Nothing is going to change for consumers. The FCC is not about to go crazy and do crazy stuff. It's basic NN, meaning basic protection from the large and powerful ISP. They called out 3 basic rules - no blocking of content, no throttling or degrading of content, and no fast lane. NN is ensured, but this doesn't really impact competition. Pretty much same landscape but internet is protected from the big ISP playing any game with the internet for their financial gains.
Highly paid lawyers don't stop as long as they can charge for it. And Comcast is willing to keep paying with the money they take from us. This ain't over, it will never be over. Comcast: We’ll Sue to Slow Down the Web http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/26/comcast-we-will-sue-to-slow-the-web.html Despite tens of millions of corporate dollars in last-minute lobbying, the Federal Communications Commission passed new rules Thursday reclassifying the Internet as a public utility and preventing Internet service providers from artificially slowing down the Web. Now Comcast is calling “inevitable” lawsuits to nullify the rules a “certainty,” and the company says it will pressure legislators to draft a law that will override the FCC’s decision.
I mean the rest of the quote is beyond belief but I also don't think series of tubes is a good metaphor. it's shallow and completely misinterprets the nature of the Internet. The Internet at its core is a bunch of servers (computers up 24/7) that receive HTTP requests from clients: your web browser or mine. The whole point of the Internet is that it abstracts away physical location so that you can consume data created elsewhere: data in the form of textual input/images/ and technical assets such as CSS/Javascript files (NYT's digital website) or video (Netflix) or in the case of things like Kimono which creates what is known as an Application Programming Interface out of static websites, a structured auto-updated data feed that can be interpreted by your server so you can, for example, scrape data from Yahoo Finance and create your own auto-updating personal dashboard of leading stock picks. Now the reason why the debate has focused on bandwidth and speed of transfer rather than the fundamentals of the Internet are because most people approach it from a user point of view rather than a server/builder point of view, as there are vastly more Internet users than builders so we focus on the paid connections clients have to use to access servers. However, the crux of the debate isn't that your Netflix is slower than it should be or that the "tubes" carrying data are filled up and so you will get s**ttier Internets. The real core of the debate is that from the builder side, if one were to discriminate based on content type or volume, services like blogs, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, and more would be threatened because as soon as they show business viability, a monopoly in another industry can arbitrarily decide to toll them either to discourage that growth or to profit from it as much as possible. This kills innovation. We saw it with the destruction of Google Wallet and the degradation of bittorrent. We will see it when the next Netflix or Spotify fails to ever start because the cost of paying monopoly fees at an early stage will crush any hopes of late-stage returns. The real argument is whether you trust a monopoly of telecom companies, users, or the government to determine what services the Internet should provide. I obviously prefer users, but given that the power of the government is being balanced with corporate power, I lean towards the former not because I love governmental intervention but because it is the lesser of two evils. The US government barring its recent spate of backdoor hacking has done a reasonably good job with, for example, giving more power to ICANN so that innovation is spurred by non-government sources. Meanwhile, new technologies have constantly been attacked by ISPs. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...trality-is-solution-to-existing-problem.shtml I don't want to live in a world where monopolistic ISPs determine what innovations thrive and which ones die. IN SUMMARY If you think the Internet is just a "series of tubes", you are ignoring the real issue at hand. The fundamental problem isn't how fast services can be rendered to clients, it's that if ISPs have their way, those services users want will never get the chance to prove themselves and survive.
It's called "web" and "inter"-"net" for good reasons. But I understand how tubes is easier on the head.
Republicans’ “Internet Freedom Act” would wipe out net neutrality Internet providers need the freedom to block and throttle Internet traffic. http://arstechnica.com/business/201...et-freedom-act-would-wipe-out-net-neutrality/ US Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) this week filed legislation she calls the "Internet Freedom Act" to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's new network neutrality rules. The FCC's neutrality rules prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or throttling Internet traffic, prohibit prioritization of traffic in exchange for payment, and require the ISPs to disclose network management practices. These rules "shall have no force or effect, and the Commission may not reissue such rule in substantially the same form, or issue a new rule that is substantially the same as such rule, unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act," the Internet Freedom Act states. (I have no clue what that means) . The legislation has 31 Republican cosponsors.
1st of many court fights. Federal court backs rules treating internet as utility, not luxury http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-appeals-court-ruling.html?_r=0
