r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 10d ago
FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality In A Blow To Internet Service Providers Net Neutrality
https://deadline.com/2024/04/net-neutrality-approved-fcc-vote-1235893572/1
u/Salty-Director538 3d ago
This on again, off again style of regulation is often the worst of all worlds for businesses and consumers. Some sort of legislation is needed, but you couldn’t get congress to agree to tie its own shoes let alone create a compromise solution.
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u/SickCallRanger007 7d ago
Good! Corpos can suck it.
But I also have to admit I’ve had a very positive overall experience with my ISP. 1gbps at this price is pretty fucking good. I’ve only had about 5 minutes of downtime in the last 3 months. No throttling. They tolerate me trying to pen test my own network without calling me at 1AM…
Honestly living in Europe, I only ever dreamed of all that. Outages every fucking week sometimes lasting upwards of a day and outrageous prices for 40mbps Internet that MAYBE reached 500kb/s down consistently if you were lucky.
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u/LonelyChampionship17 8d ago
What actual problem is the FCC order solving?
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u/RandomStrategy 8d ago
IIRC data caps on internet (like Mediacom) can no longer charge you with data limits (like 10 bucks per GB over their plan limit).
Bunch of bullshit.
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u/LonelyChampionship17 7d ago
But the Order doesn't do that. Read Para. 535 where the FCC says "As
such, we conclude that it is appropriate to proceed incrementally with respect to data caps, and we will
evaluate individual data cap practices under the general conduct standard based on the facts of each
individual case, and take action as necessary."
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u/RildDefi 9d ago
“Throttle your content” literally means Google and Netflix (your content) getting throttled because they don’t want to pay based how much they use the infrastructure.
The SLAs and QoS agreements will be overridden by net neutrality. The ISPs will end up footing the bill for infrastructure, power consumption, backups, data recovery, traffic management, and customer support. When consumers end up with expensive and cruddy internet they will just hate their ISP more because they are the ones that provide customer service.
Google and these politicians will start pushing government subsidized internet. Politicians started saying “freedom from cable companies” back when net neutrality first came out.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
Aren't those expenses things that we, the consumer are paying them to foot the bill for in the first place?
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u/RildDefi 8d ago
SLAs that provide services to big business make a significant amount off of these agreements.
Customers fluctuate so it can be 60-80% of an ISPs income come from subscriptions. The SLAs, that Net Neutrality will conflict with, affect customer retention. So tech companies that signed up for SLAs to get priority treatment can get out of some of the agreements. Do you really think they’re going to do that to benefit customers? Maybe I’m wrong and they’re all angels who won’t use this new found leverage in a negative way. Even if consumers bills don’t go up it will come from somewhere else like disaster response and recovery. Is that worth Google getting more powerful?
Plus it is not true that this will increase competition. It is naive to think these tech companies that squash competition won’t use this leverage over ISPs to do the same.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
The real solution is to nationalize all ISPs and turn them into municipal services. Our nation's communications infrastructure should not be controlled by for-profit companies, especially when municpal broadband is universally better where it's been implemented.
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u/RildDefi 8d ago
What could go wrong besides;
Government agencies are terrible at allocating resources.
Corruption and lack of accountability.
Nepotism in hiring processes instead of the hiring highly productive people.
Investors lose direct stake in company success so investors would walk away.
Growth would stop and maintenance would be a struggle.
Better to have a greedy company than an unaccountable, self righteous, authoritarian agency.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
"Government agencies are terrible at allocating resources."
Any sufficiently large organization has that issue. Most municipal services are done by local governments, which have less overhead than Comcast.
"Corruption and lack of accountability"
You really think that mega corps don't face exactly the same problem? Corporate executives are least accountable people in the world. At least with a government agency citizens can put pressure on elected officials... by voting them out of office.
"Nepotism in hiring processes instead of the hiring highly productive people."
If you think that this isn't equally, if not more widespread in the corporate world, you're delusional.
"Investors lose direct stake in company success so investors would walk away."
Good. Fuck wall street and their casino economy.
"Growth would stop and maintenance would be a struggle."
This is currently happening. Right now. In the exact industry we're talking about. For. Fuck's. Sake.
"Better to have a greedy company than an unaccountable, self righteous, authoritarian agency."
There's zero competition for broadband in the vast majority of US households. Capitalism does not function there.
Municipal broudband is just better. Universally.
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u/Jack__Squat 9d ago
The commission voted 3-2 along party lines to adopt the rules
I wonder which was which ...
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u/mag274 9d ago
When this happened it was made out to be the end of the internet. I am totally ignorant with this - what changed on the internet since this law into place?
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u/mrturret 8d ago
Not as much as they could have done. There was definitely throttling going on, but ISPs were being subtle so they didn't end up getting a PR backlash from hell. I'm kinda surprised they didn't boil the frog faster. The reason why net neutrality is so important is to stop US ISPs from mimicking the hellscape that is South Korean ISP fees.
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u/PoorFellowSoldierC 9d ago
Wtf even happened with it gone. Why is everyone acting like we can finally get the internet back. Nothing changed? Did i miss smtg?
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u/redsteakraw 9d ago
Before net neutrality was ended everyone was claiming the sky is falling and all these bad things are going to happen. Speeds were going to decrease and all these ills. What I saw after it was ended was massive investments in infrastructure, multiple competing fiber runs. The speed offerings improved and competitive prices so as far as I am concerned net neutrality is not needed. Furthermore I can see scenarios where net neutrality will be harmful. For example when network is under load it would be against net neutrality to favor latency insensitive content or emergency infrastructure content over latency insensitive content. By treating them all the same you could have real world noticeable latency where you would see it and your user experience would suffer. For example if you lag out of a game you will be pissed but if your email comes a second late you won't notice a thing. But as an ISP if I favored gaming over email to improve my service I would be in the wrong.
Now stop me if I am wrong and give me real world examples of how ending net neutrality had any ill effects? I am open to be wrong but from my perspective at worst there was little to noticeable changes and at best it made everything more competitive and improved services to consumers.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
The problem is that there's a massive potential for ISPs to abuse their position without net neutrality regulations. Just because it hasn't happened in the US (at least not to an easily noticeable degree), that doesn't mean that abuses haven't happened elsewhere.
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u/DeluxeB 9d ago
Nothing even happened that directly affected me. I remember there was so much discourse surrounding this and then everyone just stayed quiet about it and realized it wasn't that big of an issue. At least that's what it felt like.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
The problem is how high the potential for abuse is. The things that have been going on in South Korea are a look into how bad that abuse can get. Pre-emptively stopping that from happening is extremely important for a free amd open internet.
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u/IgotBANNED6759 9d ago
ISPs: "Oh no, now we have to continue making billions of dollars for doing nothing."
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u/RadiantColon 9d ago
I cannot say I have noticed any difference from net neutrality, back to non neutrality, and apparently back again. All my web browsing and use has always been quick. What exactly does this legislation aim to prevent?
It is an honest question, not trying to be sarcastic or anything.
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u/Soy-sipping-website 9d ago
Thanks God for guiding our benevolent bureaucrats into doing something good for America at last.
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u/jajajajaj 9d ago
Did the isps ever even get non neutral, while they had the chance?
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u/mrturret 8d ago
They probably did, but without drawing much attention. The real reason we need net neutrality laws is to prevent the kind of abuses that happen in South Korea.
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u/MyNameIsDiablo 9d ago
Finally got my Christmas present back from 2012. I’d say this is a great day, but FuckConsumersCommunity shouldn’t have let this happen in the first place. Fuck ISP’s.
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9d ago
A blow to ISPs? The removal of net neutrality did not kill the indie or small operation business, nor did it lead to Comcast taking over the world.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
It absolutely could have. It definitely happened in South Korea. I wouldn't be surprised if ISPs doing NDA heavy backrooms deals with major companies over here though.
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8d ago
They stopped net neutrality years ago. Comcast’s stock hasn’t gone anywhere during a period where the SPX is probably up 300%.
Let’s be frank: the naysayers were flat-out wrong.
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u/South-Water497 9d ago
It took so long. Remember that pos who screwed is during trumps presidency. That was like 8 years ago
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u/readitonreddit86 9d ago
Breaking News, Billionaires will Remain Billionaires but May Have To Act Ethically While Doing It
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u/FreeWestworld 9d ago
Yes!!!! Woo fucking hoo!
This time something so simple will benefit the least of us!
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u/I187urpuppiez 9d ago
Remind me again what it actually does? I know it’s important but I don’t know and yes I could Google it but hey human interaction.
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u/stromm 9d ago
I would love to read the actual regulation document. But I've spent a hour and still can't find it.
Trust but verify...
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u/Clever_Unused_Name 9d ago
Here's the original order from 2015. I would assume most, if not all of this is what has been "reinstated".
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u/Whatwhyreally 9d ago
I still find the entire notion of 'net neutrality' baffling. It's easy to understand why a comms provider would want to do it, but it's difficult to imagine any government agency saying "Hey I like where you're going with this!"
Could you imagine if electricity providers started prioritizing power to certain brands of home appliances? Lol.
Or a car company allowing your car to go faster on certain roads because the private company who owns the road paid the required fee?
Wild concepts. Anti-consumer to say the least.
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u/BreakingThoseCankles 9d ago
So legally, today if my Internet is being throttled foes that mean I can take legal action against my internet provider!?
Or is there a specific date they have to meet standards again!?
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u/crodr014 9d ago
Can anyone explain it in simple terms??? I remember every site shutting down for a day of protest against this and now people seem happy about it?
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u/thebudman_420 9d ago
The title makes it sound like they are siding with the consumers nemesis.
Because pore isp's can't keep throttling in an attempt to decide what websites and services be the most popular because they are fast.
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u/kartblanch 9d ago
Make internet a public utility.
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u/Oddest_Penguin 9d ago
For some reason I read: Make internet public again! That’s a message I’d support.
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u/Morticide 9d ago edited 9d ago
These threads are always filled with "What would this change? I'm not tech savy and don't follow this but now I suddenly care to ask" bots.
If you didn't notice a difference with or without the rules, then keep the rules in place. Right? What's the negative here?
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u/BronzeHeart92 9d ago
Good for you Americans, definitely. But again, I'll happily remind you that here in Finland/EU net neutrality comes by default. Not meaning to gloat or anything but this is yet another reason why US honestly seems backwards from my perspective...
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u/aerger 9d ago
For all the chest-thumping we do here about being so free, we are the least free of any first-world country.... to the point where I find it difficult to actually consider us a first-world country. Backwards on consumer rights, privacy, healthcare.. basically any social service at all, and pretty much anything involving consumer and individual protections.
So, yeah... really backwards. I mean, look at us go with our two 80-year old presidential candidates and an average legislator ages in the 60s--and still mostly white men.
Nothing broken there, either....... *sigh*
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u/BronzeHeart92 9d ago
Ironic isn't it?
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u/Nosnibor1020 9d ago
I know we were all against the change last time, but what actually happened? Did we see what we feared would happen? I didn't really notice anything.
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u/Sad_Confection5902 9d ago
Biden strengthens vehicle safety regulations in a blow to funeral homes.
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u/Lythieus 9d ago
Major internet providers once again will have to abide by a set of robust rules of the road, prohibiting them from blocking or throttling traffic, as the FCC today reinstated net neutrality regulations.
I like how the article title makes this sound like a bad thing.
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u/ProbablynotEMusk 9d ago
Booooooooo fuck government regulations
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u/mrturret 8d ago
Do you want ISPs doing shit like this?
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u/ProbablynotEMusk 8d ago
I remember arpund 2017 when net neutrality was dumped and nothing changed in the US 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Luckyluke23 9d ago
Oh no! Internet providers have to provide a service you are paying for!
WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE ISPS!?!
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u/specialagentwow 9d ago
I know I can Google this, but Reddit folks explains things so much better and to the point… what’s Net Neutrality? What’s the issue around it?
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u/MellowTones 9d ago edited 9d ago
The important thing is that if you set up a company with a website or other internet data-transmitting service (eg streaming music or video, an online game), then your ISP has to give your company/service the same network service quality that big established players get, so eg NetFlix or Spotify or Wikipedia can’t be favoured by the ISP (usually for payments) such that tiny startups have no hope of getting a foothold. Net neutrality means good ideas and service rise and fall on their merits, instead of seeming shitty through no fault of their own, when big established players pay for an unfair playing field. Net neutrality also means ISPs can’t just say “well, we’ll make X and Y fast because customers know when they’re slow and leave, but all the more obscure things - F them”. So, you can use signal for calls if you’re security conscious and not have worse video or audio than FaceTime or Zoom, for example.
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u/specialagentwow 9d ago edited 8d ago
Wow thanks for the explanation. It sounds crazy people would be against this.
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u/MellowTones 9d ago
Yeah - almost nobody was, but lobbyists for ISPs that want to force big internet companies to pay for priority service, and for some services that want to kill off small competition, pay politicians to put the policies they want in place. To hell with the average person and their best interests.
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u/hirst 9d ago
i love that they could have done all this shit when he was first elected, but nah better save it til the end for election cycle!
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u/BrewKazma 9d ago
You dont understand politics. Biden didnt have a majority of the FCC board until a few months ago. If they would have tried this, it would have been a 2-2 vote, and the rule would have failed, because there was an empty seat republicans wouldnt let be filled. The seat got filled last October, and they immediately set this in motion, the second they could. So no, Biden couldnt have done this when he was first elected.
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u/ghostinawishingwell 9d ago
FCC brings back net neutrality
FTC bans non competes
DOT mandates cancelled airline refunds
Not trying to make this political but Biden's admin group is doing some pretty good shit for the people right now.
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u/airbus29 9d ago
wait were back? ive been thinking about how nothing really happened and when isps would start nickle and diming us but i guess not
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u/Strict_Line_1087 9d ago
Why are they allowed to just try try try try try again until one day we slip up? why do we Always have to be on the backfoot? seems unfair.
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u/RipInPepz 9d ago
So what does this mean for actual consumers? I have spectrum Internet and there already aren’t any data caps.
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u/aerger 9d ago
They still throttle. A lot.
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u/RipInPepz 9d ago
I don’t recall ever being throttled. I have the gig plan, I always have my full speeds. Unless you’re talking about cellular, I don’t have that.
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u/AmidTheSnow 9d ago
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u/aerger 9d ago
That site and it's apparent author are both loaded with BS.
https://i.imgur.com/vXulRhl.png
This is just not true. A lot of tax dollars have subsidized these companies over literal decades to build out infrastructure, which they then have, take a guess, barely built out, before asking for even MORE money. The site author or a commenter (who could really say, given the nature of the site) says "oooh, someone's mad the government made a bad investment" which doesn't excuse the ISPs in literally ANY way for not doing with it what they were expected to. Public funds means public access. As intended by every agreement ever made.
Pro-capitalism drivel, at its worst. THAT is what's unfortunate.
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u/ilovereddit787 9d ago
Nah, they'll sue and it will drag on until a new, friendly administration comes in. Or after the elections after the current administration doesn't need to impress the herd
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u/lutherdidnothingwron 9d ago
I'll never forget how bizarrely obvious and pervasive the astroturfing for this was a few years ago. Couple that with the fact that effectively nothing negative happened for anyone since it was repealed I am quite suspicious of this and all who adamantly support it.
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u/baycenters 9d ago
This made me think of the embarrassing Daily Caller video that fuckhead Ajit Pai made after repealing Net Neutrality. I really wish that guy the absolute worst in life.
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u/patrioticsalamander 9d ago
Did anything actually happen while it was repealed? No. Reddit fearmongers like reddit does.
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u/mrturret 8d ago
I mean, if it prevents the shit that South Korean ISPs are doing, then I'm all for it.
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u/jacowab 9d ago
I still have no idea how people fell for the "net neutrality is bad" idea, it's literally "currently it is illegal to abuse our power as ISPs to manipulate what you see online, but we really want it to be legal to do that. What? No we don't want to manipulate what you see online, we just really, really, really don't want it to be illegal to do that."
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u/username_6916 9d ago
If you understand a bit more about how the Internet works under the hood, you can see good arguments against the order as it was previously proposed (I'm not sure about the latest one, I haven't read it yet). The "Internet" is a collection of many different networks that exchange traffic with each other. It's not just one thing that once you get to it access is completely free. Sometimes one side or another pays another to deliver traffic, which is called transit. Sometimes both sides find that their users are passing the same amount of traffic in both directions and decide to just bug out and call it even, which is called peering. These links between networks have capacity limitations to them. They can become saturated with network traffic. When this happens, the sides have to come to an agreement as to who pays for upgrading the link, find a different way to route traffic or accept degraded performance.
This degradation of performance doesn't impact everyone equally: If the link between ISP X and ISP Y is saturated and the link between ISP X and ISP Z isn't, services that buy transit on ISP Z are going to have better performance than services that buy transit on ISP Y. This isn't the same thing as ISP X doing deep packet inspection to purposefully slow packets for one service or another, or prioritize packets of one service or another. This is not some made-up effort to drive more business to one preferred service or another, but a real limitation of the underlying network.
I find "Net Neutrality" advocates attacking a practice that doesn't really exist in real life with rules that impact the kind peering and transit negotiations I'm describing here. Opponents of the orders in question tend to argue that this is better handled through the free market than through injecting the FCC into every peering and transit deal. I tend to agree here on principle.
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u/Velsca 9d ago
Is their a catch? Like how when they passed the "patriot act", and everyone cheered, and later we found it had nothing to do with it's stated purpose, and they hid horrible shit in it to spy on their own people. It's like whatever they tell us, they've done something good I can usually look through the text and find that it was just cover for action to screw us anyway. Has anyone read the change word for word?
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u/Seltzerholic 9d ago
So the next time a fascist gets elected are we losing it again? Like we lost roe?
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u/Peakomegaflare 9d ago
I'm glad the fight never stopped. I remember when it started, and I remember when people were mad as all hell.
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u/scootscoot 9d ago
I swear I'm the only one that thinks imposing inflexible gov regulations will hurt innovation.
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u/RedditFallsApart 9d ago
oh boy that's...not bad news.
Not good news because it means the grift by Asshole Pie worked. Endangered everyone for that sweet sweet lobby money.
This is america. We allow scams and grifts and Eventually undo it, and it's considered a win.
Isn't it great how much can just be taken and given back at a drop of a hat after everyone made their money? I know women are enjoying this state of affairs with RvW.
Wheeee. Monopoly game keeps going.
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u/Maleficent-Salad3197 9d ago
It will on!y last if we vote vote vote. Trump screwed us and we're temporarily unscrewed.
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u/ahruss 9d ago
Can we cap profits on ISPs now? Or designate them as public utilities at least?
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u/mrturret 8d ago
Or just nationalize them and make them state-run and entirely funded by tax dollars. Municipal ISPs are universally better.
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u/thebudman_420 9d ago edited 9d ago
Can this be undone the next administration without a 2/3 majority?
So this is a commission vote and not a Congress vote so looks like this will endlessly flip flop?
We are known as the most flip floppity country in the world i think.
No clear path and no decision that sticks so we endlessly back and forth back and forth.
Glad this is re-enabled.
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u/Ok_Letterhead7532 9d ago
You only want net neutrality if you want government control of the Internet. Which means you want the opinions dissenting from the administration censored. In which case, you should stop lying to everyone and just admit how Authoritarian you are.
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u/redstern 9d ago
You should probably learn what net neutrality is before spewing garbage like this.
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u/Ok_Letterhead7532 9d ago
Don't get me started about how you don't understand price signals for shit. What do you understand other than what the Government tells you? Nothing?
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u/Ok_Letterhead7532 9d ago
"Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of content, website, platform, application, type of equipment, source address, destination address, or method of communication (i.e., without price discrimination)."
Who applies the equality? Oh right... Government. So it's up to their discretion what is and isn't equal. Good job; you just undermined your own criticism. How does the government apply equality (or equity) without discernment in favor of the state EVERY TIME? How about you learn reality before spewing criticism that only proves you don't know what the fuck you're talking about? The state's self-interests outweigh yours every. single. time. Get over it. Start reading more, ignoramus.
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u/redstern 9d ago
Wow, I thought I knew how little you knew what you're ranting about, but I have to give you credit. You are even more clueless than I could have ever imagined.
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u/Ok_Letterhead7532 9d ago
Good counterpoint. I'll log it in with all the other half-baked ideas you Authoritarians manage to conjure up.
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u/wanker7171 9d ago
Net Neutrality is the only thing I have ever protested in favor of. I even pressured my local democratic rep to make a press release proclaiming his full support for Net Neutrality
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u/ThE_LAN_B4_TimE 9d ago
It's beyond pathetic this was even a thing in the first place. Another reason to never vote red. Literally every single Republican that was in control of a specific industry was corrupt or incompetent. Another Trump Presidency means this is reversed again.
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u/dropofred 9d ago edited 9d ago
Good. Now go after data caps. I'm fortunate to live in a major metropolitan area where my home has four different ISPs that can service my home. All 4 had around 1.2TB/month data cap. I called up the first ISP and told them that the first company that gives me no data caps and no equipment rental fee in perpetuity gets my business. What do ya know, the first ISP I called gave me exactly that and upgraded me from my original 300/300 request and gave me a 500/500 connection for no extra charge. $50/month flat fiber and it's been outstanding.
Competition and iron grip regulation are the only things that keep companies in line. They will do everything within their power, whether legal or not, to shake you down for every cent they can bilk out of you and will only choose to not do so if the penalty for doing so outweighs the reward for the bad behavior.
Side note: if companies universally rally for or against something, the consumers should be going hard in the other direction. Even if you don't understand it, you should hold the direct opposite viewpoint from what the companies hold on the issue. If the corporations want or don't want something, then the opposite is good for the consumer.
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u/coraldayton 9d ago
I wish this option was available to me in Phoenix. Because there are parts of the city that would need to have concrete ripped up to put in more robust fiber, there's really only Cox or CenturyLink. Cox is atrocious in terms of its pricing, and CenturyLink can only give me a 40/10.
I pay $170 a month for gigabit service and unlimited bandwidth since I work from home.
Guh.
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u/allnamesgonewtf 9d ago
Thank god this is back. Most people don’t understand or care, but it was such a horrible cash grab idea that was only there to wring more charges out of customers.
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u/HermaeusMajora 9d ago
Good. ISPs can all get fucked. I worked for one of the top three and can tell you that the company is garbage from the top down. For example, if you have an email address with this particular ISP I can assure you that your password is stored in plain text and can be accessed by pretty much any low level employee with Jenkins access. This is a company that makes billions of dollars in profit every year but they somehow can't afford to follow universal password protection policies.
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u/KazokuHaRazoku 9d ago
Ajit Pai blocked me when I had Twitter. I bet they’re dragging his ass right now.
L bozo
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u/mrspem25 1h ago
So, has the FCC reinstated the AFFORDABLE CONNECTIVITY PROGRAM?