Net Neutrality Struck Down

[LongBlade]

A US Appeals court has struck down net neutrality.

In its ruling against the FCC's rules, the court said that such restrictions are not needed in part because consumers have a choice in which ISP they use.

"Without broadband provider market power, consumers, of course, have options," the court writes. "They can go to another broadband provider if they want to reach particular edge providers or if their connections to particular edge providers have been degraded."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-appeals-court-kills-net-neutrality-152413671.html

[bayonetbrant]

so will they revisit the ruling once the inevitable market consolidation starts reducing broadband ISP options?

[mirth]

so will they revisit the ruling once the inevitable market consolidation starts reducing broadband ISP options?

that's the funniest thing I've read here in a while :P

[Martok]

so will they revisit the ruling once the inevitable market consolidation starts reducing broadband ISP options?

Hey, you're psychic!  :P 

[bayonetbrant]

Hey, you're psychic!  :P 

No, I wrote an entire textbook chapter on cable television and was well aware of the trend toward market consolidation years ago.

[Martok]

Aw.  There goes some of your aura of mystique.  :( 

[GDS_Starfury]

he still has the aroma.

[Martok]

Yes, but you can't detect it when you live in a flyover state. 

[Greybriar]

A US Appeals court has struck down net neutrality.

In its ruling against the FCC's rules, the court said that such restrictions are not needed in part because consumers have a choice in which ISP they use.

"Without broadband provider market power, consumers, of course, have options," the court writes. "They can go to another broadband provider if they want to reach particular edge providers or if their connections to particular edge providers have been degraded."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-appeals-court-kills-net-neutrality-152413671.html

I wonder how much money it cost the cable companies for that decision.

[Staggerwing]

Think of it as an investment.

[BanzaiCat]

Think of it as an investment black hole.

Fixed for ya.  8)

[airboy]

I read this in the Wall St. Journal and it is potentially very significant for Netflix, Youtube, Hulu and a couple of others.

Netflix is now taking up more than 30% of the bandwith on digital cable internet.  Youtube is about 18%.  If your cable (or other high speed internet provider) chooses, they can slow down the delivery of Netflix unless Netflix pays for faster delivery.

Netflix & Youtube have essentially been free riding by taking up a huge proportion of high speed internet usage. 

Nobody knows at this point how it will work out.  But the big players are Netflix, Youtube and high speed internet providers.

[BanzaiCat]

That really sucks if they end up putting brakes on for no reason.

I mean, if customers want to watch Netflix with their high-speed Internet, they'll watch Netflix. They pay the service provider to give them what they want/need. That provider should have little to say, if anything, about how that bandwidth is used. It's theirs, they're already paying for it.

[bayonetbrant]

they can also de-prioritize traffic coming from overseas, which might cut into guys like me reading British papers for soccer news, but also cuts into overseas 'hosting' sites like Pirate Bay and anything hosted at .ru
Then again, it might also slow down botnets hosted overseas