
Washington state has passed the country’s toughest net neutrality legislation - sethbannon
https://www.fastcompany.com/40537222/washington-just-passed-the-countrys-toughest-net-neutrality-legislation
======
kaiby
The best line for me was:

“Just because the FCC claims it has the power to preempt state laws doesn’t
mean that it actually does,” says Hansen. “I can claim that I have the power
to manifest unicorns on the Washington State Capitol lawn. But if you look
outside right now, there are no unicorns.”

I hope it succeeds.

~~~
criddell
Don't worry. The Republicans are running everything right now and if there's
anything they support, it's state's rights

/s

~~~
specialist
I'm as partisan as they come. And am only too happy to pile on. But I also
remember the Clipper chip, SOPA, PIPA... My own state representative voted for
internet voting along with the herd after promising me he wouldn't without
checking with me first.

Fair play, rule of law, fare and impartial courts, etc. are not partisan
issues.

If we bring the heat, they'll see they light.

~~~
justin66
> Fair play, rule of law, fare and impartial courts, etc. are not partisan
> issues.

"State's rights" of the kind the person you're responding is joking about are
a partisan issue in the United States.

------
jonwachob91
I always found it amusing that the FCC claimed they didn’t have a right to
regulate Net Neutrality, but they do have the right to prevent individual
states from regulating Net Neutrality.

~~~
mkempe
One can hold that under a limited, federal government structure there are
things the Federal government must not do (because it is either explicitly
barred from it or it is not one of its explicitly enumerated powers), and that
the same constraint applies to the States.

For instance, under the US constitution, freedom of expression limits all
levels of government.

~~~
Paul-ish
FCC != Federal government. The FCC chairman claims that the FCC is not the
correct agency, but rather the FTC.

~~~
mkempe
This seems so concrete-bound... Moving to the conceptual level, since the
initial F in each agency name stands for "Federal" \-- in what sense are they
not part of the Federal government? are they somehow not subject to the limits
imposed by the Constitution?

------
loeg
I live in WA and am amused. I didn't hear anything about this until now.

This isn't quite the same issue as NN, but in Seattle we had a single ISP
monopoly (Comcast) until quite recently. Centurylink has started offering
fiber in the last few years, but before that there was an uninterrupted decade
where Comcast was the only viable broadband option for most homes.

(A number of vendors offered DSL, but it was extremely slow and typically not
price-competitive; a small number of vendors offered very fast internet, but
only in condos / apartment buildings in or near the downtown core.)

~~~
rbritton
We have the same issue on the other side of the state in Spokane. In the
majority of the metropolitan area, Comcast is your only viable option. Where I
live, I can get up to around 250 Mbit Comcast or 1-5 Mbit CenturyLink.

~~~
brightsize
In the north-central part of town (Garland 'hood) I'm getting 40Mb service
from CenturyLink and it's generally pretty reliable though throughput really
drops during the mid- and late afternoon. I didn't know that Comcast offered
such high data rates here though so thanks for the tip.

------
stonogo
Ironic posturing from the state that Comcast paid to ban municipal ISPs.

------
mlazos
Has there been a resolution as to who was generating the fraudulent comments
on the FCC proposal? I believe they’re real I’ve just been wondering why
someone/some organization would do that, unless it was some conspiracy by the
ISPs, but they don’t need fake comments when they have lobbyists.

------
drawnwren
It would be interesting for someone to identify regions in states that have
similar internet conditions before NN. We might have some interesting data to
peruse if the curr situation holds for a few years.

------
xingped
Here's a question though that maybe someone with a little more legal savvy may
be able to answer - does this ban bandwidth caps?

------
akkat
This is great news. Now we can compare what ISPs do in NN states verses non NN
states.

------
joshuaheard
I really don't understand this law. ISPs offer me faster internet for a higher
price. But is illegal for ISPs to offer Netflix faster internet for a higher
price. What is the distinction?

In any event, this is pure virtue signalling, since the federal government
clearly has supremacy over state laws for national telecommunication networks,
and this will be overturned by the courts.

~~~
jetpacktuxedo
No, you can't pay your ISP to get "faster internet", only to get more
bandwidth between your wall and whatever backhaul provider owns the physical
fiber lines. There is no way to make the internet "faster" other than reducing
the number of hops you have to make to get to the destination, or by
increasing the speed of packets on the networks, which should already be
roughly speed of light. Therefore if they are proposing "fast lanes" it isn't
about speeding you up, but rather about slowing everyone else down.

Net Neutrality doesn't prevent ISPs from selling more bandwidth to netflix, it
only prevents ISPs from treating the traffic differently due to the identity
of either the sender or the receiver. This means that Comcast can't slow your
traffic down just because you are sending data to and receiving data from
netflix instead of using Hulu (which they partially own).

~~~
joshuaheard
The article states, "All internet service offered in Washington would have to
be free from blocking or throttling of legal online content. Nor could it be
subject to a system of premium-priced “fast lanes” that offer better bandwidth
to content providers that pay extra for the privilege."

So, the law does prevent ISPs from offering "faster" internet, however you
define it. I still don't see the distinction between allowing consumers to pay
for faster internet, but prohibiting content providers from doing the same
thing. I pay more for 250 mbps. Why can't Comcast offer Netflix additional
speed for more money, which would be illegal under this law? As I understand
it, slowing down your competitors is already illegal under the FTC rules.

~~~
Majora320
I think that "fast lanes" are about (say) Netflix paying for more _downstream_
bandwidth.

