ICYMI, the FCC under Ajit Pai, is planning to get rid of net neutrality.
Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, unveiled his controversial plan to repeal Obama-era protections intended to keep the internet open and fair.
"Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet," Pai said in a statement Tuesday. "Instead, the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices.”
The repeal would represent a fundamental shift to how the internet is regulated. The current net neutrality rules, approved in 2015, internet providers like Comcast (CCVCL) and AT&T (T, Tech30) are barred from deliberately speeding up or slowing down traffic from specific websites and apps. The goal was to prevent those internet providers from picking winners and losers among content providers.
How bad could it get? Here’s how unregulated markets work elsewhere. An acquaintance I’ve made through a shared interest in railroad preservation and sanity among other things, Doug Vensel, posted his experience with internet service in the Philippines on Facebook. With his permission, I’m sharing it here. I’ve broken it up into paragraphs for readability, but it is his own words.
Ya know.....I've been to the Philippines 4 times now and lived here for over 7 months a few years back. If there's anything I've learned it's how the internet providers have screwed people over here. They do here what they want to do in the states. I.E.: make us pay on an ala-carte type of system. You pay for access, then you pay for the things you want access to. How stupid is this.
In the Philippines they offer unlimited access but it contains certain amounts of bandwidth or speed, but not both. You pay for exactly what you think you need and God forbid you desire to reach beyond those limitations. You can't. You have to buy more access as you feel you need to. You can buy text access or facebook access or streaming access or movie downloads, etc.. It stinks.
They have this exquisitely convoluted way to utterly confuse people and make decisions terribly hard so you buy what you think you need, discover you were wrong, and have to buy the proper thing at an additional cost. Yet they call these unlimited. Sure, you get 8 gigs and 30 days of access but that 8 gigs gets used up pretty fast if you watch a couple of You Tube videos or download some songs or files. Then WHAM, you're back to 2g or less for the balance unless you trot your little ass to a store and purchase a refresh load so you can finish watching your movie. Dial-up is faster. That 8 gigs is for the entire 30 days and amounts to nothing.
This is what your republican friends want to institute here. It's exactly what they want. Don't argue the point either. There's nothing ambiguous about it. So, once again, thank you all you wonderful Trump supporters for putting this first class asshole in office. I don't want to hear one single complaint about any of this. You own this guy. The rest of us were too smart to fall for his lies and stupidity and knew beforehand that there was no way he could ever come across with almost everything he promised you. It was simple common sense that prevented us from voting for Trump. What happened to yours?
So, when you retire and rely on medicare for your health insurance, when your social security is cut after paying in your whole life, and then a loved one suffering with cancer at only 50 years old, and will lose their medicaid benefits or suffer a huge reduction, all so your guys you put in control can give the rich folks more money, keep your mouth shut. We don't want to hear it.
I would think after the discovery of the Cayman Island crap, you'd all be a little smarter. Tell me - back when Reagan tried this and Bush tried this, did the results they claimed actually happen? Did we see a huge increase in jobs? Did the companies that benefited from those tax cuts do what the government said they would? If they had, then why was the country in such horrible shape afterwards? Isn't history enough for you people?
I ask you all now - what in the hell goes through your mind?
The FCC is planning to vote on Pai’s proposals December 14, 2017. It’s expected to pass on a party line vote.
Enjoy the internet while you can.