ISPs Claim Title II Regulations Don't Apply To the Internet Because "Computers"

New submitter Gryle writes: ArsTechnica is reporting on an interesting legal tactic by ISPs in the net neutrality fight. In a 95-page brief the United States Telecom Association claims Internet access qualifies as information service, not a telecommunication service, because it involves computer processing. The brief further claims "The FCC's reclassification of mobile broadband internet access as a common-carrier service is doubly unlawful." (page 56)

Comments

Interesting argument

[gcnaddict]

...except it all falls on its face because ultimately, the networks of computers are being used to communicate data between humans and other computers. hence telecommunication.

Re:Interesting argument

[khasim]

Even if that wasn't the case, they're arguing AGAINST being a "common carrier".

Won't this make them responsible for any of the crap (death threats, libel, etc) that they distribute as part of them being an "information service"?

Re:Interesting argument

[gcnaddict]

and deaths, when they happen. First hacking death, e.g. by someone messing with a defib remotely? (This possibility was discussed in a defcon talk last year) Well if they're not protected as common carriers, things could get interesting.

Re:Interesting argument

[rtb61]

The communication is between humans and humans. A human at one end craft content and store in on a computer in a accessible format. The end user then crafts a request for that information and sends it via the internet and the stored communication from the content creator is then delivered to the end user.

The ISP claim is a stupid as is possibly imaginable, easy proof, their claim basically is that an answer machine hooked into a phone service means that it is no longer a telecommunications service, or that a phone text message in not communications or that email is not communications or that forum posting in not communications or that chat is not communications or that instant messaging is not communications or a live video stream is not communications or that video chat is not communications. Their claim is so laughably stupid that the court should penalise them for making it.

Re:Interesting argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, are computers not involved in routing service for POTS service? PSTN isn't run anymore by manual operators and hasn't for some decades now.

Re:Interesting argument

[Anna Merikin]

This argument looks like a copyright infringer claiming copyright doesn't exist because the music, photo, whatever passed through a computer where it was deconstructed into ones and zeros, making it data, which is not able to be copyrighted.

Like the parents-murdered who threw himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.

IANAL, etc.

Re:Interesting argument

[ShanghaiBill]

Won't this make them responsible for any of the crap (death threats, libel, etc) that they distribute as part of them being an "information service"?

Yes, but with responsibility comes control. They will be able to censor and control what crosses their network, shut out competitors, and charge premiums. They will be able exploit their local monopolies to muscle into the content business.

Re:Interesting argument

[anegg]

Agreed. The original GENIE, AOL, COMPUSERVE etc. were "information services." The provider managed the content, or at least managed the forums within which the content was posted. Today's ISPs don't provide the information; they transport it from the provider to the consumer. They have dropped much of what was partially an information service - no more UseNet News, limited support for personal web sites, no FTP servers, often nothing more than electronic mail. So what if computers are involved - doesn't every communication medium more advanced than people shouting in the park use some kind of technology to encode/decode, store (on one end or the other or both) the actual transmission, etc.?

Re:Interesting argument

[VernonNemitz]

Modern high-definition TV, whether broadcast or supplied by cable, involves lots of computer processing. The concept of "communications" is about data getting moved, not how it gets moved.

Re: Interesting argument

[cyber-vandal]

Penalise is the British English spelling you fuckwit.

Re: Interesting argument

[kamath.ben]

Way to fight fallacy with fallacy. The point is that ISPs themselves generate no content. They are a pipe, and easily meet the description of a featureless service that T2 describes. I won't insult your intelligence, but who's interest is it in besides the ISPs to not be reclassified? It's seems obviously damaging to consumers and our infrastructure.

Re:Interesting argument

[KenDiPietro]

As memory serves, it was Kevin Martin who created the informational service distinction in as far as the current internet is concerned. I believe he did so thinkng that this would allow free enterprise the opportunity to build out our networks to which I would point out has been only partly successful.

And yes, I do see the FCC as "trying to change" the dynamics here so we can agree on that aspect of the discussion.

At the same time, to suggest that the Internet isn't rapidly taking over telecommunication is patently absurd. Next year, the POTS network will likely be scrapped and we have seen times when portions of our telecommunications network has been taken down due to weather incidents leaving people without the ability to call for help when they needed to.

More to the point, we have seen what was once considered to be the gold standard in the world for telecommunications become an embarrassment where one of our larger carriers actually ran advertisements asking "Can you hear me know?" Is this the communications network you believe our country should have?

Where we disagree (apparently) is that I believe the Internet is an infrastructure built for the common good and not as a cash delivery system for commerce. And while I have no issues with people using the net for business (I do so myself) the idea that corporations should have the ability to do whatever their profit margins tell them to do with our net is past absurd as far as I'm concerned.

United States Telecom Association

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States Telecom Association is arguing that its biggest service is not a telecom. Right...

The issue is not title 2

[Karmashock]

The issue is the franchise licenses that give cable companies last mile monopolies on internet service.

Open up last mile delivery of service to more providers... or you're handing ISPs a government backed monopoly contract.

Fiber optic cable is CHEAP. I could run cable from where I live to the trunk line for at most a couple grand... And that would service about 10 gigabit internet connections.

This whole issue is like the stupid debates we always have about entrenched government backed monopolies versus just "anyone"...

Look at what is happening with cellphones versus the land line providers. Land line prices are collapsing and that is because people are ditching them for cellphones which is a "less" monopolistic market.

Look, anyone that knows anything will tell you... give one company the ability to dictate prices and they're going to exploit it.

Period.

And the government really isn't any better here. You give the government the ability to dictate prices or control the service and they're going to do the same thing where they'll either slack off because you're not going to fire them if they're lazy... or they'll just bill you more through your taxes... and you can't even fire the fucks.

So look... if you want service that isn't shitty... you need some competition. You need people to be able to vote with their feet and their wallets. They have to be able to say "this service is shitty so I shall give it ZERO dollars and this service is superior so I shall give it whatever seems reasonable to me."

And that controls prices.

In any market or industry or situation where that is not happening market forces cannot control prices. Consumers have to have choices. And the choice between DSL and Cable is bullshit.

We shouldn't even be maintaining the copper lines anymore. Its fucking dumb. Fiber or choke on yak semen.

Re:The issue is not title 2

[Karmashock]

The cell towers buy internet bandwidth from wired networks and thus the cost of a cell tower is the cost of their share of land line bandwidth PLUS the cost of the tower.

Keep in mind further that the links that connect cities together either are not or REALLY should not be anything but fiber. If you're replacing cobber lines with more cobber lines... then you're dumb. Fiber is just cheaper. It should be what is run everywhere.

And while people will say "but we can't afford it"... I think they'd find the money damn quickly if competitors could run fiber along the same towers or in the same conduits to compete against them for customers.

They lethargy we see from the ISPs comes from the fact that people are legally forbidden on pain of getting their brains blown out from competing with them.

You cannot run competing cable. And that is why they fuck us.

As to cell phones being more expensive... this is a false comparison because you're not comparing the cost of JUST the cellphone telephone service. You're including the cost of text messaging and mostly the cellphone data services which are the bulk of those fees.

You can easily buy unlimited cellphone and texting plans for 25 USD. That's UNLIMITED. And if you want a metered plan then you can pay as little as 6 dollars a month if you're not using the system very much.

I'm personally paying about 18 dollars a month for my cell phone and I have a smartphone. I have a moto X second generation.

Now here people will say "but don't you miss anywhere wireless data"... about as much as you miss that on your laptop. Which is to say you care if you care but I think most people use wireless data because they basically get forced into it, dont' know how to turn it off, and then just get lazy about doing certain things.

A big one I hear all the time is "what about google maps, you need that right"... I have a lot of storage space on my phone and I use about 2 gigs of it for stored maps which gives me a comprehensive map of my own state and the four adjoining states. No data connection required. I turn on my GPS... that associates the GPS with the stored maps... and I can navigate just fine.

Here someone will say "what about email! Surely you need access to email at all times don't you!?"... no. Anyone that needs to get ahold of me right fucking now will call or text. I also have an email client set up on my home system that forwards alerts based on some message rules to my text message. Aka... I have some systems that will send me an email when something goes wrong with a system. That email is then forwarded to the text messaging gateway. I have a few of those set up for when some people email me. It doesn't send the whole email. It sends the name of the person and the subject line. Enough information for me to know whether I should turn on my data radio in my phone or not. I generally don't. I also find that wifi networks are pretty much ubiquitous at this point and all free. So what the fuck is the point? I spend 80 percent of my time inside one wifi hotspot or another. And in the remaining 20 percent... if you actually need me right MEOW... then fucking call or text you filthy barbarian.

Re:The issue is not title 2

[silas_moeckel]

Only 10gbps get a dark fiber run and you can cost effectively get to 80gbps via a cwdm passive mux.

We should be decoupling provider services and the last mile with an all passive all optical last mile. Providers can meet at the CO (or backhaul or pay others to backhaul) and hand off a CDWM channel to the muni. Macsec encryption can keep the muni from sniffing anything. If the muni is smart it rolls out muni access. Throw in IPv6 and it become easy to have a single router send things across the muni next vs their transit provider since using the closest match is a basic ipv6 function. So the muni gets a /32 or whatever thats 4 billion subnets and we can give out 4 billion of those. Now everybody has basic access to public services schools etc. Businesses pay a couple of line fee's to get a leased line in town well less than 100 a month for a 10ge to an expansion office or provider.

Re:The issue is not title 2

[Karmashock]

Yep. Exactly. The sad thing is that people's eyes glaze over when they see that and instead just say "hey ISP, I give you dictatorial control over the communication system of the entire community... because this is complicated and I don't want to deal with it."...

And the thing is that isn't that complicated really. What the City should be offering is conduits. A pipe in the ground where people can run cable. That's it.

I think politicians can manage empty pipes. If they can't... then gargling sulfuric acid mixed with hydrogen peroxide is probably the best use of their time.

So what.

[drew_92123]

EVERY call made in the US today is processed by "computers", long gone are the days when you had old style analog switches and rotary phones.

Since every call made is already processed in one way or another by a computer this has set a precedent over the past several decades that gives the FCC the legal power they need to enforce these rules.

Re:So what.

[drew_92123]

Last I checked(it's been 15+ years) voice calls are 56kbps over a 64k channel(the extra was for signalling I believe) and data is 64kbps. Modem calls count as voice.

Back in the day when telcos starting doing more voip internally on their networks and I was still working for an ISP we noticed that our users were getting unusually slow connections and a lot of dropped calls.

After a few calls to our rep at PacBell she got to the bottom of it... according to her and a manager she brought on the live they were "upgrading" they network to carry more voice traffic by using voip and compressing the audio to save $$$... sometimes their equipment didn't recognize the call being made as coming from a modem and so would compress the audio and screw with the connections.

Turns out that there was an easy way around it. The compression was only happening on local calls when dialing 7 digits, so we had our users dial 10 digits and their connections were fine again.

I have no idea if that little trick still works or not, though I imagine if they *are* still compressing the calls trying to save bandwidth that their detection of modem/fax signals has been fixed... or at least I would hope.

Anywho... seems I'm rambling a bit... guess I'll stop now. ;-)

Re:Common carriers are for cows.

[kheldan]

Yes, AC. The cow says 'moo'.
The pig says 'oink'.
The chickens say 'cluck cluck'.
The horse says 'neigh'.
The duck says 'quack quack'.
The geese say 'honk honk'.
The sheep say 'baaaa'.
The dog says 'woof'.
The frog says 'ribbit'.
The coyote says 'aaaahwoooooo'.
The rooster says 'cockadoodledoo!'.
The cat says 'meow'.
And the turkey says 'gooble gobble'.
Now please go play with your See and Say quietly somewhere else, k? The adults are having a conversation, sweetie. If you're good, maybe you'll get a cookie later.

************
Now, then, ISPs: I have only one thing to say about them and all their little temper tantrums they keep having: MUH PROFIT MARGIN. Get over it, ISPs, and get correct.

more interesting when the FCC said the same thing

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument was even more interesting 13 years ago when the FCC ruled "that cable modem service is properly classified as an interstate information service and is therefore subject to FCC jurisdiction." https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html

You might think that gives the ISPs a slam-dunk case, but what makes this complex is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's decision in the Portland case, which classified cable modem service as both an "information service" and "telecommunications service." Since Congress hasn't passed subsequent laws to pick between those choices, the FCC most likely has the freedom to freely switch between the two...

Re:Common carriers are for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fox sez " Vote republican"

Long distance since the 80's, anyone?

[BronsCon]

So, AT&T long distance service hasn't been a telecommunications service but, instead, an information service since the 1980's because computers? Go ahead, AT&T, back this argument, retroactively lose common carrier status for your long distance network from the moment you computerized it, and for your POTS network from the moment you merged with the mini-Bells. I wonder how many of the felonies that were committed while utilizing your network are still within their statute of limitations...

Re:more interesting when the FCC said the same thi

[sumdumass]

The Portland case doesn't really say that. It basically says that information services use telecommunication services to develop and deliver the information services. It in essence says cable companies were telecommunication companies when they offer telecommunications services carrying information services over their infrastructure.

http://www.techlawjournal.com/...

The news brief you linked to was about the FCC using this to develop and roll out broadband because it now has authority that can restrict or override local franchising boards.

I don't think it is a matter of being able to switch between the two rather that the lines between the two are getting blurred. For instance, you use a telecommunications service to transmit an information service but when it is IP telephony (like Vonage), you are transmitting a telecommunications service over a telecommunications service as if it was an information service.

Sure!

[Lumpy]

Honestly, force internet to be like a utility. dont let them be for profit and force them to spend at last 50% of all profits on infrastructure build out.

These asshole CEO's don't want to do the right thing, then it needs to be done at gunpoint with regulations and laws. Let the SWAT teams raid a CEO office for once instead of a poor persons house.