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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Plans Fast-Track Repeal of Net Neutrality (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is moving quickly to replace the Obama administration's landmark net neutrality rules and wants internet service providers to voluntarily agree to maintain an open internet, three sources briefed on the meeting said Thursday. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, met on Tuesday with major telecommunications trade groups to discuss his preliminary plan to reverse the rules, the sources said. The rules approved by the FCC under Democratic President Barack Obama in early 2015 prohibited broadband providers from giving or selling access to speedy internet, essentially a "fast lane," to certain internet services over others. As part of that change, the FCC reclassified internet service providers much like utilities. Pai wants to overturn that reclassification, but wants internet providers to voluntarily agree to not obstruct or slow consumer access to web content, two officials said late Tuesday. The officials briefed on the meeting said Pai suggested companies commit in writing to open internet principles and including them in their terms of service, which would make them binding. It is unclear if regulators could legally compel internet providers to adopt open internet principles without existing net neutrality rules. As part of that move, the Federal Trade Commission would assume oversight of ensuring compliance.Three sources said Pai plans to unveil his proposal to overturn the rules as early as late April and it could face an initial vote in May or June.
goodbye Netflix!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This has to be the most naive or idiotic bit of policy I've heard in a while. You either support net neutrality strongly or you don't support it at all. It appears that Pai is trying to uphold the idea of net neutrality, but without increasing "government regulation." But there's no incentive for ISPs to have net neutrality. This is the very reason regulations are typically called for. Asking ISPs to voluntarily give up net neutrality either 1)fails in which case you needed the regulation 2)succeeds in which case they incur the burdens that regulation would have incurred anyway.
You have it backwards. It'll be "want the people accessing your content or service to have more than 256kbps access? Pay us a monthly fee!" (a-la Netflix)
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Pai does not represent Republicans voters, in a recent poll 77% of registered Republicans disagreed with his proposals. Pai has been bought by lobbyists and represents his corporate constituency, not voters. Trump does not seem to care about FCC so I doubt if he has a clue what is happening there.
Lobbying amounts are in the millions (for example, $14M for Comcast). Revenues are in the billions ($80B for Comcast's 2016 yearly revenue), margin of 40%. So they are spending fractions of their revenue to drive legislation that they can in turn use to drive more profits.
Profits aren't inherently bad (I work for a private company, after all) but combining granted monopoly power with buying legislation to increase profits is just obscene.
Sources:
Lobbying spend by Comcast: https://www.opensecrets.org/lo...
Comcast earnings and margin: http://www.cmcsa.com/earningde...