One excuse FCC Chairman Ajit Pai regularly offers to explain his effort to gut net neutrality protections is the claim that open Internet rules have harmed ISPs, especially small ones. During a speech earlier this year, he stressed that 22 small ISPs told him that the 2015 Open Internet Order hurt their ability to invest and deploy.
In reality, though, many more ISPs feel very differently. Today, more than 40 ISPs told the FCC that they have had no problem with the Open Internet Order and that it hasn't hurt their ability to develop and expand their networks. What is more, that they want the FCC to do its job and address the problem Congress created when it repealed the broadband privacy rules in March.
Why These ISPs Like Title II
The 2015 Order famously outlined clear net neutrality rules. But those rules only passed muster because the Order also explicitly classified broadband service as a "common carrier" service, regulated by Title II of the Communications Act, rather than an "information service" regulated by Title I of the same Act. And that classification has several corollary effects, because Title II isn't just about net neutrality. It is also meant to curtail the anti-competitive conduct from incumbent monopolists like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. In essence, as common carriers, they are not able to use their power to control the Internet experience, and they are not able to directly harm their competitors in the broadband market.
I personelly have doubts about Net Neutrality having seen the internet go from CompuServe to Broadband, and now OneWeb promising global 5G. Also Linux was born on the newsgroups, an online forum so unmoderated it makes 4chan look like North Korea. IEEE has a discusion:
In the middle of the article is this "Clearly, this policy would also generate extra revenue for ISPs, which they say they will reinvest back into their own networks. This argument is tempting because right now, many ISPs have a near-monopoly in their service areas with little incentive to improve their service (a situation that has led to notoriously low customer satisfaction). If they could charge clients more to move content, ISPs may be more motivated to develop faster service." My thoughts: How about remove the monopolist policy of forbidding ISP's from competing in the same area! Many states allow power companies to compete for customers on the power grid. They fact that Net Neutrality fails to address this gives credence to the arguments below:
I can't recall ever reading a more perfect example of self defeating logic. "Right now cable companies don't compete, but if we let them charge people more money surely they'll try harder to be competitive."
I agree with some of what you are saying. However, this is the best we've got right now.
It's not perfect but it's a step in the right general direction. ISPs should be treated like utilities.
They give you bandwidth and maintain their infrastructure and that's it
You should buy your own modem or router and choose your DNS and so on. ISPs should not be doing have of what they are doing. Your water company doesn't have meters all in your house to know which sink is on or what toilet flushed at what time.
Piecemeal logic. The fact that some people think there is a debate going on is pretty disturbing, at the core.
A good government will develop, protect and improve an even playing field for private business to function (and flourish) in. Corporations dig their claws into the legislative branch and often develop an uneven playing field.
The majority of private businesses don't give a rat's ass about anyone. Unfortunately, idiots have vilified the idea of government to the point that they praise corporations over their representatives. Some of the idiots ARE representatives because of a complacent (and sometime nefarious) populous that normalizes harmful ideology over many generations. The benefit of consolidating the wealth of an entire nation to further improve the quality of life for the citizens of that nation is not debatable either. Many people working towards, and contributing to, major improvements is the only way that some things can be achievable.
The government is an entity that people should work to correct when defunct, and improve when appropriate.
I will try not to say too much as there are easily offended people here. Yeah I know, there is no nice way to call someone stupid... sorry.
I imagine a big part of that is South Korea is what? Less than 10% of the size of the US? I mean i live in the deep south in a town of just over 10,000 and Comcast offers speeds "up to" 150 mbps (for extreme prices). For some far more rural parts of the country connecting to the Internet over anything but satellite or cell-phone is a pipe dream at best, and the root cause is the same as for why it's so expensive where it is available. It's because the ISPs in the US are so incredibly shitty, and actively trying to be shittier.
totally agree, Problem is the government gave them fiefdoms where by law they will never have competition. My cable company pissed me off. My only option is Frontier DSL or Dial-up. On DSL it takes a week to download some AAA games. My main point is Net Neutrality does not address this, it only entrenches the ISP's monopoly position and gives the government a foothold to regulate things like content.
Remember the FCC was the root cause of hundreds of Ham radio and independent radio stations at the birth of radio becoming 3 and only 3 TV networks that owned speech from 1910 to the birth of the internet.
Net Neutrality protections do not affect the local monopolies that cable companies have, nor is it meant to. Net Neutrality protections extend to the content put over the last mile infrastructure managed by ISPs. To say to Comcast, for example, "Sure, you can monitor and throttle content you don't like, while forcing larger companies to pay a 'service fee' for nominal speeds, just don't be a dick about it" is like expecting an alligator won't eat a wingless chicken that you put in front of it.
To go back to the OSI model, ISPs currently (and wrongfully imho) have a local monopoly on Layer 1. What net neutrality does is basically prevent ISPs from extending that monopoly into Layers 3 and 4. Just because the current protections Net Neutrality offers doesn't break up local physical monopolies doesn't mean we should throw them out, to do so is basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
