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FCC Confirms Delay of New Net Neutrality Rules Until 2015
blottsie writes: The Federal Communications Commission will abandon its earlier promise to make a decision on new net neutrality rules this year. Instead, FCC Press Secretary Kim Hart said, "there will not be a vote on open internet rules on the December meeting agenda. That would mean rules would now be finalized in 2015." The FCC's confirmation of the delay came just as President Barack Obama launched a campaign to persuade the agency to reclassify broadband Internet service as a public utility.
Opensource.com is also running an interview with a legal advisor at the FCC. He says, "There will be a burden on providers. The question is, 'Is that burden justified?' And I think our answer is 'Yes.'"
Why should the providers shoulder this burden? They're not marketing, charging for, or making the content available. It's ridiculous. And invasive.
Actually, the major providers also own some of the content producers. Comcast owns NBC/Universal, Time-Warner owns Warner Brothers, etc. As such, the providers want to prioritize their subsidiaries' content.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
This is probably good news. Obama makes a public statement urging the FCC to step in and enforce net neutrality, and the FCC suddenly delays a decision they were about to make. That means the decision had already been made and it was that the FCC was not going to intervene. Now they are reconsidering and thus they want more time to figure out what all Obama's request entails.
Better known as 318230.
The Internet is now composed of companies that together, large and small, form a far greater economic power than the ancient and dying cable companies pushing this. Consequently, if the rules passed are harmful then the vote will be followed by a torrent of lawsuits. Cable shills in government think that because online companies don't capture regulation at an equal rate, that they're weak. But those companies will not go quietly into that good night either, so I think that ancient, dying industry may be in for a very rude awakening.
I sincerely hope it involves an audit of tax dollars that have been legally obligated expenditures on infrastructure expansion and service improvement. I hope so because if it does, then it will also involve hard time for the people behind this. They've expanded infrastructure, but probably not at the scale provided for by the tax. On top of that, a lot of the expansion has amounted to cables that aren't used. 2015 and 2016 are shaping up to be very, very bad years for the cable industry.
I hope that SAG actors start transitioning back to the big screen in a hurry, or Hollywood will be caught in the fallout.
This has been a hot issue for a couple years now and there is no doubt the FCC has been studying this for some time. Obama has allowed the agency to be filled with Telecom industry cronies and lobbyists who stand to get sizable golden parachutes from the likes of Comcast and Time Warner if they hold the line. Obama's only card to play if they stonewall is to fire Director Wheeler and replace him with a pro-neutrality director, who will staff the agency with members who will vote the way he wants. If they can delay until the new Congressional session begins in January, then Republicans can block any pro-neutrality nominee. So firing Wheeler after the new session begins is very risky and will likely fail.
The only way Obama can affect the change he wants is to move on the director now. As long as this issue has been discussed, why should we wait another year for the FCC to rule on this? They clearly already know what they want to do. They are just stalling. I hope Obama can see that.
Peace, K1
Why should the providers shoulder this burden?
Because their customers are paying them to shoulder this burden. Directly. With real money. These paying consumers expect their bytes to be relayed at the rate and volume they pay to send or receive. Whatever other business arrangements a providers customers may have with any other party is none of the providers @$%&*+! business.
Simple. Straightforward. And entirely incompatible with our government's monopoly protected cable and phone companies that have decided they'd like a big juicy piece for themselves.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I was referencing to the very real possibility that while a law may not be passed to disband the fcc, they may zero it's budget which is effectively the same to prevent any sort of net neutrality. utility or otherwise.
By taking a public stance diametrically opposed to the desires of the communication companies whose lapdogs Obama appointed as FCC commissioners, Obama is reminding the loyal opposition that when these lapdogs ultimately capitulate to the communications monopolies' desires, they are doing so at great political cost. Delaying the capitulation will reduce the value of Obama's obvious posturing, reducing the magnitude of the quid pro quo that would otherwise be expected in the face of such seemingly insubordinate behavior. Of course, this formula of attempting to leverage any sort of return from favors hasn't exactly paid off for Obama so far, but it seems to be the only tactic he knows.
I'm willing to bet that anything the FCC does will be part of a brokered arranagement involving a bundle of entirely unrelated topics about H1B visas, oil pipelines, obamacare, and no doubt things I care even less about. I won't bet a dollar on how the deck is going to be split, only that it will be split.
The standoff can't continue: if the republicans keep doing nothing they're going to hurt in 2016. If Obama veto's everything the democrats will hurt in 2016. Something will happen in the next 2 years, I'm just afraid of what it will be.
I was referencing to the very real possibility that while a law may not be passed to disband the fcc, they may zero it's budget which is effectively the same to prevent any sort of net neutrality. utility or otherwise.
Pure fantasy.
The FCC is under pressure from EVERYBODY to reclassify ISPs as Title II Common Carriers. And the reason is simple: it is what should have been done in the very beginning.
It is the obvious and RIGHT thing to do, and so much is clear to just about everyone. Even the ISPs know that, they just don't want it to happen.
The GOP really, really, really needs to get it through their heads that their ideology is NOT why they were overwhelmingly elected this year. In fact that had little if anything to do with it. What the voters did was throw the other bums out. If the new Congress behaves badly, it will just be their turn in 2016.
Seriously. People are fed up. And it's Obama's guy, Wheeler, who has been pushing for Internet "Slow Lanes" on behalf of the ISPs. So no matter Obama's rhetoric, no matter how many things Ted Cruz idiotically blurts, you can point the finger straight at Obama if you're looking for blame. Not the GOP.
Why should the providers shoulder this burden? They're not marketing, charging for, or making the content available. It's ridiculous. And invasive.
Nonsense. The reason they should "shoulder the burden" is that you already paid them to do so via your monthly bill. And instead of investing in improved infrastructure to carry the extra bits, as has been done in other civilized countries, in the U.S. they've just been pocketing the money and taking vacations in Jamaica.
Seriously. U.S. has worse speed AND higher prices than most of the Western world, including pretty much all of Europe.
I pay for bandwidth. It doesn't (should not) matter where that bandwidth comes from. And the suppliers of the content, on the other end, should not have to be forced to pay AGAIN for bandwidth I already paid for.
Not to mention that the proper role of ISPs is as carriers anyway, which means they should be content-neutral.
Imagine if they were old land-line telephone companies (as they should be): if you called Aunt Martha, and she talked a lot, you still paid the phone bill for that call. It didn't matter if she talked for hours, or how fast she talked, you still paid the bill. Further, if people were calling your teenage daughter all damned day because she was popular and spent all damned day on the telephone, as many teenagers did, should SHE have to pay just because she was popular, and talked a lot? No. The people who called HER paid the bill for the calls.
There is not one single legitimate reason why ISPs in the U.S. should get to double-dip for their services, when they already aren't delivering good service for the money anyway.
The FCC was established by an act of congress (Communications Act of 1934), and therefore mandated by congress to do exactly what it does. And constitutionally the executive branch, of which the FCC is a part, is tasked with defining the implementation of law. The system is working exactly as designed.
As far as other ways to enact net neutrality, the only other constitutionally acceptable way of enacting any sort of regulations is for congress to do it directly. And there is so much partisan infighting that no regulations would ever get made and those that would would be so politically driven that they would be worthless and generally undone after two to four years anyway. Plus, even if congress was populated solely by reasonable and intelligent people who truly had the American public's best interest at heart, they simply wouldn't have time to debate and formalize every conceivable necessary regulation in every sector of public existence. So instead congress creates agencies which are (theoretically supposed to be) free of party affiliation to come up with the regulations themselves. Thus the FCC, FAA, FDA, etc.
It isn't a burden anyway. The biggest issue is Netflix-style HD video delivery, from what I understand. CDN's provide an excellent solution to peering congestion, and the technology is used everywhere at the moment. The issue isn't that streaming video is a huge burden, it's that residential network operators are throttling the CDN's themselves. Verizon was one of the culprits, and they had slowed Netflix to a crawl even for fiber customers. There is zero technical reason for that. The technical hurtles for delivering their own content digitally are identical to delivering a competitors'.
Except that in this case, the FCC is not coming up with any new laws. They are merely determining which previously established classification a particular industry should be placed under, something completely within their charter per the aforementioned act of congress.
In addition to the fine replies above, perhaps they should ALSO shoulder the burden because they took HUGE subsidies from the government to create the pipes they're now trying to monopolize...
Also, WHAT burden? Is it a burden to NOT fuck up the pipes?
Net neutrality isn't necessarily what people want, but its the closest thing to what people want that they can get right now in the US.
Think about it. If we had actual competition, and I could go and pick from one of 10 ISPs...none of them would dare, let say, throttle netflix, as they would basically bankrupt themselves. Prices would go down, services would go up (you may have a package that gives videostreaming priority...which is not net neutral, but if its a CHOICE, and you can go to the competitor that gives gaming traffic priority...it may not be a bad thing for you as a customer. Sucks a bit for providers, but still).
The problem is we don't have that. If you're on Comcast, and they throttle netflix, and you want netflix, well, TOUGH. Yay, Netflix makes a deal, and thats cool..but I want Crunchyroll and Funimation. Well, too bad. Its netflix or eat up the throttling! Net neutrality helps that, but it still doesn't give me choice.
There is no "burden" to be shouldered. That's just a false play by the ISPs to paint themselves as victims.
They are already being paid handsomely many multiples of the true operating costs to deliver packets to and from their subscribers. That is all ISPs should be allowed to do. They shouldn't be given tools to engage in anti-competitive practices like throttling packets coming from their competitors in preference for their own properties or demanding protection money to get fair treatment.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
What the voters did was throw the other bums out.
No, they did not... 95% reelection rate by the most conservative estimates. If people are 'fed up', they have a weird way of showing it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The rules that the FCC implemented that prevents someone from saying "fuck you" on the radio, or broadcast television, came about from a single complaint back in the 70's.
Thirty years later, and four million times more complaints were filed about net neutrality, and they're still dragging their feet.
THAT should put some perspective of democracy into this.
Learn something new.
And it's Obama's guy, Wheeler, who has been pushing for Internet "Slow Lanes" on behalf of the ISPs. So no matter Obama's rhetoric, no matter how many things Ted Cruz idiotically blurts, you can point the finger straight at Obama if you're looking for blame. Not the GOP.
...
Wheeler, plus the two republican commissioners on the FCC you mean? That's what you meant, right? This whole thing started because Wheeler broke rank with the Democrats and said that he was going to vote with the Republicans on the fast lanes thing, so I assume that's what you meant.
While you're pointing your finger at Obama you might consider that his rhetoric is all that he can actually do about this. Obama nominated Wheeler, that's true, but that's the extent of his influence over the FCC. That's the whole point of having independent agencies - so that one person doesn't have all the power.