Senate Set To Vote On the Repeal of Net Neutrality 345
An anonymous reader writes "The United States Senate will vote sometime today on the bill that would repeal the net neutrality laws that the FCC has put into place. The bill passed the US House back in April, so it only has to be approved by the Senate before it is sent to the President's desk. President Obama says that he will veto the bill. The debate over net neutrality has largely been split on party lines, with the Democratic party mostly being for keeping net neutrality laws in place, and the GOP looking to avoid them."
Re:Another Kink (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Another Kink (Score:2, Interesting)
Me too, but I think the GP was being sarcastic, especially with his nod to the Great American God Freem'Arkhet (described in the anti-Freem'Arkhet bible as "mammon").
The +5 funny might have tipped you off, as well.
Odd how the "free market" US has one or maybe two ISPs in any given town, while the "socialist" EU cities have multiple choices. But try to convince the T(ard) Party that maybe there are a few problems with their little green god and see how successful you are at it.
We're screwed, dude.
Re:Another Kink (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever dealt with a carrier who uses ATT lines? It sucks. Any line problem - and there are many - will get fixed when ATT thinks it will help THEM. Which means basically never. Cost is entirely dependent on what ATT thinks it should charge resellers - in other words, it is guaranteed to be more expensive than the ATT offering, even if the service is exactly the same.
The only thing you can hope for is that the reseller is actually good, and you get something extra for paying substantially more for the same bandwidth. I use Speakeasy, and at least I get outstanding service.
But you're kidding yourself if you think that Speakeasy is actually in competition with ATT. Speakeasy exists at the mercy of ATT, and will be killed off in many ways if it ever becomes a threat to ATT's residential service. Which it kinda has, because you actually can't get residential-class DSL from Speakeasy anymore: I'm only around because they haven't canceled my contract yet. But my terms don't exist anymore, and the terms that are available are fundamentally different.
So from a technical offering, I don't have a choice - it's ATT only. From a service choice, I could get Sonic, but they're significantly more expensive. And that's it. Not even Comcast is offering anything in my area. Beats me why, but they don't.
So go suck on your choice, because it doesn't exist for a lot of people. And the choices that do exist are far too small to create anything resembling market pressures.
Re:Another Kink (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, can't do it. I tried, I failed.
I was looking a while back at the National Broadband Map, and it indicated that I had choices in my area. I currently have Comcast, but DSL is available. My big beef is over the Terms Of Service, and all that is implied there. According to the National Broadband Map there was service from a local CLEC available to me. I looked at their website, and not only were their TOS fine, they actually provide support services to people who want their own domains, servers, etc.
Enter the fiber loophole...
I emailed them, inquiring about availability of their service. I received a negative response. My response was asking if this was a matter of waiting for DSLAM availability, or if there was some more fundamental problem.
Their response was that my service, somewhere on the way to my house, went through some fiber. That mere fact meant that the ILEC no longer has to be an ILEC and provide for CLECs. They have a legal monopoly on any potential ISP service to me.
Re:Another Kink (Score:3, Interesting)
> Yet somehow you're willing to go ahead and provide the government with even more control over [the Internet].
False. To me, net neutrality means nobody controls the Internet, and that is as it should be.
Why are you so anxious to kill net neutrality, giving Comcast and AT&T almost dictatorial powers over what websites their customers can see? If net neutrality dies, the Great Firewall of Comcast will rival the Great Firewall of China.