bmac32 Loc: West Florida

President Obama's public stance that the FCC should reclassify broadband internet services as a Title II "common carrier" under the current Telecommunications Act carries many ramifications, but one is undeniable: there's going to be a hidden tax hike, and it's going to be paid for by consumers.

Title II common carriers are required to "contribute" to what's called the Universal Service Fund - a government program to bring telecommunications services to underserved areas with the goal of universal coverage. Whether it's called "contributions" or fees or whatnot, the function of the program is a tax on corporate revenues in order to fund services for those who might not have them otherwise. It's a redistributive corporate tax paid for by consumers.

The USF tax amounts to more than a 16% charge on top of consumers' bills. As broadband service providers are not currently subject to the USF tax, a reclassification would mean that all consumers would see a jump around that size in their bill. Considering that in some locales, the cheapest broadband service runs upwards of $50 per month, this will cost even the most price-conscious consumers an extra $100 per year - and for those at higher tiers, much more than that.

FCC commissioners past and present have agreed that the this net neutrality tax is unavoidable in a Title II reclassification scenario. In a discussion at the National Press Club on Friday, current FCC commissioner Ajit Pai laid out exactly what consumers would be seeing on their bills.

"Public utility regulation would mean higher broadband prices for consumers," Pai said. "Once broadband is classified as a telecommunications service, universal service charges would be assessed on carriers' broadband services. Many state and local taxes would automatically kick in."

"The net result is that every single American broadband customer would have to pay a new tax - or taxes - to access the internet."

An FCC decision to go with title II reclassification in order to enforce new net neutrality regulations would have a lot of deleterious effects. One of the most obvious is that it would be a tax hike on a service that the government believes is essential to American life.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2014/11/14/the-net-neutrality-tax-hike-n1918998?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

cold iron Loc: White House

Vote democrat and get taxed and screwed to death.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

You do mean continually do you not?

kush

This post is all lies and misinformation. Net neutrality is what we have TODAY!. Keeping the net neutral CHANGES NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!

cold iron Loc: White House

You fail to see how the left twist's things so you will support it.
Did you miss "You have to Pass it To See Whats In It"
Net Neutrality will give big brother a "ON OFF Switch"
The entire life of the internet has never had any government hands on it. It was always run by free people. Just look at your health care now that big brother has a hold on it. Need I say more?

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Net Neutrality sounds great on the surface very much like ObamaCare did once but once you read what they want and can do you may not like what you read. Verizon has already won a battle with Netflix by allowing tier pricing, don't we already have that? So would that mean for those who never use Netflix a price drop?

I have Verizon and will be switching back because I never see the speeds I paying for and I have never used Netflix and have never been offered any type of discount.

cold iron Loc: White House

Where is kush???? Is he in hiding??

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

You might want to inform yourself.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/net-neutrality-changes-in-u-s-could-impact-canada-1.2831423

You give the government a foot inside the door and we'll all be sorry.

Kevyn

You idiot, the government funded the development of the Internet with research grants, the government has had hands all over the Internet since its very beginning.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

Yeah, algore invented it just ask him.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

No, it didn't.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Point that finger at yourself Al.

It was ultimately private enterprise that made the connections to create the Internet we have today, Crovitz wrote – government just needed to get out of the way.

The Internet did start with the ARPANET project and the federal government directly funded the creation of the Internet we know today, Cerf wrote. And Xerox deserves credit for great work, Cerf wrote, including creation of the Ethernet protocol, the ALTO personal computer, the Xerox Network System and PARC Universal Packet. “XEROX did link homogenous Ethernets together but the internetworking method did not scale particularly well,” Cerf wrote.

Ultimately, it was the work of researchers around the world from dozens of organizations that created the Internet. “After our initial paper was published, detailed design was conducted at Stanford during 1974 and implementation started in 1975 at Stanford, BBN and University College London. After that, a number of other institutions, notably MIT, SRI, ISI, UCLA, NDRE, engaged heavily in the work,” Cerf wrote.

As for Crovitz’s declaration that the TCP/IP protocol languished for decades in the hands of government, only to be set free by private enterprise, Cerf responded, “I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz's assertion.”

If you have never use an 5 1/4 floppy your basically sitting at an idiot box.

cold iron Loc: White House

Oh' yeah, I forgot, it was Al Gore that made it. sorry.