Big Telecom Resorts To Lying To Senior Citizens To Scuttle Net Neutrality In California

from the disinformation-nation dept

Wed, Aug 29th 2018 6:19am — Karl Bode

With the bipartisan majority of Americans supporting net neutrality, the broadband industry often has to resort to outright falsehoods to try and make its case that we don't need net neutrality rules (or any meaningful oversight of natural telecom monopolies). From paying civil rights groups to parrot industry positions to hiring fake journalists to deny the obvious, the broadband industry has a long, proud, multi-decade history of using outright bullshit to scare the public, press and regulators away from the idea of net neutrality.

The latest case in point: after AT&T lobbyists successfully sabotaged initial efforts to pass new net neutrality rules in California, the state this week revisited the effort with a new vote on the state assembly floor. In a bid to try and scuttle the effort, an AT&T-linked group by the name of Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) has been robocalling senior citizens in the state, informing them that their cell phone bill will jump $30 if the new rules pass. California State Senator Scott Wiener, the author of California's bill, wasn't particularly impressed:

We’re now dealing with a straight-up misinformation campaign on our #NetNeutrality bill, #SB822: industry robo-calls to seniors falsely telling them that protecting net neutrality will increase their phone bills by $30. Scaring seniors w lies about their financial security? Gross pic.twitter.com/1Lgop6KwSl

— Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) August 25, 2018

The group is informing seniors that should California pass net neutrality rules, they'll not only see a $30 hike in their cellular phone bills, but their data will be "slowed down":

"Your Assembly member will be voting on a proposal by San Francisco politicians that could increase your cellphone bill by $30 a month and slow down your data. We can't afford higher cell phone bills. We can't afford slower data. We can't afford Senate Bill 822."

Of course the bill in question, SB822, does nothing of the sort. Like most net neutrality bills, it prohibits AT&T from throttling or slowing down your cellular data connections anti-competitively, and if anything will likely save California consumers money by preventing AT&T from nickel and diming them (via zero rating, interconnection shenanigans, charging you more just to watch HD video as intended, or countless other creative abuses of the largely-uncompetitive broadband market). The information conveyed by the robocall is patently false.

Knowing the bill is likely to pass in some form, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast lobbyists have spent the last few months trying to strip away most of the integral parts of the bill. With those efforts struggling in activist-heavy California, apparently the broadband industry thought the next best move would be to lie to senior citizens, which speaks volumes of the quality and integrity of its arguments.

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Filed Under: california, lobbying, net neutrality, scott weiner
Companies: at&t, civil justice association

58 Comments

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hij (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 4:51am

Prescient forecasting
The joke is on them, the rates were going to increase regardless.
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Gary (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 6:31am

Honesty is the best policy
Well AT&T is going ro raise the rates regardless, so they are being honest, from a certain point of view.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 6:32am

Forgive my ignorance, but how is this type of thing legal? Is it legal?
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That One Guy (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 6:45am

"We were going to do X. Now we're going to do X, praise us!"
Reminds of of the articles where it's pointed out that as part of a deal of whatever kind, merger or whatnot, they'll promise to connect to X number of areas/houses.

Thing is, they were going to do that anyway, or already had, so all they were doing was trying to be rewarded for something they were already going to do, or already had, as though it had anything to do with the deal.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 6:52am

Apparently lying is the new chic thing to do
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:05am

big telco is ripping you off anyway
... until you realize this and start to bother politicians to improve the situation. My guess is that with proper laws and some regulation creating competition the average bill could be cut down to 2/3 while also encouraging telcos to invest into infrastructure and real broadband access for customers instead of just taking subsidies without delivering anything besides fake news.
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Pixelation, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:08am

True colors
ATT showing us one more time they can't be trusted, which is exactly why net neutrality is needed.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:08am

Re:
It sounds like a threat to me, and that should be illegal.

On the other hand, whether the bill passes or not, the rates will go up due to lack of competition. Let the mergers proceed, so the rates can go up faster.

A better bill would be requiring competition, though I guess that would be hard to do at the state level.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:15am

They're probably telling the truth, it's just not the bill that will bring about those changes...
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:16am

It speaks volumes for the integrity of all the main broadband players in the USA in general, not just in California! These fuckers lie so much, so often and for so long i doubt if they even could fathom the truth. What's as bad is the members of Congress that go along with the bullshit just so as to be able to carry on lining their own pockets! Disgraceful!
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:24am

Lying? Not at all!
They're telling the absolute truth that their bills will be $30 higher if they vote for net neutrality.

They're just eliding the fact that they'll probably be $50 higher if they vote against.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:43am

I am having fun
Are you guys having fun?

Such a shame and regulation is failing all over the place... no wait... it's not failing at all. It is doing just exactly what it intended to do.

Give businesses like ATT "natural monopolies" so they can fuck you over so that you would have to run to "dirty politicians", that takes ATT's money that ATT took from you, and beg for NN like the ignorant worms you are.

You deserve ATT because you approve of them having monopolies. I though you fucking knobs knew how this shit works? But apparently you think you know far fucking more than you actually do!

Get rid of NN and go for the kill... end the monopolies! Your problems will never be gone, but killing those monopolies will do far more for you than those bullshit NN rules ever will! As usually the best you simpletons have is to give those corrupt bastards more power. The current power is not working, what is more power going to do exactly?
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I.T. Guy, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:45am

Re: Re:
Dangerous area you live in. Shame if something should happen. [Hands you business card for "security" company]
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Gary (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:57am

Re: I am having fun
How in your world of "all regulations are bad and failing" does one kill a monopoly without "regulations?"
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ArkieGuy (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:57am

Truth In Advertising
The robo-call should say "Hey, we are AT&T and if you let this bill pass we are going to raise your cell phone bill by $30. Don't let us do this to you, change your cell carriers immediately!"
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:01am

Re: I am having fun
Name a country where the fixed line telcos and cable are not a monopoly in the area they serve? Mobile only has multiple carriers serving many areas because localized monopoly mobile is almost useless because people want their mobile to work at home, at work, and when they travel to the other side of the country.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:02am

Re: big telco is ripping you off anyway
If Europe is comparable, bills would drop by a lot more than 1/3 if we had decent regulation on the industry. It's possible to get similar service in Europe for 1/6th of the price in the US, depending on the plan.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:05am

Re: I am having fun
Given that you're here on this site, too, you are implicitly part of the same group you label as "fucking knobs", "ignorant worms" and "simpletons".

You have absolutely no data to support the idea that you are separate from this group any more than anyone else here is.

Well done.
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JoeCool (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:07am

Re:
It's anything but new. We're just more aware of it than ever before, mainly thanks to the internet... which is something the liars are trying to "cure".
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Zain, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:14am

Truth In Advertising
The robo-call should say "Hey, we are AT&T and if you let this bill pass we are going to raise your cell phone bill by $30. Don't let us do this to you, change your cell carriers immediately!"
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Zain, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:19am

Nice!
Nice Article
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Ed (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:35am

Isn't it way past due for AT&T to suffer a public execution again? It was done once before, but after deregulation and mergers, it needs to be done again. And bury Comcast in the same unmarked grave. They're both guilty of massive crimes against humanity.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:43am

Worst game of Telephone ever.
It's so frustrating to watch this game the telecom groups play.

They spend so much effort getting their restrictions and oversight removed, then mock their detractors for pointing out how bad that is by saying "Oh but look nothing bad that you said was going to happen is happening!" knowing full well they are simply waiting till the news cycle moves away from them (and the lawsuits are done).

Now they sit there and falsely claim that NN rules will force them to raise rates and slow speeds, and if the rules pass they can fulfill their own prophecy and use that as "proof" that NN hurts consumers, even though they orchestrated the whole damn thing. And to top it off, they can get away with it because they just got done gutting meaningful oversight.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:47am

Re: Re:

It sounds like a threat to me, and that should be illegal.

Yeah, I was interpreting this as a threat too, rather than a lie. To declare it a lie we'd have to know that AT&T isn't going to raise the bill by $30/mo and slow down their service as a fuck-you and a warning to other states not to try the same. I can't say that with any confidence.
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Iggy, 29 Aug 2018 @ 8:51am

What a desperate tactic. Cali must be close to passing the bill.
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bshock, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:15am

We know that Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast are all dangerous, unethical companies that desperately need to be broken up. Let's talk about how we accomplish this goal.
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Tom O'Reilly, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:24am

What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?

prohibits AT&T from throttling or slowing down your cellular data connections anti-competitively

charging you more just to watch HD video

So what's NOT neutral about directly proportional to byte counts?

Now, I've asked several times for a definition of "net neutrality" and the minion gives a clearly impractical, self-contradictory outline right there!

What you kids mean by the phrase is you'd be saturating the towers continually so you can sit mesmerized by HD video, while anyone calling the Fire Dept to actually report a fire can't get a few bytes of bandwidth. Don't seem to understand limited capacity.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:37am

Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
You really don't understand NN or anything relating to NN. Just stop posting.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:47am

Re: Re: Re:
It's not quite the same. AT&T is allowed to arbitrarily raise rates for the services they provide, ever since they were deregulated (on the ridiculous basis that they had competition, and people would simply move to another telco if AT&T went too far).
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:49am

Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
The telecom's have had plenty of time, and money, to expand their capacity. It is not their customers fault they chose not to.

You seem to think that having inherently low capacity and the right to charge more when the capacity gets tested, rather than having adequate capacity, not just for today's usage, but for what might be coming, especially when they KNOW it's coming far in advance, is something we should put up with.

Net Neutrality means that all traffic get the same priority. Now that priority might be lower for, say torrents, and higher for, say video streaming. The problem is that they want THEIR video streaming to have a higher priority and lower cost as compared to THE OTHER GUYS video streaming which gets a lower priority and higher cost. That is not neutral. Then there is their concept of 'unlimited' which is severely limited and speed impacted whey 'THEY' feel like it.

An ISP, no matter how one gets the service, should be a dumb pipe. That an ISP also owns content providers should not affect that dumb pipe. Using the dumb pipe to market their content is an abrogation of the original deal. I buy Internet access from an ISP. Not content. If I buy content, then I choose a content provider. If I choose the content the ISP owned content provider provides, well good for them. Why should I be penalized, by the ISP for choosing someone else's content?

You want everyone to pay by the byte. Well they do. That the lack of competition allows them to change the deal while in mid deal and raise prices willy nilly, without giving anything more, or even justify the supposed underlying inflation, is again, not the users fault. THEY use their money to buy legislators and laws that prevent or hinder the competition that would both improve quality AND price because THEIR investors want growth. Both growth in quarterly profits and overall growth annually. Something that is unsustainable given that there are only so many customers, a commodity that won't expand very rapidly, and may shrink. Hence the mergers that try to forestall the fact that the market is limited. But even when there is only one left, growth will not be sustainable. What will they do then? I am fairly certain that you, a telecom shill, will be happy with whatever they come up with.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:52am

Re: Re: I am having fun
Technically, with no regulation at all, any would-be competitor could string wires wherever they wanted. That would make it easier to start a competitor, at least until the incumbent realized there's no regulation to prevent them from sabotaging the upstart network.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 9:58am

Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
- Calling people Kids simply because you hold a different viewpoint is not only insulting but it undermines your argument.
- In the case of the firefighters, they were being throttled by the company when they were not supposed to be. The bill also has wording that essentially prioritizes them.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:03am

Re: Re: I am having fun
See, this is the level of "intelligence" of TD.

If I support regulations that work against monopolies and anti-trust I am obviously not against all regulations.

This is just a construct of your small and limited minds. That is your number one problem, any talk about destroying regulations for you guys means TOTAL 100% no room for even 1 regulation churning.

You guys have not fucking sense, not even a little bit. The problem is your "regulate all the things" mentality because there is NO CONTROL behind it.

I am okay with NARROW defined regulations that help guard against the negatives of a free-market, mainly "lazy fucking never my fault citizens" who think all salvation comes from the muttering of politicians getting paid by the people you seek relief from.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:08am

Re: Re: I am having fun
I don't care about the "other cuntries" they can do what they want. But here in America there are actually some areas where fixed line telcos do not have total monopolies, the problem is that this is not near enough or even consistent.

Mobile has NOTHING to do with this problem. In fact it is not the technical aspects that are the problems here. The problems are all "manufactured" by the SUCK ATT's DICK pro NN dimwits.

ATT does not need to have a government granted natural monopoly on shit.

We need to, here it comes FUCKERS, "regulate the infrastructure" like we used to do roads before toll roads became a fucking thing.

I am all for sensible, meaningful, and narrow regulation. I am just not for the "government owns, controls, and decides who gets what" regulations that these fucking set harming knobs want!
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techflaws (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:17am

Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
You're not half as clever as you think you are, asshat.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:19am

Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
Congestion happens when too much bandwidth is demanded now, like this millisecond. Data caps limit how much data can use in a month. The time scale difference is such that data caps have nothing to do with avoiding congestion. If, as is common there as some sources sources allowed outside the data caps, it becomes even more obvious that they have nothing to do with capacity management, but a lot to do with market manipulation for extra profit.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:22am

Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
Meanwhile, your stupidity is demonstrated for all the world to see in your blanket assumption that everyone here wants to regulate everything despite the thousands of posts contradicting that assumption.

Read and understand more. Speak and look like an idiot less.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:27am

Re: Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
I don't need to be clever at all around you numbnuts.

You know some things just enough to make you self destructive. If you had the secret to eternal energy in your hands you would blow yourselves the fuck up!

The things you are doing right now will become the shackles you wear tomorrow. There is no such thing as a benevolent government. Another Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, or Pol Pott will get into power and fuck you sideways with the powers and tools you gave them to do it with!
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 10:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
Really? Tell me Mr. Informed... which regulations would you currently "remove"?

Time to put up or shut the fuck up!
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 11:06am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
I missed the part where the poster you accused made such a claim.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 11:08am

Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
May I suggest that rather than waste your precious time on this blog, you go out there and present your ideas to the public and see if you can contribute. Since you know everything, it should be rather easy.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 11:11am

Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
Before accusing others of ignorance perhaps one should educate themselves first?
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Unrepentant Globetard, 29 Aug 2018 @ 12:18pm

Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
They already charge the heaviest users more, the bill doesn't stop them from doing that, and you know it. In fact the bill doesn't deal with pricing at all. It says you can't charge more for Netflix HD bytes than you do for Hulu HD bytes just because you own one and not the other. Or that you can slow down Netflix HD bytes while making sure Hulu HD bytes have faster access. So you know you're lying, must have been the guy that wrote the copy for the Robo calls. Just another corporate toool. smh
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Uriel-238 (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 12:38pm

Anti-trust
Yeah. Take a look at how long it's been since we've actually seen those laws in use.

And then watch the action on Merger Monday.

Have you ever played the game Monopoly? It's a cautionary tale.
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ShadowNinja (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 2:56pm

Re: I am having fun
Read up on 'Natural Monopolies'.

There's a reason why the utility regulations were invented. They're a natural monopoly on a vital resource in many parts of the country.

Hence it's literally not possible in a true free market for the government to ensure competition in the ISP market even if they try breaking up the monopolies. In less population dense parts of the country it's simply not economically possible for 2 or more competitions to be in an area, especially in rural areas with lots of land and few people.

This is why the government to this day still subsidizes landlines in many rural parts of the country, and why there's a tax for it on your phone bill.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2018 @ 4:06pm

Re:
The last breakup didn't last that long, and only creates more local monopolies. Better to regulate the infrastructure, and force competition at the service level, like just about every other country has done.
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ECA (profile), 29 Aug 2018 @ 5:13pm

Love fake news..
ISNT there a law about False adverts??
Any phone calls are ADVERTS..
How many things can we SUGGEST are adverts??
IF its not FACT, its an advert??
If its NOT NEWS...its an advert??

Where is that SUPER fine text that runs up my screen, excusing them from LYING??
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Richard Bennett, 29 Aug 2018 @ 7:30pm

As usual Bodey McBodeface is missing the point
It doesn't matter whether people, bots or corpses make the posts or calls. What matters is the content, and the content is that net neutrality is a big fat Google lie! Oooh, fuck you Bode. I wish Pai daddy put you in a wood chipper, but that would just make it harder for me to shit down your throat.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 30 Aug 2018 @ 12:20am

Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
I am okay with NARROW defined regulations that help guard against the negatives of a free-market, mainly "lazy fucking never my fault citizens" who think all salvation comes from the muttering of politicians getting paid by the people you seek relief from.

As are we. In our case, we laid out a clear argument why net neutrality regulation was that NARROW defined regulation that help guard against the negatives of an anti-competitive market.

And because of that one thing -- where we seem to agree with you -- you continue to insist, day in and day out, that we support "regulate all the things."

Why? Why do you do this?
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2018 @ 1:44am

Re: As usual Bodey McBodeface is missing the point
Richard Bennett just hates it when due process is enforced.
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Ninja (profile), 30 Aug 2018 @ 6:34am

Re: Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
Psychiatric issues?
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That One Guy (profile), 30 Aug 2018 @ 7:05am

Re: Re: Re: Re: I am having fun
Because they are a liar and/or troll who enjoy beating up the phantom TD they've created in their head too much to be honest and have an honest discussion, instead choosing to bask in their fictional superiority as they best the imaginary and straw filled TD they present.

That or they just really want to help the site by stress-testing the flag as troll button.
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 30 Aug 2018 @ 11:12pm

Re: Prescient forecasting
"It'd sure be awful if something happened to your phone bill and bandwidth/data allowance."
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 30 Aug 2018 @ 11:14pm

Re:
IDK, someone or other keeps banging on about how teh fakenewz is illegal and a threat to our country. Maybe he will do something about that.
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The Wanderer (profile), 31 Aug 2018 @ 9:24am

Re: Re: What's "anti-competitively" about charging heaviest users more?
To be fair, there's a tiny connection between congestion and data caps: if you know that you can only use so much data within a month, you're more likely to spread the usage of that data out across the month rather than concentrating it in one narrow time period, so the chance of your using so much data in any one millisecond that congestion results is likely to be smaller.

It's not at all clear that this link is strong enough to justify the argument for data caps as a way to fight congestion, however.
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The Wanderer (profile), 31 Aug 2018 @ 9:26am

Re: Re: As usual Bodey McBodeface is missing the point
I'm about 99.44% certain that's a Poe-ing troll, not the actual Richard Bennett. (In addition to the over-the-top offensive rhetoric, beyond what even Richard Bennett has historically used, IIRC the actual guy usually posts logged in and with a non-snowflake avatar.)
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Sep 2018 @ 8:43am

Re: Re: Re: As usual Bodey McBodeface is missing the point
And supposedly, so did horse with no name/Just Sayin'/Whatever/My Name Here...
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2018 @ 2:33pm

At this point Verizon, AT&T AND Comcast need to be broken into at least 10 sections each. THEN we'd have real capitalist competition.
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