
The Repeal of Net Neutrality Is Official - mcargian
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/technology/net-neutrality-repeal.html
======
tzs
> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before
> they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any
> of the practices the rules prohibited

That's because those practices were prohibited by the 2010 rules. There was
only a year between the court striking down the 2010 rules in early 2014 and
the FCC adopting the 2015 rules in early 2015.

The court that overturned the 2010 rules _told_ the FCC how they could fix
them, and the FCC got to work on that right away, so the ISPs _knew_ that
replacement rules would come out soon. Of course no sane ISP made any changes
during that year.

~~~
aphextron
> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before
> they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any
> of the practices the rules prohibited

This whole thing just has me stumped as to how we even got into this position.
How in the hell does a single bureaucrat have this kind of power in the US to
make a unilateral decision affecting millions of people and billions of
dollars in commerce?

~~~
huntertwo
He’s the scapegoat for all the other government officials on both sides of the
aisle who have had their pockets filled up by the telecom industry.

~~~
jonny_eh
Except in this case it was only FCC board members from one party that voted
for the repeal, I'll let you guess which one.

~~~
lopmotr
I guess the party the won the election and therefore has legitimate authority
from the citizens to do that. It sounds like a much more fair and accountable
system than giving the power to people who are neither elected nor appointed
by elected people.

~~~
thatcat
> It sounds like a much more fair and accountable system than giving the power
> to people who are neither elected nor appointed by elected people.

This response is kind of ironic in context of net neutrality being repealed
considering it is a decision which empowered those who are neither elected nor
appointed by elected people against the will of the overwhelming majority of
the citizens.

------
colanderman
Kudos to the NYT for leading with an accessible and informative description of
the discriminatory consequences of the repeal of net neutrality, rather than
the nonsensical, meaningless, and ultimately harmful "it will allow ISPs to
charge more for faster service!" line that is often parroted by the media.

------
duxup
I do not look forward to having to pay for a "performance gaming" or
"performance VPN" or "awesome streaming video" package...

I have one ISP in my area that offers speeds above 5m consistently :(

~~~
sonnyblarney
There's absolutely nothing wrong with vendors offering different QoS for
different scenarios.

Why would no not what a specialized network option for 'super low latency' for
things like games?

Or if you don't use any kind of streaming, then why not get cheaper rates for
'super high latency'?

This is good, it's their job.

Where it gets ugly is if they start discriminating between customers, i.e.
Netflix has to pay $X while their parent companies other asset, HBO only has
to pay $Y.

Or if you have a 'Facebook package' that optimizes for FB or something like
that.

So QoS, yes, content discrimination, no.

~~~
calcifer
Because all I want is a dumb pipe. I don't pay the water company based on how
wide _their_ pipes are (backbone bandwith) or how far I am from their
treatment center (latency); I pay based on consumption alone, as it should be.
Why do you think Internet access needs to be treated any differently?

~~~
hokumguru
But you do pay the water company based on how much water you use. Why
shouldn't certain providers like, say, Netflix, not have to pay more when they
use nearly 40% of the pipe? ([https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-
bandwidth-usag...](https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-bandwidth-
usage-internet-traffic-1201507187/)).

~~~
croon
Netflix only uses 40% of the pipe if the ISP consumers request their data.
ISPs are already paid by their consumers to provide them their requested data.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
Exactly. How hard is this to understand? The cost is already being met by
consumers.

It's like if a football stadium was located near a tollway, and the tollway
decided to start charging the stadium itself during sporting events.

That's not a legitimate business transaction, it's a cash grab.

------
dragonwriter
> Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before
> they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any
> of the practices the rules prohibited.

But this is a bald-faced lie, and the proof is in the public record; while
there was en evolving approach to enforcing the open internet principles prior
to the 2015 Title II rules (in large part because the prior approaches were
struck down by the courts, forcing changes in approach), there is a long line
of enforcement actions by the FCC against ISPs for actions that would be in
violation of the 2015 rules. ISPs blocking legal P2P traffic, ISPs blocking
legal VoIP services, etc.

------
radisb
"Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they
were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the
practices the rules prohibited."

That begs the question: Why then do they oppose the rules if only to start
engaging in the practices they prohibit?

~~~
anderber
2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a
stop to it.

2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers.

2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't
like there was competition for their cellphones. 2011 - MetroPCS tried to
block all streaming except youtube. (edit: they actually sued the FCC over
this)

2011-2013 - AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet
because it competed with their bullshit. edit: this one happened literally
months after the trio were busted collaborating with Google to block apps from
the android marketplace

2012 - Verizon was demanding google block tethering apps on android because it
let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they
wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction. (edit: they
were fined $1.25million over this)

2012 - AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more
money.

2013, Verizon literally stated that the only thing stopping them from favoring
some content providers over other providers were the net neutrality rules in
place.

~~~
ilikehurdles
In other words, Ajit Pai is blatantly lying. These rules were put in place in
response to abuses by telecoms. I'm disappointed at how little context is ever
given by the media on these issues.

~~~
djsumdog
> Ajit Pai is blatantly lying

He is, for sure. I don't think Pai is an idiot, or a moron or ignorant. He
knows exactly what he's doing. He realizes it's all bullshit and is selling
this crap to the public anyway.

~~~
carapace
He's a tool's tool. That giant mug? He literally mugs[1] for a corporation's
product that is flavored sugar for children. He knows what he's doing.

[1] "mug" v. slang (orig. Theatre). a. intr. To pull a face, esp. in front of
an audience or camera, to grimace; to over-act.

------
micah63
I feel very happy to be a Canadian right now. The CRTC's (Canadian Radio-
television and Telecommunications Commission) laws on net neutrality are
considered to be some of the strictest laws in the world.

Here is a great quote from a 2017 music streaming case requiring all data to
be counted against a user's data cap, regardless of its source:

"the aim [of] the decision was to encourage Internet service providers to
compete on price, speed and network quality instead of acting as a
gatekeeper." \- Chairman of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais

~~~
riquito
And yet Canada has one of the highest costs for Internet bandwith (~80 CAD for
75 Mbps, data capped at 500gb), no phone costs covered (another ~80 cad month)

~~~
WhiskeyJack88
Ya, it's pretty bad. Resellers are at least at a little nicer. There's rules
regarding how much Canadian Telecoms have to charge resellers access to the
network. I get 150Mbps for $70 no data cap from a reseller called VMedia. But
we are generally hosed in Canada for internet services.

~~~
orthecreedence
I'm in the heart of San Francisco, and I get 40Mbps at $90/mo USD (Comcast).
Kind of pathetic that that's my only option in the tech capital of the world.

~~~
jteppinette
I get 1Gbps up/down at $60 per month through webpass... also live in San
Francisco

~~~
orthecreedence
Not available where I am =[

------
baggachipz
> “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation,
> which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-
> competitive monopolist” Mr. Pai said

So clearly we have no established precedent(1) of this sort of behavior in the
past and happening again before our very eyes. Suggesting that these rules
were conjured out of hysteria is not only wrong, it's insulting. But that's to
be expected from a corporate shill.

(1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)

~~~
ep103
Corrupt bureaucrat. We're talking about a man who flew to Barcelona to collect
a bribe before passing this regulatory change.

~~~
acdha
Do you have a citation for that? It’s a serious enough charge that it should
never be made without one.

~~~
t3f
From the FOIA [1] done by a NGO [2].

[1] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4106241-FCC-
Calendar...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4106241-FCC-Calendars-
and-Communications-with-ISPs.html#document/p207/a426454)

[2] [https://www.americanoversight.org/watchdog-demands-
details-o...](https://www.americanoversight.org/watchdog-demands-details-of-
private-meeting-between-fcc-and-att-executive-who-hired-trump-lawyer)

------
zer0faith
Does this mean that ISPs can block users from connecting to known VPNs or the
TOR/P2P type networks without any recourse?

~~~
ddalex
yes, you'd probably need to pay for a business account to get VPN access
anyway

~~~
chx
I am intrigued: do you know of any good writeups on how to discern the SSL-VPN
traffic of Cisco AnyConnect from SSL-HTTP traffic of a browser?

~~~
erikb
I have no details but wouldn't be surprised if especially Cisco announces as
metadata something like "this package is encrypted by Cisco AnyConnect version
1.2.3 [https://cisco.com/"](https://cisco.com/").

------
goombastic
The USA is effectively becoming an innovation black hole from all angles of
late. I predict people moving away until only the ultra right remains.

~~~
pweissbrod
Doubtful. You underestimate the inertia of resources. Wages for tech are more
competitive in the US. I also bet if your prediction started to become true
then lobbyists would push regulations to reduce the brain drain.

That being said I'm a US citizen that thinks about moving increasingly all the
time.

~~~
Retric
US is already experiencing a significant brain drain. This is currently offset
by new immigrants, but if you look at how many talented people are leaving
it's shocking.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_States)

~~~
drukenemo
Do you have have any data on that? Asking as I'm considering moving to the US
and the climate there matters to me.

~~~
Retric
Exact numbers are hard to come by. _The United States does not keep track of
emigration, and counts of Americans abroad are thus only available courtesy of
statistics kept by the destination countries._

 _As of June 2016, the State department 's consular section estimated that
there are 9 million non-military U.S. citizens living abroad,[3][4] an
increase from the 4 million estimated in 1999._

The above includes many retirees, who find their retirement incomes stretch
further abroad. But, it also includes a lot of PHD students who have troubles
finding academic jobs inside the US etc.

------
aswanson
I want to take the devils advocate position here and ask: why shouldn't a
vendor be allowed to charge more for tiered service? With FANG and other tech
companies sitting on so much cash, why cant they build out competing networks
if the prices get too high or the services they want to deliver require them?
Wont the consumer benefit from this?

~~~
moistoreos
THERE AREN'T ENOUGH VENDORS. That's the problem. They got scooped up and
bought out; then, they had implemented local laws that prevent community ISPs.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!

~~~
jovial_cavalier
If that's the problem, then why don't we tackle that problem? Legislation
should be geared entirely towards solving problems, not their second-tier
consequences.

~~~
trendia
Utility companies usually enjoy both natural and state-granted monopolies for
many reasons. The state grants them monopolies because cities don't want
multiple companies laying conduits or having disputes over access to existing
conduits. Imagine the difficulty of having 10 different cable companies, each
wanting to lay cable throughout the city!

Even without state intervention, utility companies tend to become local
monopolies, duopolies, or non-competitive oligopolies because of the high
barriers to entry. This makes it difficult for startups to compete with the
incumbents.

In this case, legislation is much more effective at handling the second-tier
consequences of utility companies (e.g. the natural tendency away from
competition) than handling the problem itself (the high barriers to entry)

~~~
DisMeUrBro
I know this is America, but from a conceptual standpoint, my natural reaction
to that is to think that Internet access should be an infrastructure
maintained by the state. It solves the practical problem of multiple companies
wanting to dig the same holes to put the same pipes; solves the liberal
problem of forcing companies to comply with an arbitrary way to pursue
business; solves the problem of neutrality since by virtue of freedom a state-
maintained Internet would be neutral.

It raises the problem of the state controlling Internet. But 1. They already
can pass laws to outlaw some parts of the Internet if they want to and 2. ISPs
are so big I'm not sure them controlling Internet is more reassuring.

This is just a suggestion. I didn't process all the implications.

~~~
deelowe
> Internet access should be an infrastructure maintained by the state.

Some cities and counties have tried this and were immediately sued by the
incumbent operators. Cable and Telco have multidecade long contracts with
local municipalities. Having a government just up and attempt to start doing
their own thing is arguably a breach of contract/illegal.

~~~
monocasa
I mean, they sue regardless of if they have contracts or not.

Comcast et al. sued Longmont, CO up the road from me when they first started
their municipal internet, and tried to get the state senate to retroactively
change the law in their favor. Luckily that didn't go anywhere.

------
segmondy
How I plan to protest. I'll use as little internet as possible if need be.
I'll not upgrade to any expensive "special package".

I'll support municipal broadband and will volunteer time and efforts even for
cities not near me.

~~~
mkirklions
I considered shamming people working for these companies.

I give my dad a hard time for working at Blue Cross.

Remember that these organizations are people, every cog is responsible this.

------
robertwalsh0
Welp, the Senate did what they could to overturn this. Thanks House of Reps
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2018/05/16/611598361...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2018/05/16/611598361/senate-approves-overturning-fccs-net-neutrality-
repeal)

------
itissid
Will our institutions be incompetent under this administration? Maybe. Can
they be incompetent, period? Sure, its like swinging a dead cat and hitting
the target. Checkout exhibit A: [https://www.propublica.org/article/us-
immigration-agency-wil...](https://www.propublica.org/article/us-immigration-
agency-will-lose-millions-process-visas-fast-enough)

------
iron0013
I'm having a hard time finding a link to the results of congressional votes
related to net neutrality. Does anyone know which politicians voted for it,
and which against? Which party did most of the pro-neutrality politicians
belong to, and which party did most of the anti-net neutrality politicians
belong to? I'm eager to vote for pro-NN politicians, so I'd like to know.

~~~
mrguyorama
I feel you are being disingenuous. It's long been known that the republican
party is spearheading the effort to end NN, while the democratic party wishes
to protect it. It was a nearly party line vote

~~~
iron0013
I was shocked to discover the same thing! It seems like the best way to
preserve Net Neutrality is to vote Republican career politicians out of
office.

~~~
mrguyorama
Why would you be shocked to find such a thing? Republicans wish to remove
regulation (usually). Supposedly even republican voters like net neutrality,
but that has not been reflected in their votes. More so, if you ever bring up
how republicans are on the warpath to kill net neutrality, you often get
responses of "But both sides", despite specific things like this being hard
party line votes.

~~~
iron0013
Gosh, it seems strange that we apparently have such a readily-available
mechanism for rescuing Net Neutrality (the only viable mechanism,
apparently)--namely voting Republican career politicians out of office--but so
few people are talking about it!

Wow, is it really true that you often get responses of "But both sides",
despite specific things like this being hard party line votes? If so, that
argument seems truly disingenuous!

~~~
scottmf
Welcome to politics!

~~~
iron0013
Hi! I'm not sure what you meant by that, can you explain? It seems you were
implying that you have an understanding of why someone would falsely claim
that "both sides" oppose Net Neutrality, when in fact the votes show that it
is Republican politicians in Washington that consistently vote against Net
Neutrality, while Democratic members of congress consistently vote to protect
and safeguard Net Neutrality. I'd love to learn more from you.

------
olleromam91
If the United States want's to compete with other nations...its best bet is to
have an informed population. An internet where information is on a pay to play
basis will cut out the poor and weakest links...leaving a massive portion of
the population under-informed. How does this make sense in a national security
capacity?? Completely backwards .

~~~
smogcutter
What's information on now, an SEO to play basis? A buy targeted ads to play
basis?

Not arguing against net neutrality by any means, but if an informed populace
is really the goal then the ISPs are a side show.

------
transfire
Let the deconstruction of the Internet begin! "And with your Internet package,
which search engine would like? ... And which streaming services? ... Oh,
Netflix is only available in our premium package which will cost $20 more a
month..."

------
daveheq
The proper rules are Congress writing updated laws for the internet and VOIP
(and then letting the proper agency/ies regulate them) but of course they're
too out of touch and bought-off to make anything sensible.

------
booleandilemma
Naive question: is it foreseeable that Google or someone else could take
advantage of 5G technology and we could all just abandon cable/DSL companies
and handle all our data needs wirelessly?

------
shmerl
_> “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation,
which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-
competitive monopolist” Mr. Pai said_

No need to presume. Most of ISPs are. So US is making a shift from having some
(not even sufficient) safeguards, to letting those monopolists abuse their
monopolistic position to fleece their users left and right and limit their
choices. Too much weasel wording Mr. Pai?

------
diebir
As usual, the republicans work against the will and simply against the
American people. The environment, the Internet, the economy. Just vote the
SOBs out next time around, please.

------
rconti
Cool. Now where's my FTTH?

------
Zentgraf1
Just leave that country.. It is as good or mehr in literally any other
developed country.

------
amachefe
A fair reporting of the news. Really understand both sides

------
brokovich2323
I am surprised that no one on HN is discussing what I consider an important
point of the repeal, namely clipping the wings if the federal government (a
good thing), and letting states decide for themselves how they want to
regulate internet access. Heck, I'd even be in favour of this being regulated
at the municipal level, to curtail state power.

~~~
detaro
How is it "clipping the wings of the federal government" if a federal agency
decides itself to stop making rules about something? It can unfold it wings
again at any time.

~~~
brokovich2323
Doesn't really matters if it's self-inflicted. The result is the same: the fed
have removed a regulation at the federal level. The state are now free to
choose what they do. States who make the "wrong" choice will get get punished
economically. Free market. Nothing bad about it.

~~~
arrosenberg
Meanwhile, the people in those states suffer. How is that better for the
people of this country?

Without getting too deep down the rabbit hole of representation and balance of
power in many states, Federal regulation generally exists to protect people in
States that refuse to make the "right" choice, as you put it. Removing Federal
regulation isn't a net-good by default — in this case the regulation served a
legitimate purpose to protect consumers and should have been left alone.

------
WallWextra
I think what we'll really see in practice is this being used for political
purposes, with pressure groups getting ISPs to block so-called "hate" or
"extremist" sites.

The stuff about service tiers seems less likely and less concerning.

~~~
djsumdog
I think blocking content and net neutrality are mostly totally different
issues. (Although content blocking I guess is one subset of NN).

It's interesting because, due to free speech laws in the US, ISPs can't really
block anything. But they are required to monitor and report people who
transfer illegal content:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/microsoft...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/microsoft-
employees-child-abuse-lawsuit-ptsd)

That being said, big tech does have the power to squish people they don't
like, as I wrote about a while back:

[https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-
corporate-...](https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-
censorship/)

~~~
WallWextra
What are the free speech laws that prevent ISPs from blocking controversial
content?

------
Bakary
It will be interesting to see whether American and European views of the
internet converge or diverge in the long term. I've noticed that American
norms tend to flow towards the old world, and the reverse is rarely true, the
GDPR being the most impressive counter-example I've seen.

Or perhaps we will all move towards something similar to the Chinese model?

~~~
MichaelApproved
The story isn't over within the United States. Many states are defying the
FCCs interpretation and enacting their own version of net neutrality.

It's going to be interesting to see if the FCC tries to strike those local
laws down and how ISPs will handle the things from State to state.

~~~
juliangoldsmith
I don't think the FCC would have the power to strike down local laws, if they
even had any desire to.

The best they could probably do would be a lawsuit, but the states would be
well within their rights to add new laws on top of federal ones.

~~~
wpietri
What makes you so confident the FCC couldn't win in court? My understanding is
that states have some right to additionally regulate, but only to the extent
that federal law allows it.

~~~
blind_boy_grunt
In Tennessee v. FCC, [1] the FCC, under the authority of §706 of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, attempted to preempt state laws that prohibit
municipalities from building their own broadband networks under certain
circumstances (these laws were obviously lobbied and passed by ISPs in the
state legislatures). This was struck down by courts because, although the
supremacy clause means that federal law supplants state law, the federal law
at hand was so far removed from what the FCC was doing in this particular
case, that the FCC was essentially creating "directives" which overruled state
law in pursuit of a vague goal that was defined in federal law. In essence,
federal administrators/bureaucrats had the power to overrule state law.
Although the ISPs "won" in that decision, it cuts both ways -- which means
that any attempt by the FCC to preempt net neutrality regulations under §706
is likely to fail as well.

Sorry if my take is a little confusing, here is some more coverage: [2], [3].

[1]
[http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/16a0189p-06.pdf](http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/16a0189p-06.pdf)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/10/fcc-
los...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2016/08/10/fcc-loses-bid-to-
preempt-municipal-broadband-laws-in-tennessee-n-c/#7e9e24a64e7f)

[3] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-
muni-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-muni-
broadband-fcc-loses-bid-to-overturn-state-laws/)

~~~
Avshalom
Problem is: if New Mexico passes a Net Neutrality law but all of the Netflix
data centers are in Arizona it's suddenly going to be "interstate commerce"

~~~
ashelmire
Something being interstate commerce does not prevent states from legislating
on it. Under that logic, states couldn't regulate the sale of anything
produced in another state, which is obviously untrue.

~~~
Avshalom
no it just means that the federal government has constitutional power to over
rule it if they feel like it, no need to argue on the basis of any existing
case law.

------
fortythirteen
I'm interested in whether one of the two extreme sides of this debate will
admit they were wrong when their prediction doesn't pan out.

Either we wind up with a tiered, cable package style internet or we don't. I'm
in the "we won't" camp", but I'm also more disturbed by the monopolistic
nature of ISP's that the regulations emboldened.

~~~
nsxwolf
And what if we get tiered internet... and consumers like it? "All the websites
I use for one low price? Wow!" Internet nerds assume the public at large
shares their romantic ideals of the open web but that might not be true.

~~~
bthrm
Count me in. I never watch HD video, which is a huge % of all the traffic of
every ISP. I wish I could pay less money for an internet connection that was
cheaper in exchange for not being able to watch HD video.

~~~
alistairSH
Do you really want a slower connection, or just a smaller data package? I'm ok
with the latter - pay for what you use. The former, especially if it's bundled
by content provider, worries me.

------
sandworm101
Incorrect title. Americans thave opted out of net neutrality. We canadians are
keeping it, so too many other countries. It is still a thing for much/most of
the world. Title should reflect that this is happing in only one country.

The rest of us are watching rome burn. We would like to help put out the fire,
but the romans seem intent on burning down thier own houses. Just over half of
them seems rather happy about the situation. The rest arent putting up much of
a fight.

~~~
cortesoft
The headline if for an article written by an American newspaper about an
American situation. It isn't necessary for EVERY single article written in
America about an American situation to specify it as being 'in America' in the
headline. 90% of the headlines would have to include 'in America'.

The article makes it clear who they are talking about.

