Net Neutrality Killed

[MacGyver]

So, as someone who feeds his family on the internet, I'm generally pro net neutrality.  But, there's a lot to consider here.

First, I would pretty much prefer the government stay out of it at large, but recognize that there are some giant government-blessed monopolies that can and do affect the market at large.  As, the free market doesn't really care if you live or die - we're going to eventually have to come up with some framework that makes sense.

Obama's attempt in 2015 was a half-hearted swing - and sweeping it up under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 wasn't the right approach.  The internet isn't a public utility - and attempts to regulate private companies as such is clunky at best.  Action was needed.

But, neither can we take our hands off - or should we. You hear the telecom companies complaining about all the investment they're making in their networks, but almost every big infrastructure project has some public money financing it.  We as taxpayers deserve to get traffic via those lines - because we do pay for some of them.

A lot of what we're seeing right now from the big telecom carriers is more concerned with getting around the Telecom Reform Act of 1994 than it is anything else.  That's a whole different (long) post.

 

[MacGyver]

8 minutes ago, 2.ooohhh said:

I'm more concerned with local TN law eliminating the local municipalities from offering broadband as a public utility to their residents. Chattanooga is one of the best networked cities in the country, and as soon as Comcast and AT&T could they lobbied and pushed through a law ensuring that it would be the only one in the state. 

EPBFi in Chattanooga is a great example of a public infrastructure project done well.  And it's led to companies investing in Chattanooga and jobs being created that almost certainly wouldn't have been otherwise.

And yes, the politicians are bought and paid for to guarantee that others in the state don't get the opportunity to do similar.

I guess you're not sending Marsha Blackburn a Christmas Card?

[2.ooohhh]

3 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

EPBFi in Chattanooga is a great example of a public infrastructure project done well.  And it's led to companies investing in Chattanooga and jobs being created that almost certainly wouldn't have been otherwise.

And yes, the politicians are bought and paid for to guarantee that others in the state don't get the opportunity to do similar.

I guess you're not sending Marsha Blackburn a Christmas Card?

Marsha never even made the list, but a few years ago I finally dropped Chuck, and Chad as guilty by association. 

[n0rlf]

Another opportunity to get something done right. Always a positive outlook! 

Now can we take advantage of it or is it yet another we let slip by to make the elected officials more money at our expense?

[JayC]

4 hours ago, n0rlf said:

Well it had been around for a couple years. My cost went sky high. I have one option other than satellite. 

My data plans on the cell get throttled if I use what they consider too much. In 2010i had an unlimited plan at the fastest level and no throttling. After Obama did good thing it slowed down and cost more. 

Keep in mind I do not live in the city. Out here we do not get much for choices. That may be why my experience is different than yours or someone else's. 

Either way it is not going to impact my wallet too much for the next year. I will give it time and see how it goes. 

If it turns out bad then we can best on them to fix it. Fix does not mean roll back though. Fix it the right way. 

We all shall see in the future. Until then it is academic and speculation. 

Your costs are going up because you provider doesn't have any competition.  I can buy bandwidth much cheaper from a data center today than I could just 3 or 4 years ago, 85% cheaper.  But Comcast, AT&T, and Charter keep raising their rates even though their costs are going down.

Also remember that Net Neutrality was passed by Republicans in 2007/2008 when the FCC labeled Internet Providers a Telecommunications Service under Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934.  And basically started to treat ISP's as 'common carriers' just like Telephone Companies have been regulated for the last 50+ years.

Comcast and Verizon went to court, and got themselves exempted under Title 2, so the Obama FCC dropped the 'Net Neutrality' regulations to comply with the courts ruling.

Basically, net neutrality has been in place since the Internet was created, except for a 2 or 3 year period when ISP's started to behave badly, and the FCC (both republicans and democrats) tried to enforce 'common carrier' status on them.  And common carrier is a good thing, it basically says you must treat all 'traffic' equally no matter the destination.

[btq96r]

7 hours ago, JayC said:

Just remember, the 'evil' net neutrality was also preventing these last mile ISP's from blocking websites such as the NRA, TGO, and other right wing 'extremists' sites.  Don't be surprised that the folks who are pressuring YouTube to take down conservative videos, don't start putting pressure on Comcast, Charter and AT&T to start blocking the 'terrorist' websites of the NRA etc.

The whole post with it's history to modern day synopsis was in the 10-ring, but this part is the biggest take away.

I like to challenge someone when they have a law or policy they'd like to see in place- what would happen if the other side had access to the changes you're seeking?  Well, if ISP's don't have some restraint on them from government oversight, what is listed above could very well become reality.

[Omega]

This is a 2 year old regulation, what site before this regulation was blocked?  What particular infraction was prevented with this regulation?  I have had various providers in the past, never had an issue accessing any site, including torrent sites. I've been with AT&T during the whole regulated period, never did anything for or against my access, so no issues here, so all I have to fall back on is my feeling that anything Obama related was crap,  and so far I see nothing to change my sentiments any.

[gregintenn]

3 hours ago, JayC said:

Your costs are going up because you provider doesn't have any competition.  I can buy bandwidth much cheaper from a data center today than I could just 3 or 4 years ago, 85% cheaper.  But Comcast, AT&T, and Charter keep raising their rates even though their costs are going down.

Also remember that Net Neutrality was passed by Republicans in 2007/2008 when the FCC labeled Internet Providers a Telecommunications Service under Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934.  And basically started to treat ISP's as 'common carriers' just like Telephone Companies have been regulated for the last 50+ years.

Comcast and Verizon went to court, and got themselves exempted under Title 2, so the Obama FCC dropped the 'Net Neutrality' regulations to comply with the courts ruling.

Basically, net neutrality has been in place since the Internet was created, except for a 2 or 3 year period when ISP's started to behave badly, and the FCC (both republicans and democrats) tried to enforce 'common carrier' status on them.  And common carrier is a good thing, it basically says you must treat all 'traffic' equally no matter the destination.

That is the best, most concise description of net neutrality I've yet to read. Thank you for posting it.

[Oh Shoot]

This will likely degrade or even kill streaming services like NetFlix over time.  The ISP can charge them more, so they charge you more, until it's cheaper to just add a movie package from the ISP, and force original content into the regular established market.

I'm pretty sure in ways I don't even grok yet, the biggest winners will be the fattest cats who need it the least, just like the new "tax reform" act.  This isn't "free capitalism" in the way conservatives like to spout it, it's just another way of picking winners by further greasing those who already sit at the top.

- OS

Edited December 16, 2017 by Oh Shoot

[gregintenn]

24 minutes ago, Oh Shoot said:

This will likely degrade or even kill streaming services like NetFlix over time.  The ISP can charge them more, so they charge you more, until it's cheaper to just add a movie package from the ISP, and force original content into the regular established market.

I'm pretty sure in ways I don't even grok yet, the biggest winners will be the fattest cats who need it the least, just like the new "tax reform" act.  This isn't "free capitalism" in the way conservatives like to spout it, it's just another way of picking winners by further greasing those who already sit at the top.

- OS

LOlL! Always the ray of sunshine!

Just like any other business, if a provider isn't pleasing their customers, someone else will come in and do it.

How long before people are protesting that internet access is a right and should be free?

[n0rlf]

Just now, gregintenn said:

LOlL! Always the ray of sunshine!

Just like any other business, if a provider isn't pleasing their customers, someone else will come in and do it.

How long before people are protesting that internet access is a right and should be free?

Too late, some already do. It is not an entitlement. Bottom line for me is that again people are speculating on what will happen. No way either side can say for sure in this case as is true with most things. It is nothing more than political spinning. Both sides think they are right. 

So time will tell and then they will change it again and blame the last administration. It is a never ending story of our politics.. Bush's fault, Clinton's fault, Obama's fault, ya ya ya. 

[mikegideon]

1 hour ago, gregintenn said:

How long before people are protesting that internet access is a right and should be free?

As soon as we have our first African president.

[mikegideon]

 

 

[monkeylizard]

2 hours ago, gregintenn said:

Just like any other business, if a provider isn't pleasing their customers, someone else will come in and do it.

Except when they can't because the provider already there throws legal challenge after legal challenge to keep the new one from entering the market place. Just look at AT&T and Comcast trying to shut Google Fiber out of the Nashville market for as long as they could by keeping them off the existing utility poles.

How long before people are protesting that internet access is a right and should be free?

That's been happening for years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access

[Omega]

I like this guy, he's about right in line with my way of thinking on most things.  

[mikegideon]

21 minutes ago, Omega said:

I like this guy, he's about right in line with my way of thinking on most things.  

Me too

[Smith]

So the internet has grown into a huge service that nearly everyone uses and relies upon through a free and open market (well even with pseudo monopolies) and now that it's a huge business with all the risk of development taken out the US federal government wants to come in and create an expansive "new" bureaucracy to take money they didn't create and control the evil corporations that brought us the service in the first place. What could go wrong?  It concerns me that we can see clearly this happen over and over in the past and realize it's a business and market killer, and yet here we are again debating what's already been answered.

Personally, I hate that the government is already involved in helping keep theses pseudo monopolies like Comcast in place. Less government interference would have opened the market up to even more bandwidth at lower prices long before now. I can't see any reason why more government solves anything.

 

[mikegideon]

^^^^ 

[JayC]

On 12/16/2017 at 7:43 AM, gregintenn said:

LOlL! Always the ray of sunshine!

Just like any other business, if a provider isn't pleasing their customers, someone else will come in and do it.

How long before people are protesting that internet access is a right and should be free?

Except in this case these are government backed monopolies that you can't compete with no matter how much money you have.  Look at what happened to Google in Nashville, even though the government bent over backwards to let them come in and compete, AT&T and Comcast were able to slow them down and block them at every turn.

[JayC]

On 12/16/2017 at 11:34 AM, Smith said:

So the internet has grown into a huge service that nearly everyone uses and relies upon through a free and open market (well even with pseudo monopolies) and now that it's a huge business with all the risk of development taken out the US federal government wants to come in and create an expansive "new" bureaucracy to take money they didn't create and control the evil corporations that brought us the service in the first place. What could go wrong?  It concerns me that we can see clearly this happen over and over in the past and realize it's a business and market killer, and yet here we are again debating what's already been answered.

Personally, I hate that the government is already involved in helping keep theses pseudo monopolies like Comcast in place. Less government interference would have opened the market up to even more bandwidth at lower prices long before now. I can't see any reason why more government solves anything.

 

I'm sorry but you're missing understanding what the FCC did, and where the government backed monopolies get approved.

First, the telephone and cable companies didn't 'invent' the commercial Internet, lots of small companies that were already pushed out of the market 15+ years ago did...  MindSpring, AOL, etc provided dial-up service to end users, and started the Internet revolution.  These companies received no government money to do this....  They provided the critical 'last mile' of service to end users when nobody else would.  At some point around 2000, telephone companies, and cable companies saw an opportunity to leverage their 'last mile' infrastructure to dominate the ISP space, and did just that.

The rest of the Internet is mostly 'unregulated' and is doing very well today.  4 years ago it cost $1 per month per Mbps of service at a data center in Dallas, today it's around $0.15 per month per Mbps, so the free market is alive and well.  Every major city has an 'Internet Exchange' that is a privately run organization that provides peering services to anybody at cost, to make exchanging data between companies easier and cheaper.

Most ISP's considered themselves 'common carriers' under the FCC rules regarding telephone companies, and they didn't attempt to mess with customers traffic.

But around 2003-2005 some of these large companies got caught violating common carrier rules..  In one case a telephone company in NC blocked all traffic to Vonage, to prevent customers from switching away from their more expensive telephone service.  Comcast got caught 'forging' Internet traffic to prevent some customers from downloading, or using VPN technology.  By 2007 Comcast was caught intentionally slowing down Netflix traffic, and when customers called to complain, they recommended their own more expensive service instead. 

At this point the FCC stepped in to try and prevent these large cable and telephone companies from leveraging their monopolies, to create walled gardens where they got to pick winners and losers in the market space.  They started by making ISP's follow basic telecommunication company rules called Title 2 which had been in place for 50+ years.    Verizon and Comcast fought these regulations in court all the way to SCOTUS, the ruling basically said the internet wasn't a 'Telecommunication Service' (yet another example of why 60+ year olds in black robes make bad rulings) and therefore couldn't be regulated under Title 2, but the FCC did have the authority to regulate under Title 1.  The FCC following the courts ruling moved the regulation under Title 1, and nicknamed it Net Neutrality.

All this regulation said was that ISP's must treat all traffic the same, nothing more.  We've had this rule in place with telephone companies for decades, where telephone companies were required to treat all calls the same.  The rule guarantees that if you call a Sprint Cellphone from your AT&T land line the call with go through.  This is called 'common carrier', and has been around since before AT&T was broken up into the baby bells.  

We've all see problems recently where conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment content is being censored on Youtube, Facebook, and other giant social media sites, because of liberal pressure (internally and externally), today there is NOTHING stopping Comcast (or any other ISP) from blocking access to websites they don't like, or to bend to public pressure to block websites that aren't socially acceptable.  I'm not a huge fan of Youtube and Facebook, but I can choose not to use those sites...  I only have 1 option for broadband Internet, and if they start blocking Internet sites, there is nothing that I as a consumer can do other that turn the Internet off....  Which in today's business environment would make me unemployed.

I'm as libertarian as they come, but until we remove these government backed monopolies, the government should force them to behave as 'common carriers'.

[Smith]

1 hour ago, JayC said:

I'm sorry but you're missing understanding what the FCC did, and where the government backed monopolies get approved.

First, the telephone and cable companies didn't 'invent' the commercial Internet, lots of small companies that were already pushed out of the market 15+ years ago did...  MindSpring, AOL, etc provided dial-up service to end users, and started the Internet revolution.  These companies received no government money to do this....  They provided the critical 'last mile' of service to end users when nobody else would.  At some point around 2000, telephone companies, and cable companies saw an opportunity to leverage their 'last mile' infrastructure to dominate the ISP space, and did just that.

The rest of the Internet is mostly 'unregulated' and is doing very well today.  4 years ago it cost $1 per month per Mbps of service at a data center in Dallas, today it's around $0.15 per month per Mbps, so the free market is alive and well.  Every major city has an 'Internet Exchange' that is a privately run organization that provides peering services to anybody at cost, to make exchanging data between companies easier and cheaper.

Most ISP's considered themselves 'common carriers' under the FCC rules regarding telephone companies, and they didn't attempt to mess with customers traffic.

But around 2003-2005 some of these large companies got caught violating common carrier rules..  In one case a telephone company in NC blocked all traffic to Vonage, to prevent customers from switching away from their more expensive telephone service.  Comcast got caught 'forging' Internet traffic to prevent some customers from downloading, or using VPN technology.  By 2007 Comcast was caught intentionally slowing down Netflix traffic, and when customers called to complain, they recommended their own more expensive service instead. 

At this point the FCC stepped in to try and prevent these large cable and telephone companies from leveraging their monopolies, to create walled gardens where they got to pick winners and losers in the market space.  They started by making ISP's follow basic telecommunication company rules called Title 2 which had been in place for 50+ years.    Verizon and Comcast fought these regulations in court all the way to SCOTUS, the ruling basically said the internet wasn't a 'Telecommunication Service' (yet another example of why 60+ year olds in black robes make bad rulings) and therefore couldn't be regulated under Title 2, but the FCC did have the authority to regulate under Title 1.  The FCC following the courts ruling moved the regulation under Title 1, and nicknamed it Net Neutrality.

All this regulation said was that ISP's must treat all traffic the same, nothing more.  We've had this rule in place with telephone companies for decades, where telephone companies were required to treat all calls the same.  The rule guarantees that if you call a Sprint Cellphone from your AT&T land line the call with go through.  This is called 'common carrier', and has been around since before AT&T was broken up into the baby bells.  

We've all see problems recently where conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment content is being censored on Youtube, Facebook, and other giant social media sites, because of liberal pressure (internally and externally), today there is NOTHING stopping Comcast (or any other ISP) from blocking access to websites they don't like, or to bend to public pressure to block websites that aren't socially acceptable.  I'm not a huge fan of Youtube and Facebook, but I can choose not to use those sites...  I only have 1 option for broadband Internet, and if they start blocking Internet sites, there is nothing that I as a consumer can do other that turn the Internet off....  Which in today's business environment would make me unemployed.

I'm as libertarian as they come, but until we remove these government backed monopolies, the government should force them to behave as 'common carriers'.

No I didn't misunderstand, I just refuse to loose the forests because of one pretty tree. "Common carrier" is the red herring that makes Net Neutrality palatable while the "common content" FCC bureaucracy regs is the power struggle that Net Neutrality is really about. Thus the reason as pointed out by the Crowder video why Google, FB, etc. all love Net Neutrality. 

As to you assertion that there is NOTHING stopping Comcast from blocking, that is absurd. When the telecommunications companies tried that with data throttling most quickly reversed course due to market pressure and made acceptable market adjustments, as well as being fined and sued because of violation of existing law. Seems existing law/system worked, so why a whole other? When Comcast and some other ISP providers starting trying to do the same thing, same result due to market pressure. Making the existing monopolies equal only excludes the ability of something/someone better. NN doesn't stop monopolies, it establishes unmovable monopolies. Can't have your cake and eat it too. 

Using the government as you enforcer when you want it, is exactly how you get the government as your oppressor. Remember, "better is the enemy of good enough". Not sure I want to start applying Russian com-blok era proverbs to American capitalism.

Edited December 18, 2017 by Smith

[JayC]

1 hour ago, Smith said:

No I didn't misunderstand, I just refuse to loose the forests because of one pretty tree. "Common carrier" is the red herring that makes Net Neutrality palatable while the "common content" FCC bureaucracy regs is the power struggle that Net Neutrality is really about. Thus the reason as pointed out by the Crowder video why Google, FB, etc. all love Net Neutrality. 

As to you assertion that there is NOTHING stopping Comcast from blocking, that is absurd. When the telecommunications companies tried that with data throttling most quickly reversed course due to market pressure and made acceptable market adjustments, as well as being fined and sued because of violation of existing law. Seems existing law/system worked, so why a whole other? When Comcast and some other ISP providers starting trying to do the same thing, same result due to market pressure. Making the existing monopolies equal only excludes the ability of something/someone better. NN doesn't stop monopolies, it establishes unmovable monopolies. Can't have your cake and eat it too. 

Using the government as you enforcer when you want it, is exactly how you get the government as your oppressor. Remember, "better is the enemy of good enough". Not sure I want to start applying Russian com-blok era proverbs to American capitalism.

I like Crowder a lot, he's really funny and insightful, but understands this regulation about as much as my 6 year old, he uses the if liberal companies like Facebook and Google love it, I should be against it as his main line of logic.  Which is a straw-man argument, because it's liberal companies on both sides of the argument.

Again, using cellphone companies (which we only have 4) when compared to broadband is another straw-man argument.  But, since you brought up the argument of data throttle and free market pressures forcing Wireless Providers to change, they didn't.  They're still throttling wireless traffic, violating the principals of Net Neutrality, and there is nothing anybody can do about it legally.  All 4 of the main providers are doing the same thing, there is no alternative where throttling isn't in place.  So how are those 'free market' forces working?

You live in Nashville, if you're lucky you have 2 broadband providers, Comcast and AT&T, but there is a 50% chance you only have 1.  There is no free market when you have liberal company #1 and liberal company #2 providing service, and no regulation in place to prevent misbehavior by either.  If your home phone company (land line) started to block Sprint cellphone numbers, what market forces can you and other customer bring to the table?  You can't switch home phone providers there is only 1 LEC in your area, just like for most people in Nashville, they only have 1 (or maybe 2) broadband Internet Providers. But your LEC home phone provider can't do that, because they're regulated by the FCC and are forced to follow common carrier rules.

So, if there are no free market forces to change these government backed monopolies and duopolies, we should push the regulation to the local or state level right because it's a good principal of small government conservatives?  But, we're in a catch 22, since the Internet is by it's nature an Interstate Telecommunications Service, FCC rules (or lack of rules) preempt state and local government from regulating them.

Quote

Comcast and Verizon have both asked telecom regulators to make clear that the FCC's new policy on net neutrality — which could be put to a vote as early as next month — will preempt state and local regulations that might read differently. The request marks the industry's latest step to weaken federal rules that regulate broadband companies like legacy telephone companies.

So, there aren't free market forces to correct both wired and wireless providers into not misbehaving, and we can't regulate them at the local, or state level into not misbehaving...  Our only option is to regulate them via the FCC, which is what we did since ~2005 under both republican and democrat administrations.

As for using 'violation of existing law' that is what the FCC just voted to remove the existing regulation under which ISP's have been fined and sued in the past.  

And the next question you're going to ask, is well before 2005 there wasn't any problem how did we survive then?  Well two things to keep in mind, first before 2000 if you asked ANY ISP attorney they would have told you ISP's were already covered by the plain reading of Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934 and they were required to follow 'common carrier' regulations.  Second, between 2003 and 2007 we started to see ISP's violating common carrier rules, and the FCC started to step in and remind these ISP's they weren't allowed to violate common carrier status.

So, how exactly do we prevent the blocking of websites by wired based ISP's if we don't regulate them at the federal level with the FCC?

[Smith]

1 hour ago, JayC said:

I like Crowder a lot, he's really funny and insightful, but understands this regulation about as much as my 6 year old, he uses the if liberal companies like Facebook and Google love it, I should be against it as his main line of logic.  Which is a straw-man argument, because it's liberal companies on both sides of the argument.

Again, using cellphone companies (which we only have 4) when compared to broadband is another straw-man argument.  But, since you brought up the argument of data throttle and free market pressures forcing Wireless Providers to change, they didn't.  They're still throttling wireless traffic, violating the principals of Net Neutrality, and there is nothing anybody can do about it legally.  All 4 of the main providers are doing the same thing, there is no alternative where throttling isn't in place.  So how are those 'free market' forces working?

You live in Nashville, if you're lucky you have 2 broadband providers, Comcast and AT&T, but there is a 50% chance you only have 1.  There is no free market when you have liberal company #1 and liberal company #2 providing service, and no regulation in place to prevent misbehavior by either.  If your home phone company (land line) started to block Sprint cellphone numbers, what market forces can you and other customer bring to the table?  You can't switch home phone providers there is only 1 LEC in your area, just like for most people in Nashville, they only have 1 (or maybe 2) broadband Internet Providers. But your LEC home phone provider can't do that, because they're regulated by the FCC and are forced to follow common carrier rules.

So, if there are no free market forces to change these government backed monopolies and duopolies, we should push the regulation to the local or state level right because it's a good principal of small government conservatives?  But, we're in a catch 22, since the Internet is by it's nature an Interstate Telecommunications Service, FCC rules (or lack of rules) preempt state and local government from regulating them.

So, there aren't free market forces to correct both wired and wireless providers into not misbehaving, and we can't regulate them at the local, or state level into not misbehaving...  Our only option is to regulate them via the FCC, which is what we did since ~2005 under both republican and democrat administrations.

As for using 'violation of existing law' that is what the FCC just voted to remove the existing regulation under which ISP's have been fined and sued in the past.  

And the next question you're going to ask, is well before 2005 there wasn't any problem how did we survive then?  Well two things to keep in mind, first before 2000 if you asked ANY ISP attorney they would have told you ISP's were already covered by the plain reading of Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934 and they were required to follow 'common carrier' regulations.  Second, between 2003 and 2007 we started to see ISP's violating common carrier rules, and the FCC started to step in and remind these ISP's they weren't allowed to violate common carrier status.

So, how exactly do we prevent the blocking of websites by wired based ISP's if we don't regulate them at the federal level with the FCC?

Obviously we disagree and neither of us is going to buy the other's viewpoint. You are personally invested and in the short term it seems good to you to ensure the provision of your family. I get that and it does make it a different perspective for you. However, allowing the government to fully control and referee any venture outside of the military has proven time and time again to be disastrous. 

[JayC]

53 minutes ago, Smith said:

Obviously we disagree and neither of us is going to buy the other's viewpoint. You are personally invested and in the short term it seems good to you to ensure the provision of your family. I get that and it does make it a different perspective for you. However, allowing the government to fully control and referee any venture outside of the military has proven time and time again to be disastrous. 

Look, we probably should break up the current cable and telephone companies like we did AT&T years ago.  Force the companies to separate last mile infrastructure away from TV channels, movie studios, and copyrights holder parts of their business.  This would create a free market in the space of entertainment, while treating the data services part of the business as a simple utility much like how we treat land-line telephone, electric and water/sewer companies or coops.

Doing this would remove a lot of the 'profit' motive from messing with access.  But, that would require a federal anti-trust lawsuit by the DOJ and would take 20 years to work it's way through the federal court system like the break up of AT&T did.

Until then, we should regulate ISP's as common carriers, since they can only operate by granting of public easements or licenses, just like other public utilities.  Otherwise we're all headed down a very bad path of walled gardens that we're forced into and will in the long run kill innovation on the Internet.

Trust me, I don't like to admit defeat, under the best of times the government in a necessary evil, and we're far from the best of times, but there is no other solution to this problem other than the FCC regulating basic common carrier rules onto last mile ISP's.

And unlike Crowder, I worked in the 90's as VP of Operations for an ISP, before transitioning to Computer Security for the last 18 years of my career.  I understand just how bad the Deep Packet Inspection hardware Comcast and other ISP's are using could be turned against customers to censor the Internet we've had for the last 25+ years.  And while Google, Facebook, and other should scare you a lot, last mile ISP's are the real immediate risk to censorship that we face today, and the only legal roadblock to such behavior was just removed.

Edited December 18, 2017 by JayC