Live data from Hacker News

Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

arstechnica.com

51–60 of 131 posts

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#51
post #49
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the other ramifications of being classified as a common carrier?

Congress specifically forbade the FCC from applying common carrier regulation to what the Telecommunications Act of 1996 calls "information services."

But what mjmahone17 is saying is that the FCC should label broadband providers (in my view: both wired and wireless) as common carriers which would undo the "information services" label put on them in 2002 (http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/n...)

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#52

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.

Not to argue your point (which is 100% right IMHO), but this decision is pretty right on the merits. They refused to classify the providers in a way that gave them express statutory authority to promulgate these regulations, and the court called them on it. I want to see this happen, but the right way is for the FCC to stop pussyfooting around and classify them as common carriers, which they are , so it can regulate…

Danny, in your view, what would the political ramifications be? Corporate lobbyists or actual politicians fighting against this label?

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#53
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

politics before ethics. sigh, it was always thus, it shall always be.

I understand your point, but I just don't see the ethical implications. Net neutrality, may be important, but it is a legal directive. Not supporting, or actively working to abolish net neutrality, isn't unethical.

Corporations get first amendment rights at the cost of the people's.

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#54
post #42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that your flying providers are huge. The hope of network neutrality is to turn the networks into gatekeepers to eliminate competition. So say I want to create in my garage, an online store to compete with Amazon selling in the pet rock market. Oh what a pity, all your online shopping traffic got dropped at our border routers. We can "fix things" for you for a modest fee, just like Amazon. Of course we have a min…

> Oh you say you can't pay $50M out of your garage? Well our internet isn't for people like you anymore. The fact that it doesn't work that way already is largely just an accident of history, and I don't know if its necessary to keep that status quo artificially. Small entities are just in a bad leverage position, especially when their "product" depends heavily on someone else's very expensive and hard to reproduce i…

That is an odd analogy, and I don't think infrastructure providers making all the money is "the natural state of things".

The people actually building the infrastructure (Android) arent't making much any money with it, while those using it (Samsung) are. That is how its supposed to work; if power companies and utilities had been able to extract all the profit from manufacturing companies and discriminate against specific ones or have the ability to simply deny necessary upgrades, we would still be using oil lights.

I also respectfully disagree on the "very expensive" part. Internet access is one of the cheapest basic services, trivial to scale and the variable costs are basically zero. There is no inherent difficulty in transporting bits! Consider other infrastructure. Providing reliable electricity is very difficult (you need to balance demand and supply at all times), there is a very harsh regulatory environment that is constantly changing (in some countries, pocos need to prioritize renewable energy and pay guaranteed prices to customers inserting it), the hardware necessary is copper-heavy and poses significant reliability and safety issues.

Meanwhile, we are being reluctant to regulate internet providers to the point where they are the fast, dumb pipe we need, because lawmakers are clueless how this internet thing works (the 'cloud' isn't helping) and internet providers have this dream where they are the premier entertainment and media source (wakeup; YouTube and Netflix exist).

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#55
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point, but I just don't see the ethical implications. Net neutrality, may be important, but it is a legal directive. Not supporting, or actively working to abolish net neutrality, isn't unethical.

without net neutrality we get an internet where the rich get preferential treatment, and where providers can pick and choose between people using their services. how is working towards that not unethical?

> rich get preferential treatment

It's comments like these that make me not like net neutrality. There is no way you are going to stop people who spend more money from being able to enjoy better Internet connections.

On the other hand, ISPs ought to be stopped, in general, from discriminating against traffic based on a) their desire to sell their own service that competes with it, or b) who you are connecting to.

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#56
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's considered "vertical integration" and therefore not subject to anti-trust laws. Comcast merging with Time Warner would be considered horizontal; Comcast merging with NBCU was considered vertical and therefore allowed to go forward in January 2011. 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 s…

Since when has vertical integration not been subject to antitrust laws? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic... .

It definitely is. The Comcast / NBC merger had to be approved by the DOJ who only allowed it with conditions.

http://www.ustelecom.org/news/newsletters/broadband-connecti...

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#57
post #43

What the court is saying is that, if the FCC refuses to classify broadband providers as common carriers, then, because they neither receive the same protections as common carriers nor have the same responsibilities, they can't be regulated as if they were common carriers. The FCC could change their rules to treat broadband suppliers as common carriers. However, that's something that big-name broadband providers don't…

What are the other ramifications of being classified as a common carrier?

No liability for how third parties using your network (e.g. for libel or violating copyrights). There may be other regulations that limit or eliminate this liability though.

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#58
What I wish would happen is that organizational forces were focused on breaking up ISP monopolies over the pipes. Essentially, building a firewall between infrastructure and content. It would create a market...remember that thing we think controls America's destiny...that would lead to faster bandwidth and also ISPs that offer free, open, and protected services.

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#59
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

without net neutrality we get an internet where the rich get preferential treatment, and where providers can pick and choose between people using their services. how is working towards that not unethical?

> rich get preferential treatment It's comments like these that make me not like net neutrality. There is no way you are going to stop people who spend more money from being able to enjoy better Internet connections. On the other hand, ISPs ought to be stopped, in general, from discriminating against traffic based on a) their desire to sell their own service that competes with it, or b) who you are connecting to.

I'm not sure I see a difference between your position and the position of the person you're replying. What you're saying is basically how I translated zem's comment in my mind. When he said "rich", I assumed the rich people who own the ISPs(or are friends of the owners) altering QoS for different sites/services. Or maybe I'm projecting my own thoughts onto zem's comment.

Re: Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

#60
Am I experiencing deja-vu? I fee like many of these comments (and their responses!) are exact reposts from earlier submissions about this very same topic.

  "The court is saying the FCC needs to reclassify providers"  
  "The Republicans are holding up nominations"  
  
so on so forth.
Post reply on HN