http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/verizon-issues-furious-response-to-fcc-in-morse-code-dated-1934/

As of 3 days ago I can read that.  Be a real bitch if I had to reply in cw over the radio though.

r/ar

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Dang, the internet is being encumbered.  Al Gore is going to be pissed.

I ought to send them a CW message to Verizon the next time I pay my bill.

I wonder if they are equally upset about 1934 era laws being used to restrict American's access to modern firearms.

..-. ..- -.-. -.- / - .... . / ..-. -.-. -.-. .-.-.-

That's what I was thinking, but I do not know code!



Jesus Christ!  How much is your data plan?  Or, I have no idea what that means!

Bill

That was from a few years ago.
IIIRC a US citizen was in Canada, his data was supposed to be .01 cents per mb or whatever, Verizon charged him .1 cents, he recorded hours of phone calls to customer service, hilarious.
True Story.  The check was a high end math lesson to Verizon.

Verizon can go fuck themselves.  They have no problem manipulating the FCC and taking full advantage of whatever loopholes exist in any existing law.  Almost EVERY FCC and Congressional action has gone their way since ATT was broken up.  they finally lost one - I weep.

The FCC can fuck themselves too, since they've decided to shed their independence and become part of the Chicago machine since it opened a branch office in the White House.

And you know what?  Fuck everyone else too, especially the 99% of commenters on the internet (yes, including here), who have no idea of what Net Neutrality is, what it's supposed to be, and what actions the FCC took, but insist on bloviating anyway.  It's so fucking bad even people who WANT the actual facts can't get at them, as they are drowned beneath Internet wailing and bureaucratic skullduggery.

Hey Goatboy, can I make a feature request?  Can we choose keywords that will not only cause a post not to show up on our screens, but also automatically post something apropos?

"Loopholes" is a bullshit word. We don't need a word to describe not breaking the law.

Net neutrality is a great idea. In theory. So is universal healthcare. The problem lies in the execution. There isn't a whole lot the government has gotten right, and I don't expect this to go any better.

I tend to agree. On a gun forum referring to anything as a so-called "loophole" is going to ruffle feathers...and rightly so.

I mean loopholes in the more specific sense, not the gun control "there's no law against it but there should be" sense.    The telecom laws written from the Clinton era on, as well as the FCC rulings, are specifically written so as to allow, and even encourage, their own evasion.  One example was the requirement that the ILEC's (basically, the 8 baby Bells), had to lease their lines out for DSL services at "reasonable rates".  But Congress specifically avoided defining "reasonable", nor gave the FCC authority to determine it.  As a result Verizon et al. pretty much charged what they wanted, which meant that it became impossible to be an independent internet provider.  This basically maintained the Bell's monopoly on high speed internet for many more years, which was supposed to be what that legislation was supposed to PREVENT.

We can argue whether the law was wise, or would have been effective, but I think it is generally agreed that it did not achieve it's stated aims because of language that allowed "compliance" while simultaneously having the opposite effect intended.

And in another sense, I don't have a specific problem with loopholes in and of themselves.  My main point was that Verizon, having been perfectly happy taking advantage of the benefits of the laws as written, is now unhappy that they can't (or it will be harder, at least.)  I have zero fucks to give about their plight.

Hmmm....

Somehow I think this has veered off course a little. Since this is the Ham Radio forum, I doubt if this thread was ever about Net Neutrality.  I suspect it is simply poking fun at Verizon (or anyone) for thinking Morse code is dead.

But I could be wrong.

Of course one can Hate-All-Over this stupid action by stupid bureaucrats based merely on their stated goals, even without knowing it's exact details.  Why? - because the entire CONCEPT is damaging to the state of freedom, and of course internet access, regardless of the details.

It's simply not possible for governments to deal with a dynamic entity such as the "internet" - that's what the free market is for.  

Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be desirable, since politicians make decisions based on politics, with winners and losers dictated by whim rather than economic reality.




I'm sorry my friend, but I must disagree.

Differing  levels of access and service are not mere annoyances to be mitigated by some faceless fuck-wit bureaucrat.  Differing  levels of access and service are absolutely essential to the growth and sustainability of any market.

It's why infrastructure is built by the Verizons and Earthlinks -  in order to service high bandwidth NetFlixs and Amazons , infrastructure all of us low-bandwidth users piggy-back off of with lower-speed, lower-quality service at a lower price, even when we aren't NetFlixing and Amazoning..

Yet this free-market mayhem all conspires toward access getting better and faster, even for the low-end customers.  Contrast this with the stagnant government regulated Bell companies that gave us frozen-in-time telephone service, almost entirely devoid of innovation, direct to your home from 1925.

We were once camping up in the mountains. I had a mobile HF rig with me. An older couple was walking by and the guy noticed my HF antenna. He came over to talk to me. It turns out he has an Advanced license and has been a HAM for 40+ years. He said it used to be fun but he does not really need nor use his radios anymore. He said they now have cell phones and Internet with Skype. Ham radios are old technology and not needed anymore......................................................
I asked what he would do if cellphones and Internet stop working. He gave me a weird look  and mumbled something. This thought probably never crossed his mind. I later discovered he had an O-Bama sticker on his van.

Late.   Been away.   But that. ^^^   Right there.

Nothing wrong with paying more to get more, that's how it is supposed to work.   Yeah it's on the content side I get it, but that's how it is supposed to work there too.   My question remains, just what IS this underserved content they seem to be so het up about?

Because I can show them underserved, I live it on the other end of the internet hose.    Nothing comes to Humble City by wire except electricity.   I pay through both nostrils for a pair of Verizon 4GLTE lines with a big data allowance, and I buy a third line from a local carrier that is unlimited but only 3G.   Most of the data on the 3G line feeds the Roku and it actually does a pretty good job of it, we pull about 30 gigs a month through it when the wife goes on a Netflix binge.   The VZ steps in when I want a big download or a second video stream.   The MyVZ app has a real time data clock so I know when I can splurge and when I need to hold off on big usage    All of this pieced together connectivity costs me big bucks, but that's the cost to run a 21st century on 20th century infrastructure.   There is a Wimax carrier that would probably deliver all we want for a cheaper price (actually the same company that feeds the 3G to my old X2) but the system is "at capacity" and that probably won't be changing anytime soon.

Okay so at work we have actual wires to bring internet service to the shop with an alleged "enterprise grade" symmetrical DSL connection.   It is the pinnacle of throughput in this town delivering about 7 Mbps EXCEPT THAT on average about ten times per day that figure drops to 0 Mbps for varying periods of time, and my experience with the CATV co. internet service (when I lived in town) was actually worse than that, with even more frequent daily outages for even longer periods of time.   Out IT department is looking at bringing them in anyway.   The thought might be to have them both, so maybe at least one of them will be working most of the time.

So you see it is a pretty big heap of suck all in all and the whole reason for it is an overabundance of caution in the market in general (i.e. investment comes slow to any endeavor that doesn't offer a quick return and it is precisely because Obama has painted a big bullseye on our backs),and as regards internet service in particular in the oilpatch (and everywhere else), "net neutrality" is much more than the regulation they have publicly stated their intention to impose today, but a complete reclassification of the industry that imparts on FCC a new carte blanch authority to impose virtually any sort of regulation it wants, any time it wants to.   And that isn't going to do a god damned thing to remedy the suck we endure here.  The only promise is to bring it to you because as you know, government is force - and the only possible direction it can force is DOWN, always and ever.

And what do you suppose that bunch of eunuchs we just sent back to Congress are going to do about it?