EU takes a dump on others. Net neutrality is law: no roaming charges

**AoE** · 2014-02-06 21:43

Wouldn't say we've forgotten them when genuine U.S history isn't taught in the first place unless you major history in college.

Also doesn't help that people don't understand their real civil duty or that being patriotic has nothing to do with agreeing with everything your government does.

**ringthree** · 2014-02-07 08:59

Originally Posted by AoE

Wouldn't say we've forgotten them when genuine U.S history isn't taught in the first place unless you major history in college.

Also doesn't help that people don't understand their real civil duty or that being patriotic has nothing to do with agreeing with everything your government does.

Or disagreeing with everything your black president does.

**Meresgi** · 2014-02-07 12:11

http://www.ideastream.org/news/npr/272480919

The U.S. needs to start treating the Internet like electricity or railroads, law professor and author Susan Crawford says. "We can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement," she says.

Under a recent court decision, Internet service providers, primarily cable companies, aren't required to treat all websites equally. They can make deals to provide faster service to some, or slow down sites that refuse to pay them extra fees. Law professor Susan Crawford says you may be experiencing the effects of this — without realizing it.

Why, for example, do you have to wait for YouTube videos to buffer? Crawford explains: "You may think it's the YouTube application. You may think there is something wrong with your computer. It's probably the network provider making life unpleasant for YouTube because YouTube has refused to pay in order to cross its wires to reach you. And we'll be seeing much more of that kind of activity in the future.

**notorious bum** · 2014-02-07 12:21

Lmao, thank you, for confirming what I've known/tested all along. All the shit I got for telling people that Youtube was either doing the throttling or being throttled by the ISP has come to light.

Shit gets really annoying when you have to attempt to load a short 2min video multiple times or youtube's handy auto-correcting quality manager doing stupid shit like jumping to 240p when you've already buffered half the video in HD lol

**Meresgi** · 2014-02-07 12:35

Originally Posted by notorious bum

Lmao, thank you, for confirming what I've known/tested all along. All the shit I got for telling people that Youtube was either doing the throttling or being throttled by the ISP has come to light.

Shit gets really annoying when you have to attempt to load a short 2min video multiple times or youtube's handy auto-correcting quality manager doing stupid shit like jumping to 240p when you've already buffered half the video in HD lol

Yeah, I used to think I was going crazy with Youtube loading like shit at times. I would fucking change my browser, use HTML5 beta, everything I could find and never worked....fucking fucks

**Meresgi** · 2014-02-07 13:43

https://secure.dslreports.com/showne...g-Comes-127647

The United States' largest community broadband effort is Utah's UTOPIA, which has been under assault by large incumbent ISPs like Qwest (now CenturyLink) since before the first customer was even connected. UTOPIA has for much of a decade successfully fended off both these ISPs and a good deal of managerial incompetence on their own part, and is on the cusp of securing a significant cash boost from an Australian investment firm.

**Meresgi** · 2014-02-12 09:13

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...-in-20-states/

It's no secret that private Internet service providers hate when cities and towns decide to enter the telecommunications business themselves. But with private ISPs facing little competition and offering slow speeds for high prices, municipalities occasionally get fed up and decide to build their own broadband networks.

To prevent this assault on their lucrative revenue streams, ISPs have teamed up with friends in state legislatures to pass laws that make it more difficult or impossible for cities and towns to offer broadband service.

Attorney James Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group has been fighting attempts to restrict municipal broadband projects for years. He's catalogued restrictions placed upon public Internet service in 20 states, and that number could be much higher already if not for the efforts of consumer advocates.

Shining example of capitalism.

**Qalbert** · 2014-02-12 21:33

http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/12/54...e-warner-cable

The cable industry may be about to get smaller. According to CNBC reporter David Faber's sources, Comcast will announce that it is buying Time Warner Cable tomorrow morning.

At this point, we don't have confirmation that the deal is indeed occurring, or any details beyond those in the financial journalist's tweets. The all-stock deal will reportedly be at $159 per share of Time Warner Cable, a deal with a market value of $44.2 billion according to Barron's calculations. Faber suggests that a Comcast / Time Warner Cable combination will get a tough review from the Federal Communications Commission, as you might expect with a telecom merger of this magnitude. According to Faber, Comcast is willing to shed some 3 million of its subscribers in an attempt to placate regulators.

If Faber's sources are correct, Comcast has managed to snatch Time Warner Cable right out from under a smaller cable company, Charter Communications. Charter has repeatedly tried and failed to buy TWC, offering $37.4 billion for the company just last month. While that was allegedly a lowball offer designed to draw shareholder attention, Charter reportedly brought in Comcast to help seal the deal with a joint proposal. Now, though, it appears Comcast may have decided to swallow TWC whole.

**Serra** · 2014-02-12 21:53

So is that better or worse for TWC customers? I don't think I've ever heard of a satisfied Comcast customer, but I also haven't heard of a satisfied TWC customer..

**Jaybar** · 2014-02-12 21:59

Comcast is willing to shed some 3 million of its subscribers in an attempt to placate regulators

Does that mean cut off their service or sell it to another company?

**Waraji** · 2014-02-12 22:18

Two shit customer service companies merging. I'll let you think about the implications if any.

lol That thread title is getting more and more depressing.

**Ksandra** · 2014-02-12 22:20

How is this allowed? When AT&T tried to buy T-mobile courts were like "lolno", right?

There are more phone companies than cable companies so...

**Waraji** · 2014-02-12 22:30

Technically, there are probably as many small time cable companies that feed of the bigger companies, as there are the phone variants. Southern Florida, as far as I know, is primarily Comcast, I know there exists Cox Cable the further north you go, around Orlando I think.

Extrapolate that for the whole US. The majority of those smaller phone companies are getting bought out by the bigger players. MetroPCS got bought out by Tmobile, although I'm not sure if they're getting rebranded. I think SimpleMobile still operates independently by hopping off Tmobile bands.

**Ksandra** · 2014-02-12 22:35

ya but were talking about the major ones. ATT wasn't allowed to buy T-mobile because of how much share of the market they would get.

How is that different from comcast buying time warner?

**Komm Suesser Tod** · 2014-02-12 22:41

Originally Posted by Ksandra

ya but were talking about the major ones. ATT wasn't allowed to buy T-mobile because of how much share of the market they would get.

How is that different from comcast buying time warner?

Because they don't have overlapping areas of service, for the most part. That's sort of the issue with attempting to apply monopoly laws to cable companies, they are already monopolies in the areas they service for the most part.

**Waraji** · 2014-02-12 22:45

Ah, overlapping coverage hadn't occurred to me. That sounds spot on though.

**Komm Suesser Tod** · 2014-02-12 22:54

Originally Posted by Waraji

Ah, overlapping coverage hadn't occurred to me. That sounds spot on though.

I worked for a smaller cable company (Mediacom, which sucks hardcore, by the by, in case you were wondering if being a smaller company made them less terrible.) We were the only company that operated in the area, and it would be prohibitively expensive for any other company to start.

**Ksandra** · 2014-02-12 22:55

Originally Posted by Komm Suesser Tod

Because they don't have overlapping areas of service, for the most part. That's sort of the issue with attempting to apply monopoly laws to cable companies, they are already monopolies in the areas they service for the most part.

ok makes sense, but shit is completely retarded.

You would think that if they already have monopolies in areas courts wouldn't want to make it even worse.

'murica

**Guyverarmor** · 2014-02-13 00:21

I work for TWC. Comcast actually has a pretty damn good benefits package. I highly doubt my position will be eliminated as I work with the maintenance and construction techs ( and since Comcast has no foothold in lolTexas sans Houston, it would cost them more money to get rid of people )... But, I will be dusting off my resume just in case. Never hurts to be prepared.

**BaneTheBrawler** · 2014-02-13 00:42

capitalism!

Thread: EU takes a dump on others. Net neutrality is law: no roaming charges

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