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

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

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Keep in mind that Clinton also signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A few key things that this act did: - Allow for consolidation of radio stations (and thus, the meteoric rise of ClearChannel) - Allow for consolidation of telecommunications companies (and thus, almost the major phone service companies are the progeny of the Baby Bells) It also did some very good things, like requiring entrants into the data se…

As long as we're cataloging Clinton's sins, don't forget repealing Glass-Steagall.

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

#22

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.

The DC Circuit may have three vacancies (I'll trust your representation) but it also has the lightest workload per judge in the country:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230393690... "For the 12-months ending in September, the D.C. Circuit had 149 appeals filed per active judge. By comparison, the 11th Circuit had 778 appeals filed per active judge for the same period... The national average of appeals per active judge is 383."

These things matter.

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

#23
post #19

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…

> and introduce some real competition 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.

I think he's hoping if all ISPs become highly regulated common carriers, then all neighborhoods will have to be supplied with uverse, cablemodems, and long range wifi/wisp service, instead of just some.

So there's one and only one highly regulated cable provider, and one and only one uverse , not sure about the WISP thing...

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

#24

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).

Fair point; just because you like a politician doesn't mean you'll like their judge or all of their decisions. Heck, maybe if the panel for this case had been an Obama, Clinton, and Reagan appointee, the Obama and Reagan appointees would have sided against the Clinton.

The DC Court handles all of these big, Federal cases that make the top of HN. A President's impact on the DC Court is almost as important as their impact on the Supreme Court.

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

#25
post #23
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and introduce some real competition 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.

I think he's hoping if all ISPs become highly regulated common carriers, then all neighborhoods will have to be supplied with uverse, cablemodems, and long range wifi/wisp service, instead of just some. So there's one and only one highly regulated cable provider, and one and only one uverse , not sure about the WISP thing...

But that's at odds with the call for more competition. In a more competitive market, providers would compete to provide faster and faster service in the most densely-populated, highest-value markets. E.g. basically T-Mobile's strategy in the U.S. They spend their limited infrastructure capital on rolling out fast LTE in key markets, while leaving non-urban areas with HSPA or even no service at all.

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

#26
post #6

Intuitively, I would have thought that this would be horrible news for content providers/distributors, and great news for wireless carriers. However, today, Google, Facebook, Amazon &etc are flying, while Verizon and AT&T are falling. Does anyone in the industry know what this is all about, and what importance this decision really has on the future of mobile?

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 minimum payment of $50M/month to "fix" things. Oh you say you can't pay $50M out of your garage? Well our internet isn't for people like you anymore.

So yes, its very good news for large content providers because it eliminates any need for product development and eliminates competition.

The other way it eliminates competition is Amazon might be able to afford a department of a couple people to do nothing all day but negotiate with ISPs, but a startup could never spare the manpower. So startups could only release on TWC or Charter or AT&T or ... rather than everywhere on the internet.

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

#27
post #19

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…

> and introduce some real competition 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.

I may be wrong, but I believe this would re-introduce avenues for competitors to lease capacity on -- if properly regulated -- a parity basis with the incumbent's own cost to provide.

Let some government cost accountants loose on these incumbents' books. Then let me buy my capacity from a company that isn't trying to screw me vertically nor horizontally and that doesn't e.g. conscript me into a basic cable TV package when all I want is Internet.

Perhaps then, as well, we would be able to actually segregate infrastructure development and maintenance costs and be sure we are getting what we are paying for. E.g. if my cost goes up, it's because I'm actually getting more in return. At a time when wholesale bandwidth costs have been halving year upon year (at least, as of a couple of years ago), the near doubling of my monthly bill over the past few years is sorely in need of some -- independent and measurable and demonstrable -- justification.

Finally, Internet is no longer a luxury. It's a necessity. With often only a single distributor in many locations, they are effectively a common carrier.

After all the bad behaviour on the part of these companies, I have ZERO sympathy left for them. They've abused their positions. It's time for that abuse to end.

P.S. Yeah, I'm pissed. Probably not the best position from which to comment.

This month's Crapcast bill contained another circa 5.5 % increase -- for nothing. It's been well less than a year since their last increase, and inflation is running far under that figure.

As for build-out costs: I notice when my neighbours (that's one family of two adults) are home on weekends, because my one, rather occasional Netflix stream drops from quality 4 to 3 or not infrequently to 2. They aren't doing diddly to improve capacity/delivery in my neighbourhood.

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

#28

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 them as such.

They are just afraid of the political whining.

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

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Fair point; just because you like a politician doesn't mean you'll like their judge or all of their decisions. Heck, maybe if the panel for this case had been an Obama, Clinton, and Reagan appointee, the Obama and Reagan appointees would have sided against the Clinton. The DC Court handles all of these big, Federal cases that make the top of HN. A President's impact on the DC Court is almost as important as their imp…

> The DC Court handles all of these big, Federal cases that make the top of HN.

No, it doesn't. The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit handles appeals of federal regulatory agency decisions, but -- while this FCC decision is an example of those -- you don't see a lot of them make the top of HN. Most of the "big, federal" cases that make the top of HN are either:

1) criminal cases, which go to trial in the District Court in which the crime occurred, and for appeal to the Circuit Court in which that District Court is located (which might happen to be the DC Circuit if the trial was originally in the District Court for the District of Columbia, but usually that's not the case); or

2) coyright cases, which again go through any of the District Courts for trial, and the corresponding Circuit Court for appeals; or

3) patent cases, which go to trial in the District Court in which the crime occurred, and for appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal (not DC) Circuit.

While the DC Circuit is very important, its not that commonly involved in cases that make the front page of HN.

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

#30

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).

> 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).

Note that Silberman's dissent was because Silberman thought the whole Open Internet Order should have been struck down (including the disclosure requirements), while Rogers and Tatel only thought that that the requirements they characterize as "common carrier" requirements (non-discrimination and non-blocking) should be struck down.

So this wasn't "Clinton appointees vote against FCC, Reagan appointee backs FCC".

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