Slashdot Mirror
Republicans Introduce a Bill To Overturn Net Neutrality
New submitter grimmjeeper writes: IDG News reports, "A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill that would invalidate the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's recently passed net neutrality rules. The legislation (PDF), introduced by Representative Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican, is called a resolution of disapproval, a move that allows Congress to review new federal regulations from government agencies, using an expedited legislative process."
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
You mean the same Congress that delegated power to the agency in question to make just these sort of rules??? If Congress wants to pass new legislation to revoke that authority (or the budget of the agency under the Executive), it is free to do so - but that does nothing to change the fact that Congress approved it in the first place. You can find similar examples on everything from pot to DADT.
There's also the ultra-libertarian view (which really isn't very libertarian) that the government should literally do nothing. Any regulation by them is seen as bad regulation. Damn the consumers, they think if we let something like this stand then sooner or later the government will decide to ban child labor as well.
Seriously, we have a lot of members of congress who think that their one and only duty is to oppose all government action of any kind (though a subset of them approve of military action as an exception). Then mix in the true market believers as well, who think that the free market can solve all problems as long as the government stays away from it.
Uh, no. Netflix, in case you didn't know, is a company, and (non-ISP) companies, much like individuals, purchase internet access from ISPs. Netflix purchased internet access from many upstream providers including Cogent, Level 3, and some CDNs (as well as investing in their own CDN, btw). Peering arrangements are not between companies like Netflix and Comcast. Peering arrangements are between ISPs. That's the first point.
The second point is that Comcast is not a transit provider. It is a last-mile provider. It will, by definition, have an asymmetrical flow of traffic. This is very much a part of the peering arrangements between Cogent et al. and Comcast. It is not a new change brought on by Netflix.
This is not about peering arrangements. This is about cable companies. Comcast, in addition to being an ISP, sells cable service. It gets revenue from any content delivered to its subscribers. This market is threatened by Netflix, and so Comcast wants to impose cable-like business arrangements on Netflix, which it sees as a content-provider. If you can't see how this is in opposition to the underlying principles of the internet, you are a fool. As soon as Comcast did it, Verizon had a go too. It wasn't going to take long for all of the last-mile networks to try to turn themselves into cable companies.
In other news, if you are anywhere near Texas, you would know about the contract dispute between Suddenlink (cable company) and Viacom ( the parent company of Comedy Central and some other channels). Suddenlink was (is) not delivering Comedy Central to its customers. But Suddenlink the ISP knows that its customers can stream Comedy Central from the web, so it is intentionally blocking access to streaming from www.cc.com. In other words, Suddenlink is degrading its ISP service as leverage for negotiations with its cable service. You may say this is an antitrust case, and I may agree. But net neutrality probably solves the problem more efficiently.
Net neutrality may not be perfect in every way. But to say that there are no problems out there that need to be addressed is just ignorant and head-in-the-sand.