The Day Net Neutrality Died

cc Harvey Lloyd A couple of news-stories from Motherboard that shows another side to your rural area concern : Harvard Study Shows Why Big Telecom Is Terrified of Community-Run Broadband https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d345pv/harvard-study-shows-why-big-telecom-is-terrified-of-community-run-broadband To Save Net Neutrality We Must Build Our Own Internet https://motherboard.vice.com/EN_US/article/7x4y8a/net-neutrality-fcc-community-networks Reply

#9
With Net Neutrality having powerful advocates in the technology community and for now Amazon and Facebook are siding with this, but they are creatures of advantage and once things tip the other way, then the question is how does anyone stop Amazon or Facebook owning the very telecom companies that are currently doing a terrible job of professing an open internet version which does not even look like a wolf in sheep's clothing, it just looks like a wolf who learned to say baa, so we can laugh at that. We can either have these behemoth tech companies on the Net Neutrality side or face a kind of corporate fascism that is even more extreme than the one we encounter both in Trump and the Telcoms. For sure Congress has Republicans that will follow the crusty old tyrant that sold the idea that breaking the establishment is good for poor people. Actually dictatorship can provide a greater economic benefit than democracy can but not the kind that will be pre-empted by a billionaire who is as sensitive as a spoiled brat and who must make even real dictators gaul at his absolute shallowness. https://athousandnations.com/2010/02/05/dictatorship-vs-democracy-in-poor-countries/ Also for sure The Day of Action back in July https://www.wired.com/story/the-whos-who-of-net-neutralitys-day-of-action/ did nothing to stop the inevitable 3-2 vote along party lines at the FCC. What it boils down to is whether we are a part of a powerful pressure group or toothless against tyrants. There is enough pressure in the digital well-head to move in a direction which safeguards the system against the usual corrupt suspects - and here Congress happens to be a group that can change the decision, but it is the law courts that ultimately may end up addressing this - and Trump is having more than his fair share of his policies ending up in the law courts. Reply

#6
BTW Harvey, the question of investing in rural areas has always been unaddressed and for me it is a bit like saying that if we pay the 1% that the mega-rich will trickle down their investments. One way of dealing with the last mile question is the practice of local loop unbundling as it happens in the UK https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/14/16692318/net-neutrality-local-loop-broadband-internet-access Great idea right? Rural Areas in UK face 20 Year Wait for Broadband http://www.zdnet.com/article/rural-areas-face-20-year-wait-for-broadband/ The chief argument for Trump's desire to get rid of net neutrality is not because it benefits the rural community but because net neutrality represents an "Obama-Era Policy" - and that is how it is positioned with his base. He does not care that his base has more rural voters, he wants to play to the idea of evil government regulations and greater market openness. The net result as one can see it play out is a giant sucking sound as more money gets siphoned off to the richest groups. Yes, in the ideal world the system of fairness should extend to rural communities and that should be a fundamental part of the equation, but that is not where paying more for broadband has typically led to, it is a bit like the hope of water privatization would improve that particular utility. The investors in water privatization made bucket loads of money but are you honestly telling me that all those extra profits where put back into water infrastructure? We are today way past the era of fake news, we have entered the era of massive perpetrated bullshit. Reply

#6
I am totally against a discriminatory tiered system where the big players want to own the pipes and this will eventually effect emerging players like beBee. To think that corporate telecom giants won't cut special deals with other internet giants, or internet giants end up buying a telecom giant for control of pipes is a hope. Microsoft who owns Linkedin without net neutrality could cut a lucrative deal with telcos to make LinkedIn run faster and starve a site like beBee of its access speed. When people find it easier to connect to LinkedIn than beBee, that is how the larger fish will kill off their competition. https://www.globalresearch.ca/killing-net-neutrality-new-law-to-create-corporate-controlled-toll-roads-on-the-internet/5379189 As for effects on rural I am inclined towards agreeing with this piece written in The Hill http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/364417-eliminating-net-neutrality-would-hurt-rural-america Reply

#3
Yes a highway system and not Big Telecom toll roads and the ability to play off the market like something out of the Good, Bad and the Ugly. Big Telecom framed the debate as "Open Internet" so it is they have an advantage on framing, but it is an advantage that is so easy to expose through late night comedy. I am inclined to think that yesterday's FCC vote may be a blessing in disguise but yet also fear it is a harbinger of things to come. Reply

#2
David instead of moving in step to the future, the US has a President who builds on Joseph Goebbels kind of thinking "a lie told many times become the truth" and then goes one step further and complains about that very lie !!! It is very noticeable how Trump hones into prejudice to manage his base, but now increasingly how much of an inferiority complex he is beginning to show in terms of "Obama Policies". That narcissism extends to not giving a damn about consequences other than maintaining his base is a return to old style demagogue. Even Robert Mugabi is not getting away with what he did for decades yet Trump operates with this old fashioned dictator playbook. Yet we cannot make this about Donald Trump because Net Neutrality is bigger than him, we should however frame his Presidency as an example of just how unfit he is for office and how much his policies help the 1% and power hungry constituencies like Big Telecom. Even "Make America Great" was a Ronald Reagan tagline, so originality is not something we should expect from the present administration, but innovation is what is hurt by losing Net Neutrality. Trump's awful legacy will take care of itself, what won't take care of itself is the understanding we have between one and another that we cannot treat Net Neutrality as a partisan issue, or be polarized by it simply because there is a demagogue in power against it. It is impossible to ignore that the FCC chairman is empowered by Trump but easy to forget that pressure on Congress comes from the people - and Net Neutrality is not an impeachment hearing, it is a highly important principle for all of us. Trump is the President of his base, but his base needs to support Net Neutrality. Whatever his base still likes about him, this is one area which will come back to bite them in the ass - and stupid is as stupid does is not a policy, it is a tragedy. It isn't Trump who is the concern here but power given over to Big Telecom. Reply