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FCC Posts Its 400-Page Net Neutrality Order
jriding sends word that the FCC has released new rules outlining its recently officialized role as internet regulator. Simply titled "Open Internet FCC-15-24A1," the order runs 400 pages. The actual text of the new rules is only 305 words long. [FCC head Tom] Wheeler said reclassifying broadband as an utility gives the FCC its best shot at withstanding legal challenges. The courts have twice tossed out earlier rules aimed at protecting Internet openness. The FCC chairman has said repeatedly the agency does not intend to set rates or add new taxes to broadband bills. More than 100 pages of the 400-page document released Thursday explain that forbearance. AT&T had hinted it would file a lawsuit once the new rules become public. The company's chief lobbyist, Jim Cicconi, didn't indicate Thursday when or even if AT&T would sue — only that the battle is far from over. "Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States," Cicconi said. "Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."
....by whether or not AT&T sues.
"Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."
AKA, We will get our way once we buy off enough people.
"Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."
Ultimately, though, we are confident that we can bribe enough judges and congress critters that we can make this all go away so that we can continue to rape and pillage the American Public.
ttftfy
Not for Google. I guess AT&T needs a new CEO who's not afraid to run a business.
We have decided that the internet belongs to the US, and we decided that we are going to place all of these rules on it. We will make liberals happy by telling them it will make things "fair". (by fair we mean we assume jurisdiction where we had none and give special favors to those who pay for political favors)
"Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."
What is he smoking and where can I get some?
I caught the car, now what the hell do I do with it?
Is there a reason this was not released sooner? It seems like a lot of drama could have been reduced if this was released to the public much earlier.
ATT hasn't invested in decades and does as little as it can get away with to maintain its existing infrastructure.
As it stands they don't even replace failing equipment, just shift it around so the problems hit different customers.
This may not work out in our favor over the long term. How soon before they start overtly regulating content?
This Net Neutrality "gift" may turn out to be a trojan horse. There must have be some other way to ensure the net stays neutral without classifying it as a utility subject to government meddling.
So much for the ZOMG 300-ODD PAGES fucktards. Bet they don't come back and admit they were wrong either.
In case the 500 pages scare off anyone, he's the TDLR version:
1) No Blocking - An ISP can't block legal content for any reason. So Comcast can't decide that you can't get to Disney's website anymore because they are having a cable TV dispute with Disney over ESPN.
2) No Throttling - An ISP can't say "you have broadband Internet" and then tell you "you've used too much so now you're stuck at dial-up speeds." If they want to have caps - e.g. only 500GB of data per month - they need to clearly specify this limitation. ("the Order builds on the strong foundation established in 2010 and enhances the transparency rule for both end users and edge providers, including by adopting a requirement that broadband providers always must disclose
promotional rates, all fees and/or surcharges, and all data caps or data allowances")
3) No Paid Prioritization - An ISP can't tell a website that the website will be slowed down unless they pay for "fast lane access." (Note: This doesn't mean the ISP can't sell users faster speeds for more money. Just that ISPs can't try to double-dip by charging web content providers to allow/speed up their traffic through the ISP's network as well as charging users for the Internet access to get the web content.)
All in all, pretty common sense stuff. It's a shame that it had to come down to a government agency saying this, but the ISPs only have themselves (and their greed) to blame.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States, ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Capitalism will kill this soon enough.
What if the neutral net AI becomes self-aware?!
"Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."
google translated that into english...
Well technically 7.5 pages. It is the appendix A. The rest of the document is just explanation for why the rules were needed, why implemented, precedence and other things.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
As posted by the Washington Post to Scribd. Since my submission was rejected.
The rules start on page 283.
There is no uncertainty if everyone accepts the rules. You bring on the uncertainty when you sue. You can not blame the FCC.
"Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States"
You wanna know how you can get rid of the uncertainty? Stop engaging in drawn-out legal battles with the FCC over net neutrality regulation.
So much for the ZOMG 300-ODD PAGES fucktards
I do believe the real "fucktards" here, would be the ones who do not understand the command is "305 words", but the modifiers describing WHAT THAT MEANS is hundreds of pages long.
Ever heard the saying "the devil is in the details"? Well the devils, if any, are buried in hundreds of pages describing exactly how ISP's are now common carriers - and how they are not...
Yes, only a Grad High Fucktard would fail to understand when a government releases something that is hundreds of pages long, that each of those pages has meaning. What exactly do you think the extra pages are for? "This space intentionally left blank"? I assure you, those pages are not at all blank... go read them yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
>Unstated but required: ISP's must block illegal content.
citation please.
Phones are title 2 and they haven't blocked me from calling my drug dealer.
If it's not stated, it certainly doesn't sound required. If I tell you, "you must not murder any children", does that mean you're required to murder all (or indeed, any) adults? No, it just means don't murder any children. Telling them they're required to not block any legal content, doesn't mean they're required to block content if it isn't "legal", it just means they're allowed if they decide they would like to.
I don't see "Don't block legal content for any reason" as requiring blocking illegal content. If anything, it might make ISPs wary of blocking something in a grey area. If the "grey area" service proves they are legal in court, the ISP could get in a lot of trouble for blocking them.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Cicconi: "...Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."
Translation: "We know we can't beat this crap openly, so we need more time to buy some more legislative shills and lobbyists."
FTFY...
If I tell you, "you must not murder any children
If I tell you, "you must not murder SOME children", would not not be the least bit curious about what the exceptions mean?
it just means they're allowed if they decide they would like to.
Aha, so unlike today where ISPs do not block torrents, we can expect them to in the future because such actions are backed by FCC mandate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In case anyone is too lazy to find appendix A, or you want to link to the actual text, I uploaded it to paste bin: http://pastebin.com/L4ACt6ML
You were there first....
You might as well complain that in order to grok the Constitution you have to slog through 200+ years of SCOTUS case law.
Do you give lessons in how to appear ironically clueless? Because that was a master-class.
The thing here that you admitted was dead wrong after just one response, was in fact an eerie parallel to my exact point.
The law as it stands is only the start, what makes the law in practice, are the clarifications issued by courts over time... or in this case, hundreds of pages of FCC documents clarifying a seemingly simple rule.
By the way that seemingly simple rule is just saying "treat ISP's as if they were this whole other class of business", around which there are over a hundred years of crufty case law and regulation. It's like saying that a rule saying "you must follow all construction codes in Boston" is only a 9 word rule, when in reality it is many hundreds of pages all scattered... Oh and by the way on top of that, here are a few hundred pages of changes that override whatever you find out about the Boston construction codes.
Are you starting to understand the depth of what has occurred?
The takeaway people should have is that if you liked the internet as it was, that is too bad - because it will change. I'm not going to say all the changes will be bad, or all good (note that others are claiming all possible changes are good - how likely does that strike anyone to be true)? But it will change, because this is a very fundamental shift in how ISP's are treated and how they are legally responsible.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So until there is real competition around the country this needs to be classified as a utility.
Now that ISP's are considered a utility, does that make it more, or less likely for completion to arise?
With the amount of regulation the new rules mean a number of smaller ISP's will close. I hope y'all like Comcast and AT&T a great deal, because they will be the only survivors... just like you don't see a whole bunch of separate utilities.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They freeze the affected industry in a sclerotic fashion, based on the facts on the ground the day the regulation was promulgated. After that, they can never be removed - they might get amended a bit here and there, but what bureaucracy ever let one iota of its power go? That's right, none of them.
This form of regulation is why we have the crappy broadband that we do, ultimately. The regulation you speak of resulted in 50 years of monopoly AT&T sitting on its ass and making sure that everyone had an individual copper loop, when people in Europe already had ISDN readily available. Then years afterward of divestiture, mergers, annoying LATA boundaries and virtually no investment in new hardware.
But yeah, regulation is great.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I found a falsification in the pdf version of the FCC report on page 276-77.
It states:
"We do not require the permanent installation of any third-party equipment at broadband providersâ(TM) network facilities,1750"
That reference is below.
1750 Cablevision Systems Corp. v. FCC, 570 F.3d 83, 98 (2d Cir. 2009) (quoting FCC v. Fla. Power Corp., 480 U.S.
245, 252-53 (1987) (âoe[The] touchstone [of per se takings] is ârequired acquiescenceâ(TM) to the occupation of the
property by an uninvited stranger or an âinterloper with a government license.â(TM)â)).
1751
The problem is the Snowden disclosures clearly show the Federal Government is in fact installing third party equipment at broadband provider CO's and junction points and in some cases along long haul lines.
When the FCC, a department of the Executive branch of the Federal Government, says, "We do not require", one might presume they mean to say FCC, but in actuality they also speak on behalf of the Federal Government generally, and the Executive Branch specifically. Therefore the statement is directly false.
When a rule is found to be "arbitrary and capricious" standing is achieved to challenge a rule.
cite:
http://www.v-serv.com/usr/ATFE...
JJ
"shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service"
So if TCP stacks on my middle boxes obey TCP bandwidth throttling rules, but (of course) let through UDP packets unthrottled, have I degraded lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet application or service?
AT&T ( formally called Bell) was able to squelch innovation and control the market because the U.S. government intentionally granted them a monopoly, which at the time was considered the best and fastest way to get the whole country wired for phone service, bell was requires to provide services to all kinds of areas that it would never have been economically justifiable for a .
The FCC regulations we are talking about were initially created to limit some of the damage that monopoly status created.
I'm still not sure what I think about applying those same standards to ISP's but some of the reason there are so few companies that have such a stranglehold on the U.S market is because of the way the original network , composed of circuits that were are owned by the (baby bells) that came into being after there monopoly was broken form the backbone of the internet.
if we completely deregulate the whole system would that help? I doubt it. I'm not saying I like this solution , but do you have a better one.
Nowhere in that document does it say "an ISP must not rape your dog". That, of course, means it's unstated but required that the ISPs will now do that. Oh no! Poor Fido!
The actual text of the rules that now apply to ISP's is 400-odd pages. Note that the 300-odd words are only the part that they had to add to existing rules (which existing rules did NOT apply to ISPs) to make the other 400-odd pages apply to ISPs.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
ATT directv looks good as they can say watch 4K without eating up your data cap in 1 day. On our uncapped 1 way sat TV system and in DSL2 areas get up to 75M or more download.
In fiber areas get unlimited TV and INTERNET up 1GIG (no dish needed) (gig power areas only) (same bit rates as the sat system)
Since this probably won't be totally resolved by the time presidential voting comes around again, what non-Republican candidate do you guys think I should vote for?
Might be the one and only time I vote for a Democrat.
"Pending Radio Legislation"
from the magazine Radio Age, July 1924
CONGRESS has adjourned without acting either way on pending radio legislation, according to the news dispatches from Washington.
Unless a special session is called, which does not seem likely at this time, radio will be untouched by legal attachments until next year, at least.
The two most important measures which were shelved by the adjournment of the well-meaning but unusually deliberative governmental bodies are the White Bill and the Dill Bill. The first proposes to establish governmental control over radio broadcasting, reception and perhaps the industry eventually. This bill, while not viciously attacked, did not go through because some representatives of the people wanted to know just why such a young and untried industry as radio should suffer the bonds of law so soon. Accordingly, it is unlikely that the White Bill will ever become a law -- so the fans may rest assured they will not be hindered for some time to come in that respect.
The Dill Bill is more far reaching in its scope. It is liberal and fair-minded. It asks that the copyright laws be amended so that copyrighted music can be broadcast without the payment of levies to the music publishers. Although this bill has been opposed at every step by huge organizations and moneyed interests, as well as several prominent music publishers, it was about to be passed with a fair majority when Congress adjourned.
There is still hope for the Dill Bill, then, and we hope that when it finally reaches the President's desk it will represent the result of a fair compromise between the broadcasters and the music publishers, in the interests of the fan who listens to broadcast music and helps the sale of the published article by buying the pieces he likes best.
Government legislation, we believe, appears to be the only means yet suggested which offers any kind of a solution to the bitter enmity between the broadcasters and the so-called music "trust."
Radio's recent jump to prominence in official circles such as Congress is only one indication of its growing importance. Big capital interests, legislators and public spirited citizens are realizing more and more that radio will some day control the destinies of our nation; and accordingly they are setting out to prevent its too sudden growth to an unwieldy influence. Quick government control, the legislators aver, will prevent radio from becoming a menace instead of the help and pleasure it should be.
In a measure these radio-legislators are right. Something must be done to prevent the air from becoming a bedlam of tangled wave lengths. Something must be done to prevent the ether from being clogged with propaganda and useless stuff that will discourage interest in the world's latest miracle.
If legislation works along those lines, it will be beneficial. But if it takes a political trend, this country will see a united uprising of righteously aroused fans -- lovers and promoters of the good in radio.
mfwright@batnet.com
There are HUGE parts of our government that are supposedly simple small rules, BUT with vast tomes of lawyer-and-lobbyist written "definitions" and "clarifications" that hide where all the corruption and overhead lies. The fact that you do not know that this is how it's often done shows why you ought to [1] never vote (you are too ill-informed) and [2] never try to "enlighten" anybody else with your extreme ignorance.
A regulation can say "airline passengers must be treated reasonably." Sounds GREAT, right? Who could ?possibly bo opposed to THAT??? It's simple and short so it must be good, right? Well, there can be 300 pages that define "resonable" to include strip searches, rectal exams, and heavy doses of X-rays (with 50 pages specifying the exact details of the X-Ray machines to be used, to the Feds will only buy certain machines from those vendors who paid-off the proper political campaigns.
doofus
How do you figure? It certainly leaves the door open to blocking illegal content, but that door was already open - previously ISPs could block anything they wanted to, for any reason whatsoever.
In logician terms "ISPs must block illegal content" is the inverse of "ISPs can't block legal content for any reason", which makes it a logically independent statement. The contrapositive is implied, but that would be "Illegal content can be blocked by ISPs". Can, not must.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You've ruled-out ANY Republican, no matter his/her position, and no 3rd partier will win in 2016, so you have already decided; you are voting for Hillary (either by actually voting for her, or by not supporting anybody who might beat her).
Most of the 400 pages are commentary on the rules - justification, clarification, intent, responding to comments, legal authority, possible legal challenges, implications, etc.
I don't know about the "305 words" bit. The actual rule (the part that says "amend this part to read ... renumber section x to y ... insert a new section x that reads ..." is 8.5 pages long (page 283 through 290, which is about half a page long). If I copy directly from the PDF version and run it through fmt (default 65 wide) it yields 347 lines, 22542 characters.
However, the heart of it is contained in 3 short sections, about 1200 characters depending on encoding and whether you include the editing directives:
For the Love OF God are these Ass-Wipe father-fucker bureaucrats Gone Stark Raving Mad !
I'm a little concerned that in the future, content creators will be able to request throttling because the content is "unlawful" per DMCA.
Michael Earls http://cerkit.com/
But it's in the wording how they'll do that. What is "legal content". They'll find all matter of things they don't have to deliver. I mean, I'm sure there's hate speech on Facebook, so...
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.