
Once an ISP prevents little Billy or Sally from doing their homework, and grandma from accessing her recipe, and significant others from communicating over Skype, or professor from teaching their course, or engineer from implementing their cloud innovation, or programmer from disseminating their code or program, etc., shit is going to hit. The. Fan.
You can't apply for jobs without the internet. What happens when resumes don't get uploaded. Hell, what happens when tax documents don't upload.
Tell me where to take my pitchfork. Whenever I read about what's happening out in the world if makes my blood boil. I'll always be ready to burn some corporations to the ground.
Bullshit. Americans are far too docile and obedient. ISPs could stop providing Internet access and only connect people to a handful of sites that they themselves control, the slobbering masses will complain about Democrats and regulation being the problem, and nothing will happen.
I think they know. They just don't give a shit. Would you when you have the entire market? You're the only player in town? It would be like the power companies going hey let's just charge $500 a month flat rate. What are you going to do, go without electricity? Some would be forced to, some would move, the rest will just bite the bullet
ISPs I dont think are fully thinking through the implications of restricting a system that connects people to entertainment, communication, bill payment, education, business endeavors and so so so much more.
They're thinking it through, but only with the same short-sighted profit now, invest later mindset that brought us the deregulation of cable and the subsequent race to the bottom in content (Remember when TLC was educational?) that ultimately led to cord-cutting.
They're trying to make it so that no matter what, they get all the money, all the power, all the control, and fuck the consumer. All the consumer exists for, in the minds of these assholes, is forking over money each month for them to not invest in infrastructure or any measurable improvement of their business.
The worst part is that, mostly, we can't choose to vote with our wallets. Going without internet access is unimaginable - everything uses it. Everyone needs access to it. You can't apply to most jobs without internet access. You can't use governmental services - DMV, SNAP, unemployment, etc. - at any reasonable level of utility without internet access.
But we're already locked in. we don't have a choice but to give these people our money. The average person has, at best, two choices for service - one slow, expensive, unreliable cable ISP and one glacial, cheap, unreliable DSL provider. That's it. How are you supposed to boycott something when you have no choice but to pay for it so you can function in society?
I sure hope so.
So streaming video won't count in full against your cap. Problem solved.
There’s a lot of fear mongering going on right now with this. People actually think they will limit streaming services. This is akin to gun grabber headlines to scare conservatives. If either one of those cases ever happened, I would expect some fierce yet justified conflict.
90% won't even realize anything changed. You're wrong. Nothing will be restricted, only slower, and the ones who notice it will be so aren't powerful enough to do anything about it.
Doubt it. People talk big, in the end they don't "really"care.
But this is partially why humongous media conglomerates want to own ISPs and why the revenue been related mergers. If an ISP is owned by a media company, you'll still get the information you want, you'll just be limited in how much you can get by how much you can afford.
The anger of not being able to access information will be transferred to the anger of how expensive it is, and that is a problem that Americans seem able to tolerate and ignore.
I know I would die before living in the dark ages again. I hope enough other people feel this way too.
But they won't be unable to do these things; they'll just have to pay more to do them. And how many people would refuse to pay $10 more to do something important to them?
Unfortunately I think we will be more like the frog in a pot.
It doesn't matter. 2016 was the moment to stand up and save our country. But we failed utterly. They're stacking the courts and destroying what safeguards we have left. Get out while you can.
I think you are idealistic. I also believe people won't revolt. They'll complain and pay. This country does not have enough counter culture in them anymore. Which is exactly the way we've been shaped for the last 40 years.
[removed]
ISPs I dont think are fully thinking through the implications of restricting a system that connects people to entertainment, communication, bill payment, education, business endeavors and so so so much more.
The bill part is what got me. What if at the end of the month the person has to pay a bill and has close to exactly the amount of money for it, and then they go over the data cap and have to pay a stupid amount of money to pay someone else money?
It can't end well
[deleted]
[deleted]
At this point, many Americans are pacified by streaming video. Remove that and they will get almost as angry as an uncontrolled food price increase.
The rage that people have towards this impending possibility even now before it has reached a classifiably draconian level is almost enough to bring this concern mainstream. I don't think ISPs are aware at the visceral reaction they will receive if and when they toy with/retract access to near-total information access.
Netflix is our Soma so yeah, it could happen.
ISPs will have to back off when they lose billions when people start reverting to job finding in papers and unemployment Agencies.
If they launch plans that bankrupt people for using 10gb on 1 hour and skyrocket bills you’ll see a lot of contract breaking and bankrupt people. It’ll be more gruesome than the housing bubble.
[deleted]
They will leave the standard websites in check to keep the masses pacified. Youtube netflix hulu crap like that. They will use this to kill torrenting and other file sharing and porno streaming. Would be my guess. Older folks dont know what a torrent is and wont care when its gone.
This is what I am thinking too.
We have known since the Roman Empire the easiest way to keep a populace docile is to give them bread and circuses. Fuck with their food or their outlets from the tedium/suffering of life and those in charge are going to have a bad time.
What the ISP's are doing is fucking with the core of our society just to try and make a few more short term profits. Because technology is so ingrained into every facet of our lives this could easily cause minor or greater disruption to our food or other life necessary resources. This includes how so many of us perform our occupations as well. And it will absolutely fuck with our entertainment options. Jesus Christ can't they see that they are going to piss off almost everyone in our society so quickly that fire and pitchforks will be the go to response?
The age of ripping people off with cable is past. Cord cutting is becoming the new norm. The only people who care about cable TV and it's hundreds of channels with nothing constantly interrupted with obscene amounts of advertisements are old and dying off. Hell, I'm 35 years old and havn't had cable for over a decade and have never missed it for even a day.
No it won't. The American populace are a bunch of lazy fucks who will blindly accept anything. If you think more than .1% of people would ever do anything more than share a Facebook article, you're delusional.
Rome runs on bread and circuses. They're about to take away the circuses. I expect literal riots, and not just about the internet restrictions, but all the horrifying injustices the working class use the internet to distract themselves from.
This is the most naive comment I've read today by far.
[deleted]
No. They will make it easy enough for Joe Netflix to get his fill of shows, with some sort of easy to understand monthly payment. Think-- "all your favorite channels with no hassle for one low price! Cheaper than your old cable!" And then Joe Netflix is gonna forget all about the rest of the net, because NN is hard.
At some point people will begin raging into Comcast offices and screaming about it collectively.
lol are you serious? If the Republican party says it's good, these fucking morons will defend it to the death. Republicans shit in their mouths and they argue about what flavour it is.
No they won't. People don't care.
I mean I don't see why we can't just have a good old fashioned riot about it. Storm the ISPs and the FCC with actual pitchforks and torches. America loves a good riot. We got pissy and dumped tea in the harbour and told England to fuck off. I don't see any reason why we can't do the same to Pai and his butt-buddies at the cable providers.
I see similarities between this business “strategy” and a drug pusher getting someone hooked on cheap/free junk and then dramatically upping the price.
People who aren't interested in politics will wake up when things get to cable-esque levels. I garuntee it.
At this point, many Americans are pacified by streaming video
This right here. The ONLY reason more people aren't up in arms is because they're too pacified with "reality TV" and sports to give too much of a fuck.
"What's net neutrality? Eh, sounds boring and I'm missing the playoffs god damnit I don't have time to care about the future of the internet."
[removed]
[removed]
You can always put the frog in warm water and crank up the gas.
I don't think you understand just how sinister and calculating they are. They wont block skype or probably even slow it down. They will start their own version (or buy one) and give you unlimited use that dont count towards your data cap.
You might not like that service, or even hate it compared to what you are used to. But hey, its FREE and UNLIMITED, and soon everyone are using it so you cant exactly stay on the limited "payed" alternative.
You used to bring your spotify playlist to the party, but now its blocked on your friends wifi, because it uses up data that he needs for other stuff. but whats the harm when verizon has "basically the same" service bundled for only an extra 5 bucks. why don't you use that?
Soon enough you are considered to be surfing on the dark web if you are not on this AOL like hub of network with their injected ads. But you are still allowed to of cource. On the same datacaps you had 5 years ago, and if those sites managed to still stay alive after the big ISPs either bought them, forced them to share adspace, or kicked them to the curb and discouraged any traffic to them, either by DNS-blocking or ignoring them in their custom search engine.
There are a million ways for ISPs to use their position for their benefit. Probably a million more that no one can even dream of today. Some are used already, many more will follow when they get a chance to use them.
It will not happen the way you think. It will probably not happen the way I think either. They have hundreds of people (and lawyers) to find a strategy that will be even worse than what we all can imagine together.
Like mad Max but immortan Joe dies at the beginning
And if they dial it back slowly mosy people won't even notice...
Take away these, and people start to get pissed off and notice that they're getting screwed.
You are being naive.
ISPs would never outright restrict people from doing basic activities on the internet. ISPs are not dumb. They would introduce data caps/plans in a manner where people are annoyed by them but not outright mad. They will slowly keep pushing the envelope.
Just to add to this, if no one mentioned it below, that the majority of retail jobs and job applications is done online now. What happens when you can't even complete that process because you hit your cap for the month trying to find jobs?
If this is what the Free Market looks like...
The "free market" is great at setting prices when there is no barrier to entry. If anyone can invent a better mouse-trap, then the best mouse-trap wins.
When you have a significant barrier to entry, be it from regulations or costs (think banks, airlines, telecoms), the "free market" becomes a race to the bottom. Nobody has to build the best mouse trap, they just have to build a mouse trap that is good enough. As long as it's not so bad that it encourages... actual competition... it's all about removing features, adding fees, wringing the sponge dry.
Anything as infrastructure based as a utility cannot be considered a free market comedy. You can't have a freemarket laying 10 water mains or cell phone lines to every house in the US. Even if you did it's still a stagnant market as the barrier to entry is so high.
FFS even ultra libertarians should see why we label these things utilities. So aggravating to have to argue with people who think everything will just work itself out.
They don’t want to build the best mousetrap, they just want to make it illegal for anyone else to build them. Not the free market at all.
Don’t leave the country. Just riot.
People in the 60’s did it.
It’s what America’s all about.
Go out and get your Justice.
Go out and get shot.
That part of America is dead and gone. People aren't getting off their asses and rather make excuses about how the country is too big to protest or whatever.
In a decade or two they can start replacing police with machines and that'll be the final nail in any kind of protest.
This, ffs what ever happened to hitting the streets and voicing your opinion?
Nobody gives a fuck about your tweeting, your forum posts, your stupid blogs.
Get your fat ass off the couch and protest!!
[removed]
I'm completely with you. This is why I have already scouted two other countries to potentially move to (Costa Rica and Panama) and I'm about to scout a third (Portugal.) This Internet bullshit, combined with the healthcare bullshit and the tax bullshit are just too much to take. We either need an armed revolution or we need to get the fuck out.
If you want good internet you should move to the nordic countries, they have some of the best internet infrastructure.
Portugal and Costa Rica don't have net neutrality either. Not sure about Panama.
If the US will do it, I'm sure other countries will follow suit (unless NN is already explicitly protected) since there is money to be made. Monkey see monkey do after all.
NN is already explicitly protected in the rest of the developed world.
Uh, no. That doesn't really work post Trump. Nobody sees America as a leader anymore. Even if the US scrambles back up onto the podium we all saw you fall off.
What other countries followed the US's ridiculous telephone model where both the caller and the recipient are charged for telephone calls?
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens, my friend.
Stay with us and fight. We need you. This is the rapid road that Trump's FCC is trying to steal us away on, but remember that just a little while ago, under Wheeler, things were moving int he RIGHT direction.
We can right this ship.
This is ridiculous and one of the major reasons I'm considering leaving. I don't want limits on how I access information.
interfere with businesses
Someday conservatives will realize that this country is made of people...not businesses...right?
Agreed. And instead of trying to be a good company and keep up with demand they just use the GOP to monopolize whichever industry so they don’t have to provide value, just take in cash to pay the lobbyists to fuck everyone.
Republicans for free market and competition my ass!
makes municipal fiber illegal as it would "interfere with businesses and hinder market growth."
Code word for 'mess up our monopoly'
Sir it's a duopoly in many places, you usually have a choice between mediocre and horrible service for me it's Spectrum and AT&T
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to pickup my pitchfork and fight.
Hmm.. there may be a surge in the torch and pitchfork business. I know what I'll be investing in.
Turns out ".de" websites aren't in your package. Also neither are German language courses.
This is the kind of thing that is going to make me want to leave the country.
FTFY, This is the kind of thing that is going to make me want to leave this planet.
I've got a free seat reserved for you in germany.
Can I take it?
Im here enjoying my 400mbps for 40 euro
I’m going abroad in a year and if this doesn’t improve I intend on looking to move abroad (if I enjoy it) once I graduate
I’d just stop using the net at this point.
Canadian immigration, FYI.
If things keep going the way they have, Americans will have easy entry into Canada as refugees...
You may be mistaken as to what youve heard about our internet speeds. 1 gig for 40$ (34€)? does unfortunately not exist. Most inner city places get 50mbit down, 10 up, which is slow as shit for todays possibilities and business requirements (especially SOHOs). But our backwards oldpeoplefacebook like politicians seem to think it is enough, and countries with wiser leaders will overtake us in the ever accelerating business world.
Isn't this why you put gun ownership into the Constitution? To protect your rights as free citizens and take down your corrupt government?
However this is slowly seeping over to us.
I wanted to change my plan with my provider for some time to upgrade speed but I can't because every plan they have now has caps whereas my older plan has no cap.
So I'm stuck on my current plan until I leave my current provider for good.
The power of some big American companies reaches over sea. Europe is still doing better then the USA but is not the safe heaven everybody think it is. Our society is being broken apart to, very slowly. We are at post-peakcapitalism and the change to the new prevalent system (decentralize everything) will be a chaotic one, just like all changes from one system to the next.
Hey, we'll take all your smart engineers and healthcare workers and shit up here in Canada.
[deleted]
It’ll never happen. Just yesterday, CA announced a bill that forces all ISP’s to abide by net neutrality if they use government land, poles, and infrastructure... which is every isp in CA. They are also forcing any isp that wants any type of state government contract that they have to abide by net neutrality.
NY is following suit. So is WA.
Repealing NN on a federal level just opened up ISP’s to about 50 different NN laws. It’s hilarious how they didn’t even see this coming.
[deleted]
I agree. I've been feeling more and more like my family should emigrate as these situations escalate. With this, health care, and the tax changes the US is becoming less desirable to live in.
My aunt keeps harping on at me to move out to Aus. After living in SK and being back home. I said with the net there simply not a chance. I couldn't live without reliable fast cheap internet
The thing that kills me, is a perfect example of peoples ignorance.
Other countries already outright shut down the internet because they don't want people to be able to organize into proper groups to resist and protest.
That is what will happen here, sans the whole net getting shut down. Gotta leave youtube and netflix running to keep people inside and ignoring the "problem people."
Trying to convey this to someone like my father, he cuts me off with "I don't want to hear about other countries, or examples from them. They don't apply to our situation." So internal subversion of protest groups through censorship, or physical dismantlement doesn't apply here? Funny. Head in the sand.
As a free bonus, you will also get, healthcare, decent gun laws, less nazis, cheaper education, the metric system, and so much more.
less freedom, higher taxes
If this actually happens it's gonna be time to start Edward Abbeying some telephone poles.
[deleted]
[deleted]
you better start pricing out the cost of living in Germany. Its expensive AF, just with cheap internet.
I think you are confusing the cost of living with Switzerland. Germany is rather inexpensive, given that healthcare is paid for, so high taxes even out.
And what do you think will happen in other countries when the ISPs see what America is doing? Don’t you think they’ve got wind of this super secret plan already?
Please stay here and fight, we need you. Get out and protest
I'm from Germany and get 400 mbits for 14 bucks, but on the other hand healthcare sucks and taxes are pretty high.
My town already has private fiber, what happens to us?
It's not what free market looks like, it's actually corporate oligarchy. Free market means no regulations, corporations are constantly lobbying for regulations that benefit them.
If this is what the Free Market looks like, I'll take German "socialism".
This, by definition, is not Free Market. You have government forced monopolies. That is essentially what communism offered. Centrally controlled and planned enterprises with no competition. Comcast / Verizon / etc using means to enforce themselves as the only provider through government action is the epitome of government controlled, provided, centrally planned communism.
Especially when/if the FCC makes municipal fiber illegal as it would "interfere with businesses and hinder market growth."
FCC doesn't have the authority to do that. State legislatures, however, do and several states have already passed those laws.
Companies competing in a fair market is not socialism.
Monopolies are not capitalism.
[removed]
FCC can't make municipal fiber illegal. They can say it is, but they can't enforce it. The FCC has no power at the State level.
I feel you 100%. I'm a fairly recent arrival in the US, and for a while I was really struggling to decide whether I want to stay here long term or go back to my home country, as the pros and cons balanced out very closely. News like these are making the choice increasingly clear.
[deleted]
ISPs operate far far away from a free market.
It's not a free market in the case of cable and internet providers. It's closer to an oligarchy or a command economy but replace government with businesses. No room for real competition but plenty of room for existing providers.
That's why whenever they specifically cry about free markets I can't stop laughing.
You're welcome in the UK.
I'm sitting here with 300mbps and unlimited data for £35 per month.
edit:
On second thoughts don't, the NHS is in so much trouble right now, I heard our emergency dispatchers are sending out the (distant) equivalent of SWAT for heart attacks because they know CPR.
I currently pay around $10 (actually 70¥) a month for unlimited data on my phone, and around the same for internet here in a China. The plan doesn’t slow down until I have used 100gb in a month on my phone and my internet is much faster than it was in the US. Americans are getting hardcore fucked by internet and phone providers.
This is the kind of thing that is going to make me want to leave the country.
Don’t worry, other countries will follow soon.
[deleted]
Singapore resident checking in, my 1gbps fiber unlimited plan is 50SGD flat per month. that's like what, $30?
This is the kind of thing that is going to make states reach out and sieze power back from the federal government. You already see some of it happening in the north west U.S. They pushed back against drug laws and some have even started supporting small startup ISPs.
I would like to point out that “this” is obviously not what the free market looks like. Regulation and subsidy got us here. So we require NN to stop abuse from the monopoly. Ideally, we would break up the isp monopoly.
Americans didn't leave the country with the current health insurance madness they have now I don't think they will do it for the Internet tbh
I think the difference is that most have never had proper health care coverage.
We've all had internet freedom.
[deleted]
I can't help but imagine we the people would have a lot more power to wield if EVERYFUCKINBODY was onto their shady shit. It's hard to believe that this kinda crap could fly unless a lot of voters and older people that are somehow still in the dark knew what was up.
You could also go to the Netherlands.
So why does America look like country A while all socialist countries (Canada as an easy example) are country B? Makes you really do a thinker.
And that's why this would start the unraveling of our democracy.
We will fall behind the global market if this is what our internet turns into.
If this is what the Free Market looks like, I'll take German "socialism".
Its not actually a free market whatsoever, though. These "Republicans" don't actually believe in free markets, as much as they want you to believe that is the case. It's something called Regulatory Capture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
It's really important to note that Regulatory Capture is not a free market. It is in fact the opposite of a free market. Freedom of markets are not allowed, and massive monopolies are given power by the government to use the law to prevent a free market from existing.
I'm a hard left-winger/socialist (although I adhere to Market Socialism). But its really important that everyone understands this. I'm really fucking sick of Republicans saying they believe in the "free market" when they believe in no such thing.
[deleted]
Let me know how to easily move a family of three and I'd do it.
Reading this on my mobile on 15€/mo unlimited 50mb connection. Or then just use my desktop with 10€/mo 100mb connection (no caps or throttling).
I really can't understand how you ameribros have to stand up for such shitty service :(
Funny how a semi authoritarian country like singapore has waay better internet speeds than the US, and even has the possibility for users to ditch the home internet and use an unlimited cellphone data package for all their internet needs.
This is what you guys don't get. THIS IS THE FREE MARKET! The economic model Americans keep praising because they're told to has ALWAYS worked in favor of the 1%. But you people always justify billionaires because you can jerk off thinking about having that much money. You brought this on yourself and you're gonna fuck over the rest of the world. Thanks a lot, americans.
Bullshit. Government interference in the market allowed and probably even caused this to happen. An actual free market would sort this out in short order, but of course that will never happen, so we need to rely on the government to break this shit up. And now we're at the whim of politicians.
You def don’t need to leave the country. You can get 1000mbps with no caps for 70 a month in many places.
Not for long, that's the fucking point
Are you really that demse? You'd leave your home and family and move across oceans over internet issues that are fixable? And you think this is remotely a free market? If it were a free market, the regulation around access would be missing or require access, not stronger and more protective of private parties than ever. NN encourages the free market; the fact that we don't have NN anymore means it's definitely not a free market. This is cronyism. It's a result of the 2 party system and the unethical douches in government.
I knew Americans love anal sex but didn’t know you guys loved it this much. That pie guy is giving you folks proper thrashing, and people are taking it like a little bitch.
If this is what the Free Market looks like, I'll take German "socialism".
whoa, this post got real Nazi real quick
Lol. Of all the single issues to become dead set on about what country you live in your picking internet speeds. Not you personal freedoms or security. Not economic potential or financial security for your family. But no internet speeds are clearly the most important thing.
I said "this kind of thing" not this only thing. It's indicative of the direction of the country, and is not a small thing.
This isnt just speed. its also absolute access. it is security, privacy, and censorship rolled into one...
Meh I’m just going to stop consuming content. I’ll pay for enough data to browse information online and will simply no longer “watch tv” I got other things to occupy myself. I watch at most an hour a day now as it is.
This is fucking depressing. As someone with some inside knowledge, is there anything we can do to stop this? Hopefully voting will have a bit of an impact...
I honestly don't know the side with the legislation all that intimately, I can just give insight on the infrastructure side of it as that's what I have personal insight on.
As to the infrastructure side start looking for ads and bills being pushed to "focus on local safety and security" and to "improve infrastructure and roads", these are ways to pass things that don't let upstarts near the junctions, poles, and do the required splicing to actually get access to the existing network.
Edit: Well its happening way sooner than I expected. [Watch this video and let me know if anything stands out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/7o30lo/anti_colorado_municipal_broadband_service/)
What a patronizing video.
"I've got kids and a commute, so what do I care about those interweb things?"
I understand that different people have different priorities, but come on.
The ads are failing, Colorado already told them to F off.
This should be a non-negotiable position for all Democrats, and they should run on this issue. And there needs to be a full court press to inform the public of what's at stake.
The easiest way to defeat this is to vote.
But good luck getting past the "both parties are the same" echo chamber.
i used to work for a small ISP. we bought those special tools that the larger ISPs use to open their MDFs so we could gain access. if it was a pita to reach their boxes we just ran our own cable and setup our own boxes. usually when the behemoth ISP loses a multi-year building contract to a small ISP they don't even come and grab their gear(probably because they think they'll get the building back when it's time to renew the contract). so you have 10k or 100k worth of cable equipment that the larger ISP basically disowned and doesn't give a crap about just sitting around. it's eventually taken and sold by a tech, or tossed after enough years.
these ISPs are so massive that they can afford to have millions of dollars of infrastructure thrown away every year rather than going through the trouble of salvaging it.
this is just one example, but rather than devise and enforce a protocol to save money by tracking equipment better they're going after squeezing every cent out of the customer. it's extremely short sighted and embarrassing on a global scale. i'm sure more clever americans will take this all as a challenge and make some wokFi underground network or something similar.
Well that was depressing
Thank you for all this info Mr. Bonerstorm.
So... Just a quick question for you.
Theyre going to claim theres too much traffic to implement the cap, right?
So my question is this: Is there? Are speeds and prices as of now actually accurate?
As someone heavily involved in joint use from the power side care to elaborate what changes the FCC would make regarding pole attachment and how they could possibly limit per third party attacher? Obviously ILECs and CLECs are granted different rights but that differentiation is due to pole ownership vs non pole ownership.
I honestly don't know the side with the legislation all that intimately
Legislatively, this is resolved with two words: Common Carrier.
You mentioned specifically the language used towards the end, I noticed some things but am interested to hear exactly what you noticed yourself.
I know you probably have a killed inbox already, so not sure you'll see this, but are you worried for your safety, can you please make a comment periodically until you become our next president, so we know you didnt commit suicide by 2 bullets to the back of your head
Vote for Democrats in the midterm elections.
[removed]
Now this I could get on board with. A vigilante that kills corruption would have the support of a lot of people.
Sooo...Frank Castle?
We're reaching the point where vigilantes like this will get cheered by the public. Good job, Corporate America.
We need to get all the wack jobs that want to murder innocent people to just go after CEOs instead. win/win
[deleted]
I'm honestly wondering if/when it will come to this.
Eat the rich, and cast the stripped corpses from their decadent nests.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
I remember a lot of rhetoric along the lines of "we need guns in case the goverment becomes tyrannical"...
We need Marv from Sin City is what we need.
So a cross between rorschach and the punisher? Sounds good to me
Punisher, You're think of the Punisher.
This would be more like a reverse Batman in that instead of being a billionaire vigilante who beats the shit out of the poor and desperate in Gotham, this would be a person of modest means taking out wealthy scumbags before they could use their largesse to repeatedly fuck over the populace.
Sounds a lot more like the League of Shadows and Bane than Batman
But is he the hero we deserve?
Infamous hacker 4chan partners up with netpool to deliver justice for those who threaten the peace of the internet
gotta kill all the CEOs
We need Batman
that's not batman, that's communism
We tried that. It wasn't terribly effective.
r/latestagecapitalism leaking again. The CEO's are just the symptoms of a corrupt government, focus on lobbying. If that stops then the free market will be able to shine as it once did.
I bet cell players will be what save us. Wait for 5G to roll out.
How much do you wanna bet John Legere is eager to announce (in 2021) that "you can now add a 5G hotspot to your house for just $25/mo. extra on your family plan with no data caps."
That totally seems like a T-Mobile move. Legere hates Comcast and this would be yet another way to screw over the cable companies (to our benefit).
Have fun gaming on cell service. Some people have bad pings on wire, cell is much worse.
Edit This can be fixed with future technology of course but right now there's no good option
legere is already playing this game, don't buy his shit for a second. what exactly do you think netflix not counting against your data is?
Why would cell vendors not adopt the same model? Its clearly more lucrative.
Hell if this happens I'll run a tmobile 4G lte hot spot in my house, its better speeds at least, maybe worse response but not by much, screw waiting for 5g
I would buy that.
I've been waiting for this day for years. They already have the backhaul to be able to do it on LTE, for 'average' (~100-200 gig/month0 residential users. I've teathered my metroPCS LTE phone before for over 200 gigs a month without issue.
This is my bet too. It won't help a lot of people, of course, but the worse comcast gets the more people will just abandon it entirely and only use their phone.
5G as your thinking will never exist. Wifi typically works on two frequencies, 2.4 & 5 'G'igahertz. 5G on your Wi-Fi requires a ridiculous amount of power even on a small scale. So trying to scale it up to work on wide area like cell networks is not all that feasible. Or able to miniaturized to work with current battery tech. Not to mention the crazy amount of interference it give off to everything else. Mobile tech is pretty much at its peak right already unless a new transmit/receive method is discovered or higher producing smaller scaled power source happens. We're more likely going to start seeing more and more city wide mesh and moca networks deployed, which are Basically a bunch of WiFi routers and boosters covering city blocks instead of single houses and apt buildings. This infinitely more complex then just a single tower covering every but much more reliable and easier to roll out. Check out https://nycmesh.net/
I’ve been saying it for a while, but google basically dropped their g fiber aspirations to focus on cellular internet.
Internet through a wire to your house is going away. Internet to a satellite dish or access point in your house is the future.
I only hope that Space X's satellite network performs either a metaphorical or literal orbital strike on Comcast, Charter, Cox, AT&T, Verizon and all the rest. I would be fine with either.
Sounds like prices in Eastern Europe
You are probably right. I have no interest in using a cell connection for my home computing. I want fast and reliable, cell isn't either where I live. Also would be annoying to get working properly with our firewall and server.
I'm in the UK, got pretty decent internet and I'm not sure if net neutrality affects me but my mobile internet seems allot faster. Lots of people use the hotspots here.
Just remember that this happened under a Republican president, a Republican congress, and a Republican push to deregulate and remove consumer protections, and then vote accordingly and encourage others to vote accordingly. If you voted republican any time in the last few decades, you voted for this.
Or didn't vote. Those people need to wake the fuck up.
My hope is that there will be such an electoral backlash to Trump, it will allow the Dems the majorities required to break up the big telcos. A lot of the infrastructure is actually publicly owned, it's just that the telcos have monopolies about using them. The industry needs a shake-up, if they overplay their hands now, things may work out well when the revolution comes. The thing to do is to make sure that your representatives know that it is an important issue for you and that they need to come out and make where they stand on the issue clear so they can't back-track at election time when donations are appealing and promises look like a long way off.
Break up the telecoms?
ahahahahahaha!
Do you think Dems would even do that? They seem just as bought as anyone in office.
The thing to do is to make sure that your representatives know that it is an important issue for you and that they need to come out and make where they stand on the issue clear
But we did that!! With the recent Ajit PieHole crap that just happened, everyone and their cousin was calling, emailing, mailing, carrier pigeoning, contacting their representatives and very openly expressing their disapproval of the NN repeal... and they failed their duty as representatives and still went against the wishes of the people they are sworn to represent...
How are we supposed to expect them to ever do otherwise?
My hope for the country is that the blue wave creates a window to create a constitutional amendment overturned citizens united, implement approval voting etc., make campaigns publicly financed, ban lobbying, ban ‘revolving door’ systems, etc. If the blue wave happens we need to furiously throw money at our representatives to counter-bribe all of the forces who would oppose these reforms. It may be the only chance to turn things around, but I do think there is a chance.
How tho? Theres no way there will be any backlash to trump at all down the road were going.
No it looks to me like Trump is guaranteed reelection after Democrats try to run some 40yr old manchurian candidate whos recently sacrificed a down syndrome child to the Wells Fargo altar and pass her (itll be a minority woman) off as “progressive” cuz shes hip with the young kids. Then when she gets elected she’ll pass a law making water not a basic human right anymore and requiring senior citizens to report to recycling plants for meat reclamation. But the DNC will overestimate how stupid most americans are and tons of bernie bros will vote trump again to teach the evil empire a lesson. A lesson it might finally learn by 2024 but even then I doubt it.
The net neutrality vote was almost entirely along party lines (in the fcc, 3 republicans voted for repealing it and 2 democrats voted for keeping it). So yes, voting has the potential to have an impact. All politicians really aren't the same here.
This process really got rolling in the early nineties (Republican Revolution in Congress) with the “Information Superhighway” debacle, which has ended up costing us half a trillion dollars for a fiber-to-the-home infrastructure project that will be completed...
“well, probably someday, you shouldn’t think about it, don’t worry about it and give us more money!”
It was originally claimed that they’d be halfway done by 2005, and that the second half wouldn’t take as long as the first. I can pretty much assure anyone reading this that our $500,000,000+ investment in a national public utility-grade fiber infrastructure system is now deeply in the pockets of executives and shareholders.
Mike Powell was the FCC chairman who allowed most of the early aggressive deregulation and megamergers, as well as the subsequent rounds of funding for the fiber infrastructure project - after they took the first $200 billion and got jack shit done, when they went back to Congress for seconds and dessert.
He was a Clinton appointee, but it was W who made him chairman. Now he’s the chief of the largest cable & telco lobbying group, the NCTA - because of course he is.
Powell was also the first to advocate for “Net Neutrality” specifically through a “hands-off” regulatory approach. It was always promised that what would happen is that we’d pay the companies this money, they would replace all of the copper with fiber, connect every house in much the same way that every house is connected to the telephone network, and that this would spark massive growth in the number of ISPs, and the resulting competitive boom would make internet access as close to perfectly cheap, fast, ubiquitous and unlimited as possible.
In the end, we’re getting this instead because that was always the plan. Seriously, why Republicans and conservatives seem to believe that a corporation would want competition instead of guaranteed high profit margins derived from government - assisted monopolistic practices and subsidies is frankly fucking beyond me. It’s like they think that corporate executives are magical creatures who are compelled by a strange sense of business ethics which overrule their urge to make boatloads of easy cash.
Either that or they’re being a bit disingenuous in their practices, but I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s character, you know.
So yeah - either unbelievably, irresponsibly naïve or just plain greedy-evil.
Just as one further example, my junior Senator helped to get a bill passed when he was a state legislator that made it illegal for a municipality to offer ISP services for less than what the local ISPs were charging. There’s other regulations in the bill which basically strangle municipal broadband in its crib. Can anyone guess which party he belongs to?
How much would a blue midterm slow down the 5 steps described above from happening?
You don't get to vote for FCC appointees, and Democrats take ISP money at almost the rate as Republicans: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16746230/net-neutrality-fcc-isp-congress-campaign-contribution
Yes, they're less likely to be blatantly evil about fucking over their constituents, but I wouldn't count on them to be some magical savior in this case either
Edit: Apparently I hit a nerve... no, simply voting (D) won't save network neutrality. Yes, voting (D) will probably fuck you less than voting (R). If you want to have your opinion heard, call your damn representatives, regardless of party affiliation.
Elect Dems in 2018 and 2020. A Democratic president codified net neutrality, and it's explicitly part of their platform. The two anti-repeal FCC votes were Democrats. Giving Dems control of government back is the quickest way to get this fixed.
Net neutrality is not enough. The Telecom industry needs to be broken up ala ma bell. The democrats would have failed if they don't take this extra step.
But the next election cycle when the other side takes back over...here we are again.
Yeah, that isn't an option for a lot of people. I'd rather try to reach out to my (R) Representatives and swing their vote than allow Dems to regain control.
Getting the Democrats into positions of power is a good starting point. Also, supporting and voting for municipal broadband.
Oh yeah, buddy, those noble democrats would fix all these issues. They're immune to lobbying, absolute bastions of morality and patriotism. They're in it for you.
Vote Democratic
Lol not a chance, were you paying attention in 2017?
Until there is a VIOLENT REVOLUTION IN AMERICA, I'm talking dead billionaires in the streets, not just some red vs. blue fake civil war shit, things like this will keep coming.
/#KillTheRich
Take your Mosin, comrade
[removed]
Not to condone violence, but next to electing legislators that have our interest at heart, violence and protest. Again I'm not condoning violence but when you take away peaceful options and back the population into a corner that tends to happen. I think we're starting to reach a tipping point were the masses are tired of the wealth and power being top heavy. It could be this year it could be 50 years, but at some point shit's going to hit the fan.
Congress can make legislation that can override the FCC's Net Neutrality decision, so the whole contact your house rep's and senators about net neutrality is still relevant. That or a law suit that gets to the supreme court as the Supreme Court could over turn the FCC's ruling as well.
Take direct action. Protest, sitins, vandalism, make it too expensive for them to keep up their policies and they will bend to our will.
Things that won't work: calling your representatives
Get violent. Every revolution in history has a common theme of violence. Shit won't change unless the people being affected get angry and turn to violence to get their points across and force change to happen.
There are always guns and ammo. I'm seriously considering it at this point. Fuck!
Voting having some sort of impact? Has no one learned by now that it doesn’t matter what we want?
Voting is always the first thing brought up and it does not fucking workwhen the government IS WORKING FOR THE CORPORATE INTEREST. Voting does not work.
Elected officials "work for corporate interest" primarily because corporations pay for advertisements to Garner them more votes. If voters are not swayed by advertising/media coverage then corporate interests will not have nearly the political power they currently have.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Hopefully voting will have a bit of an impact...
gdi that statement really reflects how pathetic the situation is. Forefathers are rolling in their graves.
No matter how you feel about it morally, violence is always an option. You would hope it's the final option, but with the way the average citizen is getting dicked out of creating the society they inhabit by special interest groups, soon it may be our only option.
If our voices were heard the first few dozen times they tried to repeal net neutrality we would still have net neutrality.
Seems like if the right people want something they just brute Force the same shit over and over till they get the one time everyone is too tired to fight then they get their way.
I've seen this go on my entire life and I'm tired of it.
We need to get some butts out of those seats. Whether they allow us to vote them out or not.
I posted this in the other threads, but I am one of the very early Fort Collins broadband backers. I was not one of the guys who started the ball rolling, but I was one of the people who started pushing for it right away after the first meetings. I attended the first grassroots meetings, I donated to both ballot measure campaigns, I waved signs on College Ave. in Fort Collins. I went door to door to help campaign for it. I was in the newspaper photo when we won the campaign this last November.
So here's my advice. Just voting for people doesn't do it. It takes a movement, which takes a group of people who are passionate and are willing to take the time and energy to convince everyone else. First I recommend you talk to people who have managed to get their own municipal broadband networks. I personally talked to two of the organizers of the Longmont municipal campaign and later I went to a talk by one of the organizers of the Chattanooga effort. Then, armed with advice from the successful veterans, you set up meetings to gather like-minded people, you spread the word, you meet with the city representatives - in Fort Collins we have an electric public utility so we talked to them at length too.
I think the main thing that helped Fort Collins more than anything else was the example of Longmont, Colorado, to the south of us and the success that they had. With those guys as an immediate example, and some really passionate volunteers, things have been slowly moving forward. But I remember attending the first meeting way way back when and how it started, and it started with just 3-4 people who really wanted to make this happen for the benefit of the community and they started it and then the rest of us joined in.
Fuck em. Sidestep net neutrality by supporting blockchain ISP technology like Qlink or TRX. In the 5g future, you will just get a micro-cell tower router sized device and from there you will connect globally to a new internet, with decentralization and privacy and messaging and telehphny at it's core. Don't believe me? Then enjoy your net neutrality.
There's always been a dark net and a clear net. A main net and sub nets. Today, this WWW bs is highly centralized and monetized. Privacy and access are all but gone. But you understand that if DNS is updated with TRX addresses or QLC addresses, then you won't need .com ipv6 addresses. And all that content can be migrated in a few clicks. Isn't it the content you want, not the pleasure and privilige of paying for independent channels of content with harsh data caps?
Sidestep net neutrality, sidestep app stores and other walled gardens, and eliminate middlemen who fuck up the place and insert themselves where they aren't necessary.
Who needs a music industry when an artist can publish their music on Po.ET blockchain network and sell and host directly? Why should you put your merchandise on ebay or amazon when you could place it on TRX network and pay less in fees, not be forced to use paypal, and sell internationally without losing a cut to someone for making a website you share. Decentralized marketplace, decentralized internet, decentralized ISP and telephony, and decentralized currency.
There is no room left for ATT, Comcast, Ebay or other middlemen in the near future. Self driving cars will arrive at your house, never having been at a dealership and costs of those commissions and facilities will be eliminated, and cars cheaper for it. I could go on forever, the future is very clear to me.
This whole net neutrality has forced the hands of the counter-movement. Attrition has already started. TRX is up 400% this week. QLC is up 150% in a week. Comcast stock isn't climbing, I can tell you that.
There is still hope yet.
this is like the 5th time I read something you write and it blows me away, i love the rationality yet dreamer tone to it all. And you have been correct dozens of times about things. What is your daily reading schedule like and sources? I am trying to research hours a day but a lot of it seems to be 15 year olds on twitter and reddit and youtubers just yapping trying to make a buck.
As someone with some inside knowledge, is there anything we can do to stop this? Hopefully voting will have a bit of an impact...
Well, last time we had a Dem president, Net Neutrality was enforced, because of the way this has been done, all it will take to fix it is another NN-friendly president.
Alternatively, the Democrats in Congress are already trying to invoke a rule that would allow them to block the FCC's repeal with 50% of the votes (I think from both chambers) there are a handful of GOPers that might side with NN, but I don't know GOP leadership will let it come to a vote.
Even if it doesn't, a Dem-controlled Congress could try to push a law re-instating Net Neutrality (hell, some Dem Congressman have already pushed bills for it.) Of course, they'll need enough GOPers to not fillibuster for this to work in the Senate, so it might take a wave to do it, or until after the 2020 elections.
Honestly, the answer to your question is to vote for Democrats. Democrats have been trying to protect Net Neutrality ever since it was a concept introduced by Professor Tim Wu, and Democrats have long been the party voting for communication policy that keeps necessary regulations in check.
Republicans present their communication policy ideas under the guise of promoting a "free market," but everyone knows that the communication technology industry is dominated by monopolies. Those monopolies are going to continue to have total control over how we get access to the internet, and monopolies never enable the kind of free market benefits that Republicans claim we get from letting the private sector own everything. It's a fucking scam.
Again, vote Democrats. I understand that this sounds like I'm being a shill, but at some point it's so fucking obvious that one party is better on an issue that you're just ignoring reality if you don't see the massive difference here.
It's straight up terrifying.
How about you tell those you know and make them tell the people they know. Also give it a name or a hashtag when you speak about it so that people can easily form behind it.
Cut the cord. Next time my internet bill goes up, I'm cancelling. It's the only option left.
I'm writing for a small esports publisher based in LA. Even though I'm from rural bavarian Germany, Ajit Pai could single handedly fuck my whole career. A majority of my readers are from the US, while I don't even have a choice besides hoping for the best.
I've never been to the United States, but I beg of you to stand up to your horrible ISP's. You may not be able to imagine the magnitude of the precedent you are setting by abandoning your online freedom in favor of said companies monopoly. You are still one of the driving forces in worldwide communication and social discourse online, which is why I hope you can further continue to thrive. Sadly your current government seems to care little about said freedoms. Many young Europeans care a great deal about US politics for exactly this reason.
Edit: am drunk and impaired by a mixed german/english android autocorrect
Ironically, and quite similarly to the cable industry, the coming shitstorm of price gouging and predatory practices is the very thing that will spell their own demise. I of course supported Net Neutrality, but deep down I kinda sadistically hoped that vote would pass. How many times have they tried shit like this? It must be up in the high teens. They were never going to stop pushing their agenda. Net Neutrality was gonna go sooner or later. I'm actually kinda glad it's happening now.
Why? Because it will actually force the imbecile citizens that either didn't understand or didn't care enough to actively defend NN. That NY housewife probably had no time to learn about or didn't understand the importance of NN before. When she starts having to pay extra for Youtube, the one thing that will get her baby to eat his damn dinner, she'll understand. When the president of the Young Republicans Club at NYU, fiercely loyal to the ideal of making America great again (without knowing what made it great in the first place), hears the news that Netflix can't afford to make Stranger Things Season 4 because they're hemorrhaging cash thanks to the thing he supported repealing, he'll understand. Most people didn't understand or care. Only when they feel the effects will it get through their thick heads.
And the shittier it gets, the more common folk will support initiatives to reverse the problem, or even better, offer an alternative. Plenty of forward-thinking municipalities have explored providing their own internet service, but most have been thwarted by lawsuits or coercion from the big industry players. But the chief concern of every politician is re-election. These shady practices won't fly under the radar anymore, and their constituents will demand their support.
And if that's too uncertain or too long of a timeframe, you can always trust in Based Musk. SpaceX is on track to have the first thousand or so of their low-orbit internet satellites in space in 2019. Most people already know and respect him, and when they hear that there's a low latency gigabit alternative to the ISPs currently reaming them in the ass that, much like Tesla, is a bit pricier but high quality and devoid of any fuckery, it will virtually guarantee that the only way these ISPs could thwart Musk (lobbying/legislation) will be shot down by politicians newly terrified of their own furious constituencies.
This is a problem that will affect every American, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic class, or political affiliation. Everyone has their own internet persona and practices and preferences, but ISP fuckery will affect all of them more or less equally.
Sorry for the wall of text. I got a little carried away.
TLDR: To quote President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, "I know shit's bad right now." But it has to get worse before it gets better.
It's time to adopt a p2p internet. Everybody shares datacaps.
It would totally break everything. Including the legal definition of a data cap.
Is it your cap if other anonymous users are using it?
Our votes don't count anymore.
[removed]
I’d do a GoFundMe run for president and change all this shit. Except I don’t know shit about politics and and I don’t have a Twitter account.
You're already half of the way there then
[deleted]
is there anything we can do to stop this?
Long story short. No.
Voting and putting the right people in wont work. This wont stop. This is going to be our future and there's nothing we can do.
We have options. Drastic options.
My prediction is that this is going to be solved by content providers: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, ...
From the point of view of content providers, ISPs are a middleman that sits between them and their customers: if you want to watch a film, you have to pay both Netflix and your ISP. As long as ISPs play nicely, they can be seen as "necessary evils"; but only as long as they play nicely. What do you think Netflix is going to do, when people starts canceling their subscriptions, because they cannot afford the prices of the internet access?
Google Fiber was all about showing ISPs that they can piss the big buy a bit, but not too much.
We already lost the initial NN fight.. ANYTHING past this point is negative for the consumer
Slash the tires of Comcast trucks?
Totally kidding of course.
But seriously, don't actually hurt anyone. Cable guys are just people at work.
[removed]
We can make it illegal to pay bribes to our senators. We can vote to require senators to be voted into office every few years just like the rest of governement.
The hardest thing. We can stop using internet.
Not sure what you mean, senators already do have to get re-elected. Are you talking about shortening their term in office? Iirc it’s a 6 year term right now so it is longer than other elected offices, but that I think had more to do with the fact that they were originally appointed positions and not elected by the people.
This isn't accurate at all. My sister cousins ex lovers friend's brother told me. Data discrimination is coming. Bandwidth isn't changing
Stop voting Republican.
Aggressive ISP startups perhaps? Maybe even try to make a killing by advertising the truth. "They want to do these things, we're here to give you a more fair internet with more choice."
[deleted]
The only way I have thought about a free market solution is to push for another telcom breakup a la ma bell, and then legislate the removal of any ability for a company to be a internet/data access service provider and a content/media provider at the same time.
We could build a packet radio network. Just to fuck isps over.
Stop voting for Republican trash.
Yeah, that's definitely gonna work, cause MLK voted change into office real easy like.
[removed]
The saddest thing is that the one way people thought they could fight back, by voting against the repleal, had next to no impact, NN was doomed from the very start
TAKE THE STREETS! DAILY.
Vote out Republicans
[deleted]
bit of an impact...
Bit torrent is the word you are looking for.
Thier greed, means they get nothing.
[deleted]
If voting actually did anything they would outlaw it.
is there anything we can do to stop this?
Vote so that sane people are in power.
Hopefully voting will have a bit of an impact...
Bahahahaha. Good luck with that. The existing system needs to be dismantled.
Tell everyone you know to cut the cord. It should slow down this change by hurting the bottom line so much it impacts their ability to lobby.
Start revolution
People need to wake up and realize it has come to the point that blood must be spilled.
Yeah, fucking riot
I'm seeing dystopian visions where people that want movies and TV series have to have a "hook-up" - a friend that sells content on bootleg USB drives or DVDs. That avoids the internet and data caps. Look how it's done in Cuba for an idea. Nobody will need a drug dealer anymore since the world is moving toward legalization (Trump notwithstanding), but we'll need media dealers. And those "you wouldn't download a car" ads will become much more heavy-handed, along with stiffer penalties. It's the end of the drug war and the beginning of the data war.
As if voting ever stopped something the public didn't want. We're probably fucked. And just think - with taxes being cut, they're already making loads more money! If this is the long game I reckon investing now will be a smart move if you're into that kind of thing.
I'm surprised someone from 4chan hasn't killed someone from the FCC yet to be honest
The end of Fight Club pretty much sums it up. Burn the bitch down! /s
Get involved with politics st your state level. Poles and that level of infrastructure is not controlled federally. Get to know your state rep and make sure that they know how you stand. Get other people you know to do the same.
We need to ditch the internet, even if it's as simple as shutting off our modems for a week or a month.
We need to start a broad movement to combat phase 3 and allow start ups or local public municipal broadband/fiber to compete with these conglomerates.
If you have knowledge to share, you could try contacting these guys: https://www.fightforthefuture.org
I'm sure it was intentional, but hearing someone actually say "hopefully voting will have a bit of an impact" is very depressing as well.
Sign a multi-year contract with an independent ISP that's never sold TV/video services and has a clearly defined rule set on data use. Ie: 'there will be no metering of data between 1am and 6am and all transfers during this time are not counted against the monthly limit'
If you wind up in a situation where your ISP is making you buy a "$2.99" unlimited Netflix data upgrade to avoid data cap fees, tell these companies like Netflix you need a $2.99 monthly discount and show them the bill. People doing this will pressure big money to work on your side.
Don't bring up the the 2nd amendment for when the government does something they don't like?
[deleted]
We're going to build our own totally uncontrolled internet eventually. Minimum 10 years until it's practical for non-geeks, 25 years max (and I strongly doubt it'll take that long). Cheap hardware will give us wireless peer to peer repeating routers good for 10 miles or more. Basically it'll be the darknet on steroids, impossible to control planet wide.
I don’t mean this in the typical dick redditor butbthat is laughable seeing how the whole net neutrality thing worked out.
[removed]
He doesn’t have inside knowledge. This is Reddit fairy tale bullshit that he’s claiming to get from “his cousin who totally works at Nintendo.”
Majority of plans will have a 10-20 GB data plan monthly. Going over will be extremely expensive. Packages will be offered for different websites to not count against that cap. This is where you can expect to pay over 100$ a month for just internet for the same speeds you have now for unlimited access to only certain sites. Torrenting will clearly be hit extremely hard here.
Get ready to mail micro sd cards in envelopes back and forth for the cost of a stamp once this change makes any kind of power-Interneting obsolete.
Trucks full of micro SD cards have higher bandwidth than the entire internet if you don't mind the megasecond latency.
In any case, we will see a bit of a return to video rentals if home internet data caps get that bad. We're not going back to cable.
11.5 days is some nasty latency.
Reminds me of an old bash.org quote that goes something like "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes tearing down the highway."
Can I still apply for a Blockbuster franchise?
I've already adjusted my budget to buy DVDs of shows I enjoy. My social group has the plan to make a library within our group so we all can buy and share more media than we could individually.
I also might have a 2 TB hard drive with older shows already put together...
This is quite the potential comeback for physical rentals
Blockbuster coming back wouldn't be the weirdest thing in 2018, compared to how weird 2017 got
In any case, we will see a bit of a return to video rentals if home internet data caps get that bad.
We already have. There's a Red Box in like, every McDonalds in the US.
Lots of cord cutters no longer have physical media playing devices. Tv, cable box, HDMI cables, Chromecast/Roku... DVD players are getting scarce. I can't see myself or others likee actually returning to using them again.
The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes.
Users of services like Steam will need to get organized and start physically mailing drives like you say. Imagine downloading a 80GB game on a 10GB capped plan... and then a few GB of updates?
If this goes through it will kill the internet for Americans. I predict most of the sane world will leave you guys behind. Plus digital innovation will be dead and entirely dependent on the graces of the ISP. Your new app that would have crushed YouTube? Doesn't have the funding to get on the free data list and most won't want to use their few precious GB on it. Sorry, it's now dead in the water.
Never worry my gaming minded consumer! Our Gaming Plus subscription includes unlimited bandwidth for Origin at only $29 per month. Upgrade to Gaming Super Plus for access to Battle.bet for just $49. And out Pro Gaming Super Plus package (at just $99 per month!) adds unlimited bandwidth for Steam! Ask how these great packages combine with our Content Creator packages for huge savings on your uploads to Twitch!
and this
is why I have 2, 2TB drives loaded with just games....
What a nightmare
It’s like MEGA LMAO
People go back to “dumb” cell phones with telephone and maybe text service. Then start subscribing to the few print information services left, daily paper copies of the NY Times, Washington Post, etc.
It's like we are fucking going back in time.
full on regression. Oh boy, make america great again
The print delivery area for the Post is pretty limited, unfortunately. NY Times has more local printers, their online version of the paper is also pretty nice. The Post has an online copy, it's less robust but does the job.
I love print news, more facts with less (but not zero unfortunately) spin, no talking heads yelling or commenting on the same video clip over and over again, no comments and fewer "this asshat from Twitter thinks this" unless they're quoting the President. It is really a pleasure to read in comparison.
If I could get a dumb phone with Google maps, I'd buy that Bluetooth Spotify thing and be done with the smartphone revolution. A TomTom is super tempting but Google Maps seems better.
I've actually been debating doing something like this already
[deleted]
Thank you, Trump voters. Enjoy your shit internet experience. Maybe for your next trick, bring back wooden wagon wheels????
Ladies and gentlemen, turn out the lights and dim your cellphones. I present to you....the candle!
Shamelessly stolen from another redditor.
Internet is overrated. Go read a book
This is how the runners start.
Sorry. USPS will be shut down at the same time. Try again.
So it was a USPS plot all along!
This is basically what they were doing in cuba for years for movies. I think it went something like someone in the US would record a bunch movies onto sd cards they would get sent to cuba and then passed around like a rental. I think some other stuff ws done like this to but I forget what exactly.
I am Canadian, we used to get treated like royalty by bringing a spindle full of burnt Disney movies. It's like a currency there. A copy of Aladdin would get you two bottles of Cubay.
I think this is the video you are talking about? Pretty amazing what people can do to circumvent an oppressive government.
I work from home for a 1000-employee tech company. I'd estimate about 75% of the company works remotely. Our company allows us to expense up to $50 of our monthly internet bill since a stable internet connection is required to do our jobs.
I easily go over 20 GB every month just for work stuff -- all things that will never be part of a "package" that won't count against a data cap.
No way in hell every one of us remote employees is paying through the nose every month for overages. This is fucked.
And what about gamers? PS4, XBox, Steam... Downloading one digital AAA game means an instant overage.
Just like the old days of tape trading. You list what you have and exchange addresses. Tapes are sent in good faith after a deal is made. Annnnddd sometimes you get ripped off.
Hm. Games sold on SD cards might become a thing. Do they make a SD card that looks like a NES cartridge? That would be cool enough to make me smile for about 10 seconds before remembering why I have to orders games on SD cards
“The Runners were notorious in the underground circuit, risking their lives as they ran through the sprawl after curfew, carrying the dankest memes.”
[removed]
Works pretty well in Cuba.
But the internet is nothing like cable. You can get programming over the internet, bit it is also used for communication. I would say it is used more for communication. It's just that communication doesn't use as much information to function as programming does. Phone calls, email, chat, messaging. All of this is pervasive on the internet. Because communication is a basic human right it should be protected as such. Just like communicating with mail, by telephone, even ham radio is all protected. This is not a little thing, we need to fight this tooth and nail. We need to vote these asshats out of office, all of them.
edit a word...
Exactly. The internet is absolutely not just for entertainment. It has taken over most communications, it allows for instant data and information access worldwide, it's where almost all modern businesses sell their products.
Communications, information, business, banking, remote work. But ISPs think they can split it into chunks and resell them like cable TV packages?
They aren't even comparable products. If they are worried about losing subscribers they need to make it a better product, not try to steal from their subscribers. This is the only industry I have seen that thinks that because they are getting fewer subscribers they need to raise prices instead of lower prices to attract subscribers.
Cable wasn't just for entertainment either. You had educational programming, news, world events, sporting events(entertainment). They will certainly compare them.
It takes a much shorter leap of logic to stretch the constitutional authority to have a post office (a government subsidized communications medium) into a mandate to have broadband at every residence and place of business than it does to make drugs illegal under the interstate commerce clause. Shit we don't even have to go that far, we already have our rural electric co-ops and telecom subsides.
Don't even get me started on the giant fraud that was our broadband roll out based on additional fees to telecoms in the 90s when they took billions and gave less than 10% in bribes to congress to say "DSL is good enough" and just kept fucking billing us for decades for the fiber they never planned to install.
I'd even argue video calling is starting take over, and that takes as much data as any streaming videos. My mom basically exclusively contacts me by Facebook video chat.
The internet, originally as well as today, operated as a variant on top of the phone service. It just allowed computers to communicate with those same lines.
We came full-circle years ago, when VoIP became popular, meaning that we had phone over internet over phone lines. It is, at its fundamental levels, a communication service. And if you really, really want to prove it, you can call someone and read them the binary from an IPv6 packet.
Unfortunately FCC Chairmen is elected, not voted in.
Also VPNs would be too costly for people who want to avoid censorship or tracking. All your traffic will count against your cap no matter what package you have if you use a VPN.
And a VPN will be the only way to see the whole internet once the ISPs decide that you're not allowed to see that article that exposes their wrongdoings.
How likely is that to happen and when?
I was just adding to what the other guy said. The VPN thing will have a big effect when data caps are dropped down big time and the cable-package styled internet service comes into play
But that's how I'm supposed to connect to my company's database from home :(
It's okay your company will probably just have to pay for the premium plus supreme unlimited* VPN package. And so will you.
*limits apply
As opposed to the government being the ISP and deciding you can't see the article exposing their much more significant wrongdoings, or articles that don't fit the political ideology of the government in power at the time.
No ISP that wants to stay in business is going to censor content, and the ones that do only do so, because the government has granted them a monopoly. This is what you get when you demand government have the power to pick winners and losers.
You mean when the ISP infiltrated the government and paid legislators to give them the monopoly?
No ISP that wants to stay in business is going to censor content
What about the ones that are the biggest in the country, the only option for most, and have already blocked and censored things they don't agree with?
the government has granted them a monopoly
More like they bought the politicians that then passed laws making competition difficult or impossible. No one's advocating that the government choose who wins
You really have zero grasp of reality
This is what you get when you demand government have the power to pick winners and losers.
Yeah, Net Neutrality was exactly about not picking winners and losers.
This should be higher up or needs an own post so it won't be forgotten.
Quick, someone bestof this.
Why? He's full of crap. The cable industry isn't a bunch of mustache-twirling villians waiting to cut the data caps from 1TB/month to 20GB/month.
They don’t need to reduce caps. The rise of 4K will effectively make sure consumers “grow” into a smaller cap you’ll need 4+TB to watch the same length of video in 4K as in 1080P.
Don't worry, you're not the only who doesn't just believe this tale from his ass. Dude has zero sources, but he wrote a lot of shit so he must be right!
This is why I really hate people going “why didn’t the ISP’s do anything in the early 2k’s before net neutrality??” Because cord cutters literally weren’t a thing. Netflix didn’t exist and YouTube was just a place for funny short videos, not a viable TV replacement. ISP’s have been quietly laying the groundwork for years by buying off local politicians and outlawing competition in their small markets. Removing net neutrality wasn’t the start, it was their final stroke.
Yes, exactly.
Also before there wasn't an administration that would allow the ISPs get away with this kind of thing for at least 8 years. The reason it didn't happen until now is:
cable packages were still bundled with internet and making a ton of money. Cord cutting has pushed the internet solo packages into the forefront.
The Obama Administration wouldn't have allowed the ISPs to get this far, or without a huge struggle.
They still do the cable package bullshit. It’s $60 for me to have internet + Comcast’s basic cable package. It’s $75 if I just want internet by itself, for the exact same internet I’m currently getting.
They sent me over their cable boxes and I literally put the unopened box in my basement. And when the time comes for me to return it I will give them back their unopened box.
Youtube was launched in 2005. Early 2000s is a completely different era of internet. People are under estimating the force of change we've seen in the past decade (since 2008 and not 1998).
Most redditors are around 20 years old. That means most of the users grew up with the current era of internet and have minimal first hand experience with the prior incarnations of it. My point is that many users can be swayed into adopting false narratives about things like this.
The first decent quality pirated video I saw was 1999's Planet of the Apes remake starring Mark Wahlberg.
I still have it downloaded on a burned disc somewhere.
It was cheaper to burn CDs at that time versus hard drives, so I have 500-600 CDs and DVDs laying around still.
It's a good snapshot of the data that was available on the net at that time.
Here's where this is going to fall down for them. The Internet is in effect a public utility. The FCC may not be classifying that way anymore, but to the public, especially younger voters and millennials, that's what it is. It's virtually impossible in American society to meaningfully participate in the economy without access to the Internet. You can certainly have a life without it, but that requires a lot more self-sufficiency. For most people, it's just a non-starter. (Of course this statement disregards the extremely poor in America, but their biggest priority is hardly net neutrality, and they're not very politically active due to their circumstances.)
This matters for a very simple reason: you can choose to watch less cable TV or get by with fewer channels. You cannot choose to "use less Internet" because you have absolutely no control over the size of a website that you may not have a choice but to visit.
Now you might say "Duh that's the point, that's why they're lobbying for all this stuff." But once this stuff starts hitting voters' wallets, they'll be pissed, and candidates who promise to restore net neutrality will start winning votes. The Democratic Party have already made net neutrality part of their platform, and they're only getting more vocal about it with the recent repeal.
Why didn't this happen with cable? Simple: everyone thought TV was a vice. "If cable companies are gouging you, then stop watching TV and go outside, spend time with your family, etc." It was a pretty simple mentality, largely accepted by society, and not really invalid either. You didn't need cable TV to participate in society. It was purely optional entertainment. You didn't need it for news, since news was broadcast over the air for free. No one was going to cry because their neighbors had to start paying $200/month for ESPN. They'd just say "Listen to the game on the radio."
That's not true of the Internet. Classrooms require students to use the Internet at home. Employers require employees to use the Internet at home. Government services are provided via the Internet. Sure the Internet enables some vice, but that's not exclusively what it's for, and most people understand that.
Like I said, once people see they're being gouged for access to what is a day-to-day essential service, they'll voice their displeasure at the ballot box. The only voters who might support this kind of gouging by ISPs (or be indifferent to it because "Those kids and their Twitter!") are old dinosaurs who are mercifully beginning to die off. They might wind up winning a few years of their Internet-as-cable utopia, but it won't last once there are more millennials voting than baby boomers (which is imminent).
This was hopeful, thanks for the read. I’m just so happy that these fat, frail, short sighted, greedy, poisonous people will die soon and there’s nothing they can do about it. Although with some of them, their eventual heart attack just couldn’t come sooner.
The only voters who might support this kind of gouging by ISPs (or be indifferent to it because "Those kids and their Twitter!") are old dinosaurs who are mercifully beginning to die off.
And the conservatives / libertarians because no gubberment has the right to tell any business what to do!
Well, the USA was a nice internet powerhouse while it lasted, I suppose. See you guys in 2052 when you finally catch back up with the rest of the first world. We'd send you photos of the Mars colony we're all planning to build, but we're not sure your ISP will accept attachments larger than 2 MB, and ground couriers would just be too risky, given the nuclear exclusion zones and all the highway banditry.
You know, I think I could get used a bit of highway banditry.
[removed]
[deleted]
So leave and go somewhere you enjoy?
Please repost this as a comment under the OP or as it's own post, so it can get the visibility it deserves!
Meanwhile in Canada, Bell is pushing to be able to ban access to certain sites.
Different country, different order perhaps, but same end goal. Once they can decide who you can and can't access, they can start charging you through the nose. Bell is also constantly in court trying to prevent resellers from having access to buy bandwidth in bulk at fair prices (i.e.: I pay $50/mo for 400GB using Teksavvy, with Bell for similar speeds I'd probably get 100GB max).
People need to vote against every sniff of this bullshit before it catches on.
“See you guys in cana....” fuck.
So far it hasn't gone anywhere, but I do think Canadians need to remain vigilant.
Step 4: implement data caps. This will be the time where aggressive shilling will take place on the form of "everyone is using so much internet we have to. You can't just let these people take your internet!"
Already in progress. I witnessed a comment a few days ago that said basically "Why on earth should I pay as much for the internet when all I do is email and light browsing? I'm not using as much bandwidth as my neighbors who stream HD to 4 of their TVs!".
Yep, Im going to take a stab in the dark here and say the buzzword will be either "Internet Entitlement" or "Bandwidth Entitlement".
They could just say millenial, in the past they said the n-word it's not like there's a standard or anything.
That's how they always do it. Get the old people who actually vote mad at the young people who bitch on social media but can't be bothered to take 20 minutes out of their day cause "it doesn't matter anyway."
The most twisted part of this is time warner used to have 4 or 5 tiers so that you could pay for what you needed. Now that Spectrum took over, its down to 2 or sometimes only 1. After that becomes the new normal, the above statement will ring more true than it would have.
Speed tiers were already a thing. Data caps never made sense in terms of actual bandwidth usage, since someone could still push it to the limit for like an hour and use up all the bandwidth in theory. In practice, that doesn't happen either.
The real goal here is to get all data under one umbrella, then impose data caps (extremely low ones), then use the repeal of Net Neutrality to push cable-like packages for things like Netflix and Twitch to have those sites avoid counting against the cap.
I think this is the US moving towards the draconian model Australia has, where the central ISPs (Telstra and Optus) have the infrastructure, count all data as equal, hard cap the data and then upsell packages where sport (e.g. Australian Rules Football) and certain websites such as social media are not included in the cap.
It is not a good arrangement for consumers.
Yeah we haven't really known it any other way, have we.
Now we have the NBN, owned by one central entity, that will do the same thing. The only possibility would be a third player to enter (Google..) with 5G tech.
except having certain data not count against the cap is NOT counting all data as equal.
Remember Australia has a low density, spread out population. Hard to do profitable internet here, apparently. Also remember how Telstra was government owned until the Liberals sold it, making a huge monopoly. Also the NBN should fix much of this shit. The NBN infrastructure itself is publicly owned, and its capacity is sold on to resellers, preventing the bullshit monopolies we've seen so far.
I use 500-600 GB of internet data a month. I cannot fathom being limited to only 10 GB...
Yeah, honestly that part has to be false. That would just be completely crippling to millions of people and would fuck up so many things entirely for people. Nearly everything people do on the internet would cause them to hit the 10GB cap.
I'm sure there will be caps (Comcast already caps all home customers to 1TB per month, as do other ISP) but they definitely can not be 10-20GB.
But that's the point. To make you pay extra.
[deleted]
Thats some Bond villian level of evil planning right there.
"Hey our extortionist business model is obsolete, lets destroy the communications of a country and free flow of ingormation to get it back" then theyll pray for their cords.
Well they will die soon and we millennials can finally begin the process of mopping up their horrendous mess. Remember this shit when you’re older and don’t fucking become them, ait?
[removed]
Welp... looks like we'll all just go outside and smoke weed in the park together like it's 1993 again. I won't use the internet if it's like that. Seriously. My red line is drawn and the ISPs can go fuck themselves to death.
Edit: I'd expect they want to kill the VPN too. Because all Netflix would have to do is allow VPNs again. Of course the ISPs could do something stupid like "encrypted data counts double" for no reason at fucking all.
I'll fight this tooth and nail, until the end. But if it fails I'll just do the same thing. I have 10TB of storage, and if I have to watch the same shows 100x/yr why not? Rent and utilities are already accepted in cash or checks, and while I'll hate my life this is something I'm willing to hate it for.
It really wouldn't bother me. I don't really do anything that i really NEEEEEEED the internet for. It's all mostly entertainment first and then communication second. Email is small on data.
So... I'll just redbox it up and cumcast can fucking die a wretched and excruciatingly miserable death.
Hello pitchfork, my old friend. I know you're thirsty, soon...soon.
Lol as if you people have been actually protesting in an useful way lately.
How have you been protesting?
This is called regulatory capture and it has worked before.
Step 6. Public execution of ISP executives.
Pass the popcorn
[deleted]
How about we put these motherfuckers in prison
But their shitty and unethical behaviour was legal...
Too rich to jail
This reply needs to be its own post.
The reasoning behind this is flawed though isn't it? At least in part. If they are trying to monetize the internet (moreso) because of cord cutters. That would imply having normal monthly rates for internet doesn't make a good enough profit. So with that logic in place, how would a startup make money if they don't even have any revenue from whatever Cable TV still gets, even without any artificial obstructions to the market.
Simply put, if an ISP can exist without a cable tv side and make a profit at current prices then cord cutting has nothing to do with it. Or at least very little.
I too am very familiar with the industry, any ISP/TV distributor that isn't also a content owner (Comcast/TWC etc..) has been making very little profit or just breaking even on the TV side for quite some time now due to the bundling agreements with the content providers they have. So focus has already shifted to data networks (VoIP is being practically given away free) and has been for at least the last 5-10 years. This isn't anything new. Cord cutting has very little to do with it although it played a part. Content providors are shooting themselves in the foot and will continue to. Cable companies have mostly moved on and are primarily ISP's now. The reasons to kill NN are much less insidious than these grand schemes. Profit. A company exists to make profit, the lack of NN opens more doors to revenue streams. Its that simple.
They want to shut down startups because many times these startups and municipal broadbands don't have to play by the same rules as the incumbent ISP's (franchise agreements, must pass rules, etc..). That pisses off those CEO's because they'd be able to undercut current pricing (since they don't have as much overhead). So they want that squashed.
In the end, the consumer (us) get screwed over just the same. Its just a lot less complicated than everyone is trying to make it out to be.
You're comparing conglomerate to startups which is flawed in it of itself. A startup focuses on just the bare minimum for the limited scope of its purpose. You can't compare the threshold for the startup to experience a profit to the threshold that's necessary to be met for the conglomerate to experience its sustainable level of profit, which by the way needs to continue growing because its likely a public company with shareholders.
As someone who lives in a country where ISPs impose infuriatingly low data caps (800MB/day for unlimited mobile data packages and 10-ish GB for entry-level fixed-line broadband packages) and then throttle you down to 2G speeds (256 kiloBITS/s), I am begging you to stop this madness. Please do anything you can to override the repeal. Vote, launch a brigade to your reps, etc.
RemindMe! 6 Months "Reality yet?"
RemindMe! 6 Months
RemindMe! 6 Months "Me too thanks"
So, this is just the next step. Look for language about caps to come up after midterms, and for aggressive bills to be pushed through allowing very low data caps nationwide.
Why would this be necessary? AFAIK it's already legal to put data caps on internet plans. Is there legislation that places a minimum on data caps?
It was perfectly legal to put data caps on internet service.
As I understand it, the part that was illegal is saying "everything is capped, but if you pay $10 extra/month we'll make it so Netflix doesn't count."
And of course, their streaming video service has never counted against the cap.
[removed]
[deleted]
So what the fuck do we do? Calling/writing reps clearly does not do anything.
It does. Sure, one call from one person does nothing, but if a large enough number of people call and also fill up the line's voicemail, then that representative is forced to take a second look at the topic and consider it more carefully, even if they just send their canned response at first. Come election day if they haven't addressed the issues you called them about, then you damn well better go out and vote for their opponent and then rally enough people to do the same. A Democrat winning in blood Red Alabama during Trump's reign proves that voting matters and that not all hope is lost.
In short, be persistent, stay engaged, and vote
We did that for net neutrality. I was sent a form letter that pretty much told me he heard my concerns and was going to go ahead and do the opposite thing
I think you are naive.
A Democrat won in Alabama, true. But Jones only won by 1.6% against a guy that preferred teenagers and who had a history of sexual assault.
Elected officials will never be forced to acknowledge any issue as long as the money for their next campaign keeps rolling in, and it will, because ISPs can afford it.
How about you tell those you know and make them tell the people they know. Also give it a name or a hashtag when you speak about it so that people can easily form behind it.
That's my point. I did that. I do that a lot. I did that a lot for net neutrality. They just don't care what we say
I think the idea is we all just suck it
Calling/writing reps clearly does not do anything
Voting does. Remember these reps serve at your pleasure. If enough people in your district don't vote for them they don't get another term. Voting for the president? Meh. Voting for the rep for your district does. It's a lot easier to win a local election than it is to be president.
[removed]
I would seriously consider moving to a different country if this were to ever happen.
Have you read about ATSC 3.0? It's a new TV standard the FCC just passed, currently optional. Its main feature is IP-based OTA TV broadcasting which means fine-grain data tracking on the same scale as the internet with targeted advertising as a result.
I believe this is the main reason for the NN repeal: to cripple internet streaming so consumers purchase TV subscriptions for content broadcasted under ATSC 3.0.
We should see more articles about ATSC 3.0 after CES 2018 next week as TV manufacturers (and possibly phone manufacturers) show off products with ATSC 3.0 receivers.
Yeah, I'm not purchasing a new TV subscription. I'd rather swear off TV entirely before that happens.
How does the new low orbit satellite internet providers figure into this?
No idea, sorry. Only work with in ground stuff.
I'd be wary of any answer from this guy. In step 1 of the master plan Net neutrality is repealed, and step 2 is a reasonably simple description on how you'd implement net neutrality.
Up in Canada the definition of broadband is mainly for govt funding. I guess it also functions for marketing. Raise the definition and then complain about isps being lazy. This probably resulted in a 100% mandate from politicians.
I think the low Earth SATs will help with getting the 100% coverage, which might even be why 10 down 1 up was chosen.
Fuck that, we paid $400 billion USD in tax breaks, subsidies, and surcharges and we paid it for hard fucking wire.
I want what I paid for or I want my money back with interest and adjusted for inflation.
Time to nationalize the backbone folks.
[removed]
[deleted]
Seems like those are independent companies which is good. More options are always better and this one is promising - no towers or buried lines needed (at least, not to the same extent), just a lot of satellites and presumably you can have fast internet anywhere on the planet. (or anywhere they decide to cover with the orbits).
Wireless will never ever ever replace wired broadband, not ever
Step 6: wait for the next Democrat to be elected
Yeah, maybe.
I think whats more likely is that once the cat is out of the bag any kind of Democratic reform will be slanted as "Government take over of the internet". There will be a whollllle lot of money thrown into preserving this once its implemented. It will be very tough to undo.
It's already started. Don't you remember Ted Cruz whining about how "Net Neutrality is Obamacare for the internet" three years ago? Now, I don't think Ted Cruz can tell Net Neutrality from his open asshole, but because he's ignorant, he's cheap to buy for the TelCos.
You realize those rules only existed for a few years right?
We are back where we were before Obama.. That's all
I think even a traditional Republican would be far better than the horrible mess in power right now
The whole thing was pretty obvious. Shit like this is why free market myths are so frustrating. The "free market" will always decide to fuck over consumers anyway they can to maintain existing power structures.
I hope they enjoy the brain drain when you have to move to Canada to have your kids get unlimited access to information.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Once this happens the people will riot. U dont mess with our entertainment or downtime, thats where we draw the line. They will see
Very tempted to give the canned "Yeah right, not Americans" type response to protesting/rioting, but in this case the exact thing that keeps us all placated and appeased would be the very thing taken away.
Of course, if everyone's over their data cap how are we possibly going to organize on social media? /s (sorta... mostly)
The problem is people don't stay angry for long enough. Unless everyones anger all coincides together, then maybe something could be achieved (although not by sitting on your arse just ranting on social media). Inevitably it all just runs the course they had planned all along, and the consumer is left resigning themselves to acceptance and resentment.
These battles should have been fought long before the net neutrality bill was clearly been fakely endorsed with shill accounts, but of course people just assumed it would all just work itself out. And now here we are.
fucking capitalism
I want to fucking cry.
Can directly thank republican politicians, Trump (w/e he is), and the voters who keep electing them.
What are their plans if people don't like the new rules and just ditch the internet altogether? Cuz that's what I will do.
We cut cords because they were smearing commercials all over everything and the things they were promoting were ridiculous and stupid. I doubt that their 'new' lineup will change any of that.
If you are able to live without any internet I applaud you, however, I don't think that will be the case for a good amount of people.
I would rather have pineapples stuffed up my ass than watch the internet become this.
I would sooner burn in the heart of the sun.
I would rather do unspeakably evil things to OP's mom.
Didnt most people cut the cord because of the internet though
Yeah, so now they are making it all one big blob. If you didn't like cable TV, you probably won't like what is coming.
Yeah, so now they are making it all one big blob. If you didn't like cable TV, you probably won't like what is coming.
If this actually happens there will be a fucking civil war
[removed]
This is not some nefarious hidden plan. This is already the reality. Check Vodafone Pass. I am already paying those prices.
Yep, I never alluded to it being some super secret. The issue is a ton of people don't know whats coming. I wanted to make sure to spell it out
This is by far one of the most terrifying things I've ever read online. Fuck man.
TLDR from older people/parents
"Govt regulation ish bad always no matter what happens"
"This shit is good!"
"Oh I have to pay more for internet? fucking millennial's!!!!!!"
Where is the part about satellite internet. What will cable companies do to block people from offering competition that comes from the sky and needs no poles?
sattelite was supposed to be a viable competition for cable broadband, as stated in the 90s. the problem is that satellite broadband really sucks, and it has limited interest and investment
Check out oneweb over in Virginia. Backed by some legit players including Richard Branson and given spectrum from the UN.
I think we have seen some interest in it with bigger companies such as Facebook, and Alphabet. It sucks becuase we have lowball peice of junk tv delivery companies providing at the moment
the problem is that satellite broadband really sucks
True, but if this happens it might not... relatively speaking
Earthwide Faraday cage
Hopefully they’re fucked by this eventually
[removed]
Maybe this is why Google made those giant balloons with wifi...
You're missing one point: By labeling broadband at 10mbps/1mbps, cable companies are no longer considered monopolies in any area with basic cell service. Antitrust lawsuits become much more difficult to show.
That would be solved if they required a certain minimum data cap (say at least 100GB) and then made that requirement go up by a certain amount every year.
Step 2: push to classify all data under one umbrella, so all data counts against said cap.
It's not that I doubt you as to the final outcome, but why would this be needed? Caps for wired internet are legal.
Because they want to allow exceptions to the cap. I.e., they could offer a video streaming Internet package which would exclude Netflix or whatever favored streaming service from counting against the cap. Right now, they could cap your data but they can't exclude content from the cap and include others.
Thanks for the clear and concise explanation.
Im surprised getting rid of net neutrality didn't allow this though.
[removed]
This right here. That is the long game since these ISP's realize traditional TV and media (with all the ads and stale radio rotations) is shifting away from satellite/cable and moving to Netflix/Amazon (i.e. the internet). It seems like they are trying to capture the emerging market.
RemindMe! One year
Its looking more like a 3 year plan. If I am reading the cards correcting the new plans with the data caps and packages would be rolled out right after the next presidential election cycle.
What happens when the Democrats get back in? It likely they will win the 2018 midterms and presidential election.
I'm on satellite, 12 mbps down, ~5 up. It's pathetic, and $90 a month. WITH A 20 GB PER MONTH DATA CAP. Data has no value, it's all bullshit made up prices. The fact my friends can get 100+ mbps down broadband for less than what I pay is fucking ridiculous. If they want to do that to broadband user they can fuck right off. I wouldn't wish my pitiful quality of Internet on my worst enemy.
Data has no value...until it does. There are good reasons for satellite data caps. A communications satellite which does internet can cost $100-200 million including launch costs, insurance, etc, and then there's additional cost to keep the satellite running. Even after all that, each satellite has finite bandwidth, maybe 40 gbit at best. That's the exact same bandwidth as a single fiber optic cable which is basically free by comparison. And you have to share that 40 gbit connection between tens thousands of subscribers, and if you didn't have a data cap everyone's speed would be a total crawl.
There's plenty of work being done on things like clusters of smaller low earth orbit satellites, but until then we're going to be stuck with high prices and data caps on satellite due to the limits of technology.
This is insane. Hopefully the blue wave of 2018 can help stop it.
Isn't all the red tape of creating a new broadband network the reason why companies like google are stopping their creation of gigabit towns and instead going to implement some sort of wireless tower or satellite solution to bypass it?
Yes.
ISPs already put up huge roadblocks in certain locations to prevent competition. This is exactly why Google Fiber or any small startups arent more readily available, its entirely and specifically ISPs making it nearly impossible to do so.
Now its going to be nationwide. Expect it in an infrastructure or securities bill.
But its likely the democrats will be in power in Congress and the Senate when this infrastructure or securities bill comes around and that IF it come around.
Democrats will make sure it does not go nationwide.
Did you mean securities or security?
Yeah, this is a bleak picture. You can't take a treat from a baby without them throwing a fit, and cable companies are definitely big babies and will not let their practically free money (I mean they put a ton of money into infrastructure, but basically got that all subsidized) slip away. I am super anti-"big government" but it is becoming clear that internet as a municipal service is probably the only way to prevent hamstringing our future.
We can throw a fit all we want, but the truth is, where the fuck you going to go? The ISP's have essentially monopolized every market. IF you've even got an alternative, it's likely another asshole company that would love to fuck you.
Hidden within this is that it's also a means to control information. Whether intentional or not, nefarious or not, one cannot put handcuffs on something which used to be free and open and deny that it's now infringed upon.
Also, the monopolizing of it is already over. Years ago, legislation was passed - 2014 I think? - which essentially codified your point #3.
This is the nightmare scenario. It won't happen fast, it'll happen bit by bit, but it's a fucking frightening thing when you consider how it can be used to restrict people's access to 'approved sources'.
I'm still hopeful that the political momentum against ISPs will intensify and yeild results. We need to break up their local monopolies, and stop bans on municipal broadband: if you can gin up support, neither the fed nor the state should be able to stop you.
Bit of a non-sequitur, but living in a rural area myself I can attest to this: many cable and fiber lines run underground thru the absolute middle of nowhere, on their way to various cities and towns. Usually marked so you can see who owns them and what they are. Should things get worse, someone with a small backhoe, a taste for civil disobedience, and a chip on their shoulder could make a hell of a mess.
Bit of a non-sequitur, but living in a rural area myself I can attest to this: many cable and fiber lines run underground thru the absolute middle of nowhere, on their way to various cities and towns. Usually marked so you can see who owns them and what they are. Should things get worse, someone with a small backhoe, a taste for civil disobedience, and a chip on their shoulder could make a hell of a mess.
This is important because this is the basis, I believe, laws will be passed with the outward intent of "protecting" these lines but will magically have a secondary effect of making it incredibly difficult for ISP start ups to get to that cable as well.
I mean, to be clear, I don't think anything would be gained by this -- just pointing out the vulnerability. Likely just make the people who do it and whatever cause they claim to represent look like nutcases. If I could reach my tinfoil hat from here, I'd say it's more worrying as a false flag sort of move intended to do just that.
just wanted to put out a special reminder that each and every trump voter is responsible for this
At this point I would like for anyone not from america to be heavily in support of net neutrality stuff in their own countries.
All countries in the world need to start pushing for proper net neutrality laws so that people in other countries will know what is possible so that they can act against bullshit.
I feel like this topic needs to be spread and discussed everywhere globally even more than it is now.
We will burn down verizon stores. The vandalism and lost money due to arson will lead to lower prices. The free market works!
This could literally kill digital games, since most modern games are bigger than the data cap.
Right? My kid had to redownload GoW4 and I think it was upwards of 90gb. Guess I'll be back to 10-second low-res porn clips.
More like back to porno mags or going behind the current of shame for those dvds haha
Don’t take this the wrong way man I mean no harm just letting you know that porn is no good for anyone, it’s like a drug or cancer. Just don’t! :)
ascii bulletin board porn
Yea that sucks but a lot of people in rural areas are already on step 5, but worse. I live in rural Texas and only get internet via a mobile hotspot from Verizon. This allows me 20 gigs of data for $120/ month. I don't even get the option to pay for YouTube or Netflix to not count towards the cap.
r/libertarian tells me net neutrality is bad, though.
Which is ironic considering their supposed stance on other issues
Cox Communications has already started down this path. They ballooned the prices on all of their speed tiers, implemented 1TB data caps on all speed tiers, and are now offering data add-ons from $29.99 for 500gb to $49.99 for unlimited data. Their pricing now is such a joke with 10Mb internet being $42.99 per month to 300Mb internet at $104.99.
This is a huge step backwards for internet in America at a time when the hardware and infrastructure is in place to support so much better.
[deleted]
How about you tell those you know and make them tell the people they know. Also give it a name or a hashtag when you speak about it so that people can easily form behind it.
One difference between the cable industry and the “internet” industry is that cable is most likely a “want” in most families. That is why the cable industry started to see a bunch of cable-cutting in the recent years.
However, internet is pretty much a necessity for most Americans and is classified as a “need”. Focusing on a “want” versus a “need”, what can we expect in differences between public backlash on both industries? Do you think the outcome will be different? Will broadband follow exactly in the steps of cable?
RemindMe! 6 months
Depressing Reality Yet?
That's just the American way isn't it? Rip off consumers/the public, and tell them they're having it soooo good. Then watch as they berate other countries that have things cheaper/better?
This is what GoGo In Flight does, effectively, on US airlines. They charge for caps and tiers. Free messaging (if you have T-Mobile). $7/flight for access to social media. $10/flight for access to streaming and other services.
[deleted]
This makes me so angry.
On a technical level, what is stopping a company who is hostile towards this plan -- lets say Google because I think their core revenue, their advertising programs, would suffer from ISP's fucking with access like this -- what's stopping them from abusing their worldwide popularity to subvert this plan?
I understand Google is much different now compared to their "do no evil" era, but still I think they're in a great position to completely tank this scheme. It could be as simple as them refusing to agree to an ISP fast lane contract or refusing to comply by causing their content to be encrypted, obfuscated, and hard to identify. Or what if a company like them started offering a VPN service that promised cheaper internet compared to the complicated ISP fastlane bullshit? As long as they had such an internet staple like Youtube to hold hostage and prevent it from being accessed for free, they could very easily convince all of their users that the ISP's new changes are interfering with their ability to do business as they always have done. Remember when they started rating ISP quality when it came to HD quality? They truly didn't have to do that, but they did anyway and they did it in a way that forced ISP's to be held accountable to their users. It would not be hard at all for them to do that again, to focus the blame on the complicit ISP's whose fault this is, and very effectively inform users about how they might be getting screwed. People already fucking hate Time Warner and Comcast, it would take very little to send their customers into outrage and spark a countrywide discussion about why these utilities are allowed to negatively influence incredibly important platforms like Youtube.
If this happens... I will straight up quit my job and join an underground militia to bomb Comcast headquarters, repeatedly. I’m not joking. I will straight up throw my life away and commit anarchy if they take away my internet. I will personally ensure that a move like this, by them, results in war with the public.
No one fucks with my porn God-damnit!
I’m having an extremely hard time comprehending what I’m reading, and I consider myself pretty much on top of NN related news.
Can this be ELI5 somehow? This is going to extremely difficult for me to rally people if I have a hard time understanding the long game.
If I understand it correctly, the long game is that you'll have to buy an internet subscription (like you do now) except in the future they will charge you overages, like cellphone companies started doing with data plans. You'll get XYX with your package, but when you use the rest of the alphabet it will cost more. Anyone care to help/fix half hazard stab? Oh and of course big data / attention economy / we're all for sale
Your pretty much on point with it. Essentially we are looking at cellphone like plans with the rest of the internet with packages that will give access to other services like Netflix that won't count against it(or at least you won't think it does if they get really greedy). And if you go over the cap, you'll be charged a hefty fee. Eventually you'll see packages that give access to certain websites like Reddit and Facebook and companies like Reddit will soon have to start paying fees to get access to faster service as well. Soon the whole internet will become monetized.
Our only hope right now is that Congress repeals the FCC's repeal of Net Neutrality or we will have to wait till after the Trump presidency to see if that President and their government can do anything to reinstate Net Neutrality.
Tbh. When I see posts about how the American government is fucking it's people I think about how we've brought this upon ourselves. This is one of the few eras in which a government has been long standing and a revolution has not taken place. People joke and fantasize about vigilantism but nobody is willing to actually make a revolution happen.
Are the American people to blame for their shit choices? Definitely. For being absent minded about politics until it affects them personally? For sure. But did people do these same shit in the past yeah. The only difference is when people discovered their government was shit and was taking advantage of them, they kill them and put someone more favorable into office.
I'm curious to see how this will all play out with the US government fucking people out of their rights and money. Will a reverse brain drain happen? Will America roll over and take it? Or will people get angry?
anyone who voted for Trump is a fucking moron, we find more proof everyday
Is there a video (marketable, visual, easy to understand) version of everything you just explained that can go viral? Maybe be used to build a grassroots demand for municipal broadband? If these ISPs can flood our airwaves with toxic ads, it needs to be countered.
At this rate, we are going to see the country divided into online communities, which have fast municipal broadband with net neutrality, and virtually offline communities, where commercial ISPs are the only option. It'll increase stratification more than ever.
People sign up for unlimited liberal news and no conservative news, and vice versa.... well nothing will change there
Guessing online gaming is gonna take a huge hit in popularity then as well.
Yup. After I finish college I'm leaving the United States. Was a good run.
That happens you will see people flock to cities without data caps...
Yeah, hence the push to remove as much state and local ability to remove them as possible.
This will more than likely heavily affect those with one provider currently, rural markets, and new communities.
IDK what you're talking about this being some big plan for the FUTURE. I have Mediacom and am already on step 5.
I'm forced to pay $80 per month for internet ONLY (i dont have cable or phone) for the sole purpose of increasing my data cap. The base plan is $35/month.
It definitely exists currently where they could get away with it, however, what you have is going to be the basic outline for the entire nation going forward.
one of the most important business conspiracies in modern history is playing out right now
[deleted]
If it gets to this point, I'm definitely taking the first plane back to France. I will definitely not accept this kind of bullshit from anyone.
This makes me incredibly sad.
You will also see some sort of push to completely remove the possibility of start up ISPs. This will take form in an infrastructure bill severely limiting access to poles and underground junctions by new companies without direct permission from the existing ISPs that have cable on those poles.
You push too hard on this and eventually people will start building their own networks, cut out the big providers entirely. Give people a good enough reason and they will take matters into their own hands.
These companies need to die. Not change laws to enslave the people to their dying industry. Let nature runs its course with cable.
Well they will, literally. I can’t fucking wait.
It's only free market until the brown envelopes start getting passed about.
This needs to be a top-level comment
Could I bypass the cap by using a VPN?
It would still be metered, but they just wont know what sites you are going to. So, naturally, they are going to target VPNs hard.
How are they metering? Protocol? Site? So, let's say Netflix is metered ...what about some homegrown site that hosts movies??
This has already happened in Australia, seeing the steps laid out like that. There are tiered packages with data caps, the top being unlimited but the most expensive. With the recent move to the national embarrassment that is the 'NBN', you pay for tiered speed as well. I used to be on a plan which had a cap but Netflix and Steam weren't counted towards the cap. Similarly, mobile data providers offer free Spotify data use or similar on their packages. However, we usually have a highly competitive ISP market with lots of providers (and resellers) to choose from. This may be the difference between the proposed American system, where the system is monopolized to screw the consumer, not to (potentially) attract customers to a certain ISP.
RemindMe! One Year
Step 4 is already in motion since 2015, prior to Net Neutrality repeal.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/06/technology/comcast-data-cap/
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/28/technology/comcast-data-cap/index.html
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/new-data-caps-provide-another-reason-hate-comcast/amp
I've said this before, but the thought of this makes me physically ill.
I guess we'll actually be thanking the CRTC for not letting foreign competition in Canada that would lobby for this shit. Just have to hope they hold the regs so Bell doesn't try and pull the same shit
Better start a watchdog group to see what industry private sector executives play "red rover red rover, we're sending our version of Ajit Pai over!"
You better god damn believe they see what Verizon did as an all time NFL superbowl highlight (in the fuck boy ISP industry equivalent manner).
I agree with everything you said.
I also think there is a sixth step - Become the modern day Mother Bell... And that's exactly where I see them going with this BS.
Step 3 in your post highlights that idea. Mother Bell did the same thing with regards to phone equipment and long distance calls... including international calls. It bit them in the ass near the end, but it doesn't change the fact that She got greedy and ruled over us for over a century.
The difference between then vs. now is that the Justice Department, and, to some extent, the FCC all had a hand in FINALLY bringing down Ma Bell in the early 80's. Now they're the one's trying to impose the same ideals they fought so hard to eradicate. The scariest part is... is that if they do, there is no one to stop them. Not with this administration. This very well could set the tone for decades to come.
Wow I have a friend whose family has had a 50 GB limit for almost their entire time here in VA and I thought they had it pretty rough, but 10-20 GB for majority of data plans? Yikes
my roommate uses 50gb of data in two days sometimes lmao
There hasn’t been a plan this bad since the 5 year plan
You forget to mention the mastermind behind the plan. Rupert Murdoch has a lot of political influence and owns many cable companies internationally plus 21st century. Billing the internet like it was cable and preventing torrenting? His two biggest problems, gone. He's even made his cable companies become isps (Sky in Europe)
Sounds a lot like the USA is trying to copy Australia's wonderful telecommunications market strategy /s
This is how internet is right now in Australia...
This sounds like Canada
We did it, 4chan! The best of lulz!
RemindMe! 2 years "fml?"
Remindme! 5 years
Would you be willing to get some of your contacts involved in an AMA?
why the fuck didnt people spread this 5 step plan before the nn take down? if this would have been spread more beforehand, then we could have even have a case for a lawsuit and reversal.
[deleted]
The rest are just as broken. Be forewarned. It is, however, less painful to watch the unfolding doom on foreign soil. So there's that.
Where are you thinking of going? Honest question
Only reason I don't see this happening is all it takes is one ISP then to take 100% market share in the US. If all the big companies are charging $40/mo for internet with a 2GB cap the one that comes along and offers unlimited for $90/mo just won life.
Plus lobbying only goes so far. Apple themselves could almost buy out the market cap value of the top few cable companies in America with just their cash on hand. Do you think behemoths like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook.. Who as a group have more pull a hundred times over than these companies will just roll over and take it up the ass losing money because no one can use their services?
Except that aside from a few select areas, it is extremely extremely extremely hard to due municipal regulations for a new ISP to just 'come along'
Hell if that kind of municipal regulation is too onerous for Google fiber to expand, how the fuck is Joe Blow ISP going to step up?
tl;dr immediately buy an 8TB HDD and torrent everything that exists which you predict you might ever want.
Im seriously asking, is the only way to make a difference to riot?
I agree with your overall premise, and I don't want to say I don't believe you, but I don't believe you (when you say you have "insider info).
Either that or you don't know the specifics around their plan wel enough to list them accurately.
Without any insider knowledge I can tell you that this is a general concept of their plan. However, I would say that your steps are off. I don't have any numbering system, but their plan is more along the following lines:
Repeal NN, but more importantly Title II. This is their major goal and milestone. Without Title II it is pretty much known to the ISPs that they can do what they want per the Supreme Court ruling that led to reclassification to Title II. Title I has effectively little-to-no authority granted to the FCC over broadband.
Their next step is to either move forward as-is, or more importantly, have their Congress critters (Repubelicans) propose NN protections through a bill. This bill will actually do the opposite of what they say, as do all Repubelican bills, and would actually keep throttling, blocking, etc legal while also revoking all meaningful authority the FCC has over ISPs. THAT is what this NN repeal is truly about.
Moving forward they will do as other countries without NN have done, like Portugal, where they have internet tiers. They will also spread data cap practices. They are likely not going to ever lower the caps, but instead the ones already in place in many cities, typically 200-300GB, will simply not be raised in a timely manner to match the expanding use of the internet and data needs. Thus, the cap lowers itself naturally.
The redefinng of broadband to include wireless is simply so that this corrupt FCC can claim that all Muricans are covered by "broadband" and it allows the telecoms to sit on their thumbs instead of actually serving rural Murica.
I'm not sure I get what you're talking about with utility pole access since that is already locked down, and in many cases owned by incumbent telecoms, hence why Google stopped their Fiber rollout.
The end goal is effectively the same as yours except for the singular data cap you mention, though that may come into play for people who have one company for both wireless and home service as well. I've been watching this unfold for years and this is literally the reason I switched from Republican to Democrat / liberal. I monitored the net neutrality topic before it gained any traction and decided that whatever political party made this basic and simple consumer protection and regulation a partisan issue and went against NN would clearly be corrupt, end of story. Repubelicans didn't fail and made it partisan because of their donors, thus I will never vote for them again.
This is part of a five step process to turn broadband data in the US into the monetization platform cable had. This is due to cord cutting.
No shit lol it amazes me that EVERYONE that's ever dealt with any ISP ever doesn't know this by now. It's about maximizing profit, and ONLY about maximizing profit. Which is why I'm debating moving to Ft Collins, CO.
[deleted]
I can totally see this being the big picture plan.
RemindMe! 1 year
Jokes on them if low latency satellite internet works out because last mile infrastructure could become irrelevant.
It's a long shot at this point I think it's our best bet. The solution is competition one way or another.
Beat them at their own game, support SpaceX
So after having read that I wonder if it matters as much in states that are creating their own NN laws? Would that prevent this next step or will they have to just continuously male state laws for the bs that the fcc keeps pushing?
I have no idea how this would even work, but look for a push to not allow states to have a say in imposed data caps. I have zero insight as to how this would actually work but ISPs letting states screw with their new business model seems unlikely.
Meanwhile the nationalized infrastructure in Europe makes the US look like the most ridiculous, greedy, immoral profiteering place on the planet, which it mostly is.
Canada and the US missed the boat on this ages ago, or decided not to even get on the boat because their rich buddies saw a new opportunity. Internet, cable TV, cellular, the way these networks are set up in North America is 100% for maximum profit, it has nothing to do with actually providing a valuable service to customers.
[deleted]
Way to just generalize an entire country consisting of hundreds of millions of people. Literally nobody I've spoken to on the subject wants this to happen. This is another example of the wealthy elite taking advantage of the people and ignoring our voices.
Where have you been during these last few months during the latest Net Neutrality fight? All of my friends and I were unable to contact our representatives for some time because their inboxes/answering machines were completely filled by people like us, fighting for change. Don't you patronize us and act like all Americans are part of some big lazy collective. All you're doing is belittling our efforts to fight back and stand up for ourselves. Show some empathy.
net neutrality fight
Yeah i've seen how you guys fight. Flooding reddit and sending emails. Nice fight. Ask the French and the Russians how to fight oppressive governments.
I love how people who rip on the US never like to volunteer their national origin. Wouldn't want anyone drawing comparisons to your little utopia.
Sounds like you're just looking for a reason to yell "but what about _____?" The guy's origin is utterly irrelevant to the point he makes.
Wow, this comment really shows what a piece of shit you are.
Where are you from?
[deleted]
[removed]
[removed]
[removed]
You forgot step 6: Government seizure of means of production without payout to original owners (ISPs) after extreme civil unrest
I talked with a local isp support rep today and he shared some insight.
Paraphrased: I don’t like the idea of government owned internet (neither do I, come to think of it), aka municipal broadband. Because the government takes your money in taxes to build the infrastructure, then additionally charges you to use it. When not everyone switches to it, rates can be raised on those who choose to use it. So it’s ineffective. And does that really help solve the problem of lack of competition? Perhaps the municipal government can use tax money to lay down fiber infrastructure. Then sell it to ISPs. Due to the capacity of fiber, multiple ISPs can utilize this infrastructure. Infrastructure costs that serve as barriers to new ISPs are broken down in this case. Now they can compete. The government levels the playing field, but doesn’t outright control or determine the type of plan offered.
Now I can get behind that. Unfortunately, as u/maxbonerstorm has revealed, currently ISPs and the fcc have a very different agenda so this probably isn’t a plan they would ever consider. But I hope, in the future, something like this can happen.
We've already paid for it which is the real shame. We've paid 400b in incentives for infrastructure with absolutely nothing to show for it. The Telecom companies took that money and invested it or acquired other companies. The tragic thing is that ATT will argue that they own the poles that any new ISP also wants to use even though the American people actually paid for it.
Tag for layer review. Thank you
What if everyone just used data like normal, and then refused to pay? And then just switched carriers if possible and did the same thing, until every ISP is loaded up with millions of unpaid accounts due entirely to their own artificial bullshit? Not like they'll be able to defend themselves in court, this is hilariously transparent.
The future you describe sounds hard and vicious, MaxBonerstorm. I am not sure I will be able to handle it.
[deleted]
I'm scared at how realistic this sounds. But one change, I think they'll have higher data caps (at least initially) so that people don't get all riled up right away. They're already claiming that 1TB per month is enough for anyone, I can forsee cheaper plans having data caps as low as 100GB. That way they can claim that anyone complaining about the caps isn't a "typical internet user".
Yes, by far the most flexible part of this whole thing is how they can manipulate the data caps without wide spread outrage.
That part will be interesting.
[removed]
It's not all employees though, it's the executives and the people that own the companies, the vast majority of cable television, broadcast television, and major ISPs in this country are owned by a very small number of people that wield unacceptable levels of power over the rest of us. It's a sign that society will inevitably collapse until and unless we get the internet and many other things out of the hands of a very small number of billionaires and put the control back in the hands of the average American.
Is there anything currently stopping a broadband ISP that also has a mobile division (e.g. Verizon) from classifying data under a single umbrella? i.e. Is step 2 already possible w/o additional legislation?
Already In Progress: August 10:
The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed classifying mobile data as broadband Internet as part of its latest Notice of Inquiry released earlier this week.
How do we get this plan on national news so customers can understand right now how they are being manipulated and the shitty endgame that the big ISPs have planned? If this doesn’t become widely known, people won’t have a big enough view of the situation to know to resist the remaining steps.
How about you tell those you know and make them tell the people they know. Also give it a name or a hashtag when you speak about it so that people can easily form behind it.
Everyone should start flooding their city council meetings, calling for municipal internet and more competition.
It’s like the auto bailout except for ISPs/cable companies.
So...should I buy Comcast stock so I can at least have a sense of pride and accomplishment after they're done screwing me?
What about places that have "dig once" rules that demand companies who lay cable to enable extra space to limit the amount of times an area needs to be dug up and fosters additional entrants to a market?
So, what’s the solution to stop this shit? The general uninformed public won’t understand this, so it will be difficult organizing an informed opposition.
Watching this shit show from here in Sweden Americans look way too complacent. It doesn’t look like you’ll do much about it.
Making the internet slow in the USA will be good for China in term of crypto mining. We better hurry in building our own internet with our own infrastructure. I know it's huge challenge but even if you can build little islands connected by cheap wireless long range point to point wifi you can at least assure some form of network freedom for years to go. Worse case scenario you have a very big LAN with very limited acces to the internet, unless you go satellite or even super long range wifi. And the cost of satellites is going down rapidly because of the privatization and companies like Space ex.
You seem pretty knowledgeable about this, and I think your comments are right on point.
One thing I don't quite understand is the impact net neutrality will have outside of the US. Clearly it's going to trickle down in some way, I feel it can't not have some sort of consequential impact
Would be interested in your thoughts on this...
How do you see it affecting US-based hosting providers, who naturally have to serve US and non-US traffic?
That is a super complicated issue, and honestly, I don't quite know yet.
The biggest risk is the model works extremely well and it trickles out overseas.
Thanks, I appreciate your honesty
Can you tell me when you think that infrastructure bill will brought?
Would this have anything to do with analog TVs being rendered useless?
Not really. It's almost entirely because people are cord cutting from cable at a rate that makes the current ISP profit margins unsustainable. No one needs cable unless they want to watch live sports and if they can't re-establish those deals then there is nearly no incentive to have cable over Netflix, etc.
This is a direct result of cable cord cutting and a right wing government that will allow this to happen.
But what happens if the right wing government is voted out?
If there is a time to take up arms, it'll be when those packages are at end game.
Phones gonna die saving for layee
I already lost out on about 60k this year because Verizon sued to not allow google to use existing poles in the Nashville market. Fuck this corprotocracy.
And if Google backs out because of litigation then you might expect a small start up ISP to fair substantially worse.
[removed]
In a lot of cases the Comcast’s and Verizon’s of America do not own the pole or determine who can put equipment on it. There are a handful of companies that own a large portion of the poles or the rights to the poles. I work for one of these companies.
We make more money when more companies put equipment on our poles and towers. We would never turn down money from a startup ISP that wants to mount a microwave antenna on a few of our poles for their backhaul.
Suing to prevent pole access has been happening for a while
And poles owned not by the ISPs are the ones that will be directly affected by a bill that aims to "tighten security" or focuses on infrastructure to severely limit access.
I hear you. Just saying there are options. It’s also hard for me to speculate on the topic without having any clue what the hypothetical bill would include.
I’m kind of thinking NN will be back by early 2019.
To be fair that lawsuit was related to the One Touch make ready rule which allowed Google's contractors to relocate other communication lines on pole. That is not a common practice anywhere else and was specifically implemented to allow for Google to have quicker access to poles. Make ready work and construction is heavily slows a companies' speed to market. Access to poles often requires the utility make ready work to be performed first followed by up to six or seven other attachers. Each has to finish their work in sequential order. It's a lengthy process but Google was being afforded a luxury that is not normally given to other third party attachers. I write this as someone who works in joint use on the utility side and has no love for third party attachers.
There is also a problem using services like Plex, that allow a server in your home to stream video, kinda like Netflix, to friends internet connected devices. This is possible because all data had to be treated the same, but now, look for the death of this service and your ability to stream video to remote devices independently.
I feel like Step 3 is completed in the majority of regions in the US. I know at least the last 4 states I've lived in all had where somebody like Comcast had exclusive rights to the lines. I would even put that as step 1 in the process, as that, imo, acted as a sort of vehicle to make local municipalities fundamentally reliant on these large ISP's and making them a necessary part of local political processes.
I imagine Ajit Pai and others like him reading this and saying, “Huh. He figured it out.”
And then shrugging as he knows that us citizens are way too complacent to do much about it and will just take it straight up the ass anyway.
A key part of this is that none of it is possible without the government. VOTE! Also note, much of the government that is involved is state or local. You can influence this.
Really informative read. Thank you. I was wondering and have always wanted to ask, how does this affect us non Americans? What magnitude of internet downsizing will we experience?
I can't really say more about this, but expect an announcement from Elon Musk soon that is going to throw a HUGE monkey wrench into their plans for internet domination. I'd also suggest investing in Space X asap. Your investment will be well rewarded. Soon no one will need wires for gigabit internet in the US and then globally.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/04/spacex-internet-satellites-elon-musk.html
I'm traveling in Mexico and things like this already exist. Facebook and other social media use doesn't count against your data limit/you get additional data to use for social media here.
Step 5: End Game is literally what we have in Australia.
Thank you. This was very informative.
This is what we have in Canada, without the throttling on websites. Rogers bell and Telus were just ahead of American cable companies. It started with caps that were laughably small compared to the unlimited we were used to getting. Then when Netflix got bigger they realized people needed more than 20gb to stream all month. Now you get unlimited for about 100 dollars and speeds varying from 150 mb to 1gb at that price range.
Reminds me of Dave Chappelles most recent bit about the pimp. They took everything away and then gave us a shittier deal but came off as they were the ones doing us a favor and giving a sweet deal...
Fucking scum all of them.
Boutta register my proxy server as a site to count against the cap then funnel all traffic thru there
RemindMe! One Year Net Neutrality Conspiracy
[removed]
I'd believe it. We better keep good record of all the Net Neutrality talking points, they all pushed to "revert the internet back to a Better Time (before Obama's regulations", right?
I feel like we could push similarly to revert this. "Revert the internet back to a time where you didn't have to pay per GB."
Something like that... man I really hope this comes true. My future will rely on the Internet
Whats step 6?..... "Checkmate"
A bigger, more obnoxious mug and a more smug version of the face he already has.
I said ten years ago when people started "cutting the cord", "media companies will control the Internet and we will all end up paying more for our media/data than we do now".
My cousin thinks Net Neutrality was the source of internet woes and that its repeal would incite competition. Let's save this for later.
ELI5??
This is the true reason.
$100 per month for internet??!?!!!?
Oh, still the same. That's fine then.
Love,
Canada
The real goal here is to get all data under one umbrella, then impose data caps (extremely low ones), then use the repeal of Net Neutrality to push cable-like packages for things like Netflix and Twitch to have those sites avoid counting against the cap.
Can you elaborate on this? I don't own a device that has any sort of cap currently (no smartphone), so under the current definition, is broadband traffic the only data that counts towards a cap?
Just to clarify. That video is from last year not really a new video....
Fuck it. It's time for some people to get hurt. I'm gonna fight for my freedom.
Fuck the ISPs
Aka a monopoly.
Welcome to Australia :)
How will this potentially effect free WIFI offered in public places?
What's the likelihood we'll see NN-repeal apologists take blame for when we reach Step 5?
Keep in mind that there is another actor who has aligned interests: the surveillance state apparatus. They are having a difficult enough time dealing with the huge amount of data we're already consuming. Any large-scale expansion of data consumption is only going to make this problem worse. It's considerably cheaper to rely on the deep packet inspection devices they are already using than to pay to research and develop ones that can handle an order of magnitude (or two) more bandwidth.
Nationalize the ISPs, fuck all these people.
But step number 1 wasn't required to reach this outcome. In Feb 2017, the FCC ruled that zero rating services as part of paid plans didn't violate net neutrality. Net Neutrality did not need to be repealed to achieve what you think the ISPs are trying to do.
And reclassifying mobile data as broadband doesn't work toward your suggested outcome. In fact since mobile data caps are more restrictive than home broadband, using your logic, the reclassification actually benefits consumers (in reality it doesn't). The real reason they want to classify mobile as broadband is because it make it look like the US has achieved higher broadband deployment goals, and there are tax breaks and subsidies the ISP's get for increasing broadband penetration into rural areas.
I respect the story you are trying to weave, but I think your outcomes are misguided.
We need Ol’ Musky to step in and massively disrupt this monopoly by providing cheap internet for all, he’s our only hope, and honestly the only person who could get it done in the face of so much money lobbying that Cuntcast and others are doing.
I'm in NZ , I get 20gb with my mobile account, 1gb free for social networks - FB, Twitter. And a free Spotify premium account , as well as a free lightbox account, which is the mobile company's version of Netflix. I'd never thought of this as dodgy until recently with this stuff happening over there.
Would a possible solution be to remove any ability for a company to be a internet/data access service provider and a content/media provider at the same time?
I am a network architect who has worked for a number of companies at "Internet-scale" including an ISP. This comment seems spot-on, and summarizes what I have been explaining when asked about NN.
The key part is the anti-NN material focused on speed limitations and blocking. However, technology-wise it is far cheaper for the ISPs to implement data caps and choose what counts against it. Look at what wireless carries have been doing for a few years, which more or less started with T-Mobile's Binge On program - now includes a number of others such as AT&T not counting their own directTV product traffic against the caps (but all competitors do).
This is because the amount of infrastructure needed across an entire network to classify and alter traffic flows is far more expensive to build and maintain than more-or-less accurate "accounting" information (passive measurements of traffic flow sources and destinations, classified as-appropriate). This level of flow classification technology has existed for a number of years anyway, as it is important for normal network optimization and troubleshooting once you get to any sizable network.
Please write your congresspeople, at minimum. Educate others and inform them to do the same, and if you have the option - find a small local ISP to vote with your wallet. If you're not a gamer or rely on other latency-sensitive applications -- fixed wireless ISPs are available in more areas than you want (and they have an easier time competing versus having to build massive infrastructure to every home). It isn't that they have high latency, just that it might be a bit unstable or packet lossy compared to wired terrestrial services.
Sounds like it's high time we figure out the digital version of phreaking then!
"Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to send the first of its 4,425 super-fast internet satellites into space in 2019"
...this couldn't come soon enough...
article for reference: www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/05/04/spacex-internet-satellites-elon-musk.html
How are people going to be able to afford this? It's nuts. They're completely destroying society as we know it and regressing it back to when the internet first came out, when anyone who had access to it was rich. People won't pay those ridiculous prices to browse the internet for 5 hours a month. I hope this plan backfires harder than pai could ever imagine.
yeah let's make the only thing keeping people sane and pacified in this shit country more expensive and difficult to obtain, can't see how this could go wrong
This will take form in an infrastructure bill severely limiting access to poles and underground junctions by new companies without direct permission from the existing ISPs that have cable on those poles
Didn’t we already run into this predicament? There were One Touch Make Ready bills struck down in court. This effected googles ability to access poles for deploying their fiber network.
The trick here was that broadband ISP’s were classified as information services at the time, and that classification denied them any right to reasonable response time and fees when they needed to access private utility poles.
Essentially, common carriers have to allow pole access for common carriers, information service providers do not. So this may already be in the works by repealing the open internet order. Surely incumbent providers work with small companies but actual threats will be burned out from the run around—see google fiber.
This also how wireless data has unfolded in the micro scale. Now it’ll happen as AALLLLLL data.
here’s hoping it doesn’t happen and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure it doesn’t.
Can I expect a “pay for tv and Phone then get unlimited internet monitored and throttled by us!!!”
This shit is terrifying.
I fear what my price will be because I have been at 90$ a month for 3mbps for years and its the only option available. There are two companies available but both provide the same speed at the same price and have for years. And I may not live in a huge city but I dont live out in the middle of nowhere either.
remindme! 6 months
“was this guy right about anything”
[deleted]
they want MORE why do you think they've been working to make their own in demand systems? like netflix and hulu
Step 5 is when cable execs start getting theirs
The cable provider in my area already has data caps on all of their plans.
RemindMe! 1 year
Facebook is still trying to do the same thing with its internet.org in other countries.
I think they're underestimating just how much rage there will be if they start imposing caps on people who didn't have them previously. There is an expectation of technology improving overtime and these policies would violate that very clearly.
The push back on this is going to be massive such that once the people (i.e. Democrats) control the FCC again its going to be very easy to punish the ISPs
[removed]
Something that is grossly ignored is percentage of the population that works remote. I figure I can burn some PTO to protest
Or, like, you know... the millions of businesses that DEPEND on internet connections within all their stores.
All those fancy tablets the salespeople walk around with are talking to servers in the cloud that are providing order information, customer details, and the like.
Don't forget 5G Fixed Wireless coming in and adding all our favorite cellular carriers as our all-in-one data controlling overlords!
All this is only logical if you think about it in basic terms: strictly talking about TV, cable companies don't really make money on the access they're providing you to the cable TV network, they made money on the content they were selling you, i.e. the packages. Internet service doesn't give the company that revenue stream. So they do what they can to replicate that business model. Source: worked 11 years for one of these companies.
You're American. Get together and found a competing corporation that is well funded but has a corporate charter to compete the way you want it to, and patronize that corporation heavily. Technically it could be a co-operative, something that is generally associated with "socialism", but is technically a completely and utterly capitalist enterprise. Saskatchewan, the originator of Socialist medicine in Canada, is rife with competitive Co-operatives unlike any other Province, from Banks to Big Agriculture to Grocery & Hardware, and the crown corporation that runs telco/inet is infused with the same spirit. Pure capitalist corporations have to compete extra hard in those markets. You're at a disadvantage in that you're disallowed to form said entities via government intervention, it's all up to you free individuals.
If the plans are starting to et out, can’t they be leaked for visibility to the media?
Rigjt now I pay $50 for unlimited data with Comcast. Can you tell me if they plan on removing this option? How does what you wrote affect those on unlimited plans with their ISP’s and cell phone carriers?
I don't know enough to speak to specific plans, sorry.
That's ironic about the data cap. Because after net nuetrality was enacted...Comcast sent me a data cap. How hilarious!
His sources are sure credible
Yup. Bundling is already being normalized in small steps.
You know those amazing T-Mobile and Netflix deals?
Or Spotify and Hulu?
Or Amazon and whomever the fuck they can get?
That's bundling.
Then it's price tiers.
Time to build a back channel. The commercial web is dead.
Thanks for this explanation but these are hard sniper bullets to dodge... Will try
So if you have this information on good authority. You should also have information on what we can do to stop it correct?!
[deleted]
RemindMe! 11 months
Sorry if that has been mentioned (or if I'm missing the point), but there was Elon Musk's project to send enough satellites into space to give basically the entire Earth internet access. Sure that's not gonna happen in one year (but neither I hope is this net neutrality nightmare), but when it does, how are those companies planning to battle sir Musk?
At least we’ll soon have a new type of decentralized internet running off a blockchain and stored on everybody’s devices. Look into Skycoin and Substratum, they will save the internet.
I'm pretty sure mobile is already doing this. I've seen ads for "Free Netflix" that basically doesn't count against your cap.
Edit: Binge On!
Besides voting the politicians that are for this out what else could be done to stop this? Up to and including physical harm to someone
guess i will start looking into getting that 1gb fiber enterprise class line ran to my house for 500 dollars a month that or i have food for the month
mind you im paying 80 dollars a month for 10mbs up and 700kps down and that's the top tier for my area and from the only isp other then the a new fiber line that was ran through my little town by the a electric coop a few years ago but there only offering to businesses
Tennessee is a prime example of Step 3. Chattanooga formed a municipal gigabit broadband internet service. AT&T and Comcast quickly sued to block other cities from doing this. AT&T and Comcast have also actively blocked Google Fiber from expanding in Nashville by refusing to let Google make room for lines on utility poles. The city of Nashville ordered that Google had the right to install lines on utility poles, but AT&T successfully lobbied the FCC to say that even AT&T's lines on NES's utility poles (Nashville's privately-managed but publicly-owned electric service) were AT&T's sole property and could not be altered by the city. Google has forged ahead with "micro-trenching" along sidewalks, which has significantly increased their costs of entry.
Whoever makes a documentary exposing this and really puts it out there will make a lot of money.
In the Michigan legislature is a bill to allow towns to raise funds to specifically build broadband infrastructure. The amount of push back that single bill has gotten from AT&T and Comcast is astonishing to the tune of convincing the Chair of the bill's committee to introduce a bill to specifically illegalize that same practice. Step three is happening now.
For those wondering, in Michigan towns cant raise bonds for things unless the law specifically says they can.
[removed]
Thank you for your comment! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s):
Tone it down plz.
If you have any questions, please message the moderators and include the link to the submission. We apologize for the inconvenience.
So, I should buy land where there is a community ISP?
No way. Mid term elections, at the very least will be a strong signal that reverting to a NN model is coming.
Think cable companies have money? I hear big tech has money too, and there is no way they want things to keep going this way.
Except Step 1 has nothing to do with NN. We have net neutrality in the EU and ISPs DO step 1 all the time. You have packages where, for example, you pay 5€/mo and Spotify traffic doesn't count against the datacap.
This, IMO, is necessary until infrastructure van support the humongous amount of users it has using very bandwidth demanding applications.
Not gonna lie, that all seems remarkably similar to what we were used to in Canada for the longest time, (minus paying extra for certain services to not count against your cap, though I bet that was even around, I just never paid for any of it).
Only the last couple years has actually having unlimited internet become default... Before we switched to our current internet/cable setup, we were paying $180 (CAD) a month for shitty standard def cable, and $30 of that $180 was to upgrade our internet from 100GB a month to unlimited, with 50/1 speeds (download/upload). Now we're paying $120 a month for unlimited 25/1 speeds and a pretty decent cable package. Seems like it used to be up here, what it's gunning towards down there :(
At this point, what is stopping the companies and the related workforce from moving out of US? If Netflix or twitch moved it's servers out of US, then the only people affected would be it's US customers right? These companies surely don't have it's customers exclusively in US?
Also it might be prohibitively expensive for startups in US so they can move to countries where infrastructure cost is cheaper.
It wouldn't matter if twitch's servers are in the US to non US customers anyway.
Can ISP's charge twitch so that their services are not slowed? If they can, then non US customers will be affected unless twitch pays the ISPs for a fast lane.
[deleted]
How will this affect people from outside the US surfing pages with servers inside the US?
The real solution here if they do this...and it's going to suck to do it but putting up with subpar internet would suck even more....we all need to be willing to call our ISP's the moment they do this and cancel our services. Going without internet is preferable to putting up with it in that condition.
[deleted]
RemindMe! One Year
Thanks for this post. Can you elaborate on step 2 in terms of how data is currently not being classified under one umbrella?
Oh USA, you scary.
Feel sad for America. Land of the free my ass
Yea so Comcast just wants they’re average sub bill to be X dollars. They could give a shit less on how. Cord cutting is hurting then bad so they gotta make up for it.
This is some dystopia.
Are you sure monetizing the internet is the endgame here? Isn't the real endgame to obtain control over the flow of information? Or am I missing something.
Those are really the same thing are they not?
Question: Can a humongous company like Google who has already dabbled in providing internet for people, get into the business of saving the internet and really pushing to get their service more widely available. Or are they just as much of the problem by being in the pockets of advertisers and being such a large company making them untrustworthy?
The major OSPs have already roadblocked them from providing internet man.
I'm glad your comment is getting some traction. I've been trying to explain this for a long time now. The additional step is that by doing this, it will also be easier to control the narrative. The goal by the major ISPs is bundling the Internet like cable, but the trade for government is greater control over the flow of information. There's a lot of back scratching going on right now.
I'd love if I could just swing a sword and stop this, but really, HOW DO WE STOP THIS??
Additionally, they will need to ban commercial VPN on their networks so they can accurately attribute all data to the zero-rating bucket or pay-for bucket.
Have a sad upvote.
3 should be a clear violation of anti monopoly laws governed by the FTC. As a staunch opponent of net neutrality, the idea of making it more difficult for new companies to gain access to poles is beyond debatable. It’s an obvious scheme by existing cable companies to create a monopoly so they can use our military to protect their profits.
At the local level it sort of makes sense, but I have no idea how any state could even approach such a policy, because it is so obviously anti-competition... and Ajit Pai has consistently stated that he is not for anti-competitive practices.
There are some clear lawsuits to be had, if this was ever implemented. Very obvious damages, and you’d be suing the government, so they can afford it.
Do you have any legit source that governments are interested in this?
Ajit Pai has consistently stated that he is not for anti-competitive practices.
Its cute you think that the former Verizon lawer but still current Verizon lackey isnt al ying sack of shit.
Its not cute you think you can believe everything you read on Reddit without actually understanding the issue at hand. Nevertheless, I guess its only human nature... when they see something posted a bunch of times, it must be true, therefore bypass all logic and accept it...
Are there feasible ways that people could get around these caps, possibly even by building an off-grid rudimentary replacement for the Internet? I know I for one would be willing to run a server or two in my own house if it meant we could host stuff off of the broken version of the Internet.
This is exactly what mobile internet access has become almost everywhere. I’m in Austria and we have pretty cheap access, but more and more people are using mobile providers for their home Internet access and almost all of them have data caps and special packages.
Remind Me! 3 years
This makes sense, except the amount of greed seems understated.
I mean, people are paying for "just internet" about as much $$$ as they used to pay for those cable packages with 1000 channels most of which nobody wanted and the rest are chock full of ads. My point is, the cord is cut, but the monthly fees for internet are just as high as for cable packages.
I pay $60 a month for internet and have access to every bit of content my FIL gets for $240 a month w/ cable. Mid-floridian here.
Hope you're not looking forward to pay $240 for internet soon 8)
How would a VPN affect this? Would an ISP be able to tell what the data is?
I'd bet they'll set a limit on encrypted data streams like VPN Tunnels. Once they can legally discriminate data by type, they can start banning or capping encrypted streams as well.
They would just count all your data toward the cap. So good for them amd bad for you.
God fuck Verizon and fuck me for paying them each month for a phone bill. But who else can I go to for phone service that does actively hate NN?
Pretty sure step 3 has been happening for years. This isn’t part of some new plan. If they hadn’t been doing this we’d have cheap google fiber internet everywhere. Help us Space X, you’re our only hope.
Question, Fort Collins just stared building their local fiber network. How can individuals go about setting up local isps for neighborhoods? Like can we build our own infrastructure just like them?
Thank you for this information. I am curious though, is there possibly any good that could come from this? Aside from firing up Americans who regularly avoid politics of any kind.
It will be interesting to see what impact these data caps have on the online advertising industry, too. Many sites you visit load huge amounts of pixels, tracking scripts, image ads, and other non-content ad tech assets. In a world where my data usage is limited, I would certainly be cheesed off if 30% of my cap was being chewed up by preroll ads, banners, and tracking scripts.
I think there are a few things that may happen, none of which are good for the ISPs:
The upshot here is that data caps could be extremely bad for any ad supported site, ad network, and ultimately, for the ISPs in the form of blowback and tech advancements to circumvent them. You already see this happening with Apple (not an ad supported company) adding some ad blocking to Safari on iOS. Their primary reason is privacy rather than data caps, but caps do play a role in the decision on mobile.
tl;dr: Data caps might be very bad for the online advertising industry and they won't take it laying down.
What if in protest we all stoped services for a month? Show these companies they cany treat us like animals
Step 3 is the scary one. This is our only chance to stop all this. If we can open the market almost all these problems go away.
The gaming industry would be hit exceptionally hard too considering most games have to be downloaded now and AAA games are often like 30gbs alone. Then there's the push for online connections for various reasons for most games too which will eat up small amounts of data, or obviously more in some cases.
From this, you don't refute net neutrality. We can make sure local gov'ts force competition and limit bad infra practices. Net neutrality is not needed.
[deleted]
10 20 gigs a month? holly pathetic bandwich batman! that will kill torrent/piracy!.... nicely played USA corps. nicely played. So they killed two birds on one shoot: get more money and end piracy.
The way things are going, I expect to see this on a best of reddit thread sometime soon.
Considering I wrote most of this at work on the can it's surprising to say the least. Wasn't expecting this much attention
Sir, did you ask wich competences this person have to write this? I'm sure they doesn't even know how networking and economy works.
ISPs are business, they will do everything to not lose users. So they will do everything to not piss users off. So people should stop make this apocalyptic scenarios.
Not an Ajit supporter, I just have common sense.
Give us your qualifications for be sure that what you say is true. Or you are just a liar that want scare people.
Not an Ajit supporter. But everyone that have 0 competences are making apocalyptic scenarios like this one. I just don't trust your lies.
Then don't, I am totally ok with that. I don't need every single person to believe me, just at least a good handful so awareness can be spread.
Call me a liar all you want my man, I won't lose sleep over it.
Do you have college studies?
Are you a technician?
What am I asking for? Just your qualification.
I guess your arrogant reply answer it.
I feel like I will just get rid of internet and tv if this ever happens. total cord cut.
[deleted]
Step 3 is actually the grounds upon which Net Neutrality was changed to be a discussion of Title II so I have a hard time believing that we will truly reach step 3 again without a discussion of Title II coming up.
This is ridiculous and one of the reasons I'm considering leaving. I don't want limits on how I access information.
This is ridiculous and one of the major reasons I'm considering leaving. I don't want limits on how I access information.
Leaving what?
The country. I'm considering going to school elsewhere.
Step 4: implement data caps. This will be the time where aggressive shilling will take place on the form of "everyone is using so much internet we have to. You can't just let these people take your internet!"
Comcast/AT&T and others have had this for some time, nothing new.
Step 5: this is the end game that we are talking about when NN got thrown out. Majority of plans will have a 10-20 GB data plan monthly. Going over will be extremely expensive. Packages will be offered for different websites to not count against that cap. This is where you can expect to pay over 100$ a month for just internet for the same speeds you have now for unlimited access to only certain sites. Torrenting will clearly be hit extremely hard here.
I don't think they'd lower the data, especially to such an absurd amount. Lowering what consumers already get tends to make consumers angry, which can be a pain even if you're an entrenched player holding most of the cards. It would probably bring legal challenges with it as well.
It's much easier to implement a high limit initially and simply not increase that limit, or increase it slower than needed to keep pace with new data requirements. As videos increase in quality, and users begin using more data for the same browsing habits, the average user will approach that limit, and the company has half a country to defend them with "you want the companies to just give you more for free?" or "You want the government to force companies to provide more service for free?" if government intervention is brought up. Same as the minimum wage. Lowering it would make even a lot of republicans angry, but simply not increasing it? That's fine.
or increase it slower than needed to keep pace with new data requirements
I'm not freaking out unless this happens before 4k is standard.
That's exactly what makes it an effective long-term strategy. Once the problem is in the future, the conceptual "new technology using higher data rates" just isn't very effective for persuading people that they should be upset.
How is step 3 not going to trigger antimonopoly regulations?
Majority of plans will have a 10-20 GB data plan monthly
This would cause rioting in the streets.
Embrace the guns and stop to be slaves
Embrace your gun with your mouth and shoot yourself.
Embrace the guns and stop to be slaves
Our area was TWC, now Spectrum, we also have @75% FIOS coverage as some competition. We have never had caps, no trials or mention of them ever. Now suddenly Spectrum is using "no data caps, no throttling " as selling points in it's commercials.
Seems odd, it's never been mentioned or a limit, now it's a selling point, all I can think is they are familiarizing customers to the terms so it's less of a shock when somethings implemented.
Jesus Christ, what part of "this is what will happen eventually" don't you understand?
... I totally understand it and was trying to support with what's happening here now. Settle down?
So what does this mean for EU residents?
RemindMe! in 2 years
this is the end game that we are talking about when NN got thrown out. Majority of plans will have a 10-20 GB data plan monthly.
I just don't see how that will not be corporate suicide. Speaking as a Canadian where most of our ISPs plans have had data caps for years, a 10 - 20 GB cap is something we saw back in the very early 2000s. Typical barebones plans here have a cap of at least 300GB, many "average" plans cap at 500GB to 750GB, and there are still many with unlimited.
If any of our ISPs tried to drop our caps we'd send them a strongly worded letter and leave. If all of our ISPs simultaneously dropped caps to double digits, we'd get all fucked up on hockey and re-enact the Stanley cup riots at their headquarters. And since all our major population centers all have competitors who the incumbents are forced to allow on their networks anyway, a move like that would see Rogers, Bell, and Shaw lose 99% of their internet subscribers overnight as the small guys became giants overnight.
Many places have no small guys, the wires haven’t been laid out and thus the only option is Verizon or Comcast
the wires haven’t been laid out and thus the only option is Verizon or Comcast
Ah I see the confusion. In Canada, the CRTC forces the incumbents to share their wires with the "little guys". The CRTC realized that if someone already laid the wires, having each additional entrant lay their own is stupid. Before it was just ADSL, but a couple years ago cable and fiber were also added to the "you will share and you will like it" order.
It would be suicide if they had actual competition. There is a reason this comes after "make sure its impossible for competition to pop up".
In reality they will pay out the ass to spin it and create in-fighting on sites like these. Make it a hardline political issue, turn the two sides against each other. Instead of the conversation being "Wow fuck these ISPs lets do something about it" it will be the standard left vs right, maybe "entitled internet" where the "super users" are taking YOUR internet and the caps are a way to make it "fair"
The internet is lame anyway. Good riddance.
User name checks out
This is such unsubstantiated bullshit it’s literally laughable.
All according to Zionist plan.
None of that makes sense given the inevitability of a liberal government that will quickly reverse NN repeal.
Don’t make assumptions. Go vote in the next elections.
But.. with companies making 5G receivers, won’t that bypass the need infrastructure argument? As they won’t need to provide their own direct lines? Much cheaper putting up some towers or renting already built ones? This would allow new providers to come in and rent out their receivers and compete with everyone that is wired in. Right?
[deleted]
No he's not.
Mobile will never replace wires for broadband, no matter what Ajit's FCC says
Why would they lower speeds and then introduce a cap? wouldn't it make sense for them to up the speeds and introduce a cap? for them, not for the consumer.
To reiterate, I don't think the plan is to lower speeds at all. This was assumed by the poster I replied to, however, I don't think that's part of this.
The ISPs actually have to do quite a bit of infrastructure work to effectively make accurate, large scale data cap monitoring work and they will make these infrastructure changes very publicly "See we improve stuff all on our own!". However these improvements will be directly almost entirely towards a consumer metering system and not for speed. Don't expect your speed to slow down all too much, nor speed up.
Isn't this plan also possible in situations where there is net neutrality but zero rating is allowed? Like uhm.. in all of europe?
and companies still didn't have a clear cut path to monetizing the internet.
Ironic really with how well cryptos are doing now
Fear Mongering will get you nowhere. Enjoy the karma while you can.
I happen to have a local isp metronet in my home state that many people use over the big companies.
Good for you.
Most people have zero choice
It is a bit ridiculous when people start talking of a dark dystopian future where people can't watch porn or use Facebook without a pricey package.
News Flash! That already exists.
Net Neutrality is a 2 year old executive order, that was practically written by Google for the benefit of silicon valley.
If you don't have a local isp move somewhere that does! Get ahold of the nearest one and let them know you will be there customer if they bring it to you!
or better yet entrepreneur yourself a local isp with your state / local government and stop with this 1984 fan fic
NET NEUTRALITY is OBSOLETE compared to COMPETITION among services
Honestly, when I read this...I just think "This is just business, what can you do?"
They had the power and consumer base, they control the medium of communication with the consumer, why allow other parties to use those services to communicate with your customers and make all the profit? Bundle their services and charge it back to the consumer.
It seems completely logical and business minded.
I hate it and it's going to cost me performance and money, but I don't see how it's illegal or anything other than any other business out there.
You don't own private roads and then allow access to those roads for vehicles delivering services to your customers. You charge them, perhaps a lot, depending on how much people want those services.
In the end, all is fair in business and war. I'd much prefer if the internet was looked at as a commodity with capped prices and tax subsidized...but as long as they look at it as a business instead of basically a necessary civilian service, this kind of nonsense will happen.
Except we all paid money for infrastructure to be laid to not worry about bandwidth.
Then that money was stolen and nothing was installed.
So we installed it on our own dime, again.
Fiber is capable of handling nearly everything we can throw at it. Its bandwidth is utterly mind blowing, and far more than enough to handle Netflix use.
No, this isn't business, this is highway robbery.... for the third time.
This is a thing too many people forget. We PAID FOR THIS. Sometimes three times. It is unacceptable.
My company pays for my internet so I don’t really care, I guess.
Source : multiple contacts in the industry including myself to an extent
You are not a source. "People I know" is not a source. A source is something that we can independently verify. Something published by someone who is demonstrably an expert. What you are saying is interesting, and worth discussing, but muddying the definition of important journalistic terms like 'Source' is how fake news is allowed to propagate so easily.
Yep, nor am I willing to identify my sources.
Don't take everything I am saying as absolute fact. Do research with independent sources. Talk to people in the industry. It's far more healthy than taking everything as face value on reddit.
That being said feel free to remind me this post and see how off I am in about 2 years.
Actually, it is a source, just not one that could or potentially, should, be relied upon - reasonable scepticism is warranted, and further evidence should be sought, but being a first or second party source is not an unreasonable position in and of itself.
So you swear you don't do drugs in one post where you complain about getting arrested, but a month later post about the 300 tabs you bought and enjoy, you say you're friends with Hugh Hefners girlfriend and date models, then a little later the highlight of your week is spending your weekend taking drugs by yourself at your house to stave off depression, now you're an inside contact in the internet industry. You've got a really interesting life there BonerStorm.
As for the actual topic being discussed, this will be a good thing for prices and new, smaller companies being able to enter the market, like in rural areas. They couldn't compete with the big boys when the requirements were so high, now they've been lowered it opens more avenues for them.
I know 10mbs sounds scary to you guys but less than that is pretty bog standard in Australia and we manage just fine. Plus, it'll be a lot cheaper than your 100mbs plans, so it'll help those on a budget who want internet but don't want to pay so much.
As for packages for viewing certain websites or products, don't make me laugh. Most of the developed world don't have net neutrality laws and none of them have payment packages, if you really think you're going to need to pay for access to Facebook or twitter, I have some great waterfront property in the Sahara for you.
I don't smoke weed nor carry them on my person.
I do partake in acid from time to time.
I've got nothing to hide, no big deal.
Isn't acid a drug?
You: They really did beat me up good, as well as impounding ( and tearing apart looking for drugs, which I don't do) my car
Redditor: what nationality are you
You: white/Irish, no criminal history, don't do drugs
You: I bought 300 tabs that I will never sell to anyone, I do one tab a week
0\10 for your llies
you guys in australia are happy with s hitty access because youdon't realize ISPs are fucking you, the actual speed possible is 100 times higher but they don't want to invest in infrastructure.
Shit man,,,,. 10mbs was after we invested in infrastructure, ,,, are you sure you know Australia?
this reminds me of a post I saw how big companies essentially hire people to go on reddit to 1. make their point sound absurd, 2. take away all their credibility. I forget the post and the rest of this stuff, but for now GOD BLESS REDDIT!!!
Well at least you can admit what you support sounds absurd and has no credibility.
You said enough stuff that made people think you sound like you know what you're talking about, but there's some really telling bullshit in here.
The push to get all mobile and otherwise non-broadband data classified as broadband is to assure that any data you use on any device counts against a cap.
No, that's not how this works. The FCC defines what broadband is for the purpose of things like their broadband penetration report. That doesn't have the effect of combining your cellular data and wireline data under a single cap.
So, this is just the next step. Look for language about caps to come up after midterms, and for aggressive bills to be pushed through allowing very low data caps nationwide.
You don't need a bill for that, it's already legal.
Source: Have family who work in the industry and also work for an electrical contractor who does work for some ISPs, the plans are starting to get out.
lol, yeah the ISPs are sharing their strategic plans with electrical contractors.
You're right about one thing, the push against NN is at least partly related to cord cutters and the flood of data that ISPs are transmitting from their competitors. But you don't have to be very perceptive to figure that out, and you've turned it into an elaborate conspiracy based on a serious misunderstanding of how things work.
“Company with History of anti-consumer and monopolistic behavior would NEVER engage in anti-consumer and monopolistic behavior!” Seriously, do you listen to the words you’re typing or is it hard to focus with Comcast’s dick in your throat?
Did you read what I wrote? Because I never defended ISPs. I just called OP out on the bullshit that he used to hold together his elaborate conspiracy theory. I totally agree, ISPs wanted to kill NN because, among other reasons, killing it gives them leverage over their competitors. I even acknowledged that in the comment that you replied to. I have no love for ISPs, but when I see clear bullshit I call it out.
They definitely don't share any long term plans, you are correct. But you can put pieces together and figure some things out pretty easily. Plus people like to talk in work places, things get around quickly.
Also, Im aware data caps are legal, however States are going to have significant push back as this starts to roll out. Look for bills to limit states ability to remove or restrict data caps and its implementation.
[removed]
You're a moron. Comcast and ATT already have data caps at 1TB. They tried and failed to go lower, and it had absolutely nothing to do with "net neutrality".
Also, the "net neutrality" regulations were hurting local ISP startups by making the infrastructure unreasonably expensive. The Obama regulations literally REQUIRED a high cost hi barrier of entry infrastructure. Not sure why you're twisting the facts backwards here.
I never said data caps were directly tied to NN. NN was just the first domino to fall in the process, which will eventually lead to nationwide data caps.
You are correct, NN and Data Caps arent directly tied together. However in the long run they are definitely related.
You know that people categorize you on the same level as flat-earthers, right?
It required a higher bar as far as speed and reliability. Funny enough the startups do better with this than the big players. It’s where they thrive because they are going fiber rather than using old repurposed copper.
making the infrastructure unreasonably expensive
Someone doesn't understand basic network service technology.
Holy hell, you worthless Trump supporters actually made a sub for spreading fake NN news, wow. Just wow.
You're all horrible people
Source: I just pulled this completely put of my ass and had to out something at the end because I don't have any real sources.
Did you watch the linked video?
Step 5: this is the end game that we are talking about when NN got thrown out. Majority of plans will have a 10-20 GB data plan monthly. Going over will be extremely expensive. Packages will be offered for different websites to not count against that cap. This is where you can expect to pay over 100$ a month for just internet for the same speeds you have now for unlimited access to only certain sites. Torrenting will clearly be hit extremely hard here.
No, you are fearmongering for karma. They are not cutting data caps to 10-20 GB.
I couldn't care less about my karma since I have no plans to sell my account to a political shill company ever and imaginary points that do absolutely nothing don't interest me.
But to your point: if ISPs they could accomplish every other step to that step (which they are well on their way) why wouldn't they have incentive to impose caps?
[deleted]
They already have data caps. Comcast has a 1TB cap. They aren't dropping it down to 2% of the current cap because of 'reasons'. You're full of shit
Because people wouldn't pay for shitty service like that? This reads like something you sat and thought of during your art history class.
Oh look, a telco shill trying to tell us the 2015 Net Neutrality regulations were good despite LEGALIZING throttling, caps and fast lanes.
I'm so glad you piece of shit lying shills aren't getting your way and true Net Neutrality, not your ISP shill regulations, is going forward despite your efforts to gaslight everyone.
Man I wish I got paid to post on reddit. Would be sweet.
[removed]
You people always manage to get this shit so backwards.
Hmm. I wonder which ISP created this bot.
Gotta love that white supremacists are onboard with fucking up the internet just because Trump is
[deleted]
You use the same internet as I do my friend.
Might want to put down the rose colored glasses for a certain party and fight for stuff you care about.
[deleted]
[deleted]
It sums up America in so many ways.
Keep doing something the wrong way until it becomes the right way.
Lower the standards over time and people won't notice it.
Reminds me of an old MAD jokes.
I finally achieved my dream of owning a $200,000 home
You're moving ?
Nope, this crapshack was reappraised to $205,000
(Price adjusted to inflation)
That is an exceedingly bad joke.
That pretty much sums up nearly every headline I've seen for the past 8 months.
Have you bought a house? Maybe you just don't get the joke
It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the Internet ration to 10 Mbps.
No no no no no no, don't start down this path. It doesn't take long before people start repeating these things non-ironically.
It's like the frog in boiling water vs slowly heated water thing We are the frogs ! Ribbit!
The alt-right's fascination with Pepe explained
Omagerd, the chemtrails turned me gay!
Wasn't it Churchill who summed it up perfectly?
"The American people always do the right thing, once they've exhausted all other options."
I read this in Bane's voice.
"This will be painful - for you."
Like the whole 3G/4G standard thing, eh?
Air travel might be the best example of this.
You forgot 3:
officials like ashit-pile get assassinated
You forgot "Then make millions from it from doing hard, honest work"
Guys, Guys, have you heard about this new thing called the magnetic strip for credit cards? Works with your signature to be SUPER secure.
Mythbusters actually tried exposing this years back but were essentially gagged by attorneys from all major creditors.
America: if the solution is too costly, bury it with gag orders, legislation, and doubling down on selling points until the public eats it.
That's funny as there was an "Adam Ruins Everything" that detailed how shitty CC security was. It aired last year I think.
You guys don't have chipped/tap cards? I haven't had to sign a receipt in like 7 years.
Get this....
They have chip cards right.....a few at least, but here's the kicker. They're Chip and SIGNATURE. What the fuck America, really, chip and signature? What's the point?
Barely any of their pinpads are chip, let alone tap, so there's no point really, still unsecure as hell.
Not all chips require signature, and I find tap is more common than you may initially think.
I'm up in the frozen northlands and we have chip and tap, I'm just well aware of retail tech in various places due to my job
Jesus I live in a third world country and we don't even sign for credit cards anymore. PIN for direct transaction and verification code sent to our mobile number registered with the bank. Some banks even use fingerprint verification now if you have the right phone. WTF America.
Updating would take effort and resources and why would companies that have a solid grasp on everyone's in the country's balls expend any of that?
Remember you're talking about a country that allowed it's financial institutions to play Russian Roulette with peoples debts, debts that they generated by pushing a market people couldn't really afford to jump into and then acted surprised when they eventually fired the loaded chamber. Had to get saved because not doing so would cause a major collapse of the system and then used some of the money to congratulate themselves on a job well done.
"Hey, it works just fine for most of the US. Why 'fix' it?"
It's like having your standards low so you don't get let down as much.
"America is the best!"
Except for all those exceptions.
America is #1!*
*^in ^America ^^where ^^applicable ^^^some ^^^terms ^^^and ^^^conditions ^^^may ^^^apply ^^^^not ^^^^available ^^^^in ^^^^Peurto ^^^^Rico, ^^^^Guam, ^^^^or ^^^^anywhere ^^^^where ^^^^humans ^^^^have ^^^^decency ^^^^or ^^^^standards ^^^^of ^^^^decorum.
America is made of exceptional people. Except those sons-a-bitches, you know who they are.
I'd love to see the average Internet speed of other 1st world countries. I'd imagine the US is pretty low on that list.
Italy, here I pay nearly 30€/month for FTTC 100/20mbps and all the biggest providers are starting to offer 1000mbps at launch price of 20 or 30€ /month (increased to 30 / 40€ after 1 or 2 years).
No data caps and often calls included.
We have a lot of problems but for now internet is not one of them.
I don't have any hard data on the average. But i live in Windsor Ontario (Can see Detroit from my balcony). I pay $60 per month for 60 down/10 up with no download caps.
I found something.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/204952/average-internet-connection-speed-by-country/
http://www.speedtest.net/global-index#fixed
But both of those are based on active tests so someone with a shitty speed who doesn't care isn't included.
E: and I just did a speedtest on Fast.com which uses netflix servers. 25Mb/s down and 10 up. In a town with under 300 people in the swiss alps.
EE: just looked. The slowest internet you can currently buy is a 40up/8down without data caps for 60 CHF per month. You can use your own equipment or buy theirs for 299. No additional fees. Provided by swisscom.
1gbps for 13 euros here with wifi across the city as a bonus.
The loopholes.
America is the best*
Oh, is that what American exceptionalism means?
Except that guy, and the one with the funny ears, and oh -- those hippies over there, and...
When the game costs too much money to improve, apparently the US just shifts the goalposts.
Why excel when you can get rich being adequate?
McDonalds is the #1 restaurant. That's all that needs to be said on this topic. It explains the entirety of North American consumers' mindset. Sure, other countries have McDs too, but they are trying to emulate us and see what the Big Deal is. Some buy into the hype and some don't. The 'food' is disgusting. The ambience is like a circus tent. Service almost doesn't exist. And they are #1.
McDonald's are also fairly different in other countries. I visit them out of curiosity when I travel, and it's a different atmosphere just about everywhere. The same thing can be said of other chains, for example Carl's Jr's, which I visited in LA and also in Vancouver, Canada: the burger itself tasted like cardboard in LA, it was delicious in Vancouver. In LA they dispatched my order like an ATM dispatches a transaction; in Vancouver they brought the food to us in a much better decorated place, and a supervisor told us they thought the burger was too greasy for their own standards, and offered to make us another one.
Not saying it's that good on every fast food joint I visit in other countries, but go to McDonald's in Japan and tell me it looks like a circus tent.
I can't stand McDonalds, and any places like it. Smaller chains have a different atmosphere quality, and I find them more pleasant.
Even then, I don't eat out that often. Once a week or two.
"The Trump administration has delivered on their promise, now 99% of Americans have broadband access to the Internet, making us once again, one of the technological leaders in the free world."
You see, system consists of a multibillion dollar matrix of space age technology that is so sophisticated even they can't handle it. But that's your problem, isn't it? So, the next time you complain about your service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string? They don't care, they don't have to.
Meanwhile, AOL lurks in the shadows for their inevitable return to internet dominence.
Hijacking the thread to ask a question.
Do you guys think we will start seeing murders and shit for all this non-sense? I feel that the only way for this to really take a sharp turn is for "some people" to disappear. Whether it's higher ups in Telecoms, or A Shit Pie (Ajit Pai) to be removed forcibly. Who's going to move them, I dunno I'm just asking questions and such.
It would be a start. Their money talks too much for democracy to function anymore.
That's how I feel too. I wish anonymous would start making some huge targets and really start fucking with the ISPs. To me there already needs to be a revolution started. I want the people in office to be out. I don't care if they get hurt, I believe in karma... If you are an ass hat trying to ruin the country, well get fucked. Maybe you live maybe you die. Be an inherently good person and you most likely won't have any issues. I feel that the amount of intellectual humans in office is a very low number. It just seems like a bunch of sales men/women. They only have themselves at interest, and should be removed. I'm ok with a bunch of radicalists going hard on our government with all of America's support.
"Sir, we aren't considered number 1 in many areas of our country. We need to do something about it."
"what do you propose?"
"we could upgrade our infrastructure, force companies to increase internet speeds, put more resources into education, and lower our prison population by increasing mental health services and lowering penalties for non violent crimes"
"What if we instead of doing any of that just changed the definitions so that our crap fits the definition of not crap?"
"Sounds good sir, this is why you are the boss!"
VOTE PROGRESSIVE, VOTE BLUE, VOTE ALWAYS
Make Analog Great Again
Whats surprising --- America has always tried lowered the bar.
Education too tough -- lower the bar, No child left behind.
Americans too overweight -- change the BMI definition
I was raised on a 33.6 modem. Bring it!
Don't worry there's just another 2 years to buffer this next episode of The Office.
In 1999, I downloaded The Matrix on that connection. Took 3 weeks. Two days later it was release on dvd.
And hey! The Feds can give ISPs another 400 billion in tax money to re-upgrade their connections to "super broadband" or whatever.
I can't wait for 5G. It's supposed to be 1800x faster than current 4G...Oh wait. 10mbps.
Math is hard.
It’s worked for the education system, why not telecommunications as well?
The sad part is when they change the definition of something like this it does cause a spike in stats then it makes whoever is responsible look good. "there's now 4 million new broadband users overnight! We did good, go us!"
You're reaching internet speeds to rival the Philippines guys. Keep it up.
That's the argument that's used to defend obamacare.
Marsha Balckburn’s new bill classifies any except dialup as broadband
They said something about freedom, so it’s OK.
"Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to send the first of its 4,425 super-fast internet satellites into space in 2019"
...this couldn't come soon enough...
article for reference: www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/05/04/spacex-internet-satellites-elon-musk.html
Absolutely, drag everyone down so we are all "equal" worked so far, cost of living is way up while pay nation wide is far below inflation.
But then once that happens who knows, we might finally see a resurgence of ISP competitors as dial-up is under Title II...
We should punish the isps next election, socialist wins and then mandate a gigabit, and put every isp ceo in prison, just make it a crime to be a ceo of comcast, destroy thier leaders forever.
I'm so excited for when my 100 Mbit/s gets downgraded to 120 kBd/s for hitting data cap.
And it's a good thing government doesn't decide what the free market does.
[deleted]
This is 100% a fuck you to the American people.
The FCC has taken the position that they no longer want to do their job, which is fine. Progressive states will take up the slack and all will be good. Ca, Wa, NY and CO are already taking action. I'm all for net neutrality, but also I don't care who enforces it.
I'm pretty sure there were quite a number of articles back in November stating the FCC would be trying to limit states from imposing their own net neutrality rules as well.
It's actually part of the repeal that states can't enforce their own NN rules, something Comcast lobbied the FCC to add in, course the FCC has no jurisdiction over states anyway so any judge will laugh FCC legal action out of court.
God, I hope that this is actually true
The only catch to this I had seen was that most interaction online involves some level of interstate commerce which may be under their jurisdiction.
Yay, libertarians! Aren't you loving all the freedom you're getting from the repeal of these harmful laws?
But can't the ISP just ask the senate to pass some real laws to fuck with the states authority ? I mean, they obviously have to word it differently, something like "competition protection", but they could.
Given Trump's packing of the courts with far-right judges, I'm not at all confident about that last part.
All the shooters have been aiming at the wrong people.
10th amendment, bitches!
We'll see how successful that is. Marijuana is illegal according to the Feds, but the states are doing it anyway.
That's likely to fail.
You should. It should be enforced on the national level and a constitutional amendment should be ratified ensuring access to high speed internet to all. High speed defined as gigabit and higher
We need a 'limited' second bill of rights. Nothing as extensive as what originally was proposed but enough to protect us from this kind of stuff.
For those who don't know The second bill of rights was proposed by FDR. I wasn't proposing to do away with the current bill of rights, but rather add onto it.
.... Not even going to ask about what sounds like Libitarians bullshit. No thanks.
Yeah, let's just amend the Constitution to add in something that'll be outdated in maybe 10-20 years.
Other countries have already passed similar legislation such as the UK and Finland. And besides just because you can think of something snarky to say about something doesn't diminish my point and it doesn't mean that you have one
We're gonna need a lot more technologically literate senators for a constitutional amendment
True, or corporate lobbying and money out of politics. That's what's so funny about politics. There is never just one singular solution to an issue
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say we need a constitutional amendment. I mean those are typically reserved for things like "yeah we should probably not have slaves anymore" or "okay women you can vote now". A law would probably be better suited for this goal.
How about an amendment that says something along the lines of "no private or public entity shall restrict, slow, or otherwise impinge upon the ability to access public or privately-owned information"? Would pretty much cover most bases, I think.
[deleted]
Wow you are massively out of touch with how important a high speed internet connection is now in today's world and what it will be in the future it is not a pitily little issue.
For instance it's been shown that kids who live in rural areas which have slower internet speeds do worse in school than kids from metropolitan areas with access to high-speed internet.
Do you realize how large this country is? There's no feasible way to supply gigabit internet to every single American. It makes way more sense to allow the states to decide what they want to do as far as internet goes.
If only someone gave them, oh, say $400 billion to create the infrastructure. That would've been great. I'm sure we would've had great internet that way.
Nope. National or GTFO.
What the fuck? It's not fine at all! Aside from being an utterly defeatist attitude that encourages even more shit to be taken from you, and being totally apathetic to everyone stuck in states currently governed by telecom cronies, you're banking on the oligopoly administration not using preemption against you and totally undoing state laws that haven't even been made yet.
Let's go progressive states! I'm ready for the revolution in the future when America splits and I can live on the progressive side.
As a liberal living in an incredibly red state, fuck you. That's just the same "I got mine" attitude I see all around me every day.
I should leave WI....
The FCC is blocking states from doing their own thing, though.
I think you forgot there are 46 other states in the USA with millions of people
I hope New York invades Pennsylvania
About to move to PA, I am guessing by your comment that my new home is less than progressive? :(
It depends where. A nickname we have is Pennsyltucky I’m going to take a guess that you’re moving for work, in a major city. You should be fine in that case.
Is MN taking action? I thouht they were in March of last year not sure if they still are.
How so for NY? Downstate (Tri-state area) is a hot mess while Upstate is sometimes making a half-assed effort. Caveat though - local legislation is making it nigh impossible for any forward movement from the local fiber startup (Greenlight).
Except they’re also pursuing legislation to stop states from coming up with their own rules. If they get what they want, we will reach an impasse.
[deleted]
This hurts rural voters in red States most of all. Rural electrification was an important issue that tipped the rural states blue in the 40s and 50s... Wonder if the GOP cares about its electability at all at this point.
They got smarter. Instead of having better policies, they got better at not being blamed for it. Fox News has immunized them from fact and detached them from reality. They will vote for whatever they are told because they'll be told that liberals want the opposite.
Spot on. Everything is the Democrat's fault. Just look at all the "BUT CLINTON/OBAMA" that pops up whenever Trump's in the news.
Just look at all the "BUT CLINTON/OBAMA" that pops up whenever Trump's in the news.
And just look how quickly this brought out those very "BUT OBAMA!" comments.
The problem is that politics in the US have been turned in to a spectator sport with red politicians/people vs blue politicians/people, when it should be all people vs all politicians. News channels are in on it and politicians are in on it, weather we like it or not we’re living in a dystopian country where the people are only important for profits.
[deleted]
and what's horrible is Democrats think they are any different, yet they blame all problems on Republicans. it's a disgusting circle
[deleted]
Lol yeah
Everyone ITT blaming Obama and not Trump
Oh wait..
how is that a reason to vote for something..? do they view liberals as some kind of enemy?
do they view liberals as some kind of enemy?
Yes, they do. This is literally the crowning achievement of Fox News.
Not just some kind of enemy. Liberals are the ONLY real enemy to this type of person.
Fascists? They're Liberals. Communists? Also Liberals. Educated Elite? Oh you KNOW they're Liberals. Field Experts? Totally Liberals unless they're military or business. If they express liberal views, then they're just traitors or fools.
[removed]
Yep, pretty much.
If it ain't (R)ight it is wrong.
That is the message these idiots buy into. It isn't hard to get your votes when you have a large group of people willing to vote against their best interests especially when it is over a single issue that in no way impacts them at all.
I seriously think the solution is to split the country up. This country is geographically too large for us to ever bridge the societal divide. And it keeps getting worse and worse.
This. I don’t bother trying to convince my family that we need regulation to secure the internet. Or convince them of anything “liberal” because it goes against the fair and balanced source.
They have long ago abandoned good policy and have instead relied on ignorance and race baiting.
Everyone on Capitol Hill is detatched from reality. Both sides. Some haven't had to interact with the common masses directly for over 50 years. Congress might not be operating in a vacuum, but they are operating in a bubble. Completely isolated from everyone else, they think everything is fine.
Both sides are the same.
No.
Quit perpetuating this harmful lie.
Somebody missed the news today about Jeff Sessions and legalized marijuana...and all news for the past year it seems.
B O T H S I D E S
Why would the right want their base educated anyway? Less access to the internet = more ability to brainwash them with Fox News. It's a win-win for them.
Don't kid yourself. They're brainwashing them on social media as well.
And yeah, that includes Reddit.
But if no one has cable or internet how will they see Fox news?
Virtually everyone has cable, far from everyone has broadband internet. Do not confuse the two just because they're sold from the same company.
Hahahahaha you think red voters will actually notice? They'll blame the Democrats somehow for regulating companies too much. The GOP is well aware of how brainwashed and ignorant their voters are, so they might as well screw them for everything they're worth.
Doesnt seem like it. Trump and all these peeps seem to be almost secret democrats sent to destroy the republicans.
funny part is that rural areas favors the gov that are doing this to them.
They voted for this. May they reap what they've sowed.
They voted for this. May they reap what they've sowed.
This will upset liberals therefore red state voters will support this 100%. That's literally the American conservative raison d'etre now.
Do it piss off libruls? MURCA FUCK YA THAN!
We won't be a world leader much longer if we let the entire world pass us up.
Repubs have a long history of impeding progress. I get the idea some people have of not wanting everything to change, but you can't be a world leader and live in the past at the same time.
I wouldn't doubt the GOP is eliminated completely in the next couple of elections. They are just way too out of touch and eight years is plenty of time for millenials to have a devastating impact on the party system.
keep rural people ignorant and they'll be easier to control. They have disproportionately large voting power, and humans tend to act like smarmy fearful cretins when they are socially isolated.
fuck rural voters. we are in this mess completely because of these idiots
What are you talking about? Its only because the democrat party is pure unadulterated trash that people vote republican. Thats what upsets me as someone from the midwest who moved recently to cali. Cali liberals are often extremely intolerant, low information voters. Right wingers arent racist, they just pay more attention than liberals and have noticed that its always a faustian bargain to try to let big government do things, so they just want us to have as small as possible a government.
Tl;dr - republicans arent stupidly voting against their own interests, liberals are just bad at noticing big gov never acts in their interests.
[deleted]
I have about 7/10:ths of that and my government considers i have broadband.
Same here and it is advertised as broadband
Where do you live?
[removed]
Not legally if you're in the US. The federal government definition of broadband got changed a couple years ago
And they just bend over and take it
That's the Republican way... Fuck you, got mine!
Thanks, GOP.
Right? Who the fuck are they to tell us what's "good enough for American consumers"?
True, it's a fuck you to the American people.
Apart from being the victims, the American people had nothing much to do with the loss of net neutrality - FCC used fake comments to justify the repeal, real complaints to not repeal was snubbed, the investigation into fake comments was snubbed, the voting was biased and used a shamelessly low number of voters and the idiot who triggered the repeal was only out to reverse the previous administration's regulation (and whose election into office is also debatable as to whether the majority of the American people had anything to do with it).
Shut up! you're getting a tax cut!!/s!!!!!
I don't really understand this. Mostly because I don't understand how it works or how it addresses the fact that there is still a real percent of US citizens that do not have access to or cannot afford internet at all, much less meeting the existing standard.
Is the current FCC suggesting that lowering this broadband standard speed might let them focus on getting everyone SOME access to internet, get the infrastructure in place, before moving forward to higher speeds.
If this is the case then I can somewhat follow the logic. Otherwise what the literal fuck is going on? What does this low end limit mean to the FCC and how they act?
Also I do not understand why the ISPs (if it is whom we are suggesting are behind this maneuver) could benefit by lessening the urgency to get more people (customers) access to broadband, and then to get their customers access to more features/speeds/higher costs... What is the $ motivation for them to make this decision?
This is why the American people should not put what they hold dear in the hands of bureaucrats. Want to win? Organize mass cancellation day. If enough people cancelled for long enough we could really fuck shit up for big ISPs.
You take your meds today? This is never going to happen
Then everyone should STFU.
"My dad can make your dad his girlfriend "
[deleted]
This Pai character sure did screw you. The 400b paid for building infrastructure which didn't get built sure reminds me of the fucked up country on the Balkans. Amazing.
This makes Ajit's noshow at CES next week all the more telling
It's almost like the USA was built on a huge Native American burial ground.
Someone needs to give Ajit Pai a 100% Fuck you. Its infuriating that one man is willing to fuck over the entire country for his own petty, personal gain. And I mean petty. Whatever theyre paying him is probably scraps compared to the money ISPs are going to be making.
WELCOME TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Like that's anything new. Just add it to the long list of fuck us.
All in together, the weather is better than ever I hope it never ends, I hope it lasts forever But when it does, we can all pretend that it's Better than it's ever been Lie to ourselves Like the skies, we'll rebel And it's well, and it's fine And it's fine if they fall And you can refine the storyline if you survive to retell We all targets Hello darkness
The US citizens seem far to willing to be taken advantage of. As an outsider, it seems like a nonstop tide of drama: losing your net neutrality, obvious ISP corruption, and so much more.
You guys need to start rioting now
We keep using the internet against them so...I guess I kinda can't say I didn't expect it with the current way we run the country.
telecom corporations don't give a shit about the american people, and don't see them as anything other than gormless cash cows to be fed, fattened, taxed, then slaughtered
Everything about this administration is a fuck you to the American people.
I would say with them not wanting to regulate this shit then they've given up the right to make such decisions.
"I'm altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."
It would be even funnier if it didn't feel so accurate....
Let's hope they don't choke on their aspirations.
Thank you for this. I just watched about an hour of those videos :D
The hilarious thing is I'm currently living in a place where the best internet provided leaves me with 200-300KB/s download, and about the same upload.
I have no idea of this "deemed good enough for American consumers" at all, what the hell does it even mean? I've been living with 10x slower speed than this new proposed shit internet, and they aren't giving two shits about me already.
edit: I read article title incorrectly, welcome to the shit zone of internet everyone. Hop right in, the water is absolute shit and I want out of this american internet nightmare.
You misunderstood the unit. 1 mbps is actually only 125 KB/s. You are actually over double the speed of this proposal.
Just google "1 Mbps to KB/s"
I actually read the bill incorrectly not the conversion, I was off by a factor of 10 because I thought it was saying 10 down 1 up was acceptable... not that 1 mbps DOWN is acceptable
ITS FUCKING NOT I CAN TELL YOU NOW
See? That’s the trick to show how your policies increase broadband users, just decrease the threshold for what broadband is.
The same trick works for lowering the number of people who are in poverty. Lower what is considered to be in poverty.
300 kB/s = 2400 kb/s = 2.4 mbps.
Or divide by 8. One byte (B) is 8 bits (b). 1 Mbps (one megabit per second, i.e. one million bits per second) is just 125 kBps (125 kilobytes per second, i.e. 125 thousand bytes per second). To put it easier, 1,000,000/8 = 125,000.
ISPs: Fuck it.
ISPs: We'll just drop them down to 10 kbps for $70 a month and call it high speed internet. For another $30, they'll get boosted to 20 kbps and we'll call it ultra high speed internet. Anything after that will cost a dollar per kbps.
"We have passed the initiative Emperor Pai."
"Execute order 66."
The FCC won't let me be!
Pretty much. He's choking us with his mind, people!
Pretty much. He's choking us with his mind, people!
The Altering of the Deal^TM
This pisses me off more because it reminds me about how much David Prowse and Jason Wingreen were fucked in this movie.
[deleted]
I think you posted twice by mistake. Best to delete this one. :)
Yeah, looks like. I was using the official reddit app, fuck me right?
It looks to me like this FCC is doing everything in it's power to not have to do anything.
"Let's just not regulate net neutrality and lower broadband standards so it looks like we expanded broadband with fewer regulations." - A shit pie
How the fuck does any of this actually serve the american people? This makes me sick.
It's standard for this administration. Put someone in charge of an agency who hates that agency and wants to abolish it, thereby getting rid of its regulatory authority and giving power to the corporations the agency was created to oversee. Then watch as they don't fill key positions and take a chainsaw to agency rules and regulations. It's why they put a fossil fuel shill in charge of the EPA and an idiot for-profit school shill in charge of the Department of Education, among other things.
And a pharmaceutical lobbyist in charge of HHS.
What still baffles me is that Ben Carson, a literal surgeon, is the secretary of housing. Nothing actually medical, he's in charge of housing.
That’s because the department is called Housing and Urban Development.
Obviously a black man is a suitable for anything urban.
Trump saw the black guy and thought to himself, "black people are the only people who use section 8 so let's have the black guy run it!"
It's standard for this administration. Put someone in charge of an agency who hates that agency and wants to abolish it, thereby getting rid of its regulatory authority and giving power to the corporations the agency was created to oversee. Then watch as they don't fill key positions and take a chainsaw to agency rules and regulations. It's why they put a fossil fuel shill in charge of the EPA and an idiot for-profit school shill in charge of the Department of Education, among other things.
This deserves so many more upvotes.
You know, you don't have to quote him in your reply if you're just replying to the whole comment.
And a presidential candidate who promised to abolish the Department of Energy in charge of the Department of Energy.
That "oops" moment was probably in the top five gaffes of that whole election cycle. Now him leading that same department probably doesn't even crack the top 100.
To be fair, that's the one he forgot he wanted to abolish. So he has that going for him.
For what it's worth he now says he realizes just how important it is.
Fuck, they're actually going the Ron Swanson route...
No, it's more insidious than that.
Ron Swanson wanted to "mismanage" the department to show how inept/unnecessary the department itself is, in a self-sabotage style.
These people are directly dismantling the office and intentionally breaking the law by not doing what the department is supposed to do.
This is the difference between malicious compliance and malicious negligence. Ron Swanson wanted to do the job he was supposed to do, that is to say to actually follow the law just with a malicious application, albeit as wastefully and incompetently as possible. The people being put in charge of these REAL WORLD departments are actively violating the law by dismantling the department and refusing to fulfill its legally mandated requirements in any way.
Ron Swanson didn't break the law. They are.
Ron Swanson was also motivated by an ideology not profit. There's a difference between wanting to make the government small but functional/neutral and wanting to manipulate the government to help you personally make money.
Trump and his friends are not libertarians they are neo feudalist oligarchs.
These motherfuckers need to be voted out of office as soon as possible.
Everything they do is anti-human. I don't know of a better way to put it.
Look on the bright side, they didn't build gas chambers.
Moreover, this is how Putin got rich. He got kickbacks/bribes from companies who took over state functions. He sold the government to corporations and took his cut. There are so many parallels to this administration.
Step 1 - Cripple every government agency Step 2 - When things go poorly point to government inefficiency Step 3 - Get elected to shrink government and clean things up Step 4 - Profit$$$$
And then.... after all that you said above is done they(Republicans) can go on national T.V. in front of the Americans who they have just duped, and say something along the lines of "See! more government doesn't do anything!" than racist Chuck and his band of Muslim fearing inbred cretins will vote another Republican into office based on this and the cycle continues.
[deleted]
[removed]
Then their voters & party will point at it and say: "it isn't working, so why should we keep it? The obvious answer is to get rid of or weaken it instead of letting it screw us over." It's nice knowing these guys will always have a base as a product of screwing everyone over.
But he's draining the swamp tho
It's fucking astounding to me that people think the standard Republican strategy you're describing is new. This administration is a difference in degree, not in kind.
I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
--Grover Norquist, May 25, 2001
No Trump didn’t put Pai in charge. Pai was confirmed under the Obama admin. He’s just doing unspeakably bad shit during this administration.
What? Yes trump did "put pai in charge" and he was only confirmed by obama because it's mandatory to have a 2-3 split for that agency. He put in mitchs suggestion for the republican candidates(shame on him for playing fair).
Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai
^HelperBot ^v1.1 ^/r/HelperBot_ ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Please ^message ^/u/swim1929 ^with ^any ^feedback ^and/or ^hate. ^Counter: ^134601
Summarizing: Obama made him part of the commission in 2012, at the recommendation of McConnell. Then in January of 2017, Trump designated Pai as the Chairman, and in March Trump renominated him to serve another five-year remain as Chairman.
Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai
^HelperBot ^v1.1 ^/r/HelperBot_ ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Please ^message ^/u/swim1929 ^with ^any ^feedback ^and/or ^hate. ^Counter: ^134602
Ajit Pai
Ajit Varadaraj Pai (; born January 10, 1973) is an American attorney who serves as the Chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He is the first Indian American to hold the office. He has served in various positions at the FCC since being appointed to the commission by President Barack Obama in May 2012, at the recommendation of Mitch McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 7, 2012, and was sworn in on May 14, 2012, for a five-year term.
^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^| ^Donate ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28
His term was up. He was reappointed as chairman by Trump.
Not accurate, Obama put him in as a commissioner, Trump made him the chairman.
They're actively trying to undermine their own organization in order to cede power, thereby deregulating industry and ultimately weaken the federal government. This is not a conspiracy they're being quite open and candid about it. Honestly in some ways it's the most idealogically conservative thing this administration is doing. At least it has some basis in furthering traditional republican goals, unlike the tax bill or most of what Trump has done.
They've managed to convince so many people that "government" is regulation and concentrated power and the private sector is not. It's such a bold face lie. The very existence of companies, the regulation that defines their legal existence, the precise rights transferred from the state to private hands by deeds and all the legislation defining property, the things that ownership can be revoked (like pollution), etc. comprise a massive amount of law and regulation. All these entities and ownership claims are granted by the state. It just "doesn't count" when it benefits the rich. It's like how Nazi Germany wouldn't seem totalitarian to a white German nationalist because it would work in their favor or wouldn't affect them. That transfer of power away from a marginally democratic state to individuals on a relatively equal basis (like personal property and a house you yourself use) makes things better, but transferring that power to large corporations does nothing to decentralize power and give people more autonomy. All it does is to completely remove any trace of democratic control and places the same power the state would have into the hands of a select few.
Well, there's also different layers of "government". It's completely possible for something to make total sense to be "government run" at the local level, but make no sense at the federal level (ex: municipal broadband). Or something that sucks at the state level makes a lot of sense at the federal level (ex: a standing military). It makes no sense to say we need a smaller "government", when there are many different layers of governing bodies.
Absolutely, I was speaking just in terms of the public/private dichotomy, which is itself false. The current system of resource allocation is just one of many possibilities. We aren't an agrarian society anymore where 99% does similar things (farming). We could split up the functionality of the state into mostly independent democracies with the top layer just serving to sort out jurisdictional issues. For instance, we could have a democratic institution that just handles technological issues, parallelizing democratic control of government not just by geographic region but also by field. It's unreasonable to expect politicians to be well versed in many fields like Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin at our current scientific and technological level. We could also also convert businesses from feudal style organizations into multi-tier democracies with bosses being replaced by people representing the people below and merely facilitating organization and communication as opposed to carrying out the orders of those above. The lie that the only alternative to capitalism is centralized authority needs to be shattered.
They said they're removing regulations. A synonym to regulations is standards. They're lowering the standards for what companies can give to the American people. This is true across the board in the executive branch right now. Trump has even said, "For every regulation (standard) we pass, we're removing two regulations (standards)." This is the case for what you drink, what you eat, what you purchase from your ISP. They're opening you up for lower consumer rights and expectations.
And this isn't to create jobs. Raising the bar for the infrastructure would create jobs. If Trump wanted to create jobs, he would do what previous Presidents did, which is build infrastructure, build networks across the country, not lower the minimum standard for them.
[deleted]
He also said he wanted to build a wall along the southern border.
We all see how well he's delivered.
Other companies have to fight to get fibre their own fibre lines in. These companies cannot be allowed to monopolise and prevent competition.
They're actively trying to undermine their own organization in order to cede power, thereby deregulating industry and ultimately weaken the federal government.
Which is fine. If you're a strong free-market proponent, then you want less government regulation, because it slows down progress (not always a bad thing, but I digress...)
The PROBLEM is that the ISP industry in the US does not have nearly enough competition to resemble anything remotely close to a free market. That right there is why you're seeing them try to redefine the classification of "broadband", so that they can fit in things like satellite, low-speed DSL, and worst of all cellular ISPs, to pad the "competition" in the market.
Most Republicans don't actually care about free market competition; that's libertarians. Republicans simply want to get rid of government regulation so that they can institute crony capitalism.
[deleted]
It's doing everything in it's power to work for the telecoms and make it so that they can claim to have "superfast broadband internet" while also pocketing any money from the Government subsidies that they were supposed to spend in infrastructure in order to bring broadband internet to every corner of the US.
It's bullshit, it's essentially "Hey, government, give us billions of dollars and we'll make sure every American has access to broadband"
"Ok sure"'
"Oh btw, broadband is now defined as "breathable air". Thanks for the money, mission accomplished!"
It's such bullshit. When the regulators are bought by the ones who must be regulated, you're fucked.
Why doesn't the government do anything about this though?!?! It literally blows my mind!
Because they're paid off enough money to look the other way.
So how do we get all this corruption and buying people off out of the government???
Religious fundamentalists keep voting for Republicans aka corporate whores.
I would argue that religious fundamentalists would have as little to do as possible with whores and likely don't spend much time on the Internet for that matter. If they are voting along party lines instead of for a person, well at least they are voting.
The first civil war was about slavery. What’s your pick for the next conflict?
It's a war on our ability to access information readily. The scariest thing in the world to our spineless oligarch overlords is an educated and well informed populace. That's why they're attempting to destroy our education system as well.
It is effectively the republican stance. They don't think the federal government should do anything except wage war (whether that is with other countries, or with its citizens). So anything that doesn't contribute to that end goal needs to be eliminated to save people money.
They are wrong about this being the only goal of the federal government. And they are nuts for thinking it, but it is what they think.
It is effectively the republican stance. They don't think the federal government should do anything except wage war (whether that is with other countries, or with its citizens). So anything that doesn't contribute to that end goal needs to be eliminated to save people money.
They are wrong about this being the only goal of the federal government. And they are nuts for thinking it, but it is what they think.
You act like those people are trying to serve the American people.
There's an easy way to stop the government from ignoring the American people: stop electing Republicans.
It puts money in the pockets of ajit pai and his friends. That's the only reason they need.
I reduced the number of the number of americans on welfare to its lowest point ever!
How did you do that?
I abolished welfare!
How the fuck does any of this actually serve the american people? This makes me sick.
These large ISPs will make more money which will trickle down to the average joe.
[removed]
We need to take back the Internet ala Fort Collins, CO!
[deleted]
It’s not the job of the government to serve the people. The job of government is to protect the rights of people. If you have issues with broadband, take that up with ISPs.
Ironically, many local governments actually hurt consumers by helping to create monopolies.
There are many massive internet companies that rely on people having service whether it’s Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, or Netflix. Certainly these companies could work together to bring real high speed broadband to the masses that would also support their interests.
How the fuck does any of this actually serve the american people? This makes me sick.
Their job is not to do stuff for you. If you want something, get it yourself. Don't beg for stuff from the government, like we're in Communist Russia.
And then they'll tell us that 2018 saw broadband expand by astronomical numbers, therefore net neutrality really DID stifle competition and innovation.
God I hate our government.
It's not "government" it's Republicans. Government is a tool which can be used for good or ill, and Republicans then hit you in the head with it.
I would believe you, but even your user name exposes you as a liar. What does the REAL Billy Shatner thing?
He thinks that green lady is a choice piece of ass.
Well he's not wrong...
He thinks the earth is flat.
Now hold on. Just because he's not William Shatner doesn't mean he isn't some other celebrity with policy opinions. I think we should hear him out.
He thing a lot, mang.
He's Canadian, so maybe he'll just move back
He thinks Umi in Love Live is best girl, so I want to say his opinion is trash. At least he doesn't like Nico... but then again he hates Maki, so it's back to being trash again.
[deleted]
Not sure u/williamshatner spends much time on r/technology.
We also need to realize the reason as to why the Republicans are in power right now. Our government (even though Democrats are fighting for us on this issue) as a whole has failed the common American citizen again and again. Voter redistricting, lobbies (bribery), campaign finance, etc., you name it and our politicians continue to use their power to continually take advantage of their constituents for their own gain and we have absolutely no way as common Americans to change it. Voting of course needs to happen, but some of the moves made by both parties to retain power and push agendas that do not agree with their constituents are beyond the control of the American public.
This needs to lead to something more than just protecting our freedom of speech and access to the internet without the censorship of large corporations. This needs to lead to real change within our government and how we exchange our confidence and power to our representatives. This nation is too great to have it destroyed by the hands of greedy businessmen with politicians hanging from their teats who think that the general public is too stupid and weak to fight back. At some point the burden becomes too great to bear. Hopefully, outrage is enough to not only protect and save the Internet, but open the eyes to everyone that our government is no longer working for the American public.
[deleted]
That's misleading false equivalence akin to saying "yeah, toxic waste can hurt people, but so does water, it's just pipes that are the problem."
Democrats suck in plenty of things, but when it comes to the treatment of internet policy, things are very, very lopsided. "Boo, politicians suck" may be something we can all sympathize with, but it's a lot less actionable than "stop electing the party that's continually and unrepentantly acting against your interests."
Bullshit. The only politicians that voted to keep Net Neutrality were Democrats. This was squarely the work of Republicans. Fuck you for trying to distort the truth, you're only helping to further ruin this country.
[deleted]
It's not just Republicans my dude. They all take lobby money and they all come out richer than when they went in. They're pretty much all fucking crooks.
Nope, this was actually all on the Republicans. Educate yourself. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/12/14/fcc-votes-party-lines-undo-obama-era-net-neutrality-rules
[removed]
Notice how you never saw comments like this about Democrats or Obama when they strengthened the NSA and Patriot Act
Then it was just "the government" again
You probably didn't notice people like me being pissed off about the Patriot Act and NSA powers. Like all the time.
I criticized Obama constantly. It's just that he's 100% better as a leader and a human being than Trump.
It's the difference between the edge of the cliff and two feet in the air.
Yea blame the conservatives. In reality both sides are so polarized and extreme, you can't expect anything good to come from either tribe.
Both sides are not extreme. The Democrats are to the right of Nixon on everything but a few social issues. They don't even fight hard on the gun issue, most have given it up.
And "extreme" socialist, FDR, started public works projects, promoted unions, college educations for returning vets. I don't even think that's extreme - but that's far to the left of where we are now; record business profits while teachers are on food stamps buying school supplies.
Go screw your "both sides" crap. Democrats have done the wrong thing a few times; but it was a partisan vote on Net Neutrality and numerous other issues where Republicans voted for evil.
FDR also locked up 100,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.
FDR wasn't a socialist, he just had a few progressive policies he put in place which were later rolled back. Of course that was the plan to begin with, because you can't fix capitalism, but he put a little patch on it so he could prevent full on revolution and keep the system intact so that later the changes he made could be removed slowly and discreetly so we could be back to where we started again. His policies were a temporary measure against an inherently broken system and if he hadn't done what he did we might have seen some actual radical change. Not that good a president as far as I can tell. He was also warned about Pearl Harbor in advance but wanted an excuse to join the war.
But it is government, the republicans are using it as a way to push their shitty agenda, as are able to do so because the government has too much power.
The government is the only entity that can guarantee net neutrality.
When you say "too much power" -- you have to realize with GOOD government, the people are more in control.
Representational government is the only place where THE PEOPLE can have some control over people with wealth and power -- without resorting to riots. What power the government has, the corporations have.
Republicans have time and again passed the most invasive SOCIAL laws. Both parties are guilty of cozying up to industry. But I'm looking at a cabinet of Goldman Sachs and other crooks with the Trump administration.
So it's not the amount of power -- it's what that power does and for whom it does it.
[deleted]
You can pick and choose a few things like "got money from X" -- we'll be here all day. But you can look at the Net Neutrality vote and that was a down the line partisan vote.
Clinton is a Neo-Liberal and not someone I'm excited about -- but she wouldn't be torpedoing all our foreign relations right now and making Europeans look for better trade partners in Asia.
eat a dick man this ain't just republicans
Not "just republicans" but they own the lions share of evil and stupid legislation. Those of us who keep track can see a difference.
Um it was the shit eating republicans that passed the Net Neutrality vote, but sure.
Trump Logic
Lower the bar, and claim success.
It's just the GOP.
Vote them the fuck out and don't let them take office again. If they want to rule over the ruins of a red state, then whatever, but their decisions and their base shouldn't have the right to fuck over the rest of the sane country.
Especially when most red states and rural areas are more of a drain of our resources. I mean look at how mismanaged rural areas are and then i wonder why their votes count for so many compared city folk when most capital comes from the cities. System is broken, and it seems to me that whatever advatage the u.s. had on the rest of the world is quickly going away.
Didn't even think about that, but you are probably 100% correct. How do you set up a reminder for one year?
RemindMe! 1 year
[removed]
It's not "government" it's Republicans. Government is a tool which can be used for good or ill, and Republicans then hit you in the head with it.
I can already see Trump tweeting that.
Fuck that orange monkey.
RemindMe! 1 year
[removed]
[deleted]
Except his delusional base will use stats like that to "prove" how the Trump administration is "MAGA".
Then, they will start selling the "10 Mbps fast lanes".
And people will pay for them.
Not out of gullibility or anything, some people legitimately need the internet for their careers.
Will someone think of the chaturbate girls.
I can't stop thinking about them
Are there also Chaturbate boys? That’s the only way we can get Republican Lawmakers onboard, we need to cut into their subtle access to gay pornography. Kek
[removed]
Absolutely, I don’t disagree at all.
What I find hard to swallow is people will be outraged, but be backed into a corner and forced to pay for what they had before, which gives the businesses more leverage to carry on gouging the customer.
I personally don’t think „Vote in the other colour next time” will work either because in that time it will be seen as the norm and no politician would stake their job to change it. It’s a downward spiral and extremely frightening.
It wont be the norm anytime soon and people are already outrage.
Many politician are already putting at stake their job to change it.
I personally don’t think „Vote in the other colour next time” will work either because in that time it will be seen as the norm and no politician would stake their job to change it.
No one would be staking their job to change it. "Better internet for everyone" is not going to be met by "that's stupid, I'm not voting for you."
Never mind that Democrats almost unanimously support net neutrality.
I personally don’t think „Vote in the other colour next time” will work either because in that time it will be seen as the norm and no politician would stake their job to change it. It’s a downward spiral and extremely frightening.
I'm extremely frightened that is how this is going to end up too.
perhaps get better politicians?
Okay well if the far right (republicans) and center right (democrats) don't satisfy your interests, look to a political ideology that serves to ensure that every person is afforded the same amount of political power through the abolition of the hirerarchial power structures that allow it to exist in the first place. Check out r/socialism101 because it's the only ideology that ensures the workers control the means of production and that the people have the power to change their political system.
I'm a web developer so my job is literally building parts of the internet (software at least). I'm so angry that this asshole is doing everything he can to fuck us over as hard as possible.
I hope Ajit Pai survives a terrible car crash, and then dies in a minor fender bender on the way home from the hospital.
Most of us do. How’s the republican “we support small businesses” party gonna explain when a small company’s internet bill skyrockets by the big cable corporations
I’d go a step further and say that internet access is a requirement to be a part of a functioning society today.
At this point I would look for a job in a foreign country with decent internet.
I work from home 100% of the time. I'd have to move to protest internet shenanigans.
My sister writes for a film website. I wonder how she and those kinds of people/editors will be effected.
not even fast enough. why is this country so evil
Will people really have any choice though?
I had 10mbps at the place I was living at and we moved about two months ago, to an apartment complex about 5 minutes away. We don't have 10 Mbps here, the best we have access to here is 5 Mbps and I ran some speed tests once I got everything settled in and we are only getting about 3.2 Mbps. The fucked up part is that we have a decent sized town, I would expect about 50-100 Mbps to be the higher end around here but it just "doesn't exist". I'm paying the same for my internet speed that my dad, 20 minutes away in a town with a population of less than 800, is paying for, and he's getting 70+ Mbps. How does the bigger town get shafted with piss poor speeds like this, and why does it cost so much for the terrible speeds when the smaller town has much better speed for the same price??
I know this has nothing to do with NN but I saw you say "10 Mbps fast lane" and I thought yeah I would like to go back to 10 Mbps.
The why is actually really simple. Infrastructure is a) expensive, b) slow-moving in terms of installation, and c) quickly evolving.
So let's start with the beginning of the internet. No one has internet. Where do you first go? The largest, most cost-effective market, obviously. And that's usually a larger city. So City A is getting Infrastructure 1.0.
Well, it takes months or years to put in, and while that's happened, Infra 2.0 has come out. City B gets Infra 2.0. Then Infra 3.0 comes out while that's happening. City C gets that.
So now let's say you have internet in all large cities, but City A has crap infrastructure. Now you can put in Infra 4.0 in a new market (where costs to do so are low because the city is small), or pay a buttload of money to improve quality for a large market.
The big city is mostly cost with little return. People are already on your service, and since there's little-to-no competition, they're not going anywhere else. But the small town would be all new subscribers, and the cost of putting in infrastructure is much less because there probably isn't a lot of cement/underground/whatever in the way. So you don't need to dig up a shit-tonne of crap and get a billion permits.
And that's why Podunk usually has great internet while Big City suffers.
it more has to do with the providers not spending the money they have / were given to update infrastructure, instead keeping it for profit. then they will slowly roll out upgrades over decades instead of right now, so that they can charge for tiers. its kind of like how Apple slowly trickled out features over a decade that already existed on Android but people ate it up like they created the features
Except you forgot about competition. (Even 1 or 2 legitimate competitors in Big City will probably install infra 4.0 if they get in later)
I wasn't forgetting anything. I just simplified it is all. But yes. Competition will often drive company 1 to upgrade their infrastructure if they're losing enough customers.
Ultimately, competition will win out in lowering speeds and increasing service. The US is just huge without a population to match. Even our largest, densest cities seem rural or suburban when compared to the metropolitan cities of the rest of the world.
So competition will drive down prices, but it'll take a while to reach equilibrium. At least, before NN was repealed. Who knows now.
For the speeds people are talking about it seems as though the infrastructure capability has been there for a long time though. Dallas got fiber optic broadband back in the 1990s, with speeds like 50-100 down/up. 10 down/1 up has been the shittiest of service here for easily over a decade, usually something you'd get stuck with in a shitty apartment.
It depends on area. I live in the Bay Area, and we don't have fiber in most places. Because it's crazy expensive to dig up the peninsula. And Dallas probably didn't really get their new installed until fiber was the norm. Which is what I was talking about.
Because the original cable internet just used the same lines they used for cable TV. So it was easy to roll that out everywhere.
Here's the thing, most cable and lines are fine. They don't actually have to lay infrastructure again. They only have to modify the large boxes they have setup everywhere. It's actually not that hard nor expensive to upgrade the DSL signals and cable speeds. It's just a matter of installing more and updating what exists.
There's not HUGE cost or difficult expense.
They just don't do it because they don't have to.
That might be true in some areas, but actually, a lot of infrastructure needs to be changed. I live in the Bay Area (on the peninsula) and very few areas in my city use fiber. Fiber coverage is actually pretty rare overall here.
That's infrastructure that needs to be dug up and replaced/installed.
Granted, there's cable in most places, and in some places, it's exactly like what you say. I guess it depends on what kind of quality of service you're expecting. To use my metaphor, I think most places are on Infra 3.0 by now.
The fucked up part is that we have a decent sized town, I would expect about 50-100 Mbps to be the higher end around here but it just "doesn't exist".
This happened to me a few years ago. I went from having 50Mbps in a small town with a population under 10K and I moved to a city with a population of almost 200K and the highest speed offered in my area is 12Mbps. Speed tests are usually under 5 too... I can barely stream Netflix now haha.
[removed]
Major college town in a red state. I pay $70 for 100mbps. Girlfriends dad lives on the edge of town. Getting fiber internet for $50 or $70 for their top 1Gbps package. I'm literally 2 blocks from the service area but serviced by a different electric provider. Gonna be like 4 years according to the company before none subscribers would be able to sign up unless something huge changes.
I was paying $70 a month for 10 Mbps. But yeah that's crazy that you're right there and still can't have access to it.
I spoke with them and they said they tried to work out a deal with the other electric company but they were basically holding the poles for randsom.
That's crazy shit. Top tier in my small town of 5000 or so is 125 Mbps down 15 up. I'm on a smallish provider (Metrocast) that serves a few surrounding towns. $70 a month. I routinely see advertised or better speeds during anything but peak times.
We don't even have a police department in the town.
The why is actually really simple. Infrastructure is a) expensive, b) slow-moving in terms of installation, and c) quickly evolving.
So let's start with the beginning of the internet. No one has internet. Where do you first go? The largest, most cost-effective market, obviously. And that's usually a larger city. So City A is getting Infrastructure 1.0.
Well, it takes months or years to put in, and while that's happened, Infra 2.0 has come out. City B gets Infra 2.0. Then Infra 3.0 comes out while that's happening. City C gets that.
So now let's say you have internet in all large cities, but City A has crap infrastructure. Now you can put in Infra 4.0 in a new market (where costs to do so are low because the city is small), or pay a buttload of money to improve quality for a large market.
The big city is mostly cost with little return. People are already on your service, and since there's little-to-no competition, they're not going anywhere else. But the small town would be all new subscribers, and the cost of putting in infrastructure is much less because there probably isn't a lot of cement/underground/whatever in the way. So you don't need to dig up a shit-tonne of crap and get a billion permits.
And that's why Podunk usually has great internet while Big City suffers.
That's a really good explanation. But just to add: the residential areas have been upsized in the big city too, so even more load is being carried by the old infrastructure.
Seriously where are these places getting only 5Mbps? Toronto suburbs here and I get 100Mbps at least no problem. I am shocked at how slow these rural areas are
Searcy, Ar here.
I am happy that, atleast for now, I don't have to worry about paying a lot for fast internet speed. I currently pay less than 190 dollars(converted from my currency) for 6 months of 150mbps and 500 GB limit every month.
The why is actually really simple. Infrastructure is a) expensive, b) slow-moving in terms of installation, and c) quickly evolving.
So let's start with the beginning of the internet. No one has internet. Where do you first go? The largest, most cost-effective market, obviously. And that's usually a larger city. So City A is getting Infrastructure 1.0.
Well, it takes months or years to put in, and while that's happened, Infra 2.0 has come out. City B gets Infra 2.0. Then Infra 3.0 comes out while that's happening. City C gets that.
So now let's say you have internet in all large cities, but City A has crap infrastructure. Now you can put in Infra 4.0 in a new market (where costs to do so are low because the city is small), or pay a buttload of money to improve quality for a large market.
The big city is mostly cost with little return. People are already on your service, and since there's little-to-no competition, they're not going anywhere else. But the small town would be all new subscribers, and the cost of putting in infrastructure is much less because there probably isn't a lot of cement/underground/whatever in the way. So you don't need to dig up a shit-tonne of crap and get a billion permits.
And that's why Podunk usually has great internet while Big City suffers.
The why is actually really simple. Infrastructure is a) expensive, b) slow-moving in terms of installation, and c) quickly evolving.
So let's start with the beginning of the internet. No one has internet. Where do you first go? The largest, most cost-effective market, obviously. And that's usually a larger city. So City A is getting Infrastructure 1.0.
Well, it takes months or years to put in, and while that's happened, Infra 2.0 has come out. City B gets Infra 2.0. Then Infra 3.0 comes out while that's happening. City C gets that.
So now let's say you have internet in all large cities, but City A has crap infrastructure. Now you can put in Infra 4.0 in a new market (where costs to do so are low because the city is small), or pay a buttload of money to improve quality for a large market.
The big city is mostly cost with little return. People are already on your service, and since there's little-to-no competition, they're not going anywhere else. But the small town would be all new subscribers, and the cost of putting in infrastructure is much less because there probably isn't a lot of cement/underground/whatever in the way. So you don't need to dig up a shit-tonne of crap and get a billion permits.
And that's why Podunk usually has great internet while Big City suffers.
Yup, seems like a ploy to setup more speed tiers.
They already do. With Comcast you can pay for "performance" upgrades of about 15megabits.
You guys are getting fucking shafted by your ISPs, I'm in the UK and get 30+. I have no idea how much my dad is paying for it but considering he won't pay more than 10 for a phone I doubt it is very much
"For only 3x the price of our basic tier, you get 10x the speed! WHAT A VALUE!"
Cell companies are doing this and have been before the NN drama. You can chose various data packages and there’s tiered service for streaming video at HD quality vs DVD.
Do you live in an area where you don't have to pay more for faster internet? In Canada with Shaw there are 3 options for speed and if you want the fastest, you have to fork over more for it. It's how internet has been sold since I can remember.
More than that. Cox was charging me $100 a month for only internet, then they incorporated a cap and hit me with $170 in overages the first month or I could pay $50 extra for unlimited internet. So now my bills $150 a month. Expect low data caps to hit before those packages hit.
You mean "up to 10 Mbps".
So, will mailing USB drives become, once again, higher bandwidth than typical American internet?
Mailing 100 TB of data overnight from west coast US to east coast still is faster
That would end up being ~18.96Gbps (assuming no overhead) for anyone wondering.
/r/theyimpledthattheydidthemath
I tried, twice, got wild numbers (70Gbps and like 800Gbps - I don't have any idea how that happened), then I googled it.
Sorry, have to show work for full credit
Inferred, not implied (implied would mean they explicitely stated that they did the math).
So at 1Gbps you could transfer 5.274TB of data.
Does that include upload time from the physical medium?
No, that is assuming you have 100 one terabyte harddrives (or any other medium, really) and shipped it across the US overnight priority (for morning delivery), allowing for approximately 12 hours between drop-off and delivery.
[deleted]
But is it cheaper?
USPS has an unlimited data cap so yeah
The ping and the packet loss may be unacceptable though.
Until it gets shut down.
Given that the highest commercial HDD is 12 TB that would require ~8 drives which would come out to roughly 20 lbs (drives and packaging).
To get it from NY to LA, shipping morning and by the next day morning it is $120. 2-Day is $60. IF they accept this weight into the Flat Rate box then it is 20 for 2-day.
If you get an industrial contract you can likely cut it down quite a bit and this is for some insanely fast "internet".
Edit: Once we get 20TB drives to be common commercially then we could really hitting a point we can ship data cheaper than "good" internet speeds.
For 100 TB, it would make more sense to have someone fly it over on a carry on padded briefcase and get it there in 12 hours, just for the sake of knowing it wasnt rattled during shipment.
That would be a shitty way to keep up on cat Gifs.
If it's not already, give it time.
The latency SUCKS though.
8TB is the standard consumer tier drive today ($150 or so on a decent deal), so let's say that's what is being mailed. Let's assume overnight implies 12 hours from pick up to drop off.
8TB per 12 hours = 1.48 Gbps
So yes, mailing a single 8TB drive overnight is substantially faster than most internet connections. Cheaper? Probably not.
I wonder:
The comparison isn't really apt. You would need to account for copy time of said data to the device, mail time, and copy information off said device. Presuming USB 3.0 - I wonder what the break even point is. Calling r/theydidthemath
Hm... I wonder if you could set up a service for that. Buy a bunch of USB drives in bulk, then set up a snail-E-Mail service where people rent thumb drives from you.
With the way the internet is looking, there may be a market for that soon.
These statements often fail to take into account the time it would take to prepare the physical medium and transfer the data to it.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
Actually, most companies with lots of data do actually transmit data this way. You should take a look at Amazon Snowball if you haven't already.
You joke but... https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/
Literally a large hard drive barreling down the highway
Faster and cheaper.
More realistically, someone could mail a 2TB SSD in a padded flat rate USPS envelope up the eastern seaboard over 4 days for $7.20 and get ~50Mbit/s. If they mailed it on Monday it would take 2 days and they'd get ~100Mbit/s. Could maybe lower the price by not using flat rate idk.
It always has been. Even Google still does that for their really big files.
And probably always will. As technology advances, the data we use increases as do our storage devices as does internet bandwidth.
That is a pretty high standard for bandwidth actually
That's a very slow data transfer.
Pretty much the highest transfer rate you can get is to fill a station wagon with hard drives and drive it cross country.
Needs to seat 20. NEXT!
Isn't it still filling a huge aircraft with microSD cards?
We don't have many station wagons in the US anymore. I'd love to have a new Mazda 6 wagon but they aren't available here because americans drive SUVs and trucks. So there may be a flat in your plan with the whole station wagon thing.
*Micro-SD cards, HDD's would take up too much room in comparison. If you use DNA computing (we're working on it atm) then you could fit a Yottabyte inbetween 0.003 and 1 cubic meter.
It's all part of the plan to save the failing USPS.
But it's only failing because it was forced (by republicans) to collapse upon itself.
First, /s. Jeez.
Second, can you explain? As far as I recall, the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which triggered a $5B loss through retirement regulation and also prevented the USPS from raising rates, was passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature.
Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers
^HelperBot ^v1.1 ^/r/HelperBot_ ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Please ^message ^/u/swim1929 ^with ^any ^feedback ^and/or ^hate. ^Counter: ^134612
Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers
^HelperBot ^v1.1 ^/r/HelperBot_ ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Please ^message ^/u/swim1929 ^with ^any ^feedback ^and/or ^hate. ^Counter: ^134612
My preference will always be for bongo drums.
You all laughed at me for saving AOL CD's... well who's laughing NOW!? I will be the next Bill Gates. I have boxes and boxes of internet in my garage!
Google/Microsoft/Amazon all have large scale services like this. So large, Amazon Web Services have a 45 foot long server tractor-trailer that allows for 100PB of data to be transported. AWS Snowmobile trailers have a guard truck, GPS, and 256-bit encryption when transporting data. I also know that some universities also ship hard drives of research data to other schools and labs.
https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/
https://blog.architecting.it/cloud-data-migration-data-transfer-using-physical-shipping-appliances/
Sneakernet has always been a high throughput medium.
once again
Rural Canadian here, never stopped doing this with one of my friends in a major city centre.
Looks like courier jobs will flourish.
Creating jobs!
I think wireless carriers are going to quickly approach the level of service Comcast/Charter provide. Once 5G goes live in 2-3 years, a lot of people may choose to just tether to their phone and cancel cable.
Which 5G? I heard they were rolling out a less-than-spec version and marketing it as 5G.
The real 5G standard (in 2-3 years). Not the gimmicky fake one.
Since air time is what is scarce, and not data, the gig-plus capability of real-deal 5G mean carriers can start offering a lot of data. Perhaps even a practical phase-out of caps altogether.
3G had caps around 2.5 GB (at 1.5 Mbps = 13656 seconds/month)
LTE has caps around 25 GB (at 14.3 Mbps = 14321 seconds/month)
Let's imagine for a moment that a typical 5G connection offers 600 Mbps. How much data does that 14,000 seconds/month buy me? About 1 TB. Yeah, it would suck to have any datacap, but that's a pretty good start to keep the Netflix and cloud economy rolling for the next 5+ years.
That reminds me a joke in China:
If you want a free trip to NK, just bring several loaded hard drives and sell them there (don't get caught)
Amazon needs to break into the internet market by delivering flash drives by drone!
Also, this reminds me of a funny story in Africa where USB by pigeon was way faster than internet.
Amazon Snowball.
Hmmm great idea as long as the USB drives contain ransomware and they are sent to the appropriate individuals. :P
Imagine there being hubs where people just exchange flash drives full of data.
Turns out Trump and the republicans just wanted to start a Postal Service cover band real bad.
Guys! We could rescue millions from poverty by just redefining it!
This is exactly what the CCP did.
besides increasing GDP by 1000% of course.
Ccp?
Communist Party of China
Ohh i was thinking of OCP from RoboCop
CCP?
renames "Earth" to "Mars"
Congrats, we just landed on Mars!
Yeah, and let's call the average American those who make $450k per year
[deleted]
If you make $1 you are not poor.
This is how basic income works.
Uhh... Not really
Cheaper to buy the FCC than actually build the better Internet we were all billed for.
I wonder if Reddit could buy out the FCC... I suppose then it'd be illegal though, right?
Unfortunately, we didn't upgrade to the takeover package.
Oops I forgot to pay for the first amendment package....
Perfectly legal if we incorporate. Then we're a person!
It’s worth a try, anything to take down Mr. Ashit Pie.
Or we could just collectively not elect corrupt assholes.
starts gofundme
I think what needs to be done is determine what are acceptable internet speeds. Not "broadband." Not "high speed." Because all they're going to do is stop using those terms.
I think that needs to be gig. It might become redundant in the future, but currently that's plenty fast enough for everyone, and if that's the minimum, companies will need to do more to be above the minimum.
I agree.
I'm caught up in the snowstorm on the east coast so I'm working from home where I have a gig. For me to download 100+MB files I need off the shared site we use, it takes longer for the files to be zipped on the back end than it does for me to download them. It's not like that at the office.
With all the panic surrounding this, as a German:
Once internet speeds hit a low enough point, companies will complain about it. Happens over here right now. Our infrastructure is for the most part as bad as Americas, worse in quite a few regions. In some areas (southern Germany for example) companies cannot expand, because the Internet infrastructure would not support it.
Fucking banana-republic.
The problem with that is companies can pay for and receive extremely good internet. It costs more but the ability does exist so it's not like we couldn't have better internet.
[deleted]
It needs to be variable based upon technology. Setting it as 1GB today and set in stone would be wrong, because it'll probably need to be more in a decade, or two. Just look at how quickly we went from a 10GB HDD or 1GB of RAM in a PC being all anyone thought they'd ever need to where we are now. Standards are going to be in flux, because they're going to go up as technology continues to advance. Adequate speeds today would be at least 100 Mbps minimum, with 1 Gig being more accurate to actual high speed packages, but in 10 years it'll probably need to be 1 Gbps standard and 10+ as business/highspeed packages.
Don't set a speed as law of 'this minimum is standard if you want to do business', have a yearly review of speeds with a 6 to 12 month transition period for organizations to upgrade their stuff for new standards if they change, and have a true non-partisan, unbiased panel be the ones to conduct surveys and set standards that aren't appointed by a single person.
Bad idea. My local ISP advertises Gig™ plans that aren't gigabit. They brag about how Gig is the fastest internet speed and blah blah blah.
Wait, you mean it's branded as "gig" internet? So you have Foo Co Gig DSL at 10mbps??
Yeah, it's branded as gig. Technically, they said that the fastest internet service gets 800 Mbps down and bursts up to 1000 Mbps.
i'd much rather a more transparent speed for given service. no more up to bullshit tell me what I can expect to get on 8 pm on a monday.
This wouldn't be good though with the current data caps that Comcast has. All gig would do is allow for the data caps to fill up better. I'm not saying we don't need gigabit. I just think we should handle the data caps first then get gigabit.
10Mbps down (consistently) should be the lowest plan, until like 2020. It’s fast enough that two people can do most things except stream in 4K UHD quality. 1080p Youtube is only like 3Mbps and online multiplayer doesn’t need a lot of data either.
25Mbps is just useable for the average family and can support 4 simultaneous Netflix streams in 1080p. This should be the lowest plan once 2020 comes around.
I personally have 75Mbps in a 5 person household and it’s great. The only time I need more is when downloading a full movie or something, as I never max out my connection when simply downloading files from websites.
100Mbps allows for 5 simulatenous 4K UHD + HDR streams.
As for pricing, I’d say no more than $1/Mbps.
I feel like that bar is a little low across the board. I may be an outlier, but 25mbps min would kill my house hold (not literally). We collectively will only increase our usage, so the bar should be at like 100mbps to start with. While arbitrary, it gives breathing room for whatever you do. Have guests? Need a set of large files (updating games/work/even just because)? More bandwidth will be needed during those times. Plus this isn't 2000 (when we should have had more bandwidth than these minimums)
Do you get 25Mbps consistently?
You can do that math, if you had a 5 person household, all of you would need to steam 1080p Netflix or 1440p YouTube in order reach your max.
25Mbps is incredibly slow, I have 50Mbps at home and it takes hours to download large games. Not sure why you would possibly think 25Mbps is fast enough, that's definitely also not enough for 5 people to stream 1080p youtube/netflix.
I pay for 300 and get 200-250 regularly. I personally don't stream too often (but I do). I do not fill my pipe 24/7, but I do max it out somewhat often. At least enough for me to justify getting gouged for what I do get. My analogy for this one is paying for a six-pack that somehow only has 4 beers.
My reasoning for that bar being too low is because 25 can just do 5 streams. And files will not get smaller. What if you are streaming while working transferring a massive database while you have family in town for holiday. Now what about in 2-3 years? We should put in some overhead.
I don't know enough about YouTube bandwidth numbers, but I've used a 40mbit connection for about six months last year and it was just barely enough for one person. Downloading and streaming at the same time was not ideal to say the least. I've since then upgraded to 200mbit which is fucking perfect. 40 should imho be the absolute minimum in 2018. My provider doesn't even offer anything less than 40, it's their lowest plan. And the jump from 40 to 200 is about a 10 or 12 Euro difference.
Don't forget up speeds. I currently live on a 10Mbps connection. It is not good, but it works with compromises (most media consumption is stored locally) for the two persons that live here. Larger files are a pain, but it is at least workable with planning
My 1 Mbps up is fucking unbearable however. I like photography, and I am very serious about my backups. Uploading a days photo session to my offsite backup can take over a day! I am still not done uploading the photo ms from my India trip last february since it is such a pain in the ass. And I can just completely forget working from home. Not possible, everything takes fucking forever
God, June and the arrival of my fibre can't come fast enough.... 250/100 is proper broadband. Seriously, anything under 50/50 should be classified as "usable, but slow" in 2018
Acceptable speeds in the 80s were different than the 90s, than the 00s, than now. It's continuously changing, so defining it will be fraught with problems.
[deleted]
That is pretty much exactly what this is about the term only matters for funds given to subsidize Internet infrastructure. What should be the acceptable speed that the government can subsidize to be installed? Going back to 10Mbps means that more people will be able to get Internet by being able to serve customers further away and still get it subsidized. Staying at 25Mbps means that instead of getting 10Mbps some will be stuck without any Internet. It is not like companies don't want to have as many customers as possible but in a lot of areas they just can't make money and the subsidized installations allows them to make money in the areas. Reddit users like to forget that infrastructure costs money and the higher the speed, the more it costs to provide the service to everyone.
[deleted]
More than just that as 25Mbps speeds are available to every household nationwide right now, but I wouldn't consider satellite Internet to be a top tier service.
It should be as simple as looking at other countries as developed as the US, eg. UK, Australia, most EU countries, and aiming to be at least similar to what they have
I think what needs to be done is the American people should actually stand up for their rights and do something.
That's not broadband. That's a fucking lie.
Right you are, Ken!
Call me Bwana
INDEED!
man, I love MXC...
It certainly is
In fairness, all internet that isn't dialup is broadband by definition. "Broad" band, as in, large band, as in large bandwidth. Larger than 56k.
10mbps isn't good, but it's broadband by definition.
The problem is that broadband is absolutely the wrong "metric" to be using these days. We're 20 years past the usefulness/validity of the term.
Yeah, I was gonna say.
I remember back when I was a kid, and my family first got broadband. 2 Mbps down, baby!
Broadband was a perfectly accurate term to describe those speeds back then, and it's still exactly as accurate now.
its a hell of a lot broader than what a lot of people have now
Is Ajit Pai actually trying to be the most hated man in America?
Most hated person on Reddit. You’d be amazed at how many Americans in the real world legitimately do not care—or even know—about any of this.
"Thank God we saved the internet from Obama" - anyone who watches Fox News
pretty much. bring up trump and his button-measuring contest on twitter inciting nuclear war and the average fox viewer exclaims joyously in response that "at least hillary's not president!"
I know a lot of Fox News watchers and everything, EVERYTHING they argue is about Obama or Hillary.
Kind of out of the loop, how did Net Neutrality benefit/disadvantage the internet?
I’m on board that it should be guaranteed similar to other utilities, but how did the internet change when it first got enacted in 2014 or 2015?
Were companies doing all the things people are predicting they will do now (before it was enforced)?
Yes.
https://wccftech.com/net-neutrality-abuses-timeline/
2005 – North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked VoIP service Vonage.
2005 – Comcast blocked or severely delayed traffic using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. (The company even had the guts to deny this for months until evidence was presented by the Associated Press.)
2007 – AT&T censored Pearl Jam because lead singer criticized President Bush.
2007 to 2009 – AT&T forced Apple to block Skype because it didn’t like the competition. At the time, the carrier had exclusive rights to sell the iPhone and even then the net neutrality advocates were pushing the government to protect online consumers, over 5 years before these rules were actually passed.
2009 – Google Voice app faced similar issues from ISPs, including AT&T on iPhone.
2010 – Windstream Communications, a DSL provider, started hijacking search results made using Google toolbar. It consistently redirected users to Windstream’s own search engine and results.
2011 – MetroPCS, one of the top-five wireless carriers at the time, announced plans to block streaming services over its 4G network from everyone except YouTube.
2011 to 2013 – AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon blocked Google Wallet in favor of Isis, a mobile payment system in which all three had shares. Verizon even asked Google to not include its payment app in its Nexus devices.
2012 – AT&T blocked FaceTime; again because the company didn’t like the competition.
2012 – Verizon started blocking people from using tethering apps on their phones that enabled consumers to avoid the company’s $20 tethering fee.
2014 – AT&T announced a new “sponsored data” scheme, offering content creators a way to buy their way around the data caps that AT&T imposes on its subscribers.
2014 – Netflix started paying Verizon and Comcast to “improve streaming service for consumers.”
2014 – T-Mobile was accused of using data caps to manipulate online competition.
Credit for finding the sources and summarizing goes to (u/800oz_gorilla). Go upvote his comment if you want:
How is anybody out of the loop on this?
It was plastered all over reddit for a month on every subreddit!
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to explain it to people in my circle and NONE of them have cared. None. Zero. And these are people who rely on the internet every day. I'm friends with a regional PR director for AT&T, the conversation I tried to have with him about it was comical. He's damn adamant that AT&T U-Verse (DSL) is faster than 99% of the country needs and a majority of the people who "need" faster speeds are using that bandwidth to illegally stream movies and torrent software.
most people-"this trump guy is a complete joke"
ajit pai-"hold my beer"
Pai is one of Trump's puppets
sessions - "not bad, but here's one"
No, just wealthy.
Wealth comes at a cost...
be unpatriotic -> get wealthy -> move out of america to country with high speed internet after you're done draining america.
[removed]
I don't understand how T_D likes this guy.
Anything that liberals don't like, they like. They act like contrarians.
most people-"this trump guy is a complete joke"
ajit pai-"hold my beer"
I think he has already earned that.
Welp, there sure is a lot of competition these days.
Yes, he will be in world guinness record book :D
[deleted]
Yeah, and he'll continue to get them for the rest of his sad, pathetic life.
[deleted]
All though that is a good point, it is also depressing.
Nah, he's just a puppet.
Yes. He is paid to be the fall man. He takes all the blame. Cashes out once it is done and retires. ISP's get what they want and Ajit takes the blame.
I think he has already earned that.
Perhaps this is part of an elaborate plot to fake his own death by making it look like he was assassinated by defenders of the free and open internet. Whisked away of some posh hideaway paid for the ISP for the rest of his life..
The reality is, Ajit Pai probably never did anything at Verizon. Instead, he changed his OKRs so he was already done.
USA is progressing backwards at full speed
No, its at 56k. You need to pay more for full speed.
Upgrade to the Bronze Age Premium package for the low price of just $19.95 per month.
That's what the tax bill is for right?
How to return to the Middle Ages in just 4 years. A guide by republican representatives.
I wonder at which point they are going to see nationwide repercussions that hurt the country beyond unfortunate individuals. The ongoing process to limit access abortion and religiously unbiased baseline education as well as affordable higher education in combination with limited access to the Internet can only result in a severe drop in nationwide competence and experts.
Short term that might be good for certain people's voter base but you'll need vast amounts of AI automation to make up for that long term. Which isn't actually that unlikely with the capital available and the continuously widening gap between the income classes. Gonna be interesting to see if innovation can continue in a country that's intellectually starving its population while aggressively depleting natural resources.
I've been saying the same time for a while now. Where will innovation come from if the conditions don't enable it? It's like randomly throwing seeds into a patch of grass and then wondering why they never sprouted and ultimately starving because you needed that to eat.
This country will have a mental crisis at some point too I think. Life is getting to risky and too on the edge in America. People don't have enough savings, jobs are terrible or have too many requirements, no affordable housing, healthcare is too expensive... Even levels of anxiety in school are already rising.
They don't care about the future. The future just reminds them that they're old and won't be around for it. They probably despise those that will be around for it and want them to suffer.
progressing backwards
regressing?
No no no. It's progressing, marching forward loud and proud at full speed, just at the opposite direction.
I know it doesn't make sense but for some reason I feel like there's a difference.
[removed]
This was a whole group of people's idea of "great again".
North Korea, hold my beer!
North Korea, hold my button .... I mean NO! give that back! ... now hold my beer!
[removed]
Well not full speed it's at least 10 Mbps though
They keep this up and my generation will leave this country for better opportunities and democratic policy elsewhere. Then what future will America have? The hatred towards this self-centred generation in the government right now is too strong to describe with words.
You think they care? In fact, if you leave, it will make it easier for them to maintain and concentrate their power.
They'll have to pay a lot more to maintain their terrible infrastructure once everyone capable of working on it wants to leave the country.
Like that'll fucking happen. People are desperate for money. They'll work.
Even if they're not trained or capable for the job.
They don't need to maintain their infrastructure if no one has the money to complain about it.
you forget immigrants. Still a step up for most.
I'm not going to mutiny on a sinking ship, I'm heading for the life boats.
To continue the analogy...if we all keep tossing water overboard, there's still a chance we can save it. But if more people, like you, hop off...then we're all fucked.
you have no idea how difficult "leaving the country" is
Seriously...
If none of the above: congrats nobody wants you.
None of the countries (an American would actually want to move to) want people that don't have in demand skills or a lot of money to invest. Why do Americans think it is so easy to just permanently move to another country?
90% of the population isn't "just moving somewhere else".
Seriously...
- Are you an engineer or computer scientist?
If none of the above: congrats nobody wants you.
But if the aforementioned people leave, it is worse for america than half of the 90% leaving.
That's not exactly true. I know a bunch of Americans who have dual citizenship just because they went to uni in Canada and then stayed here after they graduated.
Number one. Have a BS degree. Not rich but enough money to move elsewhere. Have started to consider it but the hassle and concern over where to go has stopped me. If things keep regressing I will though.
Companies will like it because it will give them ammo for "We can't find qualified people with 2x the necessary experience willing to work for what we want to pay, we need to bring cheap and and pliable Indian 'Experts' in."
Even if 90% of the country cannot emigrate, those that can will have an effect.
Not necessarily true. I got accepted on a 3 year work visa to the UK (from Canada) when I was 20, and had shit all for background except high school and a few years of restaurant work.
That's because Canada and the UK are part of the Commonwealth. It is much easier to travel/gain work visa/move from one country in the Commonwealth to another. Not saying what you are saying is wrong, just pointing out that your example is not entirely relatable to the comment.
if you can leave, you'd be better off not leaving.
I don’t see it mentioned but you forgot teachers. Teachers from the US are in huge demand in Asia and the Middle East right now. We get paid far more than locals.
Source: Am teaching English in China.
thats not how a numbering bullet list works. put the question before the numbers. what you've said is entirely inaccurate and myself and many others have changed residency with none of what you mentioned. very strange this got so many upvotes.
I’m about to graduate with a major in computer science and a minor in German. So, I guess we’ll see.
I'm not sure how migration works with all counties. But, I found out recently that, in at least some counties, the country you are leaving has to approve you leaving. Not just the country you are going to wanting to accept you.
Meaning if any of your list applies, the country you are leaving has reason to not let you leave.
[removed]
Why do Americans think it is so easy to just permanently move to another country?
Maybe because American immigration policy is a joke? The legal immigration system is a gigantic clusterfuck, and actually enforcing our existing immigration laws makes you a racist tyrant in the eyes of half the population, so the country's de facto immigration system is just to do it illegally and not get caught immediately.
We're talking about emigration from the US, numbnuts. BTW Trump is the #1 supporter of cheap illegal immigrant labor. Its pretty much like you said it even, he knows they are coming in despite the policy put in place and he is definitely a racist tyrant
Because Americans are used to seeing immigrants come here who have no skills or money. That’s a big reason millions voted for Trump.
I didn’t vote Trump, but this conclusion is deluded.
[removed]
Woah, buddy.
What'd they say?
Username hopefully does not check out...
Perhaps easier for myself than for most granted
i'm a dual citizen, and planning on emigrating. idk what your situation is, but it's plenty difficult as is for me. can't imagine how much worse it is for others
Not a dual but married to a foreign national and planning the same thing.
Dual here with EU citizenship. Leaving later in the year, hopefully.
My fiance moved to Australia on a working visa; we can upgrade to a partner visa/full time for her in a few years. Australia is more than willing to take people on.
This administration is systematically undermining science and tech alike. It won't just be the IT monkeys, but the professors and engineers too
You are so right. The brain drain will be real, but that is what the hicks want.
Nah, you won't. Turns out you need quite a bit of money to leave a country.
You might want to look at how difficult it is to actually take up residence in another country, pal.
unfortunately for that ideal, America is not so powerful because of the government, but because the geography is absolutely out of this world fantastic for trade.
leave or stay, but as long as the US maintains current borders it will be dominant.
The other countries do not want us. We are stuck in this bed we've allowed to be made.
Formally inviting all Americans with a brain to come to Canada
I'm with you. Fuck hanging around this nation with half of it diametrically opposed to the way I live my life. I'd rather just find like-minded people who aren't willing to turn their entire society inside-out in order to flip me the bird.
I doubt that's true. The USA has a way lower cost of living and way higher incomes for professionals. Money isn't everything, but it's one hell of a motivator
who is john galt?
Why haven’t you moved to Canada?
Blame Trump voters. It's honestly what is causing everything that's happening.
That's your problem. Rather cry and run away then actually trying to change something. Fucking Christ. Go vote, run for Mayor. The average person can make a difference. Most of these political fucks we're a regular citizen at one time. Also. Donald rules.
Lol is this a joke? Nobody is leaving the country. Look at allll of those Americans that swore to leave if Trump was elected. They’re all still here
They keep this and my generation will leave this country
can i get that in writing
Here you go (I even fixed the grammar for you).
Wanna tell us how depressed you are? Judging by your post history, your life seems pretty miserable.
thanks for that, numale. ill hold you to it
You're welcome. I hope it gave you boost to your testosterone levels. Looks like you need it.
Funny because when I called Comcast last night to sign up for internet they said they would not recommend 10 Mbps and that it was not suitable for streaming or gaming.....
That's because the person you talked to is also on your level socially, and doesn't benefit from telling you lies. You'd never hear the higher-ups tell you what your service rep said.
Actually they want to sell the highest and most expensive plan they have, so they will say that the lower plans are no good and you reaaaally want the higher plan because it makes them more money.
Do service reps make commission?
Service reps, no. Sales reps, yes. If they transferred you to sales, that person was probably making commission.
Well, 10Mbps is perfectly fine for gaming. The ping doesn't AFAIK correlate with bandwidth. It's basically useless for anything else though.
For actually playing a game it's fine, but with how frequently popular games get updated 10Mbps is a real pain to deal with.
Yeah I really wouldn't have wanted to download the 12.5gb patch of PUBG over 10mbps
Until someone else in your house starts up a Youtube video...
yeah wait and see what happens to your ping when someone else so much as checks their email
Under the assumption that there's more than one person in the household using the internet, yeah.
For a single person household. More than one person streaming with 10mbps will have issues. Youd have to start streaming low quality if you have more than one person using the connection at a time.
Netflix say you need up to 8 Mbps to stream 1080P video. The higher ups are the reason the sales people have to try to upsell customers.
That's kinda true, isn't it? My 3.8Mbps speed at home mostly streams at 720p because 1080p is unstable.
Most customers are going to be plenty happy with 10 Mbps as long as it's reliable. Including gamers, who care more about latency and reliability than outright speed.
I have 6 Mbps maybe even less and I do everything just fine. That's horseshit. I would be grateful to have 10 lmao
Probably not the correct place to say this but I got a random email from Comcast that.my internet was going from 75 to 100 Mbps in December of last year. My bill went up due to a promotion ending , but a phone later and they got me a better deal (stupid guy from my last deal gave me a free Latino package, this girl gave me a year of HBO), similar price as before (less than ten bucks more a month), and same speed internet (100Mbps). Comcast is a horrible company, but if you live in the right place you can get some decent deals. Luckily my town has Comcast and AT&T for internet, so competition that ends up helping us out.
I don't want fucking cable.
We Max at 8 and stream Netflix in HD and game decently well.
I had 10mbps down for a while and I was gaming and streaming just fine. That was just on my own though. More than one person in the household and I'd expect issues.
That's literally the highest speed offered in my area and it's what I'm paying for, though I've never seen speeds higher than 700kb down in action.
I get that this is bad, but the post is as out of touch with rural America as the FCC is. Many small towns will never see the benefits of new laws or infrastructure, but we don't talk about that.
Like everyfuckingthing else about the trump misadministration, the race to the bottom continues.
As a Canadian, why say Trump and not Republican in this instance?
He is being enabled by the party. He is technically the leader of the party. What he does, they are accountable for.
He makes a great scapegoat for the publics derision whilst he party behind him pulls the strings,however laughably, he tweets like a child and gives the real game away as well.
Or put simply:
The majority of your government is in shambles and are fucking morons right now.
You're letting a lot of people off the hook by just focusing on him
It's funny how when Trump takes credit for something good happening, people are rightfully correct to note that it isnt just him
The same logic applies when something bad happens
Ironically, that's probably the most impactful form of political correctness on modern politics, where you can't come straight out and say "that's fucking stupid." We're in the position where we can't call out global warming deniers, hypocrisy, corruption, or any Republican position without being labelled a biased partisan, and that has vastly more consequences than someone calling you a bigot because you said dumb shit.
False. He is a distraction being used to do what has always been the agenda, and later blame on Trump as if it was his doing.
Both parties are not the same. All you need to prove this is check voting records.
prove it is false
Because, as an American I feel that he is setting the tone. His shitting on everything President Obama has ever achieved or proposed is about as far as trump's leadership role extends. Might as well give him the only credit he deserves.
This isn't the doing of just Trump, this is both Trump and the GOP. Place the blame on both entities, don't let one get away with shifting the blame on only the other.
Most of us are blaming republicans. At this point I'm having to stop myself from instinctivley hating close family members just because of their political leanings. I don't just blame republican politicians. I blame uneducated republican voters and the greedy rich as well.
To be fair, Obama was one of the most divisive presidents of all time.
How so? The only thing divisive about him was that he was black.
As far as political ideology he was very centerist.
There is nothing "fair" or honest about that statement.
If you're racist and you know it, clap your hands!
Edit: Apologies, I don't think he is racist, just....misinformed from not being American?
Run along troll
Trump appoints the chairman of the FCC
As usual, the president is used as the person for everyone to focus their anger on, like a sort of lightning rod. It's enjoyable, almost therapeutic, maybe feels productive, but really gets nothing done.
And that's perfect for those who are actually fucking us. The anger and actions aren't focused to them, they can continue to do their bidding, and across the land "Fuck Trump" is echoed while many, many things go to shit. Bitching about the president isn't going to preserve or advance our internet.
People need to think in terms of actual action that will get things done, but it's much easier to hammer out angry comments online about the big boss / figurehead. They may as well write their feelings in a letter, light it on fire, and flush the ashes down the toilet. It would be equally effective.
[removed]
Because Trump is the problem. If he wasn't voted into power, this would not be happening.
Well, it's not just a republican thing. Any American President over the last 40 years has, in some way to varying degrees, taken part in this race to the bottom.
Weird how from 2008-2016 everything was just "the governments" fault
Hmmmm, I wonder why that was...
Just so we’re clear both Comast and Verizon donated to Hillary much more than Trump.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000461&cycle=2016
1: Define "internet companies". Are you talking tech firms, or ISPs?
2: "...large in part democratic doners donors." Did you mean to say "...in large part, democratic donors"?
Thanks- edited for clarity.
Don't you mean edited for obfuscation? Why didn't you just reply to me, instead of a total rewriting what you said to begin with?
to be fair to trump (which i didnt think i would ever say), Clinton was as much of a shill to major corporations if not more, but trump mainly makes all of the shill decisions and also the ignorant republican on top of that
To be fair...to Hillary Clinton, she actually had a pretty clearly stated set of policies, and you can actually look up what her positions were/are regarding net neutrality and the right to broad band access. So, in conclusion, what you just said is a meaningless load of crap.
Legally calling It high speed internet should be 100mbps... At the least 50. I miss when piece of shit officials atleast pretended they weren't pieces of shit.
How would that law change anything other than the wording in advertising?
People are easily duped. Now you can sell a slower 10Mb connection as broadband (which by most definitions it wouldn't be these days), and then sell your "SUPER BROADBAND!! 25Mb BLAST!" internet for $150/mo. and say it's a great deal, and people wouldn't even realizt that 25Mb is slow.
From a country that has so less resources than US, i'm pretty shocked to know that i have super duper mega broadband with 300Mb down, 10 up just for 50 bucks
Yeah it's pretty nuts what we let our ISPs get away with. I'm splitting a gigabit connection with my neighbor in Chicago and we pay $45 a piece so it's not so bad.
Broadband does not denote speed, but how the signaling is occurring. As long as they're using broadband signaling, the speed can be whatever they want.
Broadband has a minimum definition though, per the FCC. Under current rules, below 25Mbps isn't defined as broadband. This is per the FCC, so lowering to 10Mbps, means that slower connections that originally couldn't be called "broadband speed" now can.
You could do that regardless of what the government thinks is broadband.
Normal everyday people don't understand what the numbers mean. They respond more to words like "high speed". In return companies could charge more for "high speed" when in reality it could be complete shit speeds.
That's one argument against people saying that the internet should be a "free market". For a free market to work correctly there has to be consumer power which means knowledge of what they are buying. People don't understand what they are buying when it comes to the internet.
So in this instance couldn’t an ISP just say “high speed” instead of “broadband”? It is not like they even have to go with the government’s definition for either word when selling to consumers outside the public sector
Because there exist requirements for the ISPs to 'Bring broadband connectivity to new consumer' which replaced clause in a bill that was requiring ISP's to compete with one another.
Where are those requirements. I’d like to learn more about this as a person in a rural area without a lot of options
It wouldn't in theory, but the wording in advertisements is important. Think about cell phones, do you know how fast 3G, 4G, 4G LTE, or 5G actually is? If they can use vague words they can trick people. People know that if they get broadband it's probably fast enough for what they need. By changing what companies are allowed to call broadband they can sell slower internet for the same price to unsuspecting consumers.
Does this change what they are allowed to call broadband? Or is it just what the government considers broadband?
It's more insidious than you realize. Once internet companies have fast lanes, they'll be restricting people to these speeds so they can still argue they're delivering broadband.
They would have to make that argument to customers. All of a sudden advertisers will stop exaggerating because the word broadband has been redefined? Doubt it. As far as I know the Govt doesn’t restrict the use if the term.
[deleted]
Boy, you better read up. Can't believe you're busting out the knee pads and getting ready to suck that corporate cock. Good thing youve been stretching out that throat
[removed]
I would say 30 is pretty good from personal experience as a single person. I can run two twitch streams and browse the internet fine with that. Honestly most people don't even benefit from 30, however a faster download will obviously increase download speeds which is nice. Also when I download stuff my twitch stream usually lags if it is on the highest setting. By estimating from my experience I would agree with you somewhat that 50 would be perfect for not having to worry about anything being uninterrupted. This is by myself though. A household of people is different obviously.
Another however though is that we are paying high amounts for these lower speeds. As long as a range of speeds are available and they are price accordingly and fairly I'm okay with w/e they want to call broadband. But I also think there is a problem if people are being duped by the words "high speed" when it truly is not high speed.
I have a feeling though that technology is faster than government law and therefore these laws will be outdated pretty fast.
I'm lucky to get 8.
The highest average in the world is south korea with 28mbps. Blanket laws are absurd. What is considered high speed in Florida is not likely possible yet in Alaska.
It kinda screws with the rankings that two of those countries are single cities, and two of those countries have between half to two thirds of their poulation in a single city.
Speedtest is the max. I'm talking about how much they actually get.
What do you mean actually get? Speedtest measures your actual bandwidth.
Unlimited speed*!
^(* limited to 10 mbps)
I don't even see why you are going soft and propose 50? Affraid that 100 is a little to much to ask? About 10 years ago I was getting 120 in my parents house. Mid tier subscription. Since 4 years I have 300-300 with FTTH, also mid tier. My provider offers 100/300/600 packages that all measure about 10% higher in speedtest. Another provider in my area offer 1gb (~890mbt). In oktober 2017 news broke that in The Netherlands T-Mobile customers were getting 65mbit 4G on average. Now preparations for 5G mobile internet are in full swing so I think that bottom tier 100 mbit is going to get a free upgrade.
Internet Service 2018 should at the very least (I can't pay for more/live in a very remote area) be 100 mbit guaranteed for every household. With a near future (2020?) step-up to 250 mbit.
To put this all into perspective. The provider M1 in Singapore has a 1/2/5/10 plam.
What download speeds can I expect for the 2/5/10Gbps plan?
You can expect the following download speeds: 2Gbps plan: 1.7–1.9Gbps*. 5Gbps plan: 2.5–4.6Gbps*. 10Gbps plan: 2.9–6.2Gbps*
Are they really saying that 10Mbit is broadband and enough? In an age of streaming consumption, live team collaboration, work from home and cloud computing? Have they lost all ambition?
I agree 100 should be the minimum thats why I started there , but I'd just be happy with baby steps at this point
They're calling the American people's bluff now after playing ball for decades.
It just so happens the American people are proving they were bluffing.
All at&t scumbag asses allow where I live is 3mps and it's not even that, they're purposely limiting the internet speed where I live. I once had a guy come test the line and he said I could be getting like 20+ easy but yeah, fuck all and everything about at&t...Imagine having this shit as a gamer constantly getting d/c from raids/groups and lobbies.
I have at&t but in an area where Google fiber is available in most of the area and has forced them all to compete. I got 1gbps up and down for $110/month and its pretty solid most of the time. Just proves how full of shit these guys are.
A car that can run at least 10MPH would be deemed good enough for American consumers.
This is such a perfect analogy, it's like the antiparallel to downloadable RAM.
Well the cable company would just change the metric and say you're getting 63360in/hr
But what about the miles per gallon?
3, but the emissions are ridiculously low, so it's good for the environment.
But is that top speed? LOL
I was actually joking about California emissions standards when they first came out. They lowered emissions, but decresed fuel economy in the cars required to have them. But that was in the 70s or something like that.
So... a human at running pace?
[deleted]
There was a post that someone made about a year ago that used this same or similar analogy to explain how NN works.
The old people with AOL are going to have the last laugh.
Remembers that's over 3 million people.
Considering the US population is over 300 million, 3 million sounds like the appropriate number of old people.
Didn't we pay 400 Billion in Tax money to make sure that connections would be 1000Mbps fiber across the US?
Yes we did. Read up on it!
Money taken, nothing done.
There was a book written about this and there's a couple different articles on this, I know I saw this reddit post about it where I might have had the same info posted in it, i forget.
List of the first few articles when I google this:
Huffington dramatically titled and written but w/e that's their style
National Telecommunications and Information Administration - Department of Commerce (responsibile for advising the executive Branch)
InvestmentWatch Blog
I feel like this alone ought to be enough for some sort of class action lawsuit against the FCC or ISP's or something. We've been had as a nation.
Frack that! I'm to the point of demanding that the infrastructure be fucking nationalized, and the money recovered through fines and taxation of the ISPs to actually build out the infrastructure that was promised. Once that has been done - it can then be privatized with two conditions. 1) It is illegal for an ISP to own the infrastructure, and 2) it is regulated like a utility.
It’s bizarre to me that it isn’t treated like any other utility.
In my opinion the internet should be treated as a utility. Like electricity, water, gas - you can literally educate kids on it, run companies on it, build infrastructure with it. Its the most important invention in human history and access to it is not guaranteed and can be bought and sold by companies.
This guy conditions
Nah, keep it nationalized forever. No need to let any corporation make a dime.
Why would you privatise it? Private ownership of public infrastructure is an unjustifiable abomination.
So say we all.
The USPS should expand to become the nation's ISP offering a number of levels of service that range from a no cost nation wide wireless service all the way to gigabit fiber.
Take a look at Citizen's Cable out if Kecksburg, PA.
Yes. It’s the ultimate corporate abuse reset.
So basically OpenReach in the UK, OpenReach are the guys that maintain and upgrade everything, they then rent access to ISP's which then give you the best deal since 7 other ISP's have access to that same exchange and unless one can beat the other you're going for who is the cheapest with the best speeds that suit your needs.
PS: It's all unlimited with a 2TB fair usage policy, if you use over 2TB monthly then you might want to upgrade to a business line.
One company in our area set up the fiber, i know because my dad mapped it all out but every ISP refuses to use it and the company isnt even an ISP
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter
But but but comunism?!
Please be the new FCC chief
What we need is a complete revolution. New Government from the ground up. Shits broken. Our nation is broken.
It should never be privatized. That leads to inferior service in the pursuit of profits.
It should be ripped down and replaced with a new organization that wasn’t created to regulate broadcast media. This is fucking absurd. The FCC doesn’t own this! It’s not for them to decide! Conservatives, where’s your swamp-draining deregulating fucker-in-chief now? Oh right. Bought and paid for. Like all the rest of them.
End the ISP industry
This this this
So let's demand
And interest, and enforcement of antitrust and consume protection laws.
Does anyone else think it's crazy that people who know nothing about the internet are giving money to build better internet, to people who's best interest to not have a better internet?
Ha! How about we build it, they can rent it from US, and if they try to build their own we collectively tie them up in courts for as long as it takes.
I live in Saskatchewan in Canada and we can choose are isp but one of them is “crown corporation” and is basically a province run company creating good jobs and great service at a reasonable price. My cell plan is with them and I get unlimited talk and text Canada unlimited text in US and 15 gigs of data at LTE then they throttle me but it’s unlimited throttled for $85 a month plus tax and stuff I pay 94
Do not privatize any part of your infrastructure under any circumstances.
Slow civil servants who don't give a fuck but have to use the same services you do are better then guys who profit from limiting you.
Will you give the health industry a go next for us please?
[deleted]
In my opinion the internet should be treated as a utility. Like electricity, water, gas - you can literally educate kids on it, run companies on it, build infrastructure with it. Its the most important invention in human history and access to it is not guaranteed and can be bought and sold by companies.
[deleted]
As someone who had to live through just that, believe me, you don't want the government taking over communication infraestructure.
The thing is though, capitalism doesn't work like that, honestly I wish i wish it did sometimes
The thing is though, capitalism doesn't work like that, honestly I wish i wish it did sometimes
Get on it, bud.
[deleted]
[deleted]
So you figure it sane to give ownership of a badly developed thing to the incompetent bureaucratic monster that managed, monitored and validated the creation of this badly developed thing in the first place.
Interesting.
I will never understand the logic of someone who recognizes that the FCC is terrible and simultaneously wants them in full control of the internet.
So you want the agency responsible for the failed promises to be 100% in charge of providing you internet? Seems like a really bad idea.
Should go as well as nationalizing the oil industry in Venezuela.
My guess is they are changing the definition so they can say something like “The repeal of net neutrality led to an explosion of progress and we increased the access to broadband internet by X%”
Onion article from the 90's: "Millions saved from poverty by redefinition of term"
Lower the poverty line, less poverty. Lower standards for broadband, suddenly you have broadband.
This is exactly what they're doing.
I think you are exactly right
By the people we elect to run it cause while the internet complains by and large the mass majority of the country isn't online and consuming information like we are and therefore just taking political ramblings at face value.
Should be prison time.
Don’t say this over the internet. I don’t want to find out it now illegal to sue isp because the republican controlled congress though it would be a good idea.
Lol, you think people with money care about us XD
I feel like this alone ought to be enough for some heads to roll. Figuratively or literally.
People need to wake up and vote libertarian instead of shackle themselves to more damn bureaucrats.
People need to wake up and vote libertarian instead of shackle themselves to more darn bureaucrats.
[removed]
Settlement check for 38 cents
So put the screens down and go do something about it.
I'm game if you are friend
I mean, I'm not trying to incite violence or anything, but I feel like at this point for the government to change we are going to have to have a bloody revolution. It will never happen because people as a nation are too complacent, but what would our founding fathers think of this country now? Is this what they fought and died for?
the government has to sue them. they're not going to bite the hand that feeds them.
fucking legalized corruption
that and everything else combined; fuck class action lawsuit its time for torches and pitchforks. (not literally because even bean bag guns beat pitchforks.)
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/free-download-the-book-of-broken-promises-400-billion_us_59082d4de4b084f59b49fc6d
No taxpayer standing to bring a lawsuit in the US. You never have a claim against anyone solely by virtue of you being a taxpayer.
Lynch mob for ajit pais whole family
We're too busy fumbling with our phones/facebook/youtube to even notice.
Entertain them till they've been bamboozled.
There's no democracy, it's just fascism
It's been made pretty clear that the FCC can do anything it wants though.
You can't class action lawsuit against them, congress says, gotta arbitrate. /s
"class action lawsuit against the FCC" lol good luck :(
In before 'but none of it was reeeeeellegal!'
The law isn't always the best tool to solve a problem. If something isn't illegal that should be, legal action isn't an option. Fight to change the law, or attack the problem another way.
These are our law makers. They are duly elected. What would be the basis of your law suit be? But the people America elected to make its laws are not allowed to make laws?
Mind you, I'm completely against this move by the FCC. I'm trying to make you realize that your anger and post are misguided. If you are really pissed off, start campaigning for Democrats right now.
You could very likely make the argument that gerrymandering doing make many of these Republicans "duly elected". They rigged the system in their favor in order for them to do things like this.
I wasn't talking about the lawmakers or any laws they passed - I was talking about how the ISP's essentially broke the law and didn't do what the law commanded them to do. Sadly, neither the republicans or democrats enforced the law while they had control of the FCC. I want anybody in office that will enforce this - I don't even care who at this point.
The thieves were actually running the companies this time.
The thieves were actually running the companies that time. They're running the country this time.
Next they'll rule the world and companies will own certain regions of land.
It's Idiocracy come true!
First brawndo bought the FDA...
Ah yes the great Mitch Headberg quote. "The thieves were actually running the companies then... They still do, but they were running them then too."
this. all fucking day. this.
[deleted]
[removed]
Correct. Either way the thieves get what they want at our expense.
Does this mean that our basic human right of high speed internet access is in jeopardy?
[removed]
Control the internet control the world. Nestle dun fucked up trying to control water. We can live without water, can’t live without that internet porn.
But you got a $1k bonus! Spend it on your new freedom of choice (new 1 mbps choices now available) broadband plans!
Give a man a gun and he can rob for a day. Give him a corporation...
Actually it has more to do with government ineffectiveness
How is it the government's fault that Telcos failed to deliver on fiber optic networks they promised? The entire reason these companies were given hundreds of billions dollars for this project is because they would (should) have been able to complete it more efficiently than the government.
I live in a country not run by corporations and we are all swimming in cheap fiber.
Well. That sums up 2017.
This didn’t happen in 2017. It’s been happening for years and years.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5839394
Not sure if you got what they mean. 2017 was just nothing happening with money being taken, all over the place.
No, they got stuff done. They made some tax laws to give themselves more money.
They also greatly weakened our health insurance by pulling the rug out from under it financially.
I don't know what you mean. It's exactly like buying a hooker. Everyone is feeling embarrassed and out of pocket and still getting fucked.
This sums up America
Unless you're in the GOP
You wouldn’t steal a ca.... $400B..
If I could get away with it? Probably.
Even if you didn't get away with they'd probably only fine you like $3 Million. Worth.
You'd have enough money to buy your own island, create your own country and grant yourself amnesty and asylum.
Shit I'm not greedy... I would just take $100B
"You told us we had to run the fiber. You never said we had to connect anyone to it."
Funny you say that - that's exactly what happened at my dad's house. They've had fiber running along their street for over a decade that nobody can touch due to the company that laid it refusing to let anyone.
Plenty done, money spent on lobbying and advertizing against improvements.
Yep. They spent $900k to defeat our local broadband ballot measure. Didn't work.
Please source where to read up on this. I've never seen this sourced and I'd like to read up on it.
Here you go: http://irregulators.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BookofBrokenPromises.pdf
It's not a short read but it pretty does a pretty good job on detailing ISP/TeleCo fuckery.
TL;DR they took a half a
billiontrillion dollars from taxpayers with a pinkie swear to build out broadband and then....didn't.Socialize the risk, privatize the rewards. And now that some of their traditional revenue models are in decline they want to gut net neutrality to penalize the cord cutters.
EDIT: I can't type.
*half a trillion
Almost half a TRILLION dollars.
FTFY
Wait, so 400 billion, or half a billion? There is a difference.
I love how I'm called a cord cutter even though I never paid for it in the first place. I moved into my own place in 2013 and never once paid for anything other than internet. I grew up watching my family and friends get screwed over by Comcast and at&t.
Half a trillion
This is the perfect description for today's republican party policies. You can expect the same type of plan for the country's infrastructure that Republicans will roll out in 2018. Look for taxpayers covering the risks, loans, interest costs etc, but once the infrastructure is built it will be toll roads and fees for us to use them.
Fuck me that stings.
Trillion. Not billion.
Here you go: http://irregulators.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BookofBrokenPromises.pdf
It's not a short read but it pretty does a pretty good job on detailing ISP/TeleCo fuckery.
TL;DR they took a half a
billiontrillion dollars from taxpayers with a pinkie swear to build out broadband and then....didn't.Socialize the risk, privatize the rewards. And now that some of their traditional revenue models are in decline they want to gut net neutrality to penalize the cord cutters.
EDIT: I can't type.
Half a trillion
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394.html
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=isp+scandal
Haha funny site...It's all about the keywords though and even then, many of the links are regurgitations. I was looking for the original evidence that people are using and now I have some to scour through.
There is some impetus on the "Claimer" to source as well.
Where is the text of the agreement with the Telcos and Cable Companies to provide fiber optic service to all parts of the country to 45mbs?
All I see are wild, conspiracy theory postings, talking points, and people pointing back to a single annual report by Verizon in 1993. That annual report is very vague and says nothing about fiber to the whole country. It promised it to a small urban area as an experiment.
My understanding is that the US Gov't subsidizes the cost of network infrastructure upgrades on a regular basis, and that there is no promise of fiber optics anywhere in writing either by the FCC or by the Telcos.
Broadband has always been defined in the US as 10/1 speeds. Absurd, yes, but that has always been the speed definition here.
I am suspicious that the $400 billion is a bullshit number taken from all govt subsidies to infrastructure maintenance, repair, and installation in rural/low income areas otherwise that would be unserved and has nothing to do with fiber optic cables or faster speeds.
The FCC's broadband definition was actually 4/1 at one point, and in 2015 was raised to 25/3.
Yes, but the $400 billion claimed in the talking points is an amount of money collected from subsidies since 1992, and that was when this supposed "agreement" that everyone gets fiber optic all over the country was allegedly committed to.
However, I cannot find anything written anywhere that says any such agreement exists. This is like hunting UFOs or Bigfoot. There's no evidence that anyone was promised fiber optic in exchange for subsidies, and there is no paperwork connecting any subsidies to promises of providing massive fiber optic high speed internet. Not that I have seen yet.
Before someone foolishly blames this on Trump:
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5839394
Why would someone blame this on Trump? This has been an issue for years and most people who have paid attention know about it.
Do you really need to ask?
Goddammit.
The more I learn about how the US government works, the more I wonder why there hasn't been civil unrest on a national level since, what... The 70s?
But it's fine. As long as I can play RATM's "Wake Up" loudly while enjoying my Diet Coke, I'll call it freedom, which, coincidentally is another great RATM tune.
Because of corporate run news corporations that tell people how to think and pit people against each other to distract them from the real enemy (the government). People who watch CNN/MSNBC and Fox News are the problem.
Read up on it where?
[removed]
Imagine my shock
[deleted]
I'm not living in the US and this absolutely infuriates me. Why isn't there any outcry?
Most people don’t know about it and most on reddit can’t/won’t do anything about it
In other news, Hydromorphone went from 500 lbs production per year in 1998 to over 18,000 lbs today.
Cant we file a class action lawsuit for this for charging for goods never received?
Money taken, used to bribe government and fuck the consumers harder.
Hmm. I wonder what would happen if bunch of concerned citizens decided to report this malfeasance to the US Govt accountability office?
https://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/fraudnet.cgi
There's fiber everywhere, the infastructure exists.
I'm starting to feel like it's time to put these fuckers out of our misery.
This kinda makes me wish for a revolution. The bloody kind.
Do you have source links? I'd like to share them with the idiots who keep defending these companies
That's not true at all! They used some of the money to lobby the government into letting them keep the rest.
Here is a link to a 2007 article by Robert X Cringley titled
"The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen."
There may be some older articles on the subject but this is the earliest I remember reading. This fight has been going on for a long time and the bad guys will never play nice.
[deleted]
Funny. I work, and I get paid to do my job. If I don't do it, I get fired. But we paid them to do a job, and we can't fire them for not doing it.
I wouldn't say nothing; they did turn around and pump most of that money back to politicians to get the fcc to kill net neutrality and now to reclassify broadband to include satellite connection. So if anything they did the opposite of what the money was intended for.
Can't trust the government to do anything when they pretend they're going to help Americans.
Can't trust the current government as they blatantly tell us to go fuck ourselves.
Nothing changes. They do not work for us in Washington.
Can we sue as a country?
Nationalize the cable companies.
I feel like it's hard to comprehend what $400 billion actually is. Apple, the biggest corporation in the world, is worth $900 billion. Crazy that the US Gov would just give that away, and not react when nothing is gained: it just shows how much they are in cahoots with the ISPs/corporations.
Congress simply takes peoples money and hands it to corporations, it's as simple as that.
Can't say I disagree.
I mean... your username says it all
[deleted]
It's not even the first time we've given money to ISP's for this and they've splurged it
So whose fault is this? Trump or obama?
Almost like trusting the government with your money is never a good idea
Shouldn't people that do this be dragged naked into the streets and severely beaten? I mean, if we lived in a world with justice of any kind.
[removed]
"The Book of Broken Promises"
Hahaha! Ohhhh Huffington...
[removed]
[removed]
Clearly you didn't read up on it because no money was actually "taken".
And, never repaid. Upper management probably got another seasonal home each.
But hey! Comcast will run 1Gb/s commercials in your area and not even provide 100Mb/s! /s
I'd love to take Pai out and shoot him on the Whitehouse lawn while making continuous eye contact with Trump while doing it.
How is this not treason?
Because that isn't what treason is. Fraud or theft are more appropriate descriptions.
From our nations infrastructure which makes us weak to enemy nations and hurts our GDP. Remember how Russia influenced our election?
Treason is aiding a foreign power in hostile actions against the U.S. or something along those terms. It specifically requires a foreign power to be involved. We have plenty of names for domestic crimes.
Nope, no part of the language requires foreign powers be involved, only enemies of the United States. See William Bruce Mumford for an example. Whether the Confederacy was or was not, in actuality, a foreign power is irrelevant, because the United States did not recognize them as such. And if you don't prefer that, try Walter Allen instead.
a HOSTILE foreign power at that. Like..someone we are at war with.
Because treason is defined in the constitution as providing aid and comfort to an enemy in wartime.
I'd argue we are in a cold war and our cyber security/infrastructure are way behind russia which is what allowed them to influence our election.
I'd argue we are in a cold war and our cyber security/infrastructure are way behind russia which is what allowed them to influence our election.
Fiber was installed hear 7 years ago, they just never actually hooked it up to anything. Every company limits speeds to 10mbps/1mbps regardless of the infrastructure used (including satellite and cable), so the noncompete agreement they have here is incredibly obvious. They just want to be able to charge premium prices for the lowest possible but still somewhat useable speeds.
10Mbps down is hardly usable. You can't even stream in HD-- OH I know why they're doing this ...
Edit:
Dear people below me,
10 Mbps is approximately equal to 1 MB/s. When you're downloading files, and you see a number like 4.9 MB/s, you probably have 50 Mbps Internet. Netflix is saying 5 Mbps is recommended for HD, that's 720p. When I say HD, I mean 1080p.
It's also worth noting I live with other people and could absolutely never get away with 10 Mbps for streaming since we all use the Internet.
You can stream in hd with 10Mbps just fine. I do it daily. Just don't expect to use the internet for anything else while doing it.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
Is Netflix a good example? Don't they have a much better algorithm for compressing the video than other services?
I switched to Sonic because I was annoyed with Comcast constantly increasing my fees, but the only thing Sonic could provide was 10Mbps down.
I couldn't stream a youtube video in 720p without it lagging, and I was the only person in the house, and it was the only thing I was doing.
I had to go back to Comcast...
Also this requires your speeds to actually be 10mbps, not "up to 10 mbps" which is usually closer to 1mbps.
Except that's not really HD.
Netflix shows video at 1080p as a technicality because of a low bitrate it's possible. Most people refer to HD for it's clarity, not the number of pixels in height.
For reference a single broadcast 1080i signal is ~12 Mb/s mpeg2. h264 is not THAT much more efficient. Not even close.
That's the difference here.
...yeah fuck that noise
Im using 10 mbps and it seems to be working just fine. Im able to do some work stuff or laptop stuff while running netflix. I also can run games on my computer okay. Havent had any massive issues thus far
Its also dirt cheap and im not expecting a lot and im waiting for something to go wrong. Which its comcast, so it probably will
Yea I do it with 8
yeah if you're using the only device in the house and there's no one else sharing it (family, roommates...)
you can stream 1080p with 4Mb/s. if the bitrate is low, which for netflix and youtube, they are usually low.
I have 22Mbps down and watch a lot of live content, if my connection drops even a little bit down I start lagging. 10Mbps is for sure not enough for live content
Omg. I would love 10 down. I just recently double my speed and am rocking out 6 mbps for a cool $45.
+forgot to add that 3 was the max until a month ago. New maximum speed is 6. I live close to Atlanta GA.
1-2 Mbps down here, on a good day I can watch a 720p video. I cannot download games here as it's impossible, it's actually faster for me to drive 30-45 minutes to a friend's house to download any game over 2gb.
I'm not even 45 minutes out of Detroit.
5/0.5 here, middle of Seattle. (DSL is the only option for my house because of non-competes)
pfft.... I get 1Mb down at the best of times. On cable 'high speed'. For $70/month in Canada.
EPB municipal fiber in Chattanooga TN - $58 a month 100 mbps down. Fuck private enterprise.
Hell, I live in a major city and the best possible I can get is 60mbs down for $80/month. And the reality is I actually only get about 40mbs.
I pay $75 for 10 :(
That's insane. I'm in Chicago and get 350 mbps down and 30 up for ~$95 a month. It even includes a basic cable package I never use.
I am shortly outside atlanta and hooked to 3 mbps dsl as well. Woulda been sweet in 2001. There is gigabit available here from comcast but its expensive and provided by comcast.
:( I'm paying 30 usd for unlimited 250/250. Actually getting more around 300/300 most of the time.
come up a little north and enjoy our 10Gig network ;)
Tiny town here. Pay $65 for 7, usually get 1.5. The offer around here though is "Blazing fast speed with 1 gig down".
I pay or the most expensive Comcast internet service they offer. I'm speed tested at 8Mbps up. I called ot complain that my internet is being throttled and they pretended they couldn't hear me and hung up, 4 times. One time I called the dude by his name and he said yes? I said "so you can hear me right?" he said "ugh I'll have to call you back..." that was 2 months ago.
OMG, I might hate talking to Comcast but at least I get 150+ down and 15 up consistently.
They call me every week to sell me TV services though... they really hate people that only buy Internet.
This just blows my mind, i would have figured you lived in rural Wyoming or somewhere like that
I have att gig symmetrical for $70/mo near atl.
huh, i currently am located in one of the poorest and least developed country in the world with a 25mbps connection up and down btw, i can raise it to 50 if i needed it. It does cost me $50 for 3 months, but its worth it.
[deleted]
You have no clue about internet usage. 10 mbps down while slow streams every single HD service. 4k is not streamable at that rate but that's it. Netflix streams in 4-5 HBO go uses 8-9 to give two examples. HBO go is the biggest user that I know of.
Cries in 3 Mbps down and .5 up...
Eh. I don't live in the US and 1 MBps is usable to stream in HD just fine. Takes me a couple of days to download games though so you guys are still gonna be better off than me
Eh. I don't live in the US and 1 MBps is usable to stream in HD just fine. Takes me a couple of days to download games though so you guys are still gonna be better off than me
My parents stream hd Netflix with 3mbps down, no idea how. It might have been 720p but I couldn't tell even on a 60 inch LCD.
Why are they doing this?
Bundled sites/apps/services/etc that violate the principles of Net Neutrality to un-neuter internet speeds for only the places you've paid extortion fees to access.
Honestly 10Mbps is just fine. Not crazy good but not terrible.
Source: I live in a country where that's the standard. It works good for streaming even in Full HD, the only thing that sucks is downloading huge files/games.
[deleted]
I still remember when anything was 1 Mbps or above they had stated that was adequate
Streaming HD is a big no no when you have a data cap thats 40 GB per month. I own multiple AAA games that won't be downloaded until I move out for college because I'm not sacrificing the data
Seriously I don't understand how people survive without at least 100Mbps
Hardly usable lolol. What are you even doing with your internet
[deleted]
Where's here? Can you send a source? I'd love to read about this
Here is a tiny town of 3k people in the middle of missouri. my ex brother in law was on the crew that helped install the fiber lines, and there were signs up about the digging for fiber install when we moved in. There are 7 total ISPs in town (including business only providers) and not one provides anything higher than 10mbps, including satellite and cable despite having the capability to do so.
That way they can slowly raise prices over the next thirty years.
Verizon Fios is such a pos. Their entire business model just pisses me off. Oh, you want to remove that service that you easily added using the website, going to need to call and ask a person to remove it. Also, now you will need to modify your current service deal to whatever service deals are currently available.
A fiber line was put in right through my front yard about that long ago. AT&T. As far as I know it's not used. We are still limited to DSL.
...I pay $75 for 3.5Mbps down and 1Mbps upload via antennae. These are also not guaranteed speeds. Though I have no data caps and no throttling going for me, which... I guess is nice. Plus, burst speeds when traffic is low.
Edit: Takes me three days to download a 60Gig game at 400Kbps. Send help.
Edit: Wrote broadband on accident. Words are hard.
Ehm, that is not broadband? I pay about the same (€73) for a 200/25Mbit connection with a 3Tb data cap. Speeds should increase to gbit this year with DOCSIS 3.1 according to my isp’s ceo in interviews and their official site, and the data cap has been updated too with previous speed upgrades, so I expect this now too...
My bad, it's called "Wireless Broadband" according to them. More like "Wireless Dial-up". I pay three times as much as dial up was back then. Guess it's my fault for being in a country town, but it's 2018. Figured things would speed up about 10 years ago.
My hometown could have had fiber in the late 90s because they put in a lottery data center there. I remember watching them put in the line as a kid. The city denied the offer to patch the schools, hospital and various other buildings into it because "money".
The best internet there now is DSL that's barely pulling 1-3mbps and goes down daily because the lines are so old.
There's a good damned fiber line that goes right through town that no one uses! The city an hour north just passed a measure to build a line of their own down to it and my hometown sits with their thumb up their ass, wondering why their economy sucks and no one wants to stay.
I don't understand, is it more expensive for them to run the internet at higher speeds?
Edit: why do they limit speeds? It doesn't make sense!
So they can charge high prices without having to provide higher speeds, which means they can use existing low quality infrastructure and not have to improve their network to handle higher traffic. It is much cheaper for them and allows them to make higher profits by charging the same amount as people would otherwise be paying for the faster speeds.
[removed]
To watch Netflix in ultra HD you need at least 25 megabits per second.
You know those "service fees" your ISP tacks in to your bill every month? Yeah, guess what those are paying for.
Lobbying efforts?
Lobbing so they don't have to do what they're supposed to with the money.
It's cheaper to buy a team of lawyers than lay down the fiber.
Hookers and cocaine?
So Verizon is going to send me a one free hooker and cocaine? Is that with or without net neutrality?
I'm gonna build my own fiber network with blackjack and hookers...in fact, forget the fiber network!
Douchebag McFCC's secret bank account? Just a guess...
(My brain refuses to remember that ass-hat's name and I don't want to accidentally see his face if I Google it. I have enough nightmares, thank you!)
Edit: trust issues.
Not trust fund. Trusts are something you give to your kids. Ajit Papi, douchebag of the month, December 2017, is using it for his fourth vacation house though, probably
Thanks. I thought that was a much broader concept i.e. an account that pays annuities or similar.
[removed]
I hate the government and cable providers so fucking much, the more I read about this shit.
At the prices they're charging, it would have been easier and cheaper for the ISPs to just buy everyone in the US a dildo, so the people could fuck themselves in the ass.
Right, instead they bought the government to do the same exact thing.
Nipple balm to keep from chaffing.
I just love paying Comcast’s “regulatory recovery fee” knowing that I’m paying for them to lobby my city council so that they can maintain their monopoly status. There’s an awesome municipal fiber program in the surrounding cities but every year they vote NO to joining because they have such a good “partnership” with Comcast.
Meanwhile my parents still can't get more than 3Mbps at their house, which happens to be extremely expensive and also unreliable.
I just hate living in unreliable houses.
My mom has the same issue (theoretical 5 down, actually 1.5-2), but its not because its an unreliable house, but because she lives in the fuck middle of nowhere in Indiana. I was kinda surprised when she called me and said that the local ISP (
HughesNetTDS i think) was laying fiber near her house this year.Isn't HughesNet mainly satellite internet? Girlfriends parents had it for awhile a few years back and it was absolute garbage.
Ah, the ol' reddit house-a-roo
Hold my mortgage, I’m going in.
nice call on the subject/verb agreement issue. (english is horrible for this problem).
My mother-in-law can only get dial-up at her house. And she can't get that fancy 56kbps dial-up. She is limited to 14.4kbps due to her phone line.
Do they live in the middle of nowhere? Also, do they have a cable line that runs in front of their house that they aren't allowed to tap into?
There's no cable available in their area, only satellite TV. Their internet is DSL. They do live in a fairly rural area, but literally only a 5 minute drive away from a suburban area with plenty of internet/cable options.
Lol my grandparents were in the same situation for years. The main cable line ran straight through their front yard, too. I don't know if they just complained enough or what, but they just had it fixed.
I'm in the same boat, I pay $100/mo for ~30mbps and only usually get 17-23. I'm "just outside of the coverage for fiber" in my town.
Sounds like my house.
I have better then that and I use Satellite. I get 25 down.
This is the real issue.
Most Americans live in urban cities with reliable internet connection.
Yet tens of millions if not a hundred million of us live is rural areas or smaller older towns that do not have reliable internet connection.
I am lucky to get my 3mb/s connection for 6-8 hours of the day because it is from satellite. And I pay based on usage.
This isn't actually true. It's conflating two different stories. The first story is that 200 Billion dollars were "given" to telecoms. That's not accurate. There was no checks written for anything near that. The report's methodology is poor. It calculates what it thinks the FCC should set the price for telecom services at, and considers anything above that a subsidy. Under that logic, every company more profitable than a water utility gets massive subsidies. https://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/broadbandgrants/comments/61BF.pdf
The second story is that one state--I think New York--was promised by Verizon that it would provide 45mpbs service back in the mid 1990s. Laymen read that to mean 45mbps to each home for the price of residential cable/dsl. But really, the plan was to upgrade the T-carrier lines (which are backbone lines, not residential) from T1 to T3 (which are 45mpbs). Verizon actually did this. But T3 lines aren't made for residential customers. It's for commercial and industrial uses. A school, a big business, etc. would buy a T3 line, which is like having 4000 telephone lines to your location.
Uh...you seem to be taking an extremely reductive look at what Kushnik reported. In his own words, posted right here on reddit, actually:
Top comment from this thread, which has even more info on this.
I'm not being reductive. He is overly verbose. When he says:
"We paid about 9 times for upgrades to fiber for home or schools and we got nothing to show for it"
He actually means the telecoms charged too much to customers according to his opinion. Cite the page of his books that show any actual 400B of payments to telecoms. You cannot because he doesn't discuss any.
Check Chapter 37, it explicitly confirms what I'm saying.
So this is opinion? "and each phone company went to their state commissions and legislatures and got tax breaks and rate increases to fund these 'utility' network upgrades that were supposed to replace the existing copper wires with fiber optics -- starting in 1992. And it was all a con. As a former senior telecom analyst (and the telcos my clients) i realized that they had submitted fraudulent cost models, and fabricated the deployment plans."
You do realize the 400B came from a lot of different things right? Tax breaks, fees, surcharges, and THEN on top of it, the things he describes in chapter 27 which is the absurd markup on the services. Apparently 10,000+% is okay to you.
No it gives an example of where some of the money came from. Directly from that chapter he says "The simplest way of explaining how this money accrued at the customers’ expense can best be seen in this next exhibit."
You’re just another dolt suckling on telecoms’ teats
You are sorely mistaken on multiple counts:
-The agreement in the 90s for T3 service was a separate deal entirely. The one being discussed is for Verizon to draw fiber - which they did, but never put any backbone in place to support all that fiber. They literally laid fiber cable into the ground, and called it a day.
-A T3 line is capable of 672 phone lines (each T1 providing 24)
I've set up multiple offices across NYC with FiOS , and it amazes me that to this day, one building could be lit up for service, but a building directly across the street is not.
Get your facts straight, and stop defending what was clearly a raw deal for New Yorkers.
Can you not use FSO or something in the city? Our skyline is nowhere near as high so I'm not sure if it's feasible but this has been a solid option for us to provide data to bldgs where fiber isn't available.
FSO is an option in certain cases, depending on the surrounding buildings - but it's not only about LOS.
A lot of times, buildings get themselves locked into only offering services from certain ISPs, and in return, those ISPs give kickbacks to the building owners. It's another way the consumer gets screwed.
Here's more info on this shady practice:
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/the-new-payola-deals-landlords-cut-with-internet-providers/
A T3 line is 28 T1 lines carrying a total of just under 45 mbps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-carrier
I'm not going to fact check the rest of your comment because I assume the rest is just as inaccurate.
Also, Verizon laid the fiber backbone. They just didn't wire it to the last mile infrastructure. But the contract I saw, didn't require anything like that. If you have another contract that required fiber to the home, I'd like to see it.
Get your facts straight.
You don't need to fact check beyond your own link:
My facts are all accurate, and you've just now somehow recognized the specific deal (and the fiber details behind it) as I mentioned it.
The initiative was to light up NY with proper broadband to keep up with the rest of the civilized world, and Verizon used 2 lines of ambiguous language in the deal to translate as "we just need to run a bunch of cable, not use or service it" - yeah, because that's exactly what the initiative (and all the money given to Verizon) was for. Verizon acted in bad-faith, and as far as I'm concerned, you're a corporate shill for defending that action.
Bro do you even route? 24 channels * 28 T1s is nowhere near 4000.
http://irregulators.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BookofBrokenPromises.pdf
Pretty sure what he's talking about is the 400 billion dollars in fees ISPs took on the promise that they would turn the US's copper infrastructure to fiber. They were already planning on installing the fiber, so they did that anyway, called it good, and pocketed the 400B.
Cite me the page where that book discusses actually payments. Because like I said his "400B" is what he thinks customers overpaid.
EDIT: did you even read the source you are citing. Chapter 37 explicitly confirms what I said. 400B is his opinion of surplus profits.
Thank you, I'm glad someone pointed this out, I'm getting tired of seeing that shit posted everywhere when it's heavy misinformation.
What about this is misinformation? It's extremely well laid out, researched, and documented what happened.
I remember back in high school when having a T1 line ran to your house made you epic cool mcgee
More like 600. 23 * 28.
Yes, because most Americans are idiots who thought creating the teclo and cable monopolies was awesome, so let's subsidize them even more.
Enjoy those networks yet?
It's a bit ironic that the rural areas are going to feel this the most.
Really? 400 billion? 1300 bucks for every man, woman, and child in the USA?
Yup. Between 1991 and 2012, each household was charged somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 for this service that was never provided.
No, it is not true but the more often people repeat it, the more people believe it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7o41rf/the_fcc_is_preparing_to_weaken_the_definition_of/ds6zkce/
Seems pretty well explained and sourced to me. I'd be interested to hear where you think it's wrong.
See my response below to im_at_work_now.
So taking a series of massive tax write-offs and deductions for a task they never performed, meanwhile charging customers fees attributed to (and only approved for the purpose of) expanding broadband infrastructure, is not actually taking $400 billion from the public? What part of it are you saying is not true?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394.html
First there is no source other than the book by one person.
It pretends that in the 90s we should have had fiber Gigabit Internet at every house. That technology didn't exist at that point!!! It was actually about T3 connections (which is copper) and T3 connects were used to connect schools and the backbone of the Internet (not every household). There are some projects where companies were supposed to offer X but provided Y because the specs of the contract were still met. It is like the CAF project that just define what speed should be provided but doesn't say it has to be technology X to do it. I believe there was only one or two cases where AT&T or Verizon pretended like their cell phone service meets the criteria and due to badly written contract with the companies they got away with it (Internet over cell phone didn't really exist when the contracts were made).
A big part of the number is also that the Internet doesn't get taxed (check your bill). So all it means that consumers don't pay taxes (cheaper service). It doesn't mean that the companies get free money by not having a tax on Internet service. If everyone gets a benefit then it just means lower bills.
TLDR: The dollar value is to high due to counting no taxes and copper was being installed because the technology didn't exist in the 90s.
I'm far more concerned that there are babies receiving food on taxpayer money. The nerve!
The money is still being taken as a basic charge since the 90s as a promise to fulfill new broadband goals which included fiber optics which never happened/slowly nearly a decade later.
the entire net neutrality argument makes me think that almost everyone has forgotten that we've already fucking paid for the infrastructure to be built... people should literally be going to the guillotine for squandering that amount of tax payer dollars and then asking for more...
[removed]
Believe ya, but do you have a link?
Why don't we gather up all the telecoms CEO CFO share holders and their flunkies that work at the FCC into a large banquet hall lock the door and pull a Vlad Tepes on them?
”Here are a huge pile of money, please do something good with it!”
"see we told you taxation and government are terrible!"- the GOP.
Can I get my cut of that 400 billion back since they did jack shit with it so I can move away from this damn country?
Was this different from the Rural internet initiative?
Was this different from the Rural internet initiative?
No, it was never tax money. It was fess that internet providers levied to subscribers as to be used for infrastructure maintenance and upgrades.
Convenient that no one seemed to define what amount was intended for upgrades...
Why report on that when we can keep talking about the 150 billion that went to Iran Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
/s
What did the previous administrations do about not seeing any results from that money?
That did happen. But is that relevant to this decision? I really don't understand what this Feb vote would do. Isn't there still like 10% or more of the US with no broadband access at all? There are people that live 20 minutes out of downtown in my city that can only use satellite access or 4G hot-spots. There's no fiber anywhere in my city. or any of the surrounding counties.
What does it even really change going forward for the FCC to re-qualify minimum broadband speeds to lower than they are now?
This is why "high taxes are good" and socialism never works. The people who filter the money never seem to get it where it needs to be
Fuck the FCC.
Sounds like a dream eh?
As an Australian, all I can say is you've been NBN'd
I read that as 400 million and i tought it was a huge scam, but then i saw it was 400 billion and my jaw dropped
I think that's part of the reason why they want to make 10/1 broadband. If its changed to 10/1 I think they can say "hey we gave all those places broadband with 4g so we fulfilled our contract."
We paid 400 million so lobbyists could get pay raises, and Cable Stockholders could get profits. I didn't see anything about 1000Mbps.
Wow, really? I'm surprised this hasn't been posted on Reddit before. TIL.
FUCK, when are we gonna protest?
That just seems like so much more than 1 Mbps.
That just seems like so much more than 1 Mbps.
The most important thing is that the rich people and companies got tax breaks and its the duty of every red blooded American to ensure that corporate profits are maximized.
Could 400 billion cover the cost of fiber all over the us? I thought the cost for that small city in Colorado was 150 million
The current administration believes it's the FTC's job, not the FCC's job, to dictate consumer interests to the ISP marketplace. If that is they're opinion, and the reality they're going to impose upon us, then I highly recommend you start contributing to what I would hope is a mass of ISP related consumer complaints that would force the FTC's hand.
Please send your anti-consumer practices complaints to: [email protected]
Until the ISP marketplace is truly competitive, with abundant and comparable options to pick from, everything ISPs do to extract more money, reduce quality of service, or defeat newcomers to the marketplace preemptively is an anti-trust issue. The FTC must be made fully aware of the scope of consumer concern.
edit: somehow managed to put "to do" in the wrong order.
No.. you didn't! Please don't conflate telecoms with other ISPs (notably cable providers)...they took next to nothing from the government. Also, you shouldn't conflate broadband build out with extensions to the telephone network for utility reasons (so Bubba Gump 30 miles out gets telephone service). The government subsidizes the cost to build to Bubba because otherwise the telecom provider would go bankrupt (because it is required by the government to provide such service) as a utility.
Blame politicians for not enforcing it. The companies are just doing good business.
Not to mention the PUC fees in our phone and internet bills
That’s news to me. If that’s the case, where do I go to get a refund?
Maybe that'll teach you next time to elect people who'll spend your money responsibly!
Yes we did under net neutrality government regulation.
I think it wasn't tax money. If I remember correctly isp's had permission to add extra charges to bills which had to be used to upgrade infrastructure.
The charges were not taxes.
Why can't anyone sue the fuck out of these companies for wasting taxpayer's dollars?
[removed]
Yes, and we are nowhere near that
Corporations demands us to paid for their service but they can get anything free of charge from the governments as long as they suck and paid the right corrupt dickhead. All because they are "corporations" and not human beings. Their existence is more valuable then human basic rights and dignity. #CorpLiveMatter. /s
Jokes on us I guess. I’ve been in the same house for 10+ years and we’re ~500 feet too far from some switching station... therefore it’s dial-up, satellite, or mobile hotspot with a phone. Wow.
The FCC should be suing ISPs over this instead of lying down for them.
Yup, from Clinton>Bush>Obama (1992 then ending in 2014).
So yeah, majority democrat controlled and we all know the Bushes are globalists so there you go...
Woohhh I got to be the 11k upvote in this comment!
Thank ye kind sir!
[removed]
I believe we actually paid for ‘broadband’ which was defined at 45mbps. This move is probably to make sure they can meet their goal without having to really do much more.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/free-download-the-book-of-broken-promises-400-billion_us_59082d4de4b084f59b49fc6d
Well you don't have to spend 400B on infrastructure if you spend a fraction of that changing the definition of that infrastructure to the point it no longer requires upgrading.
This whole shit just pisses me off,they believe that they shouldn’t be told in how to do things ,and how it is,so that they can in turn,tell us how they do things,and how it is.
Fuck them.
Thanks Obama
Yes, we did. And imagine that! Companies like Verizon would benefit from being able to say that they met those requirements under this new definition of what qualifies as acceptable broadband.
Now, suddenly, they've met the requirements for those tax dollars. Interesting! Wait, who's the head of the FCC? Who'd he supposedly puppet for? Weird!
What year?
Yes, so why don't we take it back? Law suits and/or "repossession of property."
Stop giving your money to the Government for stupid shit that we know they wont deliver.
it's almost like corporations act in bad faith as a matter of course or something
Not tax money. The governm allowed the telecoms to charge fees that were meant to got to fiber but never did.
The tax part gets repeated over and over on Reddit. People love the same six comments on everything.
Well done making even our completely ruined NBN project in australia look good, at least it only cost 40-50 billion, and shit is at least getting rolled out (even if its not fibre to the home anymore)
If you take 400B taxpayer money and do nothing in China, I'm pretty sure you'd get promptly arrested, trialled, and shot.
[removed]
I like how everyone mentions this talking point as if giving them the money was the right thing to do but the corporations took advantage of the poor wittle government.
The answer is to stop subsidizing shitty companies, stop regulating away their competition, and make the assholes compete rather than giving them guaranteed tax revenue whether people like their service or not.
I think we all know by now voting doesn't work when business has too much power. So if voting doesn't work, what works?
Yes we did, and not only did they keep the money without improving infrastructure, but they weren't punished or even really publicly shamed for it. Just straight up theft.
is anybody going to do anything about this?????
Yes, and a few people laughingly said "thank you!"
Obviously the ISPs used the 400 billion to bribe, sorry "lobby", the FCC instead of expanding infrastructure.
Obviously the ISPs used the 400 billion to bribe, sorry "lobby", the FCC instead of expanding infrastructure.
Easy solution. Comcast and the other ISP's deserve the corporate death penalty and to be absorbed by the municipalities they scammed, with that money being seized and actually being put to work expanding broadband.
Here is a Reddit ELI5 thread explaining how it happened.
The thread includes u/kushnick's excellent, and apparently expert, explanation on the subject.
Yes and no. That article was riddled with just as much altered truth as the fcc is attempting to do in future articles by lowering the deff of broadband. The usa has a good 90% long stretch fiber, some would argue 99%, based on population. It is not to the door, but to the last mile. You can actually google a map of the fiber lines.
That said, this is completely insane! We have local govts trying to make there own last mile network (really really bad), we have the fcc forcing the removal of NN (also really bad and the root cause), and we got the comcast companies getting ready to fuck the american people while the govt turns a blind eye OR does some durasticly bad ideas to out manuever the isps.
The usa is really fucked.
Why is that really really bad? It seems to work pretty well for the municipalities that have done it.
Because government, man. /s
Are you really unconcerned about a potentially corrupt local politician?
Lol, I'm not unconcerned about corrupt politicians at the local or national level.
But do we not use electricity, water, gas, trains, etc. develop by local municipalities? I'm really not sure you and u/Zeal514 's point is.
Why is a corrupt local politician a particular concern for local development of infrastructure, as compared to obvious corruption at the federal level being a confirmed detractor to the quality/availability of a national infrastructure?
I'm not trying to shut you up. I'm asking if there is something I'm missing here or if maybe u/Zeal514 did not fully think through his point.
What do you feel is bad about municipal internet service?
[removed]
Assuming it’s treated like a utility, I’ve heard nothing but good things.
Then again, my town also takes forever to patch a pothole and when they do patch it, they do it poorly.
Libertarians get all pee pants when the government does anything.
Because anytime the government does something, any benefits go straight to their cronies, and the taxpayer is left with the bill.
In short, Its a major conflict of interest.
They promise NN, but who enforces it? They do. So in other words, just trust me.
Imo, in a perfect world, withput any corruption, or problems at all, this would be ideal. But the worlds not perfect, there are corrupt ppl. It wont stop at a city level, when it inevitably turns out good, the state will want a piece, than the feds.
China and north korea are good examples of govt managed internet.
Its just like if the govt controlled the news, whether its print or broadcast. That needs to be seperate.
Fiber to the node isn't even a thing in most of the US lol. They buildt fiber rings in metro areas and fiber plants in industrial and CBD areas to provide business connections. Some large metro areas have GPON networks to the node, but last-mile is always copper in residential services.
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56e03df7918a0f7333e350f3-1190-625/animated-map-reveals-the-113000-miles-of-cable-that-power-americas-internet.jpg
Thats a map of the USAs fiber network. As you can see most of the major ccities have extensive fiber runs, and the least populated states ie South dakota, nebraska, have little to no fiber to nodes.
Also I have fiber straight to modem, that cat 5 from my modem to my router. Verizons Fios, and Frontiers Fios have Fiber to residential, straight up to the door. They tend to run a copper line from outdoor modem, to the indoor router, but its still fiber to the door.
Also, google fiber is another fiber to the door provider,altho isps used local govt to prevent them to moving into most locations.
Please stop spreading misinformation
fios.verizon.com
https://internet.frontier.com/fios.html
https://fiber.google.com/about/
Those are fiber backbones...
I've dealt with ordering fiber circuits at several CLECs (small telco ISPs). The incumbent telcos have run fiber in the areas I described. I can order fiber circuits to any address the incumbent LEC has plants for. I can also lease strands or lambdas on metro rings. I can even string COs together to get into different POPs.
What I cannot do is reach residential neighborhoods cheaply, as that fiber doesn't exist in most markets.
Cable companies have been upgrading from HFC to GPON tech over the past 5-10 yrs. Many neighborhood nodes are actually passive fiber all the way into the neighborhood, but they then switch to Ethernet over Coax for the actual last-mile. But this is useless since a small ISP does not have access to this fiber to reach their customers.
See below. Most cable ISPs are operating in either zone 2 or 3. Zone 1 is incredibly uncommon. FIOS covers less than 5% of the country, even in markets where Vz is the ILEC.
https://www.fiberoptictel.com/application-solution/eoc-ethernet-over-coax-ftth-epongpon-solution/
Got a link of the Google mapped fiber?
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56e03df7918a0f7333e350f3-1190-625/animated-map-reveals-the-113000-miles-of-cable-that-power-americas-internet.jpg
Keep in mind that its just to the server. A good majority of the east coast has fiber to the door.
These lines were built and owned by century link and level3. They were built based on population, as you can see the heavily populated cities have the most fiber.
Nope. It has some fiber backbones but last mile is not available in a lot of cases. In fact to get last mile fiber here on the east coast you’re looking at stupid high fees and long contracts for the build out cost.
How would it be bad if local governments created their own ISP's?
[deleted]
No, we actually did not. A big chunk of that number comes from an author who believes that telecoms should have been regulated as utilities, with a regulated rate of return (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to believe, BTW).
He then compares the profits the telecoms made after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated them to what he calculates they would have made if they had remained fully regulated. The difference between what they made and what he thinks they should have made somehow ends up getting counted as tax money from the government.
He also thinks that depreciation should be calculated differently, and the difference between that and how it is normally calculated also somehow becomes tax money from the government.
Here's a link with a detailed criticism of the author's argument: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556
[deleted]
No. The infrastructure may need to be shared, but there can be multiple services available. There are places where multiple electrical providers, or natural gas providers are available.
If small players are restricted by pricing guidelines, what incentive do they have to trench fiber or directly attempt to compete with the incumbents?
Part of our issue currently is that small ISPs like CLECs almost entirely focus on providing business services over leased fiber, due to the cost of reaching residential neighborhoods. Regulating pricing would only serve to further consolidate things into the hands of the incumbents, as they already own their last-mile.
This is a terrible idea, and precisely why ISPs were excluded from 700 subsections of title ii in 2015, including the pricing and utility portions.