Pay TV is not a necessity. There is still DirecTV, Dish Network, and whatever the phone company is pushing for TV over their lines. Or even OTA with a good antenna. So personally I wouldn't call it a monopoly. There is still Internet through the phone companies or, even worse, Hughes Net.
But yeah, I'd like to see the DOJ crawl up Comcast and TWC's asses like they did to Siruis and SM during their merger.
Writing In All Proper Case Takes Extra Time, Is Confusing To Read, And Is Completely Pointless.
Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992
Around here, Scumcast is the only realistic option for Internet. The only DSL available is Century-Link's 1.5 mbps, and when you e mail them to ask when they expect to have 40 or even 20 mbps available in this area, you get some random reply from their fucking call center in the Philippines, telling you to call some office in Denver where no human being ever answers the phone.Originally Posted by twonabomber
I'm in a capitol city of the state that's home to Microsoft and Boeing, for fucks sake. It's not exactly bumfuck egypt here, but it might as well be with the lack of internet options.
As far as TV.... haven't had a cable subscription in several years. Haven't had local channels for a few months now because Scumcast scrambled the QAM signal. It's bullshit that they can get away with that, since they are supposed to be required by law to carry local channels. Rooftop antennas don't get shit around here, and I'm renting, so a dish isn't practical.
I really don't miss TV all that much. I can find what I want to watch without much trouble by one means or another. At least for now. Further media consolidation and the end of net neutrality means they will probably find a way to fuck that up too.
By Ryan Whitwam Feb. 21, 2014 9:30 am
Many Netflix subscribers in the US have been noticing a troubling trend. Even with super-fast connections, video quality has been on a downward slide in recent months. While ISPs would never admit to anything, a number of reports claim the slowdown is part of a standoff over the cost of carrying all that Netflix traffic. It seems Comcast, Verizon, and the other big names are happy to let Netflix degrade to make a point.
Netflix itself confirms the streaming speeds on major ISPs has fallen by an average of 14% in just the last 30 days. That’s enough to degrade an HD stream to mediocre SD. Some subscribers can’t even watch video without constant buffering. In some cases, running traffic through a VPN can dramatically boost speeds, which is suspicious all by itself.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Netflix traffic through internet backbone provider Cogent has quadrupled in the last six months as Netflix has expanded 1080p HD streams to all customers. ISPs are upset about the increased cost of delivering those bits to subscribers and want Netflix to pay additional fees to cover its usage. In an effort to compel the streaming company to agree, ISPs have allegedly delayed connection upgrades that would alleviate the increasing congestion.
Most ISPs have peering relationships with bandwidth providers like Cogent. Each party carries a certain amount of data for the other, and no one has to pay any money out of pocket. However, the increase in Netflix traffic has unbalanced the agreements and could lead to ISPs paying larger bandwidth bills. With net neutrality currently on the ropes, perhaps ISPs feel more confident in trying to extract fees from Netflix to deliver its traffic. Although, no one is admitting to that, and Verizon specifically denies it.
This is all happening in the background for consumers. The intricacies of peering, content delivery networks, and congestion don’t register — all subscribers know is Netflix doesn’t work as well as it used to.
Eternally Under the Authority of Satan
By Brad Reed on Apr 8, 2014 at 12:29 PM
Email @bwreedbgr
Talk about incredible timing! On the same day that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are filing their merger proposal paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission, Consumerist has announced that Comcast has won its annual poll for the “Worst Company in America.”
For the record, this is now the second time that Comcast has won this particular dishonor, as it last won Consumerist’s “Golden Poo” trophy back in 2010. This year’s award is very special for the company, however, because it comes just as it’s trying to do a major public relations charm offensive to convince American consumers and politicians that it should be allowed to merge with Time Warner Cable in a proposed deal worth $45 billion. If the results from Consumerist’s poll and of multiple customer satisfaction surveys are any indication, however, it looks like the American public isn’t buying it.
It will be interesting to see whether Comcast addresses the fact that both it and its proposed merger partner are seemingly hated by their own customers but for the time being it looks like the company is ignoring the negative noise and is focusing its efforts on heavily lobbying both lawmakers and regulators in Washington, D.C. to help the merger go through without a hitch. After all, just because you’re the “Worst Company in America” doesn’t mean you aren’t well-connected.
Next, they will figure out how to charge for gravity, so watch for poor people floating up off the planet into space...
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/23/tech...html?hpt=hp_t2
Federal regulators plan to propose new rules Thursday that would allow Internet providers to create a "fast lane" for certain websites and services.
The news quickly drew condemnations from net neutrality activists, who say the proposal from the Federal Communications Commission will give large companies that can afford to pay for priority access a permanent advantage over smaller competitors.
The proposal follows a January court decision that struck down the FCC's previous net neutrality rules, which barred Internet service providers like Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) and Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500) from blocking or "unreasonably discriminating" against online content. Those regulations were challenged in 2011 by Verizon, which claimed the move overstepped the commission's legal authority, and the FCC has since been working to craft new rules that will pass legal muster.
The rules to be proposed on Thursday, according to an FCC spokesman, will require ISPs to offer "a baseline level of service" to their subscribers while allowing them to "enter into individual negotiations with content providers." That means that companies like Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) and Netflix (NFLX) could conceivably pay ISPs to ensure that their sites load for Web users faster than those of competitors.
In all cases, the FCC proposal says, Internet providers must act in a "commercially reasonable manner," with agreements between ISPs and content providers subject to review by regulators on a case-by-case basis.
"Exactly what the baseline level of service would be, the construction of a 'commercially reasonable' standard, and the manner in which disputes would be resolved, are all among the topics on which the FCC will be seeking comment," the FCC spokesman said.
The commission will vote on the proposed rules May 15 before putting them out for comment. In the meantime, Net freedom activists are already crying foul.
"If it goes forward, this capitulation will represent Washington at its worst," Todd O'Boyle, program director of Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause, said in a statement. "Americans were promised -- and deserve -- an Internet that is free of toll roads, fast lanes, and censorship -- corporate or governmental."
Craig Aaron, president of the media freedom group Free Press, said the FCC was "aiding and abetting the largest ISPs in their efforts to destroy the open Internet." He said the FCC proposal would create the incentive for Internet providers to manufacture congestion on their networks and then charge content providers for the ability to avoid it.
Verizon spokesman Ed Mcfadden declined to comment directly on the FCC proposal, but said his company is committed to letting customers "access the Internet content they want, when they want and how they want."
"Given the tremendous innovation and investment taking place in broadband Internet markets, the FCC should be very cautious about adopting proscriptive rules that could be unnecessary and harmful," Mcfadden said.
Comcast and AT&T did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Related: New chapter begins in net neutrality fight
The FCC's planned rules relate specifically to broadband, which is used for most home Internet connections. They won't cover the mobile Web, which is much more lightly regulated.
Concerns about traffic discrimination have already arisen in the mobile world. Earlier this year, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) announced a "sponsored data" plan for mobile customers in which content from paying businesses won't count against monthly data caps. Verizon and AT&T have also previously blocked use of the Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) Wallet app, which competes with their own offerings.
The FCC rules also won't cover deals like the one reached earlier this year between Netflix (NFLX) and Comcast, in which the online video company reluctantly agreed to pay for a direct connection to Comcast's network to boost lagging streaming speeds. That's because the proposal only relates to what ISPs do with content in the so-called "last mile" of their networks, where they connect directly to the homes of customers.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has called for the FCC to implement "stronger" net neutrality rules that would also cover connections between networks.
Sigh. The internet was kewl while it lasted.
Can't Control your Future. Can't Control your Friends. The women start to hike their skirts up. I didn't have a clue. That is when I kinda learned how to smile a lot. One Two Three Fouir fun ter thehr fuur.
I did want to separate this from the supreme court (upcoming decison) on NT/Aero balderdash....which is why:
This is a regulatory body doing this.
This has huge ramifications concerning the market's future and not about past or fututure or current law.*
Just think this topic deserved it's own thread. Heheh less occlusion via amalgamation.
But to address the timing; On comment about this decision, yes, it seems almost timed to be overshadowed by the recent Supreme Court arguments made public.
Smoke Screen so they could slip this in, the timing could not be better. Read the captions and the comments.
See this thread for legal developments http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showt...net-neutrality
*Although I am sure this will be challenged via lawsuit.
Last edited by SunisinuS; 04-24-2014 at 02:43 AM. Reason: Just an argument, which I may reference this thread by. I.E. I loved my my original thread.
I think I'm the only one that is concerned, but not worried when it comes to this. I really don't believe that ISPs will go as far as to completely ban websites that they don't like but I believe there will be a ton of favoritism that is going to come out of this. We already know that Verizon likes Netflix over Hulu Plus, so I expect that streaming speed on Hulu Plus would be effected for Verizon users.
We live in a society that is run by the internet, and I know damn well that if anything drastic were going to happen like the pro-Net Neutrality activists say, we won't take it sitting down....Okay, we may not start a riot, but there is going to be petitions and lobbies up the fucking ass if things were to go south for the internet.
That being said, the only real good thing I see coming out of Net Neutrality being changed is kiddie pronz getting blocked and removed faster.
How do you spell pretentious? S-A-M-M-Y H-A-G-A-R
PS, Krustina blames Obama
Benghazi!
Internet's biggest names stand up against FCC net neutrality plans
By Patrick Howell O'Neill on May 07, 2014
The biggest technology companies in the United States have joined forces to support net neutrality, in a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commision (FCC).
The group includes nearly 140 companies that make up a huge swatch the tech world: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Yahoo, Tumblr, 4chan, Dropbox, Mozilla, Imgur, and more have signed on to challenge a proposal being considered by the FCC that might kill net neutrality as we know it.
“We write to express our support for a free and open internet,” the letter reads. “Over the past twenty years, American innovators have created countless Internet-based applications, content offerings, and services that are used around the world. These innovations have created enormous value for Internet users, fueled economic growth, and made our Internet companies global leaders. The innovation we have seen to date happened in a world without discrimination.”
The letter, which marks the first public defense of net neutrality by huge global companies like Amazon since news of the threat emerged last month, defends the principle that all data should be treated equally by Internet service providers (ISPs).
If approved, the FCC's latest net neutrality propsoal would reportedly allow ISPs to charge edge providers—content companies that use substantial bandwidth, like Google, Netflix, or Skype—"commercially reasonable" rates for broadband "fast lanes" between them and their users.
In the past few weeks, net neutrality has a growing stable of powerful defenders: Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) called net neutrality the "free speech issue of our time” as he launched a new online campaign called #NoSlowLane. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) dubbed the FCC proposal "terribly misguided," and charged that "the average American would be the big loser" if the propsal were to pass.
Delivery of the coalition's letter comes on the same day as activists from Fight for the Future and other pro-net neutrality groups launched an "Occupy the FCC" protest outside the agency's Washington, D.C. office.
In Europe, the EU parliament voted to enshrine net neutrality in a law that guarantees that Internet traffic within the EU will be treated "without discrimination, restriction or interference, independent of the sender, receiver, type, content, device, service or application."
You can read the full letter and list of supporters below:
Dear Chairman Wheeler and Commissioners Clyburn, Rosenworcel, Pai, and O’Reilly:
We write to express our support for a free and open internet. Over the past twenty years, American innovators have created countless Internet-based applications, content offerings, and services that are used around the world. These innovations have created enormous value for Internet users, fueled economic growth, and made our Internet companies global leaders. The innovation we have seen to date happened in a world without discrimination. An open Internet has also been a platform for free speech and opportunity for billions of users.
The Commission’s long-standing commitment and actions undertaken to protect the open Internet are a central reason why the Internet remains an engine of entrepreneurship and economic growth.
According to recent news reports, the Commission intends to propose rules that would enable phone and cable Internet service providers to discriminate both technically and financially against Internet companies and to impose new tolls on them. If these reports are correct, this represents a grave threat to the Internet.
Instead of permitting individualized bargaining and discrimination, the Commission’s rules should protect users and Internet companies on both fixed and mobile platforms against blocking, discrim- ination, and paid prioritization, and should make the market for Internet services more transparent. The rules should provide certainty to all market participants and keep the costs of regulation low.
Such rules are essential for the future of the Internet. This Commission should take the necessary steps to ensure that the Internet remains an open platform for speech and commerce so that America continues to lead the world in technology markets.
Sincerely,
Amazon
Cogent
Dropbox
Ebay
Etsy
Foursquare
Kickstarter
Level 3
Lyft
Microsoft
Netflix
Tumblr
Vonage Holdings Corp.
Yahoo! Inc.
Zynga600hz, Inc.
2redbeans
4chan
8x8, Inc.
Addy
AdviserDeck
Agile Learning Labs
Airdroids
AirHelp
AnalyticsMD
Appar
Apportable
AppRebates
Apptology
Assembly Made, Inc.
Authentise
Automattic/WordPress.com
BadgerMapping
Bitnami
BitTorrent
Blu Zone
CBeyond
Chirply
Clef
CloudFare
Codecademy
CodeCombat
CodeHS
CodeScience
Colourful Rebel
Contextly
Coursera
CrowdTilt
Cube, Co
dasData
Digg
Distinc.tt
DuckDuckGo
Duolingo
DynaOptics
Embedly
Fandor
Floor64
Flowroute
Flurry
Fonebook
Funeral Innovations
Gandi
General Assembly
Github
Grid
Handy Networks
Haystack.tv
Heavybit Industries
HelloSign
HeyZap
iFixit
iLost
Imgur
Instapaper
inXile Entertainment
Kaltura
LawGives
Leaflad
LendUp
Linearair
Linknovate
littleBits
Lucipher.net
MDDHosting LLC
Medium
Meetup
Meteor Development Grouo
Minds + Machines
Misk
MixRank
MobileWorks
Motionry
MozartMedical
Mozilla
NOTCOT Inc
O’Reilly Media
OfficeNinjas
Open Materials
Open Spectrum
OpenDNS
Opera Software ASA
PayTango
Pocket/ReaditLater
Poll Everywhere, Incrintrbot
Publitas.com
Rallyware
Recrout
Redbubble
Rewheel/Digital Fuel Monitor
Reylabs
Rogue Labs
Shapeways
Sidecar
Sift Science
Simpolaris
SketchDeck
Skytree
SlidePay, Inc
Socialscope
Solidoodle
SpiderOak
SpoonRocket
Spotfront
StackExchange
StartX Stanford
Statwing
Tastemaker
The Next Web
Triggit
Tsumobi
Tucows
Twilio
UberConference
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft alone should be enough corporate power to balance out Scumca$t, though Netflix is going to look a tad bit hypocritical here, after already paying ransom to Scumca$t.
Of course the problem here is that Wheeler is a "former" Scumca$t lobbyist. If he were a former Google or Amazon lobbyist, I might feel a little better about this.
The only thing wrong with the letter above is that it fails to spell out the obvious legal remedy, and in fact, the one that even the Opie Roberts BCE court acknowledged would preserve net neutrality forever....
The FCC should designate the internet as a "common carrier". Just as the telephone lines are. Just as the public airwaves are.
BTW.... did anybody notice which large company is noticeably absent from the above list?
You Mac, iPhone, & iPad users better ask your friends in Cupertino what the fuck is up with that........
I feel like the same thing is going to happen with this as it did with SOPA and PIPA a few years ago. Good thing the both of those laws were found to be unconstitutional.
Youjizz.com?
American by birth. Southern by the grace of God.
Well, now that you mention it, I can't imagine the porn companies would be happy with Internet segregation either. But the other corporations probably told them NOT to sign the letter. Wouldn't want to be associated with the "wrong" elements, and all that.......
Or it could be that some of the names on the above list that you don't recognize are the "parent companies" of the porn sites.
Yeah.... but their reanimated zombie corpses are now walking the earth as part of the "Trans Pacific Partnership", which is one of the many reasons why the corporate assholes are trying to keep the contents of that treaty from Hell secret.
But that's a subject for the TPP thread. Even many of the companies who are for net neutrality are sadly still in favor of other forms of corporate fascism.
I really don't think that ISP's are concerned with porn unless it's something illegal like child porn.
I've been saying for years Apple are not the lovely benevolent company their devotees like to imagine they are.
Quite the opposite...
Based on what ??
Or did you use a crystal ball to come up with that logic ??
Well, a couple of years ago there was an article that stated how much money Scumca$t was making from hosting porn sites. Something they didn't advertise themselves, of course. But they were happy to cash the checks.......
I'd call that ill gotten gains...
Cumcast is probably ran by a bunch of satanists who graduated from Harvard.
No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!
It's all in who owns the controlling shares. Hewlett-Packard was a great company when Dave Packard still owned controlling shares but when he passed away and his family sold the shares and HP became owned by Wall Street it went to shit in quick order. People who loved working there quit and it just became another cookie cutter corporation that's politically connected so if you screw up, the government bails you out. You don't get great management with cronyism. They all cover their corruption or incompetence with government money and because they are connected, nothing happens to them. Eric Holder has their ass.
It's corporate gangsters. It's just like the mob. If you are connected you don't go to jail or do very little time. If you are the little guy on your own, you are in trouble. It's gangsterism. Some just call themselves executives.
That's mattering very little right now. The National Defense Authorization Act is unconstitutional. Bottom line is those in charge right now could care less about law. They just care about what they can get away with. They have no fear of the American public. They have been duping us for years. They view us as suckers. If they feared us it would be different. You only get the respect you demand.
No, it's the supreme mob...
These criminals are getting to the point where they control everything...
NeoCities finds FCC's internal IP block, throttles connections to dial-up speed.
by Jon Brodkin -
May 9 2014, 7:23am PST
Lots of people are angry about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's Internet "fast lane" proposal that would let Internet service providers charge Web services for priority access to consumers. But one Web hosting service called NeoCities isn't just writing letters to the FCC. Instead, the company found the FCC's internal IP address range and throttled all connections to 28.8Kbps speeds.
"Since the FCC seems to have no problem with this idea, I've (through correspondence) gotten access to the FCC's internal IP block, and throttled all connections from the FCC to 28.8kbps modem speeds on the Neocities.org front site, and I'm not removing it until the FCC pays us for the bandwidth they've been wasting instead of doing their jobs protecting us from the 'keep America's internet slow and expensive forever' lobby," NeoCities creator Kyle Drake wrote yesterday.
NeoCities offers free and paid Web hosting. As Drake noted, FCC access to NeoCities is being throttled on the home page only, and not on websites created by NeoCities users.
Drake called Wheeler a "cable industry hand-picked lobbyist" and wrote that the FCC may not be protecting US consumers because "they got a dump truck full of money from the cable corporation lobby."
"If it bothers you that I'm doing this, I want to point out that everyone is going to be doing crap like this after the FCC rips apart Net Neutrality," he wrote. "It's time for the Web to organize and stand up against these thugs before they ruin everything that the Web stands for."
Drake put his FCC-throttling Nginx code on GitHub for anyone who wants to use it on their own site.
Since Netflix gave into Comcast’s demands for payment in exchange for a promise to deliver movies smoothly over the Internet to Netflix’s customers, speeds on Comcast for Netflix users have rocketed upward. Speeds on the larger service providers have been decreasing steadily since last fall, but following the deal, Comcast restored all the speed that Netflix had lost and much more in the space of a couple of months. Netflix might also have to pay Verizon and AT&T a similar fee to ensure that its customers enjoy reasonable speeds when they are watching films. Presumably, Netflix would eventually pass those fees on to its subscribers in the form of higher rates.
As the Federal Communications Commission considers new rules on whether service providers can charge popular Web sites additional fees to carry their traffic, advocates for consumers worry that deals like Netflix’s with Comcast will become common throughout the industry.
Once they capture the government it's called fascism. The problem with economic warfare is the average person does not understand what's going on. When the enemy comes in with troops and tanks everyone goes "Oh Shit!" and they know what the deal is. With systematic economic warfare there is not that shock value. It's stealthy. People don't figure it out until the bad guys have most the power.
ill gotten booty.
What? Obama lied? Say it ain't so.
The Department of the Internet..........Governmenters gotta government.......
Obamanet: If you like your internet, you can keep your internet. - Al Gore, inventor of the internet
A NATION OF COWARDS - Jeffrey R. Snyder
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