FCC net neutrality vote

Here's a link to a live stream on 12/14/17  of the FCC meeting where they are expected to vote on abandoning net neutrality. the meeting began at 10:30am and is expected to run about two hours
 
https://www.fcc.gov/general/live
 
 

I'm surprised the FCC chairman hasn't been blown up or shot yet, given what I've read about this repeal.
 
Of course, he'd be replaced with someone on the board of Comcast or ATT, so it wouldn't really make a difference.  

The attorney general of NY announced that he will file suit against the FCC to stop the rollback of the rules. Massachusetts and Washington have also announced that they will take similar action.

Neurorad said:

I'm surprised the FCC chairman hasn't been blown up or shot yet, given what I've read about this repeal.
 
Of course, he'd be replaced with someone on the board of Comcast or ATT, so it wouldn't really make a difference.  

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Did you notice that they cleared the room for a while in the middle of the meeting? Someone on CNN said that they searched the place with dogs before letting the meeting resume.
 
Mike.

The current administration is dismantling the government agencies ie DEP, FCC, Education etc. I heard someone say today that the FCC was pulling it's own teeth. WTF? I suppose it won't matter after the tax bill is passed because there will be no money to run the government agencies anyway.
 
Mike.

My personal issues (opinion) relating to the FCC Net Neutrality reversal is relates to "The fox guarding the henhouse".
 
fox guarding the henhouse
 
A person likely to exploit the information or resources that they have been charged to protect or control. My sister is going to put her ex-convict brother-in-law in charge of her business, and I'm worried he'll be like a fox guarding the henhouse.
 
 
Like it or not the renegade State's AG's are getting their knackers removed painfully one by two. 

pete_c said:

My personal issues (opinion) relating to the FCC Net Neutrality reversal is relates to "The fox guarding the henhouse".
 
fox guarding the henhouse
 
A person likely to exploit the information or resources that they have been charged to protect or control. My sister is going to put her ex-convict brother-in-law in charge of her business, and I'm worried he'll be like a fox guarding the henhouse.
 
 
Like it or not the renegade State's AG's are getting their knackers removed painfully one by two. 

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Same with the EPA
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/07/trump-names-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-attorney-general-suing-epa-on-climate-change-to-head-the-epa/

So I'm trying to picture the future. I assume that ISPs will start to prioritize traffic such that those who pay a premium AND who do not compete with in-house services will continue to get quality bandwidth while all others will be choked back to a trickle, correct? So what does this do to the whole universe of cloud based services? I assume Amazon and Google can afford the tariffs but can Ring and Nucleus and other companies of similar size? I suppose a new generation of routers will be developed designed to get around bandwidth restriction by pushing all traffic through a VPN so the ISP doesn't know the actual destination and can't apply their filters. Of course then the ISPs will just block or severely slow down traffic to the VPN addresses so the VPN companies will have to adopt a method to tell the router to swap connections on a regular basis, sort of like frequency hopping radios. So then I guess most ISPs will require you to use a router that they supply to avoid the ability to bypass their filters at which point somebody will develop a multi-WAN appliance that lets you hook up ISP supplied routers from multiple ISPs and then steer traffic to the supplier that offers the best speed for each target address you are trying to reach. In the mean time players like Netflix will use social media and other channels to demonize ISPs who restrict their bandwidth to try to make it economically untenable to maintain their restrictions but because the ISP has economic ties to a competitor they will just double down and try to make it impossible for Netflix or whoever to stay in business. In the meantime the average consumer, getting ever more dissatisfied with the situation, will start dropping all conventional ISP connection options in favor of newer 5G LTE fixed broadband offerings which can offer true competition in the 50% of the country that was previously stuck with a single broadband provider through cable. Too late the cable companies will try to regain competitiveness by rolling back their restrictive control on bandwidth access but there will be little incentive for anyone to go back and cable will be reduced to mainly being a Internet gateway service for commercial customers with no significant consumer base. Is this what is going to happen?

There is also hospital, education and emergency services to consider. Will they be able to afford the bandwidth that they need? Will the FCC help them?

BRAVO    UPSTATE MIKE     for a clear description of the "GREAT AMERICAN GREED"

Don't get yourself depressed too much just yet. Internet services in the US are quite competitive. I'm a bit outside of a big city and I have a choice of at least 5 providers. There is cable and DSL sure, but I can also pick from two wireless providers that use WiMax and another satellite.  Plus I am not even counting the cellular guys. I recently heard an ad for a cellular guy that said for $55/month you could have unlimited everything with NO CAPs or SPEED REDUCTIONS.  I measure a good 30 - 40Mbps from my wireless provider, so if I just hooked this to my house, it would not be bad.
 
In other-words, ISP are free to restrict whatever they want now, but WILL THEY?  I do not think so. The market is too competitive for that. I have gone with a small WiMAX provider who has no interest in degrading my service.  The big guys could play tricks, but once the word gets out, they won't be very happy.
 
SECOND, there is this technology called VPN which makes it IMPOSSIBLE for an ISP to control traffic. They could slow or block ALL VPN traffic certainly, but again, will they?  Business people have to use a VPN to connect to their office. Do you think I would have COX or COMCAST if I couldn't work from home? 
 
Even more, many of the ISPs out there have already come out in favor of supporting the Net Neutrality rules, and for good reason, its good business. 
 
So the past is the past. We are HERE.  What everyone NOW must be do is be on the lookout for ANYTHING that looks like an ISP is favoring traffic of one type over an other, and if you see it, Post it, Blog it, Get on the News, Post it on Facebook, and fight it.  Be as vocal as possible.  I would love to see an app of some type that could run in the background and constantly check for speed reductions of one type of service, the ALERT me if its detected. I haven't found one yet.
 
I'm certainly not in favor of lifting of these rules, but we have to live with it for 3 years, 1 month, 5 days, or possibly much less, and we CAN do it. 

Ano, I think that you may be missing one of the real issues.  It's not about how fast your individual service is.  It's about the content providers ability to provide their product to you at reasonable speeds.  Netflix is one example.  Comcast could decide, now legally, that Netflix will be throttled to half speed unless they pay for access to Comcast's network.  So you as a customer of Netflix have no say.  So either Comcast makes a bunch of money off of Netflix, or you, as the customer, get so frustrated, you just buy Comcast's streaming services (content) rather than fighting the battle.
 
But even worse, those of us in small business America are even more screwed.  I work for a company that sells pro audio products, both wholesale and retail.  With these new (lack of) rules, Amazon could pay a premium to the providers and lock our little company virtually out of the market.  They get fast, priority access to the ISPs network, we get throttled.  How much business are we going to get if that happens.
 
And I live in the Chicago area.  There are only 3 real providers available to me.  Not much choice.
 
And in 3 years, 1 month and 5 days, we could be out of business.

The big winner here is CQC. They are way ahead of everybody else at providing local voice control that does not depend on cloud connectivity... good time to market the heck out of that. Homeseer is also well positioned to play the local vs. cloud card if things start falling apart.

samgreco said:

Ano, I think that you may be missing one of the real issues.  It's not about how fast your individual service is.  It's about the content providers ability to provide their product to you at reasonable speeds.  Netflix is one example.  Comcast could decide, now legally, that Netflix will be throttled to half speed unless they pay for access to Comcast's network.  So you as a customer of Netflix have no say.  So either Comcast makes a bunch of money off of Netflix, or you, as the customer, get so frustrated, you just buy Comcast's streaming services (content) rather than fighting the battle.
 
But even worse, those of us in small business America are even more screwed.  I work for a company that sells pro audio products, both wholesale and retail.  With these new (lack of) rules, Amazon could pay a premium to the providers and lock our little company virtually out of the market.  They get fast, priority access to the ISPs network, we get throttled.  How much business are we going to get if that happens.
 
And I live in the Chicago area.  There are only 3 real providers available to me.  Not much choice.
 
And in 3 years, 1 month and 5 days, we could be out of business.

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I think you misunderstood what I am saying. Yes, certainly its now legal for say Comcast to slow Netflix.  So lets say they do, and by the way, Netflix slowing had been claimed in the past. When this happens it needs to be broadcast to the world.  If you are a Comcast customer, then you need to complain.  Also, Net Neutrality does not change any rules on fair competition.  Just because ISPs are allowed to do more, it doesn't stop lawsuits for unfair competition against them.  In fact this will likely increase those suits if ISPs act.
 
Like I said, I don't agree with the lifting of Net Neutrality restrictions, but I think most of the fears are overblown.  And I don't believe you have three internet providers. You probably have cable and DSL. Do you not have Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile or AT&T cellular coverage?  LTE provides average speeds of 17Mbps now, just short of 4K Netflix, or 3+ HD streams. And 5G being rolled out in two years will have 1Gbps speeds. And then what about WiMAX providers? 

Imagine if you can that your ISP makes the internet in your house look just like a set top box does on your TV. Theoretically they could have that kind of control over what they offer to residential customers without anyone regulating them.
 
Mike.