Net Neutrality to Get U.S. Senate Vote as Democrats Force Issue

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-08/net-neutrality-to-get-u-s-senate-vote-as-democrats-force-issue

by rayuela • 9 years ago

343 151 9 years ago

bloomberg.com

lurr10• 9 years ago

Good, force people to put their name behind an issue.

chriscappuccio5• 9 years ago

what is your NN position, Mr. Lurr?

lurr10• 9 years ago

I am pro net neutrality and unwilling to reveal my real name.

I'm also not an elected representative of the people.

zeep• 9 years ago

That should ensure an easy win for Oprah in 2020...

elihu• 9 years ago

Would a CRA force a House vote as well?

(The House has another procedure called a discharge petition to force votes on things that are supported by a majority of representatives but opposed by a majority of the majority party -- it seems unlikely that there are enough votes in the House to force a net neutrality vote, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition)

grzm• 9 years ago

"Would a CRA force a House vote as well?"

According to the article, it appears that the call for CRA will:

"Democratic senators have collected enough support to force a vote to block the changes from taking effect."

...

"To take effect, the CRA would need majority votes in both houses, in addition to sign-off from the president."

It's not clear to me if the Senate would vote first, and, if the vote fails, whether the House would also be required to vote.

edaemon• 9 years ago

It only goes to the House if the CRA resolution passes the Senate. CRA resolutions function just like other resolutions or bills, being introduced and voted on in one house and approved via vote in the other.

JoshuaEN• 9 years ago

This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level. Congress ultimately directly serve at the pleasure of their constituents, unlike the FCC commissioners.

Point being, the time leading up to this vote is probably be the best time to let your congress members know your opinion on NN. Do not let the "failure"[1] of previous efforts to get congress to act in defense of NN dissuade you from future action, particularly now: It is far easier for a politician to take no action (as they could when the FCC was ones doing the voting) than to actively vote against the wishes of their constituents.

---

[1] Failure in scare quotes since it seems likely part of the reason NN is still a topic being actively fought for in congress, in the courts, and at a state level is because there is a large amount of vocal support for it.

awalton5• 9 years ago

This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level.

Shame, because this vote is incredibly predictable by anyone who has been paying any attention at all. Republicans are on the bullet train to dismantle and sell off the government to the highest bidders. This vote goes straight down party lines.

But, it'll be an easy banner for Dems to hoist in November to rally voters, since it's categorical that Americans do not want this madness from the FCC to continue.

renlo• 9 years ago

I thought that was the point the article was positing; it's a symbolic vote to get Republicans on the record for their support of an unpopular position.

sumedh• 9 years ago

since it's categorical that Americans do not want this madness

As an outsider it is kind of amusing when I see lines like "Americans do not want" said by both Democrats and Republicans.

pdonis3• 9 years ago

Republicans are on the bullet train to dismantle and sell off the government to the highest bidders.

This is equally true of the Democrats; they just have a different set of preferred highest bidders.

matte_black• 9 years ago

This is an easy opportunity for Republicans to show they can be bipartisan without actually risking much, given the widespread support there is for Net Neutrality. Later they can attack Democrats for not being more bipartisan on one of their issues.

boomboomsubban9• 9 years ago

This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level. Congress ultimately directly serve at the pleasure of their constituents, unlike the FCC commissioners.

The best chance is actually passing a bill revising the Communications Act of 1934 to explicitly include internet access. Anything else will result in a return to court battles over whether the FCC has authority to control the medium.

Kequc2• 9 years ago

Why don't Democrats pass NN through congress and get it enshrined into law? Instead of trying to block that from happening, since it's Republicans who are trying to do that.

Why was NN so easy to repeal in the first place? Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue? I still don't agree with the accepted wisdom about what NN is in the first place. Seems to me to suggest companies that are using up a lot of bandwidth are going to start paying more, competitors are going to start paying less. Which is why every single large company is opposed to the change.

lukeschlather2• 9 years ago

No. Companies that are using lots of bandwidth will get bulk rates, or negotiate sweetheart zero-rating deals.

Upstart companies with spikes in usage may be killed because they can't get the bandwidth they need at the same low rates the incumbent players get.

landryraccoon4• 9 years ago

Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue?

To be clear, you're trying to blame Obama for something the Republican controlled Congress was responsible for? Obama wasn't a dictator; Congress decides what laws to pass and Congress wasn't exactly in favor of just about anything Obama wanted to do.

Also I think you're misunderstanding what Net Neutrality is about. Net Neutrality doesn't say that everyone pays the same regardless of what bandwidth they use - ISPs are free to charge more for more bandwidth usage. Net Neutrality says that ISPs can't rate discriminate based on the type of data shared. NN means that Comcast can't charge more for packets coming from foxnews.com as opposed to msnbc.com, but it doesn't say that they can't charge an end user that uses 5 GB more than one that uses 1 GB.

awalton5• 9 years ago

Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue?

Obama was president while the Republicans held the legislature hostage. It was a miracle his administration was able to ask for and get any legislation passed at all; it was easily the most obstructionist congress ever. He couldn't even appoint a Supreme Court Justice because Mitch McConnell wouldn't allow congress to hold hearings - that's how impossible a situation he was in.

Obama did exactly as much as he was able to do with the powers he had. He wasn't about to try the kinds of stunts our current president thinks he can.

And speaking frankly, as a black person, I don't think he even could have tried to pull these kinds of stunts - he would have been impeached and booted, as any President pulling these kinds of fascist, dictatorial moves should be.

lurr10• 9 years ago

Instead of trying to block that from happening, since it's Republicans who are trying to do that.

They are? Which bills?

mankash666• 9 years ago

LOL - you're obviously joking right? You seem to be stating as fact a fictitious opinion perpetrated by the far right press.

Oh, and Obama wasn't born in Kenya

dragonwriter7• 9 years ago

Why don't Democrats pass NN through congress and get it enshrined into law?

Because Republicans (and some Democrats, too) have consistently opposed that when it was a legislative issue, and Republicans currently have a majority, preventing Democrats from passing, well, anything without their support.

Instead of trying to block that from happening, since it's Republicans who are trying to do that.

The Republican bill would explicitly allow paid prioritization and other practices that are contrary to net neutrality, and would prohibit stronger state protections of net neutrality. It is therefore a bill to prevent rather than protect neutrality.

Why was NN so easy to repeal in the first place?

Because Republicans prevented a legislative solution, repeatedly.

Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue?

Because the US President isn't a dictator that can impose laws or make “super regulations” that cannot be repealed under future administrations.

Which is why every single large company is opposed to the change.

Huh? Large companies that are ISPs are against net neutrality. Large companies and small companies and medium companies that are edge providers tend to be for it. There is no side where all large companies fall.

dragonwriter7• 9 years ago

This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level.

It's got near zero chance of succeeding, but that's not the only point; the point is to make NN a 2018 midterm election issue for Democrats if it fails. (Which, ideally, sets NN up, via regular legislation, for a vote with a more favorable Congress in 2019.)

jnordwick• 9 years ago

Title II was never meant to be a good solution to net neutrality. It was used because it was the only level that the FCC had.

Congress can actually craft internet specific legislation and should. It seems like Title II has become the end game for many because of pure politics, not because it is a good solution. Remember, parts of Title II had to be ignored to get this square peg to fit.

No, don't vote for this. Develop an actual, specific policy if that is what you want. I fear that after Title II is enacted it would be very difficult to move to better policy in the future.

FreakyT• 9 years ago

Seems to me that some of the "ignored" parts of Title II would have nonetheless benefitted consumers.

Personally, I would love to see last loop unbundling for broadband.

chriscappuccio5• 9 years ago

It's amazing for me to watch the tech community go from the hands off libertarian attitude to full socialist over this issue.

pdabbadabba• 9 years ago

A good idea, in theory. But, in practice, this would require many more votes, and cooperation from Republican leadership in both houses of congress to develop a bill and get it out of committee and survive the likely filibuster.

The CRA route (restoring Title II classification) may not be perfect, but it's the only remotely viable strategy on Capitol Hill. (And it's still a long shot, at best.)

rconti2• 9 years ago

If you expect the Republican leadership to not support it, they won't even need the filibuster-- they've got the numbers to vote against it already.

TBH, I've lost track of who supposedly supports what and why. The votes and arguments on the NN debate, in our political sphere, seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with policy anymore, so it's hard to "predict" how someone will vote.

CydeWeys2• 9 years ago

I don't care if it's optimal, I care that it works, which it does. That makes it good. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

I'm gonna say this flat out: Do you believe in net neutrality? Because this argument that you're concern trolling with leads me to believe that you don't actually believe in it. Trying to give supposed "advice" to advance a goal—that doesn't actually do so—is deceptive.

chriscappuccio5• 9 years ago

Works for what, exactly? You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

dang2• 9 years ago

This comment crosses into personal swiping and name calling, which are not allowed here. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.

chriscappuccio5• 9 years ago

There is section 706 instead of II

zdragnar• 9 years ago

I'm not sure why you're being down voted for expressing a rational argument.

I'm all for net neutrality, but I would also much rather Congress made it a law rather than relying solely on title ii.

anfedorov• 9 years ago

What's a good resource for understanding broadband markets as a whole?

At least in SF in the past 5 years, Comcast seems to have upgraded 100Mbps connections to 1Gbps connections. Not sure whether that translates to a bigger shared pipe for the city as a whole, but it certainly looks like a good amount of improvement in $:bits, at least in comparison with $:sqFt.

pfooti• 9 years ago

I'd bet that at least part of that is in response to competition on the ground. Monkeybrains and Sonic (disclosure: long time sonic customer) both are bringing high-speed broadband to SF. In particular, I have symmetric gigabit for like $50 a month.

chrischen2• 9 years ago

I have 15 down 0.5 mbps up sonic for $70...

tfigment• 9 years ago

Its an improvement but Comcast has been delaying real improvements for years but collect insane profits (afaik). I would love to see the numbers as well. The X1 DVR as far as I am concerned was horrible compared to the ReplayTV or Tivo circa 2001 (except for obviously HD improvement). It only took 15 years and lots of legislation mandating cablecards and whatnot to get them to get there. I don't have hope that they will act in our best interests given past actions but I have to use them because there are no other real options.

Honestly I would like to see the effective monopoly on physical layer internet broken up. Allow municipalities own the cables under the street and and not allow Comcast and others to block companies like Google from expanding by blocking access to the last mile. There is a lot of unused dark fiber in lots of places that could have supported 1Gbps a long time ago but doesn't

smsm427• 9 years ago

Comcast profit margin is 12%: https://ycharts.com/companies/CMCSA/profit_margin That's on the high side, usually it's around 10%. For comparison, profit margins for Internet/IT companies are around 25%, Google's 24%. Facebook's a whopping 45%. Microsoft's a remarkable 26%.

Is 12% "insane"? Which one would be the "sane" one?

rayiner3• 9 years ago

Its an improvement but Comcast has been delaying real improvements for years but collect insane profits (afaik).

Comcast has raised speeds from about 16 mbps to gigabit in the last ten years, through multiple rounds of DOCSIS upgrades.

As to access to the last mile: that’s already the law. Pole and conduit owners are required to lease out access at non-discriminatory rates. Comcast owns few if any poles. They lease access from the power company or the phone company, just like Google would have to do.

arctia• 9 years ago

SF-specific. Comcast has to step up because competition is fierce.

Even just 30 miles south from SF, Comcast is crap because there's less competition there.

rconti2• 9 years ago

28.4 miles south from SF (according to Google Maps driving directions from "San Francisco"), I've got gig down/40 up from Comcast. And the only competition is ATT DSL (yes, I'm like 2000 feet from the CO and they'll only give me 40mbit).

Comcast advertises on broadcast TV all over the bay area "gigabit now available in your area". So I'd think penetration is pretty high now.

Now, I'd rather pay pretty much anyone other than Comcast, and in particular I'd rather not pay $170 for gigabit, and I'd rather have symmetric FTTH, but hey, someone finally brought the bandwidth and I put my money where my mouth is.

rayiner3• 9 years ago

There is no single resource. Fierce Telecom and (oddly enough) the forums on DSL Reports are good resources if you actually want to know what’s involved in getting from 100 Mbps to gigabit using DOCSIS. These sources definitely have an industry bent, but they also help you understand that “the Internet” is routers and switches and sense amps, not some platonic abstraction.

As for the policy side, you need textbooks and primary sources. Telecom is a highly regulated market with almost a century of regulations, precedent, compromises, etc. Reading an Ars Technica or Tech Crunch article on it is not educational. I recommend Master Switch by Tim Wu, and Telecom Law and Policy by Benjamin and Speta (disclosure: I’m biased because Speta was my professor in law school).

AnimalMuppet• 9 years ago

IIRC, the FCC commissioner's (stated) argument against net neutrality was that it was Congress's job to legislate things like that, not the FCC's job to just write regulations to make it so. Arguably, it's a defensible point.

Note well: I take no position on whether this was his actual reason, or just a smoke screen.

boomboomsubban9• 9 years ago

This is what overturned net neutrality in 2014, and possibly would have overturned it again without the current administration. The FCC states their right to regulate the issue comes from one incredibly vague line in a 96 act, that they are to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans."

mehrdadn• 9 years ago

This is risky. If lack of net neutrality regulation doesn't result in clearly-out-of-bounds behavior by ISPs in the near term, Democrats will be the ones looking bad for trying to add useless regulation. I hope they've thought this scenario through.

wavefunction• 9 years ago

The people who care about "useless regulation" are already anti-Net Neutrality, so you might as well count them out.

It's important to fight for the things that matter to us.

CydeWeys2• 9 years ago

The ISP bad behavior has already been going on for years and is now hitting a high-pitched fervor now that the FCC has repealed net neutrality. I don't see how it's risky; the bad behavior is already there and regulation is sorely needed.

chriscappuccio5• 9 years ago

It is risky because you are wrong; nothing is hitting any fervor at all. What are you referring to?

ikeboy• 9 years ago

This would benefit strongly from examples.

wmeredith• 9 years ago

The ISPs have already been caught red-handed throttling/shaping traffic to fit their business goals over and over.

Comcast was blocking bitorrent traffic in 2008. 1

Verizon blocked tethering apps in 2008. 1

AT&T blocked FaceTime in 2012. 1

Comcast imposed data caps for all streaming services except their own offered through xBox live in 2008. 1

Comcast currently exempts its own Stream TV service from data caps. 2

1. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/net-neutrality-violations-hi...

2. http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-New...

I dug that up by googling for 5 minutes.

pitaj• 9 years ago

Data caps and zero-rating are not illegal under Title II regulations.

temp-dude-878442• 9 years ago

This vote is an important device that serves to decouple net neutrality as a distinct political issue, rather than a footnote in a particular politician's larger platform which -- to many voters -- isn't as important as some other hot-button stances to merit single-issue voting. By triggering a senate vote, this gives an opportunity for each senator to make their stance on this a matter of official record, theoretically independent from any other affiliation they might hold. With the FCC's latest ruling opposed by a majority of liberal and conservatives alike, this is an opportunity to stand with their constituents.

The other objective of those who brought the vote is to illustrate just how few, if any, of those on the other side will vote to oppose the FCC's new rules. This can be weaponized on the ground in later elections, especially competitive districts -- or in this case, states.

smsm427• 9 years ago

Where the idea that FCC latest ruling is opposed by majority of conservatives comes from?

Moreover, if you think issue as obscure and technical as NN would be important enough for a senator to break with their own party, you are deluding yourself. The only way to make it so is to wage blatantly false campaign like "without NN you'd be paying 100x for Internet tomorrow and all your favorite sites would be blocked" - which is also kinda too late anyway, because we already know it's not true. Hoping that the average voter can appreciate the fine points of the tug of war between backbone providers and content generators is, as I said, delusional.

lukeschlather2• 9 years ago

We have a monopoly problem with Comcast, etc. so this isn't that complicated. It's an oversimplification to say that net neutrality is going to solve that problem, but I don't think it's an oversimplification to say that people against NN are against solving the problem, and I think most people get that intuitively, even if they don't get the details.

temp-dude-878442• 9 years ago

My assertion as stated in the parent post is based on the University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation's December 2017 poll, which asked respondents to weigh how convincing they found a pro-repeal and a con-repeal argument, and then asked their final stance. The results show [1] that 75% of Republican voters, over 88% of Democrat voters, and almost 86% of independents oppose changes are consistent with the result the FCC's undoing of the Obama-era NN rules. This survey at the time was widely covered in media, e.g. [2][3].

[1] http://www.publicconsultation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12... [2] http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...

lmroz2• 9 years ago

The U.S. Senate voted on an older version of net neutrality in 2011 with a resolution introduced by former republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (a resolution of disapproval of the FCC's Open Internet Order of 2010). It was a party line vote, 48-52, with republicans (the minority caucus in the Senate at that time) voting against the order and democrats voting in support of the order.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-joint-re...

Also in 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives had a disapproval vote which passed 240-179, since republicans were in the majority at that time. All but 2 republicans voted to disapprove the FCC order, while all but 6 democrats voted in support of the order.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-joint-res...

taurath• 9 years ago

So put another way, whichever party in power is against net neutrality, and whichever isn’t is for it?

lmroz2• 9 years ago

No - republicans in both chambers voted against net neutrality, and democrats in both chambers voted for net neutrality. The resolution of disapproval of net neutrality only passed in the House because there was a republican majority in the House at that time. It failed in the Senate because there was a democrat majority in the Senate at that time.

danjayh2• 9 years ago

The problem isn't net neutrality, it's lack of competition among ISPs. Normally, I would agree with them - regulating the internet is not the way to spur innovation. But with an ISP monopoly or duopoly in most markets, either more competition (my preferred solution) or regulation is needed. As we've seen with phone service (if you're old enough to remember), regulation will give us reliable but expensive service, and competition will give us cheap, reliable, and feature-filled service.

behringer2• 9 years ago

Net Neutrality and competition are two completely separate issues.

pwtweet• 9 years ago

"competition will give us cheap, reliable, and feature-filled service". Really, I would love to see the evidence that this would be the case.

lurr10• 9 years ago

Okay, but they are also doing nothing about the monopolies.

specialist3• 9 years ago

What's your proposal for increasing competition?

jjawssd• 9 years ago

Bernie did it right. There is no reason for the government to force net neutrality if instead the government focused on maintaining a competitive ISP landscape.

1024core• 9 years ago

What I don't understand is: why did it take so much effort to get to 30 supporters, when Democrats have 48 in the Senate? What are the other 18 Democratic Senators doing? Why are they not fully behind NN?

notadoc2• 9 years ago

Follow the money. I suspect you will find the answers to your questions here:

https://www.opensecrets.org/influence/

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections/

al3xnull• 9 years ago

Careful, don't want any of those senators to step out of line over there. I hear dissent is treated with lashing and in-party sabotage.

notadoc2• 9 years ago

Why net neutrality has turned into a partisan issue is beyond me, but in this era seemingly everything must be politicized as part of a divide and conquer strategy.

I suspect the best hope for net neutrality is for states to adopt it themselves at the state level.

bruno222372• 9 years ago

It became a partisan issue immediately, as we have one party that is really against regulation. why wouldn't a conservative/libertarian party feel this way?

Dems should run on it, win and sign it into law for good!

colanderman• 9 years ago

If your senator(s) are on this list [1] write them to THANK them for stepping up to do so. (And if they're not, write them to request that they do so!)

[1] https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/950498741366247424

beedogs• 9 years ago

As usual, Democrats are the only party that gives a damn. Really baffling why anyone younger than me votes for anyone else.

Net Neutrality to Get U.S. Senate Vote as Democrats Force Issue

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