NPR is still spelling Ajit Pai's name wrong.

Oh well. All he wanted to do is shut down an open internet and call it freedom of commerce. Some freedom. Net neutrality is key to keeping the net open and accessible to all.

Wrong. Net neutrality has nothing to do with making the internet accessible to all. It has to do with making sure data travels at the same rate. In order to have access to the internet in your home/mobile device you need to pay for the service or go to a library. Nobody has a right to internet service unless they are willing to pay the bill. Progressives want to twist the meaning of net neutrality into something else.

Republicans (or as they were known in the 1860s, Confederates) would have called the end of slavery the end of plantational commerce, a blow to entrepreneurship.
.

I'm not a Republican myself, but it's fair to remember that the Republicans were the party who ended slavery. Sure, they seem to have different constituency these days, but let's not forget our past.

Sorry in the past of when you speak , the republicans were liberal. I am not sure of the transformation time. But please look it up. The republicans of today would fully endorse slavery as wealth building. Which with the trickle down effect would help slaves pull themselves up by there boot straps. Win-Win God Bless America...........

You are the same one who would say spelling "Barak Obama" wrong is racist.

well hes an idiot so its ok they doing him a favor

He's a corporatist. Money and power are their gods.

Well, it didn't take long for Republicans to spin the issue by crying about losing "internet freedom." Sadly, some people will fall for this. The only "freedom" internet regulation would take away is the freedom of ISPs to offer increasingly crappy speeds and hold subscribers and website owners hostage to pay-to-play rules while they hike the rates on everyone. Unbelievable.

Cue the corporate shills trying to argue that keeping the Internet the way it has always been will "stifle innovation".

The irony (possibly not proper use of the word but humor me) here is that they already have more power than cable companies in the 10+ countries with faster broadband speeds. And that in fact has stifled innovation.

And the ones saying "the government's taking over the Internet!" News Flash: The government STARTED the Internet! Then Al Gore unleashed it on the populous and made it commercial (yes, look it up, he co-sponsored the bill), and was made fun of for trying to take credit for it.

Well, what if companies have to apply to the FCC from now on to up your speed? Do you think that will take more time? Because the FCC can't just let companies improve their service without permission.

John, you cannot truly be this in the dark can you? "That" was the point of todays vote! Companies have actually been "downgrading" our service unless we paid to improve them. "NOW" after the vote the internet will be running at full speed for EVERYONE we will ALL have the same speed... "FAST"!

Ummmm, no. I don't know where you got that.

It's called throttling. Verizon was actually caught red handed throttling Netflix traffic. They prefer the term "traffic shaping" because it's more vague. Comcast would throttle my speeds 3 days before my bill was due cutting me from 3 mbits to 1 mbits. They insisted there was nothing happening on there end. Sure enough the moment my card was processed I went to my full speed. What an ingenious way to get money from people sooner. My ISP is my best friend

Right, but that should be handled by your local utilities commission. For one thing, it's harder to buy them off than a US Senator. As I recall, anyone engaged in it had to stop doing it.

The bottom line is the ISPs have failed miserably. They made promises they DID NOT keep. 20 years ago they were given incentives and breaks as well something to the tune of $200 Billion based on the promise that they would provide beefed up infrastructure to provide a nationwide broadband network AND the promise of providing 45MB/s to 86 million homes in the U.S. Just last year they came back to the government stating that they couldn't make good on their promise but did provide 1.5MB/s DSL lines to 20 million. They figured that would be good enough and "called it even".

I don't know if your background is in tech or in network support but the following clip is from an episode of a TWiT show I caught on Net Neutrality last November. The segments at 1:42, 3:04, 4:28 and 5:27 are of particular interest.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Comcast DID in fact throttle Netflix in favor of their own NBC content after they acquired it. Clearly breaking a promise they made in order to get the acquisition pushed through. AT&T in an effort to circumvent a Google fiber and municipal WiFi rollouts promised high speed fiber to 100 cities then later squashed it.

Fr. Ballecer is a consultant in Enterprise Tech. He hosts a number of tech shows but his tech background deals with large enterprises. He breaks down the issue of how the ISPs failed in their promise and continue to do so while getting richer. We as consumers on the other hand show all kinds of gratitude for the measly crumbs they throw our way. When in fact we should be insisting they make good on the promises they gave the government 20 years ago. That's what the whole Net Neutrality issue is about.

But they have NOT "failed miserably". Where do you get that?

Do you know that the US is the 179 LEAST densely populated country in the world? Do you understand what this means for infrastructure and how, by mandate, you have to lose money on a whole lot of infrastructure? My parents didn't have internet for awhile except via very slow wireless. Then they got it. Problem solved.

The problem is that these companies have to promise anything at all. Government has no authority to make them bring services to people in the middle of nowhere. None. And for your guy to imply that the government wrote them "taxpayer" checks is ridiculous. Infrastructure is always a writeoff.

Please tell me how Net Neutrality will increase competition (and be better for the consumer) Bob?

I think you mean they'll argue that the new regulations will stifle innovation.

No, I got it right the first time.

Nah, net neutrality just serves to choke off your internet bandwidth. Thank your Netflix subscribing neighbors for that.

false claim

Because bandwidth is UNLIMITED!

Hyperbole at its finest.

Net Neutrality doesn't require everyone to have the same bandwidth speeds. It's having to do with how the content is handled and priced. I can still have 6Mbps download and if my neighbor wants to pay for only 3Mbps that's fine. It's when our ISP wants to have Netflix or Amazon or even the local store down the street pay extra for a faster connection (namely non throttled) in order to reach its customers.

Let's say Joe's furniture and video outlet in town has already paid for enough commercial bandwidth to upload legal streamed videos. Comcast sees this and says "That's a nice video streaming business. You can pay us $x dollars a months to receive a premium track connection to customers on our network." That business doesn't pay, since he's already paid for the upload bandwidth. Comcast throttles him back so his speed turns into suck. Comcast customers try to get to Joe's furniture and video outlet, but it takes much longer. They swear off Joe's website and move onto greener pastures, namely Comcast's video service. Which Comcast didn't have to do anything aside from offer it. They've already killed off the competition.

Explain why you would be for this kind of competition killing practice?

Thank you. No reply as suspected. Maybe he's looking for his corporate talking points.

Net neutrality is actually just the opposite of what you say M. Comcast will no longer be able to charge Netflix, OR slow down our speed so that we cannot watch Netflix. WIN WIN for everyone!

You didn't read my whole comment. The example with Joe's furniture and video outlet was what can and would happen without Net Neutrality.

Could. Maybe. Possibly. But not bloodly likely.

No, because you're already paying for your bandwidth, most people just don't actually use what they pay for. Comcast has operated like an airline, overselling their own capability and then praying you don't notice when they can't deliver. You can get mad at your neighbor for actually using the connection they're paying for all you want, but you should probably be asking your ISP why they can't deliver on the speeds that you're paying for, instead.

That is patently untrue. In fact, I can almost guarantee that your internet service is tiered based on upload bandwidth.

Here it is read for
yourself: http://transition.fcc.gov/Dail...

Haha. How much were you willing to pay the big boys to give you faster service?

Nothing. Remember, it's a utility thus everyone should have equal bandwidth...except they won't.

Nobody is saying that everyone should have equal bandwidth, only that they should have what they pay for. Why do you feel the need to misrepresent your opponent's position?

Enough with the strawman arguments. Are you here to actually discuss the topic, or see how many laughs you can solicit?

which is the point of net neutrality. Without it, the highest bidder got to set the price for the fastest service and to have his wares displayed at the top.

Thank your ISP for pocketing the profits and government funded upgrade program and completely ignore their infrastructure.

You are miserably uninformed.

Usage-based fees are not involved in the current regulatory reform. At least I don't think so - I'm still reading.

As I re-read your comments, I agree. Cheers.

Netflix is a God send.

They want to stifle innovation and access.

you mean those billions that little barackie's federal reserve are giving to "rich corporations" (no not his wall street buddies, the insurance companies losing money on obamacare)?
BTW, why do you liberal/progressives always cheerlead for things you know nothing about? Becoming emotionally involved with a myth that was marketed and branded, then sold to you like coca cola is pretty funny to witness.

We're heading to a point where internet is a utility like any other. I mean, on the way to work I hear adds from the SSA instructing us to file for SS online. We've passed laws that give cable companies legal monopolies in the cities they exist in. So yes, this is about r*ping the middle class.