FCC and Net Neutrality

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Ralph-Wiggum
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

Three. But still way too low.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Blackhawk »

But their constituents do.

Which was the whole point of this.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by gbasden »

It's amazing that the Republicans can manage to be on the wrong side of *every* issue. You would think they would stumble into being reasonable occasionally, but somehow no.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Paingod »

It's still too little too late for Collins with my vote. She's been willingly swindled by her own party on at least two huge issues (the tax cut being the biggest) since Trump took office. I'll be voting against her and have said as much in the voicemails I've left with her office.

The only mildly redeeming thing has been that she's not consistently shoulder-to-shoulder with her party in standing against average Americans and their interests.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Isgrimnur »

Gizmodo
A former FCC senior official who issued false statements to reporters, claiming a cyberattack hobbled the agency’s comment system in 2014 and that the ex-chairman ordered it kept quiet, is now backpedaling amid renewed scrutiny by U.S. lawmakers and a wholesale denial by the former chairman himself.

The FCC itself has commenced a media blackout over the affair, refusing to address or even acknowledge questions from reporters for over a week.

After the Federal Communications Commission’s comment system was battered by internet traffic in June 2014, then-agency IT chief David Bray repeatedly misportrayed the cause, claiming a malicious attack was a responsible. But until Commissioner Ajit Pai was appointed chairman of the agency in early 2017, Bray could only propagate his claims as an anonymous source—contradicting the findings of his agency’s own independent security contractors.
...
But the story grew larger over time: As Gizmodo reported Tuesday, the FCC began telling journalists there was a reason this 2014 attack was never officially reported—the former chairman wanted it kept under wraps.

None of it was true.
...
The FCC has gone dark on this issue. It is refusing to answer questions from reporters. It is even refusing to go on the record to say it stands by its own story about a malicious cyberattack causing its system to crash for a second time last year. Notably, the claim it was attacked in May 2017 was first made by Bray, who is now shown to be a less-than-credible source.

The FCC continues to deny reporters and lawmakers access to any records that might demonstrate there’s a professional analysis supporting its more recent cyberattack claim. It is preventing hundreds of pages of related records from being disclosed through FOIA requests, citing the Trade Secrets Act and the deliberative process privilege, whereby the agency claims revealing the records would impair its ability to make sound decisions in the future.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Isgrimnur »

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:28 am Gizmodo
A former FCC senior official who issued false statements to reporters, claiming a cyberattack hobbled the agency’s comment system in 2014 and that the ex-chairman ordered it kept quiet, is now backpedaling amid renewed scrutiny by U.S. lawmakers and a wholesale denial by the former chairman himself.
ars technica
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai yesterday acknowledged that the FCC lied about its public comment system being taken down by a DDoS attack during the net neutrality repeal proceeding.

Pai blamed the spreading of false information on employees hired by the Obama administration, and said that he isn't to blame because he "inherited... a culture" from "the prior Administration" that led to the spreading of false information. Pai wrote:
I am deeply disappointed that the FCC's former Chief Information Officer [David Bray], who was hired by the prior Administration and is no longer with the Commission, provided inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people. This is completely unacceptable. I'm also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn't feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office."
Pai's admission came in a statement yesterday. "It has become clear that in addition to a flawed comment system, we inherited from the prior Administration a culture in which many members of the Commission's career IT staff were hesitant to express disagreement with the Commission's former CIO in front of FCC management," he also said.
...
According to Pai, the Inspector General's report "debunks the conspiracy theory" that Pai himself was to blame for the FCC spreading false information.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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ars technica
Santa Clara Fire paid Verizon for "unlimited" data but suffered from heavy throttling until the department paid Verizon more, according to Bowden's declaration and emails between the fire department and Verizon that were submitted as evidence.

The throttling recently affected "OES 5262," a fire department vehicle that is "deployed to large incidents as a command and control resource" and is used to "track, organize, and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed," Bowden wrote.

"OES 5262 also coordinates all local government resources deployed to the Mendocino Complex Fire," an ongoing wildfire that is the largest in California's history, Bowden wrote.

The vehicle has a device that uses a Verizon SIM card for Internet access.

"In the midst of our response to the Mendocino Complex Fire, County Fire discovered the data connection for OES 5262 was being throttled by Verizon, and data rates had been reduced to 1/200, or less, than the previous speeds," Bowden wrote. "These reduced speeds severely interfered with the OES 5262's ability to function effectively. My Information Technology staff communicated directly with Verizon via email about the throttling, requesting it be immediately lifted for public safety purposes."

Verizon did not immediately restore full speeds to the device, however.

"Verizon representatives confirmed the throttling, but rather than restoring us to an essential data transfer speed, they indicated that County Fire would have to switch to a new data plan at more than twice the cost, and they would only remove throttling after we contacted the Department that handles billing and switched to the new data plan," Bowden wrote.
...
Verizon throttling also affected the department in a response to previous fires in December and June, emails show.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Daehawk »

CA signs into law their version of net neutrality and instantly the DOJ sues them.

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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Pyperkub »

Supremes let ruling upholding Obama-era Net Neutrality FCC rules stand:
The Supreme Court on Monday put an end to a legal battle over the Obama administration's net neutrality rules, refusing to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that upheld the 2015 regulations.

The court declined to hear the appeal from the trade group USTelecom, which represents internet service providers, and Century Link Inc. without explanation...

...But net neutrality supporters celebrated the win on Monday, noting that it leaves in place a high court ruling that the FCC has the authority to regulate broadband like a public utility.
A glimmer of good news.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Pyperkub »

Pai's repeal trial starts tomorrow 2/1:
Oral arguments in the case against Ajit Pai's net neutrality repeal are scheduled for Friday morning, and net neutrality advocates are confident that they will be victorious.

The groups that sued the Federal Communications Commission to reverse the repeal argue that Pai offered insufficient legal justification for deregulating the broadband industry...

..."As a legal matter, broadband should be classified as a telecommunications service under the Communications Act," Free Press Policy Director (and attorney) Matt Wood said at the press conference. "ISPs send our speech to each other. They don't step in and dictate what we can say or change it in any way."

The topic was also addressed by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who helped write the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a major update to the Communications Act that contains the definition of telecommunications.

"Both the plain language [of the law] and congressional intent make clear that broadband is a telecommunications service," Markey said. "As the House author of the bill I know firsthand what we intended in 1996. Yet Chairman Pai ignored the statute and our intent when the FCC reclassified broadband to an information service and eliminated net neutrality rules."
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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Gizmodo
Internal FCC logs reviewed by Gizmodo for the first time offer clues as to why the matching comments led investigators in October to the doorstep of CQ Roll Call, a company that, while running an august newsroom in the nation’s capital, is also in the business of helping lobbyists construct digital “grassroots” campaigns aimed at influencing policymakers, and specifically, those controlling the FCC’s rulemaking process.

The logs, obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, document in exhaustive detail each time an organization such as CQ—the advocacy side of the company—submitted a comment using the FCC’s API system. What’s more, they include the IP addresses of the uploaders themselves, as well as timestamps that record, down to the millisecond, precisely when floods of comments came pouring in from any given source.

While it’s FCC policy to accept and help manually upload spreadsheets containing batches of comments collected by virtually anyone, it also offers access to an API system that give groups like CQ, Fight for the Future, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation the ability to create their own submission pages that feed directly into the agency’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). The API, which helped funnel millions of comments to the agency in 2017, is maintained by the General Services Administration (GSA).
...
As of October 2018, investigators in New York had isolated a batch of roughly 9.35 million comments, which they had deemed suspicious and potentially attributed to Americans whose names had been used without their permission.

The investigations into the fake comments largely stem from reports published almost simultaneously on May 10, 2017, by Gizmodo, Verge, and ZDNet, all of which focused on identical comments that were submitted to the FCC several hundred thousand times. The language used in the comments—which are now suspected of having been uploaded using CQ’s software—was eventually traced back to a conservative nonprofit called the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF).
...
Founded in 1998, CFIF is a reportedly a dark-money group whose early roots lie in defending Big Tobacco, but which supported the repeal of net neutrality more recently and has campaigned aggressively against state laws requiring political groups like itself to disclose the sources of its funding. Along with CQ, the group is among the 14 entities subpoenaed by the New York attorney general last fall, as first reported by former BuzzFeed reporter Kevin Collier in October.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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ars technica
The Federal Communications Commission has settled a case over its refusal to comply with a public records request, agreeing to pay $43,000 to a journalist who sued the commission.

Freelance writer Jason Prechtel filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FCC in mid-2017, asking for data that would identify who made bulk comment uploads in the proceeding that led to the repeal of net neutrality rules. Prechtel was trying to research comments that were falsely attributed to people without their knowledge.

The FCC didn't comply with the request and allegedly didn't even approve or deny the FOIA request within the legally allotted timeframe, so Prechtel sued the commission in September 2017. One year later, a US District Court judge presiding over the case ordered the FCC to stop withholding certain records sought by Prechtel, although the ruling didn't give Prechtel everything he asked for.

A settlement agreement filed in court this week says the FCC agreed to pay Prechtel $43,000 to cover his attorneys' fees and court costs. Chairman Ajit Pai's FCC did not admit any wrongdoing, but the settlement has resulted in the case being closed.

As Gizmodo noted in a story about the settlement yesterday, "The data Prechtel ultimately obtained through the case formed the basis of a Gizmodo report last month—which he coauthored—that revealed how investigators had linked various entities, including a prominent Washington, DC, publication, to potentially millions of fraudulent comments submitted during the 2017 net neutrality rollback."
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Pyperkub »

As expected, Ajit Pai was full of shit:
It's been a year, and while Pai has touted major gains in broadboand investment, these were also a fraud, with the big telcos slashing investment, slashing jobs, sucking up massive tax subsidies (no, even more massive), while continuing to deliver the slowest, most expensive data in any developed country.

Veteran telcoms journalist Rob Rogoraro digs into Pai's claims in depth, finding them to be baseless: since the slaughter of Net Neutrality, investment and service are worse, and prices are higher. ..

...throttling and paid prioritization deals we worried about are also not in evidence, but as Karl Bode points out at Techdirt, that's likely because dozens of states' attorneys general are suing to the FCC to restore Net Neutrality, so any throttling/prioritization deals that the teclos struck would have to be unwound if the AGs prevailed
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by LawBeefaroni »

ATT has rolled out fiber in our area. I have repeatedly called and been told that it's not available at my address.


This weekend at a barbeque party a neighbor said he just got it. He's on the same alley as us. I explained how I had tried, he said he had the same results. Until he got a door hanger announcing it. He called again and they told him it was still unavailable. He raised holy hell about them sticking the door hanger on his door. They put him on hold, then came back with a number to call and offer code. He called and suddenly his address is covered.

Apparently they have much wider coverage than they let on but are slow rolling it to manage quarterly perforance. At least this was the feedback from some other neighbors, one who is an analyst (in a different sector but he says it's a common practice). It's all about the money, not the service.


We're cancelling our ATT dsl ASAP and frankly I'm embarrassed that we still have it. 5MB/3MB at like $160/month.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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Never heard anything good about AT&T or Comcast.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:11 pm ATT has rolled out fiber in our area. I have repeatedly called and been told that it's not available at my address.


This weekend at a barbeque party a neighbor said he just got it. He's on the same alley as us. I explained how I had tried, he said he had the same results. Until he got a door hanger announcing it. He called again and they told him it was still unavailable. He raised holy hell about them sticking the door hanger on his door. They put him on hold, then came back with a number to call and offer code. He called and suddenly his address is covered.

Apparently they have much wider coverage than they let on but are slow rolling it to manage quarterly perforance. At least this was the feedback from some other neighbors, one who is an analyst (in a different sector but he says it's a common practice). It's all about the money, not the service.


We're cancelling our ATT dsl ASAP and frankly I'm embarrassed that we still have it. 5MB/3MB at like $160/month.
Comcast did the same exact thing to my dad. He lives out in the Western PA countryside, and for years he would call up Comcast and was told that they couldn't get service at his address. Then one day a flyer showed up in his mailbox with a great offer. He called, much bitching ensued, and now he has Comcast internet and cable.

It's amazing how difficult these companies make it for you to give them your money.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Pyperkub »

Gee - what a corrupt FCC Ajit Pai is running:

Ajit Pai's Broadband Committee Chair (Telecom CEO) gets prison time for Fraud:
The former head of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) was sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding investors.

Elizabeth Ann Pierce was CEO of Quintillion, an Alaskan telecom company, when she lied to two investment firms in New York in order to raise $270 million to build a fiber network. She also defrauded two individual investors out of $365,000 and used a large chunk of that money for personal expenses.
Ajit Pai hiding geolocation abuses from Democratic commissioners and lied to Congress about it:
Democratic commissioners at the FCC are still in the dark when it comes the agency’s ongoing investigation into the unauthorized sale of Americans’ geolocation data, Gizmodo has learned...

...At an oversight hearing last month, House lawmakers pressed Chairman Ajit Pai to respond to charges that his office had refused to provide the Democratic commissioners with access to requested documentation, including any letters of inquiry the FCC might’ve sent to companies under suspicion of illegally selling location data derived from consumers’ cellphones...

..Rep. Eshoo later asked Pai to clarify his remarks in a letter, saying FCC officials had informed her that they had “explicitly asked for and have not received” specific information and documents. “I would like to give you the opportunity to correct the comments you made at the hearing, recognizing that lying to Congress is a federal crime,” she wrote.

Democratic FCC officials, who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters, likewise confirmed that Pai’s office has continued to withhold the documents.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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Nothing surprises me about that piece of shit.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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Time to prosecute.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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ars technica
A federal appeals court today upheld the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules but said the FCC cannot preempt all state net neutrality laws.

"We uphold the 2018 Order, with two exceptions," the judges' ruling said. "First, the Court concludes that the Commission has not shown legal authority to issue its Preemption Directive, which would have barred states from imposing any rule or requirement that the Commission 'repealed or decided to refrain from imposing' in the Order or that is 'more stringent' than the Order." The FCC "ignored binding precedent" when making its preemption order, and "that failure is fatal" to the preemption, judges wrote.
...
In today's ruling, judges remanded the repeal order to the FCC, saying that the agency has to do more justification of the net neutrality repeal. But importantly, judges remanded the order to the FCC without vacating it and said that the FCC's opponents' objections are "unconvincing for the most part." That means the FCC decision to deregulate broadband at the federal level and eliminate net neutrality rules is still in effect.

The decision was made with a 2-1 vote by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. All three judges agreed that the FCC can repeal its own net neutrality rules, but Senior Circuit Judge Stephen Williams dissented from the decision to vacate the preemption of state laws. The decision could be appealed to the full Court of Appeals and eventually to the Supreme Court.
...
On remand, the FCC must address three problems with the net neutrality repeal. Specifically, judges wrote that the FCC "failed to examine the implications of its decisions for public safety" and failed to "sufficiently explain what reclassification will mean for regulation of pole attachments." The FCC also did not address opponents' concerns about the effect deregulation will have on the FCC's Lifeline program that subsidizes phone and Internet access for low-income Americans, judges wrote.

But judges did not dispute the FCC's decision to classify broadband as an information service instead of a telecommunications service. Classifying broadband as an information service essentially deregulated the industry and helped the FCC repeal the core net neutrality rules. Judges said that the FCC decision to reclassify broadband was "a reasonable policy choice."
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

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Another stupid FCC thing is they want broadband classified at like 10 meg instead of 25+ and they want to count cell phone covered as part of broadband coverage. So if you dont have broadband but are even within a semi working cell area then you are classified as broadband able. Its BS.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Isgrimnur »

Endgadget
The FCC might not have much choice but to hand over data logs for fake net neutrality comments. A federal judge has ordered (via Gizmodo) the regulator to turn over server records to New York Times reporters that would reveal the IP addresses behind bogus comments supporting the net neutrality repeal. The FCC had contended that divulging the IP addresses would represent an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” but Judge Lorna Schofield said the agency didn’t really explain how anyone would be hurt by transferring the data.

The judge argued that the benefits clearly outweighed the drawbacks, as fake comments threatened the very nature of the public input system. The “notice-and-comment process has failed” if there are more fraudulent comments than real ones,” Schofield said.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Daehawk »

Boy that would be a dream come true if that idiot ass went to prison.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by hitbyambulance »

Ajit Pai is being shown the door on Jan 20:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/f ... anuary-20/
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Jaymann »

Great news!
The incoming FCC is likely to try to reinstate net neutrality rules and focus on closing the “digital divide,” getting internet service to Americans who don’t have it because it’s not available or they can’t afford it.
It may just be psychological, but has anyone else noticed a slow down in their internet speeds since this clown acted?
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Isgrimnur »

TechDirt
California's rules prohibited a company like AT&T from taking money from, say, ESPN, to exempt just ESPN content from caps. Why? One, again, caps are bogus artificial constructs that serve no technical function. And two, if a deep-pocketed giant like ESPN can afford to bypass your pointless cellular restrictions, and smaller online sports website can't, ESPN just gained an unfair competitive advantage (once AT&T gets its slice of the pie, of course).

AT&T, as you might expect, doesn't like this loss of revenue and power (the only two things this has ever been about for them). As such, the company took to their policy blog this week to whine incessantly about how unfair this all is. The company says that as a result of the rules it's backing off its "sponsored data" zero rating plan not just in California, but in other states. It will also no longer let companies buy cap-exempt, "zero rated" status. That's a good thing for internet competition, startups, innovation, and consumers. But this being AT&T, of course the company claims the exact opposite:
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Skinypupy »

Sigh...


The New York Attorney General has found that one 19 year-old college student was responsible for impersonating arout 9 million people in bulk-submissions of anti-net-neutrality comments to the FCC, which substantially affected the debate and final decision making of the FCC.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by El Guapo »

Skinypupy wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 4:41 pm which substantially affected the debate and final decision making of the FCC.
Without taking away from the NYAG's case, this isn't really true, right? What substantially affected the debate and final decision making of the FCC was a Republican administration gaining control of the FCC. I imagine it would be more accurate to say that it "substantially affected the FCC's official explanation for its decision making".
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 4:58 pmWithout taking away from the NYAG's case, this isn't really true, right?
That's exactly my read. Well except there is no case. She just recommends some fixes. In the end, Ajit Pai was going to do this no matter what. The worse part IMO is broadband companies spammed in millions of fake comments with real people names and addresses. That's identity theft and fraud IMO but fuck it. Rule by the unaccountable rich is super fun.

The dipshit kid didn't even use real names and addresses. They should have detected that. At the time many suspected that the volume of comments were faked since citizens suddenly started mail bombing Congress. You know because people even understood this deeply complex technical issue when they can't get basic facts about how Congress works right.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by stessier »

ISPs paid for astroturfing using real people's names (compared to the 19 year old) and fake consent forms.
The largest Internet providers in the US funded a campaign that generated "8.5 million fake comments" to the Federal Communications Commission as part of the ISPs' fight against net neutrality rules during the Trump administration, according to a report issued today by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

Nearly 18 million out of 22 million comments were fabricated, including both pro- and anti-net neutrality submissions, the report said. One 19-year-old submitted 7.7 million pro-net neutrality comments under fake, randomly generated names. But the astroturfing effort funded by the broadband industry stood out because it used real people's names without their consent, with third-party firms hired by the industry faking consent records, the report said.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Daehawk »

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Unagi
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Unagi »

It’s an eye catching color to use on that map.

I’d be willing to bet an overwhelming number of those counties would more normally be colored red, in other maps.


And I’ll go on to say, that they probably wouldn’t give a shit about the rest of the map, if that map was reversed. And I’m so sick of caring about ‘them’ while they clearly don’t care about shit or other people.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Holman »

Unagi wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 3:35 pm It’s an eye catching color to use on that map.

I’d be willing to bet an overwhelming number of those counties would more normally be colored red, in other maps.


And I’ll go on to say, that they probably wouldn’t give a shit about the rest of the map, if that map was reversed. And I’m so sick of caring about ‘them’ while they clearly don’t care about shit or other people.
It might be more a map of poverty than of politics.

Looking at Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, a lot of the indicated counties belong to the "Black Belt" of poor, rural, minority areas.
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Pyperkub
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Pyperkub »

Holman wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 4:49 pm
Unagi wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 3:35 pm It’s an eye catching color to use on that map.

I’d be willing to bet an overwhelming number of those counties would more normally be colored red, in other maps.


And I’ll go on to say, that they probably wouldn’t give a shit about the rest of the map, if that map was reversed. And I’m so sick of caring about ‘them’ while they clearly don’t care about shit or other people.
It might be more a map of poverty than of politics.

Looking at Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, a lot of the indicated counties belong to the "Black Belt" of poor, rural, minority areas.
Poverty AND/or rural areas where service is not profitable. Which is why the ISP's disdain them and would rather spend millions upon millions to NOT install/upgrade their infrastructure. It is a classic monopoly behavior.
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Unagi
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Unagi »

Yeah. I know my comment was one of fatigue.

Along the lines of: I want to help those people, yet I can’t reach that area and help. It’s out of my hands and in the hands of people that I have found have little desire to actually help the poor. And yet enough of them vote in a direction that will never lead to their aid.

IMO.
I’m not sure we can compel a business to offer service at a loss, but I feel the government should provide a baseline access to all.
Oh but that’s socialism right there.

/shrug.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Pyperkub »

Unagi wrote:Yeah. I know my comment was one of fatigue.

Along the lines of: I want to help those people, yet I can’t reach that area and help. It’s out of my hands and in the hands of people that I have found have little desire to actually help the poor. And yet enough of them vote in a direction that will never lead to their aid.

IMO.
I’m not sure we can compel a business to offer service at a loss, but I feel the government should provide a baseline access to all.
Oh but that’s socialism right there.

/shrug.
Of course we can compel companies to provide service. Especially those who depend on public rights of way for infrastructure. The same factors go/went into telephone service, power service, water service, etc.

It's how utilities have always been handled.
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!

Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Blackhawk »

I know that in at least one of those counties (one listed as 10% at broadband speeds) connections of ~250 down are available.

Mostly because I'm there, and that's what I have.

Poverty is part of it, and politics, and likely demographics (the elderly population here is pretty high, while the young, tech-savvy population is all heading for greener pastures. Part of it is likely even cultural - a lot of people around here still think of the internet as a useless gadget that doesn't deserve more of their money than what's required for Facebook.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Kraken »

Can Elon Musk close the digital divide?

The short answer: No. Not in the US, anyway.
As it builds out the network, SpaceX is running public beta tests of the service in areas of the planet where the satellites pass overhead, including parts of Canada, the northern United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Anybody can sign up to participate in the test program, which SpaceX has code-named “Better Than Nothing.” It’s a candid admission of the company’s target audience: people in remote locations who are desperate for decent broadband.

People like Mark Lipton, who heard about Starlink purely by accident and signed up. Beta testers pay $500 for a satellite dish and modem to connect to the service and then are billed $99 a month for unlimited access.
...
Starlink is also unlikely to pose much of a competitive threat to traditional broadband providers. It’s more costly than services from Comcast or Verizon. Also, a research report by telecom industry analyst Craig Moffett estimates that when fully deployed, Starlink will have enough capacity to serve only about 800,000 US households, a fraction of the domestic market. One reason, wrote Moffett, is that only about 3 percent of the available satellites will be over US territory at any given time.
At best, Starlink will offer asymmetrical ("meaning it offers relatively high download speeds but comparatively slow uploads") broadband to a fairly small number of US households in remote locations who can afford it.
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Unagi
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Unagi »

Pyperkub wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 6:45 pm
Unagi wrote:Yeah. I know my comment was one of fatigue.

Along the lines of: I want to help those people, yet I can’t reach that area and help. It’s out of my hands and in the hands of people that I have found have little desire to actually help the poor. And yet enough of them vote in a direction that will never lead to their aid.

IMO.
I’m not sure we can compel a business to offer service at a loss, but I feel the government should provide a baseline access to all.
Oh but that’s socialism right there.

/shrug.
Of course we can compel companies to provide service. Especially those who depend on public rights of way for infrastructure. The same factors go/went into telephone service, power service, water service, etc.

It's how utilities have always been handled.
You are, of course, right. But those were less political times and all that.
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Re: FCC and Net Neutrality

Post by Isgrimnur »

If only there were some Universal Service programs around to help people.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 expanded the traditional goal of universal service to include increased access to both telecommunications and advanced services – such as high-speed Internet – for all consumers at just, reasonable and affordable rates. The Act established principles for universal service that specifically focused on increasing access to evolving services for consumers living in rural and insular areas, and for consumers with low-incomes. Additional principles called for increased access to high-speed Internet in the nation’s schools, libraries and rural health care facilities. The FCC established four programs within the Universal Service Fund to implement the statute. The four programs are:
  • Connect America Fund (formally known as High-Cost Support) for rural areas
  • Lifeline (for low-income consumers), including initiatives to expand phone service for residents of Tribal lands
  • Schools and Libraries (E-rate)
  • Rural Health Care
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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