https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/1006124341325639681
Yes, it’s officially dead, and this has given the Washington Post a case of the sads, along with a case of the doom and glooms
So long to net neutrality, hello to bigger telecoms? The Web you know may never be the same.
Two pivotal developments this week could dramatically expand the power and footprint of major telecom companies, altering how Americans access everything from political news to “Game of Thrones†on the Internet.
Monday marks the official end of the U.S. government’s net neutrality rules, which had required broadband providers such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon to treat all Web traffic equally. The repeal is part of a campaign by Ajit Pai, the Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to deregulate the telecom industry in a bid to boost its investments — particularly in rural areas.
“I think ultimately it’s going to mean better, faster, cheaper Internet access and more competition,†Pai said in an interview. Others disagree and will challenge Pai in court, while many states are fighting back with their own laws, further muddling the situation.
We did pretty good prior to Obama’s 2015 NN, going from a few people having dial-up and speeds less than 52 kilobytes a second to the vast majority of this country having access to speeds of at least 6 megabytes per second, whether it be at home, at work, or on their phone. Usually, all three. The amount of content is incredible. What you can do on the web is incredible, if you consider what little you could do back in the early days, say, 1994. And this was all done without treating “web traffic equally.” Because it’s not. If you’re streaming hundreds of megabytes of movies and TV shows to your phone every month, well, that’s a bit different from someone who uses a few megabytes a month, is it not? But, no one was really throttling, and, if a provider starts being shady, that’s why we have the Federal Trade Commission.
One day after the net neutrality changes, a federal judge is set to rule on Tuesday on whether AT&T can buy Time Warner. AT&T, already the country’s second-largest wireless network, stands to gain a content trove from Time Warner that includes HBO and CNN — leading the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit, to argue that the company could harm its rivals.
Put me on the side of not allowing the deal.
The two events in Washington could lead to further consolidation of wireless, cable and content giants, public-interest advocates say. And they fear that behemoths like AT&T might someday prioritize their own TV shows and other content over rivals’. Internet service providers, or ISPs, deny that they would engage in such a practice — yet consumer watchdogs worry that consumers would have little legal recourse if they did.
There’s already priority. I don’t get The Blaze on Time Warner here in Raleigh. You can’t get the NFL package on anything other than Direct TV. Things are never going to be perfect. And it’s called competition. Do you really want Government in control of all your Internet and entertainment content? Well, we know the answer if you’re a Democrats.
