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FCC details plan to restore the net neutrality rules repealed by Ajit Pai (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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FCC details plan to restore the net neutrality rules repealed by Ajit Pai::Democrats finally have 3-2 majority needed to regulate ISPs as common carriers.

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[+] -33 points 2 years ago (7 children)

The rules have never really been in affect, all the things that folks warned would happen without net neutrality hasn't happened.

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  • [–] 48 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    My Verizon plan explicitly limits YouTube video to 1080p. If I paid for a lower plan, it would limit me to 720p.

    I have no option to go beyond 1080p, even if I’m on the fastest possible connection.

    Of course, if I were to turn on a VPN, I can suddenly stream at any quality my connection can handle.

    This is a real world example of what you claim hasn’t happened. And you can verify it yourself by looking at their available plans.

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    It has though. Traffic shaping is common, especially on mobile networks where video streams and VPN traffic will get deprioritized and throttled to force lower resolution playback for certain services. Many mobile ISPs are actually pretty open that they do this. In other cases this stuff is done quietly enough that you don't really notice it is happening. Mobile operators get away with it because people are almost trained to expect mobile networks to be flaky.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago

    Mobile I believe is exempt anyways. Traffic shaping is a necessity from a network admin perspective. If you allow mobile networks to not have QOS restrictions then there could be times where you wouldn't be able to make a phone call because everyone around you is streaming 8k videos.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    all the things that folks warned would happen without net neutrality hasn't happened.

    I don't think that's fair at all. Since we have never really had NN, then I would ask you to define what it is first. If you say that NN prevents ISPs from provisioning off websites in bundles then I would say, you're not wrong but I massively dispute your definition of NN.

    It is supposed to protect a free and open internet. I think I can safely state that. I think we can agree to that as a basis. And I can think of dozens of things that are going on right now that only serve to disarm and control users in order to strip-mine them of as much value as possible. If ISPs were utilities then you would have access to their financial reports, you could see their service reports, you would be able to know how they have and plan to allocate resources, and you would have at least transparency if not influence in decisions they choose to make that affect the cost of service. Imagine if they would have to apply for a tariff audit just to get approved to raise rates?

    Are you truly arguing that this hypothetical alternate dimension is somehow imperceivably different than our own?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Net neutrality was never intended to turn ISPs into public utilities. Its purpose was to turn them into "common carriers," which means they must treat all traffic equally.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    You're not wrong, but your distinction is meaningless since common carriers in the US are often regulated by the same governing rules and very often the same governing bodies as public utilities.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I do not believe that is correct.

    https://www.brookings.edu/articles/regulating-internet-service-providers-as-common-carriers-will-not-satisfy-net-neutrality-advocates/

    That gives a better, more thorough explanation of what the FCC is aiming to do. While public utilities are governed by regulations much like a common carrier is, it won't result in what you were stating in your original comment (i.e. the same level of internal transparency that public utilities must comply with).

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    That's more or less because I'm healing the rules for such a controversial decision, that no one wants to take that publicity for being the first to violate them. However we know that the rule isn't there eventually someone's going to take that bite, they're going to get Flack for it, and then everyone else is just going to do it and it will just be accepted as normal.

    I'm a gamer this is basically what happened with horse armor, and now microtransactions are basically expected

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago*

    Tbh, the only site that technically fell victim to the repeal of net neutrality is one that everyone fucking hates including me and wants taken down from the internet. All I will tell you is that it starts with a K and ends with an s.

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