---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20171205013101.GA16941@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 20:31:01 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: FCC won't delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are "desperate" By Jon Brodkin The Federal Communications Commission will move ahead with its vote to kill net neutrality rules next week despite an unresolved court case that could strip away even more consumer protections. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says that net neutrality rules aren't needed because the Federal Trade Commission can protect consumers from broadband providers. But a pending court case involving AT&T could strip the FTC of its regulatory authority over AT&T and similar ISPs. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/fcc-chair-refuses-to-delay-net-neutrality-vote-despite-pending-court-case/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20171205005827.GA16828@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 19:58:27 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: CenturyLink fixes service disruption to customers in Montana Some Montana customers of CenturyLink reported having problems with long-distance calls on Friday. CenturyLink spokesman Steve Mosher said that the company had a "service disruption" that affected some voice customers in Montana. http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/centurylink-fixes-service-disruption-to-customers-in-montana/article_e5e0f724-1560-5eb6-b8d1-cbe50a252daa.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20171205012816.GA16923@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 20:28:17 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: AT&T Rewrites History, Claims Killing Net Neutrality Will Provide 'Enormous Benefits' Big telecom continues to make the extremely unconvincing sales pitch that we don't need net neutrality. By Karl Bode For several months now, major internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon have been breathlessly-insisting that the repeal of net neutrality protections is simply no big deal. Sure, Large ISPs may have spent the better part of 15 years and millions of dollars trying to kill net neutrality and broadband privacy protections, but the nation's giant ISPs would have you believe they have absolutely no intention of actually taking advantage of this fact. For example, in a video posted earlier this year, Verizon went so far as to use a fake journalist to interview Verizon general counsel Craig Silliman, who proceeded to claim that consumers should rest easy because none of this is actually happening. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kpnmn/atandt-rewrites-history-claims-killing-net-neutrality-will-provide-enormous-benefits -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <99349401-a99d-2083-eb68-c3d90f575fb1@ionary.com> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 10:23:53 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Net Neutrality Hits a Nerve, Eliciting Intense Reactions Folks want so much to get their knickers in a twist over "net neutrality" that they'll take any hoax or misinterpretation and run with it. Like the cited one: > > The LA Times had an article about how killing net neutrality worked out for > the citizens of Portugal: > > https://tinyurl.com/ya98kvst > -or- > http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-portugal-internet-20171127-story.html In fact, Portugal not only has some required "neutrality", and probably a lot more competition than the US, but the "ugly" ad was mistranslated. The LATimes article shows a fuzzy unreadable image of the actual carrier ad. Others have "translated" it into dollars and revived the 2005 meme where web sites were sold like cable channels. But that's not the deal. What the Portuguese carrier is doing is selling ordinary neutral mobile bucket-of-bits plans, and then offering optional zero rating to packages of your choice above and beyond that. So you buy the amount of actual Internet you want and then buy more. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The problem here is not insufficient regulation of ISPs; it's insufficient regulation of telecom carriers, leading to a lack of competition among ISPs. -- Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" ionary.com ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20171205021536.GA17483@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 21:15:36 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Net Neutrality Supporters To Protest At Verizon Stores Nationwide This Week A vote by the FCC on Dec. 14 could let major companies have way more control over your internet access. By Jenna Amatulli Protests are planned at Verizon stores across the country on Thursday amid the Federal Communications Commission's plans to scrap net neutrality regulations that currently require internet providers to treat all content equally. "We'll demand that our members of Congress take action to stop Verizon's puppet FCC from killing net neutrality," the protest organizers - the groups Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and the Freepress Action Fund - say on the website promoting the demonstrations. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/net-neutrality-supporters-to-protest-at-verizon-stores-nationwide_us_5a25696ae4b03c44072f067e -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Tue, 05 Dec 2017