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An Open Letter to the FCC

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Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#121

Post by dragonwriter »

inetknght wrote: post #90
ordinaryperson wrote: post #7

The revocation of the Net Neutrality rules became a foregone conclusion once Donald Trump was elected. The sad reality is there's not much we, Eric Schneidermann or anyone else can do about it. There are 5 FCC commissioners but only 3 may be of the same party. Ajit Pai, Brendan Carr and Michael O'Rielly are locks to vote in favor, so it will pass, 3-2. At this point the best thing people can do is prepare to vote in…

> The sad reality is there's not much we, Eric Schneidermann or anyone else can do about it. If Ajit Pai continues to obstruct investigations, I would consider it obstruction of justice. That's something that an Attorney General should seriously consider in the current light.

It's not obstruction because of federal supremacy; given the normal level of voluntary cooperation, it's bizarre that there is no cooperation, and suggests that the fraud is not just an outside fraud on the FCC but a fraud by the FCC (whether originally or merely one convenient to and retrospectively ratified by the agency.) But there is little a state AG can do in that case except publicize the issue.

Well, relating to the identity misappropriation itself. Should there be litigation over the final regulation (as is near certain) and should the content of public comment and the FCC’s handling of it be an issue (as is also near certain), then things become a lot more interesting.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#122

Post by mikeash »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #43

To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated like a public utility? Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume. You and I can pay but what about poor people? Will this discourage Internet usage?

Why shouldn't we pay more when we use more? I know that "unlimited" plans have great popularity in the tech community, but is that based on any principle, or is it based on the fact that people in the tech community tend to use the internet a lot more and thereby benefit from "unlimited" plans by effectively freeloading off their less technically literate neighbors?

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#123

Post by vvanders »

hysan wrote: post #69

I'm one of the people who has had part of their identity used to submit false comments. Found out when a journalist emailed me asking me to do a survey and some additional comments months ago. I proceeded to sign up for an API key[1] to confirm what was being claimed and turns out, it was true. The API is a bit limited, but I was also able to do searches using the falsely submitted comment to find others like it as w…

Is it worth contacting your local news station?

May be a long shot but the more people know about what's actually happening then the more pressure they can put on their congress critter to do something.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#124

Post by rhino369 »

moosey wrote: post #110
brightball wrote: post #78

I wonder what it would take to really create ISP competition in the US? I thought I remembered seeing somewhere that the big ISP's use the legal system to essentially drive up entrance costs for smaller players. Would the EFF be able to help with something like that? The only real long term solution to stuff like this is more competition, because without it you never have the option to "vote with your wallet."

We've had it before, and the way forward is very simple: Internet Service resale at cost. The major internet providers would be forced to resell to other internet providers access at the costs to the company, including labor, maintenance, etc. Resellers then compete with the company to produce the lowest overhead.

That would get you very cheap ISP with terrible speeds and a lot of downtime.

There is no incentive for investment if they have to resell at (or near) cost.

And we've seen this in action. DSL service was covered by Title II originally, which meant it had to be unbundled and resold. But cable internet had no requirement. Investment flooded to cable rather than telecom. Why would Verizon invest billions in a network that benefits third parties? Well they didn't.

It was only after Title II repeal that Verizon went forward with Fios. Because it didn't have to resell.

It's possible to do this sort of thing, but you have to build in a fat profit margin. But even then, the companies wouldn't have any incentive to provide good service.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#125

Post by orthecreedence »

[deleted] wrote: post #59

[deleted]

Focus your energy on getting your town on municipal fiber. Muni fiber means anyone in your town can start an ISP, which means you'll have 20+ companies competing locally, which means Net Neutrality doesn't need to be regulated at all because there is actual market competition.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#126

Post by mikeash »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #111
perseusprime11 wrote: post #43

To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated like a public utility? Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume. You and I can pay but what about poor people? Will this discourage Internet usage?

I think this the fundamental problem: so few people have any idea how the internet works. Sending packets is nothing like consuming water. The marginal cost of internet use is 0. But, because all you can get across to people is "series of tubes" the ISPs make out like criminals charging for for bits. With any luck the next generation will look at bandwidth caps the same way young people today are shocked anyone was s…

The marginal cost is zero until you hit capacity, and then the marginal cost of the next bit is millions or billions of dollars. Then it goes back to zero until you hit the upgraded capacity, rinse and repeat.

This is a pretty common situation in many areas. The marginal cost of putting a package on a truck is nearly zero (there's a very, very small amount of extra fuel burned) until the truck is full, then the marginal cost of the next package is the cost of sending another truck. The marginal cost of putting another passenger on an airliner is nearly zero (again, there's a small amount of added fuel consumption) until you hit capacity, then it's suddenly huge.

In these other areas, we generally look at the cost as being the marginal cost of the whole truck or plane divided by the number of things it carries, rather than assigning the entire cost to the one thing that requires a new truck or plane. I don't see why internet access shouldn't be like this too.

Data costs should be pretty low, and should be much cheaper at off-peak hours, but I don't see why they should be zero.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#127

Post by krrrh »

buerkle wrote: post #103
krrrh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can hear Pai defend his position here: http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-po... He claims that 80% of smaller ISPs have said that they delayed investment in infrastructure due to the costs associated with the net neutrality regs, and also that there was a reduction in overall broadband investment in the last two years and that has never happened before, outside of a recession. He thinks tha…

His claims about lack of investment after the 2015 rule changes are wrong. https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/05/17/sorry-chairman-pai...

Thanks for providing the counterpoint. I would like to see Pai back his claims up in a more detailed manner, because I found them pretty surprising.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#128

Post by mancerayder »

IvyMike wrote: post #104
mikestew wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer and probably plans to parley his government experience into a lucrative gig at one of the big telcos I don’t care if he was a professional kitten killer, it has little relevance to actions currently being taken. I say this for two reasons: Pai has spent more time in public service than he did at Verizon, by multiples. And second, who cares what his motivation is? Does…

> And second, who cares what his motivation is? Knowing his motivations (is he simply misinformed? is he corrupt? does he believe in strict libertarianism?) has a big impact in shaping a winning strategy to oppose him.

What are some examples of possible strategies specific to him at this point in the timeline?

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#129

Post by cwkoss »

JTon wrote: post #53
nxc18 wrote: post #28

How is refusing to participate in an identity theft investigation not obstruction of justice? Surely Ajit & co travel to NY from time to time... why isn’t there an arrest warrant? Why are the states being so toothless in responding to rampant criminal behavior? I’d like to see how I would fare if I participated in mass scale identity theft and refused to participate in the subsequent investigation.

Perhaps because the behaviour in question is not actually criminal. Since Ajit is a lawyer, I suspect he knows very well where the lines are drawn.

I suspect he also knows very well how to go past the line without leaving enough evidence to be convicted.

Re: An Open Letter to the FCC

#130

Post by milcron »

ghrifter wrote: post #98
EddieRingle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer He worked in their legal department for 2-3 years 15 years ago. All of his other time has been spent has a public servant. People need to stop bringing this up, because it only muddies the actual policy debate.

Most commissioners for all sorts of branches/govmt arms come from the private sector...But-but Verizon!!! ugh. No one ever bothers to bring up this document either, which isnt going away... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010

It absolutely is going away. The courts ruled that those stipulations aren't enforceable unless ISPs are Title II common carriers.
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