FCC Reclassifies DSL, Drops Common Carrier Rules

Neil Wehneman writes "Via Media Law Prof Blog, it is reported that the FCC has reclassified broadband service as an "information service" instead of "telecommunications". This, among other things, gives the Baby Bells the same gift the cable companies got with Brand X : the right to stop opening their lines to competitors."

Not a good thing

[gomaze]

This is going to only going to create local monopoly providers. I work for a small, state of michigan only internet provider. That has been around for 8 years. We have started servicing DSL and it is exploding.

People are coming to us because they dont have to call flippin India to get tech support and they know we are a locally owned family company. We can provide DSL for $20 a month for a year contract and after you add the taxes and charges of SBC you are at that or over it.

It is times like this why I shake my head and ask why the rebulican party wants to kill local businesses, seeing that is what they say they stand for.
----
Gomaze

Larry Magid

[jmichaelg]

Larry Magid said on CBS something to the effect that the telcos still have to allow access to the copper wire but don't have to allow access to the telco equipment. For all I know about DSL equipment, DSLAM may as well be what Mark McGuire hits.

Does Magid's comment make any sense to those of you who know how DSL works?

Why was the press's initial reaction so positive?

[rcw-home]

I've been watching the stories on this since they started hitting news.google.com. Most of the initial headlines were "FCC eases rules" or "Phone companies get internet relief".

Is it unreasonable to expect headlines like "Local ISPs across the country doomed"? Even if the press doesn't care about the ISPs, that's a lot of people who will probably be out of work soon, and employment trends generally are something the press cares about.

I hate this ruling for several reasons:

• It's the FCC wantonly overriding Congress. The line-sharing rules were set up by Congress as a main purpose, perhaps the main purpose of the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act.
  
• The wiring that the phone companies pretend is theirs alone really belongs to the people. It's common infrastructure - if everyone had to attempt to duplicate it to compete, the result would be an expensive mess.
  
• It reduces us to a handful of choices for ISPs. The cable company, the phone company, maybe a WiMax ISP, some form of satellite access, etc. Those of us who consciously chose to buy our DSL service from a competitor do it for the markedly better customer service and for more options.
  

I think that the press is slowly starting to pick that up, thanks in part to organizations such as the Consumers Union. I hope the FCC is forced to reconsider. If they don't, I hope the local ISPs take the initiative to build some new infrastructure of their own (and I hope it's something so clearly better that it's not just an expensive mess).

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC, like the rest of the government, is "or is supposed to be" sticking to the constitution on their decisions. For them to force SBC, Verizon, et al to open their lines to the CLEC is unconstitutional, it would be like the government forcing McDonald's to Serve food from Burger King, or Vice Versa.

You know what, open up your own telephone company by laying your own cable down to compete, you have every right to do so. That brings me to another point, when Netscape was losing their market share to Microsoft over Internet Explorer, instead of competing with Microsoft, they took it to Washington and whined cried about losing to Microsoft. That is when the unconstitutional Anti-Trust case came about. Look what's happening right now, Microsoft hasn't really had any competition for a long time and was stagnant on any updates. As a result, Mozilla Firefox "Originally known as Mozilla Phoenix due to the fact it was basically Netscape rising from the ashes" was written and now is taking market share away from Microsoft, which is now developing Internet Explorer 7, which originally was developed for the Next Version of windows "Codenamed Windows Longhorn" is now being developed for Windows XP SP2. One problem, though, they are still stuck on themselves to compete and since they aren't developing IE 7.0 for Windows 98 or even ME, they are going to lose out to Firefox which supports Windows 98 on up, as well as Mac OS and Linux, and none of that came from that anti-trust lawsuit.

Revscat, that is what happens when the Free Market decides. Even a so-called "convicted monopoly" can lose out to a potential competitor, Microsoft might eventually lose out to Linux in the future. What happens when the government attempts to control the free market is when problems arise? People usually attribute the great depression to Herbert Hoover, but it was the government getting involved into the free market that led to it, it wasn't Hoover at all. The breakup of AT&T is another example, The "Baby Bells" are now almost as large as AT&T was before the breakup. On top of that, they even swallowed up AT&T.

To sum it all up, to have a prosperous nation, the government absolutely needs to stay out of the free market. Every time they get involved, not only do they voilate the constitution, they also make the economy a mess.
_____________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.

Re:Uh oh

[airjrdn]

Assuming you're here in the states; if you have small children, I'd skip the VOIP and stay w/the telco.

It's the law that the telco provide your phone with power, meaning even in a power outage, you can use your phone (dial 911, etc.).

Your broadband provider isn't under that same law. No power = no service.

Build more networks!

[Brian Stretch]

You want a better network than the telcos and cable companies provide? Build one. Roll out new FTTH. Or wireless. Or carrier pigeon [slashdot.org]. Whatever. This is the Internet, a network of networks. We can build more than one.

Don't force another company that spent $millions or $billions on their network to "share" with their competitors at government-dictated rates. The expense is in the network, not the backend and marketing layers. I wouldn't spend $gigabucks building new plant if I knew the government was going to force me to hand it over to competitors either.

Perhaps more long-term effects

[ZPO]

It seems unclear from the press release whether the upcoming R&O, which doesn't seem to have been published yet, removes the requirement for ILECs to share copper pairs as UNEs or simply removed the requirement to share DSLAM ports as UNEs.

I find this section from the press release more chilling on a long-term basis:
"The Order also requires facilities-based providers to contribute to existing universal service mechanisms based on their current levels of reported revenues for the DSL transmission for a 270-day period after the effective date of the Order or until the Commission adopts new contribution rules, whichever occurs earlier. If the Commission is unable to complete new contribution rules within the 270-day period, the Commission will take whatever action is necessary to preserve existing funding levels, including extending the 270-day period or expanding the contribution base."

(Emphasis Added)

This is the FCC putting everyone on notice that they may expand the list of services/providers which pay into USF. That is a step that I don't want to see happen. While USF is a nice theory, in practice it is used as a method to defray costs for the incumbent telcos in serving desired markets. Can anyone provide several examples of rural CLECs or WISPs receiving USF dollars to support their efforts?

Re:Not a good thing

[frizop]

The problem with this is the FCC has put similar restrictions on resale telephone lines as well. Meaning, the small guy can't resell dial tone to customers that they don't own the copper too without one of the bells or SBC or whoever, gouging them out the ears. The FCC has been making moves like this for years, that is, submitting to the big Telco's and doing whatever they say to do. I can only hope that cable ends up being an even better medium to dial tone to create better competition.

Oh, I work for one of those small Telco's that is loosing half their revenue because of these sorts of FCC shenanigans. Hundreds of people lost there jobs, the company went thru a sort of downsizing, and were forced... forced mind you to lay down fiber to get video customers.

Competition...

[e12532]

Leased loops are not going away. The telcos still have to provide access to the dry copper going out to customer locations. This ruling simply says that the telcos no longer have to provide the actual service on these copper pairs. I can see how in some areas this will be devastating. The company I work for, fortunately, has enough vision that they've seen this coming. For the past several months we've been implementing a solution using Ciena networks equipment that will allow us to continue providing dial tone as well as DSL to formerly resold SBC and Bell South customers. Basically instead of the copper getting plugged into SBC / Bell South equipment it is physically moved into our collo equipment. This is actually better for our company, leasing a copper pair is far less expensive than just reselling DSL or local phone service, and it gives us the opportunity to grow into new service areas and offer price points we weren't able to meet previously.

Also, we've obtained a $100 million grant to develop fiber networks in three cities, over which we will be able to provide data, voice, and television services...

This ruling is just a kick in the arse of the small telcos who have been skimming profit from the large ones by just reselling service (they've been able to do this for around 5 years now)

As someone else said, the teat is being taken away, it's time for the small telcos to stand on their own two feet and invest in their own infrastructure...

Just my $.02

Re:The real reason this happened

[qeveren]

Not at all. DSL users to violate copyright law would still be culpable, but now, so would their ISP.

no common carrier == censorship possible

[UlfGabe]

DO NOT forget that should common carrier status be dropped that ISP's can now CENSOR PARTS OF THE INTERNET.

Please Correct me if I am mistaken, This is wildly more important that price gouging.

For example, the ISP you are currently at may block you from going to a competetors site, a party may give $$$ to the ISP and block you from viewing another party's website.

The renaming game...

[linuxhansl]

Renaming things to circumvent or change the laws regarding the renamed thing seems to be in fashion. (Somewhat off topic)

• "Enemy Combatant" instead of "Prisoner of War"
• "Act of War" instead "Terrorist Attack"
• "Terrorist" instead of "Criminal" (happened in some cases)
• "Information Service" instead of "Telecommunication"
• and so on, I wonder what's next

Renaming is convenient, you do have to go through all the trouble of actually changing the law, finding majorities and such.
Just name things differently and the law does not apply anymore (or so it seems these days). It's that easy.

This could open up possibilities, too

[Skapare]

If the telcos want to stop offering a "telecommunication [wikipedia.org] service" the last mile [wikipedia.org] to the home and offer an "information [wikipedia.org] service" instead, then they would have less of a basis for fighting against someone else coming along and offering a "telecommunications service", such as Lafayette, Louisiana [slashdot.org]. The city has a stronger defense when they are building something that isn't being offered by some company. So in a way, I see this as a good thing. The telcos are tying their own noose [wikipedia.org].

Re:But who paid for the POTS infrastructure?

[blincoln]

Are you saying your phone lines are still above ground on poles? Man I thought that went out over 30 years ago. You're quality of service must be horrendous.

Most of the US is like this, except for actual core metropolitan areas. I live about a 1/2 mile from downtown Seattle, and my phone and electricity are both from poles.

My understanding is that moving them underground is about aesthetics, not quality. It's a lot more expensive, and if you're in an earthquake-prone area I imagine it would be pretty awful to to and find the broken lines after one.

Even in geologically stable regions, underground wiring for large areas seems like a bad idea to me. Look at New York City and its electrified/heated-by-steam-to-branding-temperatur es manhole covers of death and destruction.

Re:no common carrier == censorship possible

[dvNull]

By using the definition of censorship you have posted, SBC is not _censoring_ anything. If you absolutely MUST have erotica with the word teen i it, get it from somewhere else. If they blocked you from accessing the same material from another source using their service, then yes it would be censoring.

If you go to your friend's house and he has a huge pr0n collection, but he doesnt have any pr0n concerning rubber ducks, then is he censoring material that you want to view ?