Although legal action against ISP censoring and monopolization sounds beneficial, I'd prefer that government entities remove themselves from open Internet pursuits entirely.
It should be by the people, for the people.
It should be by the people, for the people.
Assuming we completely de-regulate, you'd still have municipal governments striking these anti-competitive monopoly deals. In fact, there'd be no barrier to it at all, since we're de-regulated in this case.
Don't like Comcast? Better not move to City A, because they "own" it, even though some of the fiber was paid for by the residents.
And it's more sensible, since competition is a cure-all, than federal 'neutrality' rules about what services are allowable.
> I'd prefer that government entities remove themselves from open Internet pursuits entirely.
What you are describing doesn't follow this. You are in support of regulation, the thread OP isn't.
I agree, but I'm not sure how you can maintain these things without being owned by the people (govt) or a corp. I guess a regulatory body like the FCC then?
It's like having a gas station in the middle of a desert, with no roads within a 50 mile radius.
That's the problem.
I'm not suggesting that this will work, I'm disputing that the people don't have any power. People almost always have some influence over their situation. That doesn't mean they have a magic bullet, but there is almost always hope.
1) Internet isn't a luxury anymore, it's a necessity. One can't live in society today with much success without some form of Internet access.
2) The free market is not at work when it comes to the proverbial "pipe" that's been laid - the Internet backbone. Getting a fiber cable to your house, to your neighborhood, and to your city was a task that cost a lot of money, and was paid for in part by the US government and state governments. Despite this fact, companies like Time Warner do not share "their" infrastructure to 3rd party ISPs. This, in turn creates an artificial monopoly where Time Warner unfairly benefits from publicly funded infrastructure.
People can't avoid Time Warner, because in many places, they have literally no other option. There is no hope for these folks.
There is competition in the residential Internet business.
If you say that "all those alternatives are too slow," I say: too slow for what? Too slow or too throttled for Internet video: perhaps. But the argument you are making is that "one can't live without some form of Internet access." Most people have Internet access available, in multiple forms.
I agree that Internet is not a luxury, but 10 or 50 megabit Internet is. True, you need Internet to apply for jobs and even in some cases to interact with your government. Do you need 50 megabits for that? No.
People can avoid Time Warner. They might not get their Netflix with their slower Internet, but the government should not be getting involved to preserve something as trivial as streaming video.
Different product, same problem, possibly even the same company. Switch out "Time Warner" with "Verizon" (a reality for some), and the problem exists anew.
There is not competition in the residential Internet business.
The wireless technology keeps improving. New wired infrastructure can be run – as with Google Fiber or other initiatives. The sensors and robots for such installs also keep improving. And for sticky 'last mile' wire bottlenecks, sharing of that conduit could be required, or a 'minimal universal neutral' service option be required where there are no other options.
Instead, the FCC seeks to limit how all broadband services, everywhere, must work, to respond to an abuse threat that remains almost entirely theoretical. That itself is an anti-competition, anti-differentiation move. It also adds another lever of power by which the FCC's other regulatory tendencies – such as censoring indecency or enabling wiretapping – could be applied to the internet. (In the UK, Australia, and South Korea it is agencies like the FCC which maintain compulsory national internet black-lists.)