Telco ISP’s tend to be too slow. As I mentioned, I can get DSL here via a telco, but as I do a lot of streaming and working remotely, their speeds can’t keep up. Having an option that is nonviable is not having an option at all.
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Well, what if your choice is dsl or Hughes…
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Move?
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Portugal is part of the EU, which has some of the best net neutrality rules, and beefed them up last year.
The infographic that was being sent around claiming Portugal didn’t have net neutrality was for mobile data plan add-ons, not home ISP services. If you had a 1GB data plan for your smartphone, you could get unlimited Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram data for a 4-5 euros more a month, instead of paying 50 euros per month more for unlimited data. (or whatever unlimited cellular data costs in Portugal). If you didn’t buy the add-on plan, you could still use Facebook and weren’t throttled or stopped, unless you hit the data cap for your cell service.
Here’s what Snopes has to say: https://www.snopes.com/portugal-net-neutrality/
I’m not bashing net neutrality, I’m all for it, but hate it when any side tried to misleads me - even if I’m on the side of the group with mis-leading information.
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Here’s a well-articulated article taking the minority position. Note: I’m not advocating a position because I simply do not know enough. There seems to me to be a lot of speculation on both sides.
I looked into when the Portugal claim first came out.
What makes it relevant (and what Snopes surprisingly failed to point out) and applicable is both that the package menu exists on non-protected internet access and, more importantly, that the majority of internet users in Portugal access via cellular services.
Specifically, as of 2012, about 65% of Portugal’s population had internet access and 32% of said population accesses via mobile vs. 22% via fixed line. While obviously 5 year old stats, the 2017 total internet # is up to 74%. I could not find more recent mobile vs. fixed line stats, but would not expect a huge shift in the breakdown (based on more recent statistics from other markets) beyond that, likely, the % who use mobile has increased.
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I would expect the interesting changes (especially for entertainment streaming services owned by – or partnered with – competing gigaproviders) to start happening relatively quickly. Because until now we’ve been relying on the FCC’s promise that it would enforce network neutrality rules to discourage bad behavior. It seems unlikely that the FCC will put such enforcement on a fast track in the near future.
And yeah, I expect any company that depends on cloud services to get shaken down by the majors sooner or later. “You want your customers on our last-mile network to be able to send packets to your servers reliably? Ante up.”
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And yeah, I expect any company that depends on cloud services to get shaken down by the majors sooner or later. “You want your customers on our last-mile network to be able to send packets to your servers reliably? Ante up.”
They have already done worse.
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Code injection: A new low for ISPs | InfoWorld Comcast and other ISPs insert their own ads into web pages, forcing their ads (for promoting their services) over the web pages served by the web site.
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Chinese ISPs Caught Injecting Ads and Malware into Web Pages Chinese ISPs got caught rewriting traffic to inject ads and malware into network traffic.
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ISPs in India injecting code into web pages injection - My ISP (BSNL India) is injecting ads using Phozeca which spoils websites and makes them unresponsive, can anything be done? - Information Security Stack Exchange .
And many more
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Not only has so much of it been paid for by taxpayers, the coverage isn’t anywhere close to ubiquitous.
By default, that map shows everywhere that has 3-1000Mbs speeds. Move the slider to the right and see how quickly coverage falls off.
And 2 or more providers? Try this one:
Be sure to click on the “Unserved Areas” so that the areas not served show up in red. Notice how much of the country doesn’t even have 1 broadband provider, much less 2 or more.
If you select “Show Gallery” at the bottom of the page you’ll see several map thumbnails that slice the data in different ways.
And these mega-corps skirt the laws any way they can. In New York City
Verizon’s franchise agreement with the state requires it to make service “available to all residential dwelling units, at Franchisee’s expense, except that Franchisee may charge a standard installation fee.”
The Verizon representative urged the building owner to commit all of his tenants to FiOS for a minimum of five years. Without such a commitment, the Verizon representative wrote that the company would not do construction until all other building owners on the block provided permission to begin.
“It is my understanding that you are looking to have FiOS installed at [two buildings],” the Verizon representative wrote. “A Right of Way document needs to be obtained from all the building owners on the block in order for us to wire FiOS. Currently we do not have a time frame when that will be completed. We might be able to build it sooner if these 2 buildings go with a bulk agreement. A bulk agreement is where 100% of the living units would go with FiOS.”
I recall another article indicating that Verizon was refusing to provide service in an apartment building that did not give them an exclusive contract.
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Verizon, AT&T or Sprint do not serve my area. Have to drive 20 miles in any direction to get a cell signal.
Internet access for most of my neighbors is provided by Frontier Communications. Normal maximum speeds for all my neighbors are 256K down and less up. WV sued Frontier and won a $150M judgement because rural areas were not getting the service Frontier continues to advertise and promise. The company has a monopoly in most of the counties.
I’m lucky. My home is 150ft across the county line and I have a Fiber Optic connection. We are served by an independent customer owned cooperative that has been working hard to install fiber to all homes throughout the county. Profits are returned to the customers. When the big telecommunications companies say that serving rural America is a loosing proposition, just take a look at my location. I’m happy, have yet to experience any downtime in 2 years and have affordable internet.
Big companies are 100% maximize the profit; invest only if it is required.
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I have two options: Comcast and Frontier FIOS. Frontier FIOS is actually what they bought from Verizon FIOS when Verizon decided to exit the market here in the Seattle area.
Frontier stopped the FIOS build-out. They are just milking the customers they have. Their TV offerings are way below what Comcast provides, and even though Verizon FIOS would work with my Tivo, Frontier has no interest in making that work.
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Understand and agree. My main point is that the big companies have no interest in serving low population areas. Why? Profit! They also have a vested interest in preferential treatment of their own products and services. Why? Profit! Once there is true competition the providers can bundle or direct all they want. We would have an option to change providers. But there is currently little or no competition outside the cities. Until then, pay for what we use, but NO preferential treatment of traffic and services.
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Totally agree with you.
By the way, it’s not all big companies that are like that.
Here’s an in-depth article on what Microsoft is proposing (and actively trying to get government support for doing):
(Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, my words are my own and do not represent Microsoft’s views and I don’t have any inside knowledge about this stuff 
)
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“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” - FCC
I decided that this isn’t the place to have this discussion. While I’ve worked at major telcos and content providers and have plenty to add, I’d rather build stuff and let others gnash their teeth. I enjoy this space for the amazing things people create. I’ll stick to that.
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I only want to add that some people live in areas with a lot of options for internet service, apparently, and believe this to be true for everyone (“just switch providers”). I’d like to say that’s not the case for everyone. Example: my business located in downtown Los Angeles had only ONE provider available for many years, and now there’s two: one is fine, the other is almost unusable (I’ve tried them both). Something to consider for people that believe the free market will sort this out: that only works when there’s multiple viable options.
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I don’t really know much about the net neutrality details, but I wonder if your coop could be affected by preferential speeds imposed by the entity that supplies them the signal? Or is it just the last link to the customer that has that ability? @bbum, insight appreciated here.
Same backbone to both systems. We don’t get your typically advertised FIOS speeds but we get exactly the advertised speed 100% of the time with zero downtime. It’s 30MBPS down and 10MBPS up to residences. The company is very proactive, without having a profit motive.
You unfortunately DO NOT know what you’re talking about. @sailbyc Was EXACTLY right. I’ve been working in IT for over 25 yrs. I’ve been a network engineer for most of that time. Title II laws on ISP’s created by Obama was one of THE largest Globalist takeovers this country has ever seen. Where was all the rage when Obama sold ICANN to the UN?
Prior to VErizon v. FCC, the FCC classified ISPs under Title I of Bill Clinton’s 1996 Telecommunications Act, meaning, they acted as PRIVATE entities with minimal regulation from Government. Separate and unrelated to THAT classification, the FCC held ISPs accountable to the Open-Internet Rules ( no throttling, no blocking, no paid-prioritization).
Verizon v. FCC changed all that, ruling that if the FCC wanted to enforce Open-Internet Rules, they need to re-classify ISPs under TITLE II as quasi-utilities strictly regulated as “common carriers”, effectively a STATE-LICENSED MONOPLOY. The most critical factor here is that UNDER Title II, ISPs need to apply for Broadcasing Licenses, which give the government MASSIVE leverage over them. There was an insane amount of influence being exerted over Verizon v. FCC by tech companies and their politicians. Netflix allegedly manipulated their own service to frame ISPs for throttling. ( Allegedly, meaning, there is PLENTY of evidence those scumbags actually DID it, to further push this agenda to reclassify ISPs as Title II. )
Without a license, the ISP in question would go bankrupt. Meaning new upstart ISPs could be killed before they even got off the ground when their license weren’t awarded. Here comes the interesting part. This was an incredibly UNPOPULAR idea by most in the IT sector. For obvious reasons. The FCC literally has their hands bound at this point, in order for them to keep the Open-Internet Rules intact, which they had for YEARS prior with no issues under TITLE I, they would need to re-classify ISPs as TITLE II, which meant the government CONTROLLED the internet in the US. This will come into play a bit later. Just hold on. So Obama decides he’s gonna be Superman, ( he’s not ) and rebrands this whole fiasco, “Net Neutrality”. The public is brainwashed into believing Obama was “SAVING THE INTERNET!”. From who exactly? Oh…the VERY PEOPLE WE WERE DEFENDING IT FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE! They revoked Open Internet in Verizon v. FCC, repackaged it as “Net Neutrality” and now the internet is controlled by the US Government. Neat huh?
Story gets better.
Obama waited until the VERY last minute on Christmas Eve of 2016, and hid the “Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S.2692)” into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. He knew the Senate would just pass it, they wanted to get out of session and go home for Christmas. And he was right.
Do YOU know what the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S.2692) did?
The mission statement says, " To counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department…" Strange. So it’s comprised of MULTIPLE agencies, and its center is IN the White House.
Page 1399 - "The Head of the Center shall be appointed by the President."
What? That’s REALLY strange. So what exactly is this center comprised of multiple agencies, headed by one person who reports DIRECTLY to Obama going to do you may wonder?
“Maintain, collect, use and disseminate records for research and data analysis of foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.”
NON-STATE??? So you mean…Yahoo? CNN? Facebook? Twitter? Youtube? Yes. Exactly.
So we fast forward to page 1,396 of the NDAA ( page 1,438 on the PDF )
SEC. 1287. GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT CENTER.
"Identifying current and emerging trends in foreign propaganda and disinformation, including the use of print, broadcast, online and social media, support for third-party outlets such as think thanks, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations, and the use of covert or clandestine special operators and agents to INFLUENCE TARGETED POPULATIONS and governments in order to coordinate and shape the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures to expose and refute foreign misinformation and disinformation.
Snopes anyone?
Why passing Net Neutrality ended up being so important.
The President uses the “whole-of-goverment” to suppress information. Thanks to Net Neutrality’s Title II, they can order all ISPs to take down hostile information and ANY websites that distribute it. If the ISP refuses, their Title II Broadcasting License is LEGALLY revoked, they can no longer do business, they go bankrupt, and the government can just buy out the infrastructure.
That’s why VITAL information on social media is constantly suppressed. Don’t be fooled. I’ve spent FAR too much time learning about all this, and keeping up on all the TRUTHS of this topic.
I’ve included specific pages to the docs you need to verify and do your own homework.
Net Neutrality is dead, FINALLY. Thanks to Donald J. Trump, and the internet is BACK to being OPEN.
Give it time, and stop freaking out. You’re going to see more competition, you’re going to see LESS fake news, and things will get better. Stop listening to the globalists trying to feed you lies.
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For sure. But I had to put everyone straight. I won’t comment any more, I /mic dropped.