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Mozilla Offers FCC a Net Neutrality Plan With a Twist
An anonymous reader writes "The Mozilla Foundation is filing a petition asking the FCC to declare that ISPs are common carriers, with a twist. 'The FCC doesn't have to reclassify the Internet access ISPs offer consumers as a telecommunications service subject to common carrier regulations under Title II of the Communications Act, Mozilla says. Instead, the FCC should target the service ISPs offer to edge providers like Netflix and Dropbox, who need to send their bits over ISP networks to reach their customers. Classifying the ISP/edge provider relationship as a common carrier service will be a little cleaner since the FCC wouldn't have to undo several decade-old orders that classified broadband as an "information" service rather than telecommunications, Mozilla argues.'" Here's the Mozilla blog post and the 13-page petition.
Squid seems buried in a lot of products these days... and the key concept here is that data that needs to go to many people is best placed close to the users. If you can send it once per city to the a hub in each city, when the users want it they get it much faster and better.
since the FCC wouldn't have to undo several decade-old orders that classified broadband as an "information" service rather than telecommunications
But that's the problem. They are telecommunications services and not fixing that bad decision is just lipstick on a pig.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
These ISP/Content Provider conglomerates only stand to lose from a neutral internet. They have the money to buy the laws they want.
The golden age of freely flowing information is over.
FTA:
I think the problem here is that the ISPs want to be big media but they are really only telecoms trying to step out of line and disrupt the flow of information to get more money. They are greedy pigs. We should nationalize them all and simply take over their operations. They are EXACTLY LIKE traffic lights to be quite honest.
Would you want your highway/city traffic information management operated by competing corporations?
Would you want your city and state police run by competing corporations?
We have tolerated ISPs for too long. Nationalize.
Please, imagine if you had to deal with Comcast to get from your house to work every day.
Those of us who work virtually this is EXACTLY what we are doing.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Anyone with a TCP/IP stack is an "edge provider". Anyone routing packets is, in principle, a backbone.
Conflating monopolistic "world domination" economic models with internetworking is confusing enough without scrambling telecom and mass media regulatory frameworks together, with geek bread and circuses thrown into the mix. The lawyers will have field day, but this can't end well for anyone. But don't say I told you so.
Seems like half of a fix to me. Should all be common carrier status. Why settle for half a fix?
You just know ISPs gunna find loopholes in half a fix.
the cable companies did it to themselves...by charging netflix to carry their programming they became a common carrier.
In other words they can offer speed ups to paying customers but they have to be under RAND terms including to their own
services their own services would have to pay for the same rate for the same bandwidth.
Under the current rules, treating the Internet as an "information service" treats it exactly like Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy - virtually all content is presented by the service themselves, rather than relaying information content from providers to consumers. And we all know that the prior is exactly how the Verizons, the AT&Ts, the Comcasts and the TimeWarners of the world want it to be. The fairest way is to treat the ISP portion of the business as a common carrier - they have to treat "internal customers", like NBC/Universal in TWC's case, exactly the same as they treat external customers, like Netflix. It's fine to charge extra for expedited service handling for real-time data like voice or streaming video - but you have to treat all comers the same - using published tariffs, with allowable discounts based on volume of data and # of endpoints. But to allow things like Comcast used to do - purposely degrade certain traffic types from certain providers because it competed with their own offerings - that should be illegal. Net Neutrality is not about treating all traffic equally - realtime data like voice or video telephony and streaming video should always be treated with expedited handling with a minimum of queuing delay and jitter. But similar traffic types need to be treated similarly - else the whole thing falls apart. That's what any internet engineer familiar with traffic engineering will tell you.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
That's a downright stupid suggestion. If ISPs can't charge service providers and get their millions, under this proposal, they'll charge users ("Want to access Dropbox at acceptable speeds? You need to sign up to our Cloud Package for an extra $20 a month!"). They won't throttle the service, they'll throttle the user. It amounts to the exact same problem.
Here's the simple solution - internet access, in today's day and age, is as vital as a landline phone service was back in the day. Be it banking, filing taxes, signing up to health services, or whatever you want to consider, internet access is not "vital" in the sense that it is increasingly difficult to live a normal life without it. Thus, all internet access should be protected by common carrier regulations.
All.
Service providers through to users.
The only people who oppose reclassifying ISPs as common carriers are people who are deeply, profoundly opposed to the government in any and every way or shills of ISPs who want to protect their ability to gouge customers and rake in obscene profits.
They are common carriers providing vital communication services.
If Comcast doesnt charge content providers...they dont have to worry about it. However if they charge a content provider they have to charge them all the same rates including their own content providers.
but they will have to throttle their own services the same was they throttle dropbox. Sort of counter-productive.
Obama should grow a pair. Instruct the FCC commissioners to reclassify, or be dismissed. If they call as if he's bluffing, fire all of them and replace them with commissioners that will do the reclassification. These snots serve at the pleasure of the President and, in turn, the people. It's high time someone blew up their perceived fiefdoms.
The FCC has no experience or competency trying to regulate "fair play". The FTC, on the other hand, has been doing such for decades. Let the FTC manage this issue by simply squashing anticompetitive behavior, as they have always done.
The ISPs claim they aren't violating the principles of Net neutrality by neglecting to upgrade peering agreements where needed to maintain network performance, but haven't the numerous successful lawsuits against P2P companies like Napster and Kazaa established the legal principle that passivity is no defense? In other words, failing to take necessary action to ensure equal performance for all network traffic is the same as actively degrading it just like failing to monitor and block sharing of copyrighted files is the same as actively promoting it.
sign this petition to get Tom Wheeler and any other cableco/telco lobbyist out of the FCC: http://wh.gov/lwhr8
There is a conflict of intersest between what the customer expects of an ISP (equal access to competing services on the Internet) and the ISP hosting their own service in competition with "external" services. This could be voice, streaming video, videoconferencing, etc.
Any time the ISP offers services beyond being a dumb pipe, there is a natural temptation for the ISP to prioritize the traffic belonging to their own services above the traffic coming from competing "external" services. This can show up in many ways, the simplest being to not upgrade their external connectivity as much as they could--which has the natural effect of making their own services more attractive due to better bandwidth, latency, etc.
By making ISPs dumb pipes and preventing them from shaping traffic due to any reason other than rated subscriber bandwidth, we could ensure fair treatement across all services.
"But that's the problem. They are telecommunications services and not fixing that bad decision is just lipstick on a pig."
It wasn't a bad decision, it was the right experiment to do at the time
but given the results, backing up and tiptoeing in the common carrier direction seems the best thing to do.
Continuing on the current path is just repeating the same action and expecting different results.
Fortunately, we now have some examples and benchmarks from other parts of the world to see how other regulatory strategies work.
Unless you have a government utility owning the last mile, there are going to be very high barriers to entry. Nobody wants a patchwork of random cable/phone companies trenching all over the place.
Although I understood in the end, a few more commas and the word "that" could have helped smoothe the summary:
[Mozilla says that] the FCC doesn't have to reclassify the Internet access [that] ISPs offer consumers as a telecommunications service, subject to common carrier regulations under Title II of the Communications Act. Instead, the FCC should target the service [that] ISPs offer to edge providers, like Netflix and Dropbox, who need to send their bits over ISP networks to reach their customers.
Why not put the law-making role in the hands of people who have been elected into office?
Send your opinions and desires about the issue of net neutrality to the FCC now using the following link: https://www.fcc.gov/comments
attach your comments to the Proceeding # 14-28, which is at the top of the list, it is entitled "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet"
Leave a few paragraphs, tell them what you want.
You might not get what you want, but at least you'll have given them a hint of public opinion. Be nice.
again the link is https://www.fcc.gov/comments proceeding #14-28 .. make it happen. it only takes a minute or two.. as long as it took you to comment here on slashdot.
they are asking for comments, give them some.
Can't we just agree that internetz causes globa^H^H^H^H^HClimate change and let algor handle it for us?
For all the talk about nationalizing the internet. There is a petition directed to the FCC do just that. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/safeguard-the-internet
Have gnu, will travel.
Organizing and acting in concert for ostensibly common interests (unionizing) is orthogonal to bribing lawmakers (lobbying).
Common Carrier or GTFO, and Mozilla is showing its true colors now.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I didn't say that unions should be banned - I said they, along with corporations, should be banned from lobbying. I want equal treatment for corporations and for unions.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Up into the oughts, ISPs were legally common carriers, not liable for the contents of what you put up/sent. This would just be a return to that status... and would be a hell of a lot better for 'Net freedom.
mark