Screw you, FCC

[Katy Lied]

What is the point of "last mile?" I don't get it. The govt would be slow, inefficient and wasteful in finishing the last mile of access. Wouldn't there be trunks everywhere, unconnected to anything?

And why couldnt ISP providers broadcast data to their customers from points in the neighborhood, thus negating the need for last mile provision? (Like a really powerful neighborhood LAN)

[wuapinmon]

Damn, everyone! IPU's opinion isn't very popular, but still, it's looking a little personal (e.g. Levin).

[EuropeanFootballMale]

Provo did this. Conservatives raised such hell about the issue that the city had to sell the whole system.

I'm jealous because my parents enjoy 100Mbps internet.

I suspect the fact that they were losing money at a pretty good clip had more to do with it than conservahellaising.

[il Padrino Ute]

Hey IPU, screw you. Screw you.

No thanks. You're not my type.

[il Padrino Ute]

You guys, IPU's opposition has nothing to do with net neutrality. It has to do with Genachowski who was appointed by Obama. So it's about Obama. Guaran-ass-teed if this came from a Bush controlled FCC, he'd be singing its praises and taking the "protect the free market" line.

You know, I'm surprised, as I would never have thought that anyone could ever be more wrong about me than Seattle Ute.

Congratulations! You just set the bar at the highest level for being wrong!

[Uncle Ted]

What is the point of "last mile?" I don't get it. The govt would be slow, inefficient and wasteful in finishing the last mile of access. Wouldn't there be trunks everywhere, unconnected to anything?

And why couldnt ISP providers broadcast data to their customers from points in the neighborhood, thus negating the need for last mile provision? (Like a really powerful neighborhood LAN)

It costs Verizon something like $1500 per household to install fiber (which seems on the low side to me). I believe a lot of this cost is fighting the government (home owners) to get right of way. If the government would require new developments to also bury fiber conduits along with water/gas mains, electrical, etc. then adding fiber later would be more economical. Also, there are things the government could do make adding fiber more economical to existing developments like granting right of way when major road work is done. Once the fiber conduit is in place then the city government could lease the conduit to ISPs willing to do the last 20 feet to the side of the house.

The way that provo city ("iProvo" or UTOPIA) did it was completely wrong, IMHO. The government shouldn't be involved with actually installing and running everything. I have never understood why Provo city believes they should be in the cable, internet, and even telephone business when there are many companies willing to do it and for less cost to the public.

As for a wireless mesh network I think there was a company in Utah Valley that experimented with that idea. They installed wireless access points in people's backyards that connected to some shared neighborhood T1 drop. I think it worked pretty well until the snow covered the telecom box in the back yard and they started to have a large number of failures on the access points.

[Tex]

54% oppose FCC regulation.
21% favor.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...litical_agenda

[Uncle Ted]

EFF Warns That FCC Net Neutrality Rules Are A Bad, Bad Idea

We've been pointing this out for years, but it seems that many of the "tech elite" are so focused on the phrase "net neutrality" that they're willing to jump on any sort of regulation that says it's "net neutrality." So, it's nice to see that the EFF is not following suit, but instead is warning that the FCC does not have the regulatory mandate to do what it's trying to do with net neutrality -- and if it is given that control, it will inevitably lead to much more internet regulation that we will all come to regret.

We're wholly in favor of net neutrality in practice, but a finding of ancillary jurisdiction here would give the FCC pretty much boundless authority to regulate the Internet for whatever it sees fit. And that kind of unrestrained authority makes us nervous about follow-on initiatives like broadcast flags and indecency campaigns. In general, we think arguments that regulating the Internet is "ancillary" to some other regulatory authority that the FCC has been granted just don't have sufficient limitations to stop bad FCC behavior in the future and create the "Trojan horse" risk we have long warned about.


In discussing this stance with Wired, Abigail Phillips, a staff attorney at the EFF said she wasn't sure what "the right solution is" to the question of keeping the basic end-to-end principles of the internet in place. I still don't think the "solution" is that complex. For over five years I've been pointing out that if there was real competition in the marketplace, net neutrality wouldn't even be an issue, because customers would go to ISPs that didn't discriminate. The real problem is how deeply connected our government is to a very small number of giant broadband providers. They've set the game up so that there's very little real competition, which allows those ISPs to pull stunts like trying to doublecharge, favor certain content, and do metered billing. Get more competition, and none of those things fly.

Edit: Link to the complete EFF commentary.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Happy day for IPU. Congress repeals the net neutrality law.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...et-access.html

[il Padrino Ute]

Happy day for IPU. Congress repeals the net neutrality law.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...et-access.html

Yes! Freedom wins this round.

[Uncle Ted]

John Oliver nails it...

LOL. "This is the equlivalent of needing a babysitter and hiring a dingo." (On Obama's appointment of Tom Wheeler to be the chairman of the FCC.)

http://www.fcc.gov/comments

[Eddie]

Thanks. That was pretty funny.

[SCcoug]

Embedded Tweet

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Can someone explain what is net neutrality really means to me? I see my liberal friends popping champagne on FB and my conservative friends warning of the end of America. Seems both are probably overreactions.

[byu71]

Can someone explain what is net neutrality really means to me? I see my liberal friends popping champagne on FB and my conservative friends warning of the end of America. Seems both are probably overreactions.

Is the idea backed by Obama?