Before beginning this week's hardware news recap, we'd like to highlight for our readers -- or those who just prefer referencing our articles rather than scrubbing through videos at a later date -- that we've been making a bigger push to publish written content to the site lately. This site serves almost more as an archive for the scripts than anything else these days, just because the nature of maintaining it is very difficult given our current working hours, but we like it and we know that all of you like the written format. We've made an active effort in increasing how many of our videos (from YouTube) end up on the website in written form, so we published the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 review, Ryzen 3 3300X review, and our B550 vs. X570 (et al) chipset comparison. Check them out on the home page.

In the meantime, we've got a lot of hardware news for the week to recap: The FCC is being forced to reveal its server logs for concerns stemming from fake comments about net neutrality, NVIDIA and AMD are vying over 5nm supply from fab TSMC, RTX Ampere is getting an announcement this week, Intel Alder Lake and LGA1700 are in the rumor mill, and more.

The push to restore the net neutrality rules put in place under the Obama administration has gained more traction this week, with Democrats in the Senate filing a petition to force a vote on the repeal of the FCC’s new rules enacted by Ajit Pai, current FCC chairman.

The Congressional Review Act is the exact tool Congress and Ajit Pai’s FCC used to reverse Obama-era regulations—that is, the 2015 Open Internet Order that banned blocking content, throttling, paid prioritization by ISPs, and placed ISPs under Title II classification. Democratic Senators have used the CRA to force a vote and potentially remove the recent FCC rules voted for in December; however, the measure is something of a longshot, as it would have to pass both the House and be signed by the President.

We previously wrote about the need for net neutrality, adding our voice to the chorus of others on and off the internet that demanded the internet and net neutrality be protected. As a result of this outcry – and, honestly, basic logic – the FCC moved to protect net neutrality by reclassifying ISPs as Title II. Unfortunately, the new chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, has revealed his plan to roll back net neutrality. 9 senators recently introduced a bill identical to a previous bill by the name of Restoring Internet Freedom Act. This bill seeks to remove the FCC’s jurisdiction over ISPs entirely and thus nullify the net neutrality rules the FCC previously set in place. These moves to kill net neutrality are just as disastrous of a choice as they were just a few years ago, so we naturally still oppose it. Before covering how you can let your opinion be known, let’s briefly review what net neutrality is and why it is needed.

The last year has seen a massive surge in interest in the FCC and Net Neutrality. We've reported on it a few times -- partly to educate and partly to help motivate readers to voice an opinion -- and boy, did people speak up. Over four million individual comments were logged with the FCC regarding their opinion of this issue, spanning gamers to Barack Obama. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the industry wanted to approach the net neutrality conversation during CES.

Back in May, we encouraged our readers to reach out to politicians and push for Net Neutrality as well as attempt to inform people about why it is important. Since that time, we have been fairly quiet on it. This is partly because the voting we wanted to influence has already happened, and partly because anything of this measure takes time. Numerous political people have flung accusations or sounded the dire warning on both sides of this important item. I decided to take a step back and see what was going to happen.

On May 15th, the current net neutrality rules are going up for preliminary vote at the FCC. This initial vote is only a step in the overall process for the unfair segregation of web traffic to come to life. Our first article broke down the basics of what is in flux, so if you're unsure of what's going on, that's the place to check first. Our second article was a short opinion piece (read: doused in sarcasm and lit aflame with satire) on Chairman Tom Wheeler's response to "reassure" us.

"What is Net Neutrality?" infographic.

We felt that we should give readers a decisive guide to voicing views and making a difference. Reddit has good recommendations from people who are, and were, involved in the government. Their insight is invaluable to those wanting to do something helpful. Some of the basics are calling the FCC, contacting your Congress and Senate Representatives (they work for you, so use them), and a few other ways to get your voice heard. When reaching out to representatives, one of the most important things to remember is to be polite, professional, and friendly so that you are taken seriously; the people answering the phones are likely interns of some variety -- they'll mark your comment down, ask your name and zip, and then hang up. No need for aggression. Short of money, the means through which most lobbyists get their way is because there is not a big enough outcry from the public to counter them, or those who do complain aren't taken seriously because of how they object.

If you've followed our coverage of net neutrality proceedings in the US, you'll know that there's been a fierce emboldening in the US Government's enablement of a class-based internet. AT&T's patent-pending approach to deploying a micro-transaction-esque content delivery hierarchy for streamed video and gaming content is starting to look a lot scarier right now.

Image Source: CFC Oklahoma.

After the FCC's proposal to allow ISPs the dictation of "normal speed" and "low-speed" traffic in the form of extorting content providers (Netflix, YouTube), internet backlash has prompted a disingenuous addendum by the Commission. Federal Communications Commission Chariman and mendacious troglodytic neophyte of technology Tom Wheeler is reported to have added to his plan:

Two things are going to be happening this year for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that will directly affect the internet and its present management. The first is the upcoming preliminary vote on the revamped rules of “net neutrality” on May 15th; the second has to do with the merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, which would give a 40% userbase share to an ISP that already has a history of throttling users and businesses.

Telecom juggernaut AT&T—best known for its award-winning innovations in consumer exploitation and technology suppression—recently filed a patent for a transfer-based bandwidth allocation system. The patent (US20140010082 A1) aims to leverage recent degeneration in net neutrality laws to creatively charge consumers more for specific types of internet usage. For instance, file-sharing, video streaming and downloading, and certain types of game patch distribution methods could result in accounts being flagged for increased billing in AT&T's new system.

The new patent is entitled "Prevention of Bandwidth Abuse of A Communications System." AT&T, however, requires no editorial assistance in making their own patent sound evil, stating in its abstract (bold for emphasis):