71–80 of 131 posts
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Congress specifically forbade the FCC from applying common carrier regulation to what the Telecommunications Act of 1996 calls "information services."
It's terrifying enough to think of congress today deciding the fate of the internet, much less the congress of 1996.
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…
This isn't what stops it. Most honestly believe they are doing the right thing when they oppose it.
Ignorance, not maliciousness.
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> 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.
Your interpretation is ... strange. The big telecoms are publicly owned. So those "rich people who own the ISPs" are shareholders?
I'm pretty sure zem referred to "rich" and "poor" consumers of internet services. Not telecoms, not corporations.
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It's terrifying enough to think of congress today deciding the fate of the internet, much less the congress of 1996.
Well, at least the Internet in the US. Other countries have their own laws and regulations.
"(1) Advanced communications services The term “advanced communications services” means— (A) interconnected VoIP service; (B) non-interconnected VoIP service; (C) electronic messaging service; and (D) interoperable video conferencing service."
"(11) Common carrier The term “common carrier” or “carrier” means any person engaged as a common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio or interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy, except where reference is made to common carriers not subject to this chapter; but a person engaged in radio broadcasting shall not, insofar as such person is so engaged, be deemed a common carrier."
"(24) Information service The term “information service” means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service."
I'm not a lawyer, but consider myself well grounded in tech and telecom, but reading these definitions I'm kind of at a loss. In common law, my understanding is that a "common carrier" is someone that makes transport services available to the public. These can be physical, such as shipping a crate, or technological (telecom) in nature. By that inference, transporting packets of information is essentially same as transporting normal packages.
Unfortunately, the "by wire or radio or interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy" is so period-specific that one could argue that it doesn't apply and the (24) Information Services is so broad and vague, it could practically be applied to anything.
One interesting bit, which makes me think that there is hope, is the definition of advanced communications, that include both VoIP and messaging services. Sadly, their definitions are not that broad...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's terrifying enough to think of congress today deciding the fate of the internet, much less the congress of 1996.
Well, at least the Internet in the US. Other countries have their own laws and regulations.
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?
>without net neutrality we get an internet where the rich get preferential treatment Net neutrality does nothing for rich or poor. The rich already benefit from better connectivity and internet access. Net neutrality doesn't automatically make internet cheaper either, in fact, it may make it more expensive because the telecoms cannot complement their internet fees with money collected from Youtube and Netflix for pri…
They should be given two options: 1) open network and they can keep all their extras like security or 2) close network but no extras.
Definitions from US Code Title 47: "(1) Advanced communications services The term “advanced communications services” means— (A) interconnected VoIP service; (B) non-interconnected VoIP service; (C) electronic messaging service; and (D) interoperable video conferencing service." "(11) Common carrier The term “common carrier” or “carrier” means any person engaged as a common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign c…
One of the key purposes of the 1996 telecom act was to deregulate the industry to the extent that it was possible. The FCC consequently decided to treat internet service as an "information service" under the Act, so as to avoid subjecting it to all the regulations applicable to "common carriers."
So while you could argue that modern ISPs resemble common carriers in certain ways, one of the ways they do not is that they are relatively unregulated, and there was a lot of intent and purpose behind the decision to treat them that way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Congress specifically forbade the FCC from applying common carrier regulation to what the Telecommunications Act of 1996 calls "information services."
It's terrifying enough to think of congress today deciding the fate of the internet, much less the congress of 1996.