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As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies
tedlistens writes: On Thursday, before it voted in favor of "net neutrality," the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to override state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that have barred local governments and public utilities from offering broadband outside the areas where they have traditionally sold electricity. Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance said the move was as important for internet competition as net neutrality: "Preventing big Internet Service Providers from unfairly discriminating against content online is a victory, but allowing communities to be the owners and stewards of their own broadband networks is a watershed moment that will serve as a check against the worst abuses of the cable monopoly for decades to come." The laws, like those in over a dozen other states, are often created under pressure from large private Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon, who consequently control monopolies or duopolies over high-speed internet in these places.
Good on you FCC!
Finally!
(actually, one word is impossible due to the lameness filter, and honestly some other words would be good, like: hahaha, die bastards die, suck it, etc. etc.)
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
when we all found out who was taking over the FCC, I was terrified. Former cable lobbyist, now in charge of the group intended to regulate the same people. But it really looks like wheeler may be the right man for the job
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Up with service! Down with monopolies! Up with net neutrality! Down with regulation! Up with Pluto! Down with Kim Dotcom!
Wait a minute - Today's stories leave me feeling edgy and confused.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm still dubious about the end effect of net neutrality regulations being passed (remember that none of us have seen the actual regulations to take effect, and none will until they are finalized).
That said, the real road to true Net Neutrality is and always will be in allowing real competition for your ISP provider, and that's the kind of thing that this allows for. If a community cannot be well served by a "real" networking company it makes no sense to block them from taking matters into their own hands.
So I applaud this action, I just wish they would be open in other regards rather than limiting.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
who the fuck cares?
As far as I know, Systemd has no capacity to think and therefore has no opinion on net neutrality.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Myth: Anyone gives a damn about factually dubious rants.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
That is a good question. The last time the courts ruled on this, the ruling was that the FCC had ceded power and couldn't claim it back without the will of god. Or Congress, or something.
Personally, I'm all in favour of Thor turning up to the Supreme Court, but he probably wouldn't be allowed in on account of not having a visa.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Speaking of roads and public schools...
The biggest wastes of money when it comes to roads and public schools is the enrichment of private entities who have found a way to get themselves access to the public purse.
Same with the corrections industry.
Google et al likely figured out that instead of public lobbying, they have to do private lobbying. I.e. less publicity, more favours exchanging hands with important figures in government bureaucracy.
The net neutrality vote gets a lot more attention, but this is even more important IMHO. Net neutrality wouldn't even need to be enforced by the FCC if there were sufficient competiton.
Not really. I'm from a socialist country, and on of the key aspects to our prosperity and competitiveness is enabling private entities to get to compete for and win profitable infrastructure contracts.
This is because private contractors bring significant amount of expertise and capability that government would have to build from ground up without them, as well as force costs down through competition. Problems only arise when said private contractors become big and powerful enough to corrupt those making decisions behind these projects to favour them in various ways.
It's another one of those "capitalism works really well as long as it is properly managed and doesn't get big enough to corrupt powerful entities" moments.
Does the FCC even have the authority to do that? Under what legal theory does an unelected federal regulatory commission have the authority to overrule state government laws on matters of state government interest? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see such laws go, as they're a major competition inhibitor, but how does the FCC have any authority in this?
Congress has clear authority to regulate interstate commerce, under the Constitution. Unlike some other things Congress has tried to regulate, it is very clear that the Internet is interstate commerce.
Having said that, the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy. The correct answer to that question is probably no. But I know there are many people who would argue that point.
The last time the courts ruled on this, the ruling was that the FCC had ceded power and couldn't claim it back without the will of god. Or Congress, or something.
Not even close. The Supreme Court ruled that the FCC could not impose the rules it had tried to impose, BECAUSE it had not classified internet companies as Title II common carrier communications companies. So what the FCC did here, quite properly (if you accept that they have any authority to do it at all), was to re-classify internet providers as Title II common carriers.
There are many implications to this that people haven't been discussing much. It depends on the exact language of the rules when they go into effect. But the OLD rules for Title II common carriers stipulated that your communications can't be legally "intercepted" without a warrant. So deep packet inspection by ISPs is probably out the window.
The government is acting with sense and doing so in a honest way that fair to citizens.
This is not right, so I firmly believe that the world is coming to an end.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Personally, I'm all in favour of Thor turning up to the Supreme Court, but he probably wouldn't be allowed in on account of not having a visa.
Citizens of the Nordic countries don't need visas to visit the US. So bring him on.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And I speak as a Republican. Unless there's some outrageous hidden agenda yet to emerge, net neutrality just means that Internet service over cable, because it is in many places a natural monopoly, is henceforth to be treated as a utility, like your electrical service. How you use the watt-hours you buy for your home is your own business, and we are all more free if the same applies to your Internet feed. Regulation of business is something we by instinct would rather not have, but if you live in an area where Comcast is the only game in town, treating it as a utility is more palatable than giving a single company full control of your access to the Internet.
Whether to build municipal broadband is a decision that any locality should be allowed to make for itself. Because wired Internet service so often is a natural monopoly, there are all kinds of situations in which towns or villages or even small neighborhoods find themselves cut off from any service by a company that simply does not feel it worthwhile to extend service to that market. Value decisions like this should be the company's right, but has no business standing in the way of any group of users who wish to band together to organize service of their own.
While it would be great if the government offered Internet and gave many an option other than Comcast, I could see it going pretty Orwellian pretty quickly. The government offering its own service pretty much guarantees that they will subsidize the service more than they already subsidize ISPs. Making it impossible to compete. And the government would not have to pass any data retention laws if they already handled everyone's internet data. There is a point to not allowing the government to compete with businesses, and there are benefits to keeping the lawmakers and enforcers one degree of separation away from citizens.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
As far as I know, Systemd has no capacity to think and therefore has no opinion on net neutrality.
Three days ago the Systemd-UpdateAgainstYourWillD automatically installed SystemD-AiD, which is a requirement to even boot the kernel because it was deemed no human being ever has or ever could be capable of the overwhelming task of "run some programs", which of course includes programs written by humans.
Two days ago there were promises SystemD-AiD would also gain enough intelligence to read corrupted syslogs, while insulting your petty human intelligence via way of SystemD-FortuneD, and injecting them into all outbound emails sent from your username via SystemD-SpammerD.
It was also rumored to soon be capable of washing your dishes, since no init system wants to start dirty programs or use plastic fork()'s.
Yesterday they canceled the dish washing patch based mainly on a usenet poll where "fuck systemd!!!" was interpreted by a similar AI as voting against the feature, thus canceling the patch due to overwhelming demand.
The federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce, which includes telecommunications. The FCC charter tells it to use that power for the public interest.
As a constitutional matter, municipalities do not have any independent existence; they are organs of the state governments. Municipal governments only have whatever powers states choose to give them, and the federal government may not commandeer a state government. So if a state chooses to deny its municipalities the authority to sell Internet access (or sell it below a certain price), then no declaration from the FCC can give the municipality that power, nor require the state to give a municipality that power.
So, all this vote means is the FCC majority has decided to waste a bunch of taxpayer dollars losing a lawsuit.
Yeah, he'd be a Thor loser.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Got a reference to that statement anywhere? I haven't seen one.
the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy. The correct answer to that question is probably no.
If that were true the Treasury (part of the Executive branch) wouldn't be able to issue debt. Up until WWI Congress decided how much debt to issue. During WWI a lot of expenses started adding up (tanks, planes, etc) and Congress found debating how sell bonds to be boring. So they gave that responsibility over to the Treasury and said "If we've made it part of a law and it requires money, issue as much debt as needed to pay for it". Later, they imposed a "debt limit", but it's odd to impose the debt limit on the Treasury given the fact that the Treasury is only finding ways to fill in the funding gaps laid out by Congresses budget.
A municipal Internet service, funded with tax-payer dollars, what could go wrong?
Gee, there isn't any chance some activist groups would file suits forcing the government to filter out hate speech, pornography, extreme violence, gun sales, etc on their "tax-payer-funded Internet"? No, that would never happen...
Oh wait, we already do that on taxpayer-funded Internet in our schools and libraries!
Ken
once again: you are wrong about independent agencies.
we've been through this at least a dozen times.
Congress absolutely has the power the to delegate, the same as the President does.
Just as no one could ever reasonably the President to personally oversee the enforcement of the entire body of law without delegation, no one could ever expect the Congress, 535 people, to personally be experts at every single topic and perform all necessary oversight. It take an entire agency to keep an eye on Wall Street, the SEC. It takes an entire agency to study the environment we live in and forge compromises between the needs of the public and the needs of industry, the EPA. I could run through the entire list, but there should be no need.
The only people who argue the point are unreasonable people who think a return to the agrarian society run by educated scholarly farmers envisioned by Jefferson is still a real possibility, ignoring all else that has happened in the past 200 years. The Constitution doesn't explicitly state that Congress can delegate, but it doesnt explicitily state a lot of things that we take for granted. The Founders were a lot of things, and varied a lot in ideology and opinion on strong or weak the government should be. But one thing they were not was stupid. And the idea that they expected us to adhere to the document like a holy writ verbatim for eternity was not part of the plan, as evidenced by the many clauses and phrases that are vague generalities and obviously exist solely for the purpose of expanding on the parts that are spelled out.
Parts like (and this is not an exhaustive list) the 9th Amendment, the process for amending the document, and most relevant to this topic, the Necessary and Proper Clause, also known as the "basket clause". Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18:
p>The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
IE, whatever it takes to run the country and enact the peoples will, they can do. Case closed.
And there was a case, and it wasn't recent. McCulloch v Maryland, in 1819, a time when many of the Founders were themselves still alive, if not for much longer. And in that case the Courts established quite clearly that:
"First, the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. Second, state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government."
as indeed it must. Explicit powers are no good if they cannot be implemented due to the technicality that the prerequisites were not also explicitly stated. Again: the Founders were not stupid, but to take the opposite interpretation, an interpretation you seem to believe, is to imply that the Founders were in fact stupid.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
That's bullshit, because the ISPs sold "all you can use" plans, then failed to deliver. The only reason the so-called "cost shifting" went on is because the ISPs outright lied about what they were selling to consumers. To imply that Netflix allowing customers to use what they've paid for is somehow wrong is just plain wrong-headded.
You're basically blaming Netflix for the ISPs mis-selling a service.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's bullshit, because the ISPs sold "all you can use" plans, then failed to deliver. The only reason the so-called "cost shifting" went on is because the ISPs outright lied about what they were selling to consumers. To imply that Netflix allowing customers to use what they've paid for is somehow wrong is just plain wrong-headded.
You're basically blaming Netflix for the ISPs mis-selling a service.
It is actually worse. The product they sell is the Internet and specifically all the content on the internet and netflix is a major provider of internet content. Their argument is blaming Netflix for giving them business... Think about that.
Actually, the FCC's action will have exactly the opposite effect. I own and operate a small, competitive ISP, and am quite willing to (and capable of) going up against any competitor on a level playing field. But I simply wouldn't enter any market where the city was providing service. Why? Because the city would engage in all of the following anticompetitive and predatory practices:
* The city would completely control my access to rights of way and pole attachments, and would be motivated to keep me from getting that access or make it expensive;
* I would be taxed and the taxes would be used to subsidize my competitor;
* The city would engage in horizontal monopoly leverage from its other monopoly businesses (trash, water, sewer, and in many places energy) and would enjoy cross-subsidies from them; for example, it wouldn't have to build a new billing system but could use its existing one;
* The city could also use its ability to tax, and bonding authority, to obtain capital for the buildout at bargain rates;
* The city, with its deep pockets and by expending some of that capital, could engage in predatory pricing, offering its service below cost due to taxpayer subsidies. It could do this at the outset, to take customers away, or possibly permanently;
* The city, because it provided those other services, would GET PAID more easily than I would because users wouldn't want their water, etc. cut off if they didn't pay the bill;
* The city would know when both owner-occupied and rental real estate was turning over (because of changes in the party being billed) and so could always sell to people as they moved into a new home before they would have a chance to consider my service;
* The city ISP would get the lucrative business of the city itself (eliminating one of the largest potential customers), as well as that of other government entities such as the county government and state government offices; and
* The city, under the FCC's new Title II regime, could demand franchise fees from me that it would not have to pay itself.
So, if you put yourself in the shoes of a hard working local ISP (which I am), or of a customer who wants choice, this no longer seems like such a good idea. Any ISP entering the market would have to fight an uphill battle against City Hall. So, new ISPs will not enter the market and existing broadband providers will have a strong incentive to pull out, leaving a monopoly. What is needed is FAIR, PRIVATE competition, not the unfair competition that turning unaccountable city bureaucrats loose would bring.
We don't know what's buried in their 300+ pages of rules, but have you read Title II? It gives the FCC an enormous amount of power, if the Internet falls under it (it doesn't).
Wonder what the public key field is for?