Cable Companies Urge Judges To Kill 'Net Neutrality' Rules

An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Trade associations representing wireless, cable and broadband operators on Friday urged the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse...the Federal Communications Commission's so-called net neutrality rules, put in place last year to make internet service providers treat all internet traffic equally...

The cable groups said the court should correct "serious errors" in a decision "that radically reshapes federal law governing a massive sector of the economy, which flourished due to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment made in reliance on the policy the order throws overboard".. In its filing on Friday, the CTIA said it was illegal to subject broadband internet access to "public-utility style, common carrier regulation" and illegal to impose "common-carrier status on mobile broadband."
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he wasn't surprised to see "the big dogs" challenging net neutrality.

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Comments

They should be fined for acting like babies

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was a judge and someone was trying to change a law that prevents extortion and other organized crime style corruption, I'd fine them and kick them out of the courtroom. But maybe this judge takes bribes.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

On the other hand, one would like elected officials to pass a law changing the status of such a massive thing, and not just do something Congress did not envision with that law. This is a massive sector for unelected officials to rewrite.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

This is a massive sector for unelected officials to rewrite.

It needs to be rewritten. It's past time to turn the internet (into a dumb pipe) and even cellular service into a public utility, just like the land line. If Congress won't do it, the courts must. And if they don't, we need to put the initiative on the ballot. We endure lousy service only because of public apathy.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Obfuscant]

If Congress won't do it, the courts must.

The courts are not supposed to be in the business of writing law. That means if Congress won't do it, the courts have even less business doing it.

And if they don't, we need to put the initiative on the ballot.

You wish for a patchwork of internet regulation on a state-by-state basis? What a minefield that would be.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[mishehu]

If Congress won't do it, the courts must.

The courts are not supposed to be in the business of writing law. That means if Congress won't do it, the courts have even less business doing it.

Playing semantics is pointless. By interpreting the law, the courts essentially write it. It's simply a different process, and they don't write new, original laws, only taking in ones that already exist.

And if they don't, we need to put the initiative on the ballot.

You wish for a patchwork of internet regulation on a state-by-state basis? What a minefield that would be.

Where does he say that it should be a on state-by-state basis?

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[AK Marc]

The law was passed in 1996. The FCC thinks the law gives them some powers, those who would lose their ability to hold customers hostage disagree. The law is sufficiently vague that it appears the FCC has the powers. The law was sufficiently vague so that the regulations would have force of law, and the FCC would have the flexibility to react to the industry, without having to go back to Congress every year with pules of laws needed to keep up. That was by design. If you are against "activist judges" re-writing law, then the FCC has the power, as that was the intent in 1996.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[AK Marc]

The FCC is supposed to be writing the rules. That's what the law says. Cable Companies are trying to strike down the FCC, because the law gives the FCC the power to write regulations.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[AK Marc]

There is no process for putting an initiative on the ballot at a federal level, but many for doing that at a state level. So the comment about putting initiatives on the ballot must be about doing it at a state-level.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

We need to demand that any judge who gives the cable companies more than the time of day should be impeached. Like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, democracy requires audience participation to be effective.

Re: They should be fined for acting like babies

[stevedog]

Actually, this is exactly what the law was intended for. ISPs have been common carriers (in function) ever since the internet became a staple, rather than a novelty, in the average American life. They managed to keep this change at bay for a while, despite their deployments being almost entirely subsidized by federal, state, and local funding and frequently claiming protection under Title II (guess which title "common carrier" falls under?) in order to make their installations easier. Furthermore, at this point, there is nothing carried by telephone lines that anyone would consider more important than what is carried across internet fiber, and thus no law that applies to ensuring the integrity of the handling of telephone line transmission that shouldn't apply to ISP data transmission.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[mishehu]

Or perhaps it's just a figure of speech meaning "make enough noise to get the federal legislature to do something about it" ? I don't know, and I don't feel like assuming what the original poster meant by it.

Re: They should be fined for acting like babies

[hackwrench]

And I would say that the only way to achieve a just ends is through just means.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[LifesABeach]

Cable types hate Net Neutrality? My nipples are so sensitive, excuse my rubbing of them. Now, Net Neutrality means that Cable companies can't rip the community off? Oh, my nipples, they seem to need more rubbing. Maybe the Cable companies should sell off their Internet interest? Oh god; my nipples are just longing for more rubbing. Apologies to South Park

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Anonymous Coward]

It cost a fortune to fly anywhere.

At least you knew when you purchased the ticket what the price was. Now there are so many hidden fees that most people have no idea how much a trip is actually going to cost. And some of the pricing is still designed to rip people off, a trip from California to Osaka Japan costs LESS then a trip to Houston Texas. And I remember reading on Slashdot about some trick where you could buy a ticket to a destination with a layover where you actually wanted to go and then not bother to re-board the plane and it would cost you half as much. So don't tell me that deregulation is always a good thing. Corporations have proven time and time again that they NEED regulation in order to keep their profit margins out of the triple digit range.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Obfuscant]

Or perhaps it's just a figure of speech meaning "make enough noise to get the federal legislature to do something about it" ?

No. There is no federal initiative process, and NO BALLOT TO PUT IT ON. Here in the USA we do not have a true national election. The highest level election (and thus "ballot") is the state level. All the gum flapping you read in your papers about the "winner" of the "popular vote" for President (the only national elected office now that Pres and VP are combined) is just gum flapping. There are state elections which result state winners, and a process to select the final winner from that. "Adding up all the votes for X and Y" isn't how the winner is selected and is a quite meaningless number.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Obfuscant]

The Constitution is just bad toilet paper if it is a hindrance to its purpose, which is in service to the citizenry.

The purpose of the Constitution is not to give everyone their little heart's desire. It's to put a limit on the federal government. It is not the purpose of the federal government to give everyone their little heart's desire, either. "My internet service isn't good enough" isn't a problem that the US government and the Constitution were created to solve.

Especially applicable in this case, where the means are not necessarily repugnant,

Yes, the means are repugnant. When a court steps in to start legislating it is repugnant. When it steps in to set internet service rates is would be especially so.

There's no law against initiatives, or other prohibition, and Article V is conceptually applicable.

Article V speaks to amendments to the constitution, not the creation of a federal election system with ballot initiatives. Many people believe the state level initiative process is significantly broken and wasteful, and trying to scale it up to a new federal system would be a disaster. Were there to be authority to do such a thing in the first place.

Ah, but the prices are related,

No, they aren't. What you pay for service has nothing to do with net neutrality. Nothing at all.

besides, the Supreme Court can just farm the task out.

No, they cannot. They cannot do it themselves, they cannot hire someone to do it for them. They have no authority to mandate prices for internet service.

So do I, but it was despite everything Comcast and AT&T could do.

So you are using one of the many other ISPs, then. Otherwise, "everything" means "not provide any service" and you'd have no internet service. Funny how the presence of other ISPs means there isn't really any need for SCOTUS to regulate ISP prices. And no reason to create an authority for it.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

There is no end to your hatred of the cable companies and no end to the means you will go to to destroy them, is there?

Wrong again. I want to make them have to compete, and to be declared a public utility. Nothing about destruction there. Their lawsuits are clearly frivolous, but their money and the purchase of legislation always buys them time.

You know those people who make up cable companies are part of the democracy that gets to participate, don't you?

They are purchasing and receiving special privileges, not participating in the democratic process. They are super-predators and thugs. I only want a balance of power.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Ramze]

Executive orders are when presidents (heads of the executive branch) give orders to federal agents under their command. The internet is regulated by the FCC -- an independent executive organization outside of the president's chain of command. A president giving an order to any person or agency not under their command would be null and void. Obama could issue an executive order for all ice cream shops to give out free ice cream on Thursdays, and it would be null and void. It's nonsensical to give an order to anyone who doesn't take orders from you.

As for federal courts, judges only take cases from those with standing and with which the court has jurisdiction... so... since the FCC is the only federal agency with the authority to regulate the internet, what grievance do you have with the FCC (or your ISP if it's a federal issue) that personally affects you that you want to sue and/or prosecute them for doing? Considering how federal court rulings generally only apply to the district level, even if you were successful in petitioning a federal district court judge to take your case, and you somehow won based on federal law, any decision, verdict, and/or ruling would only apply to that District... the other 8 Districts wouldn't have to do jack about it --unless others won cases there as well... and then maybe it'd head to the supreme court.

The thing is, you're stuck with the FCC. Congress gave them the authority to do as they like with the internet. We're lucky it's now common carrier under Title II. Maybe one day they'll decide it's a utility and regulate it further. Maybe.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Hylandr]

Having lived through and remember the era of phone company monopoly that was destroyed by the courts in the early 80's I vastly prefer not to suffer under that same heal for any length of time. The Judges decision is timely, or would you prefer history repeat itself first?

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[no1nose]

The current FCC has no actual power (balls).

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Dog-Cow]

You are a fucked-up retard. Stop with the "designed by the military" shit. Arpanet was designed by universities and private companies. The funding and direction came from DARPA, but that's it. It was a way to share computing resources between institutions. They never envisioned home Internet connections, never mind cellular phones and IoT.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[bluefoxlucid]

Congress created laws for this already, and the President issued an executive order creating the FCC to enact those laws. By not acting, Congress is stating their position on the matter: the FCC was created to decide how this works, and Congress sees no need to intervene.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

Having lived through and remember the era of phone company monopoly

Me too... That's why I don't want the judges to give in to these companies' frivolities. What makes internet "duopolies" any better? Common carrier, public utility, and competition are all steps in the right direction. What have I posted to contradict that?

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

the FCC was created to decide how this works, and Congress sees no need to intervene.

Unless the FCC fails to enforce the rules.

And we still need the judges to fine the companies for wasting the court's time instead allowing these cases to drag out.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[stealth_finger]

There is no end to your hatred of the cable companies and no end to the means you will go to to destroy them, is there?

I'm not American so don't have to deal with them but from the impression I get isn't that what they do to you?

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[stealth_finger]

Prices have nothing to do with net neutrality,

Prices have everything to do with it. Cable Co. want rid of it so they can apply premiums, multiple rates and generally charge you more for everything. Everyone else wants it so they can pay for the internet and get the internet.

I have proper internet service.

You won't if net neutrality is gone, unless you want to get your wallet out again that is.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[bluefoxlucid]

There is no "unless". If Congress looks at the FCC, determines what they're doing is in line with the best judgment of the FCC given their specialized expertise and their mission, and takes no action, then Congress has determined that the FCC is doing what the FCC is supposed to do. They don't need to pass a new law stating that the FCC's current actions are all fine by Congress and require no remediation at this time.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[oh_my_080980980]

Just fuck off troll. The FCC has the authority. We the people are sick of the lack of competition and ISP taking Billions of tax payer dollars and not delivering what they were contracted to do.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[silentcoder]

>When a court steps in to start legislating it is repugnant

That is literally what the ENTIRETY of all common law consists off - and most hardcore libertarian types consider common law the ONLY justifiable type.

Of course they are insane, and we do need governmental law as well - but to suggest that judges legislating is some massively anti-liberty idea or repugnant to the separation of powers is grossly ignorant. Legislating is, in fact, a time-honored and fundamental part of being a judge - seperation of powers ONLY comes into play when the issue being judged is ALREADY a matter of law the legislative branch.

Why could net neutrality NOT be implemented based on existing common-law principles ? They would in fact greatly support it, and judges extending it that way would be perfectly acceptable, not violate separation in the least and be far less prone to problems of regulatory capture, bribery^H^H^H^H^H^H^lobbying and abuse.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Grishnakh]

I think maybe we should do the opposite: we should give them exactly what they're asking for. We should exempt them from Common Carrier status, and let them regulate traffic on their network however they see fit.

However, by not being common carriers and having that status and protection, they become fully liable for all traffic on their network. So if any crimes at all are committed using their network, they are fully liable, including criminally. If someone gets hacked and it went over a company's wires, that company's executives get convicted of accessory to hacking and sent to prison. If terrorists use the internet for recruiting members and propagandizing, and that traffic goes over a company's wires, that company's executives go to prison for aiding and abetting terrorists.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

Sorry, the idea is ludicrous on many fronts, and I can hardly take it seriously. All you will see on the internet would be cat pictures. We are supposed to keep it open. Censorship is evil.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[lsatenstein]

If Congress won't do it, the courts must.

The courts are not supposed to be in the business of writing law. That means if Congress won't do it, the courts have even less business doing it.

And if they don't, we need to put the initiative on the ballot.

You wish for a patchwork of internet regulation on a state-by-state basis? What a minefield that would be.

If Congress won't do it, the courts must.

The courts are not supposed to be in the business of writing law. That means if Congress won't do it, the courts have even less business doing it.

And if they don't, we need to put the initiative on the ballot.

You wish for a patchwork of internet regulation on a state-by-state basis? What a minefield that would be.

I dont mind if the government does allow the law to be struck down but only if and only if the government puts in an alternative IP Highway. The government provides interstate transportation, it should provide communication transportation.

My province, (Quebec) nationalized the distribution and generation of electricity. It was done so that remote areas could get electricity at the same cost as city dwellers. Today, we have one of the cheapest electricity rates in North America. I wish they would do the same for data, cellphones -- communications.

  The internet is too indispensible to be left in the hands of ISPs / Cable companies. A national grid is required. The cable companies could still make money. They would be able to provide faster communications as the way for them to earn a profit, provided they use their own grid.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[Grishnakh]

Why is it "ludicrous"? Do you have any real reasoning as to why it wouldn't work? The whole point of Common Carrier status is that it's a bargain: the telecom company gets immunity for information passing over its network in exchange for not interfering with that information. It was devised back in the telephone days, so that the telephone company didn't have legal liability for their communications system being used to abet crimes, in exchange for them not interfering with communications, and treating all calls the same. The same principle applies here.

So if these telecom companies don't want it, maybe they shouldn't have it forced on them. So then they lose the immunity aspect, and become completely liable for anything criminal their networks are used for. That should very quickly solve the problem: with all the telecoms executives in prison (which should be very easy to do given the volume of traffic and the number of crimes committed, including hacking, phishing, copyright infringement, etc.), the companies won't be able to operate any more, and the companies will be sold off for peanuts to new companies which will either suffer the same fate or accept Common Carrier status and net neutrality. Why shouldn't they have the choice? The problem I see is that they're not being given that choice in those terms.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[fustakrakich]

Do you have any real reasoning as to why it wouldn't work?

*sigh* Guess I gotta say everything twice... "Censorship is evil."

The government and companies all want to control content, out of perceived necessity for their survival.

Let's try to keep things simple, ok? No more charades. No need to argue. Common carrier, take it or leave it. The phone company does just fine. We have to demand the same for internet.

Re:They should be fined for acting like babies

[beastofburdon]

I'd love to sit back and watch those bastards rot in prison too.

comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Joe_Dragon]

comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and not just HSI + HBO GO.

Re:comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Anonymous Coward]

Look no further than Canada to see what a lack of net neutrality looks like
1) Expensive (minimum $85 to get ANY internet service)
2) Unbundled packages save you nothing
3) To get things like HBO, you have to spend over $100 in package bundles
4) Each carrier has their own garbage-tier VOD service that only has the last 1 or 2 episodes, and sometimes not even that if it's a childrens show. This is because they came with their own Netflix-clones for watching entire seasons of the exact same VOD material.
5) And if you switch carriers, you have to pay for data on top of the subscription cost to use those netflix-clones.

Basically the Canadian carriers are trying to "kill netflix" by using the bandwidth caps against it's users and then go "but you can use Shomi if you use Rogers/Shaw, or Crave if you use Bell/Telus for only another $10 per month" when you can pay an extra $15 and just get the unmetered package.

The requirement, should be: The Cable, Telephone, and Fiber networks shall only be a "dumb pipe", any content can go over it. The congestion controls should be set at the switching points, not the ISP. If a neighborhood is "saturated" then that neighborhood is checked for who is using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth, sent a "speeding ticket" that tells them they will be downgraded to 8Mbits until they explain how they are using that bandwidth.

Re:comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Obfuscant]

Look no further than Canada to see what a lack of net neutrality looks like 1) Expensive (minimum $85 to get ANY internet service)

Has nothing to do with net neutrality.

2) Unbundled packages save you nothing

Also not net neutrality.

3) To get things like HBO, you have to spend over $100 in package bundles

You are batting 0.000 for net neutrality issues so far.

4) Each carrier has their own garbage-tier VOD service

Comcast OnDemand isn't an internet service, it's a cable TV service. Not net neutrality.

5) And if you switch carriers, you have to pay for data on top of the subscription cost to use those netflix-clones.

Uhh, what? You have to pay for data to get data? I'm at a loss what you're talking about here.

The requirement, should be: The Cable, Telephone, and Fiber networks shall only be a "dumb pipe", any content can go over it.

How is paying Rogers for Shomi different than paying Netflix for Netflix, and what does it have to do with "any content can go over it?"

The congestion controls should be set at the switching points, not the ISP.

Uhhh, so an ISP cannot ever allow any congestion within their own switching network? What if the "switching points" with the congestion are inside the ISP network?

If a neighborhood is "saturated" then that neighborhood is checked for who is using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth, sent a "speeding ticket" that tells them they will be downgraded to 8Mbits until they explain how they are using that bandwidth.

So I get downgraded to 8Mbps and have to explain how I am using my bandwidth because my neighbor is hogging all the bandwidth and got caught? Wow.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[AK Marc]

Bandwidth isn't water, its not going to run out and they can simply add capacity.

Water falls from the sky and is free, yet they meter for that. But you think bandwidth with actual capacity costs is free?

If they need to spend $10k to upgrade a link, should they have the cost spread among the 1GB per month users, or the 1TB per month users? The 1TB users, like you, want it split evenly by connection, when the benefit is almost exclusively for you. That's why the metering and caps exist.

Selfish assholes like you want free bandwidth, at the expense of others.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[runningduck]

The problem is two-fold: 1) carriers have been selling oversubscribed bandwidth and then complaining when people hit the actual limits, and 2) the public wants everybody else to pay to their incessant over-consumption of bandwidth. If carriers want to sell an unlimited bandwidth package then they should charge enough to cover the costs. And if people want the unlimited bandwidth package they should pay for it.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[cbeaudry]

Water is free.

Treated water is not.

Re:comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Ramze]

VOD is actually a sticking point with ISPs and the FCC.

Modern cable systems are digital, and they push content... so a video on demand service from a cable service is extremely similar to any other video on demand service -- like Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon. The FCC has warned ISPs not to degrade the quality of other VOD services to favor their own, but they can provide their own for free or for a fee to compete with others.

The sticking point is net metering -- should cable companies be allowed to exclude their own VOD services from data metering while counting the streaming from others VODs as data that goes towards metering? Some say it should be excluded because it is on the cable company's network and they don't have to pay a fee to pull it over an internet connection. Others say data is data, and excluding it from metering is unfair and might harm other VOD services from competing with non-metered data. Cable companies might even heavily raise fees and impose data caps to strangle VOD competition.

The latest Time Warner Cable + Charter merger requires them not to meter internet connections for another 5 years... so, for TWC/Charter, that can is kicked down the road a bit.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Pascoea]

I use about a terabyte a month all of it on legal content. I'm either streaming video or downloading something from steam.

How may people do you have in your house? I have 4 that pretty much do nothing but sit on the internet when they aren't at work/school. I use about 350GB consistently month to month

Are you deleting your steam games and re-downloading every time you want to play them? I just can't fathom how a residential customer downloads 1TB/month consistently with just Netflix and Steam.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Grishnakh]

Sure, water falls from the sky and if you want to drill a well, install a pump, and connect it to your house, you are free to do that. If you want it cleaned/filtered, the water company is happy to provide that and will charge you based on the size pipe running from your meter.

Not true. Most places will not allow you to just drill a well; any municipality will not. If everyone in a city drilled a well, it'd be a disaster; aquifers would be depleted or worse. Only rural dwellers are allowed to do this because the population density is low.

What *is* usually free and allowed (except in some weird western states like Colorado) is collecting rainwater. If you want to route your house's gutters into some tanks and collect rainwater and then drink it, go ahead. However I wouldn't want to drink that stuff. You could filter it yourself, and install a pump to pressurize it so your taps in your house all work, but that's going to cost money for equipment and electricity.

With a water utility, you're paying for multiple things: the purification and treatment of the water itself, and also the pressurization (which requires a non-trivial amount of power; the pumps they use are huge). You're likely also paying either a combined or separate sewer fee to take away your wastewater, so that you don't have to find space for a septic field and then pay for its maintenance.

Re:comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[Obfuscant]

so a video on demand service from a cable service is extremely similar to any other video on demand service -- like Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon.

Except Comcast's isn't. It is delivered like a regular cable channel, encrypted, and the STB is instructed to tune to that channel. It's isn't a dedicated data stream. In fact, before they started encrypting those feeds, it was quite fun to use a digital tuner to scan for any OnDemand and watch along with your neighbors. It was great. They would skip the ads for you, and rewind to rewatch the interesting bits.

Different delivery system, different part of the available bandwidth.

Some say it should be excluded because it is on the cable company's network and they don't have to pay a fee to pull it over an internet connection.

1. For Comcast, it isn't data. OnDemand is a TV channel. No, they shouldn't "meter" it because they don't meter any other data for any other TV channel.

2. For on-net originated data on the internet service, they save money because it doesn't have to cross a border from some other network provider. They pass that savings on to the customer by not metering it. Would you rather they keep the money as profit?

That's a big downside to "net neutrality". Everyone has to pay for everything the same way because it is "unfair" otherwise. Even if the provider is able to save money on some services, they can't pass that on to the sub because of "net neutrality". Binge On is a perfect example of that.

Isn't it shooting yourself in the foot to demand that you be charged the costs of the most expensive way of handling data all the time just so nobody is treated "unfairly"?

Cable companies might even heavily raise fees and impose data caps to strangle VOD competition.

That they shouldn't do. But there are a huge number of "mights" that we can come up with to improve our hate of cable companies. They might deliberately route gaming packets via satellite unless you give them your first-borne child. They might randomly drop bits in your packets unless you sacrifice a goat at every full moon.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[david_thornley]

Untreated water is not necessarily free in quantity in a certain areas. Many places have adequate water for the taking, and many don't. California was having a serious drought for a while, and if there had been an unlimited source of free water there would have been no problem.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[dywolf]

they meter for the water that's been pulled from the river/reservoir, filtered, disinfected, and delivered to your house.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv and

[AK Marc]

Well yeah, like an ISP has to pay to get the content to your house. Water and content are "free", but the service of getting them to your house isn't, and both are often limited or metered.

News at 11:

[Type44Q]

News at 11: Liars lie.

Common Carrier

[jasnw]

It would serve them right if the court just turned around and declared that cable and internet service providers are all in the category of "common carriers" and should be regulated and controlled as such. Bazinga.

Re:Common Carrier

[Obfuscant]

It would serve them right if the court just turned around and declared that cable and internet service providers are all in the category of "common carriers" and should be regulated and controlled as such. Bazinga.

Cable television certainly isn't a common carrier. Not even close. It is a video distribution system. One way.

Re: Common Carrier

[nehumanuscrede]

Their video distribution service may be one way, but the ISP side of their house certainly isn't.

It's also not a separate company from the one who provides you your internet.

Thus, unless they spin the business off into it's own subsidiary, they would find themselves attached at the hip to the regulated side of the business.

Something they wouldn't care much for.

However, breaking off has its own issues as well. Like not getting a free ride across those Comcast owned data pipes.

Re:Common Carrier

[Ramze]

Common carrier has nothing to do with whether something is unidirectional, bidirectional, or omnidirectional.

Any service that allows anyone to pay a fee to have their goods &/or services picked up from one location and delivered to another is a common carrier. Airlines, telephone companies, electric companies, freight and railway companies, and internet service providers are all common carriers... because they "carry" a thing from A to B for a fee -- generally from any random member of the public.

The key term is "common" -- as opposed to a contracted or private carrier.

You are correct that Cable TV is not a common carrier... mostly. The FCC does require cable TV providers to carry broadcast TV stations within their respective areas (with some restrictions) The key being they don't just broadcast whatever any random person wants for fee. They could, but it'd be a nightmare for scheduling, payment, censorship, etc. They contract with individual stations, networks, and networks of networks to broadcast rather than allow just anyone to pay to push content to peoples' homes.

Re:Common Carrier

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be common carriers. That is what Net Neutrality is supposed to mean. This also shields them from Kiddie pr0n lawsuits.
If they want to be able to packet filter, they should then be liable for ANY problems that come across their net. pr0n, virus, fraud and any other conspiracies.
If you know what is in the package, you are part of the conspiracy.
They cannot be allowed to have it both ways. (pr0n pun intended)

Re:Common Carrier

[Obfuscant]

You are correct that Cable TV is not a common carrier... mostly. The FCC does require cable TV providers to carry broadcast TV stations within their respective areas (with some restrictions)

When I say "common carrier" in this context, I mean "should be treated under the law as a common carrier". And that "some restrictions" is a pretty big one. They aren't required to carry broadcast stations unless the station demands it. Most stations have found out it is financially better for them to demand payment for carriage instead of using must-carry. I'm sure there are some small independents that still demand must-carry, but the major broadcasters don't.

The key being they don't just broadcast whatever any random person wants for fee. They could, but it'd be a nightmare for scheduling, payment, censorship, etc.

Many cable systems have what's called PEG -- public, education and government -- channels that are available to the public (and education and government) users. It's no problem in scheduling, usually it is free, but yes, the content can be a problem. Unless the cable company structures the public access correctly.

And Comcast in my area has at least two "leased access" channels for other paying customers to use. Until the LDS arranged their own full-time channel, they used to transmit the yearly conference from St. Lake City on such a leased channel.

Throttling!

[Anonymous Coward]

Throttling baby!

I don't mind it, I'll throttle my bills too.

From month to month I'll change my service tier, fry "your" modem, and pay the bill in anywhere from 0.05 to 0.25 increments, by cheque, by mail.

I'll complain that the internet is slow on X networks, and I'll hapilly post my speed test results. Good luck maintaining your "fastest in X" category.

For heavy downloading, that is where the Microsoft store, and apple store come in. I'll hapilly use your bandwidth, sure, I'll purchase a 20.00 mouse, and then return it the next day.

The cable box will be treated with impunity. It will sit in a sealed box with no ventilation. I'll actively pump heat into it to make SURE it dies early, all on your dime of course. Power conditioner? For the cable box, I'll introduce noise, good luck having your "Technicians" diagnose random reboots.

That in addition to running whatever ad blocker, popup blocker, virus blocker that I can find. Don't worry, the tech can diagnose my Windows 98 machine that I will keep handy, and loaded with spyware.

I'll change my DNS server to google, but don't worry, the Windows 98 box will run some bogus queries to keep you happy.

Force me to become a WiFi access point? I hope you like DeAuth attacks. Heck, I'll configure a few RasPi's to be portable DeAuth spammers. At 5.00 a piece, I can littler the neighbourhood with them.

Re:Throttling!

[Quzak]

I love you AC. You are a hero!

Re:Kill Violently Imposed Monopolies

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

A video byte is a video byte -- except when it isn't and it gets a free pass.

This is an attempt to stop them from acting like a gateway charging access. It isn't the difference between gramma'e email and Netflix. It is Netflix and some cable company's new video service.

Do you like the cable company selling you a service at a speed, then demanding, secretly, a cut of what you pay Netflix, or the cable company will crappify your Netflix video -- making a lie out of what they promised you for the cable service?

Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[PvtVoid]

Never mind that nothing fits the definition of "common carrier" better than a service which sends packets over the inter-tubes. If the Cable Co's want to argue in court that they aren't common carriers, that is terribly dangerous for them: it sets a precedent that means that they are not afforded the protections given common carriers under the law, most important immunity from prosecution for transmission of illegal content.

Careful what you wish for, Comcast.

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[fustakrakich]

One of the reasons they don't want to be a public utility is that they want those censorship powers. If they had their way, all you would get is Facebook and Amazon.

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[Zocalo]

Yeah, that argument keeps coming up; "Net Neutratility or Common Carrier Status - just pick one already!" Seriously though, if the cable operators were to lose their common carrier status what do you think they'd do? Come down like an anvil on content and install non-optional and over-reaching filters, transparent proxy use and draconian levels of logging across the board, perhaps? Realistically, pretty much anything that will let them produce log files that pass the buck squarely onto the end user when anyone who cares to ask comes knocking seems rather inevitiable I think but, if we're lucky, I suppose they *might* insist on a warrant before they hand over the data. Probably not though; unneccessary processess and paperwork takes up employee time, and that costs money!

Be careful what *we* wish for as well...

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[Bartles]

Are you saying they didn't receive protection for transmission of illegal content until they were classified as CC this year? Something doesn't sound right with your argument.

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[geekmux]

One of the reasons they don't want to be a public utility is that they want those censorship powers. If they had their way, all you would get is Facebook and Amazon.

Uh, they are a US capitalist company. Therefore, all they "want" is to secure revenue. If they had their way, you would get billed separately for your Facebook and Amazon "channels".

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[bluefoxlucid]

Until recently, we might not have had an official explanation for why ISPs don't have strict control over content flowing across their pipes, and so handwaved liability based on common sense. Now, with rules and definitions in place, we have decided that an entity which asserts that it has control over what type of content it delivers must also have *responsibility* for that content.

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[bluefoxlucid]

So child pornography and its production shouldn't be criminalized behaviors? Look, I'm explicitly not a family-values politician, and even I think that's loony.

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[fustakrakich]

Same difference

Re:Really? Arguing against Common Carrier?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are saying without Common Carrier protections, the ISP can be held liable for *any* illegal content crossing through their network, whether it's Ghostbusters3, WorldOfWarcraft "free" servers, child porn, or extortion like emails. All it takes for that to kick is to show that you are able to selectively filter/block data.

Insulting the judge's intelligence

[quax]

"billions of dollars of investment"

If they spent this much money without taking into account that this legislation could come down the pike they'd be amateurs.

Of course this is just a smokescreen, they did the math up front. This is still profitable, just not as much as it could be.

Re:Insulting the judge's intelligence

[Calydor]

Those are the billions of TAX PAYER dollars they were given to build out the infrastructure, but they leave out that little detail.

Re:Insulting the judge's intelligence

[quax]

Good point.

Re:Insulting the judge's intelligence

[ausekilis]

Further, where have those billions of tax payer dollars gone?

We have no appreciable competition with other developed countries for overall speed/price parity.
We don't even have local competition within a municipality, often it's the choice between cable and DSL... Two technologies that, while similar, are not real competition with one another. If anything, DSL's slower overall speed is incentive for cable to slow the F down and match price.
Over the past 15 years that I recall, speeds have gone from 50Mbps to 100 Mbps, for roughly three or four times the price.

How exactly have those billions of dollars been spent on upgrading networks and building the US's comm. infrastructure? By letting the big boys buy each other out?

Re:Insulting the judge's intelligence

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Right--the cable ISP business is profitable already, to the tune of an ~90% profit margin. What they're really bitching about here is being blocked from attempting to double-dip and charge two parties for the same bandwidth instead of the current total of one.

Re:Insulting the judge's intelligence

[Calydor]

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pu...

Well no kidding

[HalAtWork]

Why work to earn loyal customers when you can just tip the scales against your competition?

In addition

[fred911]

They also asked the Judge for an emergency injunction to require their customers to submit to further sodomy,

Give the carriers a choice

[rossz]

Tell them, you have two choices:

1. You accept common carrier status, net neutrality, and you are not held liable for content you carry.
2. You are not a common carrier, you can do what you want with traffic, but you take full responsibility for all illegal net traffic.

Choose wisely.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[Obfuscant]

Here's the excluded middle you've ignored: they are allowed to shape traffic as necessary to manage bandwidth and the people who send the illegal content are the ones responsible for it. There can be congestion that slows border traffic which is content agnostic, and having to inspect each packet to make a legality determination will only make it slower.

I hope you realize that they don't have to inspect the content to be able to prioritize services which need higher QoS and lower latency. A Skype call that talks about subversive overthrow of the US Government will look no different than a Skype call talking about Aunt Martha's cookie recipe, yet the latter is clearly a violation of several federal laws of patent and DMCA.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking idiot. I don't say that lightly, but it's necessary.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[Obfuscant]

For the ACs who are jumping up and down saying you can't tell what kind of traffic is what ... there are still well known ports for many services. A whole list of them. And even DD-WRT has the ability to set QoS for port ranges etc.

If you want to hide what kind of traffic you're sending so no QoS can be applied in transit, fine. Accept the congestion that undifferentiated traffic can be subject to.

As for the yammering about how these awful monopolies ... stop. There is no monopoly for ISP service. None.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[Ramze]

QoS is tedious and nearly impossible to set up and maintain properly and fairly. The easiest and most cost-beneficial way to use it is to favor content and services the ISP/Cable provider offers -- to the detriment of other providers. Also, QoS is basically useless for prioritizing anything over an encrypted VPN... and it's highly dependent on applications being fair and sticking to RFCs. All one has to do is write a program to send their data with a different packet header that lies and says the data is a critical VOIP packet to get routed into the fast lane -- unless the fast lane only allows packets with certain origin or destination IP addresses.

QoS was for private networks with limited resources that could control what was on their networks (and their employees, PCs, and apps to some extent). In the wild, it's just a way for corporations to favor their own services.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[fedos]

Wow, and I thought your first post would be the dumbest thing I read today.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[oh_my_080980980]

I guess you are not aware of Franchise agreements and why Comcast argued it should be able to purchase Time Warner Cable because they don't compete in the same markets.

Trolling for the cable companies gets you no where.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[Obfuscant]

I guess you are not aware of Franchise agreements

Yes, I am very familiar with franchise agreements, because I have been on the local cable regulatory commission in two of the localities I've lived in. I've read those franchises, and the franchises of many other municipalities. I've asked multiple time for anyone to point me to an exclusive franchise and nobody has yet been able to show me one. There is a reason for that.

I guess you are not aware that by federal law franchise agreements are NOT ALLOWED to be exclusive. Some of them were, but the law has prohibited them for so long that they've all expired and been renegotiated as non-exclusive.

and why Comcast argued it should be able to purchase Time Warner Cable because they don't compete in the same markets.

Comcast and Time Warner have agreed not to compete, but that's not how you create a monopoly on ISPs. The fact is, neither Comcast nor Time Warner are ISP monopolies in ANY sense of the word -- dejure, defacto, or anything else. They may be defacto cable television monopolies in some regions.

Trolling for the cable companies gets you no where.

You have so many other reasons to object to what cable companies do, you don't need to lie about their legal status to make an argument. It isn't trolling to point out the facts, it's just trying to stop misinformation from being tossed about.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[Obfuscant]

I'm truly sorry that you've never heard of QoS related to TCP and the internet, and that you feel compelled to argue based solely on ad hominem.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[zifn4b]

A Skype call that talks about subversive overthrow of the US Government will look no different than a Skype call talking about Aunt Martha's cookie recipe, yet the latter is clearly a violation of several federal laws of patent and DMCA.

I hear Aunt Martha is on the FBI's top wanted list. She's pretty dangerous. We need to keep a close eye on her.

Re:Give the carriers a choice

[rossz]

As for the yammering about how these awful monopolies ... stop. There is no monopoly for ISP service. None.

What are you smoking? In most areas there is exactly one choice for internet service. Usually the local cable company. A business with a history of some of the shittiest customer service in existence. In other places the only choice is DSL from the local phone company. The world champions in shitty customer service.

If they win...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the internet will be divided into channels. And I'll bet that their Basic Package won't include all of the sites you have access to now.

USA internet access is too expensive to be honest.

[choupette]

My brother-in-law lives in the usa (Seattle) he pays $80 (iirc) monthly for his internet, he said it was the cheapest. I live in france, for €32, I have a 22Mb/1.4MB VDSL connection along with a €0 euro mobile plan including 2h voice, and unlimited sms per month, and another 17€ with 50GB 4G plan with unlimited voice and sms (along with free roaming up to 3GB per year in a lot of countries including uk, germany, italy and spain). So I don't know what turned bad in usa, but it can't be that pricey.

Re:Third World Infrastructure

[Bartles]

We spent a trillion dollars on infrastructure in 2009. Shut your stupid face.

Re:USA internet access is too expensive to be hone

[Bartles]

What percentage of your income do you pay in taxes?

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv an

[hackwrench]

You have a poor definition of unlimited and I don't understand why you think it makes sense to define wired capacity in terms of "bandwidth" I pay for 25 Mbps, downstream. That's bits not bandwidth. I haven't seen any other limiations on our downstream capacity in our contract, so I should be able to run that at capacity if requests made over upstream permit it

Re: Kill Violently Imposed Monopolies

[elton247]

Thank you for mentioning that. As an ISP owner who competes with cable, dsl, satellite and cell, my biggest obstacle is government regulations. The incumbents get exclusive rights to the resources, so it is almost impossible to compete against them.

Re:USA internet access is too expensive to be hone

[Sparowl]

If you are trying to point out that his taxes subsidize the cable companies there, let me be the bearer of bad news - so do ours (in America). We just don't get to see the benefit.

Privatize profits, socialize losses and all that.

Re: USA internet access is too expensive to be hon

[Bartles]

Yes. Fascism is a terrible thing.

Re:None of the Big Dogs Complained in 2005

[isdnip]

No, the FCC was right before 2002 and wrong now.
Before 2002, the carriers had to make TELECOM available, but the Internet was unregulated. Telecom is raw bit transmission, and The Internet runs on top of it, as its payload. In 2002 the FCC said that fiber was exempt, and in 2005 DSL was (cable always was), so there was nothing left for competitive ISPs. So the telcos called themselves ISPs.
The FCC should have regulated telecom again, so ISPs could compete over telco wires. But they didn't. The new rules seriously fsck up small ISPs who don't have Comcast's and ATT's lawyers to defend themselves, and make actual innovation in Internet harder. They're designed for Netflix, period.
And the law is against the FCC, but since the telcos and cable don't want the telecom regulated again (as the law calls for), they didn't fight it correctly.

Re:USA internet access is too expensive to be hone

[geekmux]

My brother-in-law lives in the usa (Seattle) he pays $80 (iirc) monthly for his internet, he said it was the cheapest. I live in france, for €32, I have a 22Mb/1.4MB VDSL connection along with a €0 euro mobile plan including 2h voice, and unlimited sms per month, and another 17€ with 50GB 4G plan with unlimited voice and sms (along with free roaming up to 3GB per year in a lot of countries including uk, germany, italy and spain). So I don't know what turned bad in usa, but it can't be that pricey.

Pricing for these kinds of services has been comparatively expensive for a very long time now. This is hardly new, and doesn't really depend on the carrier de jour.

Re:USA internet access is too expensive to be hone

[bluefoxlucid]

I pay $80 for 172Mb down and 10Mb up. My mobile phone includes unlimited voice, text messaging, media SMS, and low-speed Internet, along with a few GB of high-speed Internet, but that costs $60 (I could get cheaper).

Your GDP-per-capita is as shitty as the UK's. Get ~12% more productive over there to catch up to the U.S. For the price I pay for Internet, I could buy 77Mb down and 4.5Mb up in France.

Even lagging as Europe is now, it won't be long before they catch up. What's holding Europe back relative to the U.S. is our wage slave labor culture here in the states: we have an insanely high labor force participation rate, and people are dumb enough to complain it's too *low*. More people working per capita means more buying-power per capita. 56.1% participation rate in France and 62.6% in America, which puts France's productivity per worker about on par with the U.S.

Part of my long-term goals for America (if I could ever get elected into the House, ffs...) is a reduction of working hours to 32/week, although that might be a longer-term goal. Bluntly, it would put us at the same working hours as we'd have with 50% labor force participation rate today; however, we have a lot of temporary and part-time work, meaning 17-18% of our workforce (in good times; we've been 19-20% since 2008) works fewer than 35 hours per week. We'd really come out at around 53%, putting our GDP-per-capita about 6.7% higher than France and the UK.

This is all mainly interesting to me because I've been developing a Universal Social Security plan which cuts back on the tax burden to the United States tax payer while remediating our completely-broken welfare system. It doesn't directly-export to France, Germany, UK, AU, etc.; I could tailor a similar plan to any of those places and work out viability--it may be non-viable in any economy not sufficiently wealthy, although the way I've defined viability is kind of inaccurate (I don't want to pass more money through the system than our current social services; however, most of the money passed through the system goes immediately back to the people paying into it, so "slightly more expensive" means "a trillion dollars cheaper"). My initial goal was just to end homelessness and hunger in this country because, fuck, why do we have this?

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv a

[hackwrench]

That's just it, I've never seen a cap on my wired connection. I try to find my contract. but Comcast isn't good at providing it. The agreements are done over the phone. Speed tests usually show the full speed though.

Not a Dingo

[fedos]

Tom Wheeler has really proven himself as a regulator.

Ah Yes

[jon3k]

"that radically reshapes federal law governing a massive sector of the economy, which flourished due to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment made in reliance on the policy the order throws overboard"

Love the subtle implied extortion. Either drop the lawsuit or we'll pull funding. It's a bluff. If they don't continue to build out we'll see fiber deployments continue to eat away at their subscriber base until widespread 5G deployments (years if not decades away) arrive.

Re:Ah Yes

[david_thornley]

It was after the FCC decision that the phone company came through and tried selling us 40-1Kmb/s connections. (They had very little sales resistance here.)

In other news

[silentcoder]

Serial killers urge judges to stop convicting homicide cases.

Dinosaurs

[zifn4b]

The problem is AT&T and Comcast are whiny babies. They are dinosaur companies that are still trying to run their mega corporations as if we were still back in the days of Ma Bell and the Cable barons. Welcome to Capitalism friends! The same system that let you thrive when you actually were innovative and competitive is now urging you to evolve to continue to be competitive in the face of new and better services like Google Fiber, Verizon FIOS, Netflix, Hulu, Playstation Vue and you guys can't step up to the plate. So what do you do? You try to pull a mafia style strong arm and force everyone to play by your rules instead of the free market.

Sorry, thanks but no thanks. Get in the game or move over so better players can take over. You had your day.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv an

[AK Marc]

I pay for metered water. When I open the faucet all the way, I don't get infinite water. The water company lies.

That's bits not bandwidth

You'll have to define "bandwidth" for us. Your use seems to not agree with any dictionary I could find.

I haven't seen any other limiations on our downstream capacity in our contract,

Then you haven't found the "best effort" clause. It's in every residential contract, and many business ones, even "dedicated Internet" contracts.

You'll get your 25 Mbps between you and the DSLAM (or other network point), and no guarantees after. That's 25 Mbps of bandwidth (or bits, or however you want to define it). Content is different.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv an

[hackwrench]

the range of frequencies within a given band, in particular that used for transmitting a signal.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv an

[AK Marc]

Ah, "Signal bandwidth" is the current term for that. "Bandwidth" means "useful data rate or theoretical line rate". You need a qualifier now to get the original definition. Like "broadband", whose current definition bears zero resemblance to the original definition.

Re: comcast wants you to buy HBO with cable tv an

[hackwrench]

No, you need to stop trying to make your definition a thing. Don't think that your tiny corner of the world speaks for the rest of it. Though in actuality neither one of us knows how prevalent your usage is. I'm just making a strongly worded message to nip this thing in the bud. But when I typed define bandwidth, I got the definition I copy and pasted and something about brainpower and not yours, so it couldn't have gotten that far.