Do you actually believe that these points are useful? You're distancing yourself from "agreeing" with them, maybe because you know how wrong they are, but you still seem to be sympathetic to them.
>1) ISPs have almost never tried to throttle by traffic type
They have been shown to do this, have an interest in doing it, and it's illegal to do it. Say you're playing chess, and you consider making a move such that, if they move their rook to h7 it would be mate for you. Is it a reasonable argument in favor of making the move anyway to point out that your opponent "almost never" moves his rook to h7?
>2) business model innovation (e.g. zero rating, etc) can have positive effects
This is difficult to disprove since the statement is incredibly weak. "Can have"??! ISPs have local monopolies everywhere they exist. Business model innovation for monopolies is exclusively going to be about charging people more money for the same service, and protecting your monopoly status. You could argue that this is a positive effect, but not to me, and probably not to this board.
>3) internet access has lots of room for improvement that will require investment, and tying the hands of the providers may prevent that.
They have no incentive to improve it as long as they maintain their monopoly status. People are already being charged as much money as they are willing to pay for their internet access, you can't improve the service and expect to extract more money from them.
In short, none of these points have any merit at all, and if you present them in the future, you should also explain why they don't make any sense.
1) no. From Inception of the Internet until 2005 they were regulated under Title II, from 2005 until 2010 there were loose rules on a case by case basis, from 2010 to 2015 there was the Original Open Internet Order as a direct result of Comcast Bad Actions, which were struck down by the Courts so in 2015 the ISP;s were moved back to Title II in order for the Open Internet Order to be Enforceable
2) Good for you, Are those options all wireless... Wireless is not a replacement for wired service. Further How about you think of Americans other than your self. As of 2015 under the current definition of broadband (25mpbs or higher) there are no ISPs at all in 30 percent of developed census blocks options for Fixed Broadband, 48% had 1 Option, only 3% had 3 or more choices...
2) Cable and DSL are the two I'm thinking of. (Though AT&T has just rolled out fiber-to-the-home, Comcast probably will too soon.) I'm currently paying Comcast $20/mo (intro-rate) for 16mbs. It's not broadband, but it's plenty for streaming Netflix, etc. I don't need broadband.
3) I'm also hoping that any abuses will encourage competition of ISPs.
2) Not if you want to stream 4K content, or do anything else while streaming HD Content...
And that is just with Today's Usage, the problem is one this type of service is ingrained it will be hard to get rid of it, so we will either never see the next new technology because the gate keepers will have killed it, or if we do it will be prohibitively expensive for the average consumer
One reason 4K is getting such good adoption is open internet.
Under a Closed Internet we are moving to we will see an EXTREME slow down in technology improvement.
As for 3), current market forces are clearly not sufficient to create good competition across most markets. It's extremely capital intensive to build a wired, to-the-home network.
Heck, look at Google Fiber. Even Google threw in the towel and said 'no more', basically.
It was prohibited by regulation from 2010-2014 and 2015-2017 and contrary to non-regulation FCC policy enforced through case-by-case action from 2005-2010.
> 3) If the ISPs abuse their power, the FCC can always switch them back to Title II.
The ISPs did so repeatedly throughout the case-by-case enforcement period, which is why the FCC adopted the first regulatory package in 2010 (while this was finalized after case-by-case was struck down by the courts, the process was started earlier.)
>1) ISPs have almost never tried to throttle by traffic type
They have been shown to do this, have an interest in doing it, and it's illegal to do it. Say you're playing chess, and you consider making a move such that, if they move their rook to h7 it would be mate for you. Is it a reasonable argument in favor of making the move anyway to point out that your opponent "almost never" moves his rook to h7?
>2) business model innovation (e.g. zero rating, etc) can have positive effects
This is difficult to disprove since the statement is incredibly weak. "Can have"??! ISPs have local monopolies everywhere they exist. Business model innovation for monopolies is exclusively going to be about charging people more money for the same service, and protecting your monopoly status. You could argue that this is a positive effect, but not to me, and probably not to this board.
>3) internet access has lots of room for improvement that will require investment, and tying the hands of the providers may prevent that.
They have no incentive to improve it as long as they maintain their monopoly status. People are already being charged as much money as they are willing to pay for their internet access, you can't improve the service and expect to extract more money from them.
In short, none of these points have any merit at all, and if you present them in the future, you should also explain why they don't make any sense.