OT: Net Neutrality

Submitted by LandryHD on
I think this is an important issue that will affect all of us and traffic for this site if this actually happens. There are plenty of Reddit posts educating people on what's going on and what to do to stop something like this. Here is a link you guys can go to: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/7ek4q6/join_the_battle_for_net… Mods delete if this doesn't belong. Go Blue!
MGoBoard

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

November 21st, 2017 at 7:00 PM ^

Fat lot of good that did.  It may have created competition in the long-distance world but breaking Bell up into the baby Bells did nothing but create a whole bunch of monopolies on local service.  And then rates for local service (the thing people used most of the time) rose considerably faster than inflation, because they didn't have long-distance to subsidize them anymore and they all had monopolies anyway.

And then the little monopolies all merged with each other to create Verizon and AT&T anyway.

Joined: 07/02/2008

MGoPoints: 41586

bronxblue

November 21st, 2017 at 6:46 PM ^

I think the remoteness issue is overstated a bit. The vast majority of Americans live in or around major cities with sufficient infrastructure. We long ago moved away from agrarian living. It's more that maintaining the escalating needs of users is expensive and it's somewhat of a fixed cost regardless of provider: you either need to own your own wires or lease from someone else, and the more data people use the more infrastructure needs to exist to meet that demand. I definitely believe that ISPs gouge customers and costs need to be lower, but ISPs already provide wireless access by piggybacking on customer's boxes. Increased consumption is as much a driver in these mergers and laws as access.

Joined: 11/22/2008

MGoPoints: 171777

bluesalt

November 21st, 2017 at 7:27 PM ^

It’s not a viable substitute. There are real capacity constraints due to the lack of fiber backhaul in a lot of areas, not to mention siting issues for towers today and small cells tomorrow. When Verizon and AT&T tried to copy T-Mobile and offer “unlimited” data, their speeds really suffered because they have 2-3x users in most markets. Add to that how difficult it can be to cover certain areas because of terrain issues (people like putting their homes in valleys which the signal hops right over when the antenna is placed on a hill), and wireless can be part of the solution, but it isn’t exclusive. Not until satellites can offer backhaul speeds that compete with fiber.

Joined: 11/02/2011

MGoPoints: 8573

funkywolve

November 21st, 2017 at 8:24 PM ^

I do work for TMobile and they are just starting to try out satellite back haul.  Results aren't too good yet.  Only using it really remote areas.  I'm sure it will get better as more effort is put into developing that possibility but that will be a while.

Joined: 10/08/2008

MGoPoints: 20232

Maynard

November 21st, 2017 at 9:15 PM ^

No. Not even close. The overwhelming majority of government employees are not political positions but career public servants. In fact, elected officials and appointees are a tiny fraction of the overall number so you're way off. Even as long ago as the end o 2011 there were over 2.79 million civil servants employed by the federal government. 

If you add state, local, and federal, there are over 22 million. So the facts just don't line up with what you're saying. It hasn't always been this way where the government was the boogeyman. Lately it has been an easy target for demagogues though so now people see the government as they see politicians which is unfortunate because there are millions of good hard-working people making sure this whole thing stays working as well as possible.

Joined: 02/19/2016

MGoPoints: 9888

evenyoubrutus

November 22nd, 2017 at 9:10 AM ^

Thanks for the information. I worked for the county government for 5 years. I'm very aware that public employees believe in The Cause, but they also have zero autonomy when it comes to policy and budget decisions. That is why I specified elected or appointed officials. Government employees are not the same thing.

Joined: 11/04/2008

MGoPoints: 178243

HailHail47

November 21st, 2017 at 8:20 PM ^

People follow the incentives. Government has a lot of terrible incentives built in, and so do many corporations frankly. It's not that one group of people is inherently better, but what incentives are they operating under? I see the government as having the worst incentive structures ever imagined, but at least it is mitigated by democracy somewhat.

Joined: 10/07/2017

MGoPoints: 5305

goblueram

November 21st, 2017 at 6:23 PM ^

Actually that point of his I can sympathize with.  Government will always have the use of force over populace - and of course the hope is that they are using that force to protect human rights.  But the beauty of a free society is that if you don't trust large corporations, you are free not to do business with them.  And competition will always be there to keep them in check - unless of course companies are buying politicians, and we come full circle to cronyism which is my topic of the day...

Joined: 08/18/2009

MGoPoints: 11701

Occam's Razor

November 21st, 2017 at 6:28 PM ^

Your viewpoint falls flat when considering those same big corporations enabled by government can now barracade any new potential competition. 

 

You think Comcast and Verizon will now all of a sudden allow some Mom and Pop internet company to sprout out of nowhere? 

 

It's not based in reality. These corporations are too big due to anti-trust laws being broken left and right. 

Joined: 10/23/2017

MGoPoints: 7178