11–20 of 131 posts
The FCC could change their rules to treat broadband suppliers as common carriers. However, that's something that big-name broadband providers don't seem to want, as it would reduce their freedom of operations.
Note that the DC Court of Appeals is the one that the Filibuster Crisis was all about. According to the Wikipedia, it still(!) has three vacancies, and the Senate Republicans have spent the last ~N months preventing any of the Obama administrations nominees from being confirmed to the Court. These things matter.
I believe the two judges (Rogers and Tatel) that struck down the FCC's regulations were Clinton nominees. The one who dissented in part was a Reagan nominee (Silberman).
We'll be getting some leading net neutrality scholars and lawyers to annotate the doc, so check back later today for interesting, in-depth analysis along-side the key passages in the case.
Give up the lobbyist payola, reclassify them, and introduce some real competition to my now more frequent than annual Crapcast price bumps (or significant humps, as it were).
(And in my case, this is primarily for Internet, although basic cable comes along as a quasi-freebie -- it costs, but then a discount on the combined package largely or totally negates that cost.)
Otherwise, you can bet I'm not voting for either major party, next time around.
As a consumer, I find that the only way to defeat this bullshit, is to stop paying for it. If I had an alternative to Crapcast in my neighborhood, I'd take it. (I don't count AT&T, because for a lonnngggg time they refused to deploy high speed Internet here, and because their policies and behaviour are just as bad. As well, they've personally screwed me in a prior location, as I've commented before.)
My knowledge of Anti-Trust laws dates back to elementary school, but how is it legal for the companies that maintain the infrastructure to be in the content game as well, when other content providers can't compete on favorable pricing for bandwidth?
I'm currently reading Susan Crawford's book Captive Audience, which is a detailed history of this exact topic. Recommended. Here's a talk she gave at Harvard summarizing the story and issues at stake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R4xhwy-1oI
It is obvious that they are, de facto, common carriers. Give up the lobbyist payola, reclassify them, and introduce some real competition to my now more frequent than annual Crapcast price bumps (or significant humps, as it were). (And in my case, this is primarily for Internet, although basic cable comes along as a quasi-freebie -- it costs, but then a discount on the combined package largely or totally negates that…
You do understand that regulating carriers as if they were utilities but then demanding more competition is inconsistent? Utilities get monopoly protection in return for offering universal service. That's the quid pro quo.