FCC votes in favour of net neutrality

government bad

Government Bad!

GOVERNMEENT BAD!!

GOVERNMENT BAD!!!!RAAAAGEEE

Incompetent and corrupt government is bad. It's now been unleashed on the Internet.

There's probably eight pages of regulations guaranteeing "net neutrality" as you would define it, and 320 pages of regulations doing something else. Those are the pages that are going to bite you in the ass, if not immediately, then when the next President rewrites the rules, since writing Internet rules is now a thriving new bureaucratic specialty.

This is a great example of what the internet CAN do.

In years past the FCC would have received a few hundred letters during their public comment period and they would have gone right along with what the telcos wanted. In fact that was the position they were leaning towards when John Oliver put a huge fucking spotlight on the whole thing and organized tens of thousands of comments.

It's easy to dismiss public opinion and just go with what the industry wants when no one is paying attention quite another when public opinion is clearly overwhelming against it.

Public opinion is running against secret regulations governing the Internet.

CBS Los Angeles

Two out of three Americans are opposed to the idea of the U.S. government regulating Internet service, according to a recent poll.

Remember, this is the same government who installed spyware on your hard drive firmware, who sift through every e-mail and message you send, and who forced ISP's to hand them back-door access to everything you have online. Now they're going to tax you for it in the name of "fairness" and "neutrality".

It's great how the majority is right when you agree and wrong when you disagree.

Also, how about posting the actual link to the poll so people can see the questions and methodology.

I'd say that if you ask people if they're against internet regulation, they'll say yes, and if you ask them if they're against providers being able to discriminate between traffic from different sources, they'll also say yes.

"Regulation" is one of those words that the right-wing media has managed to demonise, without people considering what it means.

Exactly, on this issue it's very easy to frame the question in a way to get the answer you want.

How about having the providers club each other over the head for customers by constantly innovating and providing higher bandwidth instead of spending all their money on lobbyists, which is what they're going to do from now on.

Yeah, in a fantasy land that's true.

Back on planet Earth, that's not how shit works...and I hope you don't think it does.

Because that's what we have now and we see how well it's working.

There are tons. Rassmussen

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 26% of American Adults agree the Federal Communications Commission should regulate the Internet like it does radio and television.

Progressive Policy.org press release:

* Only one in three Americans thinks that regulating the Internet like telephone service will be helpful.

“The public neither understands nor supports the FCC voting on net neutrality rules without greater disclosure of the exact wording and the details of the proposal,” said Peter Hart, Founder of Hart Research Associates. “Net neutrality is near net zero understanding: just one in four Americans knows what the term refers to, and just one in 10 Americans has positive feelings about it. In addition, a majority of Americans think ‘the government should not take a stronger and more active role in overseeing and regulating the Internet.’”

So no, the FCC didn't act out of public's desire. They acted because some big organizations spent $200 million on lobbying, embedded their people into the White House staff, and got Obama to push the commissioner to implement 300 pages of regulations that nobody was allowed to see.

Yes, only 5 percent of Americans rate their Internet service as poor. From the above Rasmussen poll:

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans who regularly go online rate the quality of their Internet service as good or excellent. Only five percent (5%) consider their service poor.

Also

Americans remain suspicious of the motives of those who want government regulation of the Internet. Sixty-eight percent (68%) are concerned that if the FCC does gain regulatory control over the Internet, it will lead to government efforts to control online content or promote a political agenda, with 44% who are Very Concerned. Twenty-seven percent (27%) don’t share this concern about possible government abuse, but that includes only eight percent (8%) who are Not At All Concerned.[/quote]

1) Most people who waste time to answer polls barely know what the internet is.

2) Most Americans have no idea what the internet is like in other countries. So they have no basis for comparison other than like dial up.

Rasmussen is worthless. Even 538 called it the least reliable polling company which is politically motivated and relies mostly on push polling.

It doesn't matter. The public was against regulating the Internet, Congress didn't vote to do it, the FCC commissioner initially refused to do it, but very powerful, well-connected people wanted it regulated in particular ways, and so it was done. We don't yet know what they slipped in.

Since the Internet is now a public utility and has to be regulated to make sure everything is for the public good, I don't see why devices that have to meet FCC radio interference regulations shouldn't have to meet equally stringent FCC Internet interference regulations. Each device should have to be certified to not cause any harm or annoyance to the public, and new devices should go through a six-month federal review process prior to a six-month certification test - paid for by the company, of course, just as if they were selling a medical device.

Then Google up another one. It's not like every polling company hasn't been asking people these questions.

Things like:

Given that Barack HUSSAIN! Obama has proven that he hates America, wants the terrorists to win, and is trying to destroy America... Do you support the Republican efforts to stop his illegal, unconstitutional crusade to kill all white people? Yes or no?

That's a valid question.

Question 1) Should the government not regulate the internet.

Question 2) Should the government prevent big businesses from blocking content or charging more for better access.


I bet 99% of those polled would answer "YES" to both of those.

The vague wording probably has people thinking more about censorship than traffic neutrality.

According to the polls, apparently they don't.

1) The Internet is where we speak. The government shouldn't regulate that. Maybe China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia should be in that business, but we shouldn't. The First Amendment protects us from government. The FCC regulation protects who, exactly? It would be protecting the groups who paid $200 million dollars to make the government regulate the way they told it too.

2) No. Are you insane? If business couldn't charge you more for better access, we'd still be stuck with AOL. Cheap, but dial-up. Improvements like that are now apparently prohibited - because they're unfair.

I'm against this. At best it fixes something that wasn't broken. It will make everyone pay for upgrades that Netflix, and Youtube (google) need to prosper. I'll bookmark this so I can come back in 10 years and say, "Told ya."

Forbes article

Chairman Wheeler has not publicly disclosed the details regarding the set of rules. However, if these rules come into effect, the companies that provide Internet service will not be able to freely manage Internet traffic as they have in the past. Historically, service providers have not given preferential treatment and increased speeds certain site over others. They have, however, required sites responsible for heavy amounts of traffic to subsidize the investment in the back-end equipment used to transmit this traffic. This involves mainly Google’s YouTube and Netflix, which together are said to account for over half of all peak evening Internet traffic in the U.S. Disputes of this sort are sure to be governed to some degree by the proposed rules.

[T]his ruling could be immensely beneficial for companies providing streaming video such as Netflix, Amazon and Google‘s YouTube. These companies may not have to enter into deals with Internet providers such as the Comcast-Netflix deal we mentioned earlier. These companies have always argued that they should not have to pay for delivering content through Internet service providers as their subscribers already pay for the service. Internet streaming services have gained prominence over the years and a study shows that Netflix alone accounts for 34.9% of downstream traffic on North American networks in peak evening hours.These regulations can reduce the costs of these companies will help them to expand further in the coming years.​

Sounds like something I would say...

Seriously. The dissenting opinions are detailed and withering. The FCC didn't do what you thought it was going to do. The FCC didn't do what people thought it might do a month ago. It reached. Your mobile broadband service? It's now regulated under old Title II monopoly land-line provider laws, which come with legal precedents going back to 1934. As soon as the first person thinks their iPhone is acting slow, we're off to the courts to review every plan, and the cell phone providers cannot, by law, prioritize traffic anymore. That could mean that if too many guys are watching NCAA basketball on their phones, your voice call might not even go through. Second, the data plan you pay for is now under Title II, because the new regulations took on the whole enchilada. Everything from the back of your laptop, to the giant server rooms, to the guy at McDonald's watching Youtube videos on 4G, is now regulated like it was Ma Bell, with the government approving the rates. The FCC cannot protect anyone from the legal precedents that Title II entails - even though the FCC ruling claims only parts of Title II will be applied.

It also said that it will be making its decisions on a case-by-case basis, which means that nobody can be certain what the new regulations actually mean, how they will be enforced, or by whom. All your favorite IT companies can now go sue each other.

The dissents are even more vicious.

The Commission attempts to downplay the significance of Title II, but make no mistake: this is not some make believe modernized Title II light that is somehow tailored to preserve investment while protecting consumers from blocking or throttling. It is fauxbearance: all of Title II applied through the backdoor of sections 201 and 202 of the Act, and section 706 of the 1996 Act. Moreover, all of it is premised on a mythical “virtuous cycle”—not actual harms to edge providers or consumers.

In some ways, this evolution is not surprising. I have consistently expressed concerns, across a number of proceedings—tech transitions, text-to-911, over-the-top video, VoIP symmetry, etc.—that this Commission has been slowly but steadily attempting to bring over-the-top and other IP services within its reach.

Now the Commission goes all in and subjects broadband networks—the foundation of the Internet—to Title II itself. Furthermore, because there is no limiting principle, other providers will eventually be drawn in as well. I cannot support this monumental and unlawful power grab.

He summed up the situation as "In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves" and goes on in detail about it, such as

The record is replete with evidence that content providers and network operators enter into interconnection relationships with ISPs through individually negotiated private agreements. Regardless of the form they take—“peering,” “transit,” or “on-net-only”—providers do not hold themselves out to serve the public indifferently. As such, these arrangements, which some mistakenly refer to as interconnection”, have never been regulated as common carriage services subject to Title II. Undeterred by this long history, the item concocts a novel service laundering scheme. It attempts to transform this “interconnection” into a telecommunications service by “subsuming” it into another service—broadband Internet access service. And just like that, retail broadband Internet access service is no longer a last mile service; it is the entire “Internet traffic path”, including all Internet traffic relationships.

This approach is riddled with holes. First, such “interconnection” has always been understood to be distinct from the last mile, including in this proceeding. Second, the item does not show how this service being a telecommunications service, which it is not. Fourth, there was absolutely no notice for this novel approach. Even parties that guessed that interconnection might be subject to Title II (despite the lack of notice) clearly did not understand that the primary mechanism for doing so would be to re-interpret broadband Internet access service to include interconnection.

Moreover, this shift to regulate Internet traffic exchange highlights that the Commission’s real end game has become imposing Title II on all parts of the Internet, not just setting up net neutrality rules. In subjecting a thriving, competitive market to regulation in the name of net neutrality, the Commission is trying to use a small hook and a thin line to reel in a very large whale. This line will surely break.

Similarly, this order, for the first time, subsumes mobile broadband services under Title II common carrier regulation, reversing decades of precedent. Until now, the Commission has followed Congress’s mandate under section 332 of the Communications Act and has correctly exercised regulatory restraint by classifying mobile broadband as an information service free from common carrier regulation as required by the statute. Yet today, we use sleight of hand to change our definitions so that overnight mobile broadband magically falls under the confines of Title II.

In subjecting wireless broadband to Title II, the majority ignores fundamental differences between the wireless and fixed broadband industries and technologies. Unlike last century’s voice-only telephone service, the wireless sector has developed and flourished in a fiercely competitive environment. Wireless consumers have ample choices and can readily switch between offerings. This competition has yielded unparalleled investment and innovation, lower prices, higher speeds and product differentiation as sector participants vie for an edge to attract and retain subscribers. Applying a regulatory regime established for monopoly voice service to the dynamic mobile sector defies logic.

The majority also flagrantly ignores the fundamental technical and operational requirements necessary for mobile broadband networks. Unlike fixed systems, mobile network capacity is constrained by the relative scarcity of spectrum resources. Given this unique limitation, wireless providers must maintain their ability to vigorously and nimbly mitigate the congestion inherent to wireless networks. I expect that the rigid Title II rules adopted today will hamstring the smooth functioning of these networks. Although some may argue that the exception for reasonable network management will allow such flexibility, a case-by-case approach whereby a wireless provider’s congestion management practices are judged after the fact by the Commission’s Enforcement Bureau is unlikely to provide much comfort to wireless providers.

Finally, the majority defines mobile broadband as a telecommunications service without adequately explaining its rationale for the drastic change of course.

And on and on.

If you like your wireless plan, you can keep your wireless plan!

Verizon released a statement on the new regulations:

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They really did. http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/blo...sday-move-imposes-1930s-rules-on-the-internet

It's scary that I can still read that.

tldr (either post). Ok I read a little bit of the first one.

I don't think anyone can enforce anything. Performance is only as good as the slowest part of the network. No one entity controls the whole path from server to client. There really isn't any way to judge if someone is playing unfair, except in cases like comcast throttling netflex over a year ago. Two giants wrestling is hard to ignore. No one will notice the little guys.

I'd look for gradual increases in broadband cost along with modest gains in performance. Pretty much what was going to happen anyway. But I think my netflix $8/month unlimited streaming is going to stay there. Thanks guys!

How in the fuck is Zefram Cochrane supposed to download his tunes and watch porn while he builds the Phoenix?

Since the entire Internet is now a common carrier, it is subject to state regulation and price setting, just like electric, water, and land line phone service. Is your Netflix coming in from out of state? It might be subject to new long-distance taxes.

That's why I read the dissents, and remember, these are from two of the five FCC commissioners who are the experts on the topic at hand.

******

ORAL DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI

Re: Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet, GN Docket No. 14-28.

Americans love the free and open Internet. We relish our freedom to speak, to post, to rally, to learn, to listen, to watch, and to connect online. The Internet has become a powerful force for freedom, both at home and abroad. So it is sad this morning to witness the FCC’s unprecedented attempt to replace that freedom with government control.

It shouldn’t be this way. For twenty years, there’s been a bipartisan consensus in favor of a free and open Internet. A Republican Congress and a Democratic President enshrined in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 the principle that the Internet should be a “vibrant and competitive free market . . . unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” And dating back to the Clinton Administration, every FCC Chairman—Republican and Democrat—has let the Internet grow free from utility-style regulation. The results speak for themselves.

But today, the FCC abandons those policies. It reclassifies broadband Internet access service as a Title II telecommunications service. It seizes unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct, to direct where Internet service providers (ISPs) make their investments, and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public. This is not only a radical departure from the bipartisan, market- oriented policies that have served us so well for the last two decades. It is also an about-face from the proposals the FCC made just last May.

So why is the FCC turning its back on Internet freedom? Is it because we now have evidence that the Internet is broken? No. We are flip-flopping for one reason and one reason alone. President Obama told us to do so.

On November 10, President Obama asked the FCC to implement his plan for regulating the Internet, one that favors government regulation over marketplace competition. As has been widely reported in the press, the FCC has been scrambling ever since to figure out a way to do just that. The courts will ultimately decide this Order’s fate. Litigants are already lawyering up to seek judicial review of these new rules. Given the Order’s many glaring legal flaws, they will have plenty of fodder.

But if this Order manages to survive judicial review, these will be the consequences: higher broadband prices, slower speeds, less broadband deployment, less innovation, and fewer options for American consumers. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet isn’t the solution to a problem. His plan is the problem.

In short, because this Order imposes intrusive government regulations that won’t work to solve a problem that doesn’t exist using legal authority the FCC doesn’t have, I dissent.

****

Throttling and the issues between Netflix, Twitter, and the ISPs probably took up about two pages of what the FCC just shat out. The rest of it came from lobbyists and lawyers who were paid two hundred million dollars to produce this deformed abortion to benefit people who are definitely not us.

Nice to see so called professionals throwing a tantrum.

Telecoms are one of the sleaziest businesses in America, everyone should take it as a good sign that this upsets them.

But some people think "The Market™" can solve everything.

It can solve a lot of things, but not everything.

Stop being a LOLertatian fundie.

Yes, let's crush all the evil ISPs and telecom companies!!!!! Onward comrades!!!! Seize the bandwidth for the people!!!!

In the Internet's free market days, computer geniuses beat each other up to try to get you faster service at a lower price so they could build up their networks. Now they'll be replaced by Lily Tomlin's who work at a fixed profit margin, with each ISP guaranteed a permanent and fixed monopoly area, overseen by state regulators, and all upgrades will have to be approved years beforehand after lengthy reviews and public hearings - just like all the other Title II utilities.

speaking of tantrums.