Appeals court upholds FCC's net neutrality order

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/court-upholds-obama-backed-net-neutrality-rules-224309

by textdog • 10 years ago

591 262 10 years ago

StavrosK• 10 years ago

Can someone explain what this means? The term "net neutrality" has been muddled so much that I can't tell if it means what it actually says, or if it's distorted doublespeak that actually means the opposite.

Is this decision good or bad for us?

theseanstewart• 10 years ago

This is very good. It means Net Neutrality is here to stay (for now).

wmeredith3• 10 years ago

This is the core of what was upheld:

"No Blocking: broadband providers may not block access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.

"No Throttling: broadband providers may not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.

"No Paid Prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind—in other words, no "fast lanes." This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates."

This is a good thing. Big telcos have been trying to gut the FCC of its power ever since they issued their Open Internet Order: https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet

Next stop is the supreme court if they continue to push back against it.

komali2• 10 years ago

Does this mean netflix can stop paying Comcast?

vermontdevil2• 10 years ago

I doubt the Supreme Court will pick this up until the ninth seat is filled.

criddell7• 10 years ago

So can broadband providers still strike zero-rating deals with companies like Spotify?

tzs2• 10 years ago

Next stop is the supreme court if they continue to push back against it

More likely the next stop is Congress. Reversing basically everything the FCC has done with the internet and making sure the FCC does not do any such things again is a major goal of the Republicans and they currently have majorities in the House and the Senate.

Their presumptive presidential nominee, Trump, is also against net neutrality, seeing it as a liberal attack on conservatives: "Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media" [1].

[1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716...

JoshTriplett2• 10 years ago

"No Paid Prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind—in other words, no "fast lanes." This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates."

In the absence of a clear definition of "favor", this could also make it difficult for ISPs to host CDNs, or caching servers provided by content providers. If you put Netflix's caching box on your network, in some sense that "favors" Netflix traffic. And yet doing so is good for Netflix, the ISP, and the customer.

drzaiusapelord• 10 years ago

In general it means no blocking or throttling by a certain class of ISP. I believe mobile gets an exception as they are allowed to non-discriminatory throttle past a certain "data cap." This includes lower caps for mobile hotspot usage.

Also, T-Mobile is arguably violating non-netrality with its Binge service. The FCC has thus far refused to rule against them. T-Mobile claims this cannot be throttling because you can opt-out of it at any time and upstream providers are not being charged. Seems like this could a slippery slope for wired ISPs to follow.

On top of that, I'm a AT&T u-verse customer who recently cut his TV service with U-verse. I was told that I now have a strict data cap, when before I had unlimited because of that. I would like to see the FCC address these situations as cord-cutting becomes popular. I have a FireTV now with Playstation Vue and HBO Now for at least 1/2 the price of U-verse tv.

oconnore• 10 years ago

The most important part of the decision is granting the FCC authority to consider internet providers as a utility -- and therefore regulate their activities in the interest of the consumer.

The actual "net neutrality" win is nice, but this means that the FCC has power to tweak the regulations in the future when Verizon/Comcast/AT&T come up with some new shitty way to monetize their customers.

mtgx• 10 years ago

Net neutrality is "good" in the sense that it has some regulations that "should" stop the carriers from making the Internet much worse than it already is - with the caveat that the FCC actually enforces those rules, and so far it hasn't (maybe it was just waiting for the Court to uphold these rules - we'll see).

But these net neutrality rules won't really make the Internet "better" in the U.S., until the ISPs get much better competition, mainly at the local level. Right now this is often not possible because of "other regulations" that essentially give exclusive rights/monopoly to an ISP over a certain area.

If you want "better Internet", eliminating those local monopolies should be the main goal for policy changes going forward. It's something Republicans should vigorously support as well (free market!), but for some reason (read: campaign donations) they do not.

gm-conspiracy• 10 years ago

Before rayiner replies to this and insists it is not a monopoly, but a "non-exclusive franchise agreement", I give you this link:

Cable TV Franchises as Barriers to Video Competition

http://www.vjolt.net/vol12/issue1/v12i1_a2-Hazlett.pdf

textdog2• 10 years ago

It also means no government or telecom company (or corporation for that matter) can get in between you and the Internet content of your choosing through sneaky slowing down or throttling.

dclowd9901• 10 years ago

The only thing you need to know is that telcos and providers are against net neutrality.

(Ok, so some people on here would argue that any regulation on internet is a slippery slope, but I wouldn't worry about that from the FCC. Now, if congress starts weighing in, that's a different story.)

sideband2• 10 years ago

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I believe it's a net negative.

Typically, ISPs in the US are either small and barely-profitable or large and with little appetite for business or technical innovation. The largest content providers already effectively share revenue with the largest ISPs through paid-peering and other arrangements. The smaller players, those that with success could grow and advance the market, are too small to justify the time of content providers that are also very worried about setting a dangerous precedent by extending the same deals to them that they extend to the AT&Ts and Comcasts.

Sure, as consumers we get additional protections, but I fear this mostly ensures that the industry as a whole stays put.

baldfat• 10 years ago

I fear this mostly ensures that the industry as a whole stays put.

That was 100% the point of Net Neutrality. It is so that the Internet doesn't change. Otherwise we will have a barrier of entry for all the small businesses. The Internet is a free market that needs to stay that way.

ZenoArrow2• 10 years ago

Sorry, I don't understand your point.

The whole idea of net neutrality is that content creators can't pay ISPs for preferential treatment. This means that the large ISPs won't be receiving payouts from Netflix and suchlike, and therefore won't have an advantage in this area over smaller ISPs.

If you really want to push for competition, there are other options. I don't know much about the situation in the US, but in the UK we have local-loop unbundling (LLU), which has proven to be a success in driving forward competition in the ISP market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling

LLU helps smaller ISPs to compete with larger ISPs, as it allows them to build up their infrastructure without duplicating the work of laying cables. From the Wikipedia page I just linked to it appears that LLU is at least legal in the US, I'd be interested to learn about how popular it is.

st3v3r7• 10 years ago

I don't want ISP "innovation". I want them to be a dumb pipe.

don_draper• 10 years ago

Net Neutrality means the Internet should be treated as a utility and not a luxury.

droopybuns• 10 years ago

Tom Wheeler says this:

"Notably, the Open Internet Order does not affect zero-rating services like T-Mobile's BingeOn or Verizon's Go90, which are intentionally left out of the scope of the order. "I can argue there are some aspects of [zero rating] that are good, and I can argue there’s some aspects of it that are not so good," Wheeler told The Verge in an interview in March. "The job of the regulator is to figure out, 'Okay, now how do I deal with this?'"

Outrageous behavior, followed up by outrageous commentary. This FCC is out of control. How does anyone invest in wireless with regulators like this? Is Tom Wheeler even aware of the chilling affect of commentary like this?

Edit: The quote above is from the fine article.

Wmeredith: I'm talking about is Tom Wheeler, chair of the FCC. In this particular quote, the regulator of the laws is saying (at least as far as I can tell), that he's going to pick and choose which players he regulates. Should I assume you're arguing that my quote from the article is fud, or is it my commentary? Or my interpretation of it?

I'm not being a troll. I have an honest disagreement that this is the right thing to do. Would you invest in any climate with a regulator who says things like this? It seems wildly more risky to me.

exhilaration• 10 years ago

Can someone give us a quick summary of why the two mentioned services are problematic?

wmeredith3• 10 years ago

T-Mobile's BingeOn or Verizon's Go90 are problematic because they prioritize content. Say you're a new video streaming startup. You can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users because Netflix's traffic gets priority. You can't get that priority because you're not a big enough fish to negotiate your own fast lane. Fast lanes are bad for innovation in this way. They favor entrenched players, which then become more entrenched, and then become more favored, etc...

The FCC's Open Internet Order explicitly bans this behavior, but it only applies to wired connections. They did not issue any ruling on wireless internet, so several wireless providers offer these unmetered fast lanes (i.e. stream content from certain providers without it counting against your bandwidth limit). It's a short term win for customers, but they lose in the long run.

dsr_• 10 years ago

Pretend that you are an internet provider looking to extract revenue from all possible sources. Only your direct customers give you money, so any time you can reduce carrying traffic to and from non-customers, you will.

Zero-rating your own (or subsidiary, or partners') traffic is a way of increasing the perceived costs to your end-users for traffic which is not as profitable to you. That reduces demand for the less-profitable traffic, thus allowing your profit margin to increase. Meanwhile, you get to spin the message to customers as "this stuff is free!" rather than "we built the cost of this stuff in to your monthly bill, and anything else gets counted against your quota".

gervase• 10 years ago

I believe the gist of the argument is that zero-rating is essentially reverse prioritization.

In other words, if T-Mobile is giving Pandora privileges on the network that any mom-and-pop startup streaming service doesn't have access to, does it really matter if T-Mobile is charging the customer for that? Since it still effectively stifles innovation by new players (a core tenet of Wheeler's net neutrality argument).

wmeredith3• 10 years ago

What are you talking about? Gonna need some more logic to backup your FUD.

jahewson• 10 years ago

The FCC chose not to include zero-rating in the Open Internet Order, because of its ambiguity. They could imagine both good and bad approaches to zero rating (with the bad being to effectively circumvent net neutrality).

They've been consulting with the industry to try to figure out which aspects of zero rating are helpful and which are (or have the potential to be) harmful. That's what a good regulator should do.

The original Verge article describes all of this. Perhaps you'd care to read it.

st3v3r7• 10 years ago

"How does anyone invest in wireless with regulators like this? "

If your idea of "innovation" is to throttle, block, and otherwise act in an un-neutral manner, I don't want you to invest in wireless. I want you to leave it for someone who will be neutral with the traffic.

Also, he didn't say he was going to pick and choose. Unless by "pick and choose", you mean he's going to go after those who are breaking the rules, and leave those who aren't alone.

billiam• 10 years ago

Second to last nail in the coffin. Yay. Sometimes the interests of hundreds of millions of people can in fact outweigh the interests of two corporations. With so many things about our society under attack, this is good news. attack,

762236• 10 years ago

An alternative way to look at it: the value in the network is due to the networking effects, which is contributed by the network members --- the value provided by the two corporations is slight in comparison. This is the same as in property value --- a McDonalds located in downtown San Francisco is quite a different proposition to one located in the middle of a prairie, and the value isn't in the building, but the availability of patrons that comes from a flourishing neighborhood.

shmerl2• 10 years ago

Good! What about efforts to repeal monopolistic state bans on municipal broadband? FCC was also in the middle of some court cases about it. Is there any progress?

russnewcomer• 10 years ago

Generally glad that the order was upheld. I do wish that zero rating was more clearly defined, but regulation is just as much a reactive task as a proactive one, and it will be interesting to see how the ISPs use that tool in their toolbox. My suspicion is that we would see general price increases but then a 'zero rating' for, say, streaming video, making it seem like a good deal. Video seems cheaper but is really just subsidized by the rest of the content.

I see a parallel there to how the health insurance situation in America seems to have played out over the last few years from the view point of the average middle class developer.

textdog2• 10 years ago

Really, really good point! The FCC is deciding the outcome of those plans now, groups are calling for an open process to the decision so that there isn't any bad ruling before people can weigh in and all sides looked at.

dang• 10 years ago

Url changed from http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/14/11487124/fcc-net-neutralit..., which points to this.

pmoriarty• 10 years ago

Can ISPs still charge for more bandwidth?

jimktrains2• 10 years ago

Yes? Why would you think they couldn't? They just can't change you more or change your bandwidth based on the services you use.

What I really want is something akin to guarantees on the bandwidth, or something like 95%ile billing. Why should I pay for something that I'm not being given (and yes, before people start saying it's legal because of the contract, I'm not arguing that, I'm saying they're selling 50, I'm getting 20, consistently.)

grellas• 10 years ago

How we got to the point where utility-style regulation is seen as the key to ensuring a free and open internet is a true puzzle.

Utility-style regulation gives regulators plenary authority over the internet - meaning full and complete. Their power to do this or to forbid that is highly discretionary and essentially boundless.

This in turn gives a gatekeeper role to the regulators: you play by their rules or you don't play. And that means they have final say over what happens across the internet, at least within U.S. jurisdiction.

So today they say net neutrality rules.

Tomorrow maybe it is price controls in the name of consumer fairness. Or maybe it is mandated compliance with government snooping orders in the name of national security. Or who knows what not?

Why not? With a utility-style regulatory framework, you essentially have a form of administrative law run wild, legally speaking. Standards are exceedingly vague, power is wildly broad, and (in the end) he who has the most power and pull to control the regulators winds up having the final say over what the law is or is not as it affects the internet.

This is the exact antithesis of the largely hands-off idea of what the government could do with respect to the internet over the past several decades.

Of course law tends to conform in the short term to what people want and, today, most people truly do want a free and open internet. Therefore, the risk of any existential threat to internet freedom is either minimal or non-existent in the short term.

But if your idea of preserving maximum internet freedom is in effect to place a loaded gun to its head and then declare it is not a problem because it is the good guys who control it and who therefore will use it only for good purposes, then you have what you want with utility-style regulation of the internet.

It might just work great as long as the good guys are in control. But what happens when it changes some day? And, if you think it cannot, then you have far, far more faith in human nature than I can possibly summon.

Welcome to the brave new world.

thenewwazoo4• 10 years ago

I think you're ignoring the very real problems with the Internet infrastructure while you raise alarms about prospective problems. The reason utility-style regulation is a good thing is because the Internet is a utility. And like most other utilities, natural monopolies arise and the free market is distorted. There is already a gun to the head of the Internet, but instead of being putatively controlled by the populous at large it is controlled by entrenched rent-seeking oligopolists who are beholden only to shareholders that do not care about the function of the market.

Yes, there is a risk that the regulators will declare any number of rules for any number of reasons. Yes, regulatory capture of regulators is a real problem. The solution to these two problems is not to cede control to multinational corporations. Your lack of faith in human nature should extend to all humans, not just ones who are the apparatus of the state.

cderwin3• 10 years ago

Your lack of faith in human nature should extend to all humans, not just ones who are the apparatus of the state.

It's not that there's some reason to preternaturally trust corporations and to distrust the state, it's that the apparatus of the state is infinitely more powerful. If a corporation acts unethically, you lose the benefits and service it provides. If the state acts unethically, you lose your freedom and/or your life. That's a colossal difference.

Likewise, if the choice is between Google controlling access to the internet and Chinese-style regulation controlling access to the internet, there's really no choice at all: who would pick Chinese internet service over Google Fiber? And make no mistake: with utility-style regulation the only boundary between the FCC and the PRC is "the people", and if this year's election has shown anything, they are a fickle and largely ignorant bunch. "Utility-style regulation" isn't an epithet because the internet shouldn't be treated as a utility; it's an epithet because utility regulation over the past hundred years has been absolutely disastrous, enabling the supreme power of corporations, not limiting it. It's really, really sad to see the internet falling into the hands of telecoms and the FCC.

webXL11• 10 years ago

because the Internet is a utility

According to whom? The Internet is delivered to homes on top of existing regulated utilities, that are quite essential to our survival. But I can use the Internet anywhere with a sufficient enough population density if I pay for a wireless data plan. Because the true value of the Internet is global availability of information, access to that information doesn't need to be tied to a physical address in the same way a life-saving device like a telephone does. Really energy and sanitation is what we should be thinking of. They're truly necessary utilities.

gshulegaard• 10 years ago

I don't know if you meant to or not, but you basically described the classic criticism against using regulation to combat natural monopolies/monopolies in general.

In a perfect world, competition and crowd dynamics maintain openness because no single actor can influence the overall market. Unfortunately, in practice we don't see perfect competition which leaves many angles for sufficiently large market participants to influence the overall market.

There are examples from relatively recent history where regulation had varying degrees of success curbing monopolistic exploits. So I wouldn't call this a brave new world so much a slight return to the "Trust Busting" regulatory days which more or less went defunct in the last 30 odd years.

While I hear your point and I think your reasoning is sound, this particular event happens to be a step in the right direction and I am not keen to throw the baby out with the bath water in this specific instance.

forrestthewoods3• 10 years ago

What? It's not a puzzle at all!

Internet access is provided by cable and phone companies. Those companies are utility companies. They have government sponsored monopolies. It was inevitable that the internet access the utility companies provide would eventually see utility-style regulation.

Net neutrality sucks. It's a shit solution. The real solution is ISP competition. If consumers were able to choose from a dozen competing ISPs then net neutrality and all this regulation wouldn't be necessary.

The true puzzle is how do we enable ISP competition. It's not easy. But it's true solution.

thenewwazoo4• 10 years ago

Is enabling competition in fact the puzzle, though? This is a problem that's been studied intensively for well over a hundred years and solved in lots of other places. It's the same problem as power regulation, water regulation, closed-circuit television regulation, and so on. I don't think the problem is finding a solution at all. I think the problem is convincing citizens that adopting the solutions implemented elsewhere (e.g. decoupling infrastructure from service, community-owned utilities, etc) is a thing worth supporting.

chrishacken5• 10 years ago

I don't think many people realize just how difficult it is to start an ISP and compete. I started an ISP late last year (Shameless plug: https://nepafiber.com ), and I have a new found respect for ISP's. Don't get me wrong, I think most of them do an extremely shitty job at what they do. But starting one requires enormous sums of money. Furthermore, even though we hit profitability after our 4th month in business, raising money has extremely difficult because no one thinks we can weather the storm given how large and powerful other telecoms are.

matt4077• 10 years ago

Welcome to the somewhat repetitive slippery-slope fallacy.

You argue like market-based solution are not subject to the darker side of human nature, when, in fact, the conflict of interest, especially in a natural oligopoly like terrestrial internet, is one of it's fundamental pillars.

tunesmith• 10 years ago

It's yet another argument that insists on ignoring the existence of the Tragedy of the Commons phenomenon. It's just invalid to argue that regulation is never necessary.

hnhire_me5• 10 years ago

But if your idea of preserving maximum internet freedom is in effect to place a loaded gun to its head and then declare it is not a problem because it is the good guys who control it and who therefore will use it only for good purposes, then you have what you want with utility-style regulation of the internet.

The problem is with an oligopoly of effectively 0-2 providers in the majority of the US you really don't have a choice.

I'd prefer to have the gun in the hand of the government instead of a corporation who decided to stop investing in infrastructure and just milk the situation.

You really need substantial competition (10+ providers) for the free market to function.

kodablah• 10 years ago

You really need substantial competition (10+ providers) for the free market to function.

This is the most salient point. I would completely agree with OP (and I am generally in favor of fewer regulations) were we all able to choose our providers.

cbhl• 10 years ago

Didn't the lack of providers in the majority of the US happen because municipal governments got to regulate rights-of-way for installing infrastructure (copper telephone and cable wires, fiber optic cables)?

superuser22• 10 years ago

We accept the unbounded authority of law to dictate the terms of the internet, or we accept the unbounded authority of Comcast to dictate the terms of the internet.

I have at least token influence over the behavior of my government. I do not have even the illusion of input into Comcast's iptables configuration.

In a truly competitive market it would be different. And I'd love to see a truly competive market. But as it stands, the alternative to government isn't freedom, it's unbounded and unchecked power by the cable monopolies to decide what the internet is and isn't. If someone's going to make that call, I'd rather it be someone I can vote against.

cderwin3• 10 years ago

We accept the unbounded authority of law to dictate the terms of the internet, or we accept the unbounded authority of Comcast to dictate the terms of the internet.

Ahh, but we accept the unbounded authority of law to dictate far more than our internet: our property, our freedom, and (unfortunately) our very lives. What reason is there to expect the government not to regulate every other aspect of life with data from the internet? At least Comcast can't do that.

JustSomeNobody2• 10 years ago

If nobody were to step in and instead let Comcast, et al do whatever, the internet would be crap. Pure crap.

We can argue how it got that way, but apparently nobody wants to fix that, so it's a pointless argument to have.

Brybry• 10 years ago

The "bad guys" will remove the regulations and let the existing regional monopolies and duopolies do whatever they want.

It's a lot easier and generates less noise than changing the rules to be openly biased while accomplishing the same thing.

Just look at what cable companies are doing after regulation requiring unencrypted basic cable service was removed. Companies are requiring users to rent a proprietary DTA; when their TVs already support clear QAM, so there is no valid analog spectrum freeing argument.

That deregulation was done by the FCC under different management than it is now (~2012 iirc) and in the declaration all of the commissioners were patting themselves on the back and saying what a huge win it was for consumers.

Now, 4 years later, the government is having to look at regulating set top boxes in general so that consumers can actually have choices, own the equipment in their home, and not be locked to a provider.

polarix• 10 years ago

Have we considered crafting an agency as an information infrastructure policy steward, with the explicit intent to prohibit and prosecute any local and state regulations which would harm the proliferation of information infrastructure.

Probably this is not the FCC since its mandate is too broad. But if some such agency had the ability to force municipalities to allow private infrastructure investment, we might start to get the internet we want pretty quickly.

thenewwazoo4• 10 years ago

I read an argument once for nationalizing Internet infrastructure under the auspices of the US Postal Service (which is a constitutionally-mandated public utility), as the Internet serves the same public good as the post did for hundreds of years (and arguably still does). It was an audacious proposal, obviously, but I thought the idea was intriguing.

lubesGordi• 10 years ago

Gotta love the standard libertarian argument that ignores all facts and argues purely a priori. Hilarious.

AndyMcConachie• 10 years ago

Perhaps if American ISPs didn't abude their monopoly position we wouldn't need regulation. Unfortunately, they do and will continue to abuse their monopoly positions unless forced to do otherwise. They had their chance to not be jerks, they failed, and now they're regulated.

Also, cable companies and ISPs have consistently been rated terribly by consumers in recent years. Most citizens view these companies as utility providers and just want them to deliver cheap consistent service. Title II makes sense in that context.

hackuser• 10 years ago

Their power to do this or to forbid that is highly discretionary and essentially boundless.

This isn't true; the regulators are restricted by the law and by politics.

In the end, the power exists - political power is preserved - the only question is who controls it. For issues important to society, U.S. tradition is that power is allocated democratically. Americans take a vote; power is ultimately in the hands of the voters.

Every other potential authority is theoretically just as powerful and arbitrary, and usually in practice is more powerful and arbitrary (IMHO).

I agree about the risks; democracy is the worst possible system - until you look at the alternatives. What better alternative is there?

trolly• 10 years ago

This sophomoric understanding and attitude is mind boggling.

So your argument is "...but guys why would we want a utility to be treated like a utility!?"

You're entire premise is based around the idea that this regulation is fine because the "good guys" are in charge but what happens when "bad guys" are in charge. There for the only reasonable system is to limit the potential power of the "bad guys" by limiting effectiveness of government to a practically nonexistent state.

Well guess what, "bad guys" don't magically limit themselves to government.

(For the record here I'm defining "bad guys" as individuals, groups of individuals or organizations that would freely and willingly negatively affect the welfare of large groups of people for their own benefit. This could mean direct monetary gain, indirect gains from those that directly received them, societal gains, ideological or psychological gains from the feeling of imposing your will and views on others, etc. etc.)

It doesn't matter if we're talking about politics, commerce, religion, whatever. People like that are drawn to ANY institution that gives them the opportunity to advance their own interests. Hell we all do it to some degree. Some of us are obviously worse than others in both degree and extent.

The reason this regulation came about is many see the internet as a utility of great public interest. Meaning widespread, reliable, easy and cheap access to it has the potential of accelerating the growth and prosperity of our society and species as a whole. I hop I don't have to explain to you have worse off we would be without water, electricity, sewage and telephones being treated as public utilities.

In this instance that "bad guys" slithered their way not into the government side of the equation, but into business side. One of the only methods of countering "bad guys" in the market is classic free market principles. Free competition would mean "good guys" are able to enter the market and naturally drive the "bad guys" out. Invisible hand and all that jazz.

Reality does not often work like that though. It's far more complex. By using tactics to reduce competition such as buying up competitors or forcing them out of business, [mostly indirect] collusion to split up geographic markets, creating artificial barriers to entry, influencing regulation to prevent communities helping themselves, etc, they were able to carve out a pretty comfortable little position for themselves in the economy. That's not even mentioning the fact that even without all that some markets are inherently resistant to free market forces thanks to natural barriers to entry such as the the sheer difficulty and cost of laying physical lines.

Now these "bad guys" (note: obviously some excellent [mostly smaller] ISPs remain) are set up in a position to adversely affect the very prosperity of our society increasingly dependent on access to information and communication. I.e. fuck your start up and your ability to reach potential new customers because you're not peered with our "Lead Generation Package™", fuck your farm and any hope you had of learning new techniques because that site can only be reached with "Access Plus™" package, fuck xyz but please enjoy our own content network for Free™. Fuck you and whatever economic influence we might be having on your lives or businesses. Instead we're going to do all this mostly so you watch more of OUR TV SHOWS and ADVERTISEMENTS.

If i didn't find it so disturbing I would find it hilarious you used Brave New World in your argument AGAINST these regulations.

These regulation are important because with some things it doesn't matter who says them.

"DON'T FUCK WITH OUR PROSPERITY BUT FUCKING WITH PEOPLES ABILITY TO SHARE IDEAS AND INFORMATION"

That's what it comes down to and it's pretty simple.

After all if Hitler himself said "do not eat babies" you wouldn't throw your hands up in response "well looks like we need to ban any future possibility of anti baby eating rules if HITLER can say not to eat them."

If the FCC actually starts doing things you're talking THEN lets talk. It's a good thing we live in a system that lets us do that it's it?

The idea that there's some "magic bullet" that can limit the "bad guys" indefinitely is frankly juvenile at best. The idea that that "magic bullet" is limiting regulatory powers to non-existent is fucking absurd, "because "bad guys" only choose to slim their way into government" right?

The fact of the matter is the only thing that can stop "bad guys" is "good guys" having constant vigilance and a system of checks and balances that enables them to do something about it. In this case the voice of the "good guys" is being heard through sound public policy checking and balancing the power of large incumbent businesses.

fredgrott• 10 years ago

reminds me of the gun control issue with the same exact philosophy about regulation.

belorn2• 10 years ago

How we got to the point where utility-style regulation is seen as the key to ensuring a free and open internet is a true puzzle.

The answer is not that much of a puzzle. Is very hard to dig water pipes, draw power lines, copper, and fiber without direct cooperation with of the government. Every single utility provider more or less exist because they had cooperation with government, and any current monopoly status is a product of that. Governments, be that US or any other nation, has a responsibility to limit the harm from such monopolies. They created the mess so they got to clean it up.

Personally, I would have preferred if the state created monopolies could be out-competed by deregulation of "good" radio frequencies, thus allowing for cheap nationwide wireless ISPs, but the furthest we got with that is the mobile networks and its arguable if it can be said to compete with the last mile monopolies and fiber networks. Speed, latency and coverage being difficult problems to solve with current technology and frequencies regulation.

ascendantlogic2• 10 years ago

This sort of discussion always ignores the fact that the Oligopoly of ISPs have secured last-mile monopolies in a lot of states around the country. There is no free market competition to be had because these companies have explicitly agreed not to compete with each other and to buy their way to local monopolies. What recourse is there in this situation other than to have the federal government strip them of their ability to abuse their position of power?

ultramancool2• 10 years ago

The only alternative to complete control by a monopoly should not be complete control by governments. There is a middle ground and it's proven to be quite functional.

Look at how this is solved in other places such as Canada or the UK where they instead force the ISPs to lease lines at reasonable rates. It's caused a massive shift in cost and speed of connections.

ultramancool2• 10 years ago

Well said. This is why I'm surprised the US hasn't gone the route that both Canada and the UK have: have regulators force ISPs to share lines. This method basically allows government hands only on the minimum required to enforce competition.

In a few years with this system in Canada I saw basically a 10x speed increase at very close prices and real competition over which ISP I'd go with.

I think this is a far better compromise, allow the market to do its job, just use minimal regulation to force the market to actually exist.

toast0• 10 years ago

The US did go down that route, in 1996. The FCC decided that only applied to telephone operators and not cable operators; then the telephone operators complained it wasn't fair, and eventually it didn't apply to anything.

There were issues with implementation as well, AT&T* would commonly offer lower prices to consumers directly through wholesaling; which makes it pretty hard to compete

That said, I would prefer a return to the mandatory access regime as well.

* which was mostly SBC at the time

st3v3r7• 10 years ago

The US used to have this. Republicans got rid of it.

st3v3r7• 10 years ago

"This is the exact antithesis of the largely hands-off idea of what the government could do with respect to the internet over the past several decades."

And the ISPs showed us why that's a terrible idea. Remember, no one was talking about net neutrality until the big ISPs decided they wanted to fuck with the internet.

the8472• 10 years ago

Internet is a public utility:

- you want a dumb pipe that delivers the resource. there are very few distinguishing factors on which suppliers could compete

- basic enabling technology on which other amenities depend

- installation costs dominate. you're not paying for the photons or electrons

- everyone should be served, not just customers in lucrative locations

Certainly, internet access does not rank on the same level of maslow's hierarchy of needs as clean tap water, garbage disposal or electricity. But it shares many of the supply properties.

webXL11• 10 years ago

I not only want a dumb pipe, but one that's going to get bigger over time, like it has been, for a reasonable price. I'm not sure how net neutrality is supposed to accomplish that. I don't need my water to taste better over time, or my electricity in different voltages. You can't just declare something a utility without honestly pointing out these differences and addressing potential ramifications.

wpietri• 10 years ago

How we got to the point where utility-style regulation is seen as the key to ensuring a free and open internet is a true puzzle.

It's not even vaguely a puzzle. There used to be a vibrant ISP market. Large existing companies destroyed it. The best case for most Americans is oligopoly; for many, there's effectively a monopoly.

Utility-style regulation is not as good as a vibrant market. But it's a lot better than monopolists stifling innovation and extracting monopoly rents.

SkyMarshal2• 10 years ago

Tomorrow maybe it is price controls in the name of consumer fairness.

It's not clear that's a bad thing, or that it's a worse state of affairs than the fast lane/slow lane rent-extraction schemes the telecoms clearly want. Cornering markets (be they capital, IP/copyright, infrastructure, etc) and extracting rent is a primary strategy of multinational corporations these days, and as wealth is increasingly concentrated into their hands, that is an increasingly viable strategy. The telecoms are working toward exactly this with the Internet.

Or maybe it is mandated compliance with government snooping orders in the name of national security.

The telecoms running the internet have already brought us that [1]. Net neutrality is orthogonal to that problem.

It might just work great as long as the good guys are in control. But what happens when it changes some day? And, if you think it cannot, then you have far, far more faith in human nature than I can possibly summon.

You seem to have far more faith in multinational corporate control of national economic infrastructure and the reliability of self-regulation via market forces than I can summon, especially in light of the continuous failures of both of those ideas in recent years - Enron/CA electrical infrastructure, GFC, IP/copyright, patent trolls, etc.

Hard to quantify the following assertion, but many concerned citizens sense the US government is still more accountable to citizens than large corporations are nowadays. The success of the crowd campaign for Net Neutrality is evidence, if not proof, of that. If there's a lesser of two evils here, it's FCC net neutrality rules, not a "free market" for what appears to be an unaccountable oligopoly-owned natural monopoly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

mavrc• 10 years ago

How we got to the point where utility-style regulation is seen as the key to ensuring a free and open internet is a true puzzle.

We can break it down quite simply.

- Being an ISP is not a high margin business.

- ISPs, like any other business, are always seeking ways to make more money.

- Charging sites for the privilege of traversing their infrastructure, or charging customers by the sites they load (the "cable TV" model, if you will) is a way to make more money, so ISPs want to do it.

- Consumers don't want to be charged more money for the same bits, and neither do the owners of large sites.

- Consumers have little to no choice of ISP, because being an ISP is very expensive, and as mentioned, it's pretty low profit (in the grand scheme of things.)

Pretty simple, really.

Sure, in an ideal world, we'd just be able to change to an ISP that fits our particular political bent (no traffic shaping/filtering/prioritizing for me, thanks!) but that world does not exist.

The idea, in short, is that free speech (meaning, in this case, unprioritized w/r/t bits) is more important than ISPs ability to make money. That's not the perfect scenario but it is the most acceptable one, given the world in which we live.

awinder• 10 years ago

Meanwhile, public utility water outclasses bottled, power infrastructures remain world class, and are fixed during weather catastrophes quickly, roads remain plowed, and kids receive public educations that are competitive with private schools at costs below 15k / year.

Americans have been working together to foster functioning and great societies through government for ages now. It's you that wants to test this brave new world.

scrupulusalbion• 10 years ago

Meanwhile, public utility water outclasses bottled,

Bottled water is often just tap water.

Flint Michigan has undrinkable water as a result of decades of mismanagement from the entrenched local politicians.

The water in my city makes me nauseous to drink, so I have to buy distilled in gallon or larger containers. It is fortunate that most of my water usage is showering.

Ah, but these are anecdotes.

Americans have been working together to foster functioning and great societies through government for ages now. It's you that wants to test this brave new world.

The victims of the Drug War (primarily poor and minorities) must live ruined lives from this "functioning and great [society] through government for ages now."

They are just anecdotes.

World-class government sucks.

amelius• 10 years ago

http://businesswolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/net-neutr...

shmerl2• 10 years ago

How we got to the point where utility-style regulation is seen as the key to ensuring a free and open internet is a true puzzle.

By not preventing monopolization of the ISP market. It might be a natural monopoly, in such case getting to such point is something to be expected. Monopoly must be regulated. You should better ask, why we got there only now, ignoring various monopolistic abuses before.

amyjess• 10 years ago

You know what? I don't care. Electric companies are regulated the same way, and we all have the freedom to use our electrical devices how we want.

And you say "price controls" like that's a bad thing. It's not. Honestly, I wouldn't even be opposed to the federal government just nationalizing every ISP and carrier in the country.

cobbzilla• 10 years ago

Venezuela has done a fantastic job with price controls and nationalizing industry. Have you heard about how wonderful things are in that country?

throwawaysocks• 10 years ago

The posts below explain the normative policy problems with your view, but fail to point out the biggest flaw: you're simply wrong, as a matter of fact, about what this decision entails.

The majority opinion directly addresses your concerns.

The majority opinion explicitly and unambiguously REJECTS the line of legal reasoning you claim it upholds, and definitely does NOT grant the FCC "plenary" regulatory authority over the internet.

The court carefully points out that is not granting the FCC any authority that was not explicitly granted by the legislative and executive branches. If you don't like net neutrality, take it up with the legislative and executive branches.

There is no slippery slope here, any more or less than democracy itself is a slippery slope.

In short, your reading of the majority opinion is patently incorrect.

deciplex• 10 years ago

Once "the bad guys" are in control what makes you think they are going to give a shit about the regulatory tradition of the internet up to that point?

dreamdu5t2• 10 years ago

Can someone explain why T-Mobile is legally allowed to provide free streaming for YouTube and Netflix? Didn't net neutrality prevent that? Or am I just out of the loop?

The thing is... I like them preferentially treating YouTube and Netflix traffic by not counting it towards my bandwidth limit. The "fair" alternative sucks: I would simply not stream on my phone anymore because it would be too expensive.

ascagnel_3• 10 years ago

T-Mobile is allowed to do that due to zero-rating, which the FCC is still investigating. I'd expect T-Mobile to be OK (their only requirement is technical; streams need to be TCP); but some of their competitors (AT&T's advertiser-supported model, Verizon's own video service) will probably run into trouble.

fucking_tragedy• 10 years ago

The fair alternative could be to not count any streaming video service traffic towards your data usage.

dreamdu5t2• 10 years ago

And how would T-Mobile be compensated for that? AFAIK, the reason they're able to do this is because Netflix, Youtube, etc. pays them to be part of the program.

sova• 10 years ago

Hurray for common sense!

jojohack• 10 years ago

Does this mean I can finally watch HBO GO on my PS4 via my Comcast account?

ascagnel_3• 10 years ago

Nope. It means that, should you ever be able to log in to HBO GO on your PS4 with your Comcast account, Comcast won't be able to do much to degrade the stream.

The authentication of pay services is outside the purvue of Net Neutrality.

bcheung2• 10 years ago

What are the specifics in regard to peering? It seemed like with Netflix there was some confusion and FUD and it was hard to know the exact facts.

Normally as a business you are required to purchase bandwidth from bandwidth providers. I would assume this would still stand.

What counts as throttling? If an ISP has multiple peering connections with backbone providers are they forced to upgrade their hardware to compensate for all the traffic coming from their peer? If so, what counts as sufficient quality?

If they upgrade some peering connections and not others is that breaking Net Neutrality?

My understanding, not sure if it is correct, was that Netflix had traffic on an Internet backbone and Comcast was selectively throttling traffic within the peering connection based on whether it was Netflix traffic. I can see how that is discriminatory and wrong.

Anyone have more details about how all this works specifically?

bcheung2• 10 years ago

How does this relate to high frequency trading and paying more to get access to servers closer to the exchange?

Is that paid prioritization / a fast lane? Or is that just purchasing a better plan?

Where is the line drawn?

tjohns• 10 years ago

Usually this is done over private leased lines, either as a dedicated fiber run or on a switched network.

If you're worried about tens of milliseconds worth of latency, you don't route your traffic over the public internet.

nemock• 10 years ago

I think it'll be a while before we are out of the woods on this one. The culprits continue to thumb their nose at the FCC and openly challenge their authority.

daveheq• 10 years ago

The politicians know they can never get past the technologists; not because they make them so much money, but because they're smarter than they are.

Appeals court upholds FCC's net neutrality order

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