Slashdot Mirror
Confirmed: FCC Will Try To Regulate Internet Under Title II
An anonymous reader writes: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has published an op-ed explaining how and why the FCC will "use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections." He says, "These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone's permission. ... To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks. For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling. Over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition."
It could have been easy to get along and keep doing what they were doing, but no, Verizon has to go and sue in court. They had to challenge the weaker rules, force Wheeler's hand and cause this to happen.
It's their own fault here.
They brought it on themselves in a very real, legally binding way.
I couldn't be gloating any harder than I am right now.
> my proposal includes a general conduct rule that can be used to stop new and novel threats to the internet
Confirmed for SOPA 7.0.
I do worry about what the whole "lawful content" thing is about and will really mean down the road.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
The current mess is mostly due to local government (municipalities) imposed monopolies. So yes, government can do no right. This whole net neutrality is just trying to regulate the regulation, ie. bad policing.
Now let's see if it actually happens. There's plenty of time yet for lobbyists and donors to flood the final process with blood money. The D.C. news (not talk) radio station WTOP already runs big biz shill organization ads carping about "innovation" and "serving our customers".
Of course, we'll also get a big dose of nonsensical Randian rhetoric about the Imaginary (oh, sorry, "Invisible") Hand of the marketplace, all .gov is teh evilz, etc.
So it remains to be seen if this is a real prelude to a long-overdue action or just a PR stance designed to quiet the lowing populist herd and get the money pumps running again.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
If paid prioritization isn't permitted, does this mean Netflix has to pull their servers and routers from Comcasts' data centers? And how does that benefit me again?
HERE'S ONE NOW. You lot are like conspiracy theorists: we can poke holes in your pet theories all day, but there's always one more angle you can think of to preserve your epistemic bubble.
As a Libertarian fucktard - I support net neutrality.
Would I have preferred corporate America came to that decision on their own? Sure! And I'll take a unicorn, as long as you have enough for everyone.
Keep in mind, before you go whining about those more fiscally responsible than yourself, that that the very abuses that net neutrality address exist because of government interference - Giving the telecoms local monopoly powers, limited right of eminent domain (an outright abomination in any context), and in many states, flatly banning public competition even in towns (like my own) that won't see cable or DSL until the next infernal ice age because the telecoms have zero interest in serving the "last mile". Not to mention that whole "incorporation" bullshit in the first place.
Rant on, though! Never let facts stand in the way of demonizing your political enemies.
Does this actually prove that enough people complaining about injustice does in fact produce results with our government?
This sounds too good to be true. And we all know what that means...
So I've got this suspicious feeling that there's some devil in the details that is gonna be a major drawback to this. Anyone got any insight into some key word or tricky phrase that might indicate an ulterior motive?
While it is a nice thing to allow all the startups which may challenge Netflix, etc to have a level playing field, I am puzzled as to how this is going to help the consumer.
I read "no last-mile unbundling" as a continuation of the virtual monopolies which exist today. Without competition, I am stuck with my current ISP as it has a geographic monopoly for all broadband.
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
No last mile unbundling! That's the core issue. That's what causes this nonsense is no real competition in the marketplace! This means you still have to deal with shitty companies like Comcast and Verizon because in many cases you have no other choice. It's a broken market. They should have forced last mile competition that would not only solve the net neutrality issue it would have lowered cost and increased speed and access.
I feel like he's really saying well look ISPs looks like our swindle is not going to fly with the icky proles but at least I will protect your duopolies so be thankful for that.
it gets the government ever more involved in your life, and in managing how you can or must communicate
FUD. Either our government does the managing, or the corporations do. The government, at least, is accountable to the ballot box and the press. Comcast and their ilk are not. And don't say anything about free enterprise and competition. Competition is for small fry and suckers. Once you reach the size of Comcast, it benefits shareholders more to merge and acquire than to compete. Once monopoly status is achieved, hell with consumers and employees alike.
Markets without regulation are like sports without referees... there's nothing to prevent a nice pick-up game from turning into an all-out brawl, because who's to say it wasn't your fault for putting your face in the path of my elbow? Without rules and enforcement, you're a fool if you DON'T cheat like hell, because there's no downside and if you don't the other guy will.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
What you're seeing is the typical conservative notion that deregulation promotes investment, which deliberately draws attention away from the fact that the reason the US broadband infrastructure leaves so much to be desired is not because of a lack of investment but because there is nothing enforceable in place which requires them to spend the money they already receive on the necessary upgrades. Government subsidies, your monthly rates; only the barest minimum of any of that goes toward upgrades which are deemed absolutely necessary, while the rest accounts for billions of dollars in profits.
Regarding last mile bundling, one of the arguments against it is that more competition would stifle innovation. That might hold water except that the only "innovation" these companies are investing in are new and better ways to curb your bandwidth consumption. Thankfully for the millions who simply have no choice of provider because of location, fiber has already been invented. Don't worry folks -- as soon as we guarantee that no competition is ever able to enter your area, your ISP will be at your door the next morning to run high speed fiber straight into your home!
People are getting confused because it appears to be a win for net neutrality on the surface. Really now, do you think a former telecoms lobbyist would put that on the table if service providers didn't have something to gain from it? It's simply being used as a bargaining chip here to win people over into supporting the very reason our infrastructure is a global embarrassment. A decade from now, when you are paying $120/mo for 10down/1.5up Super Premium High-Speed Internet Turbo Boost Plus, they'll expect you to smile and be happy with your "open internet." To remind those with poor short-term memories, deregulation is what led to the whole Comcast BitTorrent debacle in the late 2000s; what a great win for net neutrality that turned out to be.
Rest assured that "no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling" will only benefit the bottom line of service providers. This is a compromise, one that wants you to accept long-term mediocrity for a temporary victory. How satisfied will you be when there's nothing left but the good graces of monopolistic corporations to stop your rates from skyrocketing and nowhere else to turn when they finally do?
Yeah, that's very much in line with what I'm pointing out.
I don't have a problem with a private contractor being used to actually build and maintain the road. I would be very uneasy allowing the private company to then "own" vital sections of road and charging whatever tolls they like. It would be so much worse if they could block some vehicles, charge different tolls for different vehicles, and set different speed limits for different vehicles, without even needing to provide a reason or rationale.
So imagine that I own a company called "Road America Inc." and we own the roads going in and out of your town. Imagine I'm allowed to say, "Tolls for Ford cars are $1, and Ford cars can go 70 MPH. Tolls for Dodge are $20, and Dodge cars have a speed limit of 35 MPH." You see, I'm not owned by Ford, but I've made a deal with Ford where I get a payoff to promote their brand.
I do, however, own some of the grocery stores in your town, and I'm charging very high tolls on any vehicles that carry groceries. Somehow, all of my grocery stores have cheaper goods. Maybe it's because I use the tolls on groceries to fund those grocery stores. I've outright blocked any incoming shipments of electronics, so my electronics stores are doing very well.
Now does that seem fair?
Except I noted the no last-mile unbundling bit.
In other words, they still won't require broadband providers to open up the public infrastructure to competing ISPs.
You'll still be stuck using their IPv4 protocol or Ethernet service, whichever they choose... and innovation in network technology from competing providers, or innovating with different networking technologies won't be possible like you can do with an unbundled loop and a competing carrier.
Small steps. Writing letters to the FCC and your congressional representatives in support of these proposed regulations is the best way to encourage more pro-consumer internet legislation in the future. Internet openness isn't a big issue in American politics. That doesn't mean we can't make it one, but it takes time. In the last 10 years we have witnessed gay rights and marijuana decriminalization make HUGE advancements. They used to be fringe issues too, but now they are two of the hottest topics in politics. It wasn't a sprint, but a long marathon.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
If it is public infrastructure the existing broadband companies won't have any control over it. Companies cannot open up a public resource.
The telephone network copper lines are considered public infrastructure, because the public helped pay for it both in the form of subsidies, and in the form of subscription fees generated through selling a service as a government-sponsored monopoly.
Fiber.... not so much. Although, the government did pay big telcos in the form of huge grants to build out fiber, they never did. They pocketed the money, essentially. Then went and built out new fiber-based networks, and those are not being regulated.
So the telcos stole an unfairly generous deal, and all the fiber laid by the incumbents really is and ought to be considered public infrastructure.
"People are getting confused because it appears to be a win for net neutrality on the surface. Really now, do you think a former telecoms lobbyist would put that on the table if service providers didn't have something to gain from it?"
I'm pretty sure, unless this is some ultra-elaborate ruse, that the major Telecoms are not going to waste money trying to fight this in the courts if they ultimately ended up benefiting from it. One of the things the telecoms hated about Title II regulations when it came to the telephone system is that they were REQUIRED to provide telephone service equally without cherry-picking the high profit areas of the nation.
I promise you they do not want to be forced to deliver high speed broadband to these same rural areas because it will absolutely kill their profits.
Um...yes! I do get a choice for electricity and gas provider at least.
The old monopoly (AEP/Columbia Gas) is in charge of maintaining the physical infrastructure, but I can buy the actual electrons/gas from anyone who wants to provide them. Sounds like exactly what we need in terms of infrastructure. The old monopoly handles the wiring, but anyone can provide services over the wires.
The broadband industry has been strongly opposed to using Title II, arguing it would saddle companies with outdated regulations and depress investment in upgrading their networks.
The irony here is that it was precisely the lack of Title II regulation which has allowed US cable companies (and mobile broadband) to pocket all that cash, rather than invest in better infrastructure to the extent the rest of the Western world has.
The result has been slower internet, for more money, than elsewhere.
No wonder they oppose it. It would mean much of their free lunch is over.
The only thing I care about is unbundling the last mile. Once that is done most of the other problems resolve themselves.
Once you unbundle the last mile ISPs can get access to customers and competition happens.
Do you remember that time in the early 2000s when people had a choice of ISPs? That was because of unbundling. Too bad the FCC lost their court case or we'd still have unbundled services today.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.