• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

FCC reinstates Net Neutrality

winjer

winjer

Gold Member
www.techspot.com

FCC reinstates Net Neutrality in the US to ensure a level playing field for all internet users

The Obama-era rules classify broadband service providers in the US as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, subjecting them to the same regulatory oversight...
www.techspot.com www.techspot.com

www.fcc.gov

FCC Restores Net Neutrality

www.fcc.gov www.fcc.gov



The Obama-era rules classify broadband service providers in the US as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, subjecting them to the same regulatory oversight as telephone networks and cable TV. According to the FCC, the open internet standard will "protect consumers, defend national security, and advance public safety."

Internet service providers (ISPs) were classified as common carriers in 2015 under the Obama administration's Open Internet Order, a move that aimed to bring them under regulatory oversight. The order also introduced a set of net neutrality rules, ensuring an open and equally accessible internet for all users. However, these rules were overturned a few years later, a decision criticized by net neutrality advocates nationwide.
Click to expand...

The principle of net neutrality states that all internet traffic, irrespective of their source or destination, must be treated the same. As part of that principle, the rules bar the creation of "internet fast lanes" that could offer a massive advantage to corporate monoliths to the detriment of their competitors. Without net neutrality, behemoths like Google, Meta, and Microsoft could pay large sums of money to ISPs to get fast upstream connectivity to end users, while reducing the speeds of their smaller competitors to a crawl.

However, net neutrality aims to prevent such scenarios to ensure a level playing field for all internet users regardless of who they are. The rules also prevent anti-consumer behavior, like the so-called "zero-rating" schemes that involve ISPs arbitrarily exempting particular websites and services from data caps to boost their traffic artificially.

This week's vote to restore net neutrality has received widespread support from activists and former FCC commissioners, who believe that it will lay the bedrock for a consumer-friendly internet. However, it also has some notable dissenters, including Ajit Pai, who criticized the FCC's actions as a "complete waste of time" and blamed "a gaggle of Beltway partisans" for imposing an unwanted regulation on American citizens.
Click to expand...

Great news for US citizens. Bad news for scum like Ajit Pai and ISPs.
 
Last edited:
RagnarokIV

RagnarokIV

Battlebus imprisoning me \m/ >.< \m/
200707-ajitpai-ap-773.jpg
 
winjer

winjer

Gold Member
RJMacready73 said:
I have no idea what exactly it means but if this fella says it good, then it must be alright
Click to expand...

It means that ISPs have to treat all data with the same priority and the same bandwidth.
This means they can't slow down sites and services that don't pay a special fee. And that ISPs can't give preferential treatment for sites that either pay them to, or that they prefer for political or ideological reasons.
This means that users can access any site or service with the same speed and quality, be it a major corporation with billions of dollars to spend, or a small business site, or a small startup.
 
RJMacready73

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
winjer said:
It means that ISPs have to treat all data with the same priority and the same bandwidth.
This means they can't slow down sites and services that don't pay a special fee. And that ISPs can't give preferential treatment for sites that either pay them to, or that they prefer for political or ideological reasons.
This means that users can access any site or service with the same speed and quality, be it a major corporation with billions of dollars to spend, or a small business site, or a small startup.
Click to expand...
Excellently summed up

Celebrate In Love GIF by Max
 
T

terintamel

Member
It is too long of a discussion to go into all areas and details on why this is bad, but let me give you one example as someone who actually runs an ISP on why this will be bad for my customers.

While on its face this sounds like a good idea when summarized as just making ISPs not treat traffic unfairly, what is actually happening is ISPs are now being reclassified as Title II services and will have all the regulations imposed on them as phone services. One such being forced to contribute to the USF (Universal Service Fund).

What that means is now the internet service I provide now, which has no taxes, will now have to start charging an 'internet tax' to cover the costs of contributing to the USF. Meaning the price of internet will go up for all 1300 of my customers without any benefit to them. Also being a small rural ISP we do not ask for or get Goverment funding from the USF so we are now having our customers pay a tax to use the internet with no benefit.

There are other issues with this Title II classification, and I will try to explain further as I parse the details of over 1500 pages of new rules/regulations. Also, we have never and will never manipulate our customer traffic as for smaller ISPs we neither have the market power to be gatekeepers nor gain any benefits from blocking, throttling or otherwise controlling how and where our customers can go.
 
Last edited:
Ownage

Ownage

Member
I remember lobbying in favor of Net Neutrality (NN) back in 2009-2010. Went against my old employer but it felt like the right thing. Funny thing was several clients of theirs were also in favor of NN. We ended up working together later on.

Glad to see this.
 
Last edited:
T

terintamel

Member
As WISPA and several FCC comissioners stated, the lack of title 2 regulation improved the internet overall, and there's not a single ISP that I know of that traffic prioritize in a way that's not beneficial to the consumer.
More importantly, the FCC's proposal for Net neutrality actually allows most of these traffic prioritizations, so that point for needing 900+ regulations for the sake of a single net neutrality stance, is also kinda terrible.
Not saying that there hasn't ever been a bad actor, but please point to a single instance of a large entity purposefully slowing down a service with intent to hurt it.
Notwithstanding the cell companies slowing netflix, youtube, etc. But again, under current net neutrality, that is okay, because it's for network optimization, and the companies actually don't care about the service itself, but the fact that it's video, and if they could discriminate against video only, they would.

www.techdirt.com

Biden’s New Net Neutrality Rules Don’t Prevent Anti-Competitive “Fast Lanes”

One of the key reasons the net neutrality fight even became a thing was widespread concern that big ISPs would abuse their power to behave anti-competitively, picking winners and losers across the …
www.techdirt.com www.techdirt.com

The FCC doesn’t need to regulate an industry in order to eliminate unfair business practices.
In fact Net Neutrality isn’t about protecting customers against anti-competitive monopolistic behaviors, those laws already exist as antitrust laws under the FTC. https://www.ftc.gov/.../guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws
Net Neutrality is the justification for the FCC to regulate the internet. If the purpose was to update antitrust laws it would be easy enough to amend them with some minor updates.
 
Last edited:
Y

YCoCg

Member
terintamel said:
It is too long of a discussion to go into all areas and details on why this is bad, but let me give you one example as someone who actually runs an ISP on why this will be bad for my customers.

While on its face this sounds like a good idea when summarized as just making ISPs not treat traffic unfairly, what is actually happening is ISPs are now being reclassified as Title II services and will have all the regulations imposed on them as phone services. One such being forced to contribute to the USF (Universal Service Fund).

What that means is now the internet service I provide now, which has no taxes, will now have to start charging an 'internet tax' to cover the costs of contributing to the USF. Meaning the price of internet will go up for all 1300 of my customers without any benefit to them. Also being a small rural ISP we do not ask for or get Goverment funding from the USF so we are now having our customers pay a tax to use the internet with no benefit.

There are other issues with this Title II classification, and I will try to explain further as I parse the details of over 1500 pages of new rules/regulations. Also, we have never and will never manipulate our customer traffic as for smaller ISPs we neither have the market power to be gatekeepers nor gain any benefits from blocking, throttling or otherwise controlling how and where our customers can go.
Click to expand...
What in the actual fuck is wrong with American internet for this to be an issue? It's crazy how much more you guys pay for just the basics and now somehow you have to pay more just to be neutral?? Shit is backwards.
 
D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
Honestly, as bad as it all seemed when that Reese’s pieces douche pushed it through, I can’t say I noticed. I’m on a VPN most of the time too…but in principle, I’m glad
 
Mistake

Mistake

Gold Member
terintamel said:
It is too long of a discussion to go into all areas and details on why this is bad, but let me give you one example as someone who actually runs an ISP on why this will be bad for my customers.

While on its face this sounds like a good idea when summarized as just making ISPs not treat traffic unfairly, what is actually happening is ISPs are now being reclassified as Title II services and will have all the regulations imposed on them as phone services. One such being forced to contribute to the USF (Universal Service Fund).

What that means is now the internet service I provide now, which has no taxes, will now have to start charging an 'internet tax' to cover the costs of contributing to the USF. Meaning the price of internet will go up for all 1300 of my customers without any benefit to them. Also being a small rural ISP we do not ask for or get Goverment funding from the USF so we are now having our customers pay a tax to use the internet with no benefit.

There are other issues with this Title II classification, and I will try to explain further as I parse the details of over 1500 pages of new rules/regulations. Also, we have never and will never manipulate our customer traffic as for smaller ISPs we neither have the market power to be gatekeepers nor gain any benefits from blocking, throttling or otherwise controlling how and where our customers can go.
Click to expand...
You have a point about cost. Do you have a breakdown of what it would be? Some states also have a communications tax, like NH
 
Last edited:
T

terintamel

Member
sourceadvisors.com

The Federal Universal Service Fund Fee - Source Advisors

Explore the intricacies of the Federal Universal Service Fund Fee with Source Advisors! Discover our state and local tax services.
sourceadvisors.com sourceadvisors.com

Telecommunications companies are required to contribute to the USF based on a percentage of their interstate and international revenues. This contribution is known as the Universal Service Fund Fee. It is calculated as a percentage of a company’s end-user telecommunications revenues. The rate varies but typically ranges from 15.5% to 33%. FUSF surcharges may be passed through to the final user of the telecommunications services.

Fee Collection and Reporting​

All telecommunications companies are required to contribute to the USF fund. Companies providing telecommunications services to retail customers, either to other businesses or residential, must register with the FCC and file the necessary forms. Each quarter, the FCC sets a contribution factor, which is a percentage of interstate and international revenue, that each contributor is required to contribute. Telecommunications companies are responsible for quarterly collecting and submitting USF fees to the FCC.
The fees are typically passed on to consumers as a line-item charge on their telephone or broadband bills. Contributors to the USF fund must file FCC form 499Q quarterly to report and project their quarterly revenue. Additionally, companies must report their annual revenue on FCC form 499A filed by April 1st of every year.

So it varies based on revenue. As of before NN internet was not always classified as Telecommunications so we were not subject to mandatory USF fees and reporting. Now with all Internet being reclassified as Telecommunications via Title II we are now subject to the collection and reporting rules.

Honestly one of the biggest negatives is that the FCC did not make any exceptions for small ISPs like us who are not large enough to have a full-time compliance department to handle the much increasing red tape and requirements the FCC is mandating. Things like the FCC 477 and BDC reporting were already a problem. Now you add on the Broadband Labels (not against the idea but the implementation) and now the 900+ new regulations on all ISPs and you are now creating quite the barrier for entry for the small independant mostly rural ISPs who do their best to provide services where the big guys could care less about; that is unless the get free tax payer handouts.
 
Neon Xenon

Neon Xenon

Member
Ajit Pai punching the air with this announcement.
And the air's winning.

Seeing this news being covered on various outlets has been interesting.
deadline.com

FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality In A Blow To Internet Service Providers

Major internet providers once again will have to abide by a set of robust rules as the FCC today reinstated net neutrality regulations.
deadline.com deadline.com

Quite a headline there. "FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality In A Blow To Internet Service Providers". As if ISPs are going to start dying out as a result of Net Neutrality existing.
 
Pejo

Pejo

Member
Damn, how did I not hear about this news? This is fucking great news for the few dried husks of our customer rights that's left on the internet.

Let me guess, major media outlets are blasting this as bad news?
 
winjer

winjer

Gold Member
Neon Xenon said:
Ajit Pai punching the air with this announcement.
And the air's winning.

Seeing this news being covered on various outlets has been interesting.
deadline.com

FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality In A Blow To Internet Service Providers

Major internet providers once again will have to abide by a set of robust rules as the FCC today reinstated net neutrality regulations.
deadline.com deadline.com

Quite a headline there. "FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality In A Blow To Internet Service Providers". As if ISPs are going to start dying out as a result of Net Neutrality existing.
Click to expand...

Curious how the whole world has Net Neutrality, yet ISPs still turn a nice profit, while offering better speeds and services.
Or maybe it's just that Ajit Pai is a corrupt, lying piece of shit.
 
winjer

winjer

Gold Member
And now the FCC slaps a 200M fine for ISPs selling Location Data to Third Parties Without Customer Consent.


Today, the Federal Communications Commission fined thenation’s largest wireless carriers for illegally sharing access to customers’ location informationwithout consent and without taking reasonable measures to protect that information againstunauthorized disclosure. Sprint and T-Mobile – which have merged since the investigationbegan – face fines of more than $12 million and $80 million, respectively. AT&T is fined more than $57 million, and Verizon is fined almost $47 million.
Click to expand...


Excited Oh No GIF
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ISPs can charge extra for fast gaming under FCC’s Internet rules, critics say
2
91
5K
Men_in_Boxes replied
Satya Nadella: Annual letter to stockholders. Content on new platforms will continue
3 4 5 6 7
349
15K
solidus12 replied
FTC gives ISPs green light to block applications as long as they disclose it
6
1K
The Snake replied
IGN: It’s Not a Console War, It’s a Content War
Opinion 2 3
100
8K
Sosokrates replied
  • Locked
[MarketWatch] Microsoft faces battle for Activision deal, especially if ‘Call of Duty’ is destined for Xbox exclusivity
2 3 4 5
219
32K
Bo_Hazem replied
Top Bottom