The Far-Reaching Effects of Comcast v FCC

eldavojohn writes "We've had a lot of discussion about what the overturning of FCC v Comcast means for net neutrality, but CommLawBlog argues that net-neut is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the effects of this ruling. In the National Broadband Plan, local TV broadcasters might be forced to give up their spectrum 'voluntarily' to be repurposed for broadband; this decision diminishes the FCC's authority to cut such deals. Another issue at stake is how this will affect the FCC's approval of Comcast's acquisition of NBC."

Comments

Hold comcast to the same laws fox / directv where

[Joe The Dragon]

Hold comcast to the same laws fox / directv where under when Directv was owned by fox and they where not able to make fox directv only.

Legislators need to be legislating

[camg188]

This is a failure of Congress.
What is needed is clear legislation from Congress that enumerate what exactly the FCC is allowed to regulate. Regulation should come from our elected officials, not from the policy statements of unelected commissions.

Re:Legislators need to be legislating

[digitalnoise615]

This is a failure of Congress. What is needed is clear legislation from Congress that enumerate what exactly the FCC is allowed to regulate. Regulation should come from our elected officials, not from the policy statements of unelected commissions.

Exactly. But unfortunately, Congress isn't interest, at least not very much, at the moment. And you always run the risk of over-regulation when Congress gets involved. The correct way to do this is to give the FCC the authority, with a high and low limits, and then let the FCC run with it. I'm afraid, however, that Congress will end up setting the exact rules, and as a result, things might get too tightly regulated.

Re:Legislators need to be legislating

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The FCC has been smacked down by the courts so many times in the past ten or so years that it should be clear to *everyone* that 1. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a total failure AND 2. We need a complete overhaul of telecom regulation.

Re:Legislators need to be legislating

[DigiShaman]

Congress by its very nature is incompetent because they put politics ahead of principle. Case in point, look at taxation and the new health care reform. They're both disasters of epic proportions. In fact, I'm willing to bet the only portion of the bill they read is their own amended riders they put into them, not the bill itself.

And you guys want Congress to regulate the Internet? I can only see this going from bad to worse!

Re:Legislators need to be legislating

[sonicmerlin]

When your entire viewpoint of the world is binary, "regulation is bad! regulation is good!", then yes you would only be able to see regulating the internet as being a negative thing.

The healthcare bill in its current form was severely watered down by special interests lobbying Congress. The '96 Telecom Act was severely watered down over the years by Republican FCC's and special interest groups.

Now that we once again have a Democratic FCC, it's Genachowski's obligation to reclassify broadband under Title II and force open access on both DSL and cable carriers. In fact since Verizon has officially given up its expansion of FIOS, forcing open access on FTTH would make a lot of sense as well.

The problem is Julius doesn't want his "career" to be occupied with incumbent lawsuits against his agency's authority, and he's no doubt looking out for his own future. It's a serious problem we have in the current US political system right now.

Re:Legislators need to be legislating

[jimbolauski]

No, the correct way to do this is to abolish the FCC and allow the airwaves to be homesteaded.

Falcon

So how exactly are spectrum conflicts resolved, the guy with the biggest amp wins(mine goes to 11). There would have to be court actions to resolve disputes, or an agency could be created to manage the spectrum and license parts of the spectrum to people to radiate, the licensing fees would go towards the cost of managing the spectrum. The FCC needs to be redefined with a much clearer scope the ambiguity has lead to a power grab that blew up in their face. The reason FCC vs Comcast was overturned is because the FCC essentially created a law and tried to enforce it anyone with a half a brain can figure out why this is a bad idea. If Net Neutrality is going to happen congress has to write a law.

Re:I Must Clarify One Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that Slashdot editors can be bothered with changing stupid things like that while letting egregious typos, or more frequently, completely incorrect information, go by without blinking.

Re:i'm skeptical of net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

You can be skeptical of your regulators and politicians all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that net neutrality is desirable.

corporatism is not capitalism

[circletimessquare]

in fact, any student of economic history knows that corporatism, monopolies, oligopolies are greater threats to capitalism than socialism or communism ever could be

the libertarian naivete that a free market of equals is a natural balance and that governments can only interfere in that is nonsense

the truth is that some players in the free market grow and begin to use their heft to suppress smaller players. this is completely natural. the way to fight that is to have a government with strong regulatory powers to enforce equality amongst 800 pound gorillas and tiny players. you want to be taxed to do this, and you want the "bureaucracy" that does this. or you will suffer far more than any inefficiency or waste in the government. fight the inefficiency and waste in government, don't fight government itself

insomuch as the government is merely a tool of the big time players is the extent which corporate dollars warp and infect and corrupt the government that is supposed to regulate them

in other words, if you are a true believer in capitalism, you will lose your libertarian naivete and insist on a strong regulatory government to keep the marketplace healthy

and you will recognize the greatest threat to capitalism is not the government, it is corporations and their corruption OF government

stop fighting government. start fighting corporations, or more exactly, the immoral infuence of corporate dollars on a government that is supposed to represent you, but is bought off by corporate dollars to work against you

and i didn't say it was easy. but when you fight government itself, you are actually making it worse

fight the corporate infection of government, even though you are working against powerful addicted junkies of corporate money and it is a hard fight. but please, stop fighting government itself. it is supposed to represent your interests, so get it to do that

absolutely

[circletimessquare]

but i am not "refining" threats to capitalism or democracy, i am clarifying

because currently there is a lot of fud out there that it is the government itself which is the enemy, when we both know that is a red herring

if the people who believe that fud could see that (bought and paid for) demagogues are redirecting their righteous anger in the wrong direction, then maybe we could finally pull the curtain back and see the wizard for what he is

financial influence in a democratic system warps and weakens it. we both see this. so let's keep hammering that point home so the fools who believe the blame lies somewhere else for our troubles wake the fuck up from their tea party delusions. their anger is valid. where they are directing their anger is invalid

Re:i'm skeptical of net neutrality

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

Yes, it did really take off without regulation but lately, the ISPs have been trying to extend their role beyond that of "internet service provider". For example, many cable ISPs now provide phone service, via VoIP. Also, some ISPs are trying to become content providers (ex: Comcast's acquisition of NBC). In the last 5 years, ISPs like Comcast have tried to block bittorrent traffic, block competing VoIP phone services such as SKYPE and Vonage, discriminantly block emails websites and more.

The FCC should tell Comcrap to pound sand!

[Newer Guy]

The FCC should DENY the transfer of NBC's broadcast licensees to Comcrap (which is the approval that Comcrap is seeking). Giving the largest cable operator and ISP in the country ownership of network TV stations that cover 2/3rds of the population, and control of a major TV network (and all their cable channels and retail) is monopolistic. It's bad enough that Comcast has the pure arrogence to challenge the FCC's control over them-now they want it ALL, with NO oversight whatsoever!

It's all about the competition

[N0Man74]

If Net Neutrality was good for big business, as you suggest is possible, then why is big business so strongly against it? I'm baffled by how many people buy into the arguments coming from big businesses that this will help big businesses step over consumers. Since when has Big Business been a watchdog for themselves in order to protect Average Joe?

The reason it took off without government regulation enforcing net neutrality was because competition was so much greater. There were tons of small internet service providers popping up everywhere offering dial-up service at increasingly cheaper prices and with better service and features. As more and more dial-up providers were born and competed, we went from paying by the minute or e-mail to unlimited usage because of competition. It led to many providers offering other services like Usenet access, extra e-mail accounts, free homepage space, and better customer support.

With so much competition and a culture of internet freedom, nobody would even think about trying to violate net neutrality without dooming their business.

Then came the rise of broadband. As broadband became more ubiquitous, suddenly the huge number of dial-up based ISPs began to dry up and internet access became dominated by telephone companies and cable companies. These companies usually had strong footholds in their areas, and enjoyed the luxury of limited competition.

Now, we have less and less competition, and we see consumers gradually losing what we gained due to competition. Not many ISPs give free homepages anymore. More and more are cutting free Usenet. Dealing with many of these businesses has become much more bureaucratic than it used to be. They want to bring back caps and paying by the byte, and they want to have more control over how you use the internet with less responsibility to their customers.

It's also important to remember what ignoring net neutrality can mean for Comcast. It's not just about them controlling the level of bandwidth customers use, it's about them controlling who is piping all that data to you. As they try to make you sympathetic to them by invoking images of bandwidth hogs committing rampant piracy, they are setting themselves up so that they can potentially make it more costly for you to stream any video that is not from their service (or NBC) and reduce the performance of VoIP services that are from competitors. I won't even go into the other potential cans of worms that this could open up, if they are allowed to continue on this course.

I don't believe that much regulation is needed as long as market forces are working in healthy ways, but when the number of competing companies shrink while their individual power grows, then sometimes regulation is needed to keep them from abusing this position of power.

Re:i'm skeptical of net neutrality

[sumdumass]

Two different types of regulation is at stake here. One is regulation of the internet itself, the other is regulation of the regulation on the internet itself.

You see, one is setting limits on the internet, the other is setting limits on those who attempt to set limits on the internet. Net Neutrality attempts to limit those wanting to limit the internet, not the internet itself.

And yes, this might limit start ups and new ventures to some degree, but no more so and perhaps quite a bit less than not regulating those who want to limit the internet would also impose.

As long as the net neutrality regulation is on those in charge of the internet and not the internet, it shouldn't have any adverse effects that aren't already present or open lines for other agencies to seize power and control over the actual internet.

A simply net neutrality law that could be implemented that would achieve this might be something that says

"no internet provider or supplier of internet services can take steps to restrict or impede traffic or other communications on the internet to rates of service below what was plainly and obviously advertised to the consumer of such services on the bases of additional pay from any third or more party; or present the services favorably to any product in which they have any stake in to where such favorable actions delivers or restricts competing services to rates less what was plainly and obviously advertised to the consumers paying for the service. For the basis of this paragraph, payment from a third party is enough to establish a stake in the product, service, or technology.

Nothing in this law should be construed to restrict internet service providers or suppliers to deliver service in addition to what the consumer paying for the service expects from deliberate and obvious advertisements of the service as long as the additional service does not restrict the expected service from deliberate, clear and obvious advertisement of services sold.

Nothing in this law should restrict the internet service provider or supplier from slowing traffic or otherwise manipulating traffic and other communications when the network is under attack or physical disrepair as long as steps are being taken to document such attacks and disrepair as well as documenting steps to remedy such environments and this documentation is available upon request of regulating authorities and parties in lawsuits pertaining to this law.

Nothing in this law should be construed to make internet services and suppliers liable for actions they have no control over as long as they adapt their service offerings to clearly and obviously take those conditions into account if they last longer then 1 month.

Aggrieved parties, upon findings of a violation by a court of jurisdiction or regulating authority can recover restitution in the form of 10 times the costs of services during the offending period of time if the offense lasts longer then 6 months or 5 times the costs of services if the offense lasts longer then 2 months to be credited to the accounts of the aggrieved parties or forgiven of any contract termination fees owed and 3 times the costs of services refunded in the form of a equitable currency equivalent that can be processed and spent like the currency of the United States of America if the violation caused the consumer to seek service with another provider.

The purpose of this law is to ensure that consumers purchasing the internet or internet services get what was advertised to them at the time of purchase or agreement of services and any restrictions of services is clearly and plainly disclosed in not only contracts but advertisements presented to the consumer before the purchase of the services. All interpretations of this law should take that as a driving intent."

There is a simple net neutrality law that could be adapted to most countries that basically says that you will get what you were advertised advertised and that the service provi

Re:Hype

[butlerm]

The only real impact is that the FCC will start using Title II instead of Title I.

As they should have if they weren't engaged in politically opportunistic word mangling in the first place. The Supreme Court occasionally allows the FCC an unusual amount of latitude in that sort of thing (which was probably a mistake). If the FCC was doing its job, it would have classified Internet access providers as common carriers under Title II, for exactly the same reasons telephone network providers are considered common carriers.

Instead they essentially (temporarily) abdicated virtually all of their authority to regulate the Internet by classifying the whole thing as one big "information service". Youtube is an information service. Wikipedia is an information service. Internet access service, in the terms contemplated by the Communications Act of 1934, is not.

An "information service" is "offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications" (47 USC 153). Anyone think that sounds like what an Internet access provider does?

An "information service...does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service." (ibid) Internet access is the latter. The opposite conclusion is specious in the extreme.

This is a failure of Congress.

[falconwolf]

What is needed is clear legislation from Congress that enumerate what exactly the FCC is allowed to regulate.

It was a failure of congress to give the FCC and before it the Federal Radio Commission, from which the FCC was created, the power to regulate the airwaves period. It was done at the behest of the large mass media companies, it allowed them to reduce a lot of their competition.

Falcon