Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality

sure you can switch providers. that is untill they're all limiting bandwidth. both comcast and timewarner were going to do it. i know for sure time warner still wants to, but are looking for a way to do it that wont lose them thousands of customers. not sure about comcasts future plans.


the fact is more and more of the things we do, see, read, are going to be internet based. that's going to require more bandwidth. these companies bemoan lack of it, saying their infrastructure can't handle the increasing demands. meanwhile there doesn't appear to be any real effort by said companies to fix this infrastructure problem. they don't really want to, they'll be able to charge you more for less service.

previously the FCC could say " no you will not limit people's access to the internet" now companies can say, tough crap you'll take what we give you. the majority of rural and semi-urban areas have one or two providers of broadband, some rural areas have no broadband with access only available from dialup or satellite. when all the providers(or single provider) of broadband says you can only have this much bandwidth, and then charges you exorbitant prices for "overuse"(which you probably wouldn't even be aware of in the first place) what other options are you left? none now that the FCC can't be petitioned to step in.

also, yeah the FCC isn't all that great. perhaps the best option here is to get legislation put together that would protect net neutrality while also making it illegal to control content that doesn't break established laws. in this way things like kiddy porn websites would still be illegal and prosecutable, but agencies like the FCC couldn't just arbitrarily decide what we can and can't access on the internet, like trying to censor website or messageboards critical of one administration or another.

we must not allow the government to turn our internet into a shadow of itself as it is in places like china.

Originally posted by Hadrian
i think it's the inflicted fog of believing good little americans oppose all efforts at regulating any business whatsoever for any reason whatsoever.

I'd rather the corporations COMPETE for my business than the Govt. step in, impose their own fees, and regulate what they deem "neutral."

The only regulating the government should be doing, is making sure nothing is stopping competition for services. If Comcast wants to start charging more, I should have the choice to switch carriers. That would be much easier than switching government regulators.

reply to post by optimus primal


That is the best thing about an unregulated Internet. The major corps start falling behind people get mad with there services and along comes an enterprising person to start up a new ISP to compete with them. That is until the FCC starts regulating the net and starts requiring ISP to purchase licenses that cost 100's of thousands of dollars, and limiting how many licenses get issued a year, which will cause the major Corps to have a strangle hold on the market.

Right now the major corps are moaning to the Feds about how they don't want to put a majority of profits into their business to upgrade the bandwidth to meet customer needs, so they want daddy government to come along and regulate the net so they can increase their profits 10 fold. They want to upgrade their infrastructure off of our Tax dollars via tax subsides, that will undoubtedly be right behind.

This is terrible! A huge blow for our free use of the Internet. I wish people would read about it and understand what it is before praising this decision. :shk:

No, all government regulation ISN'T bad. The meat you buy at the store is government-regulated. The milk you feed your children, the buildings you go into don't fall on you because of ... government regulation.

The Death of Net Neutrality

1 Killing Net neutrality means big players always win
2 Say goodbye to Skype and VOIP
3 Attack on free speech
4 Killing Net neutrality could screw up getting real work done

Originally posted by boondock-saint
is it just me or has the SCOTUS being
ruling AGAINST the establishment
a lot lately.

The wire taps last week
the FCC this week

could the Patriot Act be next????
or even Obamacare???

it seems they have woken up as well

It may have something to do with the Thief n Chief running his stupid mouth...

I see a lot if misinformed people replying to this thread, and as somebody already predicted, a lot of people on the "guvermint regyalashun is bad cuz bizznisses r gud!!1" bandwagon are putting in their well-meaning but painfully confused two-cents. The truth is... government and big business are both out to get you, BUT... in this case this ruling against the FCC and in favor of Comcast is TERRIBLE.

Net neutrality is PARAMOUNT to a fair, democratic, and UNREGULATED INTERNET. The FCC currently enforces this internet democracy, allowing us the Anarchic freedom that has given us so much over the years. We CANNOT let this ONE FREE PLACE we have to disappear to some naive/idealistic notion of markets and a blind trust in giant telecoms companies.

The FCC isn't trying to censor the internet via net neutrality. In fact, if net neutrality is washed away, the internet WILL be censored by the handful of major telecom companies. The rich will be able to afford good internet, while the vast majority of us will have a watered down version. And if you think the market will "solve" that problem then you're delusional to what actually happens in markets (specifically concerning internet speed), and delusional to the power of people to demand things of a market (rather than the US government). In REAL markets, companies consistently put out shoddy/outdated products, utilize planned obsolescence, jack up prices artificially (profit-driven inflation), and take control of vast swaths of our economy via homogenized monopolies. Call it corporate communism if you will...

But I digress... the real point is- we want the FCC to regulate telecoms companies and enforce net neutrality, we DON'T want domination of the (originally PUBLIC) internet by for-profit companies who will certainly water down the internet, regulate it via some mindless business model, and block access to certain sites, services, and bandwidth for anything the doesn't give them more profit. We DON'T want the NSA to monitor the internet (with the willing help of a company like AT&T), but we do want the FCC to regulate internet service providers (like AT&T and Comcast) in terms of equal availability of bandwidth. Net neutrality is a GREAT DEAL FOR EVERYONE, and anybody who is against it either doesn't understand, is a completely blind idiot, or has a financial stake in it.

WATCH THESE 2 VIDEOS!!!

This is horrible. Corporations are the last people you want controlling what information you can see. Net neutrality was about freedom. Allowing you to access everything. Now we are going to have corporations who tend to run by control freaks being the gatekeepers of the information. It's potentially the beginning of an internet dark age in America.

Don't think that because corporations lean to the right that this will be a golden age for conservatives. As the goals and interests of corporations aren't always those of the right. I am sure wikileaks will be one of the first things to be blocked or have it's access so limited to be unusable.

I know new companies may spring up to challenge the major broadband providers, but just remember who controls most of the backbone; those large corporations.

reply to post by justinsweatt


Unfortunately some people do not have a choice. Heck I only have one ISP that offers "high" speed internet access. That's at&t. I don't even have the option of comcast, despite the fact that in the apartment complex across the street has their coverage as well as at&t. Was seriously hoping that my town would win the google thing just so we had another option on the table.

Originally posted by boondock-saint
is it just me or has the SCOTUS being
ruling AGAINST the establishment
a lot lately.

The wire taps last week
the FCC this week

could the Patriot Act be next????
or even Obamacare???

it seems they have woken up as well

Woken up?? Are you KIDDING ME??

The Supreme Court has been STACKED with right-wing neo-con/corporatist fascists during the Bush administration. Have you forgotten this or did you just NEVER learn??

These people are NOT your friends, they make rulings that hurt the little guy (i.e. you and most of the other posters here). They are the friend of right-wing elites (most elites are right-wing, don't ever forget that) and major banking/corporate special interests.

Wire taps are BAD, but this ruling was ALSO BAD.

The Patriot Act is TERRIBLE, but the health bill actually did more to HELP your ass than to enslave it. The almighty DOLLAR is what enslaves us more than anything else right now, and the fact that the vast underclass gets # on by large insurance companies simply because they're the poor slave underclass is a much worse deal than ACTUALLY using our tax dollars for something GOOD for most of us (rather than just benefiting the rich). Now I personally don't agree fully with the health-care bill, I think it was EXTREMELY watered down in favor of corporate interests and Republican (also corporate) whining. I also am very suspicious of it being mandatory to buy into. But from what I've read, the poor will not have to pay anything for health-care, and the middle-class will be well-subsidized. At least they BETTER be... Crap let's not get into health-care right now. haha sorry.

Now net neutrality is a GOOD thing, unless you want a form of economic communism. Government regulation of powerful/oppressive entities is GOOD, government regulation of the individual/masses is typically oppressive and BAD, but when the FCC regulates net neutrality this is a PLUS for the people, Democracy, and the power of the people to get a good deal for US out of OUR government.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
They dont have the power? well hell, its time to give them the power then...net neutrality needs to be protected...its the last leveling field we as the slave race have against the masters.

I sooo dont want to order package plans through my ISP...ooh, for 40 bucks a month, I get ebay, youtube, and craigslist...and an extra 20 a month I can choose up to 20 more websites on my network...whoot. hmm, wonder if anyone still goes to ATS

Yea, eventually this is how things are gonna end up. One way or another they're gonna lose money on something and eventually decide to make their profits this way instead. It may cut millions upon millions of people off of the internet, but as long as they get their fat paycheck bonuses and a new Ferrari, who cares?

Originally posted by boondock-saint
is it just me or has the SCOTUS being
ruling AGAINST the establishment
a lot lately.

the SCOTUS is ruling for corporations...ya for wealth disparity.

Originally posted by December_Rain
reply to post by Mirthful Me

 

Excellent this is a huge win for free internet. I can only hope that it remains so forever.

Proving once again that some people are simply clueless.

so, if the SCOTUS removes the whole civil rights stuff, is that a huge win for civil rights?

This law said basically you cannot cut service to websites if your a ISP...the average joe has just as much right to be online as a mega corp...thats it...for a ISP to be neutral...unhinged and the net becomes a tool for the elite to play with.

nevermind...if you enjoy this ruling soo much, then prove it by unplugging your net connection and refusing to pay for unlimited access...demand they charge you a buck a month per website you visit or something...demand that you are not a person accessing a technology meant to benefit mankind but instead you are a consumer that must be raped to get a few select corporate websites.

bah, your probably in favor of that also.

reply to post by Light of Night


are these enterprising individuals gonna have the start up money to lay thousands of miles of high speed fiberoptic cable to provide their potential customers with broadband? didn't think so, unless they just happen to be billionaires.

it takes a lot of money to start a new isp, unless they lease their lines from another company...i don't know if that's possible, but there again you'd run into the same problem with higher prices for less data because they'd have to pay the owning company for the "over use".

let's be honest, the FCC isn't the perfect entity to trust, but unless someone gets some senators to create a bill that expressly protects net neutrality, trusting it to competition certainly isn't a brilliant idea.

Originally posted by Light of Night
I have a question, where are all these problems that everybody is so afraid of that has people wanting the internet to be regulated?

I haven't seen any, the only one that I have heard of is the example mentioned in the article. Comcast limiting bandwidth for bittorent users, which they lifted after customers complained and probably lost a lot of money because of it.

You can just switch providers if an ISP wants to censor anything right now, once the government gets a hold of it there will be no Bit-Torrent. Even having the program on your computer could be considered illegal no matter if you are using it legitimately or not.

So far every time a major Corp has tried to censor anything on the net, they have always reversed it. It's that freaking simple people. Everybody is afraid of censorship of the net and they want the government to regulate the internet, it's the most backwards thing I have ever heard of in my life.

The net as we know it has been around for 15+ years and not one single problem has occurred that everybody is afraid of happening. I got news for ya if it hasn't happened yet, it isn't going to happen. Everybody that wants Net-Neutrality are running head first into the problems that you think are occurring now.

Then if the gov does get its way, welcome to internet access like Cable companies, want access to all the sites you have to pay outrageous fees to get all the access.

Don't believe me? I hope it never happens, but if it does you'll see, and once it's implemented there is no turning back. Be careful what you wish for because you might get more than what you bargain for.

You are beyond ignorant.

If the government does take control of the internet, do you think I could get uncensored wifi from the guy on the corner at a pretty cheap rate? Maybe $10 per kilo(bits).

this is what i see happening is goverment controlling the internet companies and tellling them what we can and cannot view could you imagin the death of the internet?

And for all of you Democrats that love a free Internet ask yourself this why is my party tyring to do this? And also if you dont know who Mark Lloyd is you better find out. Freedom is not a word the progressives like they only wear it on their sleeves. If they get total control they will cast it aside like a red headed step child. We need to start to look at the issues and less at the political parties.

reply to post by Mirthful Me


Wow... I'm not really sure what I think about this. The FCC was trying to keep ComCast from limiting bittorrent speeds? *scratches head* So... wow, if the court rules one way, the FCC can control the internet, if it rules the other way, the FCC can't enforce net nuetrality?

Originally posted by Subjective Truth
And for all of you Democrats that love a free Internet ask yourself this why is my party tyring to do this?

I agree with this idea. The time has come to stop basing right or wrong on your political ideology and be critical of both Democrats and Republicans - to start thinking for yourself.