$$$ and because the ISPs don’t get charged for unethical and blantly illegal activities…
The real question should be why is the internet not a public utility yet…? Huh FCC/CRTC…?
Yep. Democrats should run making it a utility.
I mean hell, they could follow through with their promises for bringing back net neutrality.
They introduced a bill in 2022, but nothing much has happened with it since then. Probably because it would fail to pass the Republican dominated House of Representatives.
If Ajit Pai were still in charge, he’d say “Woof woof! The telcos can do anything they want!,” and the Verizon CEO who owns him would pat him on the head and give him a Milk-Bone.
Until he personally lost service for a couple hours
Why is the FCC asking this question instead of already correcting the issue?
In short, the Administrative Procedure Act. It sets out the procedures that have to be followed before policy decisions get made. If the FCC doesn’t follow the APA’s procedures exactly, that gives the industry grounds to sue. Even if the industry eventually looses, it would still mean a stay on the new policies during which they would continue to exploit consumers.
The APA isn’t a bad thing, since it forces federal agencies to be deliberate in making policy decisions that could have far reaching consequences. That said, it does make the government even slower to react to situations that often change quickly. But it has tripped up this administration and previous administrations when they have tried to make hasty decisions, including Trump with his “Muslim ban”.
I wish informative answers like yours would get the upvotes they deserve. You have my upvote.
Well they did essentially just type it but I agree with the sentiment
Thanks! And it is getting upvotes, with you being the first. After all, I only wrote it a few minutes ago.
I’m not scrubbing my account on Reddit partially because some of the comments are like the one above. Sure, much of what I wrote is of limited value. But if there is a historian going back through Internet history and using a language processing model to analyze comments, I think my voice is worth leaving there.
Indeed, I’ve been very ambivalent about the idea of everyone deleting all their histories to hurt reddit.
Sure, it hurts reddit in the short-term, but in the long-term it is hurting overall internet history.
Honestly, I don’t think it does much of anything to Reddit, short or long term. It does far more to destroy Internet history.
Question, what the fuck was the “Muslim ban” I’ve never heard of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769
It was never law, which is why it was so easily reversed.
Is this where the last Net Neutrality request for comments window failed miserably? Like, the FCC did the process, but they let it be provably sabotaged by the industry and went ahead anyways…
Part of the reason they “went ahead anyways” was painfully obviously because of the FCC chair at the time, Ajit Pai, who had previously been Associate General Counsel at Verizon. They even made a “comedy” video of him being asked to be a toady by Verizon.
This is because in the US, for it to be considered bribery or quid-pro-quo, you basically have to write a check and in the notes section put “This is a Bribe” otherwise it’s just considered “business” and it’s totally okay for you to make “comedy” videos mocking the people wanting an end to corruption.
Oh I know it well. I am still on team “Fuck Ajit Pai”.
No. That saga was the reverse happening. The Obama administration had already gone through the whole procedure to implement net neutrality rules. Ajit Pai under the Trump administration then came in and started the procedure anew to reverse net neutrality. In that sense it “succeeded” in that Pai’s rules were put into place. There was a legal challenge on the basis of the FCC not considering certain factors. This is where being thorough is incredibly important. If even a single spot is missed, implementation can be drawn out even further.
So did Pai’s paid-for changes actually happen, are the currently delayed in legal battles, or just cancelled? Honestly, I didn’t pay attention past the scandals of it, which is shame on me.
I want to point out that Pai did not “come in” during the Trump admin. He killed net neutrality during it, sure, but he was appointed by Obama and held the office long before Trump showed up. It’s really disingenuous to try and portray it as a result of one republican president, it was a team effort.
Democrats nearly always choosing Republicans for non-elected offices so they “don’t look partisan.” Republicans always choosing Republicans for non-elected positions because they don’t actually give a shit about looking partisan.
This is part of why the FBI has always been run by Republicans. Not once have we had a Democrat in charge of the FBI.
At least the FCC has a slightly better track record. Wheeler was a good FCC chairman.
The country would be a lot better off if the Democrats abandoned their devotion to “bipartisanship”. It’s a one way street that seems to only exist as a convenient roadblock to implementing any kind of positive reforms.
Just ask Merrick Garland.
he was appointed by Obama and held the office long before Trump showed up
That was by requirement. The FCC board requires that no more than 3 commissioners come from the same party. In practice, that means 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and 1 of the president’s party. Pai was appointed to the Republican slot but was in the minority during the Obama administration. Trump moved him into the role as chair and nominated another Republican, making him both chair and part of the majority.
He may have been required to appoint someone outside his party but he wasn’t required to appoint Mitch McConnell’s recommendation and obvious telecom shill Ajit Pai. Was it possible for him to appoint a member of a third party or is that also against all these awfully convenient rules that get in the way of those poor Democrats accomplishing anything approaching positive change? Could the current FCC go back and reverse the changes that the Democrats definitely didn’t actually want or is that also against the rules?
Required, no. But anyone the Republicans put forward is just going to be shill for big business anyway.
I’m not sure how a third party would work. I suspect playing fast and loose with the intentions of the bill (2-2 major party split plus a chairperson matching the president) would just get the confirmation blocked.
Isn’t there still a vacancy on the FCC? Wouldn’t that also affect any new designations?
Because they have no intention of correcting it. They’re either doing this to keep up the charade of consumer protection, or gearing up to enshrine the practice in regulation.
They are asking ISPs to lay out their best justification so that they can decide whether it’s valid or not. Judging by their wording, they want a good explanation. It’s good to gain understanding of something before we gut it and who better to ask for the ‘best argument for’ than those who enforce it?
Regulatory capture?
What’s going to stop the forms being filled out by industry-controlled bots this time?[1] Last time the FCC took public comment, anti-net-neutrality comments were being made under the names of dead people and people who would later claim they never participated in making comments to the FCC.
Otherwise, it’s going to be the same dumb shitshow as last time.
The same dumb shitshow as last time is probably the goal.
It did a great job of discrediting opening anything for public comment thenceforth. Which I really think was the long-term goal.
I used to work in utilities. Electric, not telecom so different set of regulators. What they would do is yank you into and office and tell you something to the effect of: “[Name of Regulatory Body] is considering [issue]. You should really consider going on the public comment section of their website and voicing your [support/opposition depending on corporate stance] for it. It’s not mandatory but you should really consider doing that. It’s very important to our company.”
It wasn’t “mandatory” but they would repeatedly hound you until you either did it or told them to fuck off, at which point you would be branded a “troublemaker” and they would find ways to punish you.
True, but research showed up to 80% of the comments from the previous FCC public comment were made by bots.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/43a5kg/80-percent-net-neutrality-comments-bots-astroturfing
Damn, I forgot all about that. I think one was made under my name and some family, and it was all the same copy-paste letter.
Did anything ever come of that or did it just get swept under the rug?
Swept under the rug, thus my concerns here.
But they can claim it was done in an open and democratic way.
Would be wonderful if the FCC did their fucking job for once and banned data caps. Companies like Mediacom abuse the fuck out of them
For real. We had a chance once upon a time to actually stop this nonsense, but the powers that be sat on their hands and did nothing.
Because fuck you, pay me, that’s why.
— Comcast, probably.
It will always make me happy that no matter how hard they try to make Xfinity happen, everyone remembers their real, ugly face before the facelift, and that ugly face is Comcast.[1]
“Stop trying to make
fetchXfinity happen! It’s not going to happen!”
Hey Comcast’s service improved in my area once google Fiber got installed.
Just goes to show you that companies are fine with you complaining as much as you want, just NEVER let there be an alternative.
Nipple rubbing intensifies
Because of corporate greed and a ridiculous lack of meaningful regulation.
It’s ridiculous I have to pay Xfinity $110/mo for my speed and unlimited bandwidth
God damn. In Austria I’m paying 35€ for 250/250, and am still looking over to the Romanians with longing eyes. Data caps are only on mobile - which is still questionable in my eyes.
I pay $99 for 300/5 unlimited. I don’t mind it, but would much rather have 100/100 for that price.
Data caps on mobile makes more sense to me, simply because mobile data is so much more expensive.
Is it?
To me it seems it’s cheaper to build an antenna to serve 100-1000s of users than to dig and install cables to all of them.
It depends on what you’re trying to do. If you’re just trying to reach them and don’t care about bandwidth, wireless is the way to go. It’s why more developed countries lagged behind developing countries on the transition to wireless phones. But when you’re trying to deploy shear amounts of bandwidth, nothing beats fiber. It’s incredibly fast, has low latency, and doesn’t get interference.
And I suppose I should say that I think unlimited is a bad idea in general. I favor paying for what I use. People who use expensive infrastructure sparingly should pay less than people use it a lot.
Over here, I’m getting the Cox… last bill was $99 a month, now my “promo period” expired, and it is the full $170 a month thanks to “unlimited”. It’s pretty gross, but it is the only plan that gives the “amazing” 30 mbps up. :|
EDIT: This is for home internet, 1000 down/30 up, unlimited data
That’s crazy! I’m paying 18 EUR a month for unlimited 1000 mbps download and 1000 mbps upload and I thought my bill was high. 😲
Oh. You were talking about mobile data. That’s still extremely expensive.
Sadly, I’m not talking about mobile data. This is coax modem landline internet… for that price… they only get away with it because I don’t have a choice, and I need it to be able to work.
After probably 5 years of having fiber less than 5 miles from our house and having to pay Xfinity extra for no cap, both that company and our power company expanded into our neighborhood about a month ago. The power company has not gone “live” yet, but the other did.
Our bill went from $117 to $65 at least for the first 3 years. It’ll go up after but we’ll also have 3 choices. Xfinity was 800/12, the fiber is 1gb/500.
It was pretty satisfying cancelling Xfinity even though we had no issues with it as a service, just overpriced.
I know the FCC thinks they’re helping, but don’t let them F’ this up too.
GREED. That has always been the answer.
Lack of healthy competition. It’s plain to see from the other side of the ocean where I live… Is it maybe one of those things you can only see from afar?
€20 every 28 days on a PAYG sim for unlimited 5g in Ireland, it’s just boggling to see what folks in the US and Canada pay
OP was about data caps on landlines… yeah, at first glance I too thought it could only be mobile
Land lines are becoming less of a thing here as well, their use has dropped from 86.9% in 2004 to 59.2% in 2019. I’ve not had one for over 15 years
Nah, we see it too. Those of us whose eyes are open, anyway.
Get money out of as many facets of life as we can!! Free energy for the people! We are the energy!
soylent green is people!
This is a rhetorical question right?
Short answer? Because they can.
Because there is money to be made!
