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FCC May Tweak Broadband Plan

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-waps-must-be-named-after-beatles dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Despite a recent ruling that said the FCC did not have the right to interfere in Comcast's network management issues, the agency is pushing ahead with its national broadband plan, though there might be some tweaks. Since the case was won on the fact that the FCC based its decision on its Internet Policy Principles, a set of guidelines the agency developed internally several years ago regarding broadband Internet service and not actual rules that went through a formal, open rulemaking process, they are invalid, as is the enforcement action. FCC general counsel Austin Schlick acknowledged that the court's decision may affect a significant number of important plan recommendations. The commission is assessing the implications of the decision for each recommendation to ensure that it has adequate authority to execute the mission laid out in the plan."

13 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Add an amendment to the constitution... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...granting power to Congress to regulate commerce INSIDE the states. That appears to be the only way they (and the FCC) can regulate a company like Comcast of Baltimore, or Comcast of Oklahoma, or other wholly intrastate companies.

    Otherwise without that amendment, the regulation responsibility falls to the Maryland Government's Public Utility Commission, Oklahoma's PUC, et cetera...... the same way electricity and natural gas companies are regulated.

    IHMO.

    Please don't mod me down if you disagree.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That would be against the very foundation of our country and the concept of state sovereignty, and would have far reaching consequences as it would instantly give the federal government direct control over *every* aspect of your life.

      Might as well shut down all state government if that should happen.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    2. Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, your point might have some merit if the FCC's enforcement action against Comcast had been overturned because it wasn't Constitutional.

      But that simply is not the case. The FCC was smacked down based on administrative law, not Constitutional law.

      Please try to understand the actual issues involved before you advocate for extreme positions.

      KTHXBYE

    3. Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... by ducomputergeek · · Score: 3, Informative

      We already have an amendment about this:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

      --
      "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
    4. Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... by Kirijini · · Score: 5, Informative

      Add an amendment to the constitution granting power to Congress to regulate commerce INSIDE the states. That appears to be the only way they (and the FCC) can regulate a company like Comcast of Baltimore, or Comcast of Oklahoma, or other wholly intrastate companies.

      The FCC can regulate intrastate companies, especially when they're subsidiaries of an interstate company. To be more accurate, the FCC could regulate those intrastate companies if Congress empowered it to. The fact of the matter is that Congress chose not to preempt state public utility commissions. The interstate commerce clause has been interpreted so expansively that there is very little economic regulation that Congress can't enact or delegate to an agency (the only examples that come to mind are gun restrictions in/around schools (US v. Lopez) and enabling women to seek civil remedies under the violence against women act (US v. Morrison)

      Anyway, the FCC's net neutrality order against Comcast wasn't slapped down by the DC Circuit because it lacked constitutional authority. It was because the FCC's action wasn't reasonably ancillary to a specific grant of jurisdiction. In other words, the FCC can't enforce net neutrality unless it can better explain which of its specific powers authorized by Congress net neutrality would fall under. Let me reiterate - the problem isn't that the FCC lacks the power to enforce net neutrality, the problem is that the FCC hasn't given a sufficient, consistent explanation of why it can enforce net neutrality.

      The easiest way for the FCC to respond to the DC Circuit's ruling, assuming it still wants to enforce net neutrality, is issue a new rule that finds internet access service to be regulated under Title II of the Telecom Act. That would enable the FCC to regulate ISPs as common carriers.

  2. formal, open rulemaking process by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So the true ruling is that the FCC really DOES have this authority, they just have to put the rules in black and white before they run off enforcing them. Nothing new here, just that they didn't follow procedures ( DOH ! ). And you can bet when they do, Comcast will regret calling them out on it. ( of cousre even if they do go down, their board already made their millions )

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:formal, open rulemaking process by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "And you can bet when they do, Comcast will regret calling them out on it."

      I hope they get hammered. Just look at how they treat customers in their home state, in between where they're headquartered and the state's capital.

      I'm in Pennsylvania, which is home to Comcast corporate. The state legislature pretty much kisses Comcast's derriere and passes whatever the company wants into law, as seen with the cable box law they passed several years ago. Assembly hearings on trying to break the monopoly on PCN in the past always revolve back to how "it can't be done" or worrying about "disrupting" current services. Comcast has jacked their rates up an average of $35 a month on an extended cable bill with broadband internet over the past 7 years. The move to digital TV has gotten rates even higher, from box rentals, and generally piss poor customer service, esp. billing, where they often threaten to charge people for speaking to a representative about their bill.

      The thing is, for huge swaths of the county I'm in, Lancaster, they are the only game in town. Verizon refuses to activate ISDN lines or hook up fiber to the curb where they ran it, and most COs that have DSL don't serve many available houses because they pair gained lines as residential communities exploded. FiOS is unavailable from what I can tell. Verizon isn't running lines to new communities (I know, I'm in real estate) or to wealthier developments (usually targetted by FiOS). Because utilities are underground in the new areas, it's nearly impossible to build out new lines later.

      So we get stuck with Comcast. For the $35 more per month, I have fewer channels than I did before, and even fewer that I like. Movie channels have been replaced by game and decade old TV rerun channels. My broadband speed has gone up a whopping 1.4 megabit over those 7 years, despite being claimed to have gone up 3-4 megabit according to Comcast. Upload speed has doubled from 256 to about 512kbit. However, the lag has gotten far far worse. Before it was quick, now it's a slug. Hitting a website delays nearly half a second usually, because of the caching Comcast does (documented years ago on /. and often seen when their network crashes) and gaming generally sucks despite their claims because of the lag. And BitTorrent, well, that's just obviously filtered to hell, as has been well documented on /. They also obviously throttle BT traffic too.

      Now, this month, they have yet another change; I have to get boxes from them to continue my service (after less than a year ago during the analog to digital transition Comcast advertised stating "Comcast has you covered"). I supposedly get more channels with digital (we'll see), but I have to rent a box for every damn TV over 3. Can't buy it at a reasonable cost, and they also likely know my viewing habits since it's their box. And I've got to go hook the damn sets up. Channel changing is piss ass slow (my parents already changed over) compared to analog, and Comcast just made defunct many recorders--VCRs, digital recorders, DVRs, and PVRs--because of non-standard interfacing with the IR outlet used in their DTAs.

      They even charge for speaking to a billing representative (or at least threaten it) or for phone payments. Whopping $5. How the hell is automated phone processing add $5 to a customer's bill?

      When Comcast first hit the area and built it out, satellite TV dishes in the area were few and far between. Now, I see more and more people getting Dish Network and DirecTV. Makes me wonder where people are getting their internet access. Dialup? Cell phone providers?

      "( of cousre even if they do go down, their board already made their millions )"

      Sadly, they have. They went from doing things the right way, to finding that removing services and giving less value increases their profitability. This is why we lag other nations, and why I hope the FCC increases competition, because the current crop of monopolies--Comcats with TV and Veriz

    2. Re:formal, open rulemaking process by Kirijini · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If the FCC follows the proper rule making procedures, it would still be possible for a future court to rule that the FCC does not have that authority.

      Under NCTA v. Brand X and the Chevron Doctrine courts have very little power to overrule agency interpretations of vague statutes. Under Brand X itself, the Supreme Court found that the telecom act was vague on whether internet access service was or was not a "telecommunications service" (versus a "information service"), and therefore, the FCC's interpretation was valid unless it was not a reasonable policy choice. It seems pretty clear that if the FCC changed its mind, and enacted a new policy that found internet access was a telecommunications service and therefore potentially subject to common carriage regulation, the courts would have to accept that (because it's a reasonable policy choice). So long as the FCC followed the proper rule-making process.

  3. Re:Sad to see that by kramerd · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, its a shame that our federal government decided that keeping our national currency, which materially affects international currency, might be slightly more important than getting our national internet structure slightly faster yet in no way more useful than Russia.

  4. Re:Sad to see that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... behind the Russian Federation (~10 Mbit/s)...
    Russia does not end beyond MKAD, you know? And I highly doubt that they have average 10mbps inside MKAD either. Maybe only in media, which is beholden by Putin by the balls.

  5. Re:Sad to see that by timeOday · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Cite?

    There are many nuances to these kind of metrics that can be exploited to make things look one way or another. For example, measuring "availability" without regard to cost, which is almost meaningless.

    The number that matters is adoption - for each country, a histogram of what percentage of the population has each speed of connection. Adoption is what matters because that determines the actual impact of the infrastructure.

  6. Re:Sad to see that by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2, Funny

    We're actually 2nd right now, behind the Russian Federation (~10 Mbit/s) but ahead of the EU (~7 Mbit/s), Brazil, Australia, Canada, China (~2 Mbit/s), and other continent-sized federations.

    EU Politician: "Our Internet runs at ~7 Mbit/s

    Russian Politician: "Ha! Our Internet runs at ~10 Mbit/s!"

    EU Politician: "Nonsense! Nobody can watch pornography that fast!"

    US Politician: "Speed doesn't matter! The girth of your tubes is important!"

    So broadband Internet infrastructure is now the key to world domination?

    Things were simpler when countries only had to worry about Mine Shaft Gaps.

    "We have the best internet infrastructure in the world! It's just too bad that most of our citizens are so undereducated, that they can't figure out how to do anything useful with it."

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  7. Re:Sad to see that by kramerd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, this outcome is vastly preferable to collapse of an economic system.

    Nice try though.