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

I Must Clarify One Thing

[eldavojohn]

net-neut

As the submitter, let the record show that I am not the originator of that term. I wash my hands of that wordsmithing and relinquish all credit with coining that term to kdawson or wherever he found it.

Personally the shortened form of that term sounds a bit more like a collection tool employed at a veterinarian than an internet principle.

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 Must Clarify One Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

"She turned me into a neut!" +1 neut
"A neut?" "...I got better." -1 neut
Net-Neut: zero

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.

Hype

[Thinboy00]

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

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.

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]

Yeah, but that'd be totally unfair to American corporations. Instead of just buying off a few regulatory commission members, they have to go out and buy an entire party's worth of congressmen. That could get expensive!

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:Comcast makeing NBC cable only and kill off sat

[Anonymous Coward]

in the slashdot world, there's only one 'monopoly law' and it says 'companies are not allowed to do anything i don't like'.

i'm skeptical of net neutrality

[orthicviper]

didn't the internet really take off without regulation? will regulation of the internet actually help, or just open the gateway for big business to control the markets in ways that favor themselves and hurt any chance of competition? will it give the CIA more opportunities to deal with problems like WikiLeaks, once the government gets its tentacles deeper into how the internet is managed?

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.

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:i'm skeptical of net neutrality

[falconwolf]

if Comcast upgrades its connection to Google but not to Bing (at least, not yet), that makes Google a faster responding search provider, customers use Bing less, and Microsoft is screwed

Except the opposite would happen, ComCast would make Google slower not faster and Bing faster not slower. Comcast is in bed with MS.

Falcon

Re:i'm skeptical of net neutrality

[sonicmerlin]

The broadband industry took off after the passage of the '96 Telecom Act. It came to a screeching halt after the first 5 years, when a Republican FCC and Congress gutted the Act and the FCC's regulatory powers.

Re:Comcast makeing NBC cable only and kill off sat

[digitalnoise615]

in the slashdot world, there's only one 'monopoly law' and it says 'companies are not allowed to do anything i don't like'.

Glad to see someone else has finally said that.

Companies do stupid things. And they screw alot of people. But they're not charities - they're out there to make money; some of which goes in YOUR pocket if you work for them, are a supplier to them, have a 401(k) or some other investment device that has stock in them, etc.

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

Re:Comcast makeing NBC cable only and kill off sat

[jgreco]

"monopoly laws"???? Can you be more specific?

They're printed inside the box lid of every Monopoly game.

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

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:It's all about the competition

[orthicviper]

but the market hasn't really been free. people here don't forget how these internet providers wasted 200 billion that was supposed to be used to build up the internet infrastructure here. 200 billion just completely wasted... http://www.tispa.org/node/14 the point is, the reason why we have limited competition might be because that 200 billion was just pocketed by those big companies, strengthening their ability to compete with anyone else not getting that loan. why did that loan go to businesses that were already big?

Re:It's all about the competition

[witherstaff]

The small ISPs, and I'd argue the rapid uptake of the Internet in the US, really only existed because of regulation. The '96 telco reform act forced the incumbent 'baby bells' to do business with startup phone companies. These in turn sold lines to ISPs in ways the bells wouldn't. Like affordable state wide phone trunking so no more physical equipment in every dialing area. When Powell's kid started running the FCC under the Bush era, they rolled back all the '96 telco reform rules in favor of big business. ISPs started dying quickly after this as the bells no longer had to play fairly, not even having to fake playing fair.

I'm all in favor of strong regulation by the FCC. Break up the physical lines from the service side of companies so there is fair and equal access. The lines were put in and more than paid for by taxpayers, time to move them to truly open as a public service. If the last mile was a commodity like it should be, we'd have so much competition available that net neutrality wouldn't be an issue as you could choose your provider of choice.

Be careful with congressional involvement

[Undead Waffle]

I watched the congressional committee on the National Broadband Plan. Everyone should really watch C-SPAN once in a while as it can be very insightful. Every so often you see a congressman that isn't too bad and it would be a shame to kick these people out of office because you're so angry at party X.

Most of it was everyone just giving speeches for camera time and repeating the same thing as everyone else in their party. The Democrats pointed out all of the studies showing how we're far from the top country in terms of broadband access, while the Republicans waved their hands and said "We're the best! Don't change anything!" without any facts to back it up. So of course on the topic of net neutrality the Republicans were very vocal about this evil "net neutrality" business and how terrible it is that the FCC wants to "regulate the internet." Not one of them appeared to have any grasp of what net neutrality is really about. Genachowski tried to explain it to one of them but didn't do a very good job. Even the Republicans in the FCC were against net neutrality. One of them (I forgot his name) said he thinks it doesn't need enforced because the free market will fix it as broadband speeds increase, showing he doesn't really understand the problem. Not to mention even if he was right this is just another incentive for the ISPs to make sure speeds don't increase too much.

But the Democrats had an equally scary complaint. Most of them were bothered by the fact that the National Broadband Plan didn't lay out ways to police the internet for copyright and IP infringement. It does mention the need to address the problem (and Genachowski said several times that this is a problem), but it doesn't lay out anything specific, which is why they were complaining. Off the top of my head the lady from Tennessee was the most vocal about how "her constituents" demand strict enforcement of intellectual property laws on the internet.

So for anyone saying congress should pass laws about this stuff be careful what you ask for. I feel a lot better about Genachowski making these rules than any of the congressmen I saw in that room. Though I know in general it is preferred to have elected officials making the rules, our congressmen generally don't know what they're talking about in this field.

On an interesting side note apparently this plan mentions opening the market for set top boxes, which the congressional chairman (Boucher) pointed out they had discussed 15 years ago and nothing came of it. He told the FCC "please do this as soon as possible". I am planning on building a MythBox so I was happy about this.

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

Re:Comcast makeing NBC cable only and kill off sat

[Tycho]

You mean like the carcinogenic aftermath of bovine growth hormones showing up in milk? You're right, no corporation would be that stupid...

There would need to be evidence of that, and I've not seen any mention of such from any credible article indexed on MedLine. You can find any articles like that here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

And even if there was an article or two on Medline that still wouldn't meet the Daubert standard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubert_standard

Even then, bovine growth hormone would need to have a significant effect at the concentrations found in dairy products. I haven't heard of anything like that yet, and with that in mind, please provide some evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._R._Grace_and_Company
On the other hand, W.R. Grace and Company did sell vermiculite insulation contaminated with tremolite asbestos, one of the really nasty forms of asbestos. The crysotile asbestos that is intentionally used in asbestos containing products is not nearly so bad. Neither form is that dangerous unless you are disturbing its fibers on a daily basis, like in an occupational setting.

The individuals suffering the most from the tremolite asbestos W.R. Grace and Company unintentionally mined, are those living near where it was mined originally near Libby, Montana and the factory workers and their family members where the vermiculite was processed into insulation.

In any case, how much the executives at W.R. Grace knew, when they knew it, what they did with the information, and how much one could have done is another question. The residents of Libby, Montana suffering from health problems related to asbestos are receiving compensation for medical care from W.R. Grace. To a certain degree it isn't perfect, but it is better behavior than Exxon's with respect to its actions to a certain oil spill in Alaska.

Re:Comcast makeing NBC cable only and kill off sat

[Tycho]

FTC and FCC decisions have been overturned usually because of a perceived lack of legal authority and not due to constitutional reasons. Congress is still free to make these tools available to the FTC and FCC in the form of new legislation. Legislation that might seem more urgent if their current legal authority appears insufficient to allow then to complete their current roles.