http://news.yahoo.com/u-appeals-court-kills-net-neutrality-152413671.html

"In its ruling against the FCC’s rules, the court said that such restrictions are not needed in part because consumers have a choice in which ISP they use."

Right, because companies NEVER team up to screw consumers.

Also, some consumers don't have a choice. Not a real one, anyway. There are many places where there is only one provider available with connection speed/quality suitable for modern applications. Typically rural areas or small towns, where there may be only one DSL provider available (it's probably hard to imagine if you live in a big city, but cable internet is NOT available everywhere).

Technically, satellite is available nearly everywhere, but have you ever tried to use it? The bandwidth is actually decent, but the horrendous latency (the stuff I tested had 700ms minimum round-trip time) makes it unsuitable for many applications, such as VoIP and most online gaming. And it's unlikely that aspect is going to get any better - it's a natural consequence of the very long trip the signal has to take.

My parent's house is in a town where they made a deal with Comcast, so we can't even touch all the fiber that runs under our houses for Fios or whatever the fuck else.

I wanted to bring up a clip from New Girl where Brian Posehn talks about people who are anti-future, but the networks lock that down too.

"Wait, who's anti-future?"

"the amish, television companies, energy companies..."

P.S. had a conversation with some co-workers about how youtube always seemed to be the channel/resource that would solve the problem of referencing something in video and then instantly being able to cite it then and there. Oh well, guess I keep lugging my SNL box sets around and fast forward to the right moment. So convenient!

Perfect example of an anti-future cable company:

There's no consumer demand for gigabit internet

~ Time Warner Cable's Chief Financial Officer Irene Esteves

Also, some consumers don't have a choice. Not a real one, anyway. There are many places where there is only one provider available with connection speed/quality suitable for modern applications. Typically rural areas or small towns, where there may be only one DSL provider available (it's probably hard to imagine if you live in a big city, but cable internet is NOT available everywhere).

I live in Seattle. Not a small town, and the home of a pretty large swath of tech companies - so a place where you'd think there'd be options.

There aren't options.

If I want more than 5Mb service (down), I have ONE option - Comcast.

I have never lived somewhere where there were more options than here.

If I want more than 5Mb service (down), I have ONE option - Comcast.

I have never lived somewhere where there were more options than here.

Here in Hollywood, we manage to get about 13.5 Gigabytes per second using good old fashioned sneaker net.

If I want more than 5Mb service (down), I have ONE option - Comcast.

I have never lived somewhere where there were more options than here.

Here in Hollywood, we manage to get about 13.5 Gigabytes per second using good old fashioned sneaker net.

You must run really fast.

If he carries a 3 TB HDD and runs at 5m/s, he'd be making about 600 GB per second per meter. If he ran from his kitchen to his room, he'd be making about 10 times the transfer rate he said.

Obviously, he's running across the hall.

If he carries a 3 TB HDD and runs at 5m/s, he'd be making about 600 GB per second per meter. If he ran from his kitchen to his room, he'd be making about 10 times the transfer rate he said.

Obviously, he's running across the hall.

The pendantic me reminds you that there are no 'per meter' qualifications on bandwidth.

If I want more than 5Mb service (down), I have ONE option - Comcast.

I have never lived somewhere where there were more options than here.

Here in Hollywood, we manage to get about 13.5 Gigabytes per second using good old fashioned sneaker net.

You must run really fast.

Please. I have an assistant to do that for me.

There aren't options.

If I want more than 5Mb service (down), I have ONE option - Comcast.

I have never lived somewhere where there were more options than here.

Where we live, our only option is the lovely Time Warner Cable... FOR NOW! Next year, Fiber is reaching into North Kansas City, so if I can afford it by then, that will be a great day. Although Google is another giant company I don't necessarily want to support, Fiber sounds amazing compared to Time Warner's options and their customer service.

To combat the growing Fiber, Time Warner recently lowered their rates by about $5 dollars. And yet... they also quietly announced they were going to start charging a rental fee for their modems for $5. So... it's the same total. Nice try, Time Warner!

They also raise your price after 12 months of use (because let's reward our legacy users, right?), so now me and Maddie just disconnect our service before that happens and then subscribe in the other's name for the next round. Take that! Ah, the little victories for the petty man.

Later this year I get Google Fiber! From what they've said they plan on keeping their service neutral, so I am hopefully it won't impact me.

I live in Seattle. Not a small town, and the home of a pretty large swath of tech companies - so a place where you'd think there'd be options.

There aren't options.

If I want more than 5Mb service (down), I have ONE option - Comcast.

I have never lived somewhere where there were more options than here.

Yeah, it's ludicrous. I was really looking forward to the fiber deployment scheduled for this winter (I'm smack-dab in the middle of one of their initial areas), but that has apparently died on the vine. *sigh*

If he carries a 3 TB HDD and runs at 5m/s, he'd be making about 600 GB per second per meter. If he ran from his kitchen to his room, he'd be making about 10 times the transfer rate he said.

Obviously, he's running across the hall.

RAID with 24TB on it, on a 30 minute trip across town is 13.6GB/sec.

Later this year I get Google Fiber! From what they've said they plan on keeping their service neutral, so I am hopefully it won't impact me.

Hmm... ya know, if it was anyone but Google, I wouldn't believe them. Not to suggest that Google is faultless, but historically I think they've been much better about playing nice with others than their peers. And if it's a contest between them and the established/entrenched ISPs (the Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world), I'd definitely feel better trusting Google. If Google ever comes here, I'm in. Unfortunately for me, Des Moines is big enough to have everything (other than fiber), but not big enough for anyone to notice us.

Unfortunately for me, Des Moines is big enough to have everything (other than fiber), but not big enough for anyone to notice us.

Hey if Provo, UT is big enough for Google Fiber, Des Moines probably is too!

Three members from FreePress did an AMA earlier about the issue.

There was some good discussion in there, and some links worth checking out.

What's amazing to me is how little people seem to know about the issue, and how important this is.

If he carries a 3 TB HDD and runs at 5m/s, he'd be making about 600 GB per second per meter. If he ran from his kitchen to his room, he'd be making about 10 times the transfer rate he said.

Obviously, he's running across the hall.

The pendantic me reminds you that there are no 'per meter' qualifications on bandwidth.

But he did specify the distance traveled, so the units check out.

3000GB x (5m/s)/(L) = 50Gb/s

where L is the distance between your kitchen and your bedroom, assumed to be twelve meters.

But even though the units check out, the formula above is still theoretical and subject to vary in real life. I, for example, thought to double my transfer rate by moving my couch one meter to the right (And therefore cut the travel distance in half) only to trip over a spherical cow.

…with all this choice and everything.

Researching a bit on usual sneakernet practices, apparently it's a very big market. Oil companies usually ship their survey data, because it's a -blam!-ton of data points for every meter of survey.

Also, I think 13.653333... rounds up to 13.7, no?

What's really nice is even if you don't live in the US, this can still affect you. This sets an example/gives an excuse for other countries considering doing this. A lot the equipment and connection that make up the Internet, especially the fastest, widest, highest-bandwidth parts of it, passes through the US. There's also a lot of that that's in non-national areas (undersea cables and satellites, really) but controlled by American companies, so this could slow down/mess with your connection regardless (especially if you live close to the US). Plus of course tons of websites are in the US (and more have most or all of their connection routed through it), and they could feel the pain of this, along with their users the world over-- of course, this would probably be more of a problem for smaller sites, which just makes it worse.

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