Judge Rules Against FCC Controlling Internet
A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.
Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company. It had challenged the FCC’s authority to impose so called “net neutrality” obligations.
I get the motivation behind the Net Neutrality movement, but I think it is misguided. It’s far better to let the market work than to have the government enforce arbitrary restrictions.
Agreed! It’s much better to let the corporations enforce arbitrary restrictions.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1121 hrs
Yes, but if a corporation does it, you can go elsewhere. Here in my town, I could choose Charter, AT&T U-verse, any number of dialup options, or several satellite options.
I’m pro-choice.
Posted by Owen on April 06, 2010 at 1129 hrs
Good. The ruling is an interesting read.
Posted by steveegg on April 06, 2010 at 1132 hrs
Corporations before country, say the wingnuts.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1149 hrs
I guess no one figures there’ll be any improvement by NOT having government involved. Let the corporations try their tom foolery, they will lose. Especially in the realm of the internet. There’s more out there to connect with than cable or phone lines, but no, let’s have government intervention to keep things the way the are rather than the constant innovation and improvement the internet has been.
Of course anyone that owned a failing bookstore would understand this.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1215 hrs
And tyranny over liberty, says Keith.
Last paragraph from the linked article:
...broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. argue that after spending billions of dollars on their networks, they should be able to manage their systems so that high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent don’t hog capacity and slow the network for everyone else.
So these oh-so-evil corporations you refer to, Keith, went out and spent billions of dollars to build their own networks. As such, they feel it’s within their rights to manage what they’ve built and paid for how they see fit.
Meanwhile, you seem to think it’s okay for a government entity that took no risk and invested no money into building that infrastructure to come in and dictate how that infrastructure is used? Would it be okay if I walked into Open Book and set up a display of 10,000 copies of my latest work, “Get Off My Lawn You Smelly Hippie,” and pretty much closed off access to anything else the store was selling?
Good grief, man. You really need to get beyond this “all corporations are evil, all government is good,” thing.
Posted by David Casper on April 06, 2010 at 1218 hrs
It’s easy to be pro-choice when the market affords you alternatives that are comparable. When your only options are cable or a DSL/wireless provider than runs at 10% of the speed, those aren’t comparable products for many end users. And for many people, their only option is the wireless provider, which is akin to modern-day dial-up. Plus, we all know there aren’t enough consumers in rural areas for telecom companies to investing meaningfully in infrastructure that would allow them a choice.
So we’re left with self-fulfilling prophecy. Without the proper technological infrastructure, businesses won’t want to locate/expand in our rural communities. And clearly, without some degree of government involvement, those services won’t be available anytime soon. The market has thus far failed rural communities and failed them miserably, even if the decisions that telecom companies in terms of expansion are entirely defensible.
In any case, the ruling is a correct one, and the end result will probably be simple and what should’ve happened in the first place. Democrats will push to expand the FCC’s regulatory powers and make it clear that internet belongs with other telecommunications services already regulated by the FCC. And there’s a good chance a number of rural Republicans will join them if the bill includes efforts to expedite/mandate broadband delivery in their underserved districts.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on April 06, 2010 at 1218 hrs
Good ruling. This is not like regulated TV, where the public owns the airwaves. Each company owns the infrastructure and the government has no say, just like it is with cable.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1301 hrs
What market? Almost everyone is stuck buying their internet through either the phone or cable company no matter what city they live in. Dial-up is a joke.
You don’t get to start an internet service just because you want to. When that is possible everywhere, when I can lay cable any place I want, I’ll be happy to revisit the idea, but when this is just a duopoly deciding what the ‘market’ is, forgive me if I agree with Adam Smith that the businessmen cannot be trusted.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1434 hrs
John,
How many cable companies go past your house? Can you get Comcast and Time-Warner and Charter? How many different phone companies have wire or fiber that you can connect to?
Deregulating monopolies is insane. No one who supports a free market would ever try to justify such an anticompetitive decision.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1438 hrs
In that case John, let’s get the government out of regulating your electricity too, since their infrastructure is also owned privately by the company. Your gas lines too. Let me know how you like your rates in a few years.
Laying redundant infrastructure is prohibitively expensive and any company that wishes to do so enters the market at an enormous competitive disadvantage. In most cases, the first company into these markets is now effectively a monopoly. Or maybe you can find me a community where Time Warner, Comcast, and Charter all compete against each other?
Posted by Recess Supervisor on April 06, 2010 at 1450 hrs
Now we see why people are begging for government regulations. They think internet only comes from cable or phone and that is all it will be in the future. It’s not, but please, have government come in and bury us under so much regulatory red tape that that’s all there is.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1515 hrs
There are several misunderstandings going on in this thread. Most of it is due to misinformation from both the companies and the government.
Here’s what’s really going on:
It is classic game theory. A game of chicken going on between AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, TW, and others. With Net Neutrality, we’re not talking about “last mile” traffic - traffic from the home/business to the first hop at the provider. Last mile service is already priced based on pure market driven economics.The issue is the backbones. The ISP’s are rapidly approaching traffic saturation levels that demand very expensive infrastructure upgrades. The problem is that the first of these ISP’s who starts passing those upgrade costs to its customers is going to quickly lose customers due to price. So instead of paying to upgrade the backbone, or passing on existing upgrade costs to customers, they sought out to classify the traffic moving across their backbones - giving preference to their biggest last mile customers. They decided what traffic was irrelevant and unimportant (e.g. BitTorrent). There are other issues such as prioritizing voice and real-time video traffic that goes to the interest in being able prioritize. But ultimately it comes down to overall cost for big infrastructure improvements.
The ISP’s have cornered themselves into a dilemma. On the one side they’re claiming they’re “out” of room for growth. But that plays right into the FCC’s argument stating that a communication medium used by all of the public, but that has limited capacity, should be regulated and made fair for all (the same reason the airwave frequencies are regulated). The other side of the dilemma is the ISPs telling their customers that they’re going to have to raise prices – or tell their shareholders they’re going to have less profits – due to the high costs of infrastructure upgrades.
Here is where things stand:
If the FCC ultimately wins:
Pro: The ISP’s will all be on a level playing field and can no longer hide behind their fears of raising prices
Con: The FCC could (and probably would) regulate Internet content much the same way they do with radio and TV.
Con: Being on a level playing field, the ISP’s will have no choice but to raise prices.If the ISP’s ultimately win:
Pro: Freedom of speech on the Internet will remain intact.
Con: The free speech will be “more free” for big businesses who pay to convince the ISP’s that their traffic is more legit than Joe Schmoe. They’ll essentially be censors to the same degree as the FCC, they just won’t be able to fine you for saying “fuck”.My preference is that AT&T and Verizon just start raising prices and elect not to classify traffic. The smaller ISP’s may get a customer bump in the short-run, but eventually they’ll also have to build out more infrastructure because they won’t be able to handle all the new customers. Things will balance out and we’ll all be better for it in the end.
But based on the levels of corruption and incompetence across government, corporate boards, and the judiciary, I suspect that a hybrid of the worst elements of an FCC and ISP victory will emerge.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1521 hrs
Thanks David. Good comments.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2010 at 1830 hrs
David makes great comments, but bottom line is that this is not about “leveling the playing field”. It’s about government control over the internet and consequently, speech. I’ll make the same argument I’ve made over a number of similar items: I’ll stipulate (for the sake of argument) that this administration is completely benign and only wants to be a good steward of free speech (yeah, it’s bullshit, but work with me here). Would our Leftist friends have the same goodwill toward government intervention if they knew the Evil Bush-Cheney-Rove-Halliburton-Big Oil-Iraq conspiracy was behind it?
Hmmm?
Posted by Steve on April 06, 2010 at 1929 hrs
Corporations before country, say the wingnuts.
Cooperative bookstore before community, says the moron.
The ruling is a good one. These evil corporations spent billions of dollars creating their networks. The FCC has no place trying to regulate how they determine that their own bandwidth can be distributed. Maybe Keith and his new age “weather underground” should have raped the Shorewood taxpayers to start their own local broadband service?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 0630 hrs
Comment about broadband being a right in 5…4…3..
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 0855 hrs
Jay4Liberty -
Please tell me what companies other than the ILEC and cable company (or resellers) will sell you broadband today.
I happen to be a customer of one, but such services are rare.
I am confused by those who allege that setting regulations that forbid discrimination is somehow controlling the internet. Could any of those making that claim explain it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 0938 hrs
There are MANY coming options including technologies that aren’t currently in use. I am not going to dig up all the articles and podcasts about this, you are free to do that if you like. However, if you invite government regulation, even “just this little bit” it will stifle innovation and invention. When the current technologies become a mess something new will pop into the market. It always does. Don’t believe me? Think about where the internet was 20 years ago and where it is today. Which benevolent government regulation is responsible for this? None.
Leave it alone and you’ll be amazed where it goes. Invite government in to “make things fair” and it will stagnate. Plus as we have countless examples of this, government never stops with just this little bit. It’ll get it’s foot in the door and then suddenly, well, we just need a little bit more regulation, a little bit more control, a little bit more government. No thanks.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1151 hrs
So, you won’t complain when AT&T starts lowering the priority on Skype and VOIP traffic to keep their competitive advantage keeping these competing companies at a disadvantage? Or when Time Warner and Charter do the same for video sharing sites such as Hulu and YouTube to pressure you to watch shows via the TV instead of the web? Or when they feel that traffic from your XBOX 360 isn’t a priority and start doing bandwidth shaping and your newest first person shooter is virtually no longer playable online due to the lag? Ask yourself, WHY wouldn’t they? These things cut into their revenue and isn’t it their job to keep the shareholders happy and make money. Wouldn’t they be doing their shareholders a disservice by NOT doing this? If it were my company, I sure would consider it. I would do everything in my power to hurt my competitors.
Until communities have true options as to who they can choose for their cable and phone companies, a true “free market”, I have no problem with the FCC laying down laws prohibiting companies from doing any sort of bandwidth shaping or prioritizing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1202 hrs
Jay,
Technologies that are not in use are not options.
The internet was a government invention. Please don’t confuse yourself with anti-government propaganda.
This isn’t about internet, it’s about the carriers, companies that have benefited from government support but don’t want the concomitant regulations. Everyone knows that telephone and cable companies are not examples of free enterprise.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1258 hrs
Until communities have true options as to who they can choose for their cable and phone companies, a true “free market”, I have no problem with the FCC laying down laws prohibiting companies from doing any sort of bandwidth shaping or prioritizing.
This is always the excuse. Until something happens we need government intervention. Nonsense. I don’t use AT&T so you’re right, I won’t complain. Also, why is this considered to be all ready happening? It isn’t. You’re trying to fix a problem that isn’t there. Will it be? I wouldn’t be surprised but the solutions will come sooner than you think.
In 5-10 years there will be no TV networks as we know them now. ISPs will be much different. You will have multiple choices so long as you don’t fall into the trap of needing a little government to watch over this. It’s called patience. Unfortunately most Americans don’t have that since they want it NOW and FAST. As soon as you invite government into the picture the greatness that could be will be squished under so much red tape and regulation. Who cares though right? As long as your XBox 360 or whatever little distraction device works you can be happy.
Think about this. If government is in charge of making things “fair” who do you think they’ll listen too? You and your couple hundred dollar donation and your one vote or AT&T, Comcast etc. and their millions and millions of dollars and countless lobbyists? Who’s going to win that battle? Do you really want to turn internet access into yet another political issue that people can complain about on blogs but actually do nothing about?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1303 hrs
The internet was a government invention. Please don’t confuse yourself with anti-government propaganda.
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Also everyone knows Al Gore invented the internet, not a bunch of hobbyists in the 70s and 80s experimenting with different protocols to see which worked the best, which were happening regardless of DARPA.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1313 hrs
Also, why is this considered to be all ready happening? It isn’t.
Do you mean that companies are not doing traffic shaping? Why do you think that this was brought to court? Comcast was lowering traffic bandwidths on torrent traffic! And now that this has some legal backing do you think that all the things I said will not happen?
I believe that the term I hear so much from the talking heads is “slippery slope”. Even if you are a TWC or Charter customer, all the major ISPs have their fingers in TV and telephone. Why wouldn’t you completely block Skype or Hulu if you were them? Should they be allowed to block individual websites? What if they decided to block BootsandSabers because Owen said something negative about them? What if they start blocking things they find offensive? Are these things you are willing to live with? Whether you think so or not, this IS a form of censorship.
I am all for ISPs setting up bandwidth tiers with pricing. But silly me, I expect to be able to do whatever I want with my amount of bandwidth that I pay for.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1324 hrs
Haha @Jay4Liberty, go ahead and throw out that old internet meme that Al Gore said he invented the internet. This isn’t 2000, and that type of lying crap doesn’t fly anymore.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1332 hrs
I wouldn’t bother with these knuckledraggers, Jonny. This is the garbage wingnuts remember from 2000:
Al Gore invented the internet.
Al Gore tried to steal an election.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 1535 hrs
Glad to see you smart well educated liberals have such good reading comprehension skills that you can tell a joke or TIC comment when you read it. Good show! Publik skuls werkt guder!
Hugo Chavez would be proud. Let someone else spend the time and the money to create something (access to internet) then get “the people” to cry about the evil corporations harming them and beg government to “save” them. Is good comrades! In soviet russia internet connects to you!
Government. If you still need a mommy and daddy, it’s there for you!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2010 at 2046 hrs
Jay4Liberty would rather be a slave to a corporation than let the government work for the people.
Sad, really.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 08, 2010 at 0034 hrs
If you think it’s OK to steal the work of others for your own greedy benefit, then just keep doing what you’re doing. As long as we have fancy distractions around the government people can do no wrong, right? Oh look, the iPad on American Idol followed by Lost!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 08, 2010 at 0716 hrs
Wow, actually I do like LOST quite a bit, not so much an American Idol fan though.
Jay4, no one is trying to steal anything. I am just asking for some regulation. I don’t want the govt to tell them how much to charge, or where to build out their infrastructure. I just want to make sure that these large corporations can not use their unfair influence to eliminate smaller more technological advanced competitors that are forced to use their network. I would like a level playing field for everyone.
Keith, don’t fall into the trap of name calling, no reason to sink to that level. If Jay4 wants to mock public schools, that is his shortsidedness. I was publicly educated and have to say that I am doing very well for myself.
Jay4, a few questions I would ask you. Should an ISP be allowed to block competitors and competitors webistes? Should an ISP be allowed to filter your internet connection like China does? What if Time Warner blocked Charter’s website? Or do you feel that the ISPs should be completely unregulated?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 08, 2010 at 0917 hrs
Yes. They built the infrastructure, they hired the engineers, customer service reps and oodles of others to provide that service. It is THEIR service, THEIR network, THEIR property. You cannot vote to STEAL that labor and investment from someone else to meet your needs. That’s greed.
That being said, several companies have tried this blocking and they’ve been crushed under angry customer complaints. More options have always surfaced causing them to back off. It’s a boogyman that hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t as long as innovation continues to happen at the current pace.
I have a question though, you want government to regulate things in order to stop the abuses you fear from happening correct? What proof is there that government itself won’t do them and what recourse would we have? None. You can’t opt out of government services and regulations, but you can with private companies.
My point is this. Everyone is concerned with making what we currently have “fair”. That will only ensure that what we currently have is all we’ll ever currently have. Let the stupid corporations try their shenanigans. You can simply not buy their services. Before you start crying about not having other options 1) You will and 2) You don’t NEED the internet to survive. Stop living in fear and giving these companies the impression that you need them…you don’t. Broadband internet is not a right and no one owes you anything that you consider “fair”. If you don’t like it, then don’t buy it. Stop being a greedy pro-government extremist and pretending you can just vote to steal the labor of others for your own personal benefit.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 08, 2010 at 1006 hrs
Jay4, you don’t NEED electricity to survive. You don’t NEED sewer system to survive. By your definition the only thing the govt should ever oversee is our food and drug administration? But, many companies livelihoods do depend on the internet and having open unrestricted access to that internet is essential for them.
You keep saying that it hasn’t happened, but it HAS happened and it IS happening in other countries (see Canada). Comcast openly admitted to restricting torrent traffic and will probably do so again now that it is legally permitted.
I am all for voting with my pocketbook and my feet. But, companies putting restrictions on certain types of bandwidth should not be allowed. Just like it shouldn’t be allowed for AT&T to disconnect any calls that go to other networks. Heck, you don’t NEED telephones to survive. It isn’t a “right”. Those companies should be able to do whatever they want with your calls, include listening in, right?
And do you honestly think that all these companies paid for all this equipment themselves and they got NO government subsidies to help out with their infrastructure? They need to use public and private land to spread out their network (until everything is wireless in 10 years or so). If you take money from the government be prepared to have to follow some rules. If not, don’t take the money. Very simple.
I understand your argument, and in some cases I actually agree that I don’t need government stepping into every aspect of our lives (see smoking ban). But on this particular subject, I think that in order to help maintain innovation, the internet needs to be free of restrictions. What incentive is there for someone to build the next “YouTube” or “Skype” when they know it will simply be restricted and eventually eliminated.
Just my feelings on the subject.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 08, 2010 at 1039 hrs
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