Net Neutrality

[HylianDev]

So today, December 14th 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3 -2 to roll back Obama-era Net Neutrality regulations.

I'm going to return to this topic to write a longer post about what this means, what it might mean, and what it doesn't mean. But for now, what do you have to say about it?

[Saltman]

I don't even know what this is about.

[Parakarry]

Damnit really?
I was getting worried about it and I know people where getting really pissed off.
They say this could be the beginning of massive BS for the internet.

But it looks like people are taking it to the next level.

These corporate people better damn well not pull any bullsh*t cause everyone will be on their asses.

[HylianDev]

What is Net Neutrality?

The general idea of Net Neutrality is that Internet Service Providers (Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, etc) should simply offer you access to the internet, and you choose what you want to see. They shouldn't be able to offer higher speeds to certain websites, or deny you access to certain websites, or provide you any preferential treatment.

They might have incentive to do this if, say, Netflix paid Comcast to give them faster speeds than Hulu, or if Comcast wants Netflix to be slower than their video streaming. They also might be incentivized to block certain sites entirely! Who knows.

What is the FCC?

In 1934, the United States of America signed a bill into law called the Communications Act of 1934. Here's the basic idea of the bill:

For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority theretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the 'Federal Communications Commission', which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act.

So basically, it created the FCC to be a government commission that would decide how to handle communications services. Radio, television, telephones, etc. Anything that involved sending information signals from one place to another.

So they do kind of a lot. When I was a kid, the FCC was getting a very different kind of criticism (Family Guy clip; somewhat NSFW).

What is the history of Net Neutrality?

Since the FCC's inception, telephones in the United States have been regulated under Title II of the Communications Act, classifying them as "common carrier" services. This means that the principles of Net Neutrality applied to phone lines. Phone companies couldn't drop phone calls from people they didn't want you to hear from, etc. If someone called you, they could not interfere with you receiving that phone call.

When the internet became publicly available, the only type of connection available was dial-up. You accessed the internet over your phone line, so your phone company couldn't limit what sites you accessed. But eventually, internet became available over cable modems, which are regulated under Title I instead, making them "information" services. They're less regulated in the United States, so there wasn't necessarily a legal boundary to these companies violating Net Neutrality principles.

In 2004, under the Bush Administration, FCC Chairman Michael Powell outlined four guidelines for Internet regulation:

1. Freedom to access content
2. Freedom to run applications
3. Freedom to attach devices
4. Freedom to obtain service plan information

Though they were merely guidelines and not real regulations, they did go after companies for violating these principles as early as 2005.

In 2007, Comcast was found to be throttling (or, slowing down) BitTorrent traffic. They reached an agreement with BitTorrent over the issue, but the FCC still went after them for illegally inhibiting its service. However, their two attempts to force Comcast to stop throttling BitTorrent traffic were thrown out since the FCC doesn't have the authority to stop them from doing that under Title I. (More Info)

So, we have a court-established precedent of an ISP throttling traffic and getting away with it under Title I.

There are several other examples but I won't list them all. Here's a Wikipedia article: Net Neutrality in the United States.

So what happened in 2015?

Then-President of the United States Barack Obama pushed the issue of moving the Internet over to Title II, so that companies could be punished for throttling traffic and etc. The FCC voted in favor of doing this.

So... what happened today?

They moved it back to Title I under the Trump administration.

What does this mean for me?

Not sure. I don't know if anybody is sure just yet. We might see Comcast throttling BitTorrent traffic and not much else, though some have predicted doom and gloom.

If you're a US citizen, this means that your ISP might do some less-than-desirable things. If you're not a US citizen, this probably just means having to deal with the effects of your US friends' ISP doing those things. It might suck to seed from someone in the US.

What does this NOT mean?

The internet is not dying, or shutting down. The FCC is not requiring ISPs to charge higher prices or offer only certain services. Until 2015 there was no regulation requiring non-dial-up providers to offer you the entire internet. There is nothing to indicate that you'll lose access to any websites.

Some less extreme ideas -- like prices rising, or ISPs offering cheap, specific internet packages for access to social media sites only -- are possible but there's no reason to believe it will happen. The ISPs have all said that things will mostly remain the same. I know that some of the worst businesses in the entire world aren't exactly trustworthy, but there is some really strange misinformation going around.

The most common idea is that websites will take longer to load. This comes from the idea that ISPs might offer higher speeds to websites like Netflix or Facebook, at a price to the sites themselves. This is the most likely outcome. Some speculate that this will come at a cost to other websites' speed, which might not be true, but it's possible.

[Parakarry]

If one of these twitter posts is to be believed, 83% of people were against this, all it does is help corporations crew people.

The FCC just voted to gut net neutrality rules, letting Internet providers like Verizon and Comcast control what we can see and do online with new fees, throttling, and censorship.

How does this help anyone except corportate douches? How is this a good idea for people?Know what I mean?

[HylianDev]

If one of these twitter posts is to be believed, 83% of people were against this, all it does is help corporations crew people.

There's debate about how this will benefit the ISPs financially, so that they can invest more in improving their services. It wasn't exactly a vote for good or evil; people who are against it have their reasoning (or perhaps just party loyalty), whether you believe it yourself or not.

I'm in favor of Net Neutrality myself, of course.

Here's a source for the 83% number. That includes 4/5 Republicans.

[Parakarry]

Here's some scenarios that could happen, in image form.
EDIT: i didn't know they would be so big, sorry

---

It sounds like the fight isn't over, which is very good.

BREAKING: The following states are suing Trump's FCC in order to preserve #NetNeutrality
💻California
💻Delaware
💻Hawaii
💻Illinois
💻Iowa
💻Kentucky
💻Maine
💻Maryland
💻Massachusetts
💻Mississippi
💻NY
💻North Carolina
💻Oregon
💻Pennsylvania
💻Vermont
💻Virginia
💻Washington

I hope someone pulls off something.. A lot of attorneys general are already taking steps to sue back.

[Minerador Slime]

I don't know if i understood it right, but that means that it was Title I before, then after it was Title II and then Title I again except people are finding it bad?

Why didn't people find it bad when it was Title I BEFORE 2015?

[HylianDev]

I don't know if i understood it right, but that means that it was Title I before, then after it was Title II and then Title I again except people are finding it bad?

Why didn't people find it bad when it was Title I BEFORE 2015?

Well there were issues before 2015. This could possibly mean the ISPs getting more bold now that it's been explicitly said that Title II's regulations are too "heavy handed".

But in general, Net Neutrality not existing is a possibly scary thought.

[Parakarry]

This is how I feel

[SonicZetrex]

Just thought it would be okay to post it here. That there is STILL hope.