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Yeah, but to clear something up - what's on the table isn't whether to regulate or not. It's whether to regulate one way or another. Either way, the government (the FCC in this case) is now going to be involved. The FCC is being asked to create regulations for a multi-tier system, or to create regulations that guarantee one tier for all. As things stand right now (in the U.S.), net neutrality is the default state of things. There's no law requiring it or formal regulation keeping it going. Conversely, the FCC has not given ISPs the authority to create a multi-tiered system either. Without that authority, the ISPs fear they will be swimming in legal hell for years. So up until now, the FCC is doing what most small-gov't proponents want: keeping the lightest possible touch and generally staying out of the way. However, now that ISPs are asking for the authority to create and maintain a multi-tiered system, the FCC is being forced to regulate one way or the other.
The other interesting question is that of stifling innovation. I know most times people talk of government stifling innovation, but to keep things in perspective, private companies often actively do the same thing. When a company is on top, they will "create barriers to entry" for their competition (a term I hear way too often), and attempt to otherwise maintain a competitive edge. As long as that competitive edge is fair competition, nobody really cares and that is actually beneficial for the consumer and market at large. But as soon as the company with the keys to the gate locks it out for any other potential competitor, they are doing far more to stifle innovation than any bumbling government agency could. So in this case, there's a risk that government may stifle innovation, but there's an equal (and some argue greater) chance that a handful of ISPs will abuse this multi-tier system to keep startups from being able to compete with their services, and that would severely stifle innovation.
As for the last point about choices, we are already fairly restricted in our choices. You can have dial-up or DSL, in which case, you are stuck with your one and only phone provider for the area. You can have cable, in which case you are stuck with your one and only cable provider for the area. If you are lucky enough to have fiber in the area, you are stuck with the provider who laid the fiber for your area. So bottom line: while there are potentially several providers (unless you live in rural areas), based on your needs, you will have one or extremely few choices at best already. Having said that, net neutrality (as it pertains to a multi-tiered system) isn't about your consumer end-point provider. It's the more about the back-end infrastructure. Regardless of which way the FCC goes, you will still obtain your internet end-point from whatever choices you currently have. The only thing that changes is whether or not the guys who run the traffic servers and switches and routers in the backend can create several lanes of traffic and force some of those lanes to be slower.
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Thanks for the info dense reply. I have a million things come to mind, so try to forgive.
So why isn't not regulating on the table? Feels like a false dilema to me. What is wrong with looking the carriers pushing to get regulations in place and telling them no? I strongly suspect this is a ploy for them to get rules laid out so they can then proceed to work around them. If you give them no rules... does the status quo not hold?
Of course one possible answer might be that a lack of a way forward on these issues may itself stifle innovation. Has that been discussed already?
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Yeah, sorry for the wall of text 
Not regulating is off the table mostly because you have two opposing groups who are forcing the issue. The ISPs in question want to create a multi-tier system, and they are lobbying the FCC to allow it explicitly so they can avoid lawsuits from people who don't want it. The free-internet groups want to keep things they way they are, but the only way to guarantee that is to force it in writing now - in other words, avoiding a rule in writing would open the way for the first group to do what it wants. Both groups are in direct conflict, and are forcing the explicit citation.
I seriously doubt the status quo will hold, with or without regulation. The status quo is already semi-broken. Which is to say that all traffic lanes being the same speed is the norm today, but some ISPs have already experimented with throttling some traffic (this is actually what got all groups to start squabbling in the first place).
That last sentence was actually the topic of a NYT article (at least I think it was NYT, I'll have to check). Some startups feel they will die out or not receive initial investment funding if the big established companies have the fast lane, and the startups are relegated to a slower lane. So it's entirely possible that some VC's are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the final word before they free up investment cash. I don't know how much this is actually the case today, but I think it's safe to say there certainly is the possibility that a lack of a way forward might be as problematic as one of the other regulatory solutions.
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On the one hand, net neutrailty is good. On the other, Obama suggested it, so it can't possiby be good. Of course we would have to pass the bill to see what's in it.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: Of course we would have to pass the bill to see what's in it.
and wait until after the next election to see how much it's going to cost.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0
There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Don't remember exact quote, but when it comes to regulation just ask yourself if you're comfortable with the other side having the same power.
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No politics in The Lounge! Take it to the Soapbox.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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This makes me wonder just who to believe now. All of the information I've been fed (by supposed Net Neutrality supporters) has been that Title II classification is exactly what 'we' want. It was my understanding that 'broadband' was previously classified under Title II, and the FCC allowed that classification to expire. After it expired (and probably as they saw the impending expiration,) ISPs started planning for a tiered internet, where they could extort higher fees out of internet companies, offering them the same bandwidth/speed/low latency that they previously enjoyed; anyone who didn't pay would be relegated to a 'slow lane'. If such was the case, I would see this as a impediment to innovation, as smaller start-up companies would have a much harder time competing in the marketplace. Classifying 'broadband' with Title II again, supposedly, fixes the problem by blocking ISPs from implementing such a tiered service.
Of course, we could both be correct, and the same people I've been hearing from may have only recently realized that the wording of Title II is vague enough to be open to abuse (it's legislature, wouldn't surprise me in the least.) But since what you say conflicts with what I've heard, I now have to wonder if the open-internet 'advocates' I've been listening to aren't just trying to scam people into supporting the wrong side (that being, the ISPs.)
All I know for certain is, the internet/'broadband' was doing just fine when it was (supposed to have been) under Title II classification, so it should likely regain said classification, if only to maintain the status-quo.
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Kyle Moyer wrote: This makes me wonder just who to believe now.
There are politicians and people with political agendas involved.
I hope that resolves your quandary.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I was reading this at VentureBeat[^] and it seems to summarise to
- No blocking.
- No throttling.
- Increased transparency.
- No paid prioritization
This seems good. In fact it kinda seems to be what the rest of the World takes for granted. Yet Obama did it so it's bad.
I find politics in the States truly bizarre. It always seems to be about the personality, or "your team winning" and never about the actual issue, let alone the common good. (and the "common good" always seems to bend and shift to exclude whatever the other team says).
So can someone please explain
a) Why Net Neutrality is so bad
b) What they feel The Others (ie not Obama) would have done to make it better. As far as I can tell the Republicans feel that the laws are unnecessary, even in the face of blatant steps by companies to have a tiered model. Is a tiered model actually better for those in the States?
I do not want a debate on American Politics I want to learn in what manner the law is flawed, and what alternatives have been proposed.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Net neutrality is what I assumed excised today, except for military purposes or critical infrastructure etc. I guess that the proponents of paid prioritization assumes that it would help to build fiber optics cables faster, as the big dogs would pay huge money for it, but I fear it would make it easier to exploit customers that don't pay anything extra; you get nothing or close to nothing for your buck.
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Net neutrality sort of exists today, although in the U.S. there is no binding regulation that forces it (that I know of). In certain other countries, some form of net neutrality is actually required by law. However, back to the U.S., a few ISPs have experimented on a small scale with throttling traffic, which is what got the scuffle kicked off to begin with.
The way I understand it, the ISPs are getting squeezed. Being an internet provider is already a thin margin business to begin with (although the margins in the U.S. are significantly larger than in other industrialized nations). But there are newer forms of internet end points that through competition are forcing consumer prices lower (some cities and Google are now trying to offer basic 4mbps wi-fi to entire cities for free, for example). So essentially, margins are getting tighter, and they can't squeeze much more revenue from consumers. The only other place to get revenue is from content and service (app) suppliers (not consumers). No supplier is going to pay in a market where suppliers have never paid, so the only way to get money there is to offer faster priority lanes for money.
Also, the idea isn't to add a significant amount of faster resources to the network (let's face it, if ISPs could be significantly faster for the price, they would be already in order to differentiate their offers from competitors). What this really means is that it's super tough to make things faster, but it's a whole lot easier to make other things slower. It's important to note that the multi-tier discussion is about back-end network resources (the ISP's traffic lanes, which almost all have fiber already), and not the consumer end-points (like adding fiber to your neighborhood). And if you look at all the actual proposals from the ISPs, the details all stipulate that they intend to throttle down "non-essential" internet services in order to give "premium" services priority on network resources. So this is really about slowing things down for those who don't pay, not really about speeding things up for those who do.
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Makes sense. So back then to the original point of all this - Title II. Why classify internet as a public utility? It is not needed for fundamental physical needs the way electric/gas/water are. It doesn't make sense to me, honestly it reeks of abuse of discretion (not that the feds ever do that).
If internet is a public utility does that not mean that it is a basic human right to have access in your house?
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Unrelated:
"
Just curious: why, in this case, do you recommend a HashSet: there's no indication the OP will want to do set operations in the future. On the other hand, we don't have any information here as to whether the OP wants to have an ordered collection in which case HashSet would not be indicated.
Is your recommendation based on the fact that a HashSet.Add will return a boolean reflecting whether or not the value was added, and you see that as better/simpler than using the 'Contains test on a generic List ?
"
Because it's hash table lookups rather than a scan.
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Hi Piebald, Thanks for taking the time to reply via this indirect route. I came across your mention of your response reading the current thread in Suggs&Bugs on question-closing.
And, I see your point about direct look-up vs. scan, thanks !
« I am putting myself to the fullest possible use which is all, I think, that any conscious entity can ever hope to do » HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) in "2001, A Space Odyssey"
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An array/List of booleans would be pretty good too.
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Looks like a death trap to me... 
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MUM!....What you doing here!
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I want one, but I'll only ride it after I've got a suit of Iron Man armour.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Good god, on a bicycle!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0
There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Need for Speed developers team, where are you? I want that in my Need for Speed game!
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Ahh, another case of 'Our rockets are far better than the coyote's'.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
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What that idiot would look like if he fell of his bike. Experiments like that are dumb, they server no real purpose. I know in the long run my opinion will be wrong, but currently, right now, I think that was stupid.
Anyhow, fast bike. Thanks for posting.
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I just showed that to Herself.
Her comment: "For Elephant's sake don't show that to Guy Martin!"
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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