The Federal Communications Commission voted 3–2 to impose net neutrality rules today, restoring the common-carrier regulatory framework enforced during the Obama era and then abandoned while Trump was president.
The rules prohibit Internet service providers from blocking and throttling lawful content and ban paid prioritization.
“Consumers have made clear to us they do not want their broadband provider cutting sweetheart deals, with fast lanes for some services and slow lanes for others,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at today’s meeting.
Obligatory “Fuck Ajit Pai”
seriously, Fuck Ajit Pai and his smug giant mug having ass.
You mean the same Ashit Pai who also mismanaged and blew the $9 billion rural digital opportunity fund that was supposed to help underserved areas?
That Ashit Pai?
The same shit pie who illegally used copyrighted content on his advertisements for a regulation to make copyright laws more stricterer?
And his excessively large and punchable teeth
Obligatory “A shit pie”
You mean Paid Agit? Pronounced "Piece of shit!
I fucking hate that dude but I imagine he could literally not care less what us pleebs think given that he’s presently a partner in a private equity firm.
Nothing is changing until actions have actual consequences.
They do, however, allow data caps.
These new rules are not the same as the old ones and there’s definitely a handful of things that the big companies wanted that they indeed got.
I fucking hate data caps - no reason they should exist in this day and age.
No reason they should exist in any day and age.
Companies do not pay per packet. Paying more for more bandwidth or lower latency kind of makes sense because theoretically they may be prioritizing your traffic when the network is under too much load. But sending 16 petabytes costs exactly the same as 1kb in a month, assuming your connection is fast enough to handle 16 petabytes in a month.
True companies do not pay per packet but they do pay for the bandwidth. The more users that use more bandwidth consistently means the ISP needs to invest more money on throughput/links. If you have 100 users and they use 1 mbps on average you can get away with a 100mpbs link. If you have 5 users using 50mpbs on average now you need a gig link. So technically it’s not free but yeah bandwidth caps suck big time. My suggestion would be to pick a place to live near a city with a municipal broadband option.
The problem ISPs ask to pay BOTH for bandwidth and for packets. Which is double payment.
Kind of. They’re asking you to pay for maximum possible bandwidth but make no claims about how long you can use that max bandwidth. Packets are only a convenient way to measure a percentage of max bandwidth use over time.
The way this works in the server world is “95th percentile” billing. They track your bandwidth usage over the course of the month (probably in 5 minute intervals), strike off the 5% highest peaks, and your bill for the month is based on the highest usage remaining.
That’s considerably more honest than charging you based solely on the highest usage you could theoretically use at any time point in a 24 hour period (which is how ISPs define the “max bandwidth”) and then charging you again or cutting off your service if you use more than a certain amount they won’t even put in writing.
“You maybe will be able to use advertised bandwidth. As long as we want. Or maybe not.”
We were supposed to build one here, but AT&T basically owns our city government lol.
They announced the project wouldn’t be moving forward because they wouldn’t/couldn’t use imminent domain to lay fiber in peoples yards. They’ve used it to build 3 stadiums in the past 20 years, and knock down entire neighborhoods in the process. Literally bulldozed multiple square miles of city.
I fucking hate it here. We gave the stadium owners a bunch of money this week to renovate their stadium for some reason.
it probably means that they would have to upgrade their little bunny hopping network technology that has about 300ms latency end to end, because god forbid you roll out a simple technology and have an easy time maintaining it.
Which is probably why they do it.
Upgrade infrastructure?! No, no. That money needs to go to shareholders. There’s no way millions of people need decent internet speeds more than shareholders need their 12th yacht.
you mean to tell me that rolling out fiber is cheap and that servicing it end to end is also cheap and that the latency and speeds it provides keeps customers happy meaning we have to spend less time dealing with them?
That’s cool, call me when i care.
sincerely, your local ISP.
Right but if everyone sends 16 petabtyes a month the internet would collapse. Data caps do absolutely work to reduce bandwidth on a network scale. Bandwidth is measured in mbps. Limit the Mb and you reduce the necessary bandwidth.
but if everyone sent 16PB a month they would have some bomb ass connections as well, and i would sure hope as hell that it would hold up.
I dont even want to calculate how fast a connection would need to be for that to be a datacap.
More than 6 gigabytes per second
ok so basically fucking impossible. Cool.
Even 10 gig would only net you 1 and a bit gigs.
You would need 50 gig to saturate that properly.
For context 16 petabytes per month is about(slightly more than) 6 gigabytes per second. Also internet was designed during times when computers were super expensive and 100% utilization was norm.
You already buy “up to” a certain speed. When the network is congested, you just deal with it.
Trying to make people budget their internet usage is stupid and pointless.
Yep, I should be able to peg 600mbps 24/7
I have a 186GB 5G monthly limit on my 10€ mobile subscription, then (supposedly) it drops to 4G speed. I’m ok with those kind of limits because they are not there to milk people.
I checked the carriers around here and all of them unsurprisingly offer the same thing. 50GB 5G for 50€ that drop to roughly 2G speeds once the limit is reached.
Almost 20x the cost of your subscription.
I think it should be allowed to set limited data cap OR limited/guaranteed speed, but never both
Meanwhile in canada i have a plan from 2012 that was an unlimited plan they that geta throttled after 5gigs (it has been since upped to 20gigs now)
If its throttled its throttled to less than 200kbps and is basically useless
Try watching videos over I2P. 64 kbps average.
the problem here is that it’s still there to milk people. It’s just not like, criminal.
186 GB
Oddly specific and insane limit that nobody is ever going to reach
You will if you hotspot your phone and connect your computer to it instead of paying for a home internet plan.
Yeah, this is fair. I’m spoiled with gigabit so I forgot people still do that.
Source? Didn’t see anything in the article about it, and I did a quick search and couldn’t find anything that says they would be allowed to impose data caps given the verbiage in the rules
My source is the document the FCC presented as their new net neutrality rules, which can be found here:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-401676A1.pdf
Page 317-318, Section 534-535 “Application to Data Caps”
Section 534 discusses the professor who suggests data caps should be banned, and section 535 discusses how the commission disagrees and how data caps will remain.
- We agree with Professor Jordan that the Commission can evaluate data caps under the general conduct standard. We do not at this time, however, make any blanket determinations regarding the use of data caps based on the record before us. The record demonstrates that while BIAS providers can implement data caps in ways that harm consumers or the open Internet, particularly when not deployed primarily as a means to manage congestion, data caps can also be deployed as a means to manage congestion or to offer lower-cost broadband services to consumers who use less broadband. As such, we conclude that it is appropriate to proceed incrementally with respect to data caps, and we will evaluate individual data cap practices under the general conduct standard based on the facts of each individual case, and take action as necessary.
Also, you get an upvote for asking for a source. Cheers.
Thank you! Crazy no news article caught this. Appreciate you taking the time to read the first party document
I just want the removal of data caps. my Plex server is a hungry bitch
the data cap should be your rated speed, anything other than that is an illegally advertised speed IMO.
Get a business line, if you plan on staying at your current residence for longer than 3 years. Usually you can get it for a few dollars more than a residential line, and it’ll not have a data cap, plus they’re going to have a 99.99% SLA for uptime…and you’re not going to be getting some script reader if you have issues.
What they really need is competition.
Last time it didn’t help.
Then municipal competition.
%100 but they bought our gov and keep competitors out. Its really a shit system.
If you have a business line you’re still 100% getting a script reader. They just come without a foreign accent.
Unfortunately mostly true. I worked for Charter Business, and was told I was “being too helpful”. They only want people who read off the script. I moved over to the CCST group before they killed that off. I’m so happy to be away from there, that place was soul sucking.
I don’t know how I would react to being told that other than staring at them incredulously and fighting my instinct to say something along the lines of “you’re complaining that I’m doing my job TOO WELL???!?”
Yep, they didn’t want people that think too much. They want drones to read off scripts and fake empathy when theit service is out(again). It wasn’t as bad in CCST(complex coax support team), since my interactions were very rarely with end users(VARS, large national businesses and other carriers). But they got rid of that department and have the REP1(new people) handle that service and put us back on front line phone support. None of the CCST customers were happy about the degraded service from unknowledgeable and untrained support staff. I had an interview to move over to Enterprise Fiber, but skipped that and just completely quit without notice.
The place is structured to make sure nothing ever gets past the status quo. I had multiple engineering tickets closed out for probable network routing issues(on our end) because no one wanted to look into it. If you have any more than signal issues and something a modem reboot won’t fix…good luck getting a problem actually addressed.
That is disgusting. Too helpful? Jesus christ congratulations leaving that place.
I had an enterprise fiber side that I just bailed on and quit the place without notice(or another job lined up). It was genuinely soul crushing andi don’t regret my decision. Granted 3 years later I make more than double the pay with less headache.
When I supported the network at work, with many ISPs across the US… It depends on the Telco.
Comcast Business, was hand down the best Telco when it comes to business lines from my experience. At&t and Verizon were the script readers, having to argue everything to get them to do anything. Many of the cable companies, just had terrible everything. CenturyLink was very good, but awful support portal.
Can confirm, when I was doing that forever and a half ago, Comcast actually never gave us trouble when we called them, but anything having to do with at&t or Verizon was like pulling teeth
The worst was one site who was serviced by neither of them, but our last mile provider interlinked through one of them, who linked through the other (I don’t remember the order of interlinks) to get to our actual ISP and into our datacenter/WAN. We had issues upon issues upon issues with that site’s connection, and it was the interlink between those two that was the culprit. It was easy to narrow down, and easy to fix, but getting them to actually fix it took months of us screaming at our last mile to scream at them louder since we weren’t their customers and they both refused to talk to us because of that.
It did get fixed but it took probably a year and a half of fighting before they finally updated the interlink.
I already pay over $100 per month, and a business plan would be around $350 per month. Fuck Comcast.
I had comcast business class for many years at my old house. When I downsized to my condo, I’m at the mercy of the HOA. They have comcast communities and I can’t get business class. Its not terrible but I had to pay $20/mo to upgrade to 1000mb down just to get decent upload speeds. I wish we had a local company USI, that sells fiber internet for very reasonable prices and no data caps. My son’s building has it. I moved my plex server to my friend’s house who is on USI as well just to keep my bandwidth consumption down.
I have USI for the first time after having delt with charter my whole life. It just worked. I plugged my router into the wall and the cat5 jack that was already laid in, and it just worked. Within seconds of opening my account. As advertised.
Usually charter sends some asshole who’s definitely sober and not on any lists to do awful things to your wall. Then the speeds you do get are just straight criminal.
Love my USI. It’s the way an ISP should be. Now if we could just slice the price to something more reasonable.
At my son’s place, the person that was renting from the previous owner did not use the provided USI but instead paid for CenturyLink, USI had to come and rewire to the patch panel in the utility closet. The tech was great.
At least yoi are not at mercy of managment company. I don’t know how in USSA, but here before ammendments to Communication Law, you had to initiate general homeowners meeting and vote to allow ISP to place their equipment in condo/multi-flat unit/whatever you call it. The hardest part was not getting votes for it, but getting enough people to vote.
If I could get that for $43 a month out the door sure, but that is not happening from FIOS anytime soon.
Maybe if you are in the $100+ a month crew it’s a few dollars more, but I do doubt that.
Give them a call, you’d be surprised what the business line crew will do to get customers. I had a line for $60 a month that was unlimited. Doesn’t hurt to check and haggle.
Verizon does not do data caps on FIOS.
I’m curious where you are that a business line doesn’t cost more than a residential one because in my area it’s three times as much. I am fortunate enough that I get symmetrical gigabit for $90 a month and although they don’t promise static IP my IP has not changed in a while.
If I wanted to get a real static IP I would have to upgrade to a business line It would cost $280 a month.
In the 3 different states that I’ve lived in, each has had business lines that allowed me to haggle with them, granted I was slightly outside of the city and I’m sure they had way less business class customers, they did haggle with me. 3 years is all I had to commit to, to get the price down to sub $100. One location I was paying just $60.
Residential is $80/Mo for me. A business plan when I last looked was $200/Mo. Wish I lived somewhere that had options other than spectrum.
Damn that sucks, yea if you have multiple options, then you usually have a lot better luck. Try going to your local business branch and meet up with your account rep. You’d be surprised at what they will try to do to get you as a customer.
I wish that were the case out west.
None of my local ISPs have data caps on regular home internet plans. Y’all just need better ISPs.
100Mb symmetrical fiber is about $40-50 and Gigabit is about $80/mo from ours
Sounds lovely.
You are aware that most of us in the US don’t actually have options like that, correct? I’d dump my ISP in a heartbeat if those plans were available to me.
I’m quite aware of the ISP situation in the USA and it has been worse at each home I’ve lived in before. I’ve had shitty AT&T connections at 4 homes with no other options there. Things have gotten much better in the last 5 years overall. Fiber is rolling out all across the country from local utilities like phone and power. Look for your local options, and avoid the big companies.
As someone 10 minutes outside of a major city, my (slow, unreliable, expensive) options are:
- Cellular
- Satellite
- Fixed wireless
Americans are entirely at the whim of ISPs and what areas they determine are worth investing infrastructure in.
Damn that sucks. I live about 100 miles from the closest major city and have 2 options for fiber, plus those other options
This is big “stop being poor” energy.
^^ This is big “irrelevant comment” energy.
Bro fr
Unfortunately that’s not a net neutrality issue.
As I understand FCC deals with ISP ads too
That would be because those ads are done by injecting them into content the user has requested.
No, I am talking about ISP plans ads.
Woo! At least until the next Republican Party is ready for an easy paycheck
Thanks obama
Thanks Jessica Rosenworcel.
Sorry to be ignorant, but… who dat?
FCC Chairwoman who made this happen. She was also there voting against Ajit (Shit Pie) Pai when he pushed to overturn Obama era net neutrality back in 2017. She also initially set up the net neutrality rules during the Obama admin. She can be credited for fighting this fight for many years now on our behalf.
Well. Today I have a new Hero…
Obligatory fuck Ajit Pai
“But Jack Posobiec told me in 2017 on Twitter, that Net Neutrality was when they deleted my hatespeech on social media.”
(Yes, people were that dumb, and I got called “anti free speech” around that time every time I mentioned net neutrality being a good thing.)
This is perhaps some of the best news I’ve read and heard about for a while.
It was scary close, though. It could’ve gone either way.
Go ahead, prepare your fucking lawsuit, lobbyists. We collectively should be suing you, for all of the times you lied your ass off about spreading broadband to areas you PROMISED you’d bring service to!
homie we should be doing more than suing them.
Are you guys taking up your pitchforks again?
… I’m debating whether to take up my “special occasion” pitchfork or my “pokabitch” pitchfork. The first is for normal rallies, and the latter is for serious events. I’m leaning towards the latter. Which one are you bringing?
I can’t recall the time that Americans brought the latter pitchforks against politicians for a good cause, because the January 6 insurrection does not count.
The Jan 6 was a bitchfest. Not a protest.
New to pitchforks, any reccomendations?
Neck if you’re feeling merciful, stomach for the evil bastards.
I’d recommend a medium-sized rifle with detachable magazines, personally. Pitchforks are limited to melee range only.
You can throw them
they make throwing pitchforks? I need to get me some of those!
It’s a fun thing to talk about but everyone seems to forget that historically, that didn’t actually end that well.
Eat the rich, yes, but you need to have a plan first for what comes after.
not having them seems like it would be a pretty good start if you asked me.
But yes, a plan would be in good order at that rate.
A lesson learned from Animal Farm babyyyyyy
We need a real world history lesson about the French Revolution. I volunteer the lobbyists play the monarchy.
Why are there only five people voting on important FCC regulations
Why did it take so long to get this implemented during Biden’s term? Why are we only seeing this just before the next election. I ask as an outsider to the states.
Biden’s original pick got jammed up in the Senate and finally withdrew their name from consideration. This wasn’t resolved until last September.
https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/09-7-2023/fcc-deadlock-vote-senate/
Since September, Brendan Carr has been doing his best to stall and resist progress.
Indeed.
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Because elections are coming up, why else?
Username checks out
This is the “fourth year surge,” where 1st term presidents rush to get a lot of positive policy change so they look like they’re doing a good job. They tend to pass more legislation and use fewer executive orders during this time.
Some of the policy that previous presidents are best known for were passed during this surge time, including Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Civil Rights Act, Federal Highway Aid Act, Equal Pay act, etc.
Here, asking “why” is asking “what is their incentive”.
There may be some merit to saying that a president is an entire branch of government and cycling out staff in key positions to get them in political alignment can take a lot of time. Biden’s admin has had to re-staff many departments after Trump.
This is the “fourth year surge,” where 1st term presidents rush to get a lot of positive policy change so they look like they’re doing a good job
It’s literally not that at all. It was about the GOP gumming up the appointment process to the FCC board. Democratic party appointees have only had a 3-2 majority on the FCC board for about 6 months.
Thanks for the context in this specific case in response to my last paragraph.
So you’re saying it could have been done 6 months ago but is only now being done in the 4th year of Biden’s term?
It’s not like they just sat around and did nothing for 6 months. The vote was scheduled almost a month ago, and there was a period to draft the rules, a period to accept comments and feedback, etc. Things were in motion behind the scenes, we’re just seeing the end result of the last 6 months.
Thank you for stating the context! People always want magic wand fixes but changing rules and laws at government level have so many moving parts and counteracting forces to overcome. It takes time. Too many people just immediately assume it’s some negative skeptical reason without knowing the details.
The funny thing is, many of us on Lemmy work in software development. We’re often having to explain to people “yes, I know this looks like it should take 2 weeks, but it’s more complex than that. You just don’t have the technical or institutional expertise to understand what’s happening behind the scenes.”
Clearly you don’t understand how slow things are in government. 6 months is a really fast turnaround for the government to get anything done.
Who are those 2 people?
The Republicans
What are their names?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission
Brendan Carr Nathan Simington
Swore that said simpington at first.
Dems have only had control of the FCC for a few months. It’s nice to see the regulators actually regulating, and not caving to corporate lobbyists.
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3-2, as always
I give it a 4 out of 7
Almost perfect.
So who are the two corrupt corporate dogs that voted against?
They are - surprise, surprise - the only two Republicans…
- Brendan Carr - 2017 Trump appointee
- Nathan Simington - 2020 Trump appointee
Wait why the fuck does the FCC only consist of 5 people?!?
The regulatory agency is pretty large, but it’s headed by a 5-member commission.
Does your workplace vote on everything collectively? Or does a smaller controlling board vote?
Kinda hard to compare that to a country with 300 million citizens
Congress can pass a law anytime they want. But this small regulatory agency is all we have in the meantime.
Its design is based on the Illuminatus Trilogy
Ok sure, that makes sense
This is the FCC = Federal Communications Commission. I don’t know the origins but as long as I’ve been aware they’ve been a 5-member panel; 3 commissioners from the president’s party and 2 from the opposing party. They’re supported by hundreds of staff members.
FTC = Federal Trade Commission, a completely separate body. They recently made headlines for banning non-compete agreements.
Oh yeah, you’re right. I meant the FCC, just got a little confused there, but I know that these are separate bodies. But still, just 5 people in charge of it? Seems kinda strange to me.
It’s intentionally an odd number so votes don’t end in ties. And it’s a small number because nominations and appointments can take a long time due to political BS.
So this thing’s structure is hard coded to fit into a two party system?
Sort of? I’m sure Congress could change it. They likely won’t because their members are almost entirely from the two major parties. But IIRC there was brief talk of changes when Republicans blocked the nomination of Gigi Sohn.
It probably wont be too long until the greedy bastards try to roll back this, wait a few years. Access to information really needs to be a basic right that cannot be toggled on and off depending on who is sitting on the fcc.
Depending on the outcome of the coming election, could be next year
