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President Obama Backs Regulation of Broadband As a Utility
vivIsel writes In a move that is sure to generate controversy, the President has announced his support for regulation of broadband connections, including cellular broadband, under Title 2 of the Telecommunications Act. Reclassification of broadband in this way would treat it as a utility, like landline telephones, subject providers to new regulations governing access, and would allow the FCC to easily impose net neutrality requirements.
Say what you want about Obama, but I guarantee the next president (probably Republican) won't care about preserving Net Neutrality.
he would not have appointed Tom Wheeler, a former telco lobbyist, to head the FCC.
They both require massive connections to other, unrelated networks - so uniformity in protocals.
The both must also connect to human interfaces that are always made by a third party, so again, uniformity of protocals.
They provide something that is in effect a commodity measured pretty much entirety by reliability and 'size of the pipe'. You don't get different flavors, etc.
We are using it to get to places we want to get to, not for itself. Just like any other utility.
Broadband is obviously a utility and should be treated as one.
The attempt to charge people on both ends is an abuse of power. When I buy internet, I expect to get the full speed I contracted for, without regard to whomever I am connecting to at the other end.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Cue even more millions of lobbying dollars for Republicans to block NN at all costs.
(Of course the roles would be reversed if it was a Republican president and Democratic congress.)
It may be "a move that is sure to generate controversy", but it's the right direction for things to be moving. The Internet is not an entertainment service or a toy. It's vital infrastructure that's necessary for our society to move forward economically and technologically, and it should be treated as such. Having crappy Internet should be considered as shameful as having crappy roads, run down train systems, beat up airports, and bridges that are falling down. Unfortunately, in the US, we seem to be fine with all of that.
The courts have essentially said that in the absence of title 2 reclassification, net neutrality won't be possible. But what the President is proposing IS title two regulation. Should the FCC move forward with this (its choice) it should not have an issue in the courts.
I'm pretty happy with government. I certainly have a lot of issues I'm unhappy with (surveillance, constant foreign war, too-low taxes, imprudent corporate priorities, insufficient transfer payments to the poor) but those are nitpicks compared to the things I'm fully satisfied with: domestic peace, prosperity, transportation, validity of vote counts, fading homophobia, fading racism.
America has a lot of problems but we're doing a lot more right than wrong. I don't actually have a strong opinion on regulating internet providers but my general assumption would be whatever the industry opposes is the best thing for America. So whatever side that puts me on, I'm on that side of that issue.
There are actually two problems at play here - with one common reason. The first is that the backbone ISPs are purposefully allowing their peering connections to saturate to hurt video companies like Netflix. The second is that last mile ISPs want to charge certain companies (e.g. video companies like Netflix) extra for the "privilege" of not having their packet delivery slowed to a crawl.
The reason for both of these is that these ISPs also - for the most part - offer cable TV services. They don't want upstarts like Netflix taking money away from their cable TV revenue so they are trying every trick they can to prevent people from using Netflix. (This includes setting bandwidth caps and charging overage fees.) Given that these ISPs also tend to be monopolies (or duopolies) in their areas, these actions *should* result in anti-trust investigations. Unfortunately, enough lobbying money has been spread around to keep anti-trust proceedings from starting.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So how would one go about taking away home ISPs' ability to get away with charging both sides of the connection?
Title 2 reclassification, which the President has proposed, is *exactly* how you do this. Common carriage, a form of title 2 regulation which governs the phone system, among other things mandates that phone infrastructure owners resell service at a reasonable wholesale rate to other phone providers. This is why you can buy phone service from any phone provider - not just the one who owns the cable that comes to your house.
The problem you're articulating - a hugely important problem - is exactly what the President is trying to tackle here. Net neutrality is part of it, but title two reclassification gives the FCC much, much broader powers to keep the eyeball networks (i.e. home broadband providers) in line. It doesn't predetermine what the FCC will do with these powers, but this is the right track.
For more details, I recommend Susan Crawford's excellent book, Captive Audience. http://yalepress.yale.edu/book...
Yeah, who needs it? Look how well it worked out for Somalia when their government disintegrated and they were freed from that yoke. Lebanon in the 80s and Kosovo in the 90s were such shining examples, too. And it was so much better in the USA before the Civil Rights Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the creation of the FTC.
You're right. Comcast is so much better at controlling the internet than the government would be.
Interesting. The Obamacare of X analogy is great. Well, except that Obamacare is a conservative approach to healthcare, that only gets portrayed as liberal because Obama is pushing it. No one cared when Romney rolled out Romneycare in his own state.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The GOP, and Mitch McConnell famously, stated that their purpose was to make Obama a one term president. Failing that, they have nearly frozen the legislative process and refused to participate in governing. So while your initial statement is subjectively accurate, the GOP left him little choice but to use the powers his office possesses to attempt to address the needs of the nation.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Your point is absolutely mute because this is not about net neutrality at all. Obama's statement does not do anything _for_ net neutrality, and I'll argue that it's more to ensure Government intrusion than to ensure access for everyone. Remember that as soon as it's rated as a "utility" it will have to receive more funding from tax payers for Government "monitoring" and "regulation" (read crony appointees). If you have doubts look how AT&T receives funding from tax payers to duplicate ALL traffic to various NSA facilities today.
If you want to see some of the most corrupt businesses alive today, look no further than utilities. This is nothing more than a front, primarily to stop the debate about Government intrusion but also to squeeze more money from the middle class.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Thank you for giving us the Netflix perspective. Counter arguments:
1) Residential broadband networks were never engineered as video delivery systems. The advent of mainstream streaming video completely changed the engineering calculus for last mile networks. Over subscription ratios need to change to accommodate the higher peak hour bitrates; this takes time and costs money. Where should this money come from? Why should I pay the same for my connection as the household that's running three or four simultaneous HD streams during peak hours? My 95th percentile is less than 0.5mbit/s, yet I pay the same as my neighbor who regularly runs three HD streams at the same time. Hardly seems fair, does it?
2) Related to the last point above, moving bits doesn't directly cost the ISP money but sustained higher bitrates do require a larger CapEx investment. Caps are a blunt force instrument that should be done away with in favor of demand or 95th percentile billing, IMHO.
3) IPTV is inherently inefficient vis-a-vis point-to-multipoint delivery systems (i.e., cable, OTA, satellite)
4) Settlement free peering (which is essentially what Netflix is demanding) has historically only been offered in instances where the traffic to be exchanged is roughly equal. If you're relying on me to deliver your traffic for you then you pay me. It has been this way since the beginning of the commercial internet. This ecosystem literally built the internet as we know it. If you want to blow it up the onus is on you to explain why your system is better.
5) Netflix has a history of trying to offload their costs onto third parties, be they ISPs, Tier 1 networks, CDNs, etc.
6) Netflix isn't exactly the white knight that everyone thinks they are. They're a for profit company; one that I stopped doing business with after they decided to double my price with little prior warning. They've cut deals that are detrimental to their customers (i.e., withholding new releases); any other company that behaved in such a fashion would be roundly hated around these parts.
1. False choice - how a delivery system was engineered is irrelevant. Today fiber technology and capacity exists and the infrastructure investments are not Capital intense.
2. False - Moore's law is the technical constraint. Political will is the social constraint.
3. False - Iptv is better at all distribution workloads for media. Networking tech easily allows for highly efficient compressed or uncompressed media delivery via multicast protocols. It is cable that is inefficient.
4. False - research has proven that assymmeteic last mile connections can never allow for equal peering. The premise that bits flowing in one direction costs more than the other direction is a calculated business decision based on the monopoly and regulatory environment. The same way that international sms messages are technically cost less, same goes for bits traveling in either direction, it's a neutral proposition.
5. The costs you are talking about are less than a few thousands of dollars per link. A drop in the bucket.
6. Drop subscribtion. There are alternative media delivery businesses consumers can choose. Consumers have no such luxury under current US isp arrangements.
Studied electrical & network engineering, public policy and econ. Counterarguments welcome :)