How did they advertise in 1915? What has changed?
I find it really interesting that this is going on in the US.
The UN declared “Access to the Internet a basic Human Right”.
Net neutrality was meant to ensure the service providers could not manipulate the speed of the internet wherein they could charge fees for faster connections.
This for an industry that is very close to a monopoly. End users tend to be very limited as to which internet service provider they can chose from which tends to be limited due to location. Much like a utility company. Utility companies are heavily regulated to ensure they do not charge excessive fees, since they are basically a local monopoly. So for internet providers are not regulated in this way. And to be fair, unlike utilities, you don’t actually need internet to live. So, prices tend to be set by the thresh-hold of how much people are willing to pay. Charge too much, and people will drop the net.
Now compare with what is happening in other countries. Governments around the world are heavily invested in their own internet infrastructure. Two specific categories come to mind: Speed and accessibility.
South Korea is famously known as having the fastest internet connections. And it also happens to be cheaper. And the government is heavily vested in making it even faster. And guess what, the government has made it highly competitive, so monthly connection fees are almost half of the average US fees.
Cable and infrastructure owners have to allow other companies access on their cables for a set lease fee. This means any company can offer internet service. And as all true capitalists know. Healthy competition means better prices and services.
Singapore has similar regulations in place.
In Europe, the Northern countries have the fastest connection.
As for accessibility, Places like Singapore have many free WiFi hot spots all over the city. The same goes for many major modern cities in Asia and Europe.
Some countries, especially in Eastern Europe are working on providing free internet for all. Estonia and Lithuania have both guaranteed this and the internet is already freely available through public WiFi.
The benefits are obvious. Access to educational information is great for kids and families. Gaming becomes faster online and is becoming a major sport, if you can call it that. South Korea has some of the best superstar gamers in the world, and gaming is becoming a huge multi-billion dollar industry. As for other economic benefits, online shopping is made easy, and in cities and countries where tourism is big business, free WiFi hot spots allow tourists to find their way around town.
The benefits to individuals, culture and economy is boundless.
So why does the US want to shore up the monopolies of a few giant service providers and through them to the largest internet companies who could afford to pay a premium for their sites to be provided faster. You want to start a small online business selling stuff? Amazon will surely pay for faster service. Whereas as a startup, you may not be able to afford it. Net Neutrality ensures this won’t happen. So, why get rid of it and allow the service providers the option? Makes no sense. Other countries embrace the net for the benefit of their country, the US seem to take in the opposite direction.
What you’re asking will make no sense to Bricker, Trump, Ajit, et al. The very idea that the common good trumps the profit potential of five companies is completely foreign to them.
It’s American exceptionalism, like healthcare and the political system.
To an ideologue, ideological purity is a real world benefit.
Active Verizon bandwidth fuckery ? Avowed collusion between Comcast & TimeWarner in order to create local monopolies which was about to result in an antitrust lawsuit (but sure as fuck wouldn’t under this administration) ?
As is so often the case, I find it difficult to determine whether Bricker’s position reflects ignorance, or some underlying agenda. Possibly both. Given his track record, I suspect he has some scheme which he considers quite clever. It sure seems as though the most likely result of his proposal is to allow certain firms to profit in the short run, while reducing services available to certain classes of people. The only benefit he cites is some preference for less regulation, primary reliance on the market to decide, and an expectation that piecemeal after-the-fact regulation is preferable.
I do not share these goals and preferences.
Oh right. Streaming movies is the only thing offered by a connection to the Internet.
My bad.
:smack:
I find it kinda hilarious that in the USA, we have many posters here and elsewhere lamenting that they only have 2 ISPs to choose from, or in some cases just one, whereas in my backwater town in West Cork a quick perusal shows that I have at least 5 high-speed ISPs to choose from.
Net neutrality is a similar issue, “imposed” on the helpless citizenry by the heartless bureaucrats in Brussels.
#MAGA!
Looking at this from over the pond, it just seems another example of the US government being in the pocket of the lobbists from the major Telcos who sell Internet services. They look jealously at the doComs like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Co. and see them making huge profits and the want some of it. The Telcos control the wires to the subscribers and technically it is not difficult to restrict traffic to any website or service or, conversely provide it with a fast lane. Telcos and ISPs have networks that are being challenged by progressive growth of sites offering high bandwidth demand internet services. While a typical website like this really does not generate much traffic, because it largely text. Voice services like VoIP requires more and a network conditioned not to lose packets. Video and progression from standard TV to HD, to 4K are huge strain on networks.
They all condition their networks to keep them operational, but they have have not been able to exercise control for profit. Now they can.
The big Telco ISPs will now have a dialogue with the big doCom websites and media streaming like Netflix and it will go along the lines of: I control access to all these customers, how much are you going to pay me for prioritised traffic, so your service gives a good customer experience? Being able to restrict traffic like this gives them a new income stream and very little incentive to upgrade their networks.
In other countries, governments are taking quite a different approach. They want the Telcos to lay really fast fibre optic cables to every home and business. This is easier in some places that others. In South Korea and Singapore, it is not difficult, most of the population live in apartment blocks and it is easier to wire up large numbers of subscribers in one hit. Other countries, like in Europe the Telcos the bill for this is much higher. In the UK, it would cost about $50bn to wire up the country with fibre and give everyone a Gigabit speed potential. The Government has been pussy footing around with this issue for years with the BT, the telco that owns most of the copper wires in the ground. The key is the economic benefit to the country that comes from installing a high speed Internet links everywhere. Most read the writing on the wall and understand that ecouraging the Digital economy is essential for the future prosperity of a national economy and they are all coming to the conclusion that a fast, unrestricted internet connection is an essential utility, like electricity or water or roads. The country benefits by what people build on this infratructure, the business they create, the wealth they generate from innovative new enterprises.
The US seems to have caved in on this issue to Telco lobby groups who want to milk their local monopolies. Do you really think they are going to spend the money they get from the fees they will charge the likes of Netflix and Facebook on improving their networks?
A Government is the custodian of the national economy and it has to encourage economic growth, looking to the future. Corporations, conversely, are only interested in expolting commerical advantage and there is nothing quite as profitable a monopoly or a cosy cartel. If they can hobble the competition they will. This kind of thing has been going on every since the days of Standard Oil. Nurturing competive markets and discouraging monopolists is an essential role of government: making capitalism work to provide wealth and growth without screwing the market and fleecing captive customes.
I am guessing the US, with its huge geography, has some very uncompetive local markets for Internet access and allowing Telcos and big ISPs to strangle the market even further is not going to improve things.
I am curious what will be the effect, will customers just see poor service and slow performance from websites that don’t pay their dues to the Telco/ISP? Or will customers be offered bundles of prioritied web services like a Netflix/Facebook/Twitter bundle and everything else goes in the slow lane. Somewhat like the cable TV subscriptions?
I would guess it would be back room deals first getting Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Bezos to share some of their profits. Googles ISP ambitions look like they had some idea this might happen. They might get around the problem by buying into cellphone networks that are upgrading to 5G. Either way abolishing Net Neutrality will hold back the US Digital economy and simply extend the life of some of these dinosaurs by allowing them to strangle new business and innovation and fleece their customers. That is not very smart.
:dubious:
The rules that were put in in 14 or 15?
I’d be much more interested in this if people could point out the ACTUAL abuses that led to the regulation in the first place. Got any cites?
I admit a certain technical curiosity as to how this will play out. It has the potential to be a slow-motion train wreck and those are always entertaining.
See post #54.
The best government money can buy!
All 535 members of Congress, and how much money they got from ISPs
The ISPs obviously think that contributing over $100 million to members congress was a worthwhile investment. So it seems like they expect to make many times more than that in extra profits.
But they only contributed that money so they could offer better services to their customers.
Still amazing.
Next step will likely be to blame Europe for taking advantage of the USA’s technologies while the US does the ‘heavy lifting’, or some other variation of the healthcare nonsense.
Here’s the news, folks; this is exactly how you add to the oligarchy: Jimmy Carter says US has become more an 'oligarchy than a democracy' in speech critical of Trump
That’s silly. 1915 was over a hundred years ago, not two years ago.
Serious question, how did restaurants and repair shops manage to advertise (a mere two years ago) before the net neutrality rule was enacted? How will they manage now that it’s been repealed?
Returning to the status quo ante doesn’t sound like the end of the world as we know it.
You’re the one who claimed that the internet “is almost a necessity”.
In any case, nothing about the repeal will limit anyone’s connection to the internet.
Not explicitly, no. But it opens the door for providers to limit their subscribers’ connection to he internet. Let’s not go down the road of “I didn’t shoot him, the gun did.”