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House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
41–50 of 101 posts
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#42Getting the FCC to make carriers play fair is a slow road to improvement and it's filled with potholes. I'd be more inclined to support regulation changes intended to make starting a new carrier easier. Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and stifle telecom startups.
>Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and stifle telecom startups.
Why or how?
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#43From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.
There's other perspectives, such as "The political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess as the bill for decades of feckless spending and promises is coming due and only one faction in one party is even capable of admitting that, and for that they are being burned at the stake." (Which I consider a plain-and-simple case of shooting the messenger.) The mess we have right now is politicians trying to follow the time-…
The fact that you feel like you have to make a comment about spending on a thread about net neutrality is an indication that the thread has developed at least some ambient toxicity. Notice how little it takes for that to happen! Just a couple seed comments about "Republicans" and we're off to the races.
(I'm not criticizing you).
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#44What about the "what is in a name" path?
What if, instead of regulating what ISPs can do with their network, there were a movement (read, "lawsuits") (using some new or perhaps just existing law) to stop anything past some previously normal level of traffic management from being called "internet service". So a teleco could give preference to their own, or affiliate, traffic, but that could not be referred to by them, or sold to customers, as "the internet". The position here is this: the term "the internet" has come to mean, through intent and common use, something that does not include, by definition, those kind of practices. Thus, selling a package with those practices and calling it internet service is deceit.
If I sold a "car" to someone and, when they went to pick up their new car, they found what anyone besides my team of salesmen would call a golf cart, that wouldn't be legal. Same idea.
I'm sure I'm being naïve, how?
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#45Getting the FCC to make carriers play fair is a slow road to improvement and it's filled with potholes. I'd be more inclined to support regulation changes intended to make starting a new carrier easier. Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and stifle telecom startups.
>Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and stifle telecom startups. Why or how?
By creating rules making it harder to create new companies with novel business models for providing Internet service, because those business models might in theory allow an incumbent to unlevel the playing field.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#46Getting the FCC to make carriers play fair is a slow road to improvement and it's filled with potholes. I'd be more inclined to support regulation changes intended to make starting a new carrier easier. Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and stifle telecom startups.
If I am not mistaken, setting up a working telecom startup is quite capital intensive, and has high running costs on top of it, just in terms of handling Marketing and competitive pressures. How would a new startup survive and scale by any change in rules? The market would still serve the incumbents more than the startups - since their scale would make them stronger bets. I'm curious to know what type of regulation w…
Here is one alternative path. The State of Florida, under the auspices of the North Florida Broadband Authority, is setting up a "middle mile" quasi-government carrier. They will connect to a tier-1 provider (Level3 in this case) and distribute the broadband feed to small rural counties and cities, in an area which is economically disadvantaged (when compared to larger cities in Florida).
While this is capital intensive, they're trying to accomplish something that no private carriers seem to have interest in.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#47The FCC's claim of authority in this instance to impose rules from on high is problematic. Here is what EFF says: "We’re wholly in favor of net neutrality in practice, but a finding of ancillary jurisdiction here would give the FCC pretty much boundless authority to regulate the Internet for whatever it sees fit. And that kind of unrestrained authority makes us nervous about follow-on initiatives like broadcast flags…
It certainly does give me pause, but we also know how the Republicans will come down on net neutrality regardless of whether an overreaching regulatory body is advocating (some version of) it. That, to me, is the bigger story.
As you said, the FCC can only do what Congress has authorized it to do, so we're not in any real danger of the FCC having a "broad, unchecked power to control what happens on the internet". What we are in danger of is having a Congress that kills net neutrality, period.
Edit: Not that I care about karma, but I'm curious as to why I'm being downvoted. I'm not disagreeing with grellas' point.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#48Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like a functioning government, why do you ask?
Are you implying that the workers in sausage factory think they are making filet mignon?
What does this mean? Seriously. Sausage is delicious. The point of the sausage factory isn't that sausage is disgusting. It's that a delicious product sometimes requires production steps that appear repulsive to outsiders.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#50The FCC's claim of authority in this instance to impose rules from on high is problematic. Here is what EFF says: "We’re wholly in favor of net neutrality in practice, but a finding of ancillary jurisdiction here would give the FCC pretty much boundless authority to regulate the Internet for whatever it sees fit. And that kind of unrestrained authority makes us nervous about follow-on initiatives like broadcast flags…
It certainly does give me pause, but we also know how the Republicans will come down on net neutrality regardless of whether an overreaching regulatory body is advocating (some version of) it. That, to me, is the bigger story. As you said, the FCC can only do what Congress has authorized it to do, so we're not in any real danger of the FCC having a "broad, unchecked power to control what happens on the internet". Wha…
I didn't downvote, first of all. I upvoted! I am also disappointed to see it downvoted. There is some contention that downvoting is a valid way to express disagreement; I don't really agree. Downvotes should be reserved only for poor decorum or other disruptive behavior.
The point Grellas is making is that if we let the FCC slide on net neutrality by accepting their arguments of ancillary jurisdiction and implied authority over the internet, then it would give the FCC free reign to do whatever they wanted with the internet unless Congress came in and expressly forbade or altered their authority. Right now, we have the opposite situation, where the FCC is not allowed to exercise authority over the internet without an express dispensation from Congress allowing them to do so.
The latter is better because it's much easier to hold elected representatives accountable than it is to hold appointed bureaucrats accountable. If Congress gives the FCC authority to regulate the internet that way, they can use the FCC as a proxy for all their unpopular regulatory actions and redirect the flak.