The title and post are both quite misleading. The commissioners didn't approve Tom Wheeler's plan (to regulate the Internet under Section 706), but voted to go ahead with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and commenting period. Tom Wheeler stated multiple times that Title II classification is still on the table.
There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from companies and the public, and then 60 days of replies to those comments from the same. After that, the final rulemaking will happen.
It's probably best to wait until the actual text of the NPRM is made public though, which'll likely happen very soon.
Edit: WaPo have now updated the title of the article to make it more accurate: "FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet." Old title was "FCC approves plan to allow for paid priority on Internet."
Ok. That's 120 days to make Title II a household word.
Broadband's current classification as an information service, as if it's some sort of MovieFone for the 21st century, is so far removed from reality that the public should be in an uproar about it. Verizon itself has sought to classify its fiber buildouts under Title II so it can get fixed-rate access to existing right-of-way infrastructure, [1] on the technicality that its VOIP service running across those lines is regulated under Title II. Yet the main reason for building it is, of course, broadband, which dodged Title II on the even flimsier grounds of those ISP email and start pages you never use.
People should be holding signs outside the FCC building with "Title II" on them. The chair of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Michael Powell, has ominously said attempts to reclassify broadband as Title II would be "World War III"[2] – but if he wants a fight, the FCC really should oblige him, and consumers should be beating the drums.
> People should be holding signs outside the FCC building with "Title II" on them.
Or, you know, submitting comments to the FCC answering the question explicitly raised in the call for comments as to whether Title II or Section 706 is the most appropriate authority for Open Internet regulations with clear, specific, and coherent reasons why Title II is the right answer and how it should be applied.
The battle over getting Title II into consideration has already been won. The front has moved on to the details.
Before we all jump on the idea of Title II, let's consider the implications. Specifically Terrifs. If last-mile ISPs can start charging Terrifs for use of their lines (like the telcos do), this will have the opposite of the desired effect on pricing and will lead to arbitrage like we've seen with the Telcos (these Terrifs allowed NetZero to make money by keeping your modem connected... essentially billing everyone in the country through the FCC's "Federal Universal Service Charge" on your phone bill instead of their users). This is also where the "Family Plan" came from. Honestly, it's shocking how ill informed most people in the tech industry are on what they're asking for here...
Why do we need any regulation in the first place? Net Neutrality has never truly existed. Netflix has the cheapest bandwidth deal of anyone... And they're trying to fool their users into lobbying the gov't for them to keep in that way. Small start-ups have always payed more per Megabit. That's the free market at work. You pay less for bulk. It makes sense. Every content provider (website, video service, shared host, VoIP provider, etc) has always been able to pay for priority at some level (be it through exclusive private fiber channels, faster DNS, the use of CDNs, or even QoS for latency-critical services like VoIP & gaming). This has generally been a good thing. Yes, some local monopolistic ISPs are acting up and something has to be done about that. But calling them utilities will only give them the power to impose terrifs and charge more... the opposite of what we want.
Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitely have the effect of killing Comcast and Time Warner's profit margins. Hooray! Your tribe wins, and the big evil telecom companies will be cut down to size!
Except the telecom companies make up 6 of the top 25 companies with the highest U.S. capital expenditures: http://news.investors.com/technology/091913-671712-institute.... You think they're going to keep pouring all that money into low-margin heavily-regulated infrastructure? No, they'll do what Goldman wants and divest themselves of regulated business lines, and take that money and put it into a profitable business sector.
I live in Austin which is a very densely-populated regional tech hub. Here we have three 30-mbit FTTN ISPs which is more competition than pretty much anywhere else in the US.
Earlier this year Google announced they were bringing Google Fiber here. Immediately all the ISPs announced that they, too, would be offering FTTH speeds. One company announced 300mbit, another rolled out 300mbit as part of a roadmap to gigabit, and the third actually rolled out gigabit well ahead of Google Fiber, which is still applying for permits.
I agree with you in principle that there is some margin below which companies will not invest in expensive capital expenditures. However there is also a margin above which companies will not invest in capital expenditures, because they have a sure thing going. The question is where those lines are.
The data from Austin show that in a market considered "exceptionally competitive" by American standards, companies are willing to invest an order of magnitude more in capital expenditures than they currently do just by threatening to create a lower-margin market. Google's work here, which so far consists of exactly 0 fiber installs, a landing page, and a contract with the city, has been so effective at transforming the market here that it's being argued by locals that it would be more efficient to forget about actually installing any fiber and they should just make announcements in one city after another and wait for the ISPs to do it for them.
Ask yourself: why does Austin already have three FTTN ISP's when San Francisco doesn't? It wasn't because they had a higher level of regulation than other cities, it was because they had less.
Another nice narrative that doesn't fit with experimental data.
In spite of the fact that one would imagine a Texas city to be less regulated than a California city, it isn't really that simple.
In Austin a strong majority of the utility poles are owned by the city. The ones that aren't are largely owned by AT&T, which complains very loudly that it is required to sell access to anyone who wants it at a price dictated by the Federal Communications Commission nationwide.
Meanwhile California (get this) opted out of much of the FCC regulation around utility poles and effectively allows a large private company to own and control the poles. This private company is made up of all the usual suspects like AT&T, Sprint, PG&E, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc., who seem to have formed a holding company to buy utility poles without anyone at the state being concerned about antitrust concerns. I'm not exactly sure what the requirements are to join--if access is "open" (for some definition of open) this may be how they circumvent the Sherman Antitrust Act etc.
California did pass "fair access" laws in 2011 [1] but as far as I can tell they only apply to "local publicly owned electric utilities" which presumably would not include AT&T and its utility pole holding company. There probably is some kind of regulation that in principle regulates competitive access to poles but how it compares to the FCC's jurisdiction in Texas it is difficult to say.
This is a side note, but we should really be having less talk about how we think regulation works and more case studies about how it does or doesn't work in these comment threads. "Less regulation == better internet" is a plausible model but so was the Bohr Model of the atom. "Is it correct?" is the question and that question can only be answered by looking at empirically what happens.
The fact Austin is less regulated isn't a hypothetical. We know Austin is less regulated than most cities. Its a Google Fiber city, which means it agreed to ditch most of the regulations, like build out requirements, that other cities impose. Google doesn't bring fiber to a city without massive concessions. Kansas City agreed to get the permits through in five days. Provo sold Google a $30 million fiber network for $1.
Maybe pole attachments have something to do with it too, but lots of cities own their poles but don't have competing fiber services.
The last article is a must-read. This is the kind of person standing in the way of fiber deployment, as much as any cable lobbyist.
"That’s a nice deal where it’s available. But the company has been slow to expand its coverage area in Kansas City and vague about if and when it will reach some working-class areas, according to a report in The Kansas City Star.
Cities really have one opportunity to ensure that all of their residents will be served by these next generation broadband services.
That’s during the initial franchise negotiations, when cities can press for universal coverage in return for the special rules and public property they’re offering up.
Once cities provide these handouts, they don’t have much leverage. They’ll end up bowing and scraping and hoping that Uncle Google throws a bit more fiber their way, someday."
Time to nationalize then. I hate even thinking that, but I'd rather have tax dollars wasted than see our money funnelled to Wall Street.
BTW that article showing how much capital they spent doesn't say what they actually spent that money on. My bet is most of it went to their cellular networks and other business interests. Their own data shows broadband investment has fallen[1]. Only 12 billion in the last 4 years. So clearly that 100+ billion each year isn't going to faster internet... at least not in landlines. Guess I can download videos to my phone slightly faster now. Yay.
At the same time we keep paying more[2]. And now they want to suck dry the content providers as well, who will probably only pass on the costs to us? Eff That.
Maybe they should actually reinvest their money into building out a 21st century network, and then they wouldn't need a fast lane.
>do you think you'll be happy with the resulting level of investment?
I'll be accepting of it. At least we get the end results of our own failure to persuade the public or politicians.
As it is our fate is left to 'market forces'. Market forces have been undeniably screwing us for the better part of a decade. And it's looking like they want more for less in the future.
> Market forces have been undeniably screwing us for the better part of a decade.
Excuse me? What's been screwing us in broadband is precisely that market forces are not operating, because local governments have been giving sweetheart deals to particular providers.
I suggest you read some of these agreements, they're usually online. Here's the one for my town: http://www.wilmingtonde.gov/docs/1320/3716Rev1.pdf. These aren't sweetheart deals. Generally, they extract millions of dollars for tangentially-related municipal programs, and then have build-out requirements forcing you to serve areas above a certain density even if you can't sign up enough customers to make it profitable. Basically, the terms are unattractive enough such that only the big de-facto monopolies are willing to take the deal.
> the terms are unattractive enough such that only the big de-facto monopolies are willing to take the deal.
Which means that these are effectively sweetheart deals for the big de facto monopolies, since without them there would certainly be an incentive for smaller competitors to enter the market. That may not have been the intent of the municipal governments, so "sweetheart deal" may not be the best descriptive term, but that's what ends up happening. It certainly isn't a free market with these kinds of requirements in place.
Yes, there is something of Br'er Rabbit in giant incumbent telcos' complaining about regulations. "Please mister please don't use the complicated franchise agreement my lawyer sent you that is actually written to conform exactly to my M&Ps!"
WTF? Now I have read it (well frankly I skimmed the last 25 of the 40 pages in this particular assignment), and it was clearly written by the Comcast lawyer. This isn't surprising: it's a contract between two parties, one of which executes scores of such contracts every year, and the other of which does so about once a decade. Who else would have written it? Saul Goodman?
As 'pdonis said, the "unattractive" terms are there precisely so that "only the big de-facto monopolies are willing to take the deal".
Our level of investment in all our other public infrastructure is dismal: http://www.asce.org/failuretoact. Why would investment into internet infrastructure be any different? Indeed, it'd probably be worse. Remember, the electorate skews older than the overall population, while I'd bet internet usage skews younger.
Not quite, the military really only cares about the SIPRnet, a construct that is thankfully completely free of the likes of AT&T, the FCC, etc. The military has never depended on the Internet normal people use. Its a great service for Bob and Joe Servicemember to be able to watch Netflux in their down time, but because its not really important to any mission in any way, they dont care.
That's not really true, NIPRNet (unclassified regular Internet) is just as important nowadays.
There are a lot of essential communications going on that aren't classified, and not everyone doing an essential job function has a security clearance.
Nationalizing anything nearly always leads to lower quality. Compare the toll roads in France to the "free" autobahns in Germany. The French toll routes are far better maintained. Another case is health care, compare an NHS experience with a hip replacement in the UK with a hip replacement in France (or the US.) In the UK, the waiting list is measured in 6+ months, while in the US or France, it is almost immediate. For a more extreme example, have a look at Venezuela's nationalization efforts. Nationalization of anything is often a bad solution. The government doesn't have a profit motive, thus they have no incentives.
However, that being said, the big question is if the Internet is a common carrier or not. (I would argue that it is.) Apparently Ted Cruz and Al Franken agree as well. Nationalization isn't the answer, the proper framing of the industry is what's really needed.
Your argument doesn't add up. The autoroutes of France belong to the government and their semi-private companies[1].
As a counter example, all roads in the Netherlands are owned by the government - and the Dutch roads are considered to be of outstanding quality.
Major roads are taken care of on a province level, smaller roads on a municipality level - however all of them have to ensure the roads are safe to travel and will not cause damage to your vehicle, nor are unsafe to drive.
Actually most of the toll autoroutes of France are managed and operated by Vinci. Which is a shareholder owned company and most certainly not "semi-private." You're also quoting a Wikipedia article about autoroutes in general. A article, by the way, that cites no sources, unless you consider about.com a primary source.
If you were to compare the Vinci-managed ones with the state managed ones, there's a vast difference in quality.
Which, the point is that some of the autoroutes are maintained by the state, however the ones that are are privately manage are of better quality. The ones that ARE toll roads, such as the A9 are fully managed and operated by Vinci and they are exceptionally good. The A31 (Luxembourg to Beaune where it turns into the A6) on the other hand is not privately managed and it has a higher number of potholes and the overall quality is lower. The A7 from Avignon to Marseille is also privately managed and is of exceptional quality.
I'm not making the case that government-owned roads are all necessarily bad, however I am making the case that private, profit oriented roads are almost always better because they have to be -- why pay to use a bad road? Drive from Hamburg to Marseille and you can see the effects with your own eyes. I've driven all across Europe, with the exception of the Netherlands, which I will concede are probably very good. However the Netherlands can't easily compared to the United States both in terms of economy, demographics or size. Korea, for example has better internet than most of the world, but the population density is astronomical compared to the United States, so there are different economies of scale at work. The same thing goes for Dutch roads.
The interesting thing is the quality of the roads that are publicly operated toll roads, such as the New Jersey Turnpike are terrible compared to the free highways of Texas. So you do have some good government owned things, however very rarely is the government version better than a private version. Otherwise we'd be drinking Evian out of the tap instead of the chlorinated crap that passes for municipal water.
Given that a publicly managed, national internet would likely be run by some government agency along the lines of the Veterans Administration or the New York New Jersey Port Authority -- I would far prefer private infrastructure.
However, that being said, the Internet pipes almost definitely should be considered a common carrier by pretty much any definition of the word.
I'm just clearly arguing against nationalization. It worked so well for Mexico's Pemex that they are actually privatizing it. If you fill up your gas tank in Juarez vs. El Paso, you'll find the quality of the gasoline vastly different, despite the fact that they are refined from the same crude oil.
Yeah the nationalised healthcare here in the UK sucks.
Last night my wife got seen by an emergency dentist at 21:45 an it cost £18.50 ($31).
My grandmother was on the waiting list for her hip replacement for 11 days and that cost... $0
I broke my ankle and it was X-ray'ed cast and dealt with in 2 hours from being picked up by the ambulance and it cost...$0
My wife had three C-sections over the space of a decade an that cost...$0 (no wait either!)
My wife has had two other surgeries and they cost $0 and the waiting time was less than 3 weeks.
Oh and our medicines cost a max of £104 a year (if you get a year prescription certificate) and for most people they are free. That's for ANY amount of them.
Yeah nationalisation of healthcare is absolutely fucking awful especially here in London...
> while in the US or France, it is almost immediate.
You seem to operate under the assumption that healthcare in France is private. It isn't. It's underfunded and has had a gaping deficit for as long as I can remember, but it still sort of works.
> The government doesn't have a profit motive, thus they have no incentives.
The government doesn't have a "profit motive". They have what is called a "mandate to deliver a public service". Which means that they're not going to deliberately screw over non-profitable areas. Not to say that everything is rosy (see, eg, the absolutely shameful state of the French penal system), but they're trying. As a bonus, you can compare the (privatized) UK railroad system and the (still public) French railroad system, and run a customer satisfaction survey.
The doctors are not employed by the state, as they are in the UK.
There are as many different ways of running a health care system as there are countries. It's not the US in one bucket, everyone else in a second bucket. The set up of the Sweden system looks more like the US than it does like Canada or Taiwan, which both have single-payer.
I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. The bills are paid by the social insurance (and mutuels if you have it,) however the providers are mostly private.
Nationalizing the infrastructure isn't viable in the US for a host of reasons. Politics. The culture of poor stewardship of the commons in the US. Etc.
They need to be force all ISPs to act as common carriers.
You are once again leaving out the important bits that don't fit your story.
The facts are an example of regulation arbitrage, not some fatal flaw in Title 2 / Common Carrier. The 'Fatal Flaw' is the FCC doesn't say "All consumer facing ISPs are Common Carriers under Title 2" but "Technology X is under Title II and Technology Y is not".
Even from your own article "In this case what has Wall Street's heart all a flutter is the possibility for Verizon to shed all union-related workers and their pensions."
Dumping a ton of long term liabilities [pensions, union contracts] is the core reason. Divesting of some high cost DSL markets for an infrastructure provider [which is the regions they are talking about in the article, Upstate New York isn't exactly a market with roaring profitability due to low population density] is a secondary concern in that article and it basically said they invested 24 billion?
Title 2 doesn't require Union workers.
It also isn't a reasonable comparison to say "Title 2 Technology A lost to Non-Title 2 Technology B because Title 2 doesn't work" with such weak evidence. Why yes, investors want to reduce liabilities and cost centers. Magically, if you can enter a market with a lower liability and costs [due to less regulation] you prefer that option. If that isn't an option, magically, the market functions on an even playing field and everything competes on the merits of the technologies.
Somehow, magically, in places like Europe you get better ISP performance per $ with similar profit margins. Maybe the problem is not too much regulation, but how the regulation is being applied?
You concede that higher levels of regulation increase regulatory costs. But you assume that as long as you make all regulation equally burdensome, the market will somehow fix things. But you're ignoring the fact that capital is fluid, and will flow out of regulated industries like telecom into less regulated industries. You can't invoke the market then ignore basic aspects of how the market works.
Places in Europe are also much more willing to outright subsidize telecom investment: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-w... ("Sweden has built one of the fastest and most widely deployed broadband networks in Europe because its government granted tax breaks for infrastructure investments, directly subsidized rural deployment, and, perhaps most significantly, required state-owned municipal utilities to create local backbone networks, reducing the cost for the local telephone company to provide service.")
Please explain how all other utilities and common carriers are effective in the US and able to receive sufficient capital investment to provide reliable service?
Having a near-monopoly reduces risk significantly.
Uh, please read the methodology of the linked article. Those aren't direct tax subsidies. It's a made-up number based on effective tax rates below 35%. By your logic, the government is heavily subsidizing Apple & Google, which pay much less than the 35% rate.
> Please explain how all other utilities and common carriers are effective in the US and able to receive sufficient capital investment to provide reliable service?
The one-time ARRA money is for jobs programs. The money is distributed to municipalities, and may or may not be used to actually build broadband anywhere.
> Sweden didn't even put 1 billion in.
Sweden putting in $900 million is like the U.S. putting in $27 billion.
> Uh, please read the methodology of the linked article. Those aren't direct tax subsidies. It's a made-up number based on effective tax rates below 35%. By your logic, the government is heavily subsidizing Apple & Google, which pay much less than the 35% rate.
Fine, we'll use your definitions. That's cool.
> Sweden putting in $900 million is like the U.S. putting in $27 billion.
Exelon: ~2.5 billion net on ~55 billion assets
Comcast: ~6.8 billion net on ~158 billion assets
And like any other market, Exelon isn't having trouble turning a profit from regulation but is losing money due to its own fuckups for failing to accurately predict what forms of energy are cheapest:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-09/business/ct-ex...
I'm sorry, but we just have to agree to disagree. Or are you planning to change goalposts?
Under your definition, Apple received an $18 billion subsidy between 2009-2011. What did the public get in return for that subsidy? Is that a dumb question? Yes, because your definition of subsidy makes no sense.
USF is not a subsidy to the telecom industry, because it is funded by a tax on the industry. It just shifts money from certain telecom customers to others.
> And like any other market, Exelon isn't having trouble turning a profit from regulation
Excelon is a terrible example of utilities turning a profit, because it really isn't one. When the energy industry was deregulated, the regulated electric monopoly in Illinois, Commonwealth Edison, divested itself of its generation capacity. This entity became Excelon, and it is not regulated S a public utility the way ComEd is.
Sure, one might see this as a sign that existing wireline regulations are already too onerous, and Ma Bell's poor daughters have to take their ball and go home. But the fact is, they know their wireline market is a captive one, and customers will stay no matter how little they invest. As soon as they bribe their way to a Sprint takeover, we'll see wireless investment head in the same direction.
I find it interesting that broadband is so expensive in the US compared to many other countries.
Population density is sometimes pointed to. It may be, but I also know that even many of the most rural parts of Norway and Sweden broadband [fiber] is prevalent.
I would guess competition (and less lobbying) would improve things. Perhaps Google Fiber can shake things up.
Sweden directly subsidized deployment of fiber in rural areas: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-w.... It also required municipalities to build certain infrastructure, which is something the U.S. federal government lacks the power to do.
I live in Europe, where there is a lot more regulation on Telecom Companies. My house is in a small village in the woods (45min away from the next Autobahn!) and yet I can get 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up for 50€.
Regulation sets the market incentives. Having no regulation is just the choice to set the incentives to benefit those that control the natural monopoly.
You should read recent Level3 blogs showing that actually currently those companies don't have any incentive to improve their infrastructure, because keeping it in bad shape generates them more money. I know it is counter-intuitive but that's what it is.
Regional ISPs are natural monopolies and there's no other way but to regulate them. Same as you regulate electricity company, water, gas etc. You can't just let everyone dig holes around city to place new wires, pipes etc. There's no other way then regulating it.
BTW: If Comcast and Time Warner would move to a different methods of delivering access then it's all even better we will have more alternatives than just cable, or dsl. If instead they would decide to close down and sell, then I'm sure there would be plenty of other companies who would want to purchase their infrastructure with their subscribers to make money out of it.
If this is true, then why do so many other countries around the world have both actual competition AND much more compelling products than the US? These other ISPs are also commercial entities and yet they aren't filing for bankruptcy left, right and center so clearly it's commercially possible.
Au contraire. Europe has enormous problems. In places like France, cellular service has been getting faster and cheaper because of competition. For example, Free joined the "big three" in France for cell service and suddenly prices have fallen and quality has greatly improved compared the the days when France Telecom controlled everything. That's the opposite of your theory that nationalization "improves" things.
Mexico is another outstanding example of what happens when you deregulate telecoms. When Carlos Slim had his nationally-endorsed monopoly with TelCel/TelMex, prices were exceptionally high however, once his guaranteed monopoly period expired and other companies could begin to compete, the prices dropped dramatically. Although Slim's company has a huge 10 year head start over other companies in terms of infrastructure -- so the monopoly effects are still prevalent. For example, a cell plan that costs me $100 in the US, costs me over $125 in Mexico. In terms of purchasing power, that's a massively expensive difference, considering many other things in Mexico are substantially less expensive than the US -- except electricity and telcoms, which are far more expensive because of de facto and de jure nationalization.
There's a perception that "Europe is better" that seems to be almost a stereotype. I happen to live in Avignon and have a close-up view of things that are better in Europe versus the US and some things ARE better, but there is a tradeoff. Avignon has 20% unemployment for example. It has traditionally been very expensive to start a business in France as well. The labor rules and bureaucracy makes it exceptionally difficult to hire and fire employees. Public transport in Europe isn't universally better than the US. Most people only visit places like Paris, Berlin, London, etc. However, when compared to New York, Chicago and San Francisco, europe's transport isn't that much better. Spend a few minutes in the Paris CDG airport and compare that to JFK.. not much difference. In the less famous cities and regions of Europe, public transport consists of possibly a train station and some buses. When I was in Wilstedt, German (near Hamburg) there was a bus, but it was so infrequent that it was useless. In Provence, the big cities have public transport, but if you're in Salon de Provence, there isn't much. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but the rose-colored view of Europe is often not based in reality, but on an idealized view. La vie en rose to be sure.
The "Better in Europe" meme isn't always true. Ask some of the people actually running businesses in France. Here's an interview with a French CEO that's interesting. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101608867
Japan had stagnant internet for a while in the 90s, while the US was the standard bearer - they also used to have a paucity of competition, and when the government instituted regulations to increase competition, they worked as intended, resulting in having one of the best broadband infrastructures in the world.
Government control can be good when the traditional market fails abysmally.
Google is generally capable of thinking long term. The major broadband providers in America are incapable of thinking beyond the next few quarterly statements--otherwise they would not have gotten themselves into this mess.
It's very legitimate to ask whether Google would invest in fiber were it regulated under Title II, because to date they have expressed the distinct unwillingness to enter municipal markets with heavy telecom regulation. They won't even agree to build-out requirements, which are pretty much standard for cable franchises.
> WaPo have now updated the title of the article to make it more accurate: "FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet"
That makes it only marginally less of a misrepresentation. The only universe in which this is a change toward allowing/considering paid prioritization is one in which the D.C. Circuit did not strike down the old Open Internet order. Its plain and simply a plan, on the question of paid prioritization, to restrict it, not "allow" or "consider" it, given that it is currently allowed without restrictions.
Any policy change can only be accurately be described in relation to the status quo to which it is a change.
Adding to the confusion, the NYT has an article up right now which seems to report the opposite.
To quote from the NYT article lede:
"WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to invite public comment on a set of proposed rules aimed at guaranteeing an open Internet, prohibiting high-speed Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against legal content flowing through their pipes.
"
Am I reading this wrong or does that seem to say the opposite of what WaPo is saying?
You are reading it correctly. And the NYT seems to be reporting it correctly. While the text is not published yet anywhere I can see, the FCC fact sheet states that the proposal (direct quotes with only formatting/presentation changes) [1]:
- Proposes to retain the definitions and scope of the 2010 rules, which governed broadband Internet
access service providers, but not services like enterprise services, Internet traffic exchange and
specialized services.
- Proposes to enhance the existing transparency rule, which was upheld by the D.C. Circuit. The
proposed enhancements would provide consumers, edge providers, and the Commission with
tailored disclosures, including information on the nature of congestion that impacts consumers’
use of online services and timely notice of new practices.
- As part of the revived "no-blocking" rule, proposes ensuring that all who use the Internet can
enjoy robust, fast and dynamic Internet access.
- Tentatively concludes that priority service offered exclusively by a broadband provider to an
affiliate should be considered illegal until proven otherwise.
- Asks how to devise a rigorous, multi-factor "screen" to analyze whether any conduct hurts
consumers, competition, free expression and civic engagement, and other criteria under a legal
standard termed "commercial reasonableness."
- Asks a series of detailed questions about what legal authority provides the most effective means
of keeping the Internet open: Section 706 or Title II.
- Proposes a multi-faceted process to promptly resolve and head off disputes, including an
ombudsperson to act as a watchdog on behalf of consumers and start-ups and small businesses.
It's important to note that the FCC is avoiding dealing with the peering issue (so, for example, Netflix's issue) with their current proposal. Wheeler specifically said that they want to delay that part of the net neutrality debate until later. In my view that's a mistake.
I think that the concerns that the stated goals of this effort cannot be met without addressing peering is a concern that should certainly be raised in the comment period (I'm not sure I agree with it, but I'm sure that some of the people raising it have thought about it more than I have and can present an argument that lays out why that is the case so it can be evaluated.)
Can someone please clarify this line:
"- Tentatively concludes that priority service offered exclusively by a broadband provider to an affiliate should be considered illegal until proven otherwise."
the offered exclusively line is what gets me, if they offer a "fast lane" at a higher price to everyone it isn't an "exclusive" offer and therefore would be allowed?
> if they offer a "fast lane" at a higher price to everyone it isn't an "exclusive" offer and therefore would be allowed?
No, if it isn't an exclusive offer, then it would be tested under the test for which they seek input from the public under the next bullet point (which directly addresses the limits on the FCC's authority established in the D.C. Circuit opinion striking down the last Open Internet order.) The clear intent is to find a way to limit paid prioritization to the extent that is consistent with the limits on the FCC's authority established by the courts (because, if they exceed that authority, then the whole thing gets thrown out, which is why we are back at rulemaking on this issue again right now.)
>Tentatively concludes that priority service offered exclusively by a broadband provider to an affiliate should be considered illegal until proven otherwise.
This is still not a good proposition though. They're saying you can't offer improved service to "exclusively" your affiliates, but you can allow anyone with enough money to pay for "improved" (aka normal) service.
Things are very confusing right now but we have not made progress on Net Neutrality yet. Keep contacting the FCC and let them know that this is not good enough.
> They're saying you can't offer improved service to "exclusively" your affiliates, but you can allow anyone with enough money to pay for "improved" (aka normal) service.
No, they aren't. They are saying that you presumptively cannot offer enhanced service exclusively to affiliates, and whether you can or cannot do so under other terms is governed by the screening factors for which they seek input from the public in the next bullet point, where the FCC "asks how to devise a rigorous, multi-factor 'screen' to analyze whether any conduct hurts consumers, competition, free expression and civic engagement, and other criteria under a legal standard termed 'commercial reasonableness.'"
Note that this directly addresses the language of the limitation on the FCCs authority to regulate dictated by the DC Circuit.
This is a bit concerning as a number of non tech people but people that just use facebook, instagram, gmail ect that i have spoken to are confused. It would be nice to see a simplification so that the avg guy in the street can understand the effects of this.
This comment is misleading. Actual Administrative Law practitioner here. The commissioners basically approved Tom Wheeler's plan, and there's no meaningful recourse for the path ahead. Saying that something is "on the table" ignores the realities of promulgating new regulations. Are they going to rewrite the regulations? No way. It's not how the process works. There's no incentive for changing the rules -- because they'd need to have ANOTHER rulemaking after this one for the specific language. That would take YEARS AND YEARS. The only illusorily democratic process left for THIS NPRM is for the FCC to read your comments and respond to them in a detailed, written method. If they fail to implement that process (i.e., to read stuff, write down that they read the stuff, and write sophistry in response), the courts can tell them to go back and read them again and address the comments. But the FCC has the authority to move forward on that, and you can't vote them out of office.
I wonder if this is anything to do with the fact that the Washington post is now owned by Jeff Bezos, who would be at a disadvantage if two-tier broadband increased the cost of things like Amazon Prime video.
Thanks for the link to comments. Its important to let the FCC know what the people think, however I really feel that would take an organized effort to stop this now and I don't mean just tech companies. Turning internet users into a captive audience to be sold can't be good for tech workers in the long run.
I there any grassroots organization which can/is opposing this ? I'd love join and contribute against this effort in an organized fashion.
As has always been the case for quite some time, the 3 Democratic commissioners are in favor of adopting regulations enforcing net neutrality principles (though they often differ with each other and some members of the pro-neutrality community over details of the best way to do so within the constraints of existing law, which the FCC can't change), and the two Republican commissioners think that the FCC should not regulate at all to enforce those principles.
There's more confusion because much of the media coverage is ignoring the fact that the FCC's old order was struck down by the courts as exceeding the FCC's authority, so that the current status quo is that there is no regulation in this area (except the transparency rule from the old order, which the court let stand), so even if the attempt to work within the court order makes the non-discrimination provision of a new order weaker than the old order, it's not a weakening of existing non-discrimination rules, because there are no existing non-discrimination or non-blocking rules.
> Whose on whose side here?
The pro-neutrality side on the FCC is the side that is proposing rules aimed at acheiving neutrality as far as possible under the court-imposed limits and seeking input from the public about how to make those rules most effective. The anti-neutrality side is the side that is opposed to the idea of any kind of rules on this issue.
>Both sides seem to accept the idea of an "internet fast-lane"
I don't see how you get that from the actual facts here, where the FCC (on a 3-2 party-line vote) first adopted regulations with non-discrimination provisions that were struck down by the D.C. Circuit, and then put together (on the same 3-2 vote) a proposal designed to revive those same provisions to the extent consistent with the limits on the FCCs authority laid out in the decision striking the old order down, and specifically calling for public comment on how best to structure the rules within the limits imposed by the Court to prevent discrimination.
Its clear that one side has no problem with the idea of a "fast lane", but I don't see where you get that for the other side.
I think there is a semantic problem with just throwing out the words "net neutrality," because I see two different sides pulling in two different directions.
I think no one is opposed to ISPs operating in their customer's best interest, specifically delivering internet at advertised speed. I think there's a real need for more ISP competition and less collusion/vertical integration (NBC-Universal-Comcast-Time Warner).
If the ISPs start shoving non-paying sites into a slow lane a class action lawsuit makes sense, not congressional oversight – because congressional oversight generally makes things worse.
If the FCC classifies ISPs as Title II common carriers, that lawsuit might have legs. Also, Comcast is threatening to divest themselves of the ISP business and just be a media company (if ISPs become Title II) – sounds good to me, that way the ISP can compete just on its merits and not on how much money it brings NBC-Universal.
I'd like to avoid getting congress involved, that's all.
There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from companies and the public, and then 60 days of replies to those comments from the same. After that, the final rulemaking will happen.
It's likely that the docket number for comments will continue to be 14-28, so if you want to ask the FCC to apply common carrier rules to the Internet under Title II, you can do so here: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=r8e2h and you can view previous comments here: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/execute?proceeding=1...
It's probably best to wait until the actual text of the NPRM is made public though, which'll likely happen very soon.
Edit: WaPo have now updated the title of the article to make it more accurate: "FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet." Old title was "FCC approves plan to allow for paid priority on Internet."