amuck-landowner

Circuit Court Of Appeals Strikes Down FCC’s Open Internet Order

javaj

New Member
Circuit Court Of Appeals Strikes Down FCC’s Open Internet Order

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/14/fcc-open-internet-order-struck-down/

So does this now mean that we are all going to be throttled when Verizon, Cox, AT&T etc., all decide to start their own web hosting companies? This has been a battle (losing) for quite some time that now looks to be a reality, and whether you think less oversight and regulation is needed in the USA or whatever this is still not a good thing for anyone with an online business in any industry.

More: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-14/verizon-victory-on-net-neutrality-rules-seen-as-loss-for-netflix.html

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington decided in favor of Verizon yesterday, striking down the FCC’s so-called net-neutrality rules. The regulations would have required Internet service providers to treat all online traffic equally, rather than giving preference to companies willing to pay extra fees for faster service.
 

TruvisT

Server Management Specialist
Verified Provider
RIP Internet.

So basically now, no bigger lines since that costs money, you have to pay more if you want to remain online with a decent speed. Sounds about right.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

javaj

New Member
Carriers have argued that the biggest bandwidth hogs should share in the costs of sending their content to customers. The idea is to charge Netflix or Google the equivalent of first-class handling, so that “House of Cards” or YouTube videos can get guaranteed quicker delivery.
See this is why old men who have no clue about technology should not be making the rules on things they clearly do not understand. The bandwidth hogs as they say, referring to Netflix already paid for their bandwidth, Verizon's own subscribers are the bandwidth hogs, not Netflix.

But yeah, I added Netflix link as an example, but this could affect every company, so for example does that premium bandwidth I paid for now the equivalent of cogent unless we pay Verizon's and everyone else's fee? 
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
What do you expect from monopolists given their monopolies through the power of government?   Look at markets where Verizon is?  Basically in almost all, it's them and a cable company that they partner with in other ways - like reselling cellular stuff.

The US should have undertaken a big publics work project to create a free and open internet and I suspect things would be better.  Infrastructure wise... and business spirit / new startup wise.

What this creates is additional toll bridges and reasons to identify big money and effectively extort them.

Big distributors of content with high consumption/throughput need only to partner tightly with their network providers and this almost certainly will end up in peering disputes between say Verizon vs. Level3, Verizon vs. Cogent, etc.

I think the internet is a shitty medium as-is for video distribution.  Very inefficient.

When things went forced HDTV on public TV spectrum I was hoping we'd see new innovative uses of the freed spectrum and new devices to receive all sorts of data.  So I feel about 0 bad for these fools getting caught by gate keepers.

Decade or two ago I knew we were in trouble when Verizon STOLE BILLIONS from rate payers in multiple states, failed to deliver high speed internet and regulators did NOTHING.   This is how business operates in the modern USA.
 

javaj

New Member
What do you expect from monopolists given their monopolies through the power of government?
Pretty much this, but I was a little taken off guard that this happened, when I first heard of Verizon trying to pull this shit, I thought no fricken way anyone with a brain is going to allow this. Then I remembered where we live.
 

tchen

New Member
As a fellow-freeloader, I'm actually glad they can actually recoup costs.  SOMEONE has to pay for the infrastructure we all love and enjoy.  The old network piggybacks off HFT and university-spend.  As a taxpayer, we got our fair-share from the university tax dollars, but I highly doubt the HFT crowd is going to pay to lay down lines to your rural barn.

P.S. I'm obviously easily annoyed by entitlement issues.
 

texteditor

Premium Buffalo-based Hosting
As a fellow-freeloader, I'm actually glad they can actually recoup costs.  SOMEONE has to pay for the infrastructure we all love and enjoy.  The old network piggybacks off HFT and university-spend.  As a taxpayer, we got our fair-share from the university tax dollars, but I highly doubt the HFT crowd is going to pay to lay down lines to your rural barn.

P.S. I'm obviously easily annoyed by entitlement issues.
The American taxpayers have payed for our infrastructure several times over, FYI, and the cash ends up being pocketed by the companies asking for it instead of actually spending it on upgrades.

We totally need a public works project for a high-speed, nationwide network
 

javaj

New Member
P.S. I'm obviously easily annoyed by entitlement issues.
I'm a card carrying libertarian don't get me started on entitlement issues, and I don't know about you, but I pay my ISP, server's and bandwidth bills every month so I don't understand where you are coming up with entitlement issues...

An as texteditor stated above, we the american taxpayers have payed for it several times over.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
P.S. I'm obviously easily annoyed by entitlement issues.

Entitlement issues like the huge corporate welfare payouts the US government is handing out via the myriad loopholes in the tax system and the 0% (and in many cases negative) effective tax rates enjoyed by government welfare recipients like Verizon and other large corporations (and many billionaires).  Verizon had $146 billion revenues and its effective income tax rate was NEGATIVE -6.7% in the last 12 months.?  Are those the "entitlement" issues you were refering to, the corporate welfare payouts that leeches like Verizon and other Fortune 500 companies receive at the expense of the American taxpayers?
 

maounique

Active Member
This is the world today, small business are punished by bigger taxes and tight control while the big ones benefit from those taxes paid by the small ones and friendly judges/lawmakers.

It is inevitable, the people with the money run the country, not only the press and elections. As long as you can only vote 2 parties, they will always be sold-out.
 

wlanboy

Content Contributer
It is all public just look at the "Net worth of the United States Senators".

Or the NY Times: Half of Congress Members Are Millionaires, Report Says.

The median net worth for lawmakers in the House and Senate was $1,008,767
up 4.4 percent, according to the analysis, conducted by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics,
which examines the influence of money on politics in Washington.

Over all, at least 268 of the 534 current members of Congress had an
average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012, which is the year covered by the
reports that each lawmaker had to file in 2013.
 

tchen

New Member
Entitlement issues like the huge corporate welfare payouts the US government is handing out via the myriad loopholes in the tax system and the 0% (and in many cases negative) effective tax rates enjoyed by government welfare recipients like Verizon and other large corporations (and many billionaires).  Verizon had $146 billion revenues and its effective income tax rate was NEGATIVE -6.7% in the last 12 months.?  Are those the "entitlement" issues you were refering to, the corporate welfare payouts that leeches like Verizon and other Fortune 500 companies receive at the expense of the American taxpayers?
Effective Tax Rates are a misleading number for people who don't understand accounting.  It makes a great headline, but the negative rates are attributed to the non-controlling interests that Verizon holds. 

To be specific, Verizon holds 55% of Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodafone, PLC.  The 45% owned by Vodafone is the noncontrolling interest.  Because Verizon holds controlling interest, it consolidates Verizon Wireless' financial statements with its own.  Revenue goes into Verizon's bag and through all standard calculations such as Operating income and Net income ($10B line item).

But as an operation, Verizon Wireless pays out its income in proportion to both Verizon (parent) and Vodafone.  Vodafone treats its shares as equity and the income is taxable as usual on their side.  However, because that isn't reflected by the Net Income line on Verizon's statement, another item called Income Attributable to the Non-controlling interest is used to reflect that initial ballooning.  Of the $161B revenue (2012), the final Net income attributable to Verizon was $875M (taxable income ~$637M). 

This is where the fun comes in.  Normally, as laypeople, we define a Tax Rate as the simple percentage of taxable income (eg: earned net-income). The government wants 35% of your earned income.  That makes sense.  However EITR is based off accounting income which is now bloated because of the non-controlling interest.  Expecting 35% x $10B is folly if the $10B isn't even Verizon's to begin with.  Worst, that would be double-taxation.  So, the government, in fairness taxes 35% x $637M.  Effective Tax Rate is a poor term if you don't know what it really is and equate it with colloquial slang.

Some more interesting tax education tidbits.  Verizon also booked almost $1B in deferred tax assets (i.e. losses from previous years or timing issues with depreciation/pensions).  That's how they managed to get their Income tax provision to negative $660M which gave the -6% EITR.  Deferred tax assets/liabilities are a timing issue and are tax-neutral - there's a saying in startup circles, remember to always pay your taxes first during business bankruptcy.

P.S. I'm even more easily annoyed with empty rhetoric that's just plain wrong.
 

BuyCPanel-Kevin

New Member
Verified Provider
From that quote you posted of the case it doesn't sound like a bad ruling, it seems to me that people who are willing to pay more should get faster internet.
 

Aldryic C'boas

The Pony
From that quote you posted of the case it doesn't sound like a bad ruling, it seems to me that people who are willing to pay more should get faster internet.
Charge more for more bandwidth, sure.  Makes sense in theory, until it's applied to the business world and it suddenly turns into "Normal plans go to shit, old normal becomes the new premium for an extra fee".
 

javaj

New Member
From that quote you posted of the case it doesn't sound like a bad ruling, it seems to me that people who are willing to pay more should get faster internet.
Sure Kevin it would make sense if they were charging their subscribers if they wanted faster internet, but they want to charge high traffic websites for their sites to be given faster service, not faster as if Verizon all of a sudden has this super fast plan they are hiding from every one, but if you want your sites to load as fast as everyone else's cough it up... In other words, pay up or we throttle your website.

Now that may not seem like a big deal if that only affects huge multi billion dollar corporations I normally don't give two squats about, because right now it doesn't affect you or me right? but this opens the door to pulling this on everyone including everyone of us who happen to own companies and websites.

The clincher here is that this should really be the other way around, when Verizon users go to my website, your website whatever, they are really using our bandwidth - which we already paid for...
 

javaj

New Member
Makes sense lol... Also not sure why they are now expecting all the big dogs now to pay up in order to compensate for their shitty network. Guess this all says more about Verizon's network than anyone else.
 
Top
amuck-landowner