FCC: Votes to Repeal Net Neutrality

[Elfdude]

In a 3-2 party line vote (the 3 GOP appointees vs the 2 Dems), the FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality. A concept which 83% of Americans on both sides agree with.

There's the possibility of a congressional review vote which requires a simple majority to reverse a decision by an administrative agency but that would require several GOP to break rank w/ the rest of GOP which they'd only do if folks believed their constituents wouldn't vote for them if they didn't.

Net Neutrality is beyond important to our current way of life. The FCC used a similar argument to the Supreme Court when they struck down the voting rights act which immediately led to more than a dozen states filing legislation curbing the voting rights of certain groups and demographics.

Thoughts?

Sources for the uninformed:

https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/...-brief-history

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...ralitynow-what

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...utrality-heist

[The spartan]

I mean, it just seems like one of those things that Republicans dislike because Obama touched it. I can't really think of any good reasons why someone would be opposed to net neutrality unless they are an ISP. But, again, Obama touched it so it has gotta go.

[Elfdude]

Well the ISP's did dump hundreds of millions into GOP pockets to get here so I would say the GOP does have a vested interest. The question is whether they can spin it as not their fault despite having the power to stop it. If they can't making a choice only 17% agree with is probably not the best option.

[irontaino]

Congress could nullify the FCCs decision, but I doubt the Republicans would listen to their constituents if it got in the way of (as The Spartan said) destroying something Obama touched.

[Elfdude]

I'm curious to hear what our Republican posters think their representatives will do or if they're going to try and justify yet another action after the fact.

[NorseThing]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffrey.../#716f03898988

It appears likely the Federal Communications Commission is going to modify its stance on net neutrality, issuing new rules that will allow some actions opposed by advocates of net neutrality. At the simplest level, the forthcoming rules supposedly will allow internet service providers to accept payment from content providers for faster delivery and potentially even allow throttling or complete denial of access. This is progress. Net neutrality is bad policy and would be unnecessary if the FCC addressed the real problem: local governments overcharging for their right-of-way.
Net neutrality proponents want internet service providers to be neutral pipes through which digital content flows, no favoritism or interference of any kind allowed. Yet, while this may seem like an optimal system, it actually places severe constraints on services that could be offered. Video streaming services might be willing to pay for faster delivery of their content; game players might be happy to pay for higher speeds when they are game playing compared to more passive web surfing. Even outright blocking of content sounds reasonable when, for example, it is called parental controls.

article continued

The entire concept of a neutral content delivery service is exposed as silly when transferred into other contexts. Imagine if Whole Foods was required to sell all brands of food, even those with ingredients that Whole Foods never sells. You may think that makes no sense, but Whole Foods is censoring its shoppers’ choices, blocking access to certain food providers. Plus, supermarkets influence food choices in more ways than just whether or not they stock an item. How a supermarket displays goods can have a big effect on sales—height on the shelves, end of an aisle display—the placement of a product makes a huge difference. Knowing that, food companies pay what are called slotting fees in exchange for favorable placement in the store. This is exactly like an internet service provider charging a content provider for expedited delivery of its content. If a company isn’t willing to pay enough in slotting fees, the store may refuse to carry their products or they may end up near the floor or on the top shelf, either being retail purgatory. Thus, supermarkets practice exactly the sort of practices which net neutrality would forbid. Yet shoppers do not revolt. We know that if we go to Whole Foods we will be offered lots of organic food products, we go to Walmart for low prices, and similar reasons lead people to shop at all sorts of different food outlets. It doesn’t matter to consumers that some stores don’t carry all possible food products because we know where to go for what we want. Net neutrality only matters because people have limited options for internet service. In most locations there are two, maybe three, internet service providers that offer broadband speed access; some areas, especially rural ones, have only one option. This is partly a result of the economics of installing the infrastructure necessary to deliver high speed internet service—because it is so expensive, it doesn’t pay to provide service to only a small number of customers, so any provider wants to be assured a decent market share. Yet it is also a result of policies by local governments. Prior to 1992 local governments often selected a single cable company to which they granted a local monopoly in exchange for payment (franchise fees) and other considerations such as local access channels. Even though exclusive agreements were banned by Congress in 1992, local governments can still charge for use of their right-of-way and the higher those fees are set the fewer companies will be interested in entering a local market. Rather than trying to regulate how internet service providers operate their private businesses, government should leave them alone to try different business models, just like supermarkets. A better idea would be for the federal government to further limit the power of local governments to limit competition among internet service providers through their franchise fees and other operating restrictions. If local governments were more accommodative of internet service providers, there would be more competition, more choices for consumers. Given choice, if some of those internet service providers do not practice net neutrality, the market will sort it out. Any provider acting in ways its customers do not like will lose those customers to its competitors. Options will exist, but those options will be the ones that appeal to a profitable segment of consumers. What is needed is not neutrality, but differentiated choices. With enough choices for internet access, there would be no need for net neutrality rules. The market will ensure that internet service providers offer the options that customers demand. Update: This column was updated at 11:00pm EST on July 16 2017 to correct the link near the top and make clearer the proposed change in FCC regulations. Jeffrey Dorfman is a professor of economics at The University of Georgia. His last popular press book is an e-book, Ending the Era of the Free Lunch. You can follow him on Twitter @DorfmanJeffrey

My real concern is not the ideal of net neutrality. I am concerned that the Obama era regulations will tend to stop many aspects of the internet that may be needed for the survival of media as the companies transition from print to digital. The entire position of net neutrality seems to be counter their own interests if media is to prosper by monetizing their products rather than give them away for free. As the Forbes article points out, the problem is one of lack of competitive pressures which is the result of being early in the development of the industry. Give it time. Innovation and more participants are better than regulating this as is it was an electric utility or the old AT&T wired telephone system. I fear that the current form of government regulations will encourage a "Tragedy of the Commons" when the reality should be to multiply, grow, and flourish.

[Elfdude]

Impressive level of justification.

The only apt comparison of net traffic is of physical traffic. You're saying that there should be an allowance for toll roads in a world where public roads are not serving everyone to their best.

I can see the point of that logic.

Unfortunately since all internet access is already monetized, we already live in a system where all roads are toll roads. What we've done to make sure folks have freedom of access is demand that those roads at the very least connect to all exits.

So, unless the government creates a system where there exists a public option of Internet access which is explicitly neutral, corporate neutrality for ISPs is a must.

[NorseThing]

There may be some confusion here on who is an ISP. Virtually all media is based at some level of some sort of an ISP. It is not just Comcast or T-Mobile. It is also your local newspaper or streaming radio or music that is an ISP. Net neutrality is simply too much of a grab by the government on all internet related business. Like the Forbes article implied, do you think that it is appropriate that any and every ISP provide service to all comers of all types of usage at all volumes at the same price? So the movie streaming of Netflix must be carried equal perhaps my sending an email of text. That one should never ever delay in favor of the other even though one is more time sensitive (streaming) and one may not even be used for several days (text email). Why shouldn't the streaming pay more to have better reliability? My goodness, even the local electric company has peak hour pricing to its biggest customers to prevent what others may experience as a brown out during heavy usage. If a hospital wants higher reliability of power than the local bar, should one also be paying more for the better service? How is this different from the internet?

[Ludicus]

It's a blow to democracy.

Trump's FCC Nukes Network Neutrality: What Happens Now

...The telecoms have already been behaving, as political commentator Jon Lovett put it, “like raptors testing the fences.” Now that the fences have suddenly been taken down, norms and expectations are the only thing left to restrain them.

[Elfdude]

There may be some confusion here on who is an ISP. Virtually all media is based at some level of some sort of an ISP. It is not just Comcast or T-Mobile. It is also your local newspaper or streaming radio or music that is an ISP.

That is not true. An ISP is an internet service provider, they are a company which owns or can tie into the Internet backbone and give other folks access to that tie-in for a price. I don't know of any Newspaper which does this. Most newspapers however are likely to be charged by Comcast or Verizon, or AT&T for access to their content. You now have ISP's acting like loan sharks asking media providers (newspaper, video providers and etc) for money to "protect" their access to their websites. Furthermore since comcast, verizon etc own huge swaths of internet media itself it allows them to fundamentally pursue their own interests.

Net neutrality is simply too much of a grab by the government on all internet related business. Like the Forbes article implied, do you think that it is appropriate that any and every ISP provide service to all comers of all types of usage at all volumes at the same price?

Firstly, it's not a forbes article, it's an opinion piece written by a libertarian. Forbes is not a fan of repealing net neutrality because Forbes is anticipating paying for access like every media source. It is owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments based in Hong Kong. Most of their investments are likely to see new overhead costs on delivery that they never had to pay before. That delivery is likely to also be judged on content.

So the movie streaming of Netflix must be carried equal perhaps my sending an email of text. That one should never ever delay in favor of the other even though one is more time sensitive (streaming) and one may not even be used for several days (text email).

First off your comparison is idiotic. A text email is a few kilobytes at most, a streaming movie is a million times more than that. Secondly, let's say that VRV is trying to compete with netflix and offering similar services at a smaller price. Who do you think wins? Do you really believe Netflix won't pay to keep VRV at a lower speed? Admittedly, netflix might not do it, but I know Hulu would definitely pay to kill netflix.

Why shouldn't the streaming pay more to have better reliability?

I have no objection to that if we had a public internet option. Because we don't that means that only those systems which pay are accessible. It also silo's those systems on certain systems as well. Verizon which runs Youtube has no interest in supporting other streaming services. Hulu is owned by fox, abc and nbc. Netflix is independent. Hulu makes significant ad-revenues, netflix does not. I could go on and on here. Companies have no choice but to turn over a large portion of their profits in exchange for users even being able to access their content.

On the other hand consumers now will have to decide which products they feel are justified. Do they want to use facebook? What about browse the New York Times? What if they want to go to a website which is independent?

My goodness, even the local electric company has peak hour pricing to its biggest customers to prevent what others may experience as a brown out during heavy usage.

Electric companies have tight government regulations. Your apples to oranges comparison is .

If a hospital wants higher reliability of power than the local bar, should one also be paying more for the better service? How is this different from the internet?

Your comparison is apples to oranges so its irrelevant. Were a bar to be regularly causing a brown out to a hospital odds are the government would step in. Most hospitals are protected by government regulations from this because most people who aren't idiots understand hospitals don't have the luxury of being able to weather a power limitation and that such a limitation would cost not just money but lives.

[NorseThing]

Before you continue to disagree with me, perhaps you should read the actual regulations as passed in 2015:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...CC-15-24A1.pdf

So all forms of access are regulated. Not just those that you consider to be your definition of an ISP. So not only does this mean the end connection to the end user (the last mile so to speak) but it also regulates that first mile as well. That means that the FCC had declared that they could (not did) regulate even how and to whom the NY Times could choose to communicate via the internet. You definition of an ISP is not nearly as expansive as the FCC definition.

[Diocle]

It's a blow to democracy.

Trump's FCC Nukes Network Neutrality: What Happens Now

Now, I just hope you don't seriouly believe in your own propaganda, because it would be a pretty hilarious situation!

Think: on one side liberals ask everyday for more and more censorship on the Internet, some of their groups of activists have proclaimed themselves as Net-Police, denouncing what they consider Fascist activity everywhere, hundreds sites have been obscured by the compliant managers of giant networks as youtube, Google and other similar giants; now, on the other side, the same liberals dare to complain about the end of Net neutrality? They say that this will be the end of freedom of speech on the Net? What? Which freedom? Was there someone free of speeching on Internet? Really? Where? What are they saying? Are they kidding us, right?

Please guys, tell me you don't believe in your own crap!

The following screens actually are what I see on my screen many time a day, this is the 'landscape with ruins' I see when I try to reach some of my old links (you'll see Italian text because I write from Italy, but I think you know well what this crap means, it's the same in any country):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

All this has started to happen well before today, they are months we are seeing tens and hundreds sites obscured and ceasing any activity, and the liberals were absolutely glad of this show, indeed they were asking for even more censure, more and more intrusions into the privacy of users and site owners, more restrictions, more controls, more net-police.
Very well, today Trump has given them the best form of censure they could think, a censure driven by market and .. they complain about their lost freedom!?!?!? OMG!

[The spartan]

Before you continue to disagree with me, perhaps you should read the actual regulations as passed in 2015:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...CC-15-24A1.pdf

So all forms of access are regulated. Not just those that you consider to be your definition of an ISP. So not only does this mean the end connection to the end user (the last mile so to speak) but it also regulates that first mile as well. That means that the FCC had declared that they could (not did) regulate even how and to whom the NY Times could choose to communicate via the internet. You definition of an ISP is not nearly as expansive as the FCC definition.

Just to be clear, we had net neutrality even before 2015, it just wasn't really codified. But we have never had it be where ISPs could throttle bandwidth to specific sites (at least not legally). I don't think your interpretation of the regulation is correct, I don't think I have heard of that issue ever brought up in regards to net neutrality. No one thought the FCC could dictate access to sites.

[saxdude]

denouncing what they consider Fascist activity everywhere

The following screens actually are what I see on my screen many time a day

Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer

Anywaaaaay Diocle, if consumers denouncing webpages isn't really the same thing as Isp's blocking sites.

[NorseThing]

Just to be clear, we had net neutrality even before 2015, it just wasn't really codified. But we have never had it be where ISPs could throttle bandwidth to specific sites (at least not legally). I don't think your interpretation of the regulation is correct, I don't think I have heard of that issue ever brought up in regards to net neutrality. No one thought the FCC could dictate access to sites.

If the FCC can control access to maintain open then they can control access to close or throttle as well. You cannot have one side of a coin without consideration of the other side as well. This is the nature of government power and why many people want and believe the government has too much power. Just because you approve of what the FCC has done in the past, does not mean the very same power cannot also be used in ways you would not approve of.

I would prefer that Congress always have a greater oversight role by needing to approve or veto the regulations within a short period of time. This idea that the executive can simply regulate until the Congress chooses to say stop is really part of the problem here. That Obama era could regulate and that the Trump era can roll back is really the problem. Where is the legislature on this stuff?

My complaints on this are because of what the regulators could do. I think too many members are more concerned with only what the regulators did do.

[TheDarkKnight]

Half the idiots on my facebook page wanted it gone ONLY because the (now defunct) regulations were instituted during Obama's tenure. Literally the only reason. These are the same people that like to spend their days at home on Youtube and Netflix and (I'm assuming) will regret their support of repeal within the next couple of years.

You could cut through the level of ignorance from those people, as well as that of other supporters of repeal, with an dull, rusty blade.

It's absolutely mind boggling that people don't see the problem here. Why anyone would trust COMCAST of all entities to have their best interests at heart does not inspire confidence in me in their intellectual capabilities.

Ajit Pai is a turd who was out to make money from this.

[Diocle]

Anywaaaaay Diocle, if consumers denouncing webpages isn't censure by market, then what is it?

I think that you can say everything you want, you can even say that while you ask for more and more censorship, at the same time you also ask for more Internet freedom ..

Now I don't see any logic in this double standard, all I see is a form of severe dementia, but when ever the Left has been in need of any logic?

So, like everyone else on the Net, .. do as you like, my dear, .. do as you like.

[NorseThing]

For those who may be a bit overwrought by the FCC reversal, I offer this bit from NPR:

In undoing the regulations, the FCC has reasserted one of the net neutrality requirements: that Internet providers — such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T — disclose to their users what exactly they do to web traffic. This will essentially shift all enforcement to the Federal Trade Commission, which polices violations rather than pre-empts them through regulations.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...rnet-providers

So now we go back to that old fashioned idea of punishing actual acts rather than preventing potential actions -- a bit like a policeman walking a beat and seeing a person littering in progress rather than posting a sign admonishing people to not litter and hoping for the best. I do not think this is a difference between a conservative and a liberal, but there seems to be something along these lines with the commotion caused today.

[Elfdude]

Before you continue to disagree with me, perhaps you should read the actual regulations as passed in 2015:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...CC-15-24A1.pdf

So all forms of access are regulated. Not just those that you consider to be your definition of an ISP. So not only does this mean the end connection to the end user (the last mile so to speak) but it also regulates that first mile as well. That means that the FCC had declared that they could (not did) regulate even how and to whom the NY Times could choose to communicate via the internet. You definition of an ISP is not nearly as expansive as the FCC definition.

Uhm... I'm not sure you understand what you're talking about. What the FCC ruling in 2015 did is reclassified broadband internet providers as telecommunications. Telecommunications already has strong neutrality rules (i.e. if I pay verizon for phone access, verizon can't tell me I can't call t-mobile, or charge t-mobile extra to connect my call) this change was relatively simple. The regulations specifically applies to broadband service providers and mandates that data transfers of any sort are free from commercialization or faux commercially necessary regulations.

These rules are as follows:

1. No blocking - ISP's cannot block traffic to a specific website or address
2. No throttling - ISP's cannot throttle or control the speed on a content basis for lawful internet use (they can however still block and throttle illegal use)
3. No paid prioritization - ISP's cannot charge other companies for prioritization of their networks.
4. No unreasonable interference or disadvantage to consumers - Several reasonable exceptions to this rule already exist, for example military and hospital traffic is prioritized
5. Enhanced transparency - prevents ISP's from asserting false speeds, and opens up their management practices to oversight i.e. we know what they're doing and no doing although comcast's speedtest.net is a potentially a breech the court case would be rendered null and void at this point
6. Interconnectivity - Forces ISP's to connect to all networks which they can reasonably reach for example I can connect to Breitbart, the KKK's website and BLM regardless of the personal feelings of the ISP I use. Prevents the internet from fragmenting allowing access only to certain things via certain networks.

Furthermore the scope of these rules applies and applies ONLY to the following: Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS) A mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmitdata to and receive data from all or substantially all Internet endpoints, including anycapabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communicationsservice, but excluding dial-up Internet access service. This term also encompasses anyservice that the Commission finds to be providing a functional equivalent of the servicedescribed in the previous sentence, or that is used to evade the protections set forth inthis Part.

Furthermore most of these rules are subject to Reasonable Network Management practices which excempts application of these rules via: A network management practice is a practice that has a primarily technical network management justification, but does not include other business practices. A network management practice is reasonable if it is primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management purpose, taking into account the particular network architecture and technology of the broadband Internet access service.

All of this information is available in the document you posted. I'm not sure where you got the idea that all media was being regulated to this. Media is not being regulated, access to that media via BIAS (a rather clever nickname) is.

For those who may be a bit overwrought by the FCC reversal, I offer this bit from NPR:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...rnet-providers

So now we go back to that old fashioned idea of punishing actual acts rather than preventing potential actions -- a bit like a policeman walking a beat and seeing a person littering in progress rather than posting a sign admonishing people to not litter and hoping for the best. I do not think this is a difference between a conservative and a liberal, but there seems to be something along these lines with the commotion caused today.

The FTC is relatively speaking helpless to police ISPs. The FTC has stated this themselves. They are good at some of the big things but they do not have the capacity or scope to see to individual day to day activities.

[Admiral Piett]

TELECOM > consumer

The logic in putting an FCC chairmen like Pie in there is sort of like JG Wentworth as the chairman of a commission overseeing tort reform.