With net neutrality gone, you will pay a lot more for your internet!!

[LunaRose]

That's still 4 providers that cover more than 90% of the city. I haven't been to Houston in over 20 years but if it's anything like Tucson it's grown like a weed and the outskirts of town keep moving out. That happens and it takes a while for cable or fiber providers to move with them. DSL, since it uses phone lines, tends to move quickly. What happens, as a rule, is that you'll have satellite and DSL in your area first then, in a few years you'll get cable and maybe fiber. Those last two are simply infrastructure intensive. Smaller providers will usually start with niche packages geared to business services but, as they expand, will break into residential as well. Furthermore, as technology changes it becomes less practical to invest in hard wired service.

Big ISPs rule the market and they arn't letting any new comers in....A city (or town) would be ever so lucky to have a choice of more than 2 ISP's......

average-number-of-internet-providers-per-city/

 

[eohrnberger]

The Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Varadaraj Pai, is the one who pushed this through. He's been opposed to it since 2015.

By the way, he was appointed by Obama.

:lamo

Oh that's just delicious irony, that.

So the Network Neutrality regulations which have been inn force for a mere 2 years are going to force the fleecing of the buying public.

You know what? My cable bill hasn't changed significantly in more than 5 years, 3 years before the regs came into effect.

I think all the chicken little is just so much fear mongering.

There's a price point in every market beyond which the market will no longer bear it, in fact, there's a price point for each feature beyond which the market will not bear. The CableCo's aren't going to price themselves out of the market, it's their livelihood. Doing so would be business suicide.

 

[eohrnberger]

Common sense will tell you, if you do not desire making the rich richer, don't buy their stuff.

Free market in action, as I alluded to in my post above.

 

[Fraggle Rock]

Just another nail in the Republicans coffin for the next several years. This issue will definitely resonate with the 18-30 group. Trump and his FCC verizon cronies just woke up a sleeping monster and gave them a good reason to go to the polls

 

[Carjosse]

That's still 4 providers that cover more than 90% of the city. I haven't been to Houston in over 20 years but if it's anything like Tucson it's grown like a weed and the outskirts of town keep moving out. That happens and it takes a while for cable or fiber providers to move with them. DSL, since it uses phone lines, tends to move quickly. What happens, as a rule, is that you'll have satellite and DSL in your area first then, in a few years you'll get cable and maybe fiber. Those last two are simply infrastructure intensive. Smaller providers will usually start with niche packages geared to business services but, as they expand, will break into residential as well. Furthermore, as technology changes it becomes less practical to invest in hard wired service.

And how exactly are those smaller providers going to expand and compete when AT&T and Comcast will no longer have to abide by anti-competitive regulations? AT&T and Comcast can just force them out of the market.

 

[eohrnberger]

The idea that a lightly regulated market will, over time, totally screw the participants is absurd. While there may be instances of abuse the overall effect of free consumer choice and competition between producers clears those failures out of the equation in short order. The real danger to consumers comes from political force being used to manipulate the markets for political gain and that's EXACTLY what net neutrality would do.

Exactly!

 

[eohrnberger]

That does not work when there is only one choice or if there is they are a cartel which is currently the status of the larger ISPs and the only way to promote real competition is to protect smaller ISPs and ensure that the larger ISPs cannot exploit their size to detriment of consumers. Not only that many of them are trying to further merge reducing competition among larger ISPs even further.

Take the example I sued in another thread, Houston, huge city but has only one real ISP for fibre or cable. Your business needs fibre and AT&T decides to start throttling your content, too bad you are screwed, same with cable internet. Say you are a low income Houstonian and Comcast decides to start throttling and blocking content but you can't switch to fibre because that costs 5x as much and you cannot afford that so again you are ****ed. Because of Title II competition was starting to grow but now there is nothing protecting them form AT&T and Comcast.

Meanwhile in Canada where competition is essentially forced and net neutrality is enforced I have so many choices of ISPs to choose from I actually had the to weigh the pros and cons of each. And you can threaten to switch or cancel and they will give you a lot to stay. That is consumer choice.

What you are drawing attention to are the corrupt and / or incompetent local governments who regulate access to their markets, i.e. the consumers who live in their jurisdiction.

If the local governments provided access to all competitors willing to enter their markets, it would be far more as you've described your situation to be.

 

[LunaRose]

Free market in action, as I alluded to in my post above.

Free market in action? Is paying for your electric bill to the one energy company in the area free market? Paying for your water bill to the only water company in the area free market? The internet is a telecommunications service, which is deemed an essential need just like electric and water, to which over half the country only has access to 2-3 ISP's (about 10% of the country with only 1) leaving them little to no choice but to pay the price of the market cornered by the few. Haha, free market...riiight......

 

[eohrnberger]

Free market in action? Is paying for your electric bill to the one energy company in the area free market? Paying for your water bill to the only water company in the area free market? The internet is a telecommunications service, which is deemed an essential need just like electric and water, to which over half the country only has access to 2-3 ISP's (about 10% of the country with only 1) leaving them little to no choice but to pay the price of the market cornered by the few. Haha, free market...riiight......

See post #57. It's the local government who control ISP access to their markets.

If you don't want to pay the bill, don't order the service. Simple.

If enough opt out, the market will make the adjustment.

 

[LunaRose]

What you are drawing attention to are the corrupt and / or incompetent local governments who regulate access to their markets, i.e. the consumers who live in their jurisdiction.

If the local governments provided access to all competitors willing to enter their markets, it would be far more as you've described your situation to be.

Yes, I agree...This is a problem that we should address, needs to be fixed, and would could help create more competition...But this has nothing to do with net neutrality.

 

[eohrnberger]

Yes, I agree...This is a problem that we should address, needs to be fixed, and would could help create more competition...But this has nothing to do with net neutrality.

There I think you are wrong.

Given the choice between ISPs, ones that charge extra for the high speed service you want, and ones that won't, the customer choosing will force ISPs to compete for that market share by bringing their offerings and pricing in order to compete for that market.

As for regulation, yes, there probably needs to be some, but it should be of the 'lightest possible touch' variety, not heavy handed and expensive to comply with (which will reduce choice and increase costs).

 

[Carjosse]

What you are drawing attention to are the corrupt and / or incompetent local governments who regulate access to their markets, i.e. the consumers who live in their jurisdiction.

If the local governments provided access to all competitors willing to enter their markets, it would be far more as you've described your situation to be.

Local governments can't stop AT&T and Comcast from denying access to their networks to smaller ISPs, or underselling them till they go out of business. That is where Title II comes in. It is like a local grocer trying to compete with Wal-Mart, they can't. Also not helping things is the the big ISPs in the US essentially function as a a cartel.

In Canada the larger ISPs are forced to "rent" parts their infrastructure to smaller ISPs creating competition not only with other large corporations but these smaller ones as well and allowing these smaller ISPs to expand further and far faster where they never could normally. In my old apartment building I had a choice between three big ISPs and two smaller ones, I went with the smaller one that rented infrastructure from one of the larger ones because they were much cheaper.

 

[LunaRose]

See post #57. It's the local government who control ISP access to their markets.

If you don't want to pay the bill, don't order the service. Simple.

If enough opt out, the market will make the adjustment.

Simply "not ordering their service" is not an option. The internet is telecommunications service that is needed just like electric and water. We did the same thing with telephones...Would you simply opt out of your water service?

 

[LunaRose]

There I think you are wrong.

Given the choice between ISPs, ones that charge extra for the high speed service you want, and ones that won't, the customer choosing will force ISPs to compete for that market share by bringing their offerings and pricing in order to compete for that market.

As for regulation, yes, there probably needs to be some, but it should be of the 'lightest possible touch' variety, not heavy handed and expensive to comply with (which will reduce choice and increase costs).

Yes, if we addressed the problem stated then net neutrality would most likely not be needed. However, since we are not addressing this problem and it is extremely difficult for new competitors to enter the market then net neutrality become necessary to protect our telecommunications service from the few that corner the market.

 

[ksu_aviator]

I don't get it. Cost didn't go down under Net Neutrality, so why are they going up? Net Neutrality forced all of us to deal with slower speeds as bandwidth hogs were able to absorb every bit of bandwidth without consequence. Let providers charge like the water company. If you use too much you get penalized. It's only fair.

 

[eohrnberger]

Simply "not ordering their service" is not an option. The internet is telecommunications service that is needed just like electric and water. We did the same thing with telephones...Would you simply opt out of your water service?

So you are saying that you need the Internet like you need water? To sustain your life? Not sure that's an equal or accurate comparison.

You can cut your CableCo connection, and sign up for an unlimited cellular plan, and use your phone as a WiFi hot spot for your computer. Some cellular carriers are offering this as a service with a mobile base station / WiFi router option. Mobile 4G is quite fast.

 

[LunaRose]

I don't get it. Cost didn't go down under Net Neutrality, so why are they going up? Net Neutrality forced all of us to deal with slower speeds as bandwidth hogs were able to absorb every bit of bandwidth without consequence. Let providers charge like the water company. If you use too much you get penalized. It's only fair.

Yea we could do that, seems reasonable...However, this has nothing to do with net neutrality.

For example with out NN ISP providers could come out with a pricing model that looks like this...pricing model (Portugal already does this).....By doing this in order to get access to everything on the internet a person could potentially be paying well above $100 and this not including the cost for better bandwidth. This would greatly affect lower middle class people and the poor as their access within the internet would be gated... Which is ridiculous.

And nothing is stopping the big ISP's from throttling if they wanted to....For example, Netflix and Sling tv are in competition for the flow of traffic on the internet. Think of it as a highway divided into 10 equal lanes. Net Neutrality states that both get equal shares of said traffic, 50/50. Now with the repeal of Net Neutrality, Netflix CAN pay cable services for 9/10's of that traffic, since it is a much bigger company with a much bigger profit margin. Now Sling TV cut of internet traffic is only 1/10th instead of the 5/10ths it once had and goes out of business. With NN Netflix nor any other company can pay for more bandwidth throttling other services.

With NN neither of these examples would be possible which is a good thing.....

 

[eohrnberger]

Local governments can't stop AT&T and Comcast from denying access to their networks to smaller ISPs, or underselling them till they go out of business. That is where Title II comes in. It is like a local grocer trying to compete with Wal-Mart, they can't. Also not helping things is the the big ISPs in the US essentially function as a a cartel.

In Canada the larger ISPs are forced to "rent" parts their infrastructure to smaller ISPs creating competition not only with other large corporations but these smaller ones as well and allowing these smaller ISPs to expand further and far faster where they never could normally. In my old apartment building I had a choice between three big ISPs and two smaller ones, I went with the smaller one that rented infrastructure from one of the larger ones because they were much cheaper.

I can see where this can make business sense. Once the infrastructure is procured, installed and setup, those costs are one and done. I think the greater costs come with servicing those customers, i.e. answering the get help phone, have knowledgeable people to answer and respond, and occasionally to tweak some setting or another.

 

[prometeus]

I don't get it. Cost didn't go down under Net Neutrality, so why are they going up? Net Neutrality forced all of us to deal with slower speeds as bandwidth hogs were able to absorb every bit of bandwidth without consequence. Let providers charge like the water company. If you use too much you get penalized. It's only fair.

Uneducated low intellect drivel. Just what is too much and who will decide that based on what?

 

[ksu_aviator]

Yea we could do that, seems reasonable...However, this has nothing to do with net neutrality.

For example with out NN ISP providers could come out with a pricing model that looks like this...pricing model (Portugal already does this).....By doing this in order to get access to everything on the internet a person could potentially be paying well above $100 and this not including the cost for better bandwidth. This would greatly affect lower middle class people and the poor as their access within the internet would be gated... Which is ridiculous.

And nothing is stopping the big ISP's from throttling if they wanted to....For example, Netflix and Sling tv are in competition for the flow of traffic on the internet. Think of it as a highway divided into 10 equal lanes. Net Neutrality states that both get equal shares of said traffic, 50/50. Now with the repeal of Net Neutrality, Netflix CAN pay cable services for 9/10's of that traffic, since it is a much bigger company with a much bigger profit margin. Now Sling TV cut of internet traffic is only 1/10th instead of the 5/10ths it once had and goes out of business. With NN Netflix nor any other company can pay for more bandwidth throttling other services.

With NN neither of these examples would be possible which is a good thing.....

They don't and never have. Paranoid much? How about we address the problems that exist rather than the problems that don't.

 

[LunaRose]

So you are saying that you need the Internet like you need water? To sustain your life? Not sure that's an equal or accurate comparison.

You can cut your CableCo connection, and sign up for an unlimited cellular plan, and use your phone as a WiFi hot spot for your computer. Some cellular carriers are offering this as a service with a mobile base station / WiFi router option. Mobile 4G is quite fast.

My point I was trying to make is that the internet is a telecommunications service that is essential in everybody's life and a house hold that does not have the internet would be at a significant disadvantage compared to house holds with it. With pricing models and big ISP's potentially raising prices is just another way of knocking down the poor and lower middle class....As if they're not fighting a big enough up hill battle... Simply opting out is not an answer.....

 

[LunaRose]

They don't and never have. Paranoid much? How about we address the problems that exist rather than the problems that don't.

Exactly, so what is wrong with making NN official? Who is it hurting? Why not protect the internet as we know it, its great.....Your not making much of an argument against NN...

 

[LunaRose]

Uneducated low intellect drivel. Just what is too much and who will decide that based on what?

Agreed....

 

[eohrnberger]

My point I was trying to make is that the internet is a telecommunications service that is essential in everybody's life and a house hold that does not have the internet would be at a significant disadvantage compared to house holds with it. With pricing models and big ISP's potentially raising prices is just another way of knocking down the poor and lower middle class....As if they're not fighting a big enough up hill battle... Simply opting out is not an answer.....

"essential in everybody's life and a house hold (sic)"

It's not. How did we possibly survive before the Internet then?

Anyway, I already suggested a way to get rid of your hated ISPs, switch to cellular, and there are many providers to chose from competing in the same locale.

"With pricing models and big ISP's potentially raising prices"

So you have no evidence that they will, for one, and, as shown, market competition is the most effective tool to manage these corporate entities. So this Network Neutrality is a solution in search of a problem? One that hasn't even manifested itself? :lamo

"just another way of knocking down the poor and lower middle class"

No, got nothing to do with that.

"As if they're not fighting a big enough up hill battle"

Made far worse by the previous administration, although, that same administration kept mouthing those words of concern, and then undercut that very part of hte population's livelihoods with a torrent of federal regulations nearly making it impossible to start a business, do business, or remain in business - note that it was the low point of the number of small companies starting in that era.

The underlying fundamental here where I think we already disagree on is one of how much government and what sort of government, myself wanting the least amount of government we can get away with, where as I perceive that you'd prefer far more government and far more government intervention.

 

[Zyphlin]

Thats almost like saying repealing the second admit might not end with guns being banned; we'll have to wait and see.

So much wrong with that....

First, one's talking about a government "regulation" restricting the actions of government, which has no potential market or profit based motivation. The other is talking about regulation of a business, that DOES have such motivations.

Second, lets peg 1999 as the start of broadband being openly embraced; we had 16 years of evidence that plans such as what's described in the OP would not be implemented simply due to the absence of net neutrality regulation. We have some reasonable evidence to suggest this won't happen. Furthermore, while there has been talks of "fast lanes" and such by major american telecoms, I don't believe I've seen reports of any telecom in the US legitimately talking about internet "packages" such as presented in these images. Conversely, with the 2nd and guns, we don't have that relatively recent lengthy period of time as reference to suggest that it's unlikely to go in a particular direction AND we do have people in places of government that HAVE talked about a desire to ban firearms of various kinds. So the legitimate threat from one or the other is SIZEABLY different as well.

Third, I'd fight tooth and nail not to have the 2nd repealed. However, IF it did get repealed in a legitimate fashion I'd say the same thing as I've done in the post you quoted....I'd still not suggest that banning is 100% GOING to happen and start treating every 2nd amendment thumpers worst nightmares are absolute certainties prior to actual attempts to do such things. WHEN such things started occuring, I'd scream out against them and I'd highlight that this was precisely why we shouldn't have repealed. But I'm not going to act like they are actually DOING something that they're not actually doing.