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AT&T Calls For Net Neutrality Laws After Fighting To End FCC Rules (engadget.com)
Few people would call AT&T a champion of net neutrality, but that isn't stopping it from trying to claim the title. From a report: CEO Randall Stephenson has posted an open letter calling on Congress to write an "Internet Bill of Rights" that enforces "neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection" for American internet users. They would not only defend consumer rights, Stephenson argues, but establish "consistent rules of the road" that give internet companies and telecoms an idea of what they can expect. The company chief also insisted that AT&T honored an open internet and doesn't block, throttle or otherwise hinder access to content.
The problem, as you might suspect, is what the company isn't saying. The US already had protections for net neutrality that do what it's asking for, but AT&T and other telecoms have spent years fighting net neutrality regulation whenever it comes up. The carrier spent over $16 million in lobbying just in 2017, and it maintained its anti-regulatory stance throughout the FCC's repeal process.
The problem, as you might suspect, is what the company isn't saying. The US already had protections for net neutrality that do what it's asking for, but AT&T and other telecoms have spent years fighting net neutrality regulation whenever it comes up. The carrier spent over $16 million in lobbying just in 2017, and it maintained its anti-regulatory stance throughout the FCC's repeal process.
AT&T just wants its merger to go through.
If you can't beat them...join them?
good for them, they will hopefully win easily
There's a big difference between a congressional action and action taken by an agency such as the FCC.
Sure, encode the "new" net neutrality as a law drafted by AT&T lobbyists. Set things in stone and neuter any future liberal FCCs.
..Someone told AT&T that they would have to pay extra or their traffic was going to get slowed down..
Hey! I'm innocent!
Pro net neutrality spam?
Twas the other guy!
The company chief also insisted that AT&T honored an open internet and doesn't block, throttle or otherwise hinder access to content.
Well that's simply false. Don't believe me? Try running Exodus/Covenant on their wireless network & see how many sources you get back vs your home connection...
Nothing more, nothing less.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This sounds like a trap to me. The idea of a Baby Bell championing for consumer rights is just too unbelievable. The real question is, what would they actually gain?
Well, if they're involved in the process of writing these new rules, they would be in a prime position to legislate even more power to the big telecom companies while stifling smaller ISPs and the visibly growing trend of municipalities starting their own ISPs.
There may be more subtle benefits that I can't think of, but that would be the big one to me.
What is so terrible with the idea that the people charged with coming up with laws, and are at least nominally beholden to the electorate (i.e. Congress), defining what the law is, rather than some arbitrary committee (FCC) that is entirely unaccountable to anyone? Shouldn't we WANT it to be open to a public debate, rather than a decree?
It was completely arbitrary and thus utterly pointless. Either enforce it via legislation or have nothing at all.
So they come out FOR net neutrality and say they want a bill that protects it. Say the FCC and Congress both agree. Now AT&T is in a great position to define "Net Neutrality" under their own definition and still look like a hero. It's just a different way of lobbying the government.
Sent from my TARDIS
for a few months
traffic shaping at scale requires hardware and they need to purchase and install it
you'll pay for the hardware by upgrading your internet to the pornhub package afterwards
Strange that that never happened in all the years up to 2015 when NN went into effect.
Let me guess, Trump* will make it happen because Trump! amirite?
Strat
* No I did not vote for Trump, I dislike the man and disagree with some of his policies and stances, I believe he has few real core beliefs and principles, but I'm not irrational in my distaste or points of opposition.
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
AT&T opposes net neutrality... Slashdot whines incessantly.
AT&T supports net neutrality... Slashdot whines incessantly.
Let's be honest. This isn't about net neutrality at all. It's about Slashdot looking for an excuse to whine about anything and everything.
AT&T wants to write the law. This is not news.
AT&T wants a certain amount of legislation codified so it can appease the people that are pro-net neutrality. Then it can find ways to get around the law.
" but I'm not irrational in my distaste or points of opposition. " Me neither, fuck that treasonous fraud and his lying poseur posse.
* No I did not vote for Trump, I dislike the man and disagree with some of his policies and stances, I believe he has few real core beliefs and principles, but I'm not irrational in my distaste or points of opposition.
This basically makes you a Kremlin agent in 2018.
They've got law makers, bought and paid for, waiting in the wings with copies of a "NN" law drafted by att that will look ok at first blush, only to reveal horrors unimaginable on further analysis.
God I love the smell of democracy.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
We'll bill you $100/month for your basic Internet connectivity, plus $0.10 per kilobyte of up/down data capped at 100 Gb, after that it's $0.25 per kilobyte of up/down data. (plus federal/state/local taxes, administration fees, transmission fees, line maintenance fees, i911 fees, and special interest fees. We'll also send a salesman to your door every two weeks to up sell AT&T U-Verse.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is a matter in which they probably should have no say, whatsoever.
I'm betting the bill will have freedom somewhere in the name. These days a bill with freedom in the name usually means that it takes freedom from one group and gives it to another.
Dang, I read this and said, "I've read something like this before, haven't I?" It's really no different than when AT&T pulled this stunt: https://news.slashdot.org/stor... What a bunch of maroons.
depends a lot on how much you are vested in content. If you are an Internet provider with little content holdings then you have the option of playing gate keeper or playing neutral and not betting on winners. The short term strategy is to milk the system by gate keeping but that slows innovation and opens you to competition; the long term win is to be the best and biggest net neutral internet provider. What you don't have is the third option which is favor your own content over others.
AT&T sees two problems: how to make bets in a changing landscape and it's lack of content holding compared to competitors. Thus they would prefer to calm the waters and have a market where their weakness isn't exposed. On the other hand, if they could merge with a content company things would change.
Their catch-22 is they hadn't pulled off the merger yet, and people won't let them if they are playing the king maker strategy too early.
Hence their position is both admirable and machiavelian.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...but not as I do. AT&T trying to play to public sympathy and sentiment for... whatever reason. Go fuck yourself AT&T. This is so disingenuous and practically an insult to real NN supporters.
As quoted at TechDirt:
“It would be a lot easier to take AT&T at their word if they hadn't spent more than $16 million last year alone lobbying to kill net neutrality and privacy protections for Internet users,” said Evan Greer, an activist with the pro-net neutrality group Fight for the Future. “Internet activists have been warning for months that the big ISPs plan has always been to gut the rules at the FCC and then use the 'crisis' they created to ram through bad legislation in the name of 'saving' net neutrality."
AT&T is an internet company that's turning into content company.
Verizon in an internet company that's turning into a advertising company.
This isn't very advanced, AT&T just woke up and wants a policy that helps them more than their biggest current competitor.
One valid concern they had with the FCC net neutrality is the ease and speed that the rules could change. Business likes to plan around regulation they know will be there tomorrow.
Yet Another Trojan Horse
Their proposal does nothing to prevent paid traffic prioritization or zero-rating, the meat and potatoes of actual net neutrality rules.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
AT&T is just reacting to the story about Montana tying Net Neutrality into state contracts, which creates headaches and potential lawsuits for any ISP that operates within Montana that wants to do business with them.
Use local, community-based ISP's. NOT AT&T
Mega corporation fighting the man for the rights of the little guy. I call bullshit.
Let's be honest, Obama's"Network Neutrality" was merely the leftist elite buying legislation vice the capitalist elite buying legislation, and a really beautiful cover for applying CALEA to the internet.
At least with legislation, we get discussion and sunshine, vice executive fiat, which gets a kabuki theater.
This government couldn't do the right thing for a decade and it is even worse today.
They will practically write the new Federal Law to benefit them and prevent any locality from finding sensible regulations. Probably they'll try to slip in a ban for community internet (government or co-op.)
I don't think we could construct a national highway system in today's politics. Just imagine how that would play out today...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Yeap, totally didn't happen. ISPs never blocked or throttled anything.
In my mind, there are people *elected* to make laws, after a process of debate and open amendment. To keep their jobs, lawmakers have to face the voters every two years (or six years). Those people, Constitutionally charged with making law, may need to make some law around net neutrality (though very carefully, the technical details of managing a modern carrier network are complex).
Tom Wheeler was not an elected law maker. In fact, he was neither elected NOR had any Constitutional authority to unilaterally make law. He should not have made net neutrality law as he did.
Come to think of it, that's the very first sentence in Article 1:
SECTION 1
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives
The framers decided the very first thing that needed to be understood about our system of Government is that all legislative (law making) authority is held by Congress, noone else.
SURE AT&T wants 'CONGRESS to pass legislation...', they don't want Internet providers classed as a 'Telecommunications provider' with all the incumbent expectations regarding control by the FCC that a Telecommunications provider must meet or may be made to meet in the future. This isn't about 'Net Neutrality', far from it. Who do you think will write the legislation that Congress passes? Tim Burners-Lee? The EFF? O no my friend, neither their, my or anyone's opinion on this legislation would matter. The lawyers from AT&T, Comcast etc.will write it & you can trust it will be written in such a way that it won't be what the public wants, it may 'sound' like it (in the talking points that the Politicians will use on talk shows & interviews), it may even be named 'Net Neutrality' in some way, shape or form but the actual language of the bill won't be what we want at all.
Don't be fooled, look behind the curtain.
Yeap, [wired.com] totally [venturebeat.com] didn't [cnet.com] happen. [consumerist.com] ISPs [slate.com] never [arstechnica.com] blocked [wired.com] or [thetyee.ca] throttled [wired.com] anything. [freepress.net]
But, guess what?
All those things ended quickly without requiring NN, and especially not requiring ISPs be placed under Title-II.
It's almost like NN is a solution in search of a problem, or simply an excuse to place ISPs under Title-II.
Or both.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
ATT and others fought to get Net Neutrality repealed only so that they could rewrite the laws they way 'they' want the lays to exist, then be able to claim that they fought to restore and improve Net Neutrality laws.....
Who would have the that legislation makes more sense than someone's pen and phone?
AT&T want paid prioritisation do thats not on the list. "Please Congress Americans deserve a watered down version of these rules to allow us to continue shafting tgem legally."
Interestingly I learned last evening that AT&T raised prices on their data plans. I spoke with them not a month ago, no mention was made (in fact they gave me a $10 discount on my current plan). For the past 6 months, I have been in the Rollover Zone, where my planmates and I regularly avg our plan max, 10GB. Under the Mobile Share Advantage plans, the next bump was to 16GB for ~+$10; now the next bump is 20GB for $30 more, and the 10GB plan has gone up $5. So if I move upwards, need to move upwards, I would then be forced onto the new "Mobile Share Flex" plan and be paying $30 more than I am now, and if I'd then want to drop back to 10GB--after I figure out where all the data is going--I'd still be paying more. Oh yes, they very "nicely" will give me a $10 "credit" if I AutoPay... that seems to be the ONLY new "feature" of the Flex plans over the Mobile Share Advantage plans.
I always find it curious how companies lobby that doing something will be best for the consumer and then IMMEDIATELY RAISE PRICES when they get what they want. I'm not sure they really understand what "best for the consumer" means. (Joking. Of COURSE they do: "best for the consumer" is code for "best for executive compensation and large shareholders return on investment".)
You're thinking of the Telecommunications Act of 1934, specifically Title 2 of the 1934 Act. Title 2 created the FCC to regulate the phone company in certain ways. THE phone company, then officially named American Telephone and Telegraph, but branded as Bell. The FCC was given the authority to do specific things regarding the national monopoly phone company, which operated by telling the operator who you wanted to talk to and she's physically plug your line into their line.
Almost a hundred years later, Tom Wheeler decided "since I was given legal authority to regulate how Ma Bell plugs copper together, that must mean I can unilaterally make up new laws for the whole internet." Most lawyers would disagree.
Congress COULD pass legislation directing the FCC to enforce specific requirements designed to support listed objectives which different people associate with the general approach called "network neutrality", but they haven't chosen to do so yet.
There is huge fucking difference between an independent executive body making rules and congress writing laws. It is no wonder our political climate is so fucked up because the people who push the narratives are morons as are most of the voters.
All those things ended quickly without requiring NN
No they didn't. Hell, just one example there. Comcast's bittorrent blocking. That literally took three years of dragging and threats from the FCC to actually resolve. It eventually ended with Comcast settling out of court to avoid class action and then they turned around and sued the FCC for over reach. THAT court case took another two years which eventually ended with the judge actually saying, Comcast is right. The FCC did over step their bounds because Comcast was not classified as Title II.
It's almost like NN is a solution in search of a problem
No, the Federal appeals court for the ninth district literally said, that the FCC did not have legal authority to stop any service provider from abusing their network without Title II classification. It wasn't a solution anyone wanted to go to, except every court case always ended with "Sorry FCC, without Title II, you have nothing unless Congress changes that." Congress didn't do anything and courts left very little wiggle room in their rulings.
I'm not trying to insult anyone here, but dang if it seems like no one can recall these court cases and how basically we all saw Title II coming. I mean in 2011, it was all but a foregone conclusion that ISPs were going to force the FCC to reclassify them as Title II. People even made jokes about it on USENET calling it "ISP chicken." I mean It's not like it was on Slashdot back in 2009. I mean crap, I'm not saying Title II is THE solution but damn if pretty much everyone around the FCC gave them next to zero options. So if there are only two valid choices I'm being given, 1. Title II or 2. ISP BS. I'll take option one. If anyone in the government wants to get off their lazy asses and make a third option, I'm all for it.
I mean if everyone is suffering from a bad case of hard to recall events, here's a video that goes over some of the highlights. Again, I'm not saying "Oh yeah we need Title II", but damn, there's not any other option out there to ensure that ISPs don't start pulling fuckery with their network, unless someone in Congress wants to change that.
Yeah they're pricks. Having to plan around regulation that can change at the whims of a few unelected bureaucrats is extremely bad for business and thus bad for us too. Too bad we can't give the telecoms the inch they need for good business cause first thing they'll take a mile and bribe congress to write some consumer fucking bill full of subtle bought and paid for loopholes. "Net neutrality and child protection act for true patriots"
By 1964, and probably earlier, the Supreme Court had confirmed that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution applies strongly to the 1934 act - states cannot step on the FCC's regulation. Congress gave the FCC full authority to regulate nationwide and did not allow for state and local changes.
The nice things about having written laws: 1) you can see what it takes to "get around" the law legally, 2) You can calculate the cost of breaking the law and how much you can profit if you do, 3) you make the law so complex it is not enforceable. Probably a few other good reasons to have laws, besides protection of the public....rmj