FCC May Tweak Broadband Plan 52
adeelarshad82 writes "Despite a recent ruling that said the FCC did not have the right to interfere in Comcast's network management issues, the agency is pushing ahead with its national broadband plan, though there might be some tweaks. Since the case was won on the fact that the FCC based its decision on its Internet Policy Principles, a set of guidelines the agency developed internally several years ago regarding broadband Internet service and not actual rules that went through a formal, open rulemaking process, they are invalid, as is the enforcement action. FCC general counsel Austin Schlick acknowledged that the court's decision may affect a significant number of important plan recommendations. The commission is assessing the implications of the decision for each recommendation to ensure that it has adequate authority to execute the mission laid out in the plan."
Re:Sad to see that (Score:1, Informative)
>>>the US won't remain *first* in the technology race.
We're actually 2nd right now, behind the Russian Federation (~10 Mbit/s) but ahead of the EU (~7 Mbit/s), Brazil, Australia, Canada, China (~2 Mbit/s), and other continent-sized federations.
And if you look at individual states, Delaware is #1 at almost 20 Mbit/s (average) with other northeastern states taking 2nd, 3rd, 4th places. Washington State also offers high average internet speed.
Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... (Score:2, Informative)
Well, your point might have some merit if the FCC's enforcement action against Comcast had been overturned because it wasn't Constitutional.
But that simply is not the case. The FCC was smacked down based on administrative law, not Constitutional law.
Please try to understand the actual issues involved before you advocate for extreme positions.
KTHXBYE
Re:formal, open rulemaking process (Score:1, Informative)
So the true ruling is that the FCC really DOES have this authority
The Court didn't say that. The FCC may or may not have that authority. The presence or lack of that authority was simply not used by the Court to make this decision. If the FCC follows the proper rule making procedures, it would still be possible for a future court to rule that the FCC does not have that authority.
Even if the Court did say that, it would be nonbinding dicta, meaning that a future court could simply ignore it.
Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... (Score:4, Informative)
We already have an amendment about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution [wikipedia.org]
Re:Add an amendment to the constitution... (Score:5, Informative)
Add an amendment to the constitution granting power to Congress to regulate commerce INSIDE the states. That appears to be the only way they (and the FCC) can regulate a company like Comcast of Baltimore, or Comcast of Oklahoma, or other wholly intrastate companies.
The FCC can regulate intrastate companies, especially when they're subsidiaries of an interstate company. To be more accurate, the FCC could regulate those intrastate companies if Congress empowered it to. The fact of the matter is that Congress chose not to preempt state public utility commissions. The interstate commerce clause has been interpreted so expansively that there is very little economic regulation that Congress can't enact or delegate to an agency (the only examples that come to mind are gun restrictions in/around schools (US v. Lopez) and enabling women to seek civil remedies under the violence against women act (US v. Morrison)
Anyway, the FCC's net neutrality order against Comcast wasn't slapped down by the DC Circuit because it lacked constitutional authority. It was because the FCC's action wasn't reasonably ancillary to a specific grant of jurisdiction. In other words, the FCC can't enforce net neutrality unless it can better explain which of its specific powers authorized by Congress net neutrality would fall under. Let me reiterate - the problem isn't that the FCC lacks the power to enforce net neutrality, the problem is that the FCC hasn't given a sufficient, consistent explanation of why it can enforce net neutrality.
The easiest way for the FCC to respond to the DC Circuit's ruling, assuming it still wants to enforce net neutrality, is issue a new rule that finds internet access service to be regulated under Title II of the Telecom Act. That would enable the FCC to regulate ISPs as common carriers.
nope (Score:1, Informative)
Wrong. Your cult member response is just slap wrong.
That system needed to crash and burn, the sooner the better so we can rebuild around fairer ways and sounder economic policies. That three headed ultimate conjob scam bankster gangster criminal cartel of the Fed, Wall Street casino bank parasites and so called government regulators-who come from the first two, then go back to them at big bucks after their alleged government "service"- *needed* to collapse. The sooner the better. Pure scam ripoffs, bloated ticks, or as Matt Taibbi put it referring to goldman sachs, a vampire squid sucking the face of humanity. Just because some people got brainwashed into a Stockholm syndrome defense of their "masters", doesn't mean all of us got sucked into "believing" their extortionist lies and threats they used. Ya, an economy "would have crashed", THEIR bullshit thieving economy. They would have "earned" it. Pigs. Privatize profits, socialized their risks and huge gambling losses. Fascist, corporatist *pigs*, and too chicken shit and too corrupt and crooked to eat their own capitalist dogfood. Same sort of pigs and same policies that completely destroyed Iceland economically, a microcosm of the larger picture.
In a REAL free market, where the rules were applied fairly, those parasites would have crashed and burned, gone really bankrupt just like any other failed industry or business model, then their "financial products" their suckass "quants" come up with would have been exposed for the smoke and mirrors financial snakeoil they are, monopoly money crap, "weapons of mass financial destruction", worth maybe a fraction of a penny on the inflated buck, and that's only if they were printed out and the printouts sold for scrap.
Easily proven, not even close to being rocket surgery, a simple observation that counters that BS brainwashing they keep their economic cult members under control with -> IF those grifter's conjobs worked, they WOULDN'T have needed bailouts nor would there be any "economic crisis".