FCC Loses Net Neutrality Case

[tubemonkey]

Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC, bears watching. Why Obama chose him is beyond me. Remember, this guy is a former lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry. Putting him in charge of the agency that regulates this industry is kinda like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC, bears watching. Why Obama chose him is beyond me.

Possibly because he's extremely knowledgeable about the industry?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, its speed depends on your distance from the telephone exchange, and you're right, it is generally slower than cable. I get about 15-16MBit/sec from my ADSL connection, and I really don't need more. 3MBit/sec is fine for streaming HD video, for example. However, it doesn't need the infrastructure investment that cable does, which is why I'm surprised to hear that there is no competition in the ISP market.

The last time I checked, the phone company only offered speeds up to 12 Mbps in my area; whereas cable offered 100 Mbps and up. I have 50 Mbps.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Possibly because he's extremely knowledgeable about the industry?

So is the fox

Originally Posted by HarryT

Possibly because he's extremely knowledgeable about the industry?

The biggest issue with many of these political appointees are range from conflict of interest (worse case) to the appearance of a biased perspective (best case). After all, democratic governments are there to represent the interests of the people. While the people who operate, invest, and work within an industry certainly do qualify as people the businesses themselves are not. So when regulation is deemed necessary (and it has certainly been deemed necessary in the past with telecommunications), they need to consider the needs of everyone. This is complex and definitely needs an outsider since the health of a business for investors does not necessarily reflect the health of a business for the people who work in an industry. In turn, the health of a business for people who work in an industry does not necessarily reflect the health of an industry for consumers (which, in this case, is going to be the bulk of Americans).

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC, bears watching. Why Obama chose him is beyond me. Remember, this guy is a former lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry. Putting him in charge of the agency that regulates this industry is kinda like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Lobbyists don't always have a particular tie to whom they are lobbying for. In fact part of their value often tends to be that they are NOT emotionally tied to the interest they lobby for, so they can make a more dispassionate, compelling case when dealing. I don't know if that's true in this case or not, but it would not surprise me.
As BWinMill says, the APPEARANCE of bias will be unavoidable whether there is a conflict of interest or not, but I think I'd rather have someone knowledgeable in the job rather than someone clueless just for appearances sake. That would be the Peter Principle at work in government.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

So is the fox

Think of a lobbiest as the cat the fox hires to distract the farmer.....

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ApK

...but I think I'd rather have someone knowledgeable in the job rather than someone clueless just for appearances sake. That would be the Peter Principle at work in government.

At this level of government, all you need to be is a good manager. Staff provides the knowledge. The same thing with business.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

At this level of government, all you need to be is a good manager. Staff provides the knowledge. The same thing with business.

I'd like to think you also need to be of good character, but yeah, I get you.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The last time I checked, the phone company only offered speeds up to 12 Mbps in my area; whereas cable offered 100 Mbps and up. I have 50 Mbps.

I have 50 Mbps as well. When I got LTE on my phone, I couldn't have faster speeds on my phone than I got at home. I like fast.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I have 50 Mbps as well. When I got LTE on my phone, I couldn't have faster speeds on my phone than I got at home. I like fast.

I'm keeping my 3Mbs DSL and I just got 25Mbs cable. The DSL goes out whenever it rains, and doesn't leave much bandwidth if two people are watching streaming video while I'm trying to work on line. The cable has the bandwidth, but the speed is HIGHLY variable depending on neighborhood load, and even when it's fast, my Netflix seems to need to rebuffer more than on DSL.

I'm probably going to set the video streaming devices to use the DSL and the other devices to use the cable.

The point of this in the context of this thread is that having options is important, and more competition to help drive more reliable service would be good.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by ApK

I'm keeping my 3Mbs DSL and I just got 25Mbs cable. The DSL goes out whenever it rains, and doesn't leave much bandwidth if two people are watching streaming video while I'm trying to work on line. The cable has the bandwidth, but the speed is HIGHLY variable depending on neighborhood load, and even when it's fast, my Netflix seems to need to rebuffer more than on DSL.

I'm probably going to set the video streaming devices to use the DSL and the other devices to use the cable.

The point of this in the context of this thread is that having options is important, and more competition to help drive more reliable service would be good.

I couldn't deal with 3Mbps. I hated using data when I had my Nexus 7 3g, so I got the lte version as soon as it came out.

In my area there is both cable and fios, but I would hardly call that competition. I have cable and don't see much change in speed no matter what time of day it is except when they are doing an upgrade. It wasn't always like that though. In just the past couple of years it seems to have improved.