FCC Revising Broadband to Enforce Net Neutrality

*Queue idiots claiming this is 'unconstitutional'*

Of course they are. Anyone that thought that the recent ruling meant that the FCC can't regulate providers of broadband was fooling themselves. The only real question is why the FCC didn't just do this in the first place, and save themselves the hassle of losing in the Comcast case.

I'm totally fine with them throttling down/blocking kid porn . . .

It's not that it's unconstitutional it's rather that it's the FCC doing it and frankly the FCC is one of the least liked federal regulation bodies.

I wonder how many pages that "'small handful' of telecommunications regulations" will occupy...
@Kevin: It should be "pacify" in the second paragraph, not "passify".

Yep except they rather throttle and block torrents

I hate throttling.

FCC=Fumble Communications Committee

I hope the FCC does implement this, cause everybody knows that Corporations dont really give a shit about the avg Consumer...

Now if only the FTC had the balls to STOP Apple cold-in its tracks concerning FLASH!!!

Don't Speak The R word! You might get the tea party in here screaming Socialism!



Anyways, I think this is a good idea, and I hope Canada will follow suit.

The point is the FCC CANNOT tell Comcast not to throtle, so now their trying to tell Comcast that it falls under a differing set of regulations, then the FCC will tell Comcast not to throtle again, then we'll go back to court...

Why should we be subject to throttling and limited information access when the freedom of information act has already passed? Moreover, why should certain sites be blocked simply because they share data? I was under the impression we had these "unalienable rights"? That really means something you know, when not even profits and "morals" get in the way of our right to say, see, hear and feel what we want. This country has descended so far.

So glad the Obama administration is doing soooo much to stop these evil corporations...

Christ, you're an idiot. I could say the same sarcastic crap about the last 43 Presidents.

What the hell does the president have to do with the fcc or Comcast? Please elaborate...

Christ?? He is the Savior of the world.. what the does he have to do with High Speed internet?? And correct me If wrong, but Obama and Bush are just the opposite side of the COIN... Last time we had a Real President he was killed in the 60s.

This is not unconstitutional. The regulation before was unconstitutional. This one merely requires things labeled as "broadband" to adhere to standards. Cable companies can call it something completely different if they want to get around this. Like "High Speed Internet".

The thing about Net Nuetrality is that it does the opposite of what its name sake is. The reason why people fight this tooth and nail is because tech is the most unregulated major industry in the US, and its the most profitable for a reason. Adding regulation, any regulation will have negative effects on such a free-market ecosystem. I don't think anyone wants to pay for new regulations that promote fair use.

i hate how everytime a new bill, or regulation appears anywhere in the government, it is instantly regarded as communism, socialism, or nazi.
td;dr people are afraid of change.

I think the question is if its positive change. We have gotten to the point where every major industry has thousands to hundreds of thousands of regulations that no business can plausibly adhere to. I think the most positive change that a new bill can bring along is burning the books on regulation and starting with a clean sheet.

My ISP used to throttle torrents, but not anymore.

I'm all for net neutrality though.

You sir have been listening to Fox "News" too long. Regulations are the referee in the game of economics. Regulations are there to say "No Mr. Corperation, you cannot abuse your customers or our people." Killing regulations is equivalent to removing referees from sports an allowing players to literally kill the opponents.

Net Neutrality is exactly what it sounds like. Otherwise companies like Comcast are allowed to say "we don't like our competitors, so let's over charge them and slow their site to a crawl so none of our customers can get to that site." And Comcast could legally do that to ANY site they wanted.

The power of the bully pulpit. Duh. What any president says has signigicant impact on a lot of things.
Our last president said a lot of idiotic things (along with things fed to him by others) and that was what was done.
Our current president, although he ran on a progressive promise of change, has become rather silent on anything that's remotely progressive and instead moved to the center-right (aka the center of Washington). Still, I'd rather him over Bush anyday.

Yeah, like the simple mining safety regulations that Massey has been ignoring for years, choosing to pay inexpensive fines instead of properly protecting his workers by fixing the dozens of safetly violations that have accumulated over the years. Instead, he lets his workers get blown up and burned to death. All for the sake of profit.
And don't get me started on the big bankers that prefer to crash their companies for the sake of short term profit and then have the nerve to loby what are "supposedly" our politians into getting us to pay the bill instead of forcing the CEOs to cough up the money themselves. The current system is flawed. It's a reverse-Robin Hood effect. The rich get richer while robbing the poor and middle class.
/end rant

"Adding regulation, any regulation will have negative effects on such a free-market ecosystem."

Yes, for the companies who're trying to abuse the system to maximize their profits. There's no such thing as a completely 'free-market ecosystem', without regulations we'd end up with one single company doing everything and their primary manufacture would be arms.

"I don't think anyone wants to pay for new regulations that promote fair use."

I needed to scan this page alone for a couple of seconds to determine that you're quite obviously wrong on that count.

Net Neutrality is a tricky subject and I think we all need to research it a bit more.

There are pros and cons to this. Regulating broadband may deprive us of the connection speeds current technology is capable of, but it may also protect us from being completely limited or blocked from certain aspects of the web (i.e. p2p file sharing).

Whatever the case, it comes down to the consumer. If Comcast blocks a service I want; I'm not getting Comcast as my ISP. As long as there is a demand for something, the service will be provided, and the legalities handled by lawyers in the courtroom.

Except, of course, when Comcast (or any other provider) is the only provider in your area. Or if they all limit the same things, you are still down to no real options (private medical insurance in a some areas is a good example of this).

Regulating Natural Monopolies like utlities is one of the only valid purposes of government. It attempts (imperfectly) to correct the market anomolies and restore a free market.

Since it is impractical for a large number of coimpeting internet lines to enter one's home (or electricity or water) and thus demand choices into the home, the few that do must be prevented from exerting undue control (i.e. reduced choice or constricted supply)


This is good, and this is Libertarian.

Soooo.... does this mean I can go back to online gaming with no throttling again soon?

I think you guys have a misunderstanding of how the free market works. The ones with power are the people who buy products, not politicians or companies. When you start to add regulation you start to edge out small companies and competition from the market because they have to adhere to those regulations. This is the big big reason our banking system is messed up. They only allow 12 banks to even exist, other institutes are called credit unions which provide superior service then banks.

Also 1 company cannot be the only company in an economy. In order to have an economy you need trade and purchase with a monatary system, you just can't do that with 1 company in existence.

The problem I have with net nuetrality is that the FCC does not know how to be an ISP. Most consumers don't understand how an ISP operates. The ones who know the ISP business the best are ISPs. The problem I see is that no ISP can support their network at the speeds they advertise. During peak times their speed slows down because of the load. Throttling allows the ISP during peak usage times to offer high speed to its non-heavy traffic users. ALso giving ISPs the ability to prioritize certain sites for a price means I pay less on my internet subscription.

The FCC is going a round about way in getting ISPs to conform to net neutrality. All they have to do is make demands for using federal lines which compose the majority of the US internet infrastructure.

I think the thing federal level regulations should accomplish is the very basic amount of regulations to allow for the safe exchange of goods. A regulation is useless if they cannot enforce it which is what happened in your sob story about miners. The answer to such problems isn't make more regulations, its enforce the ones you got.

"I think you guys have a misunderstanding of how the free market works."

We understand perfectly fine, you're just arguing from the theoretical ideal rather than the reality.

A completely unregulated 'free market' is as much a pipe dream as a functional old-school-communism plan economy is. Both rely too much on the less unsavory aspects of the human psyche and are thus inevitably, sadly, doomed to fail.

Free market capitalism is based upon greed.

It's a proven concept and it works, it just can't be allowed to run completely free as that will inevitably foster monopolies.

The human race have proven time and again that it can't work together toward the common good without outside supervision, thus I'm frankly baffled that you believe a completely unregulated economy would work.

Do yourself a favor, go back to college.

Thank you.

I really don't know what's actually being regulated here, but if it brings my $190.00 Comcast cable bill down some I will be happy. Oh and if it stops mid day throttle I would love that too!