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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.
In the highest profile case, Cogent has offered to cover the capital costs of the needed upgrade. The problem is that last-mile ISPs are trying to collect ongoing monopoly rents by charging transit to backbone providers well in excess of the ISP's actual cost of moving the bits, when the ISP's customers are already paying their part of the cost of moving the bits.
So how would one go about taking away home ISPs' ability to get away with charging both sides of the connection?
I don't disagree with you, but what you described also sounds like the airline industry: uniform service (seats on a plane) which interface with third parties (airports), used to get to something else we want (destinations). I don't really think of airlines as utilities, though.
For me that's all a theoretical argument and I'm much more of a real-world guy. Will regulating broadband internet as a "utility" make the world a better place? If so, then I support it -- and it will, so I support it. I don't mind the theoretical arguments but to me they are subsequent to the real-world argument of what policy leads to the best human lives.
Because the content providers are not the ones using the bandwidth, it's the ISPs own customers that are using the bandwidth they paid for. Netflix doesn't push it's contents onto an ISPs network - the ISPs customer pulls it, using the bandwidth they've already paid for. If the ISP wants to charge more, or renegotiate terms with all those customers they promised "unlimited high speed" bandwidth to, that's a different story. Punishing the content providers is absurd. If you could punish the spam pushers, that'd be a different story, but companies like CNN, Yahoo, Netflix, Amazon... they don't force their content onto anyone's networks.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Yep and continuing the same analogy. A small car company's vehicles would not be allowed to use passing lanes or interstates unless this car company pays usage fees for its customers.
But we all know it will. There's far too much money at play for the system to work fairly and/or justly in this instance.
The problem is that People expect Government to fix Government, while Government fucked everything to begin with. This is the same in every western societies, especially in France, where People have lost all responsibilities... or actually, they have been raised that way, thinking that Government is the answer to all the problem create by... Government... So heads after heads, nothing is changing, every new head lead People to false hope, and the circle continues. In the mean time, People are (kept ?) too busy to realize what's going on.
The FCC doesn't need congressional approval to implement net neutrality, or Title 2 regulation. So there's no need to "start regulation." I suggest reading TFA, it's fairly educational!
But the FCC does need funding. Which comes from congress.
If the FCC does do this, and congress gets upset about it, what you will likely see is a budget that reads "...and no part of this appropriation can be used in the regulation of ISPs as utilities..." etc... Congress has done it before (both republican and democrat) and they can do it again.
You've hit the real problem. Many large ISP have effective monopolies through high infrastructure costs. I would expect that any government regulation would first seek to formalize these, justified by the claim that service and rates would be managed centrally by the government.
We have, with great struggle, deregulated power and gas in my state. In most options, the prices were lower for competitors delivering service over the same "pipes" as the official, prior monopoly.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Well, I'm a tree hugging conservative... whatever, and Obama can't get out of bed in the morning to suit me. But this is a really good move on his part. That woman he nominated for Holder's job; good choice also. Sending more help to fight ISIS; another good move.
I guess he cares far less about politics now than a week ago. It'd be funny if he turns out to be a good president for these last 2 years
This may actually be the stupidest thing I've ever seen on ./. So kudos, to you.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
South Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
Latvia
Switzerland
The Netherlands
The Czech Republic
Finland
Ireland
The top 10 nations for internet speed. Notice anyone missing from that list? Treating internet service as a utility and not allowing toll booth throttling apparently results in top notch service.
You're welcome.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Everyone thinks that the idea of a monopoly is bad, but I think it would work fine in this case. Raw broadband bandwidth is a utility. AT&T bandwidth isn't (or shouldn't be) any different than Verizon, Comcast or CenturyLink. As it is now, there are tons of companies spending huge amounts of money to keep their networks barely at capacity simply because there's so much traffic to pass around. One company could do this much more efficiently than everyone trying to build their own distribution network, the same way public utilities don't run 4 competing electric lines or water pipes over the same route. In addition, there would be no net neutrality debate, since every user has to plug into the same common carrier.
People love to complain about old-school pre-breakup AT&T, but the high prices they were able to charge allowed them to over-engineer the phone system for reliability. Cable companies routinely oversubscribe links by a significant amount, and DSL providers don't provision enough bandwidth to the CO to deal with the number of connected customers. Internet bandwidth has become a utility in the US - there aren't very many people who are not users of it in some form or another. The problem is that people have no concept of paying for a service and want the cheapest possible price they can get, so the providers don't invest.
Even classifying bandwidth as being subject to common carrier rules would allow rural areas to be served more effectively. There is currently no incentive for broadband providers to provide good rural service. The universal service fees that had to be paid for wireline phone service were an attempt to subsidize this cost and make sure rural areas at least had connectivity. It's a similar problem to the federal highway funding formula -- more fuel efficient cars mean less gas tax revenue, which has the unintended effect of delaying infrastructure improvements. And fewer people paying universal service fees (or higher prices in general) mean that the broadband network is neglected.
Pros I see --
- Ends the net neutrality debate once and for all
- Allows AT&T or whoever gets the monopoly power to invest in the network without worrying about shareholders penalizing them
- Unintended pro might be greater levels of employment at a more stable employer.
Cons --
- You know, monopolies are universally evil and the free market should dictate everything
- Everyone will pay more (but for better service)
It seems to me that re-forming AT&T or similar is the best way to deal with this ongoing problem. It's not perfect but it does have advantages.
I might be a tree hugging liberal, but the Dems have an awful record when it comes to regulating technology.
No argument but the Republicans record isn't really any better. That said, I still think the basic notion of regulating internet access is an idea with merit even if the ruling parties aren't exactly brilliant at it. Internet access is as important to modern life as telephone access was 30 years ago. It has become an integral part of our lives and the companies that provide it seem to need a bit more oversight than they presently have.
I don't see why the Republicans would be any better or worse.
Because while the Democrats tend to screw up the regulations, the Republicans like to pretend that regulations are never good even when there is are clear abuses going on that markets cannot adequately address. Sometimes bad regulations are better than no regulations at all. (and vice-versa) I'm honestly uncomfortable with the amount of power that companies like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, TWC etc have over our internet connectivity. They have effectively an almost unregulated monopoly over internet service and have shown little reluctance to abuse that position when it suits them.
If Obama had his way, he wouldn't go through Congress for anything.
I'm not saying he should rule by fiat or anything of the sort but I understand the frustration the guy must feel. Would you be eager to go to congress when the republicans oppose everything he does regardless of the merits of the idea? Even when the item being debated was their idea. They don't even try to compromise, they just say no, especially if they are a tea party candidate. Used to be that the two sides could at least talk to each other. Now a republican has to pass an ideological purity test and cannot ever even seem to be compromising or he doesn't even win the primary in the next election. The republicans like to bitch about the Affordable Care Act but they don't ever propose any alternatives or improvements even though there is plenty that could be improved. Instead they just waste everyone's time in futile votes trying to remove health insurance from millions of people that couldn't previously afford it.
This is the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" problem. The short answer is, most rural populist types would probably fare better under a Democratic economic regime, but it really wouldn't be that much better. On the other hand, Republicans make few concrete promises economically, but they make broad promises about how they will sustain rural culture -- they fight for gun rights, and for the protection of traditional religious values, and against abortion, and gays. And in the end both parties mostly work in the interests of large corporations. In the end, Democrats promise a Starbucks in every town, and Republicans promise a cross on every door.
Also Democrats are generally supportive of state services, and things like Obamacare, which would improve the lot of poor voters in general, but a lot of poor people are simply morally opposed to accepting "welfare," and the slightly-better-off people around them are all downright hostile to the idea. This persists even if the "welfare" in question is completely pro-market, means tested, economically justified and everything else -- it's because American culture has moralistic, puritanical beliefs about thrift and work that are impervious to facts. The liberal tendency in American politics promises poor people a leg up, at the cost of their soul and their meritocratic ideals -- they'll get ahead but "everyone" will know they don't deserve it; meanwhile the conservative tendency promises a boot on your neck, but offers the guarantee that when you get the boot, you'll feel like you deserve it. People are attracted to appearance of order and justice, even if it hurts them.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Government regulation of the internet means the certain death of any form of privacy on the internet, not to mention almost certain government mandated backdoors in any encryption used.
Which I am fine with, since as a technologist I'll be able to exploit and work around it all as it suits me. I just feel a little sorry for all of the non technical people it will screw over, but whatever...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Would much rather see legislation focus on promoting last mile fiber infrastructure any ISP can compete to light up on a fair and equal basis.
That Net neutrality is even an issue is a symptom of larger problem of market failure. As long as the only viable ISP in town is a national cable company you can legislate till your blue in the face customers are still going to get fucked over as long as there remains no serious alternative.
What utilities are you referring to? My sewers, water, electricity, and gas all keep flowing, and at reasonable rates. I certainly would not want them transformed into Comcast-esque money-grubbers. Privatization in the absence of competition is the worst of both worlds, and that's what broadband to my home currently is.
With respect to government intrusion, assuming you buy the line that it's any different from, or even separate from, corporate intrusion (which I don't, since companies simply sell it to the govt) - the US Mail has the strongest legal guarantees of privacy, as far as I can tell, with phone being next. It seems to be in decreasing order of when invented, rather than public/private. At least with a utility there's a possibility of meaningful privacy regulations, if the public ever decides to start wanting them.