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by cletus 3112 days ago
Again, hyperbolic.

Some action against Comcast throttling/blocking BitTorrent (in 2007-2009) ultimately resulted in action by the FCC in 2010, made rather toothless in 2014 with the provisions against blocking and throttling struck down.

So between 2010-2014 and 2015-2017 we have ~6 years of regulation, with the ISPs fighting it all the way (surprise surprise).

Just to clarify: I'm in agreement that we need net neutrality. I've just been around the block enough times to know that the FCC's latest action just isn't the end of the world.

2 comments

> Some action against Comcast throttling/blocking BitTorrent (in 2007-2009) ultimately resulted in action by the FCC in 2010

Comcast wasn't the only enforcement action under the 2005-2010 case-by-case approach. (The first was the Madison River VoIP blocking case, in 2005.)

> Just to clarify: I'm in agreement that we need net neutrality. I've just been around the block enough times to know that the FCC's latest action just isn't the end of the world.

That's contradictory. Either we don't need net neutrality, and we're all being silly caring, or we do need net neutrality, and the ruckus is justified.

I don't see how we could need net neutrality, have it just be repealed, but be told that it's no big deal and we should just go about our business and not care.

I agree it's not the end of the world, in the sense that now ISPs will start to behave badly again, and either Congress or the FCC will be forced to act/backpedal (of course, after a lot of harm has already been done), or, at worst, we'll have to wait for a sane administration to be in office to restore some regulation. But that doesn't mean it's not a big deal right now.