July 14th, 2017: Net Neutrality

[Undertoad]

Heh, of course not. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has nothing to do with net neutrality and doesn't even mention it. Some net neutrality rules were introduced in 2015.

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Depending on where you are, you can certainly get Internet access over a private circuit. You're completely allowed, even in residential areas, to talk to someone like Hurricane Electric and purchase an interconnect to get the net to wherever you are. You need not get Comcast or FIOS.

You can get even a Gigabyte connection. It'll be a couple thousand a month, but here's the good news: you can resell it, as slightly-less-than-gigabyte internet, to as many people as you can connect. If you own an apartment building, you can wire the whole thing for this shared gigabyte and charge everyone in the building $20/month.

But if you find that difficult to do, you may want to hire a network admin to make sure the service is running. A tech support person to make sure people have a place to call for help. A billing department.... hmm this may mean more than $20/month to really price out.

It's hard. In 1996 I was running the tech end of an ISP and we connected people at 50K/min, 400 times slower than the average cable/FIOS connection, and charged people $20/month. But we went out of business, hmmm.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has nothing to do with net neutrality and doesn't even mention it.

Outright lie. That law was the benchmark that defined net neutrality.

No law or regulation says "net neutrality". The term is an umbrella that describes the many features implemented mostly in 1996 and that made the internet so innovative and successful. FCC regulations, changed by extremists for the benefit of the big data transporters, is the slow elimination of net neutrality. If we had free markets in the last mile, then 100 mbs internet would costs $20 per month.

Obviously internet is now grossly overpriced - and will sharply increase. Innovation means costs should decrease.

We know Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, et al already have massive profits at $50 for only 20 mbs internet. (Many must pay even more for that.) We know that consumer costs will increase as they surcharge data providers. That is not even debatable.

Unfortunately, UT is entrenched in the 'we want to protect Comcast, et al' camp. UT has long denied net neutrality even exists or is necessary. How curious. Major innovators of internet technology almost unanimously agree that net neutral is necessary. And that an extremist administration wants to subvert it.