U.S. Appeals Court kills net neutrality

[Dr. Love]

Well, I think there need to be new amendments imposing term limits on all positions (including the supreme court) and doing more to remove the motivations for people to be corrupted. No more money = speech, longer limits placed on how long people have to wait before going into lobbying, etc.

I don't see the federal government doing it on its own.

[Dr. Love]

Hence my "bend over" comment. You seem adept at it...

Sorry Nick, I'm not going to be drawn into a silly back and forth. You can continue to try. But I'm not going to waste my time with you on it.

[Nickdfresh]

Sorry Nick, I'm not going to be drawn into a silly back and forth. You can continue to try. But I'm not going to waste my time with you on it.

Okay. I never asked you to. You posted in this thread probably more characters than I did though, bud...

The truth is though, you don't have a leg to stand on. Because like Marxist-Leninists do, when the limitations in your stilted ideology are exposed, you just turtle and take some bullshit highroad excuse before you start twitching like WHOPPER facing the irrationality of nuclear warfare. Enjoy your internet package!

[Nickdfresh]

Well, I think there need to be new amendments imposing term limits on all positions (including the supreme court) and doing more to remove the motivations for people to be corrupted. No more money = speech, longer limits placed on how long people have to wait before going into lobbying, etc.

I don't see the federal government doing it on its own.

Right bud! It's all the evil government! Forgot about all of the benign corporations that give a fuck if your kids get cancer before they're five if it interferes with their profit! Keep up the good work like a good whore should...

[FORD]

Is it MONOPOLY yet???

February 12, 2014, 10:24 pm
Comca$t Set to Acquire Time Warner Cable for $44 Billion
By DAVID GELLES

Comca$t will announce a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable in an all-stock deal worth more than $44 billion that will unite the biggest and second largest cable television operators in the country, according to people briefed on the matter. .

The surprise merger — expected to be announced on Thursday — is likely to bring to an end a protracted takeover battle that a smaller cable rival, Charter Communications, has been waging for Time Warner Cable, and will be the second major deal for Comca$t in recent years to radically reshape the American media landscape.

Time Warner Cable shareholders will receive 2.875 shares of newly issued Comcast common stock for each of their shares. Based on Comca$t’s closing price of $55.24 on Wednesday, that values each Time Warner Cable share at about $158.82 each.

The combination of the two is certain to attract antitrust scrutiny by regulators.

David Faber of CNBC earlier reported the deal.

Charter, backed by John C. Malone’s Liberty had been courting Time Warner Cable for months.
Last month, Charter had offered to acquire the company for $132.50 a share — roughly around the market price of Time Warner Cable at the time.

The board of Time Warner Cable unanimously rejected that proposal, calling it “grossly inadequate.”

A deal by Comca$t would come four years after the cable giant agreed to acquire NBC Universal from General Electric in a transaction that valued NBC Universal at $30 billion.

[twonabomber]

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.

[FORD]

[FORD]

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.

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.

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.

[Satan]

Why Netflix streaming is getting worse and worse

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.

[FORD]

[FORD]

Comcast named Worst Company in America......on the same day it files for TWC merger

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.

[SunisinuS]

There goes the Neterhood......

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/technology/open-internet/index.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.

[SunisinuS]

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.

[Satan]

[Satan]