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Should The FCC Be Abolished?
stwrtpj writes "CNET is running an interesting commentary from its chief political correspondent explaining why the FCC should be abolished. When I saw this link from NewsForge, my initial reaction was that he was full of it, but after I RTFA, I have to admit that he makes some interesting points. So how about it? Should the FCC be abolished? Can the market regulate itself yet?"
"A small country devastated by the economy of communist rule is recovering rapidly, and has a smaller government than the US. Therefore we should eliminate the FCC."
What?!
I agree with most of the article, but that's quite the non sequitur.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
The FCC isn't just about regulating commercial telecom. It fulfills many other roles, such as manager of the HF spectrum. It licenses users of said spectrum. How good would it be if the mobile phone companies couldn't agree upon how to allocate frequencies for their cell phones, and ended up trashing each other. Or, commercial interests began trashing the spectrum, to the dismay of the red cross and others who can no longer communicate when a tornado rips up main street. Even if landline telephone companies no longer need regulation, an independent (though even the FCC seems to lack this trait) organization is needed to maintain and police other things, even if they are not regulation.
On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
The FCC is a division of the executive branch of the US Government, which means its job is not to make laws, but to enforce and administer laws passed by the legislative branch.
FCC rules come in when the law doesn't make a definitive instruction, but tells the FCC to use its rulemaking process to make the call, and review its own decision periodically.
The FCC only has the powers Congress gives it. If you don't like what they're doing with it, tell Congress to change the law to override their mistake.
The frequencies under 30Mhz can be heard and can interfere beyond country boundaries. These frequencies are coordinated by international treaties. A fine way for the United States (of which I am a citizen) to find yet another way to piss off the rest of the world would be to ignore the enforcement of these treaties by disbanding the FCC.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Things like Janet Jackson at the super bowl don't make me feel sorry for the guilty parties at all. National tv with children watching and people feel the need to "push the envenlope."
Hey, my breast-fed toddler was watching and she not only noticed but pointed and said "daaaa!!!". Why exactly anyone would decide that exposing a mammary gland is half time entertainment, and why anyone would actually care afterwards, is still a mystery to both myself and my daughter.
Good point - but I have to take exception to it, because the implication that the FCC enforces the allocations is false.
My cohort scored some spectrum in the midwest, and set up a wireless ISP in a mid-sized community. All was fine for a couple months... then he started to suffer outages. Quite literally, a ten mile swath would just fall off the planet over here one day, over there the next.
Four days later, some "Tony" shows up and offers to consult, and "fix" the outages. My cohort sent him packing, but the guy walked out the door laughing.
The next day, the outages were back... and the cause was obvious. Cohort finds the center of the outage, and drives there. And lo and behold, there's a van! No driver, but full of equipment, doors locked with the engine running. Cohort writes down the vin and license plate, calls the FCC on the cell phone, and boy... they're rabid about it. Then he told them the name of the consultant, and they instantly shifted to "we'll get back to you."
He called some counterparts in other areas for suggestions. The "consultant" had visited all of them as well, and they all paid him about 60k / yr EACH for his "consulting". Like my cohort, they'd all called the FCC when he'd first showed up, and like with my cohort, the FCC did nothing, because this "consultant" is a cousin of some mob boss in NY.
The outages eventually stopped after about half a year, but the damage was done. The business folded.
So, the FCC has great utility in that they allocate spectrum. OTOH, they are absolutely *useless* because they absolutely refuse to enforce it... and they cannot be held accountable for their lack of dilligence.
Having authority with no accountability = abuse. They need to go.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
McCullagh's position on CNET is wrongheaded, and highly anticompetitive. His article actually cites Huber's book, which proposed converting existing radio station licenses into property, so that the licensee of an FM radio station instead ends up with chattel ownership of 200 kHz, to do what they want with it. It's a wingnut's fantasy, a huge transfer of public wealth (the radio spectrum) to private interests (licensees), with the current need to serve the "public interest" replaced by a total obeisance to shareholders' interests, in the name of doctrinaire laissez-faire capitalism. The current licensing system is obsolete, and the FCC's anti-indecensy crusade is nutty, but "property rights" just transfer the problem to courts that lack the FCC's technical staff expertise (some of which does still exist).
But it's the telecom area that really needs attention. Yes, the Powell FCC is profoundly broken. It regulates by indirection, picking winners and losers privately and coming up with indirect ways to favor them. Its main beneficiaries are the lawyers who try to pick up after them. So one might think that the FCC's charter is broken, but that's not it at all. It's simply the leadership and the politics behind it; this FCC, much worse than its predecessor, is clearly led by a celebrity princeling who just doesn't get it. A change in leadership is necessary, not abolition.
The reason is simply that the telecommunications industry is highly concentrated. The Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers have monopoly power. In the European Union, IIRC, a company with a 25% market share is suspected of having monopoly power, and scrutinized for abuses thereof. The USA is very, very loose on antitrust regulation, and the ILEC monopolies were granted legally, so the antitrust laws only (per the Supreme Court's recent Trinko decision) apply to attempts to extend the monopolies into new areas. Demonopolization is entirely the province of the Telecom Act, not antitrust. And the Telecom Act puts the FCC in the lead. Without regulation, a monopoly will simply squash competitors. This is particularly true in telecom for two reasons. One is the "natural monopoly". This refers to the case where a given industry has large economies of scale and a dominant provider. The unit cost of the dominant provider is thus lower than that of a new competitor, so the economics of competition are dismal.
The other reason is the network effect: A network's value rises with the number of users that it reaches. Federal regulations, enforced by the FCC, require *interconnection* between networks. A CLEC with ten customers can interconnect as a peer with the incumbent. The incumbent, of course, has no interest in allowing this. The incumbent, absent regulation, would shut off interconnection to its competitors in a heartbeat. This wouldn't occur if the incumbent's market share were small, but it's necessary to force interconnection *until* the monopoly is broken, and the ex-monopoly has a pecuniary interest in retaining interconnection.
The Internet has no dominant player, so everyone willingly interconnects. Worldcom wasn't allowed to buy Sprint, largely for that reason. In an FCC-less fully-deregulated world, Verizon and SBC would not be so kind. They might deign to permit competitors to purchase access to their networks, as premium-priced customers rather than peers, if they thought it was profitable enough. That's hardly a way to get competition though.
Remember, the only reason the public Internet exists is because the FCC, over the *strenuous* objections of the Bell System, overrode restrictions on "sharing" of leased lines. Before that, non-common-carrier networks (like the Internet) could not be run between customers. Leased lines, necessary for high-speed data, were limited to intra-company use. And the FCC, over the *strenuous* objections of ILECs nationwide, overrode restrictions on "foreign attachments", devices like modems, answering machines, telephone sets, and PBXs. Before 1
For the owner of those frequencies, it's a valuable asset. It'd be like owning property on Wall Street, and opening a peep show theater. I could make a whole lot more money selling the space as executive office space.
You might think so, but porn is very popular. A single strip club on wallstreat would be a cash cow, I'm sure.
But good luck buying one. City governments have a lot of control over what gets built. Just look at the porn shops in times square. They got shut down and replaced with Disney shit by Gulliani.
The FCC is like the city government of the airwaves.
That said, treating the airwaves like property is a bad idea. Why? Because it's a very limited resource. People like clear channel could buy up every radio frequency, and then turn them silent, to save money in a certain market. Or a radio business could fail and keep their frequency for years for the hell of it, or whatever.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm all for disbanding the FCC.
Decency regulations are shit.
Don't want them don't need them.
I think it's time we started putting pussy on TV. Lots of it. In fact, we could even have a whole channel devoted to nothing but big fat sloppy wet pussies. Or better yet, ten of them...
Spectrum regulations?
Yes, I don't mind being radiated by both my monitor and my microwave, not to mention a dozen or so other devices that the FCC regulates.
I wonder if it radiation whitens teeth...
C'mon, did you really want to watch TV on your TV anyway? I would personally much rather mod my TV to listen to people's cell phones, which is the first place all that handy new unregulated bandwidth is going to go.
We didn't need AM or FM to be regulated anyway, and I'm sure there are several interesting kinds of broadcasting we can do over FM is the FCC is abolished.
I could record a tape of myself saying "fuck fuck fuck" for about ten minutes, loop, and broadcast to california. Okay, maybe not from my car, but if there's no regulation on the band, what's to stop me from building an antenna on my roof? I'd call it, the fuck channel. One word, all the time!
Getting rid of the FCC would force everyone to buy new technology and get rid of their old shit which only half works anyway! Besides, all that old stuff is missing important DRM technology anyway. It's really in our best interests that we buy the new stuff that's locked down for our own protection.
It will be great!
It would be a boom the economy... in India!
Think of it like all that trickle down economics. It's like a tax break for the super rich, but better!
Just as the tax breaks have arguable benefit for the working American, this idea would have no tangible benefit at all!
Just think of it, we would automatically hand over billions of dollars to giant transnational companies, which will turn around and pay no taxes, ship more jobs over seas, and all that fun stuff.
I hope they abolish the FCC.
And while we're at it, let's abolish the FDA (arsenic anyone?). And any other useless thee letter government agency.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
In fact the exact opposite of this is true, all of the ills that you mention are happenning right now under current FCC regulation! In fact current FCC regulation is giving us this horrible consolidation that has six or seven comparies owning all the media. As the famous P. J. O'Rourke quote goes,
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
Mega companies like Clear Channel own so many stations precisely because they can wine and dine the FCC whereas small companies can't. Cleaning out the commissioners as you suggest is a short-term solution, the real solution is to eliminate the positions of power that are being wined and dined in the first place. Eliminate the FCC and their myriad of regulations and companies like Clear Channel with have to compete in the marketplace with other companies large and small, instead of buying rulings from the FCC.
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
You said: "They're telling her 'Don't do it on broadcast television.' (Note: It'd be fine on cable tv.)"
Just an honest question here, but why is cable acceptable and broadcast not? I know the obvious answer is that "anyone" can see it on broadcast, but that's not true, at least in the sense that "anyone" could see it as easily if they were flipping through the cable channels as they would through the regular broadcast channels.
It's not like a television broadcast forces the images it caries straight into your brain, you still have to actively purchase a television, actively turn it on and actively turn it to the channel in question.
So why is cable so radically different than broadcast television that you would allow something on one, but not the other?
The answer has to do with ownership. The airwaves are a public resource, and as such, may be regulated by the government. Cable networks are not public resources (though one might argue that they should be, much like phone lines) but are owned by the company that operates the network. That means that the government has less recourse to make decisions governing their content because the government generally cannot regulate private resources the same way it does public resources.
At least, that's the way it was explained to me.
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
Basicly the only rules you need are those that ensure that a society runs well: e.g - killing is bad - stealing is bad - free speach is good - x isn't allowed because it is dangerous to you or the public
A society that "runs well" requires both more and less than you might expect.
"Killing is bad" isn't required, for instance. Most historical societies had rules about who you could kill, and when, without societal sanctions. But very few took the stance that "killing is bad". I note that a Code Duello existed in many (if not most) societies up to the 19th century. Killing was allowed, and even encouraged, in some specific conditions. The societies didn't especially suffer from this lack of "killing is bad".
Likewise for stealing. Some societies forbid it (USA, as an example), some allow it under certain conditions (England in the 1500's, as regards Spanish property), some encourage it (most Plains Indian cultures respected horse-thieves). Whether the society ran well was irrelevant to its stand on "stealing is bad".
That said, societial rules, in general, reduce to
(1)who you can kill, and when,
(2)who you can screw, and when,
(3)what you can own, and under what circumstances,
(4)what you can say, and to whom,
(5)who you can turn to for redress of grievance in case any of the above are violated by anyone. (some societies require you to turn to the government, at one level or another for redress, some allow you to seek redress personally)
Note that case (3) actually creates the largest part of "law" in almost all societies. The rest of it, no matter the specific implementation, is really quite straightforward.
Note also that a society can "run well" with almost any answer to those five cases, if the people of the society accept the "rules" (~90% acceptance is typical in a stable society).
Issues come up when there are divisions within a society where a very large minority cannot, in good conscience, accept one or more rules. An example - slavery in the nineteenth century USA. ~2/3 of the population did not support it, ~1/3 did. Both sides considered their positions to be a matter of "rights". Result - Lincoln's election, secession, War Between the States (I refuse to call it the Civil War - there was nothing "civil" about it).
Note that up till the nineteenth century, slavery was legal, if not common, in virtually all societies. There were, in almost all societies, minor elements who considered slavery "evil/wrong/sinful" (pick one), but not so many as to force the issue into contention.
Since then, slavery has been illegal in almost all societies. There are minor elements who consider slavery "good" (or at least acceptable), but not enough to force the issue into contention.
And, finally "x isn't allowed because it is dangerous to you or the public" is probably a far broader concept than you thought when you proposed it. It includes such things as smoking (dangerous to the smoker, at least), fast food (dangerous to the fat slob who overindulges, though that is true of any food), lack of exercise (dangerous, I expect, to most of /.). Did you really think that the "basic rules for society" should allow the government to regulate the amount/kind of food/exercise you must get?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
There are several things about this story that bother me. I do believe the FCC provides useful and very important services. I also agree with this story that the FCC has become something it should never have been, the censor of "all that's right"[tm] and a tyrant dictator of the airwaves.
What's good:- Regulates frequencies to be used by various entities.
- Sets standards on EM radiation
What's currently bad:Personally, I think the broadcast spectrum should be leased, with companies that have leased having the right to release a frequency band at a maximum increase per year, 5 years, whatever (something for Congress to decide). This leasing should occur through the FCC (one of its only functions, or even sole function, in the "new order")
The FTC should be the watchdog for monopolistic practices on the airwaves. They should already be all over ClearChannel, as they own far too much in certain market areas. Of course, the FCC "monopoly" definition is reaching more than 80% (it's some x%) of the nation's population, not holding all the stations in a single locale. Which is more monopolistic, and more readily accomplished? Monopolies are not necessarily nationwide, if I own all the gas stations in Chicago, I am a monopoly, regardless of whether you can drive 50+ miles to get gas elsewhere.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The problem is that most companies simply don't care about anything but profit, and that's wrong.
Oh you mean the corporate america is willing to work for less and pay the workers wages, health insurance, retirement, vacation, etc.? Get real. If you believe that, drop your lifestyle that gets you a computer and internet access, hot and cold running water, and get a real job picking lettuce for the good of mankind. The job usualy doesn't pay enough to cover lifestyle things like buying a house, buying a car and insurance, broadband Internet, etc. Not many americans will sign up for jobs without benifits. Corporate america is no different. Make an industry a loser and the talent moves on. When the talant moves on, expect poor or no service and a failure to meet demand. Migrant workers are taking jobs the american workers won't even apply for. Without them, much of the american crop would go un-harvested which would cause a cheaper to harvest crop to be planted next year (corn or hay). Then you would be finding your big mac might start not having lettuce due to the shortage. You are asking the power company to do the same. The result is the same, a shortage of supply. Fuel must be bought. Generation and distribution systems need designed, installed, and operated. You don't find the qualified talant for this in the minimum wage and you don't find the fuel in the next to free prices. Caping the electric prices means that only cheaper fuel is used, cleaner burning high price fuel is not used, and high cost system rudancy and surge capacity is simply not built. Why build a couple extra plants for capacity when 90% of the time they make no money? It's cheaper to shed 10% load during peaks than have 10% of plants idle 90% of the time. Price caps do influence planning.
Contrary to popular conception, most corporations face competition and do not get huge margins.
The problem is that most companies simply don't care about anything but profit, and that's wrong.
The bad news is if they didn't make a profit, they would fail to continue producing. Sorry to break it to you, but that is how a free economy works. Competition is what keeps the prices reasonable. Gasoline is still cheaper than bottled Pepsi.
The truth shall set you free!