FCC's Ajit Pai is Surrounded By a 'Set of People With a Very Traditional Mindset', Says Sir Tim Berners-Lee (bbc.com)

Next Monday the web celebrates its 29th birthday. Ahead of it, Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke with BBC on a wide-range of topics. An excerpt: In Barcelona last week at the Mobile World Congress I heard FCC boss Ajit Pai mount a robust defence of the move, pointing out that the internet had grown and thrived perfectly well in the years before 2015, when the net neutrality provision came in. "He said the same thing to me," Sir Tim tells us, revealing that he had recently been to lunch with Mr Pai. He had told the FCC boss that advances in computer processing power had made it easier for internet service providers to discriminate against certain web users for commercial or political reasons, perhaps slowing down traffic to one political party's website or making it harder for a rival company to process payments. But he failed to change Ajit Pai's mind. "He's surrounded by a set of people with a very traditional mindset, which has been driven by the PR machine of the telco industry, who believe it is their duty in Washington to oppose any regulation, whatever it is." Sir Tim, however, is refusing to concede defeat in this battle. "We stopped SOPA and PIPA," he says, referring to two US anti-piracy measures which campaigners opposed on the grounds they impinged on internet freedoms.

Comments

Nonsense!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ajut Pai was chosen because he is very confused and will support any dishonesty he is paid to support. That's my opinion.

What a funny way to say "corrupt"

[grasshoppa]

I guess it's no longer "corrupt", it's "traditional", which is fair if we're talking politics. Corruption is pretty traditional.

Is it such a Social Faux pas

[rsilvergun]

that we can't just call them right wing corporate lobbyists? And yeah, the right wing part matters, since it's the right wing laissez faire idealism that justifies deregulating the Internet and yes, eliminating government backed Net Neutrality regulations is deregulation...

Re:Talk about stuck

[DaveyJJ]

just because companies CAN do something does not mean they WILL.

And you seem to be, what was the phrase, "willfully ignorant" of how almost every corporation ever has behaved within the framework of capitalism, methinks. Externalities and any sense of ethics goes out the window when their motive to exist is profit for the shareholders. You seriously don't think that the largely monopolistic or dualistic telcos that control both pipe and content aren't salivating? Won't take advantage? You can't be that naive.

.

Net neutrality existed before 2015

[rminsk]

"... pointing out that the internet had grown and thrived perfectly well in the years before 2015, when the net neutrality provision came in"

I hate this argument form Ajit. Net neutrality existed before 2015 and most carriers followed the practice. What happened in 2015 was the FCC had to reclassify broadband as a common carrier under Title II to be able to enforce the principles it had in place. This was because Verizon won the ruling in Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC (2014).

Re:Net neutrality existed before 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

You are exactly right, and this fact completely destroys Ajit's argument.

And I am sure Ajit knows it, too. He isn't arguing from a place of ignorance, but from a place of corruption. He is in a position where he and his allies benefit from his adoption of an obviously fallacious perspective on the issue, and he is just playing his part.

Re:Talk about stuck

[rogoshen1]

It's quite a thing isn't it? Convincing people that rules or regulation that would actually benefit them are somehow evil... and that letting the foxes guard the hen-house is preferable.

Regulation should exist to keep the market (and by that I mean entities large enough to unilaterally exert influence) honest. Free market capitalism works when you have many small players; but it's naive to think a duopoly or monopoly can exist and not rape consumers senseless. And yet somehow...

It's also funny how the telco's are very strongly against any sort of regulation, but are so incredibly quick to get government gimmies when it comes to subsidizing infrastructure improvements (which they may or may not actually complete, despite taking the freebie money) Or exclusive rights (such as with blocking community broadband)

And then have the audacity to turn around and jack up rates to compensate for their 'expense'.

Snakes.

Re:The Internet was under Title 2

[jd]

I certainly did.

Progress towards IPv6 reversed. Internet speeds on major links dropped. Multicast access declined. Key Internet infrastructure security declined. Bandwidth was siphoned off. Deep packet inspection by ISPs increased. Users were censored. This was previously illegal. Freedoms declined. For a country of the free, you seem damn eager to lose the freedom that really matters.

America went from being one of the best countries for Internet to, currently, being ranked alongside North Korea. American Internet is now one of the slowest but also one of the most expensive. Britain, in the 1990s, was slower than the US, it is now not only faster, it's cheaper. Sweden is hardly flat, unlike the Midwest. Swedish users get up to 400 gigabits per second. Yes, two zeros and a g. For a country that's mostly vertical cliffs and volcanic rock, that's not bad.

American ISPs aren't even required to provide what they sell. I pay for 50 mpbs and get 10. That is LEGAL under the Bush changes. I call it fraud. There are no competitors, because Comcast arranged a deal with them. Nobody enters the other person's turf. And, yes, this is from the engineers. That is flat-out illegal, companies may not work together to close a market like that or to threaten competitors who do enter the other person's turf - that falls under racketeering laws.

This is a criminal enterprise.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[rogoshen1]

This must be the most sophisticated trolling attempt I've ever read.

Explain to me what you think the end-game is with letting telco's do whatever they want with the world's communication -- how will that play out?

Had the phone companies possessed the ability to control modems -- basically the what/when/who and how they could dial in the 1970's and 1980's, what would the technology landscape look like today? How much innovation would have been stifled in the name of rent seeking by ATT???

That's the analogy we're dealing with here with NN. Open and free access is a public good, and should not be curtailed by profit seeking entities for their own benefit.

Dress it up however you like. But letting a revolving door exist between industry and the regulators designed to you know.. champion the public good is a disgrace.