"Who should pay for Netflix?"

Good article.

I am surprised at the amount of internet traffic taken by video. Video viewers are getting a deal. Am I paying for their good deal, since I rarely watch videos over the internet?

Thanks for posting this Randy.

Reading what Pai has been saying his are very clear signals in the direction of broadening/bridging service reach. How? He says that by classifying ISP's as Title II utilities these companies have less incentive to invest in improving their networks and less incentive to build out the last miles. Pai's stance is that by waving net neutrality and declassifying them as Title II utilities ISP's like comcast/verizon will have more cash to do build-out. Of course this is also what the companies are saying which also says something. On this issue the current Trump-selected FCC chair and ISP's are on the same webpage.

Is there a track record that his stance is correct? ISP's have been sitting on boat loads of cash for a while and yet have built-out very little into zones without service. Add to that the fact that Pai et al are very much against the Lifeline program net neutrality advocates are rightfully suspicious that this proposed policy change will have the supposed intended consequences.

Neutrality advocates instead are logically suspect of the notion that deregulation will somehow compel the increasingly consolidated media oligopoly to provide service to those without or to level pricing for services. The driving idea is that competition in the market will somehow translate into build-out and price constraints.

IMV this should be seen in the larger context of the economy over time. The basic concept of keeping these large, powerful economic and political actors within some set of state regulation is an idea not exactly born out of the recent past. One bottom line is that Title II allows for pricing controls that say carriers may charge prices but they may not discriminate. We should support this idea out of moral and economic grounds. It's the radical idea that the public should have the power to set prices rather than monopolistic cable and telecommunications networks. If things shoiuld change the US may end up looking more like Portugal.

Another question - what are the policy fixes that will allow for wider internet access in a country with large swaths of area with low population density? If competition is the answer then perhaps one solution is to unbundle local loops.

Let's get over calling this net neutrality. It will be net censorship.

John Eggerton at Broadcasting and Cable - ISPs Renew Pledges Not To Block or Throttle

ISPs were renewing their pledges not to block or throttle or otherwise discriminate against legal online content.

That comes as the FCC under Republican chairman Ajit Pai prepares to reverse the Title II common carrier classification of ISPs and eliminate the bright-line rules against such conduct, leaving it to the Justice Department to determine if any such conduct is anticompetitive, and the Federal Trade Commission to enforce those ISP pledges.

The FCC cited those pledges in announcing the planned rollback of those rules.

More than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments were Likely Faked

Key Findings:²
One pro-repeal spam campaign used mail-merge to disguise 1.3 million comments as unique grassroots submissions.
There were likely multiple other campaigns aimed at injecting what may total several million pro-repeal comments into the system.
It’s highly likely that more than 99% of the truly unique comments³ were in favor of keeping net neutrality.

also
Official Medium account of New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman -
An Open Letter to the FCC