FCC Chairman Will Reportedly Revise Broadband Proposal

An anonymous reader writes "FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said he will revise proposed rules for regulating broadband Internet, and is offering assurances that the agency won't allow companies to segregate Web traffic into fast and slow lanes. From the article: 'The new language by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to be circulated as early as Monday is an attempt to address criticism of his proposal unveiled last month that would ban broadband providers from blocking or slowing down websites but allow them to strike deals in which content companies could pay them for faster delivery of Web content to customers.'"

Comments

More of the same likely;

[Mr D from 63]

The language is too carefully chosen. I expect the same old sheet.

Wheeler seems too anxious to move fast."won't allow companies to segregate Web traffic into fast and slow lanes" is a matter of interpretation. If you insist the slow lane is really not a slow lane, it is a meaningless statement.

Re:More of the same likely;

[interkin3tic]

I'd argue a better outlook is "This is a positive response: it shows that pressure being put on the FCC is working, they're not invulnerable to criticism, so double down on whatever efforts you are taking. If you aren't calling your washington representatives, do so."

Wheeler didn't issue this statement because he was simply concerned that the american people were unhappy. This is basic PR: "I have a real problem, so throw the critics a bone, make it look like I'm open minded, and hope that calms them down enough to just do what it was I wanted to do." If there had been no response, then that would be an indication that Wheeler, the FCC, and the Obama administration were unconcerned about the feedback they were getting and we would be wasting our time.

I mean what did you expect? That the FCC would jump right to "Oops, we were completely wrong about what you wanted and will do a complete 180, thank you for your feedback, no need to fire me for being so very very wrong, please!"

I don't know how much harder people will have to push to force a complete reversal, but this is a positive sign. Your cynicism is justified, but lets not be so cynical as to conclude that the battle is lost; I see this as quite the opposite.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sad

[Giant Electronic Bra]

When half the people stopped voting and much of the other half got so poor an education that they can't distinguish between truth and bullshit.

Re:Sad

[Rich0]

Don't forget the "I'm too cool to vote" mentality you hear around here ("both parties are the same", blah, blah, blah.)

Most of those folks don't advocate not voting - they just advocate for voting for somebody who isn't associated with the major parties.

What other choice do they have? Do we think the FCC would be doing the right thing if only a Republican were president?

Re:I thought this was already possible....

[Enigma2175]

If a business wants to get "fast lane" access among specific providers, why no co-locate servers at one of that provider's data centers or central offices?

That's exactly what they do. It benefits the ISP because it reduces the data that has to flow across their interconnects, it benefits the provider as they don't need to pay for transit across the internet and it obviously benefits the consumer. The problem Netflix has is that Comcast realizes that it benefits Netflix (plus, they are competing with Netflix) so Comcast said "Yeah, we'll allow you to place caching servers on our network, provided you pay us several million dollars per month". Netflix doesn't really have a choice, Comcast is about half of the US residential internet subscribers.

Comcast's business has long been about selling access to their customers. They sell the service to the customers then they sell the customers to advertisers. They now want to sell their internet customers to providers as well. This is blatant abuse of their monopoly position but since the political system in the US is designed to reward those with the most money nothing all all will come of this, other than the FCC asking Comcast if they should apply lube to the public before Comcast reams them (the answer is "No!").