- TheSpiritFox
- Jan 4, 2009
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I'm just a memory, I can't give you any new information.
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So I found this article today.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/strike-two-obamas-second_b_5205200.html
quote:When President Obama pledged to appoint a Federal Communications Commission chair who would protect Net Neutrality, we had no reason to doubt he'd find the right person for the job.
Obama campaigned in 2008 as a strong champion of the open Internet, saying he'd "take a back seat to no one" in safeguarding Net Neutrality.
Now the president is on his second FCC chair, and neither has proven himself up to the task.
Strike One
The first, Chairman Julius Genachowski, constructed an "Open Internet Rule" that was doomed from the start. Built on a flimsy legal foundation and riddled with corporate-friendly loopholes, the Genachowski rule was shot down by a federal appeals court in January.
By then Genachowski had fled the FCC, leaving his mess for others to sort out.
No worries, President Obama said earlier this year. "The new commissioner of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, whom I appointed, I know is a strong supporter of Net Neutrality."
Obama noted that the court decision, while rejecting Genachowski's scheme, did confirm that the FCC could use its powers to protect Internet users from online censorship and discrimination.
"They have authority," Obama said. "And the question now is how do they use that authority. If the old systems and rulings that they had in place were not effective in preserving Net Neutrality, do they have other tools that would stand up to court scrutiny that accomplishes the same goals."
Strike Two
As Obama's second FCC chairman, Wheeler will today release a proposal for a new rule. All reports suggest that Wheeler's proposal betrays Obama and the millions of people who have called on the FCC to enact strong and enforceable Net Neutrality protections.
The plan reportedly would allow Internet service providers to charge extra fees to content companies like Google and Netflix for preferential treatment. Giving ISPs the green light to implement Internet payola schemes would be a disaster for startups, nonprofits and everyday Internet users who can't afford these unnecessary tolls.
The Zero-Sum Game
This is bad news for anyone who thinks the Internet should remain open to all comers. The Internet's flat network architecture has allowed anyone to innovate without having to first seek permission from the service providers that control much of the access to Internet users.
Under Wheeler's proposed regime, ISPs won't just be able to favor the sites that pay up; they'll also be allowed to give special preference to their own services. For years companies like AT&T and Verizon have tried to kill any Net Neutrality rules that prevent them from protecting their legacy voice, text and video services from the kind of competition the open Internet makes possible.
The prioritization of data on the Internet is a zero-sum game. Unless there is actual congestion, no website will pay for priority treatment. This means Wheeler's proposed rules would actually give ISPs the incentive to create congestion through artificial scarcity -- by clamping down on the data stream and charging more per bit. Americans need the opposite: an Internet that is fast, open, affordable and abundant. Under Wheeler's scheme there is no motivation for ISPs to deliver the next-generation Internet.
In a statement late Wednesday evening, Wheeler indicated that the January court decision shaped his approach here. But the court ruling gave Wheeler a clear path forward: To protect real Net Neutrality, all the FCC needs to do is reclassify broadband providers as the common carriers they are. Wheeler instead chose a convoluted prioritization scheme that undercuts the level playing field that has made the Internet such a powerful engine for opportunity.
Obama's Choice
A former cable and wireless industry lobbyist, the chairman is a longtime Obama loyalist and fundraiser. Prior to today's proposal he had declared his commitment to a "free and open Internet" and public service.
"If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed, my client will be the American public and I hope that I can be as effective an advocate for them as humanly possible," Wheeler told senators during his confirmation hearing last June.
His decision to clear the path for a payola Internet is an insult to the millions of people who have actively called on the agency to preserve the open Internet. And it's an insult to President Obama, who has repeated his commitment to Net Neutrality on multiple occasions since declaring his White House ambitions.
For Obama the choice is now clear: Either you're for Net Neutrality or you're for Tom Wheeler's Internet payola. You can no longer say you're for both.
Short summation: So long as they don't purposefully slow things down, ISPs can give preferential treatment to themselves and others who can or will pay for it. They are not allowed to purposefully slow down any one specific group, but creating an artificial scarcity of bandswidth through legal means (like eating it up with their own transfers at their allowed preferential higher data rates) is entirely feasible. The actual new "regulations" are coming in May apparently, so we won't know until then things like whether or not they can flat out refuse to give a company like netflix preferential treatment and whether or not there will be any caps on the amount of bandwidth they are allowed to eat up for preferred customers.
So yeah. The FCC refused to classify the internet as a public utility to avoid the regulation there and has basically given up trying to regulate under the current head.
poo poo is hosed up and bullshit.
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Apr 25, 2014 19:07
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May 14, 2024 07:09
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- TheSpiritFox
- Jan 4, 2009
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I'm just a memory, I can't give you any new information.
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The NPRM may be voted on in May, but if so, it would just be a vote on whether to propose that as the rule - the FCC can't make a rule without opening it to public comment for a reasonable period, which is usually interpreted to mean at least 60 days.
(Everything else in the prior post is probably wrong too.)
Using preferential treatment of one provider to artificially slow down others would effectively violate the anti-blocking rules, so it'll be a no go anyway, even if it's commercially reasonable to provide higher speeds to their traffic under the anti-discrimination rule. You can pay for positive treatment, but in doing so, you can't reduce others below where they would otherwise have been without running afoul of the rewritten rules (read the Circuit's decision again, since the FCC seems to have adopted exactly what the court told them to.)
Basically, a bunch of people who freaked out (incorrectly) about the court decision are now freaking out over a rule they haven't seen which likely doesn't say what they think it says.
Could you please link me to information about the current anti-blocking rules? I've read a bunch of articles about the past decision, and as I understand it the blocking rules have been struck down until the FCC reclassifies broadband providers or appeals the decision to a higher court, and this new rule is exactly what it seems, it enshrines the power to charge for different speeds.
I guess, yes, it's possible that this will set down some kind of baseline service that must be provided. Of course, that potentially lets ISPs just monetize any improvements to the infrastructure, they could set a baseline and then just invest in better infrastructure (finally) and essentially own every bit of bandwidth above what is required to provide their "baseline". As bandwidth needs increase that has the same net effect, creating artificial scarcity. Potentially. And the potential for quasi-legal abuse, loopholes, etc is still there. If this was implemented and they did create an artificial bandwidth shortage now, it would probably take a class action lawsuit to bring it to light.
The FCC process information I did not know, though. I was under the impression that a new rule was being announced, rather than proposed, and that we were basically going to have to wait until May to find out how bad the new rules that were already OKed were going to be.
:Edit:
Found the text of the proposal so far, reading...
:Edit 2:
I really hope the proposal in May outlines exactly what the definitions of blocking and limiting are going to be and how they will be allowed or required to handle traffic and apportion bandwidth. Congestion already exists, plenty of people have to deal with slow internet during peak useage times. If they don't massively increase the available bandwidth/transfer speeds across the board, increased priority for one connection means someone else's packets are going to wait. If they do invest in infrastructure then it's going to be a matter of how much leeway they get to do whatever the hell they want with it and if the FCC has the presence of mind to make regulations that take both developing infrastructure and the future of increased bandwidth needs into account.
I don't really trust the FCC that far and think this is worth getting a little worked up over. Too much potential for abuse.
TheSpiritFox fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Apr 25, 2014
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Apr 25, 2014 20:36
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Apr 25, 2014 19:07
