FCC Commissioner Urges, Don't Regulate the Internet

Brett Glass writes "In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell makes a case against government regulation of the Internet, opining that 'engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems.' With state governments pressuring ISPs to pull the plug on Usenet, and a proposal now in play for a censored public Internet, McDowell may have a very good point." McDowell is one of the two FCC commissioners who did not vote with the majority to punish Comcast for their BitTorrent throttling.

Comments

Hmmm

[dreamchaser]

McDowell is one of the two FCC commissioners who did not vote with the majority to punish Comcast for their BitTorrent throttling.

So by 'not regulating' he means that ISP's should be free to throttle whatever they please? Interesting stance.

Re:Hmmm

[ZosX]

That is the gist of what he is saying. The ISPs should be self regulating essentially. This is the beginning of a very slippery slope. What if Comcast decides to ban all torrent traffic? Even with encryption, high usage certainly sends red flags. (perhaps more so) With less oversight this could certainly happen. The service agreement you sign certainly may be subject to change at any moment. The internet is starting to slide into the path of provider approved content. I think a free network is something worth protecting, perhaps even with our very lives. How much is freedom worth to you?

Re:Hmmm

[ZosX]

BTW....is the internet a right or a privilege? Think about it...

Re:Hmmm

[Nasajin]

It depends on whether you believe the people should be granted positive or negative forms of liberty. Should citizens be allowed access to a social system that exists independently of the government or not? I believe they should, as the Internet acts as a complimentary system to already existing forms of human interaction.

Re:Hmmm

[DigDuality]

Hmmm... considering many of people's tax dollars in many nations went to it's invention (be it the US military, Russia's military, CERN, etc.. ) and considering the tremendous amounts in subsidy telecom companies recieve from many nations... it's the people's IMO.

Re:Hmmm

[SlowMovingTarget]

It is neither right, nor privilege. It is a network of computers.

I believe you were referring to access to the internet, which is also not a right, nor is it a privilege. Access to the internet is a service. The real issue is that there is too much interference on behalf of the service providers at the local level. The result is regional monopolies. We need less government interference and more competition, so that when Comcast pulls crap like like their traffic shaping customers can choose to take their dollars elsewhere.

Driving on public streets is a privilege. Freely voicing your opinion is a right. In the context of governmental authority, Internet access is neither of these, nor should it be.

Re:Hmmm

[Strange Ranger]

Exactly. Internet service is provided to most people in a similar fashion to phone service.
The only regulation that we need for BOTH "internet" and "phone" should be total separation of content from service.
Cell phone companies can sell bandwidth and for chrissake quite counting each individual text message.
Untie the ringtones and make them like any other sound that you can download.
Internet providers should be held to the same "regulation".

If you provide bandwidth in any way at all it should be neutral to all content, uncensored, unfiltered, etc.

The law could be a very simple one: If you provide any sort of bandwidth for sale you are prohibited from messing with any content whatsoever.
You are also prohibited from partnering with any business that does "mess with" content. End of law.

I don't even think Comcast or whoever should be allowed to have a "Start Page" on the internet. It's anti-competitive bundling. It's bad. Everyone knows it.

I'm sure of the above, but truth be told I don't think (not sure) bandwidth service should even be a part of the free market. It's a utility. Just like electricity and heat.
We all know how well anti-trust efforts and deregulating the phone companies worked out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=I6nuwQmhrZ8

If it's going to be just 1 or 2 giant companies screwing us over, removing our ability to vote with our dollar, then I'd rather it just be government run, so we can vote with ballots.

Re:Hmmm

[maxume]

Is food a right? If so, how much food? What kind of food? Think about it...

Re:Hmmm

[d34thm0nk3y]

Let me get this straight. Diebold fixes the election, and all you Americans do is point at them and whine a bit, then Comcast takes away your pron and all of a sudden you're willing to fight to the death?

Without the internet how many people would even know about Diebold?

Re:Hmmm

[noidentity]

Is posting on Slashdot a right? If so, how many chara

Re:Hmmm

[rtb61]

That is ludicrous. Use of the internet is becoming a daily necessity and the lie about multiple wired services is bullshit. Yeah, you are going to have 10 different wires running down the street from 10 different companies providing competitive services, what a lie. Due to the cost of wiring and providing the infrastructure at most you will have three and most often two and sometimes one, that is the reality and perfect for cooperative cartels to exploit.

Which is why it needs to be regulated and controlled so that everyone can access it upon an equal basis, so that people are not discriminated against should they for example voice an opinion that is in opposition to communications provider which one corrupt provider already slipped into their contracts.

What the FCC commissioner is basically calling for is that they should be doing nothing, the perfect job, get paid to control nothing, regulate nothing basically just be a positive publicity spewing mouth piece for an industry they are meant to be overseeing.

Drop the idiotic lie that somehow the government is some alien authority, the government is meant to be an extension of the peoples will. A means by which the people ensure controls are in place so that do not have to fight for respect and the rights every minute of every day. Regulations are forced upon corporations in order to ensure a minimum level of acceptable behaviour is maintained, in order to prevent the corporation to use it fiscal power to destroy individuals with limited capital in court and in order to prevent corporations from arbitrarily denying people access to services.

Re:Hmmm

[Assembler]

It is neither right, nor privilege. It is a network of computers.

I believe you were referring to access to the internet, which is also not a right, nor is it a privilege. Access to the internet is a service.

1st: Taxpayers paid for large parts of the internet's development and infrastructure. Denying them access would be stealing if we're going to seriously consider adopting a free market.

2nd: The startup costs are too high for an ISP right now. The only option in a free market would be to string their own cables on their own telephone poles. Government forcing the current monopolies to lease lines at cost is a good thing. The startup costs (and oligarchic competition) are the real reason why there are regional monopolies.

Also: You think new rights can't be added? More restrictions certainly can. Why is it a one way street? Access to an unrestricted internet today is just as important as free speech was yesterday because it is the modern day equivalent.

Re:Hmmm

[hclewk]

DigDuality: it's the people's
AC: So the people who created it have indefinite right to control it?

Huh?

Me: I like apples.
Guy-who-likes-to-misconstrue-my-words: You're a vegan?

Re:Hmmm

[SlowMovingTarget]

Nice.

The Founding Fathers created a tension intended to limit the encroachments of government on the governed. They did this because they all had suffered under a government with nearly unlimited authority, expressed most directly in the form of taxes. We seem to have forgotten that. The notion that government somehow has unlimited ability to solve all our problems is silly. Government is people with power over other people. The fewer with lesser, the better, as far as is reasonable. It reminds me of that demotivational poster: "Incompetence: When you earnestly believe that you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do."

Entitlements are simply back-channel ways to exert additional control over the public. Higher taxes remove money from the capitalist economy, which means that individuals can't do as much as they used to with what they earn. As for the internet, yes, our government paved the way (literally in some cases), but free consumers in the market made it take off. When the government does need to step in, it should do so temporarily, as a correction, not as mommy doling out an allowance in perpetuity.

Our priorities are screwed up when we're worrying about making sure the wino down the street can post his latest video to YouTube. I'm all for putting internet access in schools supported by a local millage, but I'm against the government taking away my money to pay for internet access for the guy down the street. I have better ways of spending that money (contributions to charities, and local schools, as well as foreign aid (food)).

One more quote, while I'm at it:

A society that puts equality--in the sense of equality of outcome--ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.

-- Free to Choose, Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman

The force he refers to, of course, is taxation and redistribution of funds. Let's not hand people in Washington more control over our lives, please.

Re:Hmmm

[gad_zuki!]

Fine but the government on the municipal level and on the state level gave Comcast a monopoly in my town. There's no free market in this circumstance. There's no one else to turn to with my dollars. What a naive worldview you have.

People want some kind of federal regulation to offset the corruption on the state level. Basic stuff like when you advertise unlimited internet at 4mbps then I actually get unlimited internet at 4mbps. Not comcast's legalese version of that along with tons of RST packets.

Unfortunately

[Stickerboy]

If the government doesn't step in, it won't be engineers regulating the internet either. It will be Sales and Marketing managers (or maybe someone higher up the food chain) trying to squeeze every last drop of profit from their paying customers.

Cinas "Golden shield" now copied in USA and Sweden

[viking80]

It looks like USA and Sweden is copying Chinas "Golden shield" to protect its citizens. Sweden with the new FRA law, and US censoring Usenet.

I really hope we can stop this before the politicians try to "protect" me too.

Most muslim states are of course already "protecting" its citizens heavily.

What type of problem?

[norminator]

engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems.

If the problem was only an engineering problem, I might agree... but since this has vast political, economical, and social consequences, and could undermine the entire Internet as we know it, I think governments should step in and pass a law that simply states "don't discriminate against traffic based on the source/destination."

I know government regulation can make things messy, but I don't know why it has to be any more complicated than that.

Re:What type of problem?

[flaming error]

This is not an engineering problem. TCP/IP is pretty robust.

In fact, there is no inherent problem.

But carriers see an opportunity to squeeze more profit out, so they're trying to, and in the process they create a problem for users and content providers.

And governments see stuff they (or those they'd pander to) don't like, so they want to control it, and thus create a problem for users.

This can be solved by limiting carrier meddling to contractual SLA issues, and preventing government from censoring users.

The internet isn't broken; it's carriers and government that need fixing.

The Internet shouldn't be regulated...

[xxdinkxx]

But if ISPs are found messing with the neutrality of the connections, then they should be held liable for all content that comes across their lines. It would establish one of two senarios. A) they leave the traffic flow alone and thus avoid a ton in liability. B) they go into complete china lockdown mode and allow nothing even slightly questionable through. If B occurs, then there will eventually be enough resentment to eventually re focus on why telecom is a big monopoly. Right now average joe doesn't care. As long as average joe can watch Utube and porn, the status quo remains. This whole net neutrality issue wouldn't even exist if the free market wasn't botched/hijacked in this country.

Net Neutrality: anti-regulation regulation..

[plasmacutter]

Regulation in and of itself can also be a slipperly slow. That is why we need Net Neutrality laws. Yes, it's a form of regulation in a sense, but it's the best we can probably do.

Net neutrality is to regulation what the GPL is to copyright. It is regulation designed to subvert "regulation" by making the imposition of restrictions on the internet illegal.

Anyone who does not understand this is ignorant, and anyone who opposes it is willfully corrupt.

Re:Net Neutrality: anti-regulation regulation..

[plasmacutter]

Just saying someone is "willfully corrupt" does not make it true. The telcoms have a legitimate right to do whatever they want with their backbones. They payed and continue to pay for them.

no they didnt. They were given heavy taxpayer grants which heavily subsidized their lines, and they also failed to deliver the capacity and market coverage they promised (e.g. rural areas are still dark).

Insisiting the telcos "paid" for those lines is like insisting the transcontinental railroad was privately funded, when in fact it would not exist if the government didnt give away wide tracts of land on either side of the tracks across the entire country.

Re:Net Neutrality: anti-regulation regulation..

[BlueStrat]

The telcoms have a legitimate right to do whatever they want with their backbones. They payed and continue to pay for them.

Actually, the telecoms have been very, very heavily-funded by public funds and huge tax breaks to provide services.

Simply telling the telcoms that they no longer control what happens on their backbones is not an option, and the sooner everyone gets on the same page with this whole issue the better off we will all be.

Why? The telecoms have been heavily-regulated in just about every other area of their operations and services except this one, and for many of the same reasons. If they took the publics' money then they are obligated to put the interests of those taxpayers (their customers) at the top of their objectives. That they have failed is the reason to apply laws/regulations designed to make sure the customers' interests are not lost in marketing and monetization plans.

Cheers!

Strat

It's a right. The chairman is a regulator.

[twitter]

Because you own the spectrum and there's no longer a valid technical reason to grant it exclusively. Government granted monopolies on spectrum is a primary internet regulation someone that believes in free markets should oppose.

Laying cable and fiber in other people's back yards and public property is a privilege. Those granted that privilege must accept public regulation in return for the public servitude. Think about that for a while and you realize that the Internet is already highly regulated but the regulations do not always serve the public interest. Common carrier and net neutrality is the least the public can ask in return for exclusive use of public property. The public can and should also demand competition in wired service. Someone who believes in free markets would lower barriers to entry and use of wired networks.

Who's doing what?

[loraksus]

With state governments pressuring ISPs to pull the plug on Usenet

Wrong. Lets get this clear - The recent push to shut down usenet access is being led almost solely by Andrew Cuomo - the Attorney General from NY - some guy who you probably never voted for. In fact, you've probably never even seen his name on a ballot.

Isn't it cool how some douchebag elected in a different state gets to dictate national policy?
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

How remarkably disingenuous

[daemonburrito]

Here is the trade association (read: telecom lobbyist group) that he served as assistant General Counsel and Vice President: http://www.comptel.org/.

From his bio:

McDowell is extensively involved in civic and political affairs. He has served on numerous boards and commissions. He was appointed by Virginia Governor George Allen to the Governor's Advisory Board for a Safe and Drug-Free Virginia, and to the Virginia Board for Contractors, to which he was reappointed by Governor Jim Gilmore. Also he is a veteran of several presidential campaigns, serving as counsel to the Bush-Cheney Florida Recount Team in 2000 and leading advance teams for President and Mrs. Bush in 2004, among many other endeavors.

Libertarians, I know he's speaking your language with this regulation==evil talk, but he does not have your interests at heart.

I totally fail to see how allowing ISPs to inspect and mangle data passing through their system is "pro-competition" or even "anti-regulation". These people want to destroy the internet as we know it.

He's almost right

[Percy_Blakeney]

I agree with McDowell with one giant exception: the laissez-faire approach will only work if there is competition in the last mile. Given that most people only have 1 or 2 choices (huge telecom and/or huge cable company), I really don't think the conditions warrant a completely hands-off approach by the FCC. Once I have several high-speed ISP options, then I'll agree with him.

Also, does anyone know what exactly Mr. McDowell is referring to when he talks about the Internet bandwidth crisis and solution of 1987?

Mod parent up, it needs to be "not zero"

[plasmacutter]

The very notion of "illegal files" is the essence of censorship.

Copyright may be called by propaganda terms like "intellectual property", but it is censorship (which can be performed by anyone, not just government, BTW) at its core.

I couldn't have said this better myself.

The notion of owning and controlling the distribution of information is antithetical to a free society. The fact that the "progress of science and the useful arts" clause is so brief comes from heated contention of the merits of allowing copyright to exist in the first place. Our founding fathers were pretty fresh and raw from the old copyright cartels founded and abused by the crown.

I'm sure if you brought them all forward in time to today, and gave them the last year or two of the YRO section to read, a few would turn around to the others and scream "I TOLD YOU SO!"