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."

Comments

The Rules

[Jason Levine]

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.

Re:The Rules

[bhlowe]

And the minor detail that it puts the FCC in charge of regulating the Internet like it regulates utilities. (Under title II of the FCC.)

Re:The Rules

[habig]

Actually, this is the first thing to come out of Government in a while that actually makes senses ... and I generally lean pretty libertarian.

Net access has a lot of parallels with other utilities (large infrastructure costs means little competition). In the case of phone companies, it's almost a one-for-one swap anyway: land lines are going the way of the dodo, but many of us now mostly use network packets for phone calls anyway (both actual voip phones and skype-like services).

One can argue whether utility regulation itself is a good or bad thing: but network service quacks and waddles an awful lot like a utility-shaped duck, any way you slice it.

Here is a direct PDF link to the rules

[waspleg]

As posted by the Washington Post to Scribd. Since my submission was rejected.

The rules start on page 283.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[31415926535897]

I'm no fan of AT&T, and they haven't been doing the investments they should have over the years, but your statement isn't entirely true.

AT&T has been laying fiber for their U-Verse rollout. They dug up a whole bunch of land in town here a few years ago, and when they were done, the salesman came by to ask if we wanted to sign up for the newly available U-Verse.

Given that they have U-Verse in a lot of places, I believe they've actually been investing quite a bit.

Re:Yes, blocking

[neminem]

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.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

The actual issue is that Verizon was peering with the Neflix ISP (Cogent) with a 2Gbps link for ALL of their customers. The NOC where that link was located had plenty of capacity on the cogent side, but Verizon was refusing to upgrade it. Netflix even offered to buy them the router (we're talking only like $25K here) so that they could upgrade to a 10Gbps link, but Verizon flatly refused unless they were paid money. There was no internal congestion at all on Verizon's network that justified this. I'd say the issue was pretty clearly on Verizon's side there.

Re:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[sjames]

Yes, the 1935 law absolutely blocked innovative package delivery services such as UPS and FedEx from even getting start..... Er, wait a minute!

Re:We'll know if its a good bill..

[Smidge204]

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/unde...

The access charge is not mandated by the FCC and the universal service charge is not required to be passed on to you (telcos do it because the FCC can't stop them.)

So... stop lying, basically.
=Smidge=

Re:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[mc6809e]

Yes, the 1935 law absolutely blocked innovative package delivery services such as UPS and FedEx from even getting start..... Er, wait a minute!

Actually regulation did hold back FedEx. You're just looking at the wrong law. You need to reference instead the Civil Aeronautics Authority Act of 1938 that created the Civil Aeronautics Board.

The board was essentially dissolved after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

After deregulation, express air services spread across the country.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

I'm going to reply to my own comment for the sake of not being disingenuous by omission.

The whole Verizon / Cogent peering issue was a little more complicated that. Initially, peering agreements were made between ISPs and they were fairly simple to manage. If one side was generating an unbalanced amount of traffic, they had to pay the other side.

The problem is that only worked when ISPs had the same profile : some servers, some end-users. Cogent doesn't provide service to end users, only to big businesses. As a consequence, almost all of their traffic is push, with very little flowing the other way. ISPs like Verizon took that as an excuse to claim that the peering was unbalanced, even if all the requests for that bandwidth was coming from their own users. The truth is that Verizon is already charging their users for that bandwidth, so requiring the other side to pay for access to their network is basically extortion.

The only reason they were able to do that at all is because of the natural monopoly that they have regarding the "last mile" cabling into people's home. Regulation is the only way to keep competition healthy when you have these natural monopolies in place. Verizon wanted to have their cake and eat it too. This is why this law was badly needed.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

You're wrong. Have you read the document? It boils down to only 3 things, which are exactly about net neutrality :

- No throttling of lawful data, no matter the source or destination.
- No blocking lawful data, no matter the source or destination.
- No paid prioritization, no matter the source or destination.

That's all there's in this law. Nothing else. How exactly is this a bad law?