Slashdot Mirror
The FCC May Decide Not To Regulate Broadband
This morning the Washington Post reported that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is leaning toward letting the telecomms have their way — not asserting greater authority to regulate the Internet by reclassifying broadband as a Title II service. The blogs are atwitter (HuffPo, StopTheCap) that not voting to apply Title II regulation to Internet carriers is tantamount to giving up on net neutrality — which has been a centerpiece of the Obama administration's tech policy. The Post paraphrases its sources, who are reading the chairman's mind, that Genachowski believes "the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC's authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy." The FCC will say only that the chairman has made no decision yet.
I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but think of the taxes and fees on your phone bills, would you really want that on your internet bill too? Also to the people that constantly bitch about Comcast so much, grow a pair and cancel your service if it's really that bad.
I don't think it makes much sense to allow anyone to dig all the lines they want. To the extreme, it just wouldn't work as it would become an unmanageable mess, and to the norm,
Actually since "digging a line" in all but the most central locations will quickly cross the $50000 price, I doubt that. And I wouldn't worry about the more central locations : they're already far beyond what a normal person would call a mere mess.
It should be a common community asset leased to service providers, much like the airwaves.
The problem, again, is technology. Most isps (all but the very largest) would like nothing better. But installing the necessary technology for this is prohibitively expensive.
The only real solution is to have a "meta" isp, that does all the last mile connections anywhere. But of course, such an isp would be a government monopoly, and would behave a lot worse than Comcast and AT&T combined. Besides, such an isp would have long decided to cap download speeds (not having to worry about competition, or simply not caring) and we'd be worse off than we are today.
neither of which is very desirable
This is the theme of all "network neutrality" idiocy. The whole argument comes down to "other people need to pay for my free stuff, because I'm entitled". I'm all for cutting AT&T down to size, but I thoroughly hate how it will affect small isps. And in fact I fear it will do the exact opposite.
But that something will destroy a market, or will destroy smaller companies just isn't an argument for the democrat party. Of course, it will mostly force smaller isps to just violate the law, for being "network neutral" is close to lunacy from a network engineering standpoint.
After all, if democrats have proven one thing it's that they think that giving everyone substandard service in a "fair" (decided by politicians instead of by reality) manner is infinitely more preferable than improving service for everyone. That such notions' logical end is obviously everyone except politicians starving to death ... just doesn't matter it seems. (and all the way implementing these extreme short-term free-stuff policies democrats scream about how companies "just don't care about the long term". I don't think these people would enjoy the diagnosis of a psychiatrist)
But since the average slashdotter wants 100 mbit for $5 a month, and Obambi promises them network neutrality will achieve that ... *sigh*. In reality network neutrality will be another weapon for the large telcos to use against everyone else. In reality network neutrality will mean lower quality connections for higher price.
But going against "free stuff*" promises with "reality doesn't work that way" arguments is not a very productive thing to do.