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

We'll know if its a good bill..

[Anonymous Coward]

....by whether or not AT&T sues.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

But AT&T wouldn't sue if the reg.... Ooooooh.

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

[Captain Splendid]

Their lawyers will tell them to do so

I wish I had as much faith as you do that every client does exactly what their lawyer tells them to do...

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

[Holi]

Well the FCC cannot create a tax, sorry but that actually takes Congress.

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

[danbert8]

Is this one of those things that both is and is not a tax depending on what you need for it to be Constitutional?

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

[Shortguy881]

What moron put the table of contents in paragraphs? How do I know what page a paragraph is on?

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

[Jane Q. Public]

Is this one of those things that both is and is not a tax depending on what you need for it to be Constitutional?

What, you mean like Obamacare?

The penalty fee was ruled by SCOTUS to be legal only if it's a tax. The big problem with that is: tax bills all have to originate in the House, but the Obamacare bill originated in the Senate.

The current suit against Obamacare that SCOTUS heard the other day is not the last one. There are others still waiting in the wings. But there's no point in hearing one suit until the other is settled, since all of them are challenging the law.

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

[wyattstorch516]

You wouldn't want to actually form an independent opinion. That would require putting some thought into the matter.

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

[NormalVisual]

Well the FCC cannot create a tax, sorry but that actually takes Congress.

That doesn't mean that AT&T won't hit all their customers with some bogus "net neutrality compliance fee" or other such nonsense.

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

[sycodon]

This is an implicit acknowledgement that he could, under these new regs, if he wanted.

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

[duck_rifted]

CONGRESS can levy new federal taxes. CONGRESS and ONLY CONGRESS. How stupid do you think we are? "It's duh gubment!"

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

[bobbied]

Is this one of those things that both is and is not a tax depending on what you need for it to be Constitutional?

What, you mean like Obamacare? The penalty fee was ruled by SCOTUS to be legal only if it's a tax. The big problem with that is: tax bills all have to originate in the House, but the Obamacare bill originated in the Senate.

Full disclosure, I don't like Obamacare and think it should be repealed in total..

Um, the bill actually *did* originate in the house, at least technically it did. They took a totally unrelated hose bill, stripped everything out and then put the content of the senate bill in. That passed the house and if I recall correctly was sent to conference where because it wasn't any different from the senate bill (surprise) it was deemed passed by both houses and set to the president.

So where I understand what you mean, technically the bill that passed did originate in the house, even if it was an underhanded slight of hand done in the dead of the night for political reasons.

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

[CrimsonAvenger]

The FCC chairman has said repeatedly the agency does not intend to set rates or add new taxes to broadband bills.

While that's the current "truth", last time I read his comment on the subject (which would have been during the last net neutrality post on /.), he said that the agency did not intend to set rates or add new surcharges (as has been noted, he can't do taxes) to broadband bills THIS YEAR.

Note the "this year" part. It's important.

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

[mbstone]

Thanks for the link, which confirms that:

1) FCC "allows" but does not "mandate" carriers to impose an access charge. Do you know of any telcos that don't charge this, out of the goodness of their hearts?

2) If you don't pay the universal service charge directly, you'll pay it indirectly. The Tooth Fairy won't pay it for you.

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

[duck_rifted]

The budget is passed both in the house and senate, and the ACA was also passed in both the house and the senate. It didn't originate in the senate. It didn't even originate at the federal level. I'm not arguing to favor that law, but just to say that it shouldn't be used as a magical, mystical, "We can say anything now and be right," device.

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

[Attila Dimedici]

The universal service charge is required to be passed on to you if the telcos want to stay in business. They have to get the money to pay it from somewhere. That somewhere is their customers. Yes, they could roll the universal service charge into the other charges rather than break it out as a separate item, but you would be paying it nonetheless.

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

[Attila Dimedici]

In other words the provision in the Constitution where the Framers wrote that tax bills MUST originate in the House does not actually mean anything.

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

[Smidge204]

The universal service charge is required to be passed on to you if the telcos want to stay in business.

That's bullshit and you know it.
=Smidge=

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

[Attila Dimedici]

Really? Where do you suggest they get the money to pay it, if not from their customers?

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

[Jane Q. Public]

Um, the bill actually *did* originate in the house, at least technically it did. They took a totally unrelated hose bill, stripped everything out and then put the content of the senate bill in.

First, I would reverse this claim. Obamacare ostensibly originated in the House. It actually originated in the Senate.

As you say, the House bill passed to the Senate, the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009", was completely unrelated to health care in any way.

The Senate then attached its 3000-page amendment to the original bill, and gutted the original bill.

Anybody with two functioning synapses would have to admit that logically, everything about Obamacare originated in the Senate. The tax that originated in the House had absolutely nothing to do with health care at all, and wasn't what was passed. It was NOT "the same bill" in either name or content.

Calling it "the same bill" takes mental gymnastics of the highest order. Anybody who can really do that with a straight face should be taken out and shot, for the good of society.

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

[Jane Q. Public]

For the record, I'm not suggesting you be taken out and shot. I did not see your face when you wrote that.

But as the other poster said: accepting that it was the same bill would render the requirement that taxes originate in the House completely meaningless.

Since the Constitution definitely is NOT meaningless, and there were very good reasons for specifying taxes must originate in the House, attempts to do otherwise, no matter how convoluted and clever, are attempts to skirt the Constitution. That must not be allowed, also for very good reasons.

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

[meglon]

Seriously, what drugs are you on? If you actually think "freedom works it all out on its own," you're either fried on massive amounts of mind altering drugs or a fucking idiot.... and that's being generous.

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

[Smidge204]

From their billions of dollars in profits?

The idea that the extra they tack onto the bill is the only thing allowing them to "stay in business" is absolutely laughable.

Of course, had companies actually been proactive in developing the infrastructure, a lot of the costs associated with that program would be negated.
=Smidge=

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

[Attila Dimedici]

And where does that profit come from? Whether they roll the amount of the universal service charge into the rest of what they charge you, or split it out as a separate line item on the bill does not change the fact that YOU are paying it. They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers. The amount of their profit is a completely separate calculation which is determined by how much more than their costs they can charge their customers. When costs go up for an individual company, that company is likely to need to reduce its profit margin. However, when costs go up for an entire industry, the cost to the consumer goes up.

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

[Smidge204]

They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers.

What?

The fees they normally charge are adequate to cover both the extra cost of the USF contributions *and* their operating costs *and* their investments *and still make a tidy profit.

They can clearly decide not to charge customers for it - which, again, they are not *required* to do which makes the GP a liar.

They do not *need* to, either, since they can still make bank even if they didn't. This is obvious because their *profit* is an order of magnitude greater than their USF contributions. That, consequently, makes you a liar as well.
=Smidge=

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

[Attila Dimedici]

OK, your comprehension of economics is pathetic. I hope no one ever relies on your money advice or any other economic advice. As I said, you failed to explain where they were supposed to get money that did not come from their customers.

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

[Smidge204]

They get that money from the normal fees they charge for service.

They do not need to charge an additional fee to "stay in business"

They don't even need to increase their base price if they did away with the itemized fee, because their base price alone is more than enough to cover the cost of business and still make a healthy profit.

How hard is this to understand?
=Smidge=

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

[ganjadude]

its more complecated then that. Long story short, the house passed a bill that had nothing to do with obamacare. Then when the senate got it, they ripped out the original bill, put in a 3000 page amendment which was obamacare and sent it back to the house.

So its semantics, but no, the bill that is affecting us now did not start in the house except in bill name only

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

[micahraleigh]

You're implicitly saying that unless the government locks *everything* down, companies will find a way to rip off people.

If that's the case then war communism is the only solution.

The internet was working just fine before these unelected guys got out and started trying to run things.

So what if Netflix has a private server somewhere that can deliver content faster? Does that hurt everyone else? Not unless you believe every advantage for someone is a disadvantage for someone else. I'm sorry but eating my cheese sandwich at lunch is not causing some guy somewhere else to starve. Everything is not a zero sum game! We could all be doing gainful work that could cause everyone to have lunch without the government dictating all our options.

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

[stoatwblr]

Lawyers do what their clients tell them to.

Clever lawyers tell their clients how to achieve whatever the clients want (whether it's ethical or not is immaterial).

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

[duck_rifted]

It's more complicated than that too. This thing went back and forth between the houses of congress, the parties, and between the congress and president many times. It was a process of negotiation, and it's very common in legislation. Almost any way we describe it would be too simple.

In fact, there are only two reasons we talk about it at all. First, it's expensive and people are pissed. Second, the GOP has nearly nothing else to run on. Anti-abortion platforms isolate them from woman, which matters politically lately. Similarly, rambling drunken anti-science babbling only motivates the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of brains; Bobby Jindal said something about that once. Theocracy offends people because we know it leads to loss of freedom and, eventually, extremism.

I'm not saying any of this to insult the GOP, but rather to insult the last decade and a half or so of their marketing, post big tent and Tea Party take over. And I'm sure someone will call me a troll for saying something they disagree with. It's looking like the new GOP marketing will revolve around the party being Jesus Christ, making it blasphemy to criticize them.

I'd like to see sensible conservatives succeed more than they have, so don't get me wrong. It's just insulting when somebody takes me for someone stupid enough to be swayed by the hokey pokey obamacare anger marketing bullshit.

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

[dlt074]

use your brain and think for once. you people who require government to hold your hand for everything thing are really starting to endanger the rest of us.

rules by definition make things less neutral and less free.

now, i'm pretty sure you broke some of your moms rules by using the computer before you did your chores, so let the rest of us free people, go back having a conversation about the rule of law and you nanny staters heaping more government chains on us.

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

[Agripa]

This also nullifies the Origination Clause in the Constitution. Why was in included if it has no meaning?

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

[bobbied]

Calling it "the same bill" takes mental gymnastics of the highest order. Anybody who can really do that with a straight face should be taken out and shot, for the good of society.

Look, I think it was underhanded too, but technically it was a house bill. This line of attack is decidedly worthless unless you can get the court to side with you, which they apparently haven't and won't. So what are we going to do?

Your efforts would be much better spent attacking what the bill actually DOES and not how it came into being. This thing is decidedly unpopular and in my view needs to be repealed in total, and only by electing politicians who will vote to get rid of it will it go away. Concentrate your efforts on the most likely to succeed.

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

[bobbied]

In other words the provision in the Constitution where the Framers wrote that tax bills MUST originate in the House does not actually mean anything.

Who said that? I'm just saying that TECHNICALLY this was a house originated bill and this has been upheld by the courts. I too think it was a underhanded way to get this done, but it's not like the party who was in power could not have gone though the wickets in the *correct* order, they just ran out of time and had to go with the short cut.

Obamacare is unpopular for what it does. The Democrats who pushed it are now out of power, partially because of their complicity in it's passage. The approach which is most likely to succeed in getting rid of it is to keep electing politicians who are going to do away with it.

Concentrate your efforts where it can make a difference. For now, arguing the constitutionality of how it came into being isn't going to help.

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

[Attila Dimedici]

If that technicality is good enough to meet the Constitutional provision, then that Constitutional provision has no meaning.

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

[bobbied]

If your opponent has an argument that is "technically correct" and the courts didn't call them on it but doesn't meet the spirit of the law as you see it, you are playing a bad hand. I don't disagree with you that this didn't meet the spirit of the constitution but Given that the courts have declined to see it our way, Stop beating this horse, it's dead.

I'm suggesting that we let the argument over what is clearly opinion go in favor of arguments which are more likely to gain results where it counts, in public opinion. There are a whole lot more important things to be harping on than this.

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

[Attila Dimedici]

I am saying that if the Senate can remove the entire contents of a bill (including the title) and replace them with completely different contents, on a completely different subject, and it still meets the "originated in the House" provision of the Constitution, the Constitution no longer means anything at all. Of course, considering many other things that have happened since 2012, I don't think the U.S. Constitution actually matters as far as what the U.S. government does any longer.

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

[bobbied]

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you that this didn't meet the spirit of the constitution, as a lot of stuff going on in Washington DC doesn't these days. I'm just saying that you don't beat a dead horse and get anything you are striving for.

IMHO, there ARE things we can do about Obamacare AND what's passing as constitutional in Washington which are legal and have a possibility of success. Getting this law thrown out on the "it didn't originate in the house" argument is effectively dead at this point. We need legislators who understand how this is supposed to work, who will appoint judges who understand how the constitution is supposed to work, passing laws consistent with the constitution and reining in the abuse of power that is Washington today a thing of the past. But that takes winning the hearts and minds of the American people who vote, and just continually going after this one thing is not going to appeal to them.

Issue will be resolved...

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Holi]

You know I am getting tired of this anti government rhetoric. Since when in your life has the FCC ever done anything that caused you more harm then the ISP's

And tell me how hurt are the phone companies from having to deal with their title 2 status? How about FedEx or UPS and their motor common carrier status under the Motor Carrier Act of 1935? You see all regulation as bad? Then you really should study our history and see why these regulations were absolutely necessary.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Jane Q. Public]

And tell me how hurt are the phone companies from having to deal with their title 2 status? How about FedEx or UPS and their motor common carrier status under the Motor Carrier Act of 1935? You see all regulation as bad? Then you really should study our history and see why these regulations were absolutely necessary.

Thank you. I've made this argument several times before. Although I am pretty solidly Libertarian and I don't believe in UNnecessary regulation, Title II regulation for phone companies was necessary and it worked just fine for 60 years or more. And there is very good argument that it should have applied to the Internet from Day 1.

Big ISPs have a virtual monopoly on Broadband over more than 80% of the U.S. It's a de facto oligopoly, which free market -- as much as I believe in the concept -- won't fix. There IS a time for government regulation, and this is one of them.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Archangel Michael]

Big ISPs have a virtual monopoly on Broadband over more than 80% of the U.S.

Yes, through Franchise agreements with local municipalities. The problem we're dealing with isn't the CONTENT on the wire, it is the wire itself. And since this is networking, and not water or electricity or gas, we can route DIFFERENT products down the same pathway.

THE solution is to build out COLO facilty and bring last mile into a this shared facility, where you can order whatever product and services from whomever offers it, and pay a one time connect fee (or have the provider pay it for you). The last mile infrastructure is Municipally owned, and you are free to choose between any vendor to provide service.

Once you break the problem of the last mile, you don't need regulation, price controls or anything else, the market will fix itself.

ADVERTISEMENT EXAMPLE "Why go with Comcast who restricts your access to sites like Netflix? Go with Archangel Cable and have UNLIMITED and UNRESTRICTED internet, cable and voice for half the price of Comcast"

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I don't like the deal they're offering, I don't pay them.

....and in most places in the U.S. that means go without Internet entirely.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[sumdumass]

I have trouble figuring out just how an ISP can do actual harm to me when it's my choice to pay them or not for their service. If I don't like the deal they're offering, I don't pay them.

If you have no other option for broadband and your requirements are broadband, then you are harmed either by the actions of the ISP or by the lack of an ISP when you decide not to pay them.

Second, you credit the FCC for not harming people in the same way you might credit a robber for not shooting a clerk for cooperating during a robbery. It's the threat of violence that's a problem. Same thing goes for countries that lack first amendment style protections. Few are actually physically harmed. They're just too afraid to speak. They opt out of discussions the government doesn't approve of.

Well, since most broadband is already piggybacked into homes on existing infrastructure that the title 2 regulation put in place, you can say that the FCC created the mess that people are wanting fixed by title 2 regulation in the first place. Now they are claiming that by giving them more power under title 2 regulation, they can fix that.

Here is an interesting thought exercise though. The rules I have bothered reading so far say

A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service

The interesting thing is the FCC just recently redefined the speeds of officially defined broadband to 25m down and 3m up. If any portion of the connection doesn't meet or exceed that, it's not broadband as far as the federal government and FCC is concerned. What if the ISPs redefine their offerings as 24/3 or 50/2.5 up and down respectfully. That would suggest that all this new regulation could be avoided if they simply didn't offer "broadband".

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Zargg]

The interesting thing is the FCC just recently redefined the speeds of officially defined broadband to 25m down and 3m up. If any portion of the connection doesn't meet or exceed that, it's not broadband as far as the federal government and FCC is concerned. What if the ISPs redefine their offerings as 24/3 or 50/2.5 up and down respectfully. That would suggest that all this new regulation could be avoided if they simply didn't offer "broadband".

Interesting point. That makes me question, would not offering "broadband" be against the franchise agreements they have in place with cities that keep competition out? Probably dependson the specific agreement with each city?

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[sumdumass]

It likely could.

But I can see some mad wizardry going on there too. Offer at least one actual broadband offering at a high price and lots of "not broadband" offerings at reasonable prices.

I'm not sure this is over just yet.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[rock_climbing_guy]

Exactly this!

Comcast, et al complaining about this is like a bank complaining that their workers unionized because they had a reputation for firing workers the day before their pensions became fully vested.

Had Comcast not screwed their customers so hard, this wouldn't be happening. I am no fan of Obama, but he was clever to announce his intention to implement this regulation using a video that regularly paused with a buffering icon.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[batkiwi]

You've just described the Australian NBN in a nutshell (before the current government started fucking with it).

The government runs GPON FTTP to every house in populated Australia (there's other plans for remote areas). Those FTTP lines wind up in at ~30 POPs around the country. Any ISP can go into any POP and provide access to users (so you can do regional, or you can do the whole country if you choose). The ISP pays a ultility fee for using the fibre back to the NBN, and the consumer pays a single bill to their ISP without worrying about whose DSLAM they connect to etc etc etc like in the "old" world.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[tricorn]

The definition in the rule makes no such reference to speed:

8.2 Definitions.

a) Broadband Internet access service. A mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all Internet endpoints, including any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, but excluding dial-up Internet access service. This term also encompasses any service that the Commission finds to be providing a functional equivalent of the service described in the previous sentence, or that is used to evade the protections set forth in this Part.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, through Franchise agreements with local municipalities.

That's a ludicrously simplistic view of a much larger picture. No, it isn't just through franchise agreements. One other way the oligopoly maintained its grip is through a virtual lock on access to the fiber "backbones" of the Internet.

Regardless of whether municipalities have agreements, they can't ACCESS the internet backbones except through those few providers. And without Title II and other regulation, there is nothing that says sharing access to the communications backbone is required.

The ONLY new player in broadband to come onto the scene in recent years has been Google. Ask yourself why. And I can tell you: only Google had the economic clout to elbow aside the other providers standing in its way.

That's very telling. It is solid evidence that the backbone is locked up and only huge, rich players are allowed in the game today. That's an effective oligopoly. Taking away local franchises would have zero effect on that. Therefore the only answer is regulation.

I'm really tired of hearing this bogus theory that the only problem is municipal franchise agreements. Sure, that has been A problem. But very far from the only one.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[spauldo]

In this case investors will opt-out of providing last-mile networking services.

What investors?

Who in their right mind would invest in providing last mile networking service anyway (besides Google, they're big enough they don't count)?

The only way to make money putting in last mile infastructure is to be the first to do it. Once that cost is done, the owner of those lines can charge whatever they like, including dropping prices to make it unprofitable for any competitor.

Who owns the lines? AT&T, Verizon, and the other baby Bells (and occasionally the city government (probably contracted to a Bell to actually operate the lines) or a small local phone company (I'd be surprised if those aren't rare these days)), and the cable companies. They're the people who have the natural monopoly. If you have more than one choice for broadband (two if you have cable where you are), it's in spite of the efforts of the local monopoly. The only reason cable and DSL coexist is because the phone monopolies didn't see the cable companies as a threat when the cable lines were installed.

So imagine these new rules didn't exist. Things are all status quo, just another day, ho humm. Would you invest in a company that wants to provide last-mile networking service? If so, I have some nice beach property to sell you here in beautiful Oklahoma.

Second, you credit the FCC for not harming people in the same way you might credit a robber for not shooting a clerk for cooperating during a robbery. It's the threat of violence that's a problem.

Did a government run over your dog or something as a child?

You think the FCC is going to show up at AT&T headquarters with their vans and run in with assault weapons? All the cubicle monkeys forced to lay on the floor with their hands over their heads?

Yes, the FCC does have them. I know someone who was stung by them (for operating a linear on his CB to pump a few kW into his signal). They take all your equipment and charge you $1/watt in a fine (might be higher now). Do you really think they'd do that to a company in breach of broadband regulations? If so, see above comment about beach land - I'll throw a bridge in with it.

No, the FCC would issue AT&T a fine. If AT&T kept it up, they'd take them to court. It's no different than you being taken to court by AT&T or a collection agency if you ran up a huge phone bill and didn't pay it. Sucky? Yes. Violent? No.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Bengie]

Telcom and Cable are not ISPs, they are Telcom and Cable that so happen to offer ISP services. This is how they get to use Title II to get many privileges, but ISPs cannot. By making ISPs Title II, it makes them have the same benefits as Telcom and Cable.

The only other way to make ISPs competitive with Telcom and Cable would be to remove Title II from Telcom and Cable. That would be interesting. Then they could refuse service or purposefully degrade connections to competitors and allow businesses to pay to degrade connections to other business. Pizza Hut could pay to have phone service blocked to Domino's pizza.

Without regulations, Telcoms are free to do whatever the F they want with your communications and they already have monopolies.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[spauldo]

A nitpick:

The FCC are more or less semi-communists, A number of "rules and regulations" were bought and paid for by corporate monopolies and have in fact severely hurt if not killed certain freedoms.

Those two statements are contradictory. Americans are still getting over the cold-war anti-communism brainwashing that resulted in millions of people absolutely hating communism without having any idea of what it actually is.

Now, if the FCC was greatly expanded and took direct ownership over the companies that operate under its rules, that would be semi-communist.

Or, for instance, when the government bought General Motors.

Your description is more akin to fascism than communism.

(I'm not defending communism here, BTW - it just pisses me off that so many people use the term incorrectly when they usually mean totalitarian or fascist.)

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Phaedrus420]

Small counterexample: 11-meter radio. It is trivial and common to turn a 4 watt radio (legal, as sold) into a 25 watt radio. It is not unusual to hear someone bragging about having hundreds or thousands of watts available, and there are, for lack of a better word, notorious base stations just about everywhere. It would actually be really nice, for what's left of the community, if the fcc would actually participate in the band, just a little.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[sumdumass]

Try looking here.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/0...

Now claims that the FCC legally defined the term broad band internet based on speeds.

  The section you listed did not define broadband specifically, it renumbered section 8.11 to read as 8.2 in the law (which is unconstitutional) and restates the law verbatim.

The interesting part here is that I cannot find the official release of when they voted to change the definition of broadband for the speeds. The vote happened jan 29 of this year but I cannot find the report/disclosure on it. So maybe it has been redefined again or maybe the FCC's order for the definition based on speed is still in the works or something.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[tricorn]

The section I quoted defines "Broadband Internet access sevice". What you're talking about is irrelevant for the purposes of this rule.

What the 25 Mbps / 3 Mbps defines is not "broadband" but "advanced telecommunications capability". See the actual rule (actually "Broadband Progress Report and Notice of Inquiry"):

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fc...

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Shortguy881]

Umm... Its a government instituted monopoly. How does giving the government more regulation over the industry going to fix that?

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[david_thornley]

Utilities are generally regulated private companies with de jure or de facto monopolies. It works pretty well around here.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[spauldo]

Are you familiar with the term "outlier?"

In other words, competing with the telco is easy - you just have to be a gigantic company with tons of money to do it. That doesn't apply to the vast majority of companies, hence why Google doesn't count.

Re:Issue will be resolved...

[Shortguy881]

That may be, but I posted my comment in rebuttal to this statement:

Big ISPs have a virtual monopoly on Broadband over more than 80% of the U.S. It's a de facto oligopoly, which free market -- as much as I believe in the concept -- won't fix. There IS a time for government regulation, and this is one of them.

Again, the reason cable companies have a monopoly is because of regulation, so how does more regulation fix the problem?

...a period of uncertainty....

[oh_my_080980980]

Not for Google. I guess AT&T needs a new CEO who's not afraid to run a business.

Re:...a period of uncertainty....

[jythie]

Ever notice that 'uncertainty' seems to always be something that someone else is responsible for?

Re:...a period of uncertainty....

[Chris Mattern]

Well, sure. I always know what I'm going to do. it's those other idiots who are so damn unpredictable.

Re:...a period of uncertainty....

[nehumanuscrede]

Don't worry, the CEO and upper echelon of executives at AT&T know exactly what their goals are.

Now, whether those goals align with the public's perception of what those goals SHOULD be are another matter.

AT&T is against the whole Title II thing because it takes away their choice and / or power for the matter at hand. For a long time AT&T has been able to interpret ( and sometimes influence ) the rules and play the game as they wanted. They know that once the regulators start getting involved, those days are over. They also know that playing the game according to the governments rules will cost them dearly in the profits department.

Make no mistake about it, the only reason AT&T would do anything to counter the Title II regulations is based solely on projected profits. Nothing else.

What's this "bipartisan Congress" thingie...

[__aaclcg7560]

"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?

Re:What's this "bipartisan Congress" thingie...

[friesofdoom]

I think he got hold of one of snoop dog's dreadlocks.

Re:What's this "bipartisan Congress" thingie...

[alvinrod]

I think he means that they'll be bribing^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcontributing to both political parties to pass some laws.

Re:What's this "bipartisan Congress" thingie...

[Chris Mattern]

He's PRing for a legal issue. PR people in this position will always say that they will win, if they have envision a battalion of angels flying to their rescue in order to do so.

Re:What's this "bipartisan Congress" thingie...

[phantomfive]

There are plenty of bipartisan actions by congress. People don't pay attention to that, though.

Re:What's this "bipartisan Congress" thingie...

[__aaclcg7560]

No, that's a C-O-M-P-R-I-S-E. Bipartisan means that you have least one person from the other side voting for your proposal.

Reason for delay?

[LoverOfJoy]

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.

Re:Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

Standard FCC rules. They're not allowed to publish new rules while they're still in the making stage.

Whether or not that's a good idea is up for debate, but this is far from the only FCC reg this applies to.

Re:Reason for delay?

[guises]

Yes, there's a reason. Same reason as always: partisan bickering.

Re:Reason for delay?

[BronsCon]

They hadn't finished drafting the response to public comment. It was 300-and-some pages when everyone was bitching that it hadn't been released yet. They've added a bit of content in that time; now it's 400.

Re:Reason for delay?

[Holi]

^This

Why is it everyone is making this seem like it's out of the norm?

Re:Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

Because it's a good way to make political hay out of peoples' ignorance. See also Fox Agitprop.

Re:Reason for delay?

[the_skywise]

Maybe because they should finalize the rules in writing BEFORE voting on them?

Nah nah... Government is teh awesome

Re:Reason for delay?

[sumdumass]

Because half the public or more is confused and think it is a law passed by congress when it is only a regulation promoted by a government agency independent of congress. You can tell this by how many people refer to the regulation and/or rule making process as a bill being passed.

In that light, they expect the bills to be available after each house has voted on them and once it is signed into law. None of that happened because it was not an act of congress- it was a government agency deciding all of the sudden it had specific legal jurisdiction over something that it had been rejecting that same principle jurrisdiction since the 1970's.

Re:Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

They /do/ finalize them before voting on them, lackwit. They simply don't publish them for us commoners to see first.

Re:Reason for delay?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The main reason it wasn't released earlier is because the dissenting commissioners, Ajit Pai and Michael O'Reilly, hadn't finished adding their dissenting opinions.

I'm surprised they finished this soon, I figured they'd drag it out as long as possible.

Re:Reason for delay?

[the_skywise]

Sort of belies your statement then doesn't it, lackwit?

Re:Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

I don't see how. Perhaps your statement makes sense to idiots, because they do finalize the rules in writing, vote on them, and publish it for us to see.

Re: Reason for delay?

[guises]

Not just AT&T, Comcast and probably Verizon as well.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

Finalizing the rules doesn't mean ANYTHING AT ALL if the people voting don't get to study the rule (remember, this thing is 400 pages) before voting on it. The two Commissioners who voted no were provided a copy of the rules 3 weeks beforehand, per FCC procedure... Then, lobbyists represnting companies who donated heavily to the President's campaign made a bunch of "suggestions" to the Commissioners who wound up voting for the rule. This is apparently the norm in the Wheeler/Obama FCC, and it stinks to high heaven.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

Do you know WHY the Republican commissioners didn't have their dissents completed when the vote was taken? After the Republican Commissioners were given the "final draft" of the rule, lobbyists for Google (who donated heavily to Obama and the Democrats) were shown a draft of the rule by the Democrats (before you, I, or the general public got to see it) and the lobbyists were allowed to make changes to it. These changes weren't revealed to the Republican Commissioners until the morning of the vote. Thus, the Republicans needed to read the text of the ACTUAL TEXT that had been approved again to make sure their dissents covered everything.

By law, the Republican Commissioners could have waited 30 days to submit their dissents, but they got them submitted in less than half that time. Your Vice article was dishonest when it was written, but now that it is provably factually inaccurate, I'd advise against posting that in the future.

Re: Reason for delay?

[guises]

Okay, provably inaccurate means there's proof somewhere. Could you provide a link? I certainly don't like the idea that I'm spreading misinformation.

Re: Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

Background and justifications make up 300-odd pages and Republican corporatist objections make up nearly another 100. The rules themselves are 7.5 pages.

Nice job being a good trooper and continuing to parrot Fox News talking points even after they've been thoroughly debunked.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

The Republican Commissioners objected to things in the justification and background section, moron. It doesn't matter what Wheeler's pretend page count is. The Republicans weren't given the document that were voted on before the morning of the vote. (They were given a different document which was alleged to them to be the final document.) When Wheeler changed it, they needed to re-look at it and write objections to whatever Wheeler's crony buddies slipped in. By law, they had 30 days to prepare their new objections, but it only took them half that time. That pretty well disproves the unnecessary delay stuff, no?

Re: Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

Nice theory, now prove it using sources that are not Fox News, Breitbart, or the like.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

The proof is math. By law, unless there are extenuating circumstances, the Republican commissioners had 30 days to submit their objections. That clock started on February 26th, when the vote was taken. The Republicans submitted their objections in time for the order to be published on March 12th, 14 days later. (Keep in mind, there's a lag between Republicans submitting the objections and the order being published.) If the Republicans wanted to cause a delay, they could have caused one twice as long while staying within the letter of the law. Given that they decided not to cause the 30 delay, it doesn't make sense that they set out to cause a 14 day delay.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

Here you go. Politico is a source in your Obama shill only bubble, right? As you can see, they changed the rules being voted on right before the vote. It then follows that the commissioners would need to re-read the thing so they can object to whatever cronyist bullshit Google had added. Hence, the delay, which, again the Republicans could have stretched to 30 days and still be within the rules.

Re: Reason for delay?

[Pope Hagbard]

Your link proves nothing. All it says is that tech companies pushed for a few changes around the 20th of February, but fails to say what those changes were or whether, as you parrot, they're against any rule or law.

I think we're done here.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

What are you talking about? Of course the changes Google's lobbyist suggested aren't against the new Net Neutrality rule. Google's lobbyist had unspecified changes added TO THE RULE ITSELF. What do you think lobbying is?

By the way, the reason the article doesn't detail Google's changes is because at the time the article was written, the rule was still under seal to the common man. (Not to Google, of course.

And finally, getting back to the actual assertion, Google had the changes that weren't presented to the Republican Commissioners until the morning of the vote. Get out of here with that "around the 20th" bullshit. The article, and several contemporary articles, make it clear that the changes were made on the evening of the 25th after Google's consultation with the Democrats, and the Republicans couldn't see them until the morning of the vote on the 26th.

That's what the reason for the delay is. The Republican Commissioners had to read THE NEW RULE and make objections to the new stuff. They did so in a timely fashion (within 14 days, when the law says the have up to 30.)

Re: Reason for delay?

[guises]

... Right. You made a claim: "Your Vice article ... is provably factually inaccurate."

My vice article said: "the two Republican commissioners ... have refused to submit basic edits on the order." And your proof is simply that they eventually did submit basic edits. I'm going to put scare quotes around that - "proof."

You have failed at logic. There are any number of reasons why they could have changed their strategy, maybe they've come around and seen the light on net neutrality? (Unlikely, given how partisan it has become. Changing your mind is weakness after all.) More likely: maybe they decided that their stonewalling strategy wasn't as effective as they wanted it to be? Maybe the lobbyists who own them decided that the right approach was to focus on the lawsuits and attempts at legislation, and the commissioners' obstinance was slowing that down? Maybe too many people were linking to that Vice article and they felt that continued delays would be counterproductive? Who knows what the real reason is? Not you. Not me either, but at least I can recognize that.

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

The Vice article is factually inaccurate because it intentionally obscures the fact (which was widely reported at the time of the article) that the Republican Commissioners were not allowed to read the final version of the rule until immediately before voting on it.

"Basic edits" is propaganda, by the way, just like the rest of the Vice piece. The Republicans couldn't edit it (because by that point, it had ALREADY BEEN VOTED ON.) What they were submitting was their objections to the document. Whoever gave Vice that quote wanted to whip people up, and in your case, it looks like they succeeded.

The Republicans submitted 100 pages of objections to a rule that Democrat-sponsoring lobbyists ordered changed after the Republicans were provided the supposedly final copy.

The law gives them 30 days to submit their edits, and they took less than 14. Occam's Razor, man. They had to redo their edits because the Democrats and their lobbyist friends/puppetmasters changed the document in violation of the rules.

The Vice article was written by a shill, based on a quote by another shill, and you fell for it. That happens, man. But the article is dishonest, and in the future, I advise you to refrain from posting it.

Re: Reason for delay?

[guises]

the fact (which was widely reported at the time of the article) that the Republican Commissioners were not allowed to read the final version of the rule until immediately before voting on it

Okay, that might be something. I'm willing to look into it at least, but this widely reported fact is not one that I've heard. Also, it's not one that I seem to be able to find, I've searched for "republican FCC commissioners not allowed to read bill" and come up with nothing from both Duck Duck Go and Google. Can you provide a link?

Re: Reason for delay?

[jmac_the_man]

The reason that doesn't return the results is because the FCC doesn't pass "bills." Passing "bills" into law is a Congress thing. The FCC makes "rules." Thus, of course you won't get news storie from a Google search on that string.

In any case, the first page of the search results from the string "Google lobbyist net neutrality" (without quotes) brings up this Politico story on the first page of the mobile search results returned by Bing, Google, and DuckDuckGo.

Re: Reason for delay?

[guises]

Well, that's certainly a story about Google lobbyists and net neutrality, but it doesn't say what you're suggesting about secret edits sprung on the republican commissioners at the last minute. It says that the changes "came to light" a day before the vote, i.e.: this is when their existence was made public.

It does say that the bulk of the late-stage negotiating was between the democratic commissioners. This makes sense, given that the republican commissioners had already made up their minds about the whole thing, independent of any little tweaks to the language.

I don't think it refutes the Vice article at all.

LOL damage broadband investment

[Crashmarik]

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.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I'm still stuck with DSL 3.0 as my best package. I wish one of the cable providers would move in and provide some competition.

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:LOL damage broadband investment

[Crashmarik]

I don't know the location you are speaking of.

I do know that in KC ATT didn't even plan to lay fiber until Google moved in

  http://www.businessinsider.com...

Whats more the only places they are targeting are those that Google is wiring, and they only match the price if you agree to be spied on by them.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[Crashmarik]

Oh also, I have watched their techs at work on repairing their "Advanced" products going back to ISDN. Nothing like watching a tech rotate a failing interface card through the rack.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[TubeSteak]

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

They have been investing a lot, because laying fiber is very expensive.
But U-Verse is not in a lot of places.

If you look at where fiber has been brought to market (not just by AT&T), it's almost exclusively in cherry picked areas that can afford high prices.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[Drethon]

Grand Rapids, Michigan got a bunch of Uverse in about five years ago with no Google stuff going on. Of course I moved out of range recently... bleh.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[danbert8]

Yes and when they originally ran the Uverse, it was awesomely fast and awesomely cheap. A year later it was the same speeds and the same crappy prices as TWC was offering...

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[nehumanuscrede]

Not entirely true.

There is quite a bit of new gear rolling out to compete with Google, but infrastructure isn't really a standalone expense. I can drop epic pipe sized Sonet multiplexers all over the place, but you also have to house them, power them, protect them and feed them fiber. Then you get to upgrade the other parts of the network to handle the tidal wave of data that will be flowing across those systems. This all costs equally epic amounts of $$$$ to do so. Nor does it happen overnight on a telco / carrier sized network. ( Trivia: Limiting the query to a single vendor only, the company has over twenty THOUSAND routers / switches in its network. This isn't something you can just upgrade and / or replace overnight. )

AT&T is investing plenty in the markets where most of its profits come from. The business / commercial markets. They know Google poses a serious threat to that revenue stream, so that's where all the investment is going currently. If I told you AT&T is in the process of installing at least ten THOUSAND sites across the country including all the infrastructure required to support it ( this is for Gigabit Ethernet btw ), would you still think the company isn't investing in its infrastructure ?

Granted, their focus probably isn't what it should be for the average consumer, but the data world is in a big transition period and technology is evolving faster than many can keep up. Hell, think about what a fast connection speed was ten - twenty years ago. The technology to even provide today's slower connection speeds didn't even exist. Ripping out and replacing everything every five years or so is pretty much impossible to do financially for a network this size.

The focus going forward is likely to be in wireless and broadband ( which is why the Title II thing scares the hell out of them ). They will, like the other telcos, probably exit the wireline market in the near future. The copper plant is simply no longer profitable and is cost prohibitive to maintain. ( Especially for a service that sees fewer and fewer customers every year. )

Do we need competition? Absolutely. It's what lights the fire under the behemoths to actually get up and do something once in a while. They get used to being the only player on the field and doing what they want. Then someone shows up and threatens the business model and all hell breaks loose. This is pretty much where we are today.

Will see how it plays out.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[NormalVisual]

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.

The AT&T sales guy came around a couple of weeks ago to tout the new fiber rollout in my area. Here's how it went:

AT&T guy: "Did you know that AT&T is laying fiber in your area?"
Me: "No, that's great. How fast is the fastest speed you'll be offering when it's in?"
AT&T: "Let me look...[rifles through papers]...says here it will be 18 Mbps."
Me: "That's already available here now over your copper lines."
AT&T: "Really? What do you have now?"
Me: "I've got a 12 Mbps U-verse business account with five static IPs. The 18 Mbps service is already too expensive for such a small bump, and it doesn't sound like the fiber offering is otherwise going to make any difference at all for me. The *only* reason I'm with AT&T is that Comcast has a ridiculous installation fee for business accounts."

The guy hemmed and hawed a little bit more, and eventually left looking rather dejected. Seriously, only 18 Mbps over fiber?

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[Archangel Michael]

Last mile problem can be fixed with a BOND measure and building out Municipal Fiber, back hauled to a COLO were providers can fight for customers. IF we quit trying to fix the wrong problem it is much easier to fix.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[whoever57]

The *only* reason I'm with AT&T is that Comcast has a ridiculous installation fee for business accounts."

Comcast once quoted us for business Internet service at our office in the middle of Silicon Valley. $99/month and $200,000 installation fee.

That's not a typo. They wanted $200k to install. Not in a rural area, but an area surrounded by Internet and networking businesses. Then the sales guy had to ask if we still wanted to go ahead....

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[NormalVisual]

Quoting almost 170 years' worth of service fees for an install? I think I might have laid into the sales guy with a variation of the "does Marsellus Wallace look like a bitch?" speech after that. That's just insane.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[trawg]

I have to wonder at this post if it's actually fibre, or if 'Fibre' is a brand name for their copper service. I'd put nothing past them at this point.

Re:LOL damage broadband investment

[NormalVisual]

Who knows. In any event, it's kind of silly for AT&T to complain about regulation cutting into their profits when they aren't offering the kinds of services that people might actually want. Especially when I've had two outages over the last 18 months that were the result of them accidentally cancelling the authorization for the MAC address of the outside DSL hardware and taking four days to figure that out the first time it happened.

Have we handed the government control over it?

[backslashdot]

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.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[kwiecmmm]

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.

One way that this can be reversed and not negatively affect consumers is if there is a ton more competition in internet access. Most places that I have lived have one or if I was lucky two internet carriers. I don't want satellite and I want a better connection than a DSL connection so my only option is to go with a cable company that provides internet services.

So until there is real competition around the country this needs to be classified as a utility.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL - like the First Amendment regulates free speech.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[StikyPad]

You mean how dirty phone calls are illegal? Or porn on cable TV? Or fearmongering on the Internet?

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Eravnrekaree]

Actually, not quite. Most areas at best have 2 options for high speed internet. Usually, both are bad. Its almost impossible for other companies to enter the market to provide a real competitive atmosphere by doing it better than the existing providers. So you have no real competition. This is mainly why broadband services are a natural multiopoly, the huge capital investments needed pretty much lock it up for 1 to 2 companies, any more than that and it becomes unprofitable due to the huge cost of running lines. This means that the market basically does not function effectively in this market and regulation is well justified to provide protection for the consumer. Its very similar to your water service, it wouldnt be feasible or practical for 20 different water companies to run their own pipes up and down their streets.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BronsCon]

How soon before they start overtly regulating content?

As soon as they have global jurisdiction. In other words, never. Can you pass that pipe, though? That must be some good shit.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Holi]

It was always subject to government meddling, why you think different is beyond me.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

Having the government enforce neutrality is actually a very good thing. You read slashdot, so you must be at least a little bit technically inclined, so let me explain what prompted this. Net neutrality has been the default state of the internet since its beginning. How it works :

  - Someone runs a service on a computer and needs it accessible to the internet. This range from big (search engine, email) to tiny and personal (minecraft server, voice chat like teamspeak). They pay an ISP to connect their servers to the internet.
  - End users want access to the internet. They pay an ISP to connect their home to the internet.

ISPs would charge each according to their needs (link speed, usage, etc) Obviously, there's more than one ISP, so they connect to each others through high-capacity links. This is called peering.

At first, anybody could be an ISP because it used a phone line. You'd dial a number, connect to your ISP and then gain access to the internet. Competition during those days was fierce and customers were fought over. Then, higher speed were needed. Sending data through an encoded voice channel was not sufficient anymore, so cable and telephone companies started using the copper lines directly. This practically killed competition because, unlike with phone lines, ISPs didn't have to give access to their infrastructure to competitors. Obviously, you can't allow 30 different companies to dig under the streets and wire different cables to every house, so what you do is you allow only one or two, but you regulate it. This is called a natural monopoly.

Now, these companies are huge and they essentially have a captive customer base. Some customers may have a choice between two providers (mostly phone or cable), but that means that two companies will control any local market. What this means is that they can both raise prices, and as long as they charge mostly equivalent prices, they make much more profit than if they competed to bring price down. This is called an oligarchy.

These companies finally realized that they had even more power than they first thought. They said "Hey, we've got 30% of the whole country as customers on our own network, why not exploit this as a money source by cutting off access to them unless we get paid?". So now, service companies like Google, in addition to paying for their own internet access, have to pay the individual ISPs for access to their customers. These customers don't have any choice in the matter, because of our natural monopoly. Genius! That's what Comcast and Verizon tried to do companies like Netflix and Google (youtube).

This isn't how the internet is supposed to work and it's obvious that the telcos aren't adding any value by doing this. They are only abusing their monopolies as middle-men to extort money for services already paid for. This what what prompted this whole legislation.

It baffles me how little people seem to be aware of the issue. Every single person who knows how the internet works thinks this law was needed and the only dissenting views are simply preying on ignorance.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Gliscameria]

I don't understand how we can talk about near limitless government wiretapping and tracking, and then in the same breath be happy that they took more control over the internet. I'd expect the next move to be some sort of censorship - for the children!!! Then we can look forward to mandatory equipment at the ISPs provided by the government that does all kinds of useful things, like tracking and filtering. They do this on all of the foreign communications (PBS Hardline did an excellent documentary on this) now is the chance to get it done domestically. This is a HUGE overreach. Basic internet access could be qualified as a public utility, some minimum standard that lets you do essential things (ie, things not including streaming HD video), but "Broadband" is non-essential. It's the difference between broadcast radio - because that is essential in emergencies, and all of cable television. We are being given a false choice between corporations or government talking control of the internet. We don't have to give control to either.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[cyberchondriac]

This is spot on. In my area, there's really only Verizon or Comcast (and I can't even get FIOS here with Verizon). Both of them gouge the consumer, they're just two different heads of the same coin. I'm not a fan of big government, but some degree of regulation is a must in a capitalist system, and if anyone needs a taste of regulation, it'd be these two.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Whorhay]

I don't know about the issues with Youtube but I do know that the Netflix issue wasn't so cut and dry. The various ISP's connect to each other at specific nodes, where traffic moves from being on one companies network to another. Netflix is hosted on a lower rung network than most comsumers, they deliberately went with that network because it was cheaper for them. The bigger ISP's don't like having to absorb a large amount of through traffic from Netflix, even though their own customers are the ones creating that traffic. Netflix did try to remedy the issue by offering to host some of their more popular content with the bigger ISP's, but were turned down by at least one of them.

Neither Netflix or the ISP's were blameless in this case. Netflix was at fault for deliberately going with a hosting service that they knew wouldn't be able to get the kind of peering agreement they needed, in order to save money on their costs. The ISP was at fault because they refused to try and service their customers in good faith by accepting a compromise instead insisting essentially on protection money.

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:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Archangel Michael]

The problem isn't Verizon or Comcast, the problem is last mile Fiber. Make it municipal fiber, and let the content providers fight for the customers. Competition, in the right location fixes everything WITHOUT government intruding on that content.

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?

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[harryjohnston]

Clause 18 - "no paid prioritization" appears to prohibit peering. It favors some traffic (traffic from the peer) over other traffic (traffic not from the peer) and is done in exchange for consideration - even if it is just on a quid-pro-quo basis ("I'll accept your traffic at the peering point if you accept mine") that's still a "consideration".

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

Peering has nothing to do with prioritization. When you peer, you create a path to a destination, that's it. If your ISP doesn't have a peer link to, say, Slashdot's ISP, then Slashdot won't load for you, period. The law is about preferential treatment of data, which doesn't have anything to do with peering.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[drinkypoo]

Yes. BUT what was passed in congress is anything but Net Neutrality.

Could you please point to the parts which make it not net neutrality, and explain why that's the case? Because most of us disagree with you.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[drinkypoo]

The problem isn't Verizon or Comcast, the problem is last mile Fiber.

My whole friggin' county is last mile Fiber, you insensitive clod! AT&T is literally the only one with fiber into Lake County, CA. It's cheaper for my WISP to buy access from Sprint and bounce it off of four mountaintops by microwave to get it to me than to buy it from AT&T, which has fiber up the mountain already.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[harryjohnston]

You appear to be using the word "peering" to include connections between ISPs and backbone providers. Last time I checked, that wasn't standard usage.

Regardless of the linguistics, though, I'm fairly sure you understood what I meant. The rules as written appear to prohibit the practice of two ISPs exchanging data directly rather than via a backbone provider.

Stopping this practice would pretty much break the internet. I don't suppose the FCC intends to interpret the rule that way. But I don't think this is a good sign, and it would appear to justify the claims ISPs are making about the new rules creating uncertainty.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[harryjohnston]

Here's a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... : "Transit is distinct from peering".

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

Hum, peering is a term used when an ISP connects to another ISP. That ISP can be a backbone provider or not, it's still peering. I'm Canadian, so I can't give examples for the US, but here a typical ISP might be peered with Peer1 (backbone), Cogent (backbone) and Torix (Toronto Internet Exchange). The big content providers (Google, Akamai, etc.) typically have a direct path on Torix. They're all called peering though, never heard another term for it.

Back to the discussion at hand. Peer links are created to avoid congestion and keep latency low. This is part of normal network management, which the law specifically allows for. Traffic will always be routed through multiple potential links, with routing protocols deciding which link to use based on capacity, congestion, shortest path, etc.

If you look at the law, they actually make a difference between peering (they call it interconnections) and paid prioritization.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can add my 0.02 cents here as my company has both 1GB Verizon and 1GB Cogent services among other speeds and carriers in our various offices around the US.

Our offices on the west coast that have have Cogent see speeds of less then 25KB/sec for hours on end, even days on end transferring data to our offices in the Mid West that have Verizon. It is faster to take the data in California that needs to get to Chicago and route it through another office that has a different provider and then send it to Verizon. That works fine, just a PITA. We have this in place right now and have been doing it for years. We have opened several tickets with Verizon and Cogent. Our traffic from our office over Cogent one hop before the peering point with Verizon runs at near line speed. Almost the same on the other end although Verizon would not test to a point near the peering point, only a random place they chose that is not present in a trace relating to the traffic in question. It tests fine and Verizon closes the ticket with a note for us to followup with our "other" provider. The end result was Cogent said they see congestion at the peering point and there is nothing they can do. Verizon, well, your circuit tests fine, sorry, nothing we can do.

We also have an east coast office with Cogent with a 1GB connection. It does much better than our west coast offices but still only 15mbit one way and 20 the other, it gets that 24 hours a day 7 days a week and has for two years straight. Since that is not fast enough for what we are doing, we again have to route some traffic to an intermediate third location that is not Cogent or Verizon as the middle man.

We are a customer of both companies. Not just an end user of one or the other.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

I'm not sure I understand your point.

When you peer, you add a new link that wasn't there before. Even if there was a financial component to the peer agreement, as long as you're not deliberately routing traffic of other customers through a congested link, I don't see how you're breaking the law. If link1 is congested and you add link2 to offload part of link1's traffic, you're not changing the traffic priority. Now, if link1 and link2 are both to backbone providers and you're sending "paying" traffic through an uncongested link2, while routing everything else through link1, then yeah, you're breaking the law. That second case would be unlike any peering routing I've ever seen though.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[duck_rifted]

Just what kind of government control did you think they didn't already have? They already gather and parse practically all data. Tax funds already pay for broadband infrastructure. The FCC has had authority over electronic communications for seventy years!

All that has changed here is that ISPs are being stopped from playing the role of tax collector by making up bogus excuses to jack up prices and hold services for ransom despite consumers already paying for them and taxpayers already paying for the infrastructure. ISPs already practically get free money to manage what we build as a nation, and they want to have unilateral power to facilitate their oligopoly squeezing every possible penny out of us without offering anything in return.

All this "But it's duh gubment" talk is a red herring meant to appeal to low information voters and gullible people who want something to be mad over but don't know enough about anything to figure that out for themselves.

Re: Have we handed the government control over it?

[stealth.c]

I think your explanation falls very short when you refer to municipal limitations on the number of competitors as a "natural" monopoly. There's nothing natural about it if it's a situation directly caused by limits imposed by government. Prospective ISPs should have been able to negotiate with property owners at all levels to build lines of any sort wherever it made sense. Capping local markets at one or two providers is where the Internet got off track, not when the beneficiaries of this corporate welfare started doing the only thing that made sense given their unassailable, government-granted position. So now we pile the FCC on top of a problem that never needed to exist. Like Harry Browne used to say: government will break your knees, then hand you a pair of crutches and say "See? Without us you couldn't walk!"

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[harryjohnston]

The Wikipedia article calls it "internet transit" and distinguishes it from "peering" as follows: "Transit is distinct from peering, in which only traffic between the two ISPs and their downstream customers is exchanged and neither ISP can see upstream routes over the peering connection." That more or less matches my original understanding. Mind you, there are no citations.

The rule disallowing paid prioritization is very broad, and does *not* have an exception for normal network management. (They actually call out explicitly that this rule does not have that exception, unlike the first two.)

However, clause 30 appears to restrict the scope of the rule to explicitly exclude peering. So that's OK after all.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[harryjohnston]

The rule is written very broadly. It basically covers *anything* that improves performance for the other party, no matter how it is implemented.

However, it turns out that the rule's scope is defined later on in the document to explicitly exclude interconnections. So it won't stop peering, which is good, on the other hand it also wouldn't apply directly to the Netflix wrangle.

It might still apply to in-network hosting, I'm not sure. I think you could argue that was new traffic, which just happens to replace the old traffic. Or that it's a form of interconnection. I'll let the lawyers figure that one out, or at least someone who has read the entire document. :-)

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

You're wrong. Natural monopolies are called natural because that's the way the world works. They exist no matter what the government does about it.

Let me give you an example with roads. Let's say all roads are private; people charge a toll to pay for each road section. You have a road from A to B. The entity owning that road has a natural monopoly, even without any regulation. This is because let's say competition adds a second road from A to B. Now, people use either road and traffic on each road drops by half. Suddenly, neither roads can pay for their maintenance because traffic is too low. Competition doesn't work well with infrastructure because reality gets in the way.

For last mile cabling, you have the exact same issue. If you allow 30 companies to have their own infrastructure and run cables to people's home, only 5% of that infrastructure would be in use at the same time, but all the rest still requires maintenance and investment. The end result would make it impossible for any of those 30 companies to turn up a profit.

With hindsight, we should have gone about cabling differently. The city should have owned that last mile cabling to each home, with them terminating in various city NOCs. Then you give access to all the service companies to these NOCs. Voilà, you now have perfect competition. You would only need neutrality laws only for the cities themselves in that scenario so that no preferential treatment is given to any company. It's a bit too late to do it properly now though.

Re: Have we handed the government control over it?

[BlueBlade]

I'll just paste another reply I made above about natural monopolies.

Natural monopolies are called natural because that's the way the world works. They exist no matter what the government does about it.

Let me give you an example with roads. Let's say all roads are private; people charge a toll to pay for each road section. You have a road from A to B. The entity owning that road has a natural monopoly, even without any regulation. This is because let's say competition adds a second road from A to B. Now, people use either road and traffic on each road drops by half. Suddenly, neither roads can pay for their maintenance because traffic is too low. Competition doesn't work well with infrastructure because reality gets in the way.

For last mile cabling, you have the exact same issue. If you allow 30 companies to have their own infrastructure and run cables to people's home, only 5% of that infrastructure would be in use at the same time, but all the rest still requires maintenance and investment. The end result would make it impossible for any of those 30 companies to turn up a profit.

With hindsight, we should have gone about cabling differently. The city should have owned that last mile cabling to each home, with them terminating in various city NOCs. Then you give access to all the service companies to these NOCs. Voilà, you now have perfect competition. You would only need neutrality laws only for the cities themselves in that scenario so that no preferential treatment is given to any company. It's a bit too late to do it properly now though.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Archangel Michael]

Many slashdot readers are liberals who think the government solution to every problem is the best. The part that make it NOT Net Neutrality are ... the government is involved. Which means, that it can and will be revised and extended until it no longer resembles what it is today. Revise, Extend, Extinguish.

And once it really breaks, there is NO solution to actually fixing the problem, except more of the thing that broke it in the first place.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[Archangel Michael]

It currently boils down to only 3 things

FTFY

When Comcast et al figures out how to screw people under those rules, you'll be the first one clambering to Revise, Extend and Extinguish method of fixing it until it breaks.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[david_thornley]

At least around here, DSL is more like a utility, so smaller ISPs can survive by hooking up to it. Fiber and cable aren't, and that creates a duopoly.

Re:Have we handed the government control over it?

[drinkypoo]

The part that make it NOT Net Neutrality are ... the government is involved.

So, that's a no. The government was already involved, and always has been.

The actual text of the new rules is only 305 words

[Pope Hagbard]

So much for the ZOMG 300-ODD PAGES fucktards. Bet they don't come back and admit they were wrong either.

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

[TFlan91]

How does this:

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.)

Affect Netflix and that whole deal, if at all

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

[OzPeter]

1) No Blocking - An ISP can't block legal content for any reason.

What is the definition of "Legal". For example, are online casinos not based in the US legal?

Re:The Rules

[Maltheus]

In other words, #2 means they'll do away with unlimited and move to tiered access. #3 means that Netflix will flood and congest the rest of the network, meaning longer buffering times for all. And of course, #1 was never a realistic worry.

Re:The Rules

[31415926535897]

Hate to break it to you, but the ISPs who are most opposed to this regulation do not offer unlimited access. They have secret caps that will screw you over if you bump into them a couple of times.

Re:The Rules

[Jason Levine]

I took it to mean that ISPs can't be held accountable for blocking "Warez And Viruses R Us Dot Com" but can be held accountable if they block "Legal Video Streaming Service Dot Com."

Re:The Rules

[Holi]

Yes because the messed up the phones and mail so much.

enough with the conspiracy, unless you can list some concrete examples with citation on the evils perpetrated by the FCC in the past.

Re:The Rules

[rickb928]

0. Netflix will charge the end ISP (Comcast, for instance) with throttling or pay-to-play.Lawsuit.

1. ISP (Comcast for instance) will claim this is the fault of the lousy Netflix connection (through Cogent, for instance), and maybe even sue the connection provider.

2. Netflix's provider (Congent, for instance) will disclaim any responsibility, maybe even sue Comcast (for instance), you know, slander.

3. After a few years, customers will buy the higher tiers of service from Comcast (for instance).

4. Before that, customers will buy the higher tier of service from Netflix, the one that has such better speed and performance, the one that is connected directly to their ISP (Comcast, for instance).

5. Profit!

And little has changed.

Re:The Rules

[Jason Levine]

The ISPs are already doing away with unlimited access. Unfortunately, many have been tight-lipped about how much access you get - cutting some people off at X GB while others download much more. This means they can institute caps but must say what the caps are. I haven't read the rules too closely, but there might be grounds to protest with the FCC if the caps are too low. (e.g. If Time Warner Cable decided everyone gets only 5GB a month.)

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.

Re:The Rules

[Himmy32]

Or you know, follow up on offers to placed Content Distribution equipment at ISP sites. Just like they have at others, which would then allow just for delivering the bandwidth that the customers already bought and paid for. If the edge connections weren't just a manufactured issue to squeeze money out of the other side of the equation.

If you can't deliver what you promised when you sold your service to your customers, don't sell it.

Re:The Rules

[HiThere]

Did you read the contract you signed to get access to the ISP? Mine said "up to x megabytes per minute", which could only be violated if they delivered too fast a service. (Since I knew I'd never want to complain about that, I didn't bother to remember the details.)

OTOH, I'm on a DSL line delivered by someone who isn't my ISP, so I probably wouldn't have standing to complain anyway. I would have moved over a decade ago, but my wife doesn't want to change her email address.

Re:The Rules

[HornWumpus]

What if Netflix paid for some rack space and put a server at the ISP? Like we _want_ them to do?

Re:The Rules

[Holi]

Like they offer to do?

https://openconnect.itp.netfli...

Re:The Rules

[Holi]

Now with this they will actually have to tell you what the caps are, most likely hidden in some micro print at the end of your contract.

Re:The Rules

[blue9steel]

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

I'm registered Libertarian and I agree. Generally the free market is pretty terrible at provisioning public goods. This decision makes sense for the same reason we don't have 20 different competing water companies. Of course some Libertarians like to argue that there is no such thing as public goods or that if the free market doesn't provide them then we're better off as a society without them but frankly I think they've been drinking a bit too much of the kool-aid.

It's a bit frustrating that they felt they needed 400 pages to describe restrictions that should have been a few short sentences but that's the downside of government intervention even when it's a net positive. I suppose the level of legal efforts that are going to surround this issue and attempts to circumvent this legislation in spirit if not in name required them to be rather more explicit than would really be optimal.

Re:The Rules

[meta-monkey]

The only that works like the status quo is if Comcast throttles the user's Netflix traffic, which violates the "no throttling" rule.

Re:The Rules

[Gliscameria]

Isn't this a work around for (3): As an ISP, you reduce the incoming pipe that your customers use. You then charge big data providers for various local hosting services/hardware, maybe even use a different incoming pipe to service this hardware. That's not technically a fast lane, but it should have the same effect.

Re:The Rules

[SuperKendall]

Or an iSP can block all torrent traffic they think is illegal, and now that is sanctioned by the FCC unlike before where an ISP could not block traffic to you for any reason.

Re:The Rules

[OzPeter]

I took it to mean that ISPs can't be held accountable for blocking "Warez And Viruses R Us Dot Com"

But "Warez And Viruses R Us Dot Com" is legally registered and permitted to do business in outer Elbonia

Re:The Rules

[OzPeter]

Legal means "A court has not declared it illegal".

And again that comes down to "Whose court?". The internet is not solely the domain of the US, and why should an ISP be able to deprive me of something that is legal elsewhere?

Re:The Rules

[phantomfive]

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."

Wait until they find out about peering agreements.

Re:The Rules

[HornWumpus]

Like they do. We want them to continue to put servers locally. No just put one big old server farm up and kick the problem to the backbone providers.

Re:The Rules

[thule]

It doesn't. The Netflix issues were never about Net Neutrality. I have tried to explain that countless times. The problem is that people are so blinded by their hate of cable companies and their ignorance of how peering works that it doesn't sink in. Peering is a good thing. The Netflix deal actually helps the little guy that can't afford peering to have more bandwidth over the backbones and cable company transit connections. Netflix played people. I suspect they used threats of Net Neutrality in negotiations. It never had to benefit them. It never had to really be all that bad, just the threat was good enough. Now the FCC had a foot in the door, we should all be scared. It seems to me that governments have a worse track record of stifling free speech than companies do.

Re:The Rules

[jratcliffe]

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")

Actually, an ISP _can_ offer a "500GB, but then we slow you down to 65kbps package." The no throttling provision is designed to deal with something different. Provision 1 says no blocking (i.e. Comcast can't block access to Netflix). Provision 2 says no throttling, to keep the ISP from saying "we're not blocking access to Netflix, it's right there - at no more than 20kbps." You can do network management/prioritization (i.e. if there's congestion, prioritize Facetime chats over backups, for example), but you have to be evenhanded about it - can't throttle Netflix, but not Hulu, for example.

Re:The Rules

[jratcliffe]

Because viewing that content is illegal where you're located.

Re:The Rules

[Maltheus]

They do let you hit them and even exceed them form time to time. It's never been an issue for me. But that all goes aways, once they moved to tiered.

Re:The Rules

[TheSync]

Wait until they find out about peering agreements.

And what about paid caches?

Re:The Rules

[Maltheus]

If Netflix wants to provide a premium experience for their customers, then let them pay for the equipment and pass the cost on to their customers. If Comcast now has to treat everyone equally, then everyone gets the lowest common denominator.

Re:The Rules

[ancientt]

See, that's what they *did* and that's what pushed this change. Netflix didn't want to pay to put rack space in because it costs more, that raises their prices and their customers don't care about latency at all. A half second is huge in internet response times but customers couldn't care less if it their movie took an extra half second to start. Rather than give Netflix the bigger connection it needed to make it's customers happy, even when Netflix offered to pay for it, Comcast refused. That way they could force Netflix to pay Comcast extra money in order for Comcast customers to get decent Netflix service.

Your average consumer believes that the bandwidth they pay for each month reflects how fast their ISP will carry traffic to them. Comcast realized that they could sell that idea to the consumer and then not provide it and the average consumer wouldn't know or blame them. Then they could demand money from content providers.

We do want CDNs, but we want them provided because they improve service that people care about, not because ISPs refuse to give their customers sufficient access to content providers in order to make more money.

Re:The Rules

[TheSync]

Yes, Netflix has a cache, Google has a cache, etc. ad infinitum. And ISPs still need to pay to operate and maintain the cache. And there still is Internet bandwidth to populate the cache, and the cache is only useful for the most popular content, the "long tail" still needs to come in over the Internet.

Re:The Rules

[sumdumass]

Sadly, you forgot to provide the other portions of the rules that say

A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service,

It's in all three rules. Now the interesting part is that the FCC also just changed the legal definition of broadband to be 25 meg down and 3 meg up. So your 11meg connections which seems to be a popular choice with cable internet will/might not be subject to the rules.

Re:The Rules

[bobbied]

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.

Not to question your summary, I'm just wondering if you got this summary from someplace or did you have time to read the new rules for yourself? "Net neutrality" might be the executive summary line, but the rules might be about something totally different than what you expect, sort of like the Affordable Healthcare act isn't about affordability or healthcare...

Re:The Rules

[harryjohnston]

You're assuming that Cogent (for instance) actually has enough capacity to carry the necessary traffic to Comcast, and that the only reason there was ever a problem was that Comcast created one artificially.

I do not claim to know whether or not this assumption is correct, but it should be noted that it is not a law of nature.

Re:The Rules

[harryjohnston]

I can't find anything in that which says they'll pay for the rack space, and IIRC they don't. IOW, Netflix customers are being subsidized by ISPs.

Re:The Rules

[Immerman]

Except it's not Netflix flooding the network, it's the ISP's customers who are requesting data from Netflix. And if the ISP doesn't have enough bandwidth to deliver the services they're selling, then they should either upgrade their infrastructure or stop selling something they don't have.

Re:The Rules

[Jason Levine]

I got this from the actual document. Granted, I didn't read the whole thing (don't have time to read 500 pages of government regulation), but from what I've read in other sources (like the article the summary links to) the actual regulation is actually very short. The bulk of the 500 pages is sort of a question and answer about the small regulations.

Re:The Rules

[Jason Levine]

That might put the ISPs in a tricky situation if they need to testify in court that their Internet service really isn't broadband. "Your honor, these rules clearly state that they are for 'broadband internet service.' My client's service is so horrifically slow that it can't possibly be construed as broadband. Downloads stink. Streaming media stutters. And don't even get me started on online gaming."

Re:The Rules

[guruevi]

A number of ISP's have pointed and even shown graphs of Comcast/TWC allowing their connections to fill up to 100% even though there is plenty of availability of bandwidth at the peer points.

Re:The Rules

[laird]

The rule only says that ISPs have to transit traffic without differentiating between it.

Paid caches aren't network transit. They're not affected by this rule.

Peering arrangements are network transit, but the rule just says the ISP has to deliver the traffic they're paid by customers to deliver, whether or not the ISP likes the specific web site the data is coming from. It's not relevant whether the transit is free (peering) or paid transit.

Re:The Rules

[laird]

One correction - from what I've read Netflix demanded that Comcast give them direct transit for free, Comcast insisted that it be paid transit, through a provider, which is how pretty much all web sites operate - they pay their ISP, the web site's ISP buys transit to the consumer ISPs, and the traffic gets delivered. Netflix refused to buy more bandwidth from a provider, insisting that Netflix be able to bypass their ISP and deliver transit straight to Comcast, and they should get the transit for free from Comcast. Then Netflix tried to push more traffic to Comcast then their ISP was paid to deliver, the connections from Netflix to Comcast saturated and started dropping packets (or were throttled by Comcast, hard to tell from the outside). Netflix' bet was that if their service degraded on Comcast, they could tell their customers it was Comcast's fault, and force Comcast to provide transit for free to avoid the bad PR.

Re:The Rules

[sumdumass]

I have seen a lawyer actually argue both sides of an issue in court. The lawyer described someone as almost indigent with no money and a bum who recklessly spent his money on crap, booze, and motorcycles in the beginning and in the end was saying he was the primary bread winner of the family and the loss of his income was devastating to her Client.

I have no doubt they would do something like that and I have no doubt that the client wouldn't care one bit if they thought it would get them what they wanted. However, I think it would be more like "Your Honor, the legal definition of broadband internet service is higher then our client's current service offerings meet therefore they do not fall under those rules and request a summery dismissal".

But yes, in essence, they would be saying the same thing.

Re:The Rules

[harryjohnston]

IIRC, that was because Comcast didn't want to pay for extra peering connections. I don't *think* it's relevant to this case.

Re:The Rules

[harryjohnston]

I believe that clause 30, which excludes interconnections from the scope of that rule, means that the Netflix deal is *not* affected. But I'm not a lawyer, and I haven't read all 400 pages either. :-)

Re:The Rules

[TheSync]

The rule only says that ISPs have to transit traffic without differentiating between it.

Paid caches aren't network transit. They're not affected by this rule.

The rules say:

47 CFR 8.7 "A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management."

Your word "transit" does not appear.

Re:The Rules

[TheSync]

The rule only says that ISPs have to transit traffic without differentiating between it.

Paid caches aren't network transit. They're not affected by this rule.

Moreover,

47 CFR 8.9 "(a) A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not engage in paid prioritization.

(b) âoePaid prioritizationâ refers to the management of a broadband providerâ(TM)s network to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic, including through use of techniques such as traffic shaping, prioritization, resource reservation, or other forms of preferential traffic management, either (a) in exchange for consideration (monetary or otherwise) from a third party, or (b) to benefit an affiliated entity."

Re:The Rules

[tricorn]

It isn't 400 pages of regulation, it's about 8.5 pages of (new/modified) regulation, including all the definitions, procedures for filing complaints, etc.

The other 391 pages are commentary, explaining the rationale, the legal authority, discussing the public comments and rebuttals, talking about the implementation and implications, and so on.

Saying this is 400 pages of regulation is totally false. The 400 pages are in fact going to be published, and can be used by courts when deciding cases influenced by the new regulations, but they are not themselves regulations.

Re:The Rules

[tricorn]

That's not the legal definition of "broadband" in the context of this rule. Read the rule. It's right there in the definitions section. Pretty much any Internet connection except dialup is "broadband".

Re:The Rules

[ancientt]

Thanks, you may be right, but I was certainly wrong, I was actually thinking of the Netflix vs Verizon issue:

Verizon has confirmed that everything between that router in their network and their subscribers is uncongested – in fact has plenty of capacity sitting there waiting to be used. Above, I confirmed exactly the same thing for the Level 3 network. So in fact, we could fix this congestion in about five minutes simply by connecting up more 10Gbps ports on those routers. Simple. Something we’ve been asking Verizon to do for many, many months, and something other providers regularly do in similar circumstances. But Verizon has refused. So Verizon, not Level 3 or Netflix, causes the congestion. Why is that? Maybe they can’t afford a new port card because they’ve run out – even though these cards are very cheap, just a few thousand dollars for each 10 Gbps card which could support 5,000 streams or more. If that’s the case, we’ll buy one for them. Maybe they can’t afford the small piece of cable between our two ports. If that’s the case, we’ll provide it. Heck, we’ll even install it.

Emphasis mine.

The Comcast deal may be entirely different, I have little doubt the technical aspects were at least partially different, but I suspect the motivations were the same.

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

Re:The Rules

[guruevi]

It IS relevant to this case. Extra peering connections cost 0, zilch (besides the actual hardware cost which is really minimal if you're just popping in a cable into an existing switch)

At the peering centers, after the obvious monthly colocation fees you simply pay for YOUR traffic towards the Internet (upload) and for YOUR to be reachable across the Internet. You don't pay for the amount of data you transfer, you pay per Mbps that you upload disproportionate to what you accept.

So Netflix is paying an amount of money to upload their data, Comcast gets it for free, if they would actually accept the data, it would reduce their peering costs (not by a whole lot but a couple of thousand/month at least). The problem with Comcast however is that Netflix is disrupting their side business (cable etc) so by spending money in blocking Netflix they hope to recap that by more cable subscriptions.

Re:The Rules

[harryjohnston]

Extra peering connections cost 0, zilch

Bullshit. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

In other words ...

[fahrbot-bot]

"Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States, ...

... our ability to rape, pillage and plunder our victims, I mean "customers", with impunity may be in jeopardy.

Re:In other words ...

[LessThanObvious]

...and the villagers rejoice.

The rules are 8 pages

[thaylin]

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.

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.

Uncertainty?

[PineHall]

"Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States," Cicconi said.

There is no uncertainty if everyone accepts the rules. You bring on the uncertainty when you sue. You can not blame the FCC.

Re:Uncertainty?

[TheSync]

Does this sound like a "certain" rule to you?

"Mechanism to Resolve Traffic Exchange Disputes. As discussed, Internet traffic exchange agreements have historically been and will continue to be commercially negotiated. We do not believe that it is appropriate or necessary to subject arrangements for Internet traffic exchange (which are subsumed within broadband Internet access service) to the rules we adopt today. We conclude that it would be premature to adopt prescriptive rules to address any problems that have arisen or may arise.
It is also premature to draw policy conclusions concerning new paid Internet traffic exchange arrangements between broadband Internet access service providers and edge providers, CDNs, or backbone services. While the substantial experience the Commission has had over the last decade with "last-mile" conduct gives us the understanding necessary to craft specific rules based on assessments of potential harms, we lack that background in practices addressing Internet traffic exchange. For this reason, we adopt a case-by-case approach, which will provide the Commission with greater experience. Thus, we will continue to monitor traffic exchange and developments in this market."

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:Yes, blocking

[Jason Levine]

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.

Re:We have decided...

[HiThere]

You referring to when they made ICANN officially an agent of the US govt.?

Re:But the MEANING is hundreds of pages

[Holi]

Well to be honest, if you want to have any understanding on how the Constitution is interpreted today, then yeah that would be the place to start.

Re:But the MEANING is hundreds of pages

[Pope Hagbard]

Fair point, but you can get most of the meaning from just reading it and optionally paying attention to the news. It's not like SCOTUS has a secret interpretation that's 180 degrees opposed from a plain reading.

Here's the actual text

[xaj]

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

The Depths of Understanding

[SuperKendall]

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.

New rules lock in monopoly positions

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:New rules lock in monopoly positions

[david_thornley]

Where do you expect competition to come from in the first place? The tooth fairy? We're in a system where the lucky people can deal with a duopoly.

How many smaller ISPs are there out there? I can get connectivity from the cable company, the phone company, or municipal wireless, which is better than most people in the US, and there's problems with all three services. I can use an ISP that's none of these because DSL is, essentially, a utility. Make last-mile into a utility and small ISPs will thrive.

Regulations are all bad in the long term

[HBI]

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.

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: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:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[GerryGilmore]

I do have mod points, but I'd rather respond directly. You do know, don't you, that you undercut your own argument by referencing the superior state of internet access in Europe? Especially as Europe is, in general, much thicker in regulations than here in America. Besides the national laws (and, again, this is Europe we're talikng about), you have an ever-growing raft of EU-wide regulations. Please square that logical circle for us, if you logically can.

Re:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[HBI]

Asserting that Europe is "more regulated" lacks all nuance. That is not necessarily true from a telecommunications perspective in the 1970s and early 1980s, which is a. a long time ago and b. pre-EU. It would depend on the country, where some were the wild west and others were regulated heavily. What I do know is that ISDN was readily available there long before it was in the US, and actually caught on a bit.

Re:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[sjames]

And prohibition held back the licquor industry, but what does that have to do with common carrier status? (the topic at hand, that is)

Re:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[Phreakiture]

I'd ask where you would have it go, exactly, but I don't expect responses from ACs

As for where it did go, radio goes everywhere. It's a powerfully expressive medium with a low cost to be a listener.

Now, the cost of transmitting . . . that's another matter. I've been an activist in this area since the 90's, and one of the things that such activism has run is the opening up of low-power FM slots across the country. These slots are strictly reserved for community-run, short-range stations.

If anything, radio needs a bit more regulation with respect to concentration of ownership. Right now, a company called "I heart radio" controls what is, in my opinion, too much spectrum. Lest you think I only pick on commercial, though, there is also, in my area, an NPR station that, by itself, is simulcasting from no fewer than 27 separate stations in upstate New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, all from one central location in Albany. This type of coverage would be better served by a single, medium to large AM station.

Re:Regulations are all bad in the long term

[sjames]

To be fair, UPS and FedEx are equally dependent on USPS for some of their 'last mile' deliveries.

Re:But the MEANING is hundreds of pages

[HornWumpus]

If you can read the commerce clause and infer the evil it has been put to, you are a psychic.

Not clear what this means

[TheSync]

"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?

Re:Yes, blocking

[Merk42]

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!

Re:We have decided...

[duck_rifted]

I think they're alluding to the concept that wires and cables on US soil are on US soil or that persons operating in the US are subject to US laws. They can't possibly mean that US regulations are imposed upon the entire world, or we wouldn't have such marvels as the Great Firewall of China, would we? Maybe this person means to suggest that "liberals" can't understand that policies affecting business affect businesses abroad as well. But in that case, the FCC has specifically stopped American companies from imposing American limitations upon foreign companies.

But I don't think any of that is the case. Maybe this person means that when consumers expect to get what they pay for, that makes the consumers "liberals". Maybe "liberals" is used as a pejorative, which in itself is enough to suggest that the speaker is very low-information. Either way, I don't see how it's liberal to think that businesses should operate as unchecked tax collectors by demanding ever more revenue for vital services without providing anything more in return. In fact, that concept undermines the very premise of free trade by negating the most fundamental principles of equity in transactions as if the profit side of the equation is all that exists. I think in this person's world, we'd all just give our wallets to ISPs and let them have their own pretend economy without us.

But, to me, the importance of equity in trading is a fundamental value of capitalism and therefore a traditional social value in this country. As such, whatever this person thinks "liberal" means, this person is most certainly without a doubt NOT conservative because a core tenet of conservatism is the preservation of traditional social values. Maybe when people realize how sleazy it is to rob consumers and that undermining equity in trade is deviance (plain and simple), we'll stop seeing such low-information arguments posted.

It may have been flamebait or trolling, but some people actually think like this person. I think they just want something to be mad at and somebody to feel superior to, but otherwise they have no actual values whatsoever. But that's just my opinion.

Re:The actual text of the new rules is only 305 wo

[CrimsonAvenger]

So much for the ZOMG 300-ODD PAGES fucktards. Bet they don't come back and admit they were wrong either.

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.

Re:We have decided...

[duck_rifted]

This part: "Either way, I don't see how it's liberal to think that businesses should operate as unchecked tax collectors by demanding ever more revenue for vital services without providing anything more in return. "

... omits a "not".

Either way, I don't see how it's liberal to think that businesses should NOT operate as unchecked tax collectors by demanding ever more revenue for vital services without providing anything more in return.

My proofreading skills suck on this site for some reason. That's my fault, but it has earned more than one "Damnit!" exclamation from me.

Re:But the MEANING is hundreds of pages

[bobbied]

Fair point, but you can get most of the meaning from just reading it and optionally paying attention to the news. It's not like SCOTUS has a secret interpretation that's 180 degrees opposed from a plain reading.

Well... not all ways, but usually.... SCOTUS's opinion on the meaning of some of the constitution has, lets say, evolved over the years and even radically changed on a few points... So to fully appreciate how the constitution is applied as law, there is a lot of reading to do, but if you want to understand the broad concepts, the document itself works and most should read it more often than they do.

Re:Not the regulations

[HBI]

Sunset issued regulations after 5-10 years. Require a congressional reauthorization. If they are that important, it is important enough to get Congress involved.

"Pending Radio Legislation"

[k6mfw]

Here's a clip from 1924:

"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.

Re:Yes, blocking

[Immerman]

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.

Re:Hey, "useful idiot", that's SOP

[Pope Hagbard]

I'm sorry, can you speak up? I can't hear you through the cocks in your mouth.

Re:The actual text of the new rules is only 305 wo

[tricorn]

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:

8.5 No blocking.
A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

  8.7 No throttling.
A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.

  8.9 No paid prioritization.
(a) A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not engage in paid prioritization.
(b) “Paid prioritization” refers to the management of a broadband provider’s network to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic, including through use of techniques such as traffic shaping, prioritization, resource reservation, or other forms of preferential traffic management, either (a) in exchange for consideration (monetary or otherwise) from a third party, or (b) to benefit an affiliated entity.

Re:But the MEANING is hundreds of pages

[tricorn]

The actual regulation is 8.5 pages, about 22K characters. The rest is commentary. You'll find the commentary in the Federal Register. You won't find it in the actual regulations (Code of Federal Regulations, CFR).

There's the index, 576 paragraphs of commentary of various sorts, 12 paragraphs of procedural stuff, APPENDIX A which contains the actual rule, and APPENDIX B which contains a required analysis of the rules. APPENDIX B alone is 110 pages long.

The 8.5 pages is the actual program. The rest is the README and HOWTO combined with the man/info page, the makefile, the comments that would be in the code and a code review. The code itself is presented as a diff onto the existing codebase. Since it's a scripting language, there is no binary.

Re:Not the regulations

[Phreakiture]

An alternative that might not leave too bad of a taste in anybody's mouth would be to create a system of grants and loans to spur the formation of competitors in the local loop market.

Another option might be to separate the local loop from the IP space. This would get us to a position similar to what existed in the dialup days, in that we could choose from a wide range of ISPs. The only reason that model died was that the existing local loops were, at their very best, limited to ~53 kbit/sec, which is 2-3 orders of magnitude too slow for today's world.

"Unlawful" content throttling

[cerkit]

I'm a little concerned that in the future, content creators will be able to request throttling because the content is "unlawful" per DMCA.

It's right there in the language of the bill

[Gazzonyx]

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...