Puerto Rico’s already suffering economy took a massive hit when Hurricane Maria struck last month. Now, as business owners struggle to get back on their feet, the island’s chamber of commerce has an unseemly proposal for revitalizing the economy: Embrace the Trump administration’s plans for repealing current net neutrality rules.
Federal Communication Commission Chair Ajit Pai has found broad support from telecom industry groups and their surrogates in his effort to repeal the open internet standards established by the Obama administration. But a column from the National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, a group funded by Verizon, appears to be the first to attempt to harness the crisis in Puerto Rico in support of repealing net neutrality safeguards.
“My organization’s interests — especially those of small businesses and entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico who now need to be afforded every advantage and opportunity to grow more than ever before — and our members’ mutual experience have made it clear that the best thing for America’s fragile economy will be for the FCC to continue its plan to repeal the unnecessary regulations,” Justin Vélez-Hagan, executive director and founder of the chamber, wrote Monday in an opinion piece published by The Hill.
If only a private company controlled their access to Netflix and Youtube, things in PR would be so much better.
Wait… what?
Comes from this tweet:
Yikes. I’d have usage in every one of those tiers.
Pretty sure that’s the idea.
And since YouTube can play music videos, that of course means you are auto subscribed to both the Video and Music tiers. And you can leave comments, so Messaging tier. But wait, those comments are seen by millions! Social tier. Wait wait, sorry - you logged in to YouTube? Google of course records all that. Probably in your Google Drive. Cloud tier engaged!
This looks like a nightmare, and also what streaming is doing now.
Charter, which likes to call itself Spectrum now, called me up a few times to offer me live streaming TV for 19.95. I thought wow, that’s great. It’s more than I have now… what could possibly go wrong. Oh, a bullshit broadcast fee of 7.50 (almost as much as HULU) and another 5 dollars ish in taxes… so, yeah not 20 dollars for TV at all.
And of course they’ll jack up the price in 6 or 12 months anyway
I might pay for a cheap streaming alternative with Time Warner (also Spectrum) if they offered it here. Hell, they might and I just don’t know.
I pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. Dropping Hulu would offset some cost of a monthly recurring for more channels.
Nesrie how does it work though? Via an app or what? Streaming makes me think you can watch anything on demand, so I’m wondering how far back they store the shows.
This is the whole problem with cable and the reason I dropped. By the time they add up everything you are far too indebted to them with a monthly recurring bill to justify anything but 24/7 television watching.
EDIT: Just checked. Only traditional options here in my area. No streaming only.
They’re pushing it hard at the moment, so they offer a Roku Stick with it. I have too many streamers to care about a cheap stick but… my mom actually switched to this. Since she can’t handle even using a remote, I of course was called over to show her how to do use it so… this is the skinny.
Charter/ Spectrum has an App. That app basically has two modes, a Guide that allows you to look at the channels and watch TV live and an On Demand that behaves a little like Hulu, sorted by networks and shows listed. What confused her is you can’t really channel surf on it, or at least the five minutes I played it I didn’t see how you could. So you load the live TV option; it plays whatever channel you had last and if you want to change you go to the TV Guide and pick something else. If you want to watch an on demand option you go to that section and then get access to entire seasons and a lot of other options the individual channels offer as part of the On Demand. In addition, they have a number of channels that are live but an larger set of channels that are basically just on demand versions only.
I don’t really care about live TV anymore, so paying that 7.50 which is a made up broadcast fee that should be part of the original twenty just irks me. I give them a slight pass on the taxes because those are actual taxes.
The whole thing sounded like a load of hot bullshit when their mailers and web links wouldn’t list the whole lineup. Charging a made-up fee on top is ridiculous, but doesn’t surprise me at all.
It sounds kind of hokey without channel surfing, but honestly I used the guide more when I did have cable, anyway.
I also stumbled across this in trying to find what you were talking about, Nesrie. I wonder what became of this suit:
It’s still going is my understanding. I looked up the Broadcast Fee too when my mom showed me her bill. I said it was a bullshit fee that Charter is trying to hide so they can advertise a lower price than what they actually offer. I hope that suit nails them all to the ground…
I chose not to take their service for no other reason than that fee. They also put in mice type that this 19.95 is an introductory fee. I expect them to jack it up like they do everything else so… I will continue to support the actual streamers where I can.
That’s the same with nearly every TW option they had in the past. Any listed fees are for the first 12 months only and the service agreement is either 2 or 3 years.
When I dropped with just cable (no premium channels) and internet I was at $180 a month for two rooms (both had DVR.) Highway robbery.
I would be fine with some good cable and internet for about 100. The premiums, I would pay the 10 fee or whatever. I cut cable in 2009. At the time they would sell this triple package, with a phone service no one wants for 100 or just TV and Internet for 90. As the end of 12 months it would go up to 170. Now, they don’t even advertise the 170. Their mice type just says the standard rates. It’s ridiculous to pay that much for internet and TV.
And they raised my internet from 55 to 65 last year, internet alone.
Yeah my internet went up $10 per month since I didn’t have cable. “Rates are only with cable package.” Bullshit, but I need internet and I’m surely not doing AT&T instead.
Democrats never really follow through on this type of stuff. They appreciate the votes from young tech-savvy people (many of whom fall into the low income category), but don’t really care about them.
If you have Earthlink in your area you can flip between their promotion rates and the cable company’s
They’re still pushing the deal, another month out for that free express. They don’t list all the channels, although I had the list at one point. The premium deal is actually very good for that first 3 years, but that broadcast fee… I don’t know i can get past it.
That’s not a bad deal, we know how they work though. It’s probably limited in time and/or like you mentioned, full of additional fees they tack on.
Still, that gives me hope. If major carriers would shift toward a streaming model, I would be much more inclined to consider them as an “add-on” service to my internet, not as a separate service 3 times that cost that I rarely use.