FCC hit with SEVENTH net neutrality lawsuit CenturyLink has become the seventh organization to sue the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dismantle its radical new net neutrality rules. The broadband provider filed a lawsuit against the US regulator in the Washington DC Court of Appeals, and used almost exactly the same language as the first lawsuit to land last …
It also sounds more like a rant than a legal argument. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to put the toys back in the pram and continue pushing it. Though I can't wait until they grow up and can walk on their own.
> Though I can't wait until they grow up and can walk on their own.
I don't think the Telephants will ever grow up. They behave like a 5-year-old: if they don't get what they want they start crying and throw a temper-tantrum. Which is pretty much what they've done here.
They're still basically a phone company (formerly QWest) that shills DSL (dead-dog slow DLS at that) as broadband. They've basically been promising fiber (fibre) to everyone and their brother with the promise "you're due to have this later this year!". Been about 7 years now that they've been doing this.
I guess the second line entry was a Freudian slip when you typed DSL as DLS, presumably this is what they offer, Delay Line Service, though I have a few doubts about the word service; perhaps Delay Line Servitude would be more accurate.
Re: Centurylink, yeah they went and upgraded some of their "boxes" from just a wiring cabinet to remote DSLAMs with (I think) VDSL2 on it, so you can get up to like 100mbps. It's pretty picey though. Large areas end up being able to get like 3mbps or less, looong line runs and very conservative in terms of DSL parameters (i.e. a line where you could get 12mbps, they might only provide up to 7.)
I have no idea what problems CL might have with network neutrality rules though, they'd have to turn off the "falsely send DNS not found to a 'search page'" thing -- which I work around with alternate DNS servers -- but I would have thought that's about it, they really don't mess with traffic or ports as far as I know.
I have no idea what problems CL might have with network neutrality rules though, they'd have to turn off the "falsely send DNS not found to a 'search page'" thing -- which I work around with alternate DNS servers -- but I would have thought that's about it, they really don't mess with traffic or ports as far as I know.
...yet?
"We are challenging the FCC's misguided net neutrality order for these reasons and because we believe it could lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers."
Oh I see, the US government is trying to jack up the prices and making less choices available. Amazing that such bullshit sells.
... that companies can gather together and sue the government. Surely the government is meant to be 'for the people' / 'by the people'.
It should be sod all to do with companies (who are NOT people) and exploiting legal loopholes.
By launching these attacks, they aren't even pretending that a corrupt corporation-friendly (at the expense of the population) political system is the status quo.
mod-up , nice observation.
I have AT&T as local phone and DSL from another provider.
AT&T mail me offers at least twice a week to buy their new "U-verse fiber" service.
They actually called me (on the local phone I need for DSL), and the guy on the phone said it was 6 Mb/s.
I said "So it is fiber but only as far as the DSL cabinet".
He said "No it is fiber, and 6Mb/s has been shown to be sufficient for HD movies"
Me: "Netflix says that is 25 Mb/s? Where are you getting your numbers".
So we go back and forth and then he says "We can give you this for $X/mth".
I ask "Can I have it in writing?".
He says "No, you can confirm the offer once I enter it and cancel it if you don't like it".
The FCC must be doing something right unless AT&T just wants to show me they care....
P.
Ah but were that true.
The SCOTUS has declared Corporations are People, regardless of what the actual Constitution says.
Even though they cannot be sued due to special protections given a Legal Entity. They cannot not usually be held criminally liable, particularly the firearms industry. There are many advantages to being a Corp.
Meh. You're just another special interest claiming you represent all the people.
If it what you were saying were true, the legislation to change this would have originated in the House, then passed the Senate, and finally been approved by the President. Instead what happened was The Big 0 made a Executive demand on a nominally independent agency, the independent agency jumped and asked "how high sir?!" while in the air, and the ruling was handed down as surely and as obnoxiously as anything George III did back in colonial times.
So at best we've got two groups of nobles trampling over the fields of the peasants in their fight for control of the internet.
the Democrats will allow anything that will get them campaign money in the hope of regaining some seats in 2016 .. will allow almost anything that polls of their constituents show those voters favor
they are distancing themselves from Obama's policies .. he's a negative .. has been a negative since 2010
Have an upvote. Worth noting, though, is that the Democrats are no different from the Republicans anything but distancing themselves from (most of) President Obama's policies, which the latter did before his first election.
I do not understand the thinking of those who register downvotes for this.
This sounds like somebody is doing something right if the US telecoms providers are all in a rage. When I have friends come here from the US and they use my home broadband they are amazed that this is 'normal' internet. They get 2-3Mb in their part of the world and thats considered fast. Showing them 67Mb (its supposed to be 70Mb but I can't really complain) makes their eyes pop out. Then again, when I went to Japan and Korea, some of the people there had 200Mb/sec and they were talking of getting even more.
Being able to download films in seconds for them as opposed to minutes for me compared to hours for the US showed the gold that lies between the US telecoms version of reality and the rest of the worlds.
Go US!
Akamai, for 2014, reports the following average d/l speeds in megabits/second:
US 11.5
UK 10.4
Canada 10.3
New Zealand 7.0
Australia 6.9
As another post noted, much of the US (also Canada and Australia) is quite sparsely populated, and many of those who live there also are quite distant from backbone interconnects, both of which would semi-independently degrade connectivity or increase its cost.
Speeds in urban areas can be much higher, of course, and are on the rise, partly goaded by Google's introduction of fiber in some cities.
The real problem here is, more government controll always equals more cost. Those cost are passed onto the consumers. And every government controlled program always becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. Did the FCC really need over three hundred pages of rules? And much is subjective,leaving decisions up to corrupt bureaucrats who will seek to line their own pockets. I don't expect these new rules to last,and will bbe struck down,or drone away with in a few years,like say just after 2016(-:
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