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FCC Chairman Calls Net Neutrality a 'Mistake' (theverge.com)
FCC chairman Ajit Pai said today that net neutrality was "a mistake" and that the commission is now "on track" to return to a much lighter style of regulation. The Verge adds: "Our new approach injected tremendous uncertainty into the broadband market," Pai said during a speech at Mobile World Congress this afternoon. "And uncertainty is the enemy of growth." Pai has long been opposed to net neutrality and voted against the proposal when it came up in 2015. While he hasn't specifically stated that he plans to reverse the order now that he's chairman, today's speech suggests pretty clearly that he's aiming to. [...] Pai's argument is that internet providers were doing just fine under the old rules and that the new ones have hurt investment.
Godamn ads covering the content!
Actually, I can:
https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth
I'm sure there is more.
>This tells you everything you need to know about Pai's priorities
Well, his remarks were made at trade show of mobile industry, so of course they were going to be more business centric than consumer oriented. duh.
But here's a few comments from his speech that the Verge didn't bother to share.
First, during the Clinton Administration in the 1990s, American policymakers forged a
historic consensus across party lines that the Internet should be free from heavy-handed
regulation. Instead of government telling broadband operators where to invest, how much to
invest, or how to run their networks, we let market forces guide these decisions. Regulators made
a conscious choice not to apply to the Internet the outdated rules crafted in the 1930s for a
telephone monopoly. After all, complex rules designed to regulate a monopoly will inevitably
push the market toward a monopoly. Instead, our policy was a modern one that gave the private
sector the flexibility it needed to innovate.
Today, there are nearly 250 million smartphones
in the United States alone that consumers use for everything from uploading live-stream videos to
playing games—and even placing the occasional phone call. In all seriousness, though, we
would not have seen such innovation if, in the 1990s, the government had treated broadband like
a railroad or water utility.
However, two years ago, the United States deviated from our successful, light-touch
approach. The FCC decided to apply last-century, utility-style regulation to today’s broadband
networks. Rules developed to tame a 1930s monopoly were imported into the 21st century to
regulate the Internet. This reversal wasn’t necessary to solve any problem; we were not living in
a digital dystopia. The policies of the Clinton Administration, the Bush Administration, and the
first term of the Obama Administration had produced both a free and open Internet and strong
incentives for private investment in broadband infrastructure.
Two years later, it has become evident that the FCC made a mistake. Our new approach
injected tremendous uncertainty into the broadband market. And uncertainty is the enemy of
growth. After the FCC embraced utility-style regulation, the United States experienced the first-ever decline in broadband investment outside of a recession. In fact, broadband investment remains lower today than it was when the FCC changed course in 2015. And we have seen much concern about whether the FCC would permit or ban service plans.
Of course, an article honestly addressing those points would have been preferable to the sorry Verge cherry-picking text and then proceeding to simply state the opposite without citation or evidence of data contradicting Pai points crap that got posted here on Slashdot. But I guess Slashdot gotta do its part to keep up that steady drumbeat of anti-Trump messaging.