Or maybe we should hold ISPs accountable for the $400 Billion they pocketed instead of laying fiber in the late 90s.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394

Yeah, ISP's were given a considerable amount of money to improve internet infrastructure 30 years ago and they did not. Classify them as a utility. Heck, we should nationalize the utilities anyway.

Funny, when Google started building fiber, ISPs threw a fit and tried to make it illegal in a lot of places for big tech to build broadband networks.

So uh, which is it guys?

We need municipal and public utility broadband.

They were paid to do this thirty years ago! Instead, they stuffed the money in their pockets and did next to nothing to earn it.

Wait wait. AT&T and Verizon want money from other companies? THEY were the ones given tax breaks to do it themselves!

ISPs already got money for this.

They can all go provide more dumpster fire kindling with Elno, spez and Zuck.

I expect to see further erosion of Net Neutrality if big tech firms are required to pay for internet infrastructure. I have no love for big tech, but if they are required to pay for infrastructure, then how long until smaller companies and hosts are required to pay? The Biden administration seems to agree: "[it] is difficult to understand how a system of mandatory payments imposed on only a subset of content providers could be enforced without undermining net neutrality." I have no love for ISPs either - ISPs should be run as public utilities, not as for-profit private corporate conglomerates.

As others have already pointed out the US government (and Comcast, Verizon, & Century Link customers) have been defrauded by the major telecom companies for nearly 30 years worth at least $400 billion dollars (data from 2014, the current total is likely over $700 billion). They've been pocketing obscene amounts of money instead of investing in infrastructure for decades, at this point additional infrastructure should be publicly funded, owned & operated and the telecommunications companies should be forced to sell the internet infrastructure to local public utilities.

The Irregulators are a group of experts who have been fighting this fraud since 1999, and they have a couple books about this:

• The Book of Broken Promises- $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net

• DISS-CONNECT - How America's Big Telecoms Stole Billions from the Public and Created the Digital Divide

This is like Godzilla and Mothra arguing about who should pay to rebuild downtown Tokyo after one of their brawls. Meanwhile, the citizens don’t care who pick up the tab. They just want it done.

Please no. I don't like big ISPs, but neither do I want big tech to feel entitled to control the network infrastructure somehow more than they already do.

This is like building a toll road then not only charging the people driving on it but also charging their destinations too. Hilarious.

That's like asking Whirlpool and Kenmore to pay for water and sewer expansion.

I don’t understand. It’s not like Big Tech or anyone using their services is just hopping on the internet for free, right? Just like any other business, you use your profits to expand. Or is there something I’m missing?

Hmmmm…wonder whose fault it is that many municipalities won’t approve new line construction by upstart ISPs 🤔

It couldn’t have anything to do with lobbying by monopolistic ISPs.

Poor ISPs! Why does everyone pick on them?

Oh wait ... 97% profit margin on internet, they trying to get that up to 99%?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/time-warner-cables-97-pro_b_6591916

The Biden administration last month urged the EU to reject the forced payments proposed by European ISPs, saying the plan "could give operators a new bottleneck over customers, raise costs for end users, and alter incentives for CAPs/LTGs [content and application providers and large traffic generators] to make efficient decisions regarding network investment and interconnection."

The Biden administration also said payments from tech firms may violate net neutrality principles, saying that it "is difficult to understand how a system of mandatory payments imposed on only a subset of content providers could be enforced without undermining net neutrality."

So… did someone from the administration even bother writing this themselves, or did they just copy/paste what Meta sent them?