I work in this industry too, and rely heavily on wireless as I travel around the country. I would not describe it as “inherently unreliable.” I would also not consider it to be “beneath” the average consumer, making it a viable competitor to copper/fiber providers, which is the only thing that matters when discussing…

Why do you keep ignoring wireless? Do you have any idea how goods and services become cheaper? By selling them. Given enough time, alternatives will come down in price. You’re arguing as if you have never experienced capitalism in your entire life and basic economic concepts are totally foreign to you.

So since you are not a supporter and you even admit that the telecoms won’t do all of the things people are saying they will do, why would you want to let Trump and his administration retain regulatory authority over the Internet? How long before Fake News is blocked? Regardless of what you think about Trump, this…

Are you a Trump supporter by any chance?

My ultimate point is that I strongly doubt current Internet prices are as high as customers might be willing to pay. Especially in cities. Here in NYC, our Internet is relatively cheap compared to electric, rent, food, etc. Considering how important it is to me personally, I actually think it’s cheap. I’d pay more if…

I’m honestly not sure what you are saying here. That the alternatives to cable broadband are more expensive to deliver than cable? A good way to guarantee that is to force all ISPs to be equal, making them indistinguishable from the perspective of customers. Any ISP with a monopoly will just stay that way unless a…

Well I appreciate the star!

I find that when people don’t have the “time” to debate someone, but have the time to read the comments on Lifehacker, it’s not that they don’t have the time, it’s that they don’t have the intellect. Nice try though.

I think that free markets work themselves out. As you said, at some point, the price turns off consumers and they seek alternatives. Just before that price is what the market will bear. That sounds fair to me. If you are willing to pay $70, which you clearly are, isn’t that what the service is worth? I don’t…

Consider it done

Yes. I’m still trying to understand how rolling back the 2015 regulations takes us back to 2005 and not 2015.

what makes you think ISPs wouldn’t start carving up the internet and acting in anti-competitive ways?

Taking a step back - has it been proven that even if ISPs did violate Net Neutrality principles, that it’d result in an overall worse experience for subscribers? We seem to accept that if these scenarios occurred, consumers would be worse off - but how do we know that? Markets are unpredictable, and free markets…

That’s what I was suspecting, but thought maybe there was some angle to this that I was completely missing.

Do you think that the amount that would cancel would result in a net loss for the ISPs? If the average cost were $100/month, they’d just need to retain roughly 20% for it to be an appealing option for them (consider the reduction in overhead if you just had to service 20% of your customers - so 100 customers at $500…

But why not more? Internet costs aren’t outrageously higher than other utility bills or other bills that a person might have. I think most people agree that they feel “reasonable.” If the two above statements are true, then what stops ISPs from raising them to the point that the average customer feels that they are…

• How were those matters resolved?

For the sake of argument, I’ll accept everything you just said, and add in that all ISPs care about is profit (a crucial point for Net Neutrality regulation to make sense). Given all of that:

The government sure as shit cares more about you than Comcast does.

Could someone answer a very specific question for me? How does rolling back the 2015 regulations also roll back/negate/block whatever laws/regulations/legal mechanism(s) were used in 2005 to stop the ISP in North Carolina from blocking Vonage?