John Oliver Makes Another Rallying Cry to Save Net Neutrality

[SummerMadness]

John Oliver Makes Another Rallying Cry to Save Net Neutrality

John Oliver again called on viewers of "Last Week Tonight" to flood the FCC with calls and comments to urge the agency to retain net neutrality.

Oliver's show went so far as to take out a domain name — gofccyourself.com — to give users an easier way to post comments to the FCC site. On Sunday, it appeared that the site's page for comments was already overloaded.

 

[xpower]

What does net neutrality do? and what happens if it gone?

 

[ViaCrucis]

What does net neutrality do? and what happens if it gone?

An example given on Oliver's show itself: Without net neutrality, let's say your internet service provider has an online service for watching television shows or movies, one that is in competition to Netflix let's say, there's nothing to stop it from slowing down your connection to Netflix and speeding up your connection to their service in order to, in a sense, force you to choose their service instead.

Or maybe Microsoft is willing to pay money so that their search engine, Bing, gets preferential treatment so that Bing searches are fast and painless, but Google or Yahoo are just oh a tad slow.

Or maybe you're an entrepreneur looking to start up an online business, well you're not "important", but people who can shell out cash for their online business could make it so that potential customers are more likely to not only access their websites quicker, but make it so that going to yours is slower--directly hurting you as a small business owner.

Net neutrality ensures that ISP's cannot control your access to information on the internet. It keeps the internet open, free, and a level playing field for all of us.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[xpower]

An example given on Oliver's show itself: Without net neutrality, let's say your internet service provider has an online service for watching television shows or movies, one that is in competition to Netflix let's say, there's nothing to stop it from slowing down your connection to Netflix and speeding up your connection to their service in order to, in a sense, force you to choose their service instead.

Or maybe Microsoft is willing to pay money so that their search engine, Bing, gets preferential treatment so that Bing searches are fast and painless, but Google or Yahoo are just oh a tad slow.

Or maybe you're an entrepreneur looking to start up an online business, well you're not "important", but people who can shell out cash for their online business could make it so that potential customers are more likely to not only access their websites quicker, but make it so that going to yours is slower--directly hurting you as a small business owner.

Net neutrality ensures that ISP's cannot control your access to information on the internet. It keeps the internet open, free, and a level playing field for all of us.

-CryptoLutheran

Thank you, We should save net neutrality.

 

[trunks2k]

What does net neutrality do? and what happens if it gone?

It means a packet of data is a packet of data and it's treated the same and given the same priority as any other packet of data regardless of its origin and destination. So, for example, if I am on a comcast ISP, they can't go and give packets that originate from a Verizon network a lower priority. Or Comcast can't see that a packet is coming from netflix and slow it down.

In net neutrality, all packets are equal. But note, this does not extend to protecting your network (i.e. malicious stuff).

 

[camille70]

FCC, FTC announce partnership to police internet after net neutrality repeal

 

[Maren]

FCC, FTC announce partnership to police internet after net neutrality repeal

Interesting but it looks like too little. The "policing" will essentially be to ensure that ISPs are upfront about how they throttle traffic. They will not stop Xfinity from throttling (or even outright blocking) Netflix, unless extra money is paid, merely that Xfinity must inform their customers if they decide to start doing it.

This might be good enough if we had free competition in this country but, the fact is, we don't. Most people in the US have, at most two choices for a high speed Internet connection, and competing companies are basically impossible to start. Most of this starts from local communities giving monopolies to the companies, back in the 70s and 80s, that were willing to invest money to lay cable in the city -- they were given the monopoly in exchange for the high cost of wiring the city for cable. In addition, the cable companies were given the right to wire their cable on private property, it was a "public" good that prevented a few in a neighborhood from preventing the entire neighborhood from getting cable service.

But because of this, it is nearly impossible to start competing services. The cost of laying cable is still cost prohibitive, not to mention a new company will not have the right to wire their lines over private land, meaning they would need to negotiate with the owners for the right -- yet another extra expense.

Even if you look at wireless (ignoring that the various Cell companies typically have, by comparison, lower speeds and caps on data usage), the fact is the government also owns the "airwaves" and, not only are the airwaves largely full (currently many UHF TV stations are being forced to change the channel they broadcast on, so that "channel" can be used by a cell company to provide better and faster coverage). Additionally, the cost of these airwaves (when they do become available, such as when various UHF channels are moved) are extremely expensive, particularly as they are awarded to the highest bidders.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

What does net neutrality do? and what happens if it gone?

I'll give a hypothetical in non-internet terms.

If Business A has a relationship with the company that's in charge of maintaining the roads (or in some cases, they may actually own the company that maintains the roads)...That company can provide a nicely paved, well-maintained, neatly plowed road from the highway right to the parking lot entrance of Business A.

....while the roads to Businesses B, C, and D (who don't have a special deal, and can't afford to have their own road maintenance company) all are littered with pot holes, downed trees, and a foot of snow.


Basically, the web equivalent of that would happen. They can drive traffic to the highest bidder, they can favor certain business, while making it nearly impossible to use services provided by their rivals, etc...

 

[Nithavela]

FCC, FTC announce partnership to police internet after net neutrality repeal

Good news, everyone: after the door to the henhouse is removed, the fox and the wolf will form a security council.

 

[drjean]

The Repeal Of Net Neutrality Is A Bad Thing (But Not For The Reasons You Think)

We can't seem to win on this. While it's been "in place" my grandfathered in unlimited is slowed beyond reason! How has it helped me?

 

[Maren]

We can't seem to win on this. While it's been "in place" my grandfathered in unlimited is slowed beyond reason! How has it helped me?

You've had grandfathered unlimited data since 2002? We've had Net Neutrality, in various forms, since then.

 

[SummerMadness]

And now it is dead. It's time to get active and throw these regressive folks out of office. Let 2021 be the return to normalcy.

F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.

The agency scrapped so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone services.