Net Neutrality is in DEEP Trouble
Reposted from Facebook’s PBS Newshour.
Now that I got your attention with this video…
The FCC decided to go ahead with the vote to remove the Net Neutrality rules that the Obama administration set up.
As you can see, this is what the major ISPs wants to do if they have their way. This can do a few things:
Stiff new innovations, making it harder for smaller companies to compete.
Silence independent voices.
Potentially putting up a “walled garden” on a wide scale.
Make distribution of information harder for low-income people.
Imagine this website, if you will, only working on Verizon networks while AT&T customers are charged a little extra, or have slower access to the same information.
Remember, your ISP owns content providers and may give top-shelf, VIP treatment to their own things while stiffing everyone else. We need to address this.
Now, some of you may recall earlier this year that John Oliver and a lot of other people, companies (and yours truly) did a rallying cry to tell the FCC to back off the Net Neutrality rules, which resulted in millions of comments on their proposal.
However, there’s been a few problems… in short, it seems that the FCC chose to not listen due to “inconsistancies”.
Sidenote: Tumblr isn’t the best place to talk “long-form” so if you’re interested in looking at these notes, here are some places to go to.
https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a - “ Specifically, for six months my office has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities. Such conduct likely violates state law — yet the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence in its sole possession that is vital to permit that law enforcement investigation to proceed.”
https://twitter.com/BanditRandom/status/933066570741383169 - A twitter thread about how the Wall Street Journal collected someone’s information to sign in FAVOR of Net Neutrality.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/fake-net-neutrality-comments-at-heart-of-lawsuit-filed-against-fcc/ - “Fake” net neutrality comments at heart of lawsuit filed against FCC
So, what can we do about this?
There are a few things you can do to help slow down this nightmare situation.
You can’t just “like” this note, you have to reblog to spread, but more importantly, you have to TAKE action!
1) Make calls to your representatives - https://5calls.org/issue/defend-fcc-net-neutrality - this website will tell you who to call and an easy-to-follow script so that you know exactly what to say.
2) You can support groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU and Free Press who are fighting to keep Net Neutrality:
https://www.eff.org/
https://www.aclu.org/
https://www.freepress.net/
https://www.fightforthefuture.org/
https://www.publicknowledge.org/
https://www.demandprogress.org/
3) You can add a comment to the proposal using John Oliver’s URL at http://www.gofccyourself.com
4) Write a letter to your representative. Not an email, an actual, snail mail letter.
Let’s all band together and do something about this. Our future of sharing information, building innovation, nurturing voices and creativity depends on your actions now!
I know it may sound hopeless. Look at when they announced this (you probably didn’t know they announced this on Monday when you’re busy getting ready to for the holiday!). But if we say it with one voice to BACK OFF THE NET, we maybe able to make a difference.
Hi.
I’m the Original Poster and I did my best to keep this brief with sources you can see for yourself.
However, with misinformation being a thing, I decided to amend to this to give you some extra pointers as to why I was specific about these steps and not recommend things like strictly writing to the FCC.
1) Calling your reps and writing them is more effective than doing it via email. It’s been stated over, and over, and over again. Sadly, letters and phone calls are more effective.
2) Signing a petition can help, but without a way to verify you, it can be just as useful as shouting on Twitter (and will they look at Twitter? Nope.) It’s not totally useless, but it will not totally do the job.
See, if the FCC can use “bots” as an excuse (look at the sources in the original post), what makes you think a senator and representatives won’t? This is why “calling your rep” is the first action step and “writing your reps” is the last.
3) Regardless, the non-profit organizations’ job (the one I posted about) is to spread awareness BEYOND YOUR NETWORK. Think of them as a private army you’re recruiting for this one mission. You can only tell so many people and some of you don’t live in the United States, which makes it even harder!
4) BTW, you’re not just talking about this on Tumblr, are you? You have to talk to people on your other social networks as well. They are affected by things as well. Don’t want to talk? Post a link to here and let me do the talking for you.
5) While I have done the research for you, please do your own in conjunction with this. That way, you can be better informed, especially when talking about this to other people.
6) Oh and one more thing since I did neglect this in my last post. I forgot to post the “deadline” - the actual day they will vote. Well…
We have until December 14, 2017!
So, let’s mobilize! Organize! Transform and roll out!
Okay, maybe not the last one…
But make the calls to your reps! Scroll up and do your part, no matter which side you’re on!
P.S. - I also posted examples of how Net Neutrality is helping us in the United States.
I have only one statement… Cometh the revolution.
What these big corpreations are not understanding is the more they want money the more they will find out how resiliant people really are. Customers will DROP THEM and go to city owened local providers promiseing to keep the general ideal of net nutality.
You get the smart ones claiming its a violation of busnuess laws to minpolize soicial media.
Eather way if the system is tuned aginst the people its thee pwople behind the system that will seee the aftermath of public outrage and these CrEpO dickbags may have to see an angry protesting mob demanding they stop befored they think twice about demanding more money they do not need.
Here’s the deal, ^^
It’s not going to happen. I am advising people as a former employee of a small Internet Service Provider (or ISPs). Competition isn’t going to develop anytime soon because there isn’t a lot of resources or choices out there. And even when presented with a choice, it’s expensive.
Let me paint you a picture of how difficult it is to start an ISP.
There’s only two types of ISP: Broadband and Wireless.
In Broadband, there are three types of connections: DSL (via phone wires), Cable, and Fiber Optics (next level phone wires), all of them wired by a major service provider. In Wireless, there is only mobile Broadband or LTE/4G.
WiFi, as people like to call it, is NOT an option because, in order for that to work, it must be hooked up to either Broadband or Wireless. It’s a technology to connect to one or the other, NOT a source in or of itself.
Now, guess who owns the paths on both ends? Major corps. They brought out all the smaller competitors, leaving with not a lot of options.
For example, in New York City, you think you can choose between Spectrum (formerly Time-Warner), Optimum (A brand of Cablevision), Verizon FiOS or RCN. In reality, you have to MOVE to an area if you want to choose between Spectrum, Optimum or RCN, or if you don’t want Cable, you can choose between FiOS (if it’s available, BTW) or you have to go with a Mobile Broadband option, which can be cheap if you only plan on using your phone every once in a while, but expensive if you want to use things like backup services, keeping your computer connected to the web, security alarms that need to be Net powered and so on and so forth.
And even if you managed to get a connection via a third party, it’s only because they are leasing a line from the major corporations.
You think MetroPCs is its own company? T-Mobile owns them.
Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile are Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) of Sprint.
Google’s Project Fi is an MVNO of Sprint and T-Mobile.
There’s an unlimited travel option
None of the companies I mentioned have laid out the foundations for their own networks. No one wins expected the major corps on this. They owned maybe 90% of the foundation!
The major 4 networks control all of the wireless bandwidth spectrums and Verizon controls pretty much a large portion of that! Why you think no company has a hard time outside, but Verizon only works in certain areas of the country and even in certain buildings better than others? It’s because only big players can get that frequency to work with!
Sure, there are smaller companies popping up, but the broadband/network won’t be able to hold a flood of new customers. Here’s an example:
A new company in New York recently launched a wireless broadband service. Do you know how many towers they own?
An amazing, recording breaking… 3.
Now, imagine if… let’s say 50,000 new customers slam them with orders? Will they be able to hold that? Maybe yes. Maybe no.
How about when those numbers double? Maybe not.
Triple? Not. At. All.
That business will have class-action lawsuits before the month is over. They can’t grow fast enough to accomidate a huge number of people. It will be VERY slow during prime time hours because there just isn’t enough bandwidth. (and if you want me to explain what that means, that’s going to take a week.)
Clear Mobile used to have a partnership with Sprint and they were going to launch a 4G-WiMax network. They offered unlimited wireless broadband. They were positioned to be a competitor. But too many people signed up for the service, and they were growing at a MAJOR slow rate and 4G-WiMax couldn’t go up fast enough. It was also an outdated technology, with LTE surpassing it. And when they tried to change to LTE, it would end up being too costly. They went out of business, sold their network to Sprint and customers were left hanging.
And I know because I used to be one of their customers! I have a broadband modem that is a NICE paperweight and it’s in storage since the 4G WiMax towers are out of commission. I’ll make sure to take a picture of it when I visit the storage center.
So, let me tell you, while we should encourage competition, it’s not happening.
Things are too much in control of the major corporations and they want more power, especially when no one is buying “triple packages” anymore.
OH, I GET A LANDLINE PHONE? OOOOO! REALLY?!?!? WHAT A DEAL! NOW I CAN HAVE A PHONE WHEN I WANT TO FIND MY DAMN CELL PHONE!
And with TV watching slowly going online, the Cable companies realize they are only good for one thing: being a pipe. And instead of innovating, they rather do this.
So, it’s best to keep the pressure on this companies and tell the FCC to keep the Net Neutrality laws right where they are.