Court Unfriendly To FCC's Internet Slap At Comcast

Several sources are reporting that federal judges have been harsh in their examination of the FCC's action against Comcast in 2008 for the throttling of Internet traffic from high-bandwidth file-sharing services. "'You can't get an unbridled, roving commission to go about doing good,' said US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Chief Judge David Sentelle during an oral argument. The three-judge panel grilled FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick on the parts of communications law it could cite to justify the Comcast punishment. The FCC argues that it was enforcing an open Internet policy implicit in the law. Judge A. Raymond Randolph repeatedly said the legal provisions cited by the FCC were mere policy statements that by themselves can't justify the commission's action. 'You have yet to identify a specific statute,' he said. The judges' decision in the case could throw into question the FCC's authority to impose open Internet rules."

Comments

Comcast must have made good arguments...

[Arancaytar]

Or a few thousand of them.

Re:Just Pass a Law

[maxume]

Then A and B are incompetent.

And they very much can do something about it, they can route around C.

Re:Just Pass a Law

[Ichijo]

The trouble is that once the principle is established that this is acceptable behaviour, every cable owner on the planet will want a piece of the action. When that happens, your internet fees go up.

In a free market, a seller cannot increase his or her profit margin without attracting other sellers. The profit margin disappears as they compete by lowering their prices or improving their service. Which reminds me of a third option: setup a community broadband cooperative.

And they're not going to shape SSL traffic because ...?

Your ISP can't shape SSL traffic because they can't inspect the contents. They would have no way of knowing which bytes are going to which web site.