FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/fcc-chairman-wheeler-net-neutrality/

by Libertatea • 11 years ago

1275 391 11 years ago

wired.com

zirkonit• 11 years ago

Holy shit. We did it.

joncp• 11 years ago

There's a republican congress that will shut this down. No we didn't.

mikecb5• 11 years ago

They don't have a veto-proof majority.

dpierce9• 11 years ago

The FCC is an 'independent' agency which means that while congress can ask questions, make suggestions, apply pressure, and vote on members of the commission it cannot force the FCC to introduce, accept, or reject any proposed rule-making. Like most regulatory agencies, the purse power is limited since the FCC is funded by regulatory fees (I say limited and not zero because I believe the fees are paid by industry to the treasury and then allocated by congress). Also, like most regulatory agencies the makeup of the commission is statutorily party-balanced with the president selecting the chairman.

The commission still has to vote on this proposed rule-making though.

pmontra• 11 years ago

No last mile unbundling: does it mean that every operator has to deploy its own cable from street to home?

dazzla• 11 years ago

Looks like the opposite of that. Every operator will be able to use the single connection from exchange to home.

"Local loop unbundling (LLU or LLUB) is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises."

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

mikecb5• 11 years ago

So if there is none of that...

mikecb5• 11 years ago

I read it to mean that FCC will not force last mile unbundling. Whether they go further and write a rule that will act to prevent state a local unbundling rules is another matter.

taion2• 11 years ago

Isn't last mile unbundling a bigger deal than Title II for ultimately delivering better broadband service? Common carrier provisions are obviously very good, but excluding the possibility of last mile unbundling seems like a bad thing for the longer term.

subway• 11 years ago

That's my (rather depressing) understanding.

I still dream of a non-profit or municipal cable plant, serviced by multiple ISPs. The last mile is a natural monopoly, and we need to stop pretending otherwise.

rmac2• 11 years ago

Wireless last mile might be an option if the FCC actually opens up the 3.5ghz "innovation band" : http://www.fcc.gov/blog/35-ghz-new-ideas-innovation-band

taion2• 11 years ago

I agree that it's extremely depressing. I think we actually need to go farther than unbundling on the last mile, though. Ideally, where possible, we ought to go farther than just re-using existing copper links and instead set things up so that we can more easily and cheaply deliver FTTH.

This net neutrality victory is something to celebrate, but we need to keep the bigger goals in mind for this to not be suboptimal longer term.

sudioStudio643• 11 years ago

This. This is the most cogent description of what we need. A common resource that is provided to multiple Telco's but owned by the local community.

digikata• 11 years ago

I'm hoping that political organizations promoting net neutrality, now expand their attention to this issue or some other way to spur real competition in the last mile.

rhino369• 11 years ago

Last mile unbundling destroys any incentive to invest in network deployment.

Worse, the way title II is written, the FCC can only unbundle the local telephone company. So the cable network that provide broadcand service to most Americans can't be unbundled at all.

Last mile unbundling only works when you have a very strictly regulated monopoly providing the network.

slantyyz2• 11 years ago

We have last mile unbundling -- if my understanding of the term is correct -- for wired broadband where I live (Toronto area, Canada), and speeds have still been getting progressively faster.

Having said that, it seems like a lot of people here still stick to the big named carriers like Rogers and Bell because of inertia, comfort-levels with service or lack of awareness of third party providers. The cost savings (even with some recent rate increases) of using third party internet access over cable or phone line here are actually quite substantial when you factor in the liberal bandwidth caps you get with TPIA providers.

jonny_eh3• 11 years ago

"there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling"

Translation?

gergles3• 11 years ago

Title II as written requires that rates be filed with the FCC and approved by the FCC (tariffs & rate regulation, respectively). Last-mile unbundling would force the people who currently run lines into your house to let other providers sell services over those lines.

These regulations that are part of the law are all going to be removed as part of a process called "forebearance", where the FCC can basically not enforce those parts if they feel it would be contrary to their overarching goal of increased broadband adoption in the country.

jonny_eh3• 11 years ago

"removed … not enforce … contrary", I am so confused.

So does this mean that the FCC will force Comcast to allow competition to operate on the existing last mile of cable for broadband?

rayiner8• 11 years ago

Title II includes several sorts of provisions that apply to "common carriers" very similar to, e.g., how railroads were regulated back in the day. The government sets the prices for carriage (rate regulation), and carriers have to lobby the government to change prices (tariffs). Last-mile unbundling means that carriers must lease out their physical infrastructure to competitors at some wholesale price.

These things are bad, which is why the FCC is saying it will not apply these provisions. For example, even today most municipalities set a regulated rate for basic cable service. It averages about $20/month nationwide, and doesn't come close to covering the cost of actually building a modern cable network out to a neighborhood.

Unbundling kills investment into the network, because why spend billions of dollars on infrastructure that you'll have to lease out at wholesale prices to your competitors?[1]

My theory is that unbundling is what killed DSL as a competitor to cable here in the U.S. FTTN has been quite successful in the U.K.,[2] as a gradual scheme for building fiber further into the network, with a last-hop of VDSL that can get faster as it gets shorter. There has been little FTTN deployment here in the U.S., because there's just no way for telcos to recoup the billions of dollars spent on fiber if they're forced to lease the VDSL at the other end to competitors for a song.

[1] See this Brookings Institute (not exactly a conservative hotbed) analysis, which calls the U.S. experiment with unbundling "disastrous" and concludes that it reduces capital investigate. http://www.pff.org/events/eventpowerpoints/022207BrusselsCom....

[2] Unbundling is part of the strategy in the U.K. too, but it's structured so that the prices BT charges to competitors are guaranteed to generate a substantial profit.

angersock2• 11 years ago

You appear to be quite against this (judging by your other posts on the matter). The fact remains that the current system is not going to hold, and that left to its own devices will end up with a bunch of walled gardens and other issues.

I agree that it is wise to be wary of regulation in this case--but honestly, I think it's time we at least experiment. The market and regulatory forces at play have basically forced themselves into this position.

sudioStudio643• 11 years ago

You're description is clear and well put, BUT I just can't go along with the statement

"there's just no way for telcos to recoup the billions of dollars spent on fiber if they're forced to..."

The Telco's can't recoup their money AND pay exorbitant salaries to upper management, lobbyists, and still convince wall street that there is "growth potential" quarter over quarter.

If we were just talking about building a network...

warfangle3• 11 years ago

Why would unbundling without rate regulation be bad?

The network owner could set the wholesale price at one that is still profitable, no?

jonny_eh3• 11 years ago

Canada has cable broadband unbundling and the big guys (Rogers + Shaw) are doing just fine. But it's allowed for smaller ISPs to get a foothold, like Teksavvy, which I used to use back in Canada.

Now that I'm in the US, I don't see why Comcast can't lease out the last mile to other ISPs for reasonable wholesale rates.

mikegioia• 11 years ago

    Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest
    open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable,
    bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and 
    throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully 
    apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile 
    broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go
    where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to 
    introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.

I can't believe I'm reading those words!

frostirosti• 11 years ago

Tom Wheeler has really outdone himself with this announcement. It'll apply to mobile networks as well! Turns out this dingo knows how to stand up for what's right!

I know it's early but this is a great step forward.

coldpie4• 11 years ago

I'm really impressed with Wheeler. When he was nominated, all the news was about how he was a lobbyist for the cable companies, and it was a perfect example of cronyism. But he's really been knocking it out of the park. Aggressive on net neutrality, redefining broadband, trying to restore municipal Internet. I'm very glad to have been wrong about my initial impressions.

tootie• 11 years ago

I have this weird feeling that this whole drama was a long con by Obama and Wheeler to tease out as much vocal support as possible by playing the villain. Like Wheeler was a heel in professional wrestling. They put out a shitty proposal that the ISPs would love just to show them how strong public opposition would be so they'd be perfectly positioned to go full neutrality and claim a public mandate.

datawhoring• 11 years ago

agreed. this level of f-u to the whims of wealthy individuals and their entrenched corporations is unheard of.

i work for a smaller cable company and it has been getting very deep lately.

sad thing is management doesn't seem to get that the grunts don't care. we never profit from the monopolies. every year we get some bs excuse why we won't be getting a raise this year even though reading the quarterly earnings and know what were spending on upgrades and know there is a lot left over that goes somewhere.

knowing how high the margins are in the industry, how little they pay, how lean things are already run its going to get bad.

if competition is somehow injected into the market and they are happy with a fraction of what the incumbents are currently enjoying would be devastating. there is very little left to cut at the bottom, and those at the top can't possibly be expected to not get their rockstar paydays.

what also could happen is the exodus of employees from existing cable companies to the new ones that would sprout up. even though the grass isn't always greener somewhere else, it won't stop those from finally having a choice.

don't get me wrong. I have zero problem with someone making a 100 million a year, but only when that comes after everyone from push broom and toilet brush to company car and private jet are all paid the highest for their position for a company that size. unfortunately almost everywhere you can go that isn't the case.

I've heard a lot of discussion how making ISPs a utility would just entrench the monopolies even further... what od you think?

alexryan• 11 years ago

Big mistake. Government regulation kills innovation.

Do you really want the technology sector to end up looking like the healthcare system or the state run education system? Everything government touches turns to crap.

To believe that government regulation with make anything better is not very intelligent.

radioact1ve2• 11 years ago

Same here. It almost seems to good to be true. I don't want to sound gloomy doomy when this is excellent news, but I can't help but think what are we missing. I keep waiting for the "but...".

gtaylor• 11 years ago

I think the most likely possibility is that the telcos attack this to the point where it gets de-fanged or turned away entirely. Part of congress is already mobilizing against this movement.

revscat2• 11 years ago

Ok, here it comes: but AT&T and Verizon are going to bring lawsuits immediately in response to this action, and due to years of stonewalling judicial appointments by Republicans, this suit is very likely to land in a court that is corporation-friendly, even if it does not wind up in the (also corporate friendly) Supreme Court.

There is also the separate-but-related political reality that the Internet, as a vehicle of basically free information, is opposed by those who depend upon their influence over the flow of news and information in order to maintain political and economic power. This policy shift will make it more difficult for them to keep their influence, and will therefore be fought against by very powerful people who face a long-term threat from its continuation.

Satisfied? :)

guelo• 11 years ago

The "but" is that the next FCC appointment by the next president (and approved by the next congress) can overturn these rules. Also, congress is broken and incapable of legislating.

Shivetya• 11 years ago

I am just glad they hit mobile up too, seems that it became the bastion of overcharging people after voice prices went south.

wyck• 11 years ago

Its like his twitter feed is bizzaro world: https://twitter.com/TomWheelerFCC

Someone who actually makes sense.

MAGZine• 11 years ago

    These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services

of 'lawful content and services'. I don't mean to ruin a good thing, but is it implied here that ISPs may become the gatekeepers? I don't want what happened to YouTube (automatic content blocking because it's "unlawful") to take place with the general internet. One of the most important aspects of the internet, in my own opinion, is an unfiltered, uncensored stream of data.

I'd be very cautious about what shaping we permit to our network traffic. Laws are fickle, knowledge is power.

Someone1234• 11 years ago

I think you're reading a LOT more into that than was actually said.

All he is saying is, if an ISP gets a court order, that they can then block access to content like they do now, and the FCC won't go after them as a result.

It isn't a new power or an expansion, just continuing the current situation that exists.

wtallis4• 11 years ago

Title 2 has a provision that says providers of "an interactive computer service" can't be held liable for their attempts to block access to obscenities or other objectionable content.

noobermin2• 11 years ago

I think the definition of what is "lawful" is a very important issue we should be concerned with, but it is a separate one from Net Neutrality.

I feel like this is still a leap forward on net, and we should be happy for it.

pjc50• 11 years ago

Obliging carriers to carry content that they know to be unlawful is also unworkable. Among other things, it makes dealing with DDoS impossible.

In the UK we have the IWF blocklist for CP, plus the Pirate Bay block, and gradually expanding inadequately controlled currently optional "adult content" filters. The slippery slope is real, but has to be fought at a halfway point.

dragonwriter29• 11 years ago

Without the rules, ISPs can block any content, lawful or unlawful, without consequence.

With the rules, ISPs cannot block lawful content without consequence, but the rules don't prohibit blocking unlawful content. OTOH, if there are penalties for block lawful content, simple prudence will also lead ISPs to restraint in efforts to block unlawful content absent other rules mandating such blocking, lest they inadvertently block lawful content and are penalized for so doing.

Retric• 11 years ago

This is actually a very important and reasonable exception. A DDoS attack is unlawful traffic and we really do want ISP's to be able to block this at the switch level. Without this exception the courts would likely quickly strike down this decision.

thedudemabry• 11 years ago

On first read, this appears to be the best and most pragmatic of all possible proposals. I'm nervous about its reception and subsequent tearing-down, but this is an FCC I can get behind.

shmerl6• 11 years ago

These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.

My concern is, how are they going to define lawful content and services, and more importantly, how are they going to determine it in practice? It can easily translate into some heavy handed surveillance systems which analyze the lawfulness of the whole network.

intopieces• 11 years ago

This is an absolutely valid question, but it also has a flip-side: what obligation does law enforcement have to regulate content that you and I, as open-Internet believers, agree is unlawful? Shall we allow illegal content in order to err on the side of caution?

smutticus• 11 years ago

That's not a decision the FCC gets to make. Congress and the courts ultimately decide what is considered lawful content. These rules need to withstand changes that Congress might enact in the future. If Congress decides to force ISPs to block a certain kind of traffic, the FCC cannot disallow ISPs from blocking it with their rules.

They basically just include the word 'lawful' to allow ISPs to block unlawful traffic. Think specifically of DDOS attacks, you wouldn't want to disallow an ISP from blackholing DDOS packets.

pyre6• 11 years ago

The devil in the details is whether or not this will be proactive. E.g. what happens if Comcast decides to block a service claiming that it is unlawful? Does said service need to wind its way through the courts to gain access to Comcast customers? Or does Comcast need to wait until the service is deemed unlawful by the courts before actually blocking?

endergen• 11 years ago

Why only mobile broadband? Why not hardline too? Does anyone know?

dragonwriter29• 11 years ago

Why only mobile broadband?

Its not only mobile broadband. It prohibits blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization of lawful content and services for all broadband -- which previous FCC orders and proposals on net neutrality have done for fixed broadband. The part that is distinct about mobile broadband is that this proposal is the first that would apply those rules to mobile as well as fixed broadband.

knd775• 11 years ago

It applies to both.

myth_buster• 11 years ago

This reads exceedingly well but the devil is in the detail. As we have seen countless times that there is significant difference between what gets proposed and what gets passed. As others have stated

will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.

the keyword here is lawful. Will all content be lawful unless proven otherwise?

pyre6• 11 years ago

Does this mean that (e.g.) specific cities can petition ISPs to block (e.g.) Uber in their area because it's not "lawful?"

randomfool• 11 years ago

Will this ban blocking of tethering?

metaphorm2• 11 years ago

this isn't an act of congress though. its regulations that the FCC has the authority to create and implement. if Wheeler says thats how it is, then that's how it is. regulations can be challenged at court but until that happens they will stick.

andrewfong2• 11 years ago

In this context, "lawful" is probably intended to refer to categories of content than any particular instance. That is, it leaves the door open for blocking known categories of unlawful content like child porn, pirated software, malware, and maybe spam. Depending on implementation, this could definitely be problematic -- e.g. will Comcast interpret this as carte blanche to block BitTorrent if the majority of BitTorrent use is unlawful?

But it's still a huge net gain for startups, most of which fall safely on the lawful side of the line.

drcode2• 11 years ago

... rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.

Great, we finally get to exercise our freedoms!

... enforceable bright-line rules will ban ...

Oh, I see, now the "innovators" just have more regulation they have to deal with. Now they have to ask for ANOTHER entity's permission?

chrisrhoden2• 11 years ago

... ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.

Doesn't sound like they'll need to ask permission since they'll know they won't get it. Are you in favor of these things?

I think reasonable people can disagree, but your positioning of these two statements as being contradictory relies on a complete lack of context to be convincing.

tw04• 11 years ago

Without unbundling last mile, it still accomplishes almost nothing. It's ironic, the situation he describes his startup facing is EXACTLY what any startup trying to do the same would face today. As long as there is a monopoly on last mile, the ISPs will find a way to kill innovation and competition.

chiph• 11 years ago

What does the phrase "bright-line rules" mean?

superobserver• 11 years ago

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002367.h...

>bright-line rule = a judicial rule of decision that is simple and straightforward and that avoids or ignore the ambiguities or difficulties of the problems at hand. The phrase dates from the mid-20th century. The metaphor of a bright line is somewhat older than the phrase bright-line rule - e.g.: "The difficult part of this case comes with regard to ... the activity of the Board of Temperance ....A bright line between that which brings conviction to one person and its influence on the body politic cannot be drawn." Girard Trust Co. v. I.R.C., 122 F.2d 108, 110 (3d Cir. 1941)./"[T]he McCambridge majority opinion ... agrees that the Kirby bright-line-rule is but a mere formalism ...." J.G.Trichter, Bright-Lining Away the Right to Counsel, Tex. Law., 6 Nov. 1989, at 26. Cf. hard and fast rule.

karangoeluw• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright-line_rule

Bluestrike2• 11 years ago

It's a clear line with little (or, ideally, none) room for error or ambiguity. Think big, bright line in the sand that you can't miss; you're either on this side of it or you're not.

pnathan• 11 years ago

Well, I believe this kicks off the biggest lobbying effort seen in a long time to get this to not happen. I certainly hope that the US internet gets Title II.

0x5f3759df-i4• 11 years ago

The lobbying has been in full effect for a year, looks like they already lost this one.

noobermin2• 11 years ago

I'm curious, how much effect do lobbyists have on the FCC, since they aren't exactly elected officials?

bduerst• 11 years ago

The "Comcast supports Net Neutrality" ads have been flying for a while. Still gets me when I see them.

legutierr• 11 years ago

  I personally learned the importance of open networks the 
  hard way. In the mid-1980s I was president of a startup, 
  NABU: The Home Computer Network. My company was using new 
  technology to deliver high-speed data to home computers 
  over cable television lines....But NABU went broke while 
  AOL became very successful....While delivering better 
  service, NABU had to depend on cable television operators 
  granting access to their systems....The phone network was 
  open whereas the cable networks were closed. End of story."

A person can't go through an experience like this without having it fundamentally affect their worldview. I wonder why, with all of the coverage the lead-up to this decision has gotten, I have not read this story before.

supergeek1333• 11 years ago

Stuff like that is pretty interesting to me too. It's also a nice real-world description of why there is little to no competition in the market.

The only reason Google accomplished it is by throwing money at the problem and laying new infrastructure, bypassing the existing in most cases. The barrier to entry of a competitor is so high from the infra cost alone.

a8da6b0c91d2• 11 years ago

It's said a lot that infrastructure cost is the barrier to entry but I don't think that's true. Tacking cable to telephone poles is not terribly expensive. There's no good reason a great many households couldn't have two or three different cables running past their homes. As I understand it the issue is the local governments that issue permits for such things are bought off by the providers. It's a problem of corruption, not infrastructure cost.

eggnet3• 11 years ago

How then, with this powerful backstory, did Wheeler choose not to unbundle last mile access?

The cable networks are still closed.

MagicWishMonkey• 11 years ago

Political capital is a finite resource.

gnoway2• 11 years ago

I wonder about that too. In my mind at least, there is a distinction between requiring neutral treatment of traffic routing through a network and requiring an operator to let a competitor hook up their equipment in your facilities and sell a competitive service using infrastructure you laid.

The latter IMO is a lot less fair, even though my personal experience is that I had more choices for service when it was done w/ DSL.

tomswartz07• 11 years ago

I think it's a case of 'one thing at a time'.

There's a lot of change packed into this, and I'm sure Wheeler's plan will be to keep the changes and shakeups rolling.

mikeyouse4• 11 years ago

I love HN, but the echo chamber here about how Wheeler was some crony of the NACTA was impossible to drown out.

If you look at the bottom of many of the previous Net Neutrality threads, there will be heavily downvoted posts (some of mine included) that Wheeler was previously an entrepreneur who was trying to disrupt traditional service providers, he was a VC who backed truly disruptive companies, and he had already been blocked from implementing very consumer-friendly rules at the FCC -- so he might be not be some mustache-twirling villain.

The ignorant fervor was pretty intense.

fnordfnordfnord3• 11 years ago

It is not ignorant to be sketical of a political appointee, on the contrary, anyone is wise to be skeptical. Observe the tremendous difficulty of either political party to find and appoint suitable people to these positions. Color me cautiously optimistic, but not yet ready to abandon all Wheeler/FCC skepticism. There are so many things in politics that are not what they appear to be; and, there has to be a tremendous amount of pressure on Wheeler from all sides. If Wheeler turns out to be a political appointee who manages to be a reasonable advocate for the citizenry despite the considerable pressure from all competing interests, I'll call him a remarkable exception.

cjslep• 11 years ago

So as someone who has been lightly following the debate, and is not familiar with the FCC's process, what are the next steps to actually start enforcing mobile and landline broadband as Title II? I also wonder how long it will take for the reclassification to become enforceable, and how long the existing companies will have to "become compliant".

colinbartlett2• 11 years ago

I am keenly interested in this as well and hoping desperately that it does not involve the United States Congress.

orbitur• 11 years ago

And it most certainly will involve Congress. Honestly, I'm confused by all the excitement surrounding this on HN and reddit.

It's like everyone's forgetting that this has to be submitted and voted on internally, and then billion dollar giants will start attacking, and then Republicans will start attacking. Considering all of that, you'd need to be pretty optimistic to continue with the celebration.

dragonwriter29• 11 years ago

So as someone who has been lightly following the debate, and is not familiar with the FCC's process, what are the next steps to actually start enforcing mobile and landline broadband as Title II?

The next step is for the FCC to vote on the proposal Wheeler is submitting and officially propose the rules (depending on whether they choose to do so as an Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or as a Interim Final Rule with Comment Period, there may or may not be a separate action after that needed to actually put the rules into effect; since this is the action in response to comment on a previous NPRM, I don't think they need to go the NPRM route again, but I think they can choose to, but my knowledge of the detailed requirements of federal administrative procedure is somewhat fuzzy.)

I also wonder how long it will take for the reclassification to become enforceable, and how long the existing companies will have to "become compliant".

I think that the effective dates would be specified in the proposal, so when the FCC officially issues it we'll know.

coldpie4• 11 years ago

The unspoken next step will be the dozen lawsuits from Verizon, AT&T, etc. Comcast's actions actually seem to be on the right side, here, though maybe that's simply a side-effect of their NBC merger terms.

dantheman2• 11 years ago

This looks much better than what I feared. I'm glad they're just not regulating it under Title II, but are modernizing it:

   For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling.

Alphasite_• 11 years ago

From an outsiders perspective, the last mile in unfeeling is the only bit that matters, market forces can resolve everything else, but it's not really possible to lay a dozen sets of last mile infrastructure.

dantheman2• 11 years ago

Last mile unbundling isn't about neutrality though, it's about getting better service. If one wants to advocate for that, it should be decoupled from net neutrality. Net neutrality is about preventing fast lanes, charging companies for access to the network, and degrading competitors products.

maxsilver• 11 years ago

Why not?

"Just regulating (Cable and Fiber) under Title II" would have been a far better outcome, as far as I can tell.

Rate regulation and last-mile unbundling are the keys to useful internet access. Without those, 95+% of Americans are still forced to buy internet from Comcast and Verizon, with whatever prices, stipulations, and conditions they decide to enforce.

Certainly, this situation could have turned out far worse. But I don't see it as a win in any significant way. It simply reinforces internet service as a monopoly land-grab business.

karatekidd32v• 11 years ago

This is all pretty great. For the first time in a while I feel optimistic about the future of the open internet. My only concern is a small detail: "These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services."

The specification of 'lawful content and services' seems a bit ominous to me. Does this imply there may be ways to monitor/limit/restrict internet traffic? To use his example, would this language be used to describe the open phone network?

kijeda• 11 years ago

I suspect you need such a carve out to be able to legally block denial-of-service attacks and other such network events that are intended to disrupt regular operation of a service.

innguest5• 11 years ago

That's what they'll swear to you, but of course the government will use it for censorship just like the FCC nowadays censors the TV and Radio.

Read up the history of the FCC. At the time it was also "necessary" to regulate airwaves because of several noble reasons but of course what ends up happening is that now you have to get a license from the government to say something on radio waves.

You will have to get a license to have a website in the future if the FCC has its way online. Write my words.

ArtDev• 11 years ago

Obama deserves some credit for pushing and supporting Wheeler on this!

bluthru• 11 years ago

I couldn't imagine if Romney was in office right now...

jarin3• 11 years ago

I suspect it might possibly be the same. Public sentiment is pretty strong about it, and it would be easy for the Republicans to take the angle of "freedom for small businesses and the free market" or whatever.

sudioStudio643• 11 years ago

Turns out that the cable company screwed him too...nice. This is turning out to be great news.

evanb• 11 years ago

I violated Responsible Reading Of The Internet Rule #1 and accidentally looked at the comments. I am having a hard time reconciling the vehement anti-net-neutrality anti-government hair-on-fire screaming there with the reasoned discussion and general attitude here---I would have thought the majority of readers of Wired would be of similar mind to HN readers.

revscat2• 11 years ago

For what it's worth, it was linked to from Drudge.

jgrowl• 11 years ago

This is the real reason. You can go to any article that is linked on drudge and you will see the exact same kind of comments.

jonathanpglick• 11 years ago

Yeah, I was shocked at comments, people completely missing the point.

colinbartlett2• 11 years ago

I highly recommend this Chrome extension:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shut-up/oklfoejikk...

Basically hides the comments on every site unless you enable them. It's a little aggressive and sometimes if you notice something weird on a site you just need to disable it for that site.

But it honestly improves the entire internet experience exponentially.

el_benhameen• 11 years ago

I added this line:

  127.0.0.1	disqus.com

to /etc/hosts and have actually noticed a measurable increase in my happiness, especially when it comes to reading and discussing news.

RKoutnik• 11 years ago

Most Wired readers, certainly. Most Wired readers are also smart enough to stay out of the maelstrom of politically-charged vitriol such comments sections become.

Like you said, Rule #1. I suppose the Wired readers savvy enough to have an interesting voice on this issue are also smart enough to not voice it there.

mathattack3• 11 years ago

I think there is a large strain of the population who thinks, "If Obama is behind it, it must be part of a Muslim Socialist plot." They listen to radio and TV that feeds this narrow worldview.

For context, I'm neither for nor against Obama - I just think people who take a position of "It's an idea from the other political party so I don't like it" cause more harm than good. (See belief in vaccination, evolution, and global warming as other examples)

coldpie4• 11 years ago

You may notice which party represents the "wrong side" of each of those issues. If they're clearly wrong on so many issues, what are the odds they're right on any given issue?

ep1032• 11 years ago

large news websites are targeted by marketing firms with shell accounts in an effort to slant a story. Hacker News is still very much under the radar, and doesn't warrant that level of manipulation (as much) yet.

mrschwabe• 11 years ago

It's not just marketing firms.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

Perhaps we should take a more subjective look at comments on Hacker News and ask ourselves if a genuine 'hacker' (by PG definition or otherwise) would applaud new regulations for the internet.

skizm• 11 years ago

I like the guy who commented:

I see the telecoms have sent their minions to the comment sections.

netinstructions• 11 years ago

Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here and ask why there's so many people avoiding the comments section, or even suggesting installing comment-hiding browser extensions.

Do you folks always avoid the comments section? Obviously not, because you're here :) and the idea that this is such a generalized "Internet Rule" is contradictory to being here. If you're disgusted by other people's abrasive comments (on Wired or wherever else you're avoiding the comments section), can you offer your own respectable perspectives and steer the conversation that way? Or have you completely given up? A reasonable (but unfortunate) situation. I dislike the hair-on-fire knee-jerk screaming too. I hope we can change that.

I wrote more about this[1] after thinking a while about Jeff Atwood's piece[2].

[1] http://www.netinstructions.com/please-read-the-comments-sect... [2] http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-read-the-comments/

pavel_lishin• 11 years ago

HN is a community. A wired article is a google result.

As such, those comments are liable to attract a wider variety of people, some of whom are crazy, some of whom are trolling, some of whom are trying to push some arbitrary agenda. Here, there are rules and a culture that (it seems to me) rewards interesting conversations.

Plus, most random commenters are anonymous, whereas most people on HN are pseudonymous. I consider what I write here much more strongly than what I write on reddit, or 4chan.

SandroG• 11 years ago

Thank you, Tom Wheeler. Today is a good day for the Internet.

innguest5• 11 years ago

Read the history of the FCC, folks. You're being lead on like sheeple. "I can't believe how good this sounds". No kidding.

scelerat• 11 years ago

Are you going to elaborate, or just leave it as a snarky comment?

shortformblog• 11 years ago

The comments on this post are some of the most depressing things I've ever read in response to a regulatory decision. References to Tom Wheeler being a Nazi. Someone calling the plan "Obama-fi." A user who says this:

tom wheeler, seriously, it would be a great thing if you and everyone like you contracted ebola and died a horrible death.

This is like giving the entire U.S. population free pizza for a year, and half the population complaining because there's cheese on it.

innguest5• 11 years ago

Because you don't understand their argument, they must be wrong, right?

And no I can't explain you their argument because whenever I do so I get downvoted.

The government wants their hands on all means of communication. The FCC basically shunned the public from using radio waves and TV waves. Now they're going to shun us away from the internet. The same organization, the FCC, will do this as they previously did with other means of communication, and you cheerleaders are being fooled and don't even know it. Not only that but you criticize those who see this for the fascism it is. It must be great to be ignorant because you can even attack those who read history and think you're coming out on top.

socialist_coder• 11 years ago

Can you please explain this argument? Who cares if you get downvoted. I do not understand how a reasonable person who is not in cahoots with "big internet" can see this as a bad thing.

warfangle3• 11 years ago

There's a difference between trying to explain your point of view and fulfilling godwin's law...

jarin3• 11 years ago

Ah yes, that explains why radio stations and OTA TV channels don't exist anymore... Oh wait

mitchty• 11 years ago

You're getting downvoted because you don't have an argument. All I see is rampant supposition and vitriol in your comment.

It is hard to understand an argument when none is presented. How is this fascism if the FCC has the power to do this already under existing law? How had the FCC "shunned the public from using radio waves and TV waves"? Keep in mind all countries manage radio transmissions because they have a vested interest in doing so. Shared mediums that everyone tries to use but cannot because of no management isn't much help. Think back to the LTE satellite internet company that had blocks right by satellite communication for GPS. You're saying its bad that we don't allow companies to run rampant over airwaves so that GPS no longer works? I hope not otherwise your argument is indeed shit and wrong.

kevinchen• 11 years ago

my proposal includes a general conduct rule that can be used to stop new and novel threats to the internet. This means the action we take will be strong enough and flexible enough not only to deal with the realities of today, but also to establish ground rules for the as yet unimagined.

What does that mean? Sounds like a euphemism for an Internet kill switch?

dragonwriter29• 11 years ago

From the text and context, it sounds like in addition to the bright-line rules on things like throttling, paid prioritization, and blocking of lawful content and services, there is a more general rule prohibiting conduct by ISPs that discriminates against or impedes access to lawful content but doesn't fall into neat buckets of blocking, throttling, etc.

But, yeah, this is one thing (of many) that its going to be worth reading the actual text, when it is made public, to understand.

beauzero• 11 years ago

The "thoughts and feelings" are in the right direction...now let's wait for the actual proposal.

nickthemagicman4• 11 years ago

Why are libertarians so pro- free market when this is a perfect example of how the 'unregulated free market' has no problem manipulating in the name of greed and control at the expense of consumers?

This seems to be strong evidence that government is better at keeping trade free than an 'unregulated free market'?

JoeAltmaier• 11 years ago

Its cultural. At a local level, people can be motivated by 'enlightened self-interest' and operate in a way that's rational considering the local economy.

I think libertarians are not naive; they're old boys accustomed to dealing with other old boys in that network. So they see free market working pretty well in that context, and want to extend it.

nickthemagicman4• 11 years ago

Interesting/Bizzare.

It's not far fetched to make parallels from this that if the 'privatized' major corporations aren't above squashing competitors through unfair trade practices and lobbying for biased regulations in the telecom industries....then they would do it in other industries.

And this kills the market.

robkix2• 11 years ago

Not to dive too off topic, but the telecom industry has been heavily regulated and in no way represents a free market.

Through franchise fees, fighting public right of way sharing, and other forms of lobbying these large corporations have used law and regulation to their favor. This is not a position libertarians support and it is not a market anyone would point at and call "unregulated" in any sense of the term.

pbz• 11 years ago

Is it fair to call it regulation when the corporation benefits? (regulation tends to mean "regulation against corporations")

nickthemagicman4• 11 years ago

The telecom industry was actually one of the most famous examples of unregulated monopolies, Ma Bell... used in economics textbooks.

So your choice is: big business squelching competition directly or big business squelching competition through lobbying.

The problem still goes back to unchecked unregulated big businesses forcing themselves on the country with their market share and giant wealth.

IanDrake4• 11 years ago

This seems to be strong evidence that government is better at keeping trade free than an 'unregulated free market'?

X isn't perfect, so Y must be better? That makes no sense.

I'm pro-free market because I go into the grocery store and see an entire row of bread. In communism, there is an entire row of people waiting for bread. Free market == abundance, government == rationing.

I use communism as the example because it is the opposite of free-market and highlights the historical (not ideological) differences between the two systems. Free markets have a triage effect. When supplies are limited, prices go up, and if you really need something you can still get it (but you'll pay more).

The opposite of that system is one of price fixing and rationing. You may need something more than me, but the price is fixed at X, so there needs to be a lottery to decide who gets the limited supply. If I win, I get to watch fail videos on youtube all day. If you win, you get to run your online business that day.

ISPs are struggling to keep up with demand. They've been trying to price their services in a way to triage demand while they build more capacity (which is mostly held up by local governments). Now the FCC will step in and make sure that I can watch my youtube videos all day and make it illegal for the ISP to favor your clearly more important traffic.

nickthemagicman4• 11 years ago

Is this the bread 'choice' you're talking about?

http://i.imgur.com/pnMMj.jpg

Every thing in the supermarket is created by a small amount of companies. The rest is all marketing.

Unregulated free market doesn't stay free for long because competition is rapidly consolidated, squashed, or absorbed by larger fish into mega monopolies.

A free market is just as crazy as communism as both have the end result of a small group of people controlling the market.

notdonspaulding• 11 years ago

    The internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance,
    if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment
    in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone
    from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network.

By the 1960s AT&T was a well-established government-sanctioned monopoly [0]. It's a bold claim that says we wouldn't have gotten an internet without FCC regulation of AT&T. An easier conclusion to draw is that we wouldn't have needed an FCC if we hadn't given Ma Bell a pass on being a monopoly for the previous 5 decades and instead focused on policies that encourage innovation and investment at the local level.

Yes, the last-mile is a natural monopoly, but there's a wide gulf of possible solutions between "Let AT&T kill all competitors" as they have been for the last century and "Have the FCC regulate competition into existence" as they did in 1996 [1]. Neither of those extremes worked, and to the extent that this policy seems to understand that, it looks like a good outcome. The line about "no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling" is especially promising in this regard.

However, the proof is in the pudding, and I think we have yet to see an FCC that is truly effective in inspiring local broadband competition through regulatory policies.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

th0ma5• 11 years ago

Darn it if this isn't correct. It is very true to say we don't really know what the market forces would've done, because it was all already mucked with. I'm not sure I agree though that the last mile is a natural monopoly. A market could create more distributed solutions, we're seeing that with solar grid power contribution. The early Edison systems were sometimes a single location for DC power. The early net benefited from something a little more peer-to-peer than it is today.

Also all of these things will never exist independently of each other. If we had an anarcho-syndicalist system, we'd be complaining about the inability to use omnidirectional antennas effectively because of all of the interference of the airwaves, possibly...

TheRealDunkirk• 11 years ago

You're obviously much more versed in this than I am, so I'm probably missing something here. But your comment reminds me that, if we could get the cables to stop killing muni wifi initiatives, that'd be a great start.

001sky• 11 years ago

ISPs, especially Comcast and Verizon, are big players in Washington, known for throwing their money and influence around. If their businesses are reclassified under Title II, they can be expected to squeeze the resulting rules and regulations until they scream for mercy. It's fine to praise Wheeler's plan, as do some net neutrality fans, for aiming to "regulate the internet like a utility." But it's worth noting that utilities have long learned how to run rings around their regulators.

creeble• 11 years ago

I’m not sure how much government has ever done to encourage innovation and investment at the local level. If one is a true believer in last-mile natural monopolies, then it is clear that the last mile should either be a) run by local governments, or b) run by regulated monopolies, for the benefit of consumers. I’m not sure how wide that gulf really is: Government run vs. private, but regulated. How do you provide incentives to build infrastructure that can only end up as one or the other?

wnevets3• 11 years ago

ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.

Too bad the regulation isnt simply this one line of text without the "lawful" caveat

EpicEng2• 11 years ago

Why is that too bad? Do you think that the rules would stand of that caveat weren't present? Do you think that ISP's should not have the ability to block illegal traffic? What happens when they receive a court order to do so, yet doing so would violate FCC regulations? Don't be naive; that exception must be there, and out changes nothing in regards to the current situation.

wnevets3• 11 years ago

My biggest problem with that caveat is that its really just a foot in the door for further regulation by the federal government, none of which has anything to do with network neutrality.

Network neutrality by definition is about all packets being treated equally regardless of the source or destination.

0x5f3759df-i4• 11 years ago

This is still better than no ban on lawful or unlawful content

acdha4• 11 years ago

It also protects blocking or throttling a DDoS, spammer, malware scans, etc. This kind of protection is necessary but we really need to see both the actual rules and what the actual enforcement will look like.

bmoresbest55• 11 years ago

This is very nice but I hope that it will be able to withstand the impending lawsuits by the ISPs. One can only hope.

nostromo2• 11 years ago

Apparently I'm in the minority here, but I have some concerns.

1) The problem this fixes is largely non-existent today. The threat of fast and slow-lanes is one I've yet to experience.

2) Opening the door for more internet regulation seems risky. At first, things may go swimmingly, but I suspect regulatory capture will creep up on this industry, just as it has so many others. You may trust Obama and the current FCC head, but if and when the next Nixon comes to power, will you be as comfortable with his appointee?

3) The language "lawful content and services" seems like the kind of opening that could be the death of services like Bit Torrent or Tor.

4) Holding up the old telephonic lines as having been improved by regulation seems specious. In fact, the telephone system has been frozen in amber for decades. Perhaps overregulation is part of the reason we get our high-speed internet via the much less regulated cable lines and not phone lines.

ryneandal• 11 years ago

What? The Netflix/Verizon paid peering agreement was a fast/slow lane issue, was it not?

0x5f3759df-i4• 11 years ago

Or Comcast blocking/throttling all bittorrent traffic? \

http://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-really-does-block-bittorren...

nostromo2• 11 years ago

It's not clear to me that paid-peering agreements will change at all based on this announcement. The FCC said previously that it doesn't see such agreements as a net neutrality issue.

http://time.com/80192/netflix-verizon-paid-peering-agreement...

cheald4• 11 years ago

The Netflix/Verizon paid peering agreement was a saturated links issue. Netflix wasn't being specifically throttled, their transit provider couldn't negotiate enough interlink capacity with last-mile providers to fulfill their obligations to Netflix.

acomar• 11 years ago

1) The problem this fixes is largely non-existent today. The threat of fast and slow-lanes is one I've yet to experience.

Verizon is already throttling Youtube and Netflix traffic because the content providers refuse to pay extra for normal delivery.

2) Opening the door for more internet regulation seems like a bad idea. At first, things may go swimmingly, but I suspect regulatory capture will creep up on this industry, just as it has so many others. You may trust Obama, but if and when the next Nixon comes to power, will you be as comfortable with the executive's increased authority over the internet via the FCC?

The FCC already has the authority to regulate the internet. It's trying to establish rules within the authority granted to it by the US Congress.

3) The language "lawful content and services" to me seems concerning. Could this be the death of bit torrent?

This does seem concerning, but there's some discussion up the thread about what this likely means. We won't know for sure though until the actual proposed rules are announced. This is more of "announcing an announcement" than anything else.

nullrouted5• 11 years ago

I just want to reply to your first point. Verizon is not "throttling" traffic to youtube/netflix, it is just allowing peering links to be saturated because the providers are out of compliance with their peering rules.

You can read their peering rules here: http://www.verizonenterprise.com/terms/peering/

We can argue that it is just semantics but it is more in-depth than "throttling."

RockyMcNuts• 11 years ago

non-existent? telcos have blocked all kinds of apps on mobile, from Facetime to tethering, and of course throttled Netflix.

http://lifehacker.com/5933152/the-right-to-tether-what-the-v...

http://www.savetheinternet.com/att-facetime

zurn• 11 years ago

FWIW Nixon has a pretty good record compared to, and was more liberal than Obama. Nixon created the EPA, made peace on multiple fronts, instituted many pivotal social justice programs etc. Obama himself said Nixon was more liberal than him (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/02/03/obama_in_a...)

Obama on the other hand has failed to turn around most of the worst Bush era policies. Not to belittle his archievements with health care (which Nixon also tried to pass).

jrochkind13• 11 years ago

The internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance, if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network. The modems that enabled the internet were usable only because the FCC required the network to be open.

DAMN right.

Eric_WVGG• 11 years ago

The New Yorker, last May: “Obama’s Bad Pick: A Former Lobbyist at the F.C.C.” http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/obamas-bad-pick-a...

“Rewarding campaign contributors is par for the course in Washington, of course. Usually, though, the prizes are ambassadorships or appointments to obscure boards rather than the chairmanship of a big federal regulatory agency. That’s another thing that makes Wheeler’s appointment look like just the sort of Washington inside job that Obama used to decry as a candidate. […] Perhaps the best that can be said about his nomination is that, assuming he’s confirmed, he’ll have an incentive to demonstrate that he isn’t a patsy for the companies he used to lobby for.”

gfodor• 11 years ago

Yeah I think it's time more than a few people eat a little crow.

toast0• 11 years ago

"For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling."

No last-mile unbundling means instead of fostering better service through competition, we're attempting to foster better service through regulation.

Randgalt2• 11 years ago

Make a deal with the Devil and you'll only get burned. The FCC regulating the internet, what could go wrong?

IanDrake4• 11 years ago

Future HN comments when things go wrong:

This isn't what we wanted...

We never indented for X to be interpreted that way...

It would have worked, but they didn't go far enough...

It would have worked, but they went too far...

We need this new law X to protect the cable companies because upstart Y's new technology doesn't have to deal with FCC regulation which gives it an unfair advantage...

Give it ten years and the FCC will be about as popular as TSA or the NSA on HN.

Randgalt2• 11 years ago

What's terribly sad to me is the pro-authority comments here on HN. The Tech world doesn't seem to understand the true nature of regulation. Well, they're going to get what they deserve to the detriment of everyone else.

angrymonk• 11 years ago

I stopped arguing with them months ago. Now I just want this to pass exactly as they want ... Then I get to watch it blow up in their faces.

geekamongus2• 11 years ago

The comments on the article make me really, really sad.

grecy• 11 years ago

I like how many times he says "Congress gave us the power to make this decision".

Kind of like he's daring them to try and stop him.

geekamongus2• 11 years ago

I think it's more a justification to explain why non-elected officials are putting laws into motion.

jstalin• 11 years ago

I hope they try. The same people that run the post office running the internet? Oh god...

markthethomas• 11 years ago

This is really encouraging. Having trouble not assuming it'll get torn down by 'interested parties', though.

gxs• 11 years ago

I don't think I've ever cussed on my HN account, but unfuckingbelievable.

I'm in complete and utter awe that they listened to the people and not the rich corporations for once.

forgotAgain• 11 years ago

As I'm writing this the stock market is having the opposite take on this than I Would have expected. Netflix is down while the providers (ATT, Verizon, Comcast) are up.

Is there something going on here that's not obvious?

programmarchy• 11 years ago

Yes! The public has amnesia and doesn't remember the history of progressive regulation :)

In a nutshell, in order for big business to cut production and raise prices, they need the state to act as an enforcer or regulator for their cartel. Their strategy has been to lobby under the guise of a public good, in this case "net neutrality" (a term which I'd bet has its origins with some very expensive marketing/PR firm), but the end effect is for state regulation to create artificial scarcity and subsidize costs to increase profits for big business. This is state capitalism, or corporate liberalism - how corporatism operates in the U.S. Big corporations want regulation because they fear competition.

Before the Progressive Era, big businesses wanted to cut production and increase prices, but failed in doing so in the (relatively) free market that existed at the time. New competitors would arise or cartel members would cheat and lower prices, and the cartel agreement would fall apart. This kept prices low, trending toward the cost of production, which was great for consumers.

However, with state regulation, cartels can be maintained. The state can raise barriers to entry to protect cartel members from competition, and it can also bring down the hammer on cartel members who cheat and try to lower prices.

Of course, this isn't how it's sold to the public. Lobbyists tell the story of how "big bad corporations" need to be reigned in for the public good by benevolent big government, and voters seem to buy it every time. Behind the scenes, big business is colluding with the state for monopoly privilege. See the history of railroads, Big Agri, Big Oil, the telecoms, the Federal Reserve for examples of this playing out.

The state has granted corporations so many privileges, it's really quite unbelievable -- tariffs, patents, copyrights, licensing, regulation -- all of this subsidized by the public to grant corporations the privilege of giving us less for more. For our own good, of course.

This is how the rich get richer, and wealth continues to centralize and concentrate. By conning the public, and using the state as a blunt force instrument to keep competition out, and keep prices high.

Murray Rothbard gave a short lecture on the history of progressive regulation [1], and he also wrote a book called Power and Market [2] if you want a detailed overview of power dynamics in the market.

Rothbard was heavily influenced by Gabriel Kolko, a Progressive Era historian and leftist anti-capitalist, who wrote:

Despite the large number of mergers, and the growth in the absolute size of many corporations, the dominant tendency in the American economy at the beginning of this [the twentieth] century was toward growing competition. Competition was unacceptable to many key business and financial interests... As new competitors sprang up, and as economic power was diffused throughout an expanding nation, it became apparent to many important businessmen that only the national government could rationalize the economy. Although specific conditions varied from industry to industry, internal problems that could be solved only by political means were the common denominator in those industries whose leaders advocated greater federal regulation. Ironically, contrary to the consensus of historians, it was not the existence of monopoly that caused the federal government to intervene in the economy, but the lack of it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62rI8OYFzGg

[2] http://mises.org/sites/default/files/Man,%20Economy,%20and%2...

marssaxman• 11 years ago

I think this is the first time in my life that I've been happy about and excited by news of government action concerning the Internet.

datashovel• 11 years ago

In general I think this is a sign that many people in D.C. actually do want to do the right thing, but have (for too long) let the wrong people tell them what the right thing is.

someITguyWI• 11 years ago

Careful here boys and girls. Words matter, and the word to focus on in his statement is "lawful" content and services. What exactly is defined as lawful? Is porn lawful? What about torrents to pirated software? What about stuff the government just doesn't like. This same paragraph could be read in China and be just as accurate, but China has a very different definition of "lawful content and services".

lsaferite2• 11 years ago

I would imagine it means anything that is not legislated to be unlawful.

gdne• 11 years ago

The proposal I present to the commission will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future, for all Americans.

I really wish they would acknowledge that this type of decision isn't just "for Americans". Pretty much the entire world was watching to see how they were going to handle it.

jalopy• 11 years ago

I read this as beneficial to the wireless data carriers. Toward the bottom:

  "there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling"

Meaning no more MVNOs and no more competition other than the "big 4". Read the arstech article here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/we-dont-need-net-... to see how unbundling would have been best for the consumer; without it, looks like the wireless co's win big actually.

organsnyder• 11 years ago

MVNOs don't exist because of regulation - they exist because some wireless carriers have decided that they'd rather sell wholesale access to their network instead of leaving the market entirely to their competitors.

I don't have a problem with the lack of unbundling. I was a Covad customer for a number of years, and it was atrocious - whenever there was an issue, Covad and Ameritech/SBC/AT&T would go round and round with finger-pointing. Later, when AT&T began their U-verse (FTTN) deployment, Covad was shut out, stuck with the longer copper lines all the way back to the CO.

andrewrice• 11 years ago

Is usage-based internet billing a possibility now (e.g., $0.05 per gigabyte of data), just as electric companies charge per kilowatt-hour?

delinka• 11 years ago

ArsTechnica's article[0] mentions this:

"To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century..."

This concerns me. What kinds of changes are coming to Title II?

0 - http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/why-the-ex-cable-lob...

cheald4• 11 years ago

So, will this make it illegal for GoGo to block streaming video sites on airplanes during domestic flights?

200 people trying to stream Netflix over a satellite downlink? That should be a riot.

acdha4• 11 years ago

So, will this make it illegal for GoGo to block streaming video sites on airplanes during domestic flights?

It should allow them to be consistent about it and rate-limit everyone evenly, which would have the same effect.

The really interesting question would be what happens with their on-plan video systems – my understanding is that they cache a selection of videos on the plane which are pre-seeded to avoid clogging the connection. Even running a public proxy wouldn't help with that unless everyone is watching the same Netflix/Hulu/etc. videos. I'm not sure whether they could get some sort of waiver but it's definitely something to look for as the policy details emerge.

lsaferite2• 11 years ago

Hah, why not have a Netflix OpenConnect box on the plane then? That would be... interesting.

cheald4• 11 years ago

It should allow them to be consistent about it and rate-limit everyone evenly, which would have the same effect.

That's an allocation of about 450kbit/sec (~56kb/sec) down per seat on a 737 assuming the plane is outfitted with GoGo's latest tech. Upload would be a tiny fraction of that. It's in everyone's interest to disallow high-throughput usage while permitting burstable high-bandwidth low-throughput usage.

"Bright line" rules that no type or source of content may be discriminated against by carriers only make sense if bandwidth is not a scarce resource.

xophe• 11 years ago

Tom Wheeler for president

sparaker• 11 years ago

Good to see someone make an effort in this regard.

kordless• 11 years ago

This thread is old, and has tons of comments. I searched for "paid prioritization" to see if anyone else had the thought I just did about what may be happening here. I don't believe anyone has yet, so either I'm wrong about my assertion or I'm the first to post. :)

These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization

'Prioritize' means arranging things in order of their relative importance. Paid prioritization means arranging delivery of goods (Internet services for example) by order of the relative amount you charge for things that are important to you. Revenue, for example. Or no revenue, more specifically.

My gut says that free Internet should be a basic human right. Period. Nobody should be able to charge for it. I'm not sure how in the hell we're going to put that into practice though. I'm thinking about it.

As for compute services, well, those aren't free to run. And those compute jobs require bandwidth to complete. Should those be free? I think not. Should someone be allowed to use their 'free' allowance of Internet when it takes away from the compute services interconnects? No.

I could be off on a wrong tangent, so I'll just stop now.

my3681• 11 years ago

This, to me, is one of the most interesting topics of our time, and I find it fascinating the similarities (both philosophically and economically) to that of the railroads at the turn of the 20th century.

Much like net neutrality is the topic of the FCC, cargo neutrality on rail lines was the topic of the ICC [1] in their day. The problem of the early 1900s began with a bounty of riches in the highly competitive American Railway sector. Merchants using the railways were demanding "rebates" from railway companies for large shipments threatening to take business elsewhere and driving their shipping costs down. Of course, the same leverage was not available to smaller shippers, making their rates much higher and forcing them to raise the prices of their goods. The system was out of balance.

In 1903, congress and President Theodore Roosevelt, passed the Elkins Act [2], which eliminated rebates, but had the unfortunate side-effect of increasing price collusion between shippers and the railroads. The Elkins act did not establish a fixed rate, leaving interests to make deals that, again, were disadvantageous for smaller businesses. The only metric of discrimination was the diverting from a fixed railway schedule [3].

To correct the problems of the Elkins Act, the Hepburn Act was passed in 1906 greatly expanding the power of the ICC to regulate the Railroad Industry. The result was fixed prices on shipping deemed "just and reasonable" by the ICC, increased penalties for non-compliance, and an open and standard accounting system for the railroad companies. (As an aside, the depreciation of railway companies contributed to the Panic of 1907. A good word on that here: [4])

If all this back and forth sounds familiar, it is because we are facing the same problem today shipping bits that we were shipping coal and shirts all those years ago. The idea of prioritized delivery is not new or novel, but was dealt with before Netflix and Verizon began suing one another. What interests me is whether we will see legislation similar to the Elkins and Hepburn act for digital goods and services. I doubt very seriously that we will get fixed $/(Mbps) or $/GB mandates from the FCC, but already we are seeing definitions being made and lines being drawn [5]. There is already language from Wheeler about "responsibility to the 20 percent [without 25down/3up]", just as there was strong language from Roosevelt about the railway industries.

2015 will be an interesting year indeed.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission [2] http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Enc... [3] http://books.google.com/books?id=g-pCAAAAIAAJ&dq=elkins%20ac... [4] http://books.google.com/books?id=R3koAAAAYAAJ&hl=en [5] http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/broadband-now-defined-25-...

Animats• 11 years ago

This is neutrality for big data sources only. "For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling." This is a deal for Netflix and Google. It won't get you out from under AT&T forcing you to take their TV service to get their Internet service.

There was a time when you could rent a local loop from a regulated telco and have it connected to an independent Internet service provider. Remember independent DSL ISPs? I still have a connection through one, "Sonic.net". They no longer offer that to new customers.

CSMastermind• 11 years ago

Serious question: I was under the impression that mobile data networks were exempted from this type of regulation, is what he proposing going to eliminated things like the throttling AT&T / T-Mobile / Sprint does above a certain data threshold?

phragg• 11 years ago

If millions of people can shut down SOPA/PIPA, millions of dollars can make this not happen, sadly.

jamiek88• 11 years ago

Those two things are exactly opposite, surely?

Millions of people beat millions of dollars with SOPA. the same seems to be happening here.

Say what you like about the slacktivism online but when the actual web is threatened people do seem to mobilize effectively.

We can't get complacent though their pockets are deep and their patience is endless. SOPA will be back and this needs riding all the way to signature.

FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

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