Will the FCC Regulate the Net?

Lam1969 writes "Computerworld's Robert Mitchell wonders if the FCC could one day have regulatory power over the Internet. The causes? As telephone calls are increasingly delivered as an IP service, and traditional telephony fades away, traditional telephone companies are demanding a level regulatory regimen for all service providers. From the article: "Assuming that the FCC buys arguments such as this, we could see a new regulatory focus on the Internet and a decline in the hands-off attitude shown in the past. From the regulators' viewpoint, the Internet increasingly may be viewed as just another utility that requires oversight.""

Comments

not the internet

[tarmithius]

The FCC has no juristiction outside the US. Plus the article in question pertains to VOIP and telephony not the entire internet.

Seems like a naive idea, to me.

[Artifex]

Mitchell makes the classic error in assuming "the internet" only exists in the US.
I'd like to see him explain how he thinks the US is going to suddenly make rules for the rest of the world, with the many telecommunications providers run as government-owned monopolies, or even provide "Universal Service" for, say, Germany.

The internet will route around the damage, like it always does, and if the US enacts too many rules for its portion, American companies will lose business over it. That's all there is to it. In fact, since everyone is already plenty upset over ICANN retaining monopolistic levels of control, any further attempts to exercise control over countries will possibly lead to them setting up an entire infrastructure alternative in defiance.

Re:Seems like a naive idea, to me.

[squiggleslash]

The PSTN "is regulated by" the FCC. The PSTN exists throughout the world too.

In practice, the Internet will receive the same type of regulation as the PSTN. That is, the component of it that exists in the US will be under the FCC's "thumb", who will generally have a largely hands-off approach as far as users go, but some regulation aimed at ensuring interoperability, competition, basic service provision, and universal service, from the infrastructure providers.

And people will talk about it as if that's a bad thing, but quite honestly, I don't think it is. There's nothing really wrong with how the PSTN is regulated, and I can't see any problem with the Internet being dealt with the same way. As the Internet becomes more of a critical component of the modern economy, and as provision becomes more and more consolidated, we'll need to see some oversight to prevent wholesale abuses by the powerful.

To put it another way: All work and no play makes BellSouth's CEO a dull boy.

Who cares? The future needs no FCC.

[dada21]

I feel the FCC is one of the most unconstitutional organizations in the Federal government today.

The FCC is basically the big media conglomerates arm in government, creating an extremely high cost of entry in media markets, preventing smaller companies or individuals from trying to compete. The days when we needed the FCC are over -- we have so many different ways to communicate that we don't need any regulation over those systems. Any regulation that takes 5 years to create will be superceded by competitive companies finding loopholes (or bribing their way past restrictions).

Even the old belief that airwaves are limited and should be regulated is bunk. Interference from large broadcasters is a myth. Ever wonder how your house can have 3 cell phones, 3 cordless phones and 15 wireless accessories work together? It isn't the FCC that's helping this situation, it is manufacturers working with one another so they can all compete.

The telephone company is dead -- as WiFi or faster wireless bandwidth is made available, even cell phones will be antiquated. I can imagine a near-future of open bandwidth, frequency-hopping competitive technologies that walk all over each other yet don't conflict. The more power you want to broadcast, the more energy you'll need to do so. If some large radio tower company wanted to block EVERY FREQUENCY for hundreds of miles, do you know how much it would cost them? Look at just the FM radio spectrum -- they couldn't afford it. A 50,000 watt radio station broadcasting at one tiny sliver of a frequency has a HUGE electric bill. The only way you could stay in business is with advertisers, and who wants to be affiliated with a company that burns everyone's communications?

Without the FCC, we'd see thousands or tens of thousands of community broadcasters. Picture Mr. Universe versus 10,000 mosquitos. Who would win?

If the FCC regulates the Internet, we'll find ways to get around it. The user can obfuscate transmitted information faster than our government can decode it. If they find quick ways to decode it, we'll find other ways to hide information within information. The FCC can attempt to regulate the Internet, but it will be a failure. Information has found freedom, and there is no stopping it. 6 year olds are using google, 72 year olds are using Skype. Can a government "of the People, by the People and for the People" go against the People any long?

I'm ready to make an effigy of the FCC and burn it. Are you?

Re:Geek revolt

[garcia]

Geeks around the nation will revolt if this happens.

This would only occur if porn was controlled. It then wouldn't be the geeks revolting, it would be everyone. No, I'm not kidding.

Look at the atrocities that have occured since 2001 under the guise of "protections"! You don't see *anyone* revolting against the government because of those do you? No, everyone (including my shamed self) are sitting here whining and wondering "what's next?" instead of swarming Washington DC in protest.

We are a sad excuse.

Re:Geek revolt

[cerelib]

No, they can't. They could however end up regulating all traffic into or out of the United States like some smaller countries do. I hope this does not happen, but that is one possiblitiy. When smaller countries do this, the only ones really affected are the residents of that country. If the US did this that would affect a good deal of the world community due to the amount of Internet services and Internet users centered in the US. The US can't force the world to learn English, but we are doing a pretty good job at it.

Consider this, though

[lawpoop]

With all this talk from various Baby Bells about how they will provide different levels of service for traffic originating from someone other than their customers, we might actually *want* a little regulation in the future.

Before the FCC was co-opted by the Religious Right AKA the American Taliban, they actually did things like shut down pirate radio stations and make sure that the phone company actually provided the service they were legally obligated to provide.

Obviously, I don't want the FCC keeping my internet porn from me, but if some routers in the middle are slowing my downloads because I'm not their direct customer, government regulation might be a solution.

RF anarchy isn't workable

[ScentCone]

Even the old belief that airwaves are limited and should be regulated is bunk. Interference from large broadcasters is a myth. Ever wonder how your house can have 3 cell phones, 3 cordless phones and 15 wireless accessories work together?

Wow, man - are you even listening to yourself? The airwaves are limited, by the laws of physics. If we both broadcast on the same frequency, some device somewhere is going to be seeing each of our signals at an equal, and equally useless strength. Why can I be typing this message through Wi-Fi in my house, watching AIM on my mobile phone next to me, and knowing that my wireless house phone will still work, even when I'm microwaving my soup for lunch? Exactly because there are regs and legal recourse when people screw with what makes all of that work. Do you REALLY want the guy next door deciding that it's OK by him if he puts up a megawatt transmitter that happens to step exactly on all of those devices' carriers?

The telephone company is dead -- as WiFi or faster wireless bandwidth is made available

Well, I suppose that depends on what the meaning if "is" is (heh!). Since I talked to my mom on her copper land line this morning, I'm thinking it's not actually dead. And since I talked to my mother-in-law, in rural Virginia, just the other day... you know, in an area that's too mountainous for any line-of-site carrier, and where cable-based broadband is years away, and DSL won't go the distance... the "telephone company" isn't dead there, either. It's the only thing that DOES work, or will work for a long time.

If some large radio tower company wanted to block EVERY FREQUENCY for hundreds of miles, do you know how much it would cost them?

So what? There are people with lots of money that would love vanity moments like that. You know, people like George Soros who are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to impact elections... he'd LOVE to blanket all of downtown NY, even for a few minutes, with a signal no one could escape. Or, what about someone who doesn't care about paying the electric bill? You know, one-last-gasp type idealogical or vandal broadcasting?

Can a government "of the People, by the People and for the People" go against the People any long?

You wouldn't be referring to the government that actually created the 'net in the first place, would you? You know, as a defense research project? You make "the internet" sound like it actually exists as single thing. It's not. It's a bunch of individual, corporate, insitutional, government, and foreign networks all communicating with each other - a network of networks. If municipal governments are supposed to start trusting VoIP for 911 calls, etc, then they are going to expect a certain amount of predictability and interopability in the way that some of the those networks talk to each other. If that can't be established, then they'll just continue to expect "the telephone company" to take care of it for them, and enforce that through the large regulatory burdens that those companies carry.

Re:Geek revolt

[dr_dank]

We may have to switch to satellite porn.

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