FCC Defends Its Open Internet Decision

Anyone who thinks having the government involved with the internet is a good thing, is a retard. They are the only ones who could make a website slower than the actual mail.

Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.

Anyone who thinks having the government involved with the internet is a good thing, is a retard. They are the only ones who could make a website slower than the actual mail.

Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.

Problem is, Comcast and Verizon refuse to upgrade their lines.. And that is with them in control.

16% of the USA has no access to internet period. Comcast, Verizon, TWC, etc..only run new lines if they can make their money back within 1-2 years. They are all about short term profit. because of their earnings reports, stock, and other financial reports that influence stock price heavily. That means only new neighborhoods who have tons of densely populated houses (not how i would want to live) can convince them to run wire.

So they are afraid to spend money on infrastructure because it will hurt their quarterly profit report to shareholders. and if they dont show profit. stock goes down, market cap goes down, their spending power goes down. For the past 30 years this has been a vicious cycle.

Now, the Government can mandate speeds and access with the new rules. They've already re-defined broadband to be 25 Mbps, and the new rules will require speed and latency benchmarks.

The Government also is why the 16% figure is not higher than it already is. They gave Comcast, Windstream, TWC, Verizon, TONS of tax dollars to convince them to hookup more people without access.

THAT IS THE ONLY WAY ISP WILL RUN NEW WIRE. IF THE GOVERMENT HELPS PAY FOR IT. and then when they take those tax dollars, they are required to fufill their promise.

Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.

Problem is, Comcast and Verizon refuse to upgrade their lines.. And that is with them in control.

16% of the USA has no access to internet period. Comcast, Verizon, TWC, etc..only run new lines if they can make their money back within 1-2 years. They are all about short term profit. because of their earnings reports, stock, and other financial reports that influence stock price heavily. That means only new neighborhoods who have tons of densely populated houses (not how i would want to live) can convince them to run wire.

So they are afraid to spend money on infrastructure because it will hurt their quarterly profit report to shareholders. and if they dont show profit. stock goes down, market cap goes down, their spending power goes down. For the past 30 years this has been a vicious cycle.

Now, the Government can mandate speeds and access with the new rules. They've already re-defined broadband to be 25 Mbps, and the new rules will require speed and latency benchmarks.

The Government also is why the 16% figure is not higher than it already is. They gave Comcast, Windstream, TWC, Verizon, TONS of tax dollars to convince them to hookup more people without access.

THAT IS THE ONLY WAY ISP WILL RUN NEW WIRE. IF THE GOVERMENT HELPS PAY FOR IT. and then when they take those tax dollars, they are required to fufill their promise.

16% don't have access to broadband (25mbsdown/3mbs up per the FCC). And I have never had multiple utility providers to choose from. I just moved from a town with one pair of power lines feeding it, no natural gas, and only one cell provides had reception. the internet was more reliable than my electricity and the roads were rarely plowed before I left for work. The feds should butt out of a supposed utility that is outperforming all current utilities. As for those title 2 contracts some isps are supposedly milking (refuted by actual access numbers), who set them up? why doesn't the FCC worry about their current screw ups before seizing total control and making more?

And just for perspective, not so long ago, a dedicated T1 line for internet was mostly for large business and only the most extravagant would get it for home use. It was like getting a Lexus. That same Lexus is probably still on the road and a dedicated T1 line delivers 1.5mbps! That would be considered "internet impoverished" and in need of rescue by the FCC. The rate of improvement has been so high that any reasonable expectation of what would be lavish for someone will seem paltry in just a few years. Compare that to gov managed utilities!

If we lived in Russia or China or North Korea, the statement that a local municipality might attempt to block an ISP from upgrading their networks might be possible. But in the USA, I think any judge would almost immediately toss that ruling out in days. If a municipality is putting together their own internet service, it would only be because there was no ISP locally that was providing good service. And even if they did put their own municipal network together, they would need to compete with the ISP's that exist or would want to exist in the future.

15583634 said:

If we lived in Russia or China or North Korea, the statement that a local municipality might attempt to block an ISP from upgrading their networks might be possible. But in the USA, I think any judge would almost immediately toss that ruling out in days. If a municipality is putting together their own internet service, it would only be because there was no ISP locally that was providing good service. And even if they did put their own municipal network together, they would need to compete with the ISP's that exist or would want to exist in the future.

This is the important part. Municipal entities report directly to the locally elected officials who are voted on by the same residents that are serviced by the entity. The local residents have direct power over this entity not some far away unelected bureaucrat or corporate entity.

As for those talking about monopolies, the reason this was a good thing is because it prevents ISPs from using their state granted monopoly power to fuel and empower their other business of selling internet service. Comcast and other cable providers have a government authorized monopoly because it's in the best interests of the population to only have set of utility poles and cable wires being run. It's the exact same reason you only have one electrical utility and one water utility, there can only be one infrastructure. So now we have a phone and cable infrastructure that is legally protected from market competition in exchange for government regulations to ensure they don't abuse that protection. Enter broadband, where the existing public infrastructure of phone and cable lines can be utilized to transmit internet data, except now the same protected companies are circumventing their anti-abuse government regulations by billing their data business separately from their utility business. Because they own the wires and thus are protected from competition, they abuse that protected and extend it to their internet business which isn't under any anti-abuse regulations. Further more, they eventually start extending that abuse farther and try to restrict content and come up with schemes that enable them to charge users additional fee's for access to other companies services. Again they can do this by abusing their government granted monopoly status to ensure that nobody competes with them or provides a better product.


All the FCC has done is call a spade a spade, they now recognize Comcast using public cable wires to provide internet as a public utility the same as the cable business they used to justify the sanctioned monopoly. Now they have to play by stricter rules designed to prevent them from abusing this monopolistic power. It's not an ideal solution but something need to be done to reign them in, they were out of control for far too long with unrivaled monopolistic power over the lifeblood of the internet.

Everytime you have a Public organ telling private companies what to do, things go wrong. But since noone studies history nowdays, we are repeating the same crap all over, ad infinitum.