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House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

boston.com

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Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#61

Post by grellas »

lutorm wrote: post #53
grellas wrote: post #14

The 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…

"unaccountable government regulators"? Just wondering about this. If you think a popularly elected government is "unaccountable", can you give an example of something that is accountable?

Perhaps better stated as not directly accountable to voters. Thanks for pointing out the overstatement (lawyers are inclined to this, especially after they start to warm up and become enamored of the sound of their own words).

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#62

Post by thwarted »

tptacek wrote: post #49
thwarted wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I love sausage, I'm going to go have some right now at a picnic.

The point of a sausage factory is to make sausage, disgusting or not. "sausage factory" is a reference to how it is made, independent of if it's delicious or not. See Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I apologize if I offended sausage. Sausage, and the people who make it and eat it, will have to come to terms with the fact that it is not filet mignon.

Do government workers and public servants, who have a view from the inside, think that it looks like a functioning government? Because from the outside, according to the past entries on this thread, it doesn't.

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#63

Post by scythe »

tptacek wrote: post #30
ascendant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a mess for a long time. And it's not just the Republicans. Anyone with a brain can look back over the past 20-30 years and see the fingerprints of both parties all over the collective disaster that is the current situation politically, financially and militarily.

Every time someone says this I think back to the politics of the 19th century, or the early 20th. It's probably true that we're at a depressing ebb of productivity and good faith in national politics, but politics 'twas ever thus. You think Fox News is bad? Try Hearst's papers in the 1890s. There are 307 million people in the United States. That the three million? people of in the original colonies managed to agree o…

I wouldn't say that the politics of the early 20th century exactly got us to very good places. We got a Depression and then a massive War.

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#64

Post by r0s »

teoruiz wrote: post #6

From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

It seems that way if you think every bill is law before it reaches the Senate.

From this time last year:

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/83059-senate-sitting-on-29...

Maybe the sky isn't really falling?

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#65

Post by T-R »

tptacek wrote: post #12
teoruiz wrote: post #6

From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm queasy about enforced net neutrality; these are rules that govern what companies can do with their own infrastructure, and rules that could unintentionally retard progress instead of protecting it. Further, Congress has a legitimate gripe here. We don't elect FCC commissioners. They're appointed. We should be particularly concerned about them overstepping their bounds. Which a reasonabl…

While I agree that Congress has a legitimate gripe with overstepping unelected officials, I really think that's a separate issue that should be treated independently.

Regarding rules that could unintentionally retard progress - that's not necessarily a bad thing. In the same sense, the FDA retards progress of the pharmaceutical industry. We should be able to decide that some things are harmful enough to individuals and their rights that companies shouldn't be allowed to compete on them, at least beyond a certain level. At the very least, they should be required to make those things as visible to consumers as price, because consumers can only vote with their wallets on things they're aware of.

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#66

Post by waterlesscloud »

rflrob wrote: post #55

"But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would prevent such abuses" Is consumer internet really a free market? To my knowledge, most of the Bay Area only has a choice between Comcast and AT&T. If you only have 2 or 3 companies competing, it's relatively easy for them all to decide independently that traffic shaping is in their own best interest, which leaves the consumer with no real ch…

Is there a free-market for the right-of-way the isp lines travel through?

Is there a free-market for spectrum?

In both cases, no. There are very heavily regulated markets. So if they benefit from very heavy regulation, and they do, then they should be subject to some regulation as well.

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#67

Post by TimJYoung »

tptacek wrote: post #45
cooldeal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

So, is your position that we shouldn't pass any laws or regulations because they may have unintended side-effects on companies that may exist in the future ? That sounds like pretty weak tea to me.

What on earth is wrong with the FCC stating that no company can give precedence to any specific source/destination's traffic over another source/destination's traffic ? All it does is codify the basic principle that the Internet was founded on, and the same principle that allowed it to become what it is today. More importantly, it doesn't involve any changes for any company unless they're already breaking the rule, in which case isn't it a good thing that we make them stop doing so ?

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#68

Post by hammock »

trythis wrote: post #47
grellas wrote: post #14

The 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…

You probably got downvoted because you show a lack of understanding of what grellas was saying. What he was saying was that if the FCC had been allowed by the courts to use 'ancillary jurisdiction' to impose new rules, the FCC would indeed be in the very situation which you say is impossible, a situation of broad, unchecked power.

Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality

#69

Post by hammock »

rflrob wrote: post #55

"But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would prevent such abuses" Is consumer internet really a free market? To my knowledge, most of the Bay Area only has a choice between Comcast and AT&T. If you only have 2 or 3 companies competing, it's relatively easy for them all to decide independently that traffic shaping is in their own best interest, which leaves the consumer with no real ch…

Free market does not necessarily mean perfect competition, or 10+ competitors to choose from. I don't know where you got that idea.
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