“The FCC just leaked their net neutrality proposal”
So, where is the link to this “leaked proposal”?
This is it. The FCC is finalizing its net neutrality proposal right now.
The problem? It’s a fake plan that won’t survive a court challenge.
I’d be willing to believe that was true, if I could see the document. I’ll check back with my morning coffee here in the US. I’ll check with EFF too. Who knows, maybe I’ll be at a protest to tomorrow.
In the unlikely scenario where the FCC caves to our demands and regulates under Title II, in January,Republican Congress rewrites the regulations on behalf of the ISP’s and removes the FCC’s power to ever regulate them under Title II, .Congress has no fear of offending us now, and in January,will go out of their way to do it. We had better hit the streets now while that’s still legal.
I’m not too worried about it. We’ve learned a lot about networking since ARPAnet, so I prefer to see this as an opportunity for a ground-up movement of replacing “the internet” with something better. Let them make their broken bed and lie in it. Slowly growing a new Alternet allows us to avoid tolls as well as surveillance backdoors and can have much more of a future to it.
Facebook is also explicitly preventing people from linking to the guardian article with a preview - as in Net neutrality advocates to protest against 'hybrid' FCC solution in dozens of cities | Net neutrality | The Guardian . (linked by boingboing). Try linking to it and watch as magically that becomes the only article from theguardian which doesn’t show a preview.
I suggest a more effective protest activity:
Everybody who has a website of any kind, start emailing your provider and asking two pointed questions:
- Will my site be in the slow lane?
- If not, are you going to raise your rates?
Internet “fast lanes” are not in actuality even possible. They are not technically possible. It’s a complete misnomer. There will only be “same speed as now” lanes and “slower than now” lanes.
Any website you visit ALREADY purchases internet at a speed of their choosing from a service provider, let’s call that provider Pat’s Internet. This contract with Pat’s Internet determines the MAXIMUM speed of their website.
Comcast (or whoever YOU buy internet from) also already charges YOU for the speed you want. When you visit any website, it will arrive at whatever speed is slower… the speed you bought from Comcast or the speed the website bought from Pat’s Internet.
Comcast can’t magically make a website faster than the rate it is coming from Pat’s Internet. Comcast CAN however make it slower, and then charge Pat’s Internet a fee to deliver it at full speed.
SO WHY THE FUCK do Net Neutrality advocates use the word “fast lane” … which is the STUPIDEST strategic decision imaginable.
And I suppose you’ll say “well Comcast’s pipes are saturated, so they aren’t actually delivering anything at full speed right now, and the fast lane would let them do that.” That’s possible, I suppose. But Comcast isn’t going to build more network infrastructure so where do you think they’re going to get the additional speed from? By downgrading everything. So again, we’ll get “same as now” and “slower than now.”
How would you describe the situation of Comcast prioritizing traffic to speed test sites vs. slowing down access to Netflix etc. I would call it QOS, but it sure looks like fast lane/slow lane to the average person.
As has been pointed out, the largest American ISPs, uniquely in the world (as per level 3, they have only five interconnects that have been saturated for at least a year with no plans to upgrade, 4 are major US ISPs. By having bad connection, they can force websites to buy a private connection, just so their users can get a decent experience.
I don’t have a choice. I’m at the maximum range from the central office, so DSL would max out at about 1.5mbps. So it’s wireless ($$$) or Comcast, who will let me have as big a connection as I want, but no way around their poor connection to the internet. I can move, and that’s about it. Comcast is so bad that my Clear.com WiMax device (which doesn’t work in my house, I’m too far from the nearest tower) is generally a nicer experience than using Comcast service that in theory is 10x as fast. The only thing that isn’t better is streaming multiple video streams, where it just doesn’t have the same bandwidth. And the same for the ATT fiber to the pole service I’ve had at another house.
Can you hack the wimax thingy with a higher-gain antenna? That could help, depending on the actual geography. Or is it a time-of-flight issue for the signal, instead of just being too weak?
This seems like a nitpick over vocabulary. “Fast” is relative, not absolute–If there’s two lanes, and one is faster than the other, then it’s the “fast lane” on that particular road, even if it’s not all that speedy compared to some other road elsewhere.
I’m really not sure what you’re fussed about. You’re acting like talking about “fast lanes” seriously misrepresents the situation, but it doesn’t.
So I went to battleforthenet.com and tried to find a local protest location. In order to join the protest, it requires me to have a facebook account. Face meet palm. Talk about losing the battle-for-the-net before it has even been joined.
Where are you seeing that? The individual protests are on Facebook event pages, but you don’t need an account to view those.
I guess you need a Facebook account to let Facebook know that you “joined” the event, but the only reason to do that is to let your other Facebook friends know what you’re doing, so it doesn’t really matter. It’s a protest; you don’t need to register, you just show up.
I don’t use facebook, and I wasn’t able to view the event nearest me.
Huh, I’m really curious now. What did you try, and what did you get? I just opened an incognito window and opened all 50-odd listed protests in tabs, and every one of them opened just fine on Facebook with no login.
I just tried it and it works now. The error yesterday was a “log in to facebook” page.
You cannot use the Ring. Regulation answers to the Establishment alone. It has no other master.
