FCC To Make Move On Net Neutrality 232
GrApHiX42 writes "The FCC will announce on Thursday it plans to pursue a 'third way' forward in the fight for tough net neutrality rules, opening a new front in an ongoing legal battle that could come to define the commission under Chairman Julius Genachowski. A senior FCC official said Wednesday that the chairman 'will seek to restore the status quo as it existed' before a federal court ruled it lacked the authority to regulate broadband providers and set rules that mandate open Internet. The goal is to 'fulfill the previously stated agenda of extending broadband to all Americans, protecting consumers, ensuring fair competition, and preserving a free and open Internet,' the FCC official said."
Re:The middle path? (Score:2, Informative)
Offer them a deal..
Common carrier status in exchange for net neutrality.
Re:We need net neutrality to prevent censorship (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We need net neutrality to prevent censorship (Score:5, Informative)
they can't shape what they can't inspect
Sure they can. They'll just throttle any encrypted traffic that isn't on standard ports.
Re:in other words (Score:4, Informative)
The problem the FCC had wasn't that the law said they can't enforce net neutrality.
It's that the law says the FCC can't write new laws, and this was, in effect, a new law. From the ruling:
The FCC must be able to point where in a law, passed by Congress, they have the authority to do this. They failed to do so. They can't make up a new law on their own. It's basically that simple.
Re:More government encroachment (Score:5, Informative)
> AT&T put in all the miles of fiber we now have back in the 40's?
Ok, you asked for it. So sit right down and lemme tell ya a tale.
Back in the 90's there were first stirrings of the sort of reform I am talking about. They didn't split em but they did force the telcos to allow competition of a sort. Remember the CLECs? There was a lot wrong in how that scheme was setup, with the incumbent carrier retaining an unhealthy advantage but it was a start and it scared the piss out of the telcos. So they got their pet congressman (Rep Billy Tauzin R-LA in fact but R-BellSouth in reality) to knife the CLECs. This set off a chain reaction that led killed off the CLECs, and most small ISPs because they had become CLECs to get access to low enough rates to stay in the game; that in turn killed the equipment makers that depended on them, i.e. Lucent, Nortel, et al. The contagion spread until it became known as the .bomb.
Perhaps you read about that back in 2000 if you were the sort to read business pages. The rest of the country found out in 2001 after the Presidential race was over with, a major market meltdown didn't fit the media's narrative of that race you see; the story of the Clinton economic miracle that we could keep going if we elected Algore.
While the threat was solved for now, the telcos were determined a shift in their political fortunes wouldn't see a rebirth of competition. So while they had the power they used it. They bought themselves a law that would exempt any new fiber investment from being subject to being opened to competition. They told us that without that promise we would all be stuck on dialup and become uncompetitive in the world economy. And so Congress gave them what they wanted and then some, heck they even threw direct cash at em! And they are slowly rolling out fiber.... and rolling up the copper as they go. So they just refreshed the monopoly. Who cares what it cost, that gets passed to the end customer anyway.
Note that the government is just as liable for the Kaboom! as the telcos. So giving any of them more power is a bad idea.
Re:More government encroachment (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, nice try. The last time telcos had to worry about the meddling regulators was after the 1996 law passed. I remember...there was a period of about 5 years where the ILECs stumbled because they didn't know what hit them. There was budding competition, plenty of CLECs, that's when cable got in the broadband and telephony business. ILECs were fined for delaying facilities and repair orders for CLEC customers. You could get dial tone or DSL from a dozen competing providers.
Eventually, the ILECs regrouped, merged their way back to consolidation and monopoly status, put their competitors out of business with a combination of downright dirty tricks like delaying orders or claiming lack of facilities and predatory pricing....and what little complaints there were got silenced by their well paid lobbyists.
Revising history to conform to an idealogy is fun...but that doesn't mean it's the truth.
You think Tauzin or Dingell knew what they were doing? And Crazy "My Tubes" Eddie knew anything past his bottom line? Someone has to represent the public interest....clearly industry leaders and elected officials are not up to the task....the FCC needs to be strengthened and chartered with regulating all facets of "connectivity" before India and China eat our lunch. Oh wait, they already are.
Re:More government encroachment (Score:3, Informative)
Just where did I mention any company besides AT&T? That was the one company mentioned in the post I replied to, and they got their monopoly on phone service lines several decades ago.
I realize the games that have been played since then, but that isn't the point. If you're going to mention one specific company as an example then make it something relevant, something current. AT&Ts original lines, as well as their original equipment, are now basically irrelevant. Land(twisted pair copper) lines are dying, although there will be large parts of rural America that will be stuck using them for quite a few years. My in-laws didn't even get a party line until about 10 years ago.
Re:More government encroachment (Score:1, Informative)
I think you might have a misplaced idea of what a taxpayer does in New York (*).
You see, New York City has an unusually high 3% income tax. This applies only to people living in the five boroughs. All of them have access to the MTA public transport system, and while a small percentage might avoid using it, most enjoy the relatively good reliability and performance it has. This is a good thing in itself, because the last thing I want, as a resident of Manhattan, is more cars.
Now you might ask, why not make everyone pay the full price in tickets and lower the tax, right (**)? Well, using income tax for the purpose of funding MTA effectively makes your ticket price relate to your income - the higher your income, the more you pay. I'm sure a lot of Ayn Rand slashtards will start shouting about White Man's Burden etc., but if my ticket costs effectively $5 and, thanks to that, my fellow human beings' ticket costs $2.50, I'll deal. This kind of social welfare does not insult me too much; it's in everyone's interest to keep the City running smoothly.
(*) And no, "whimpers under the terrible tax burden" is not it.
(**) Well, apart from the simple fact that "lowering the taxes" never happens (there's always another money sink ready)...