Congress Unhappy With FCC's Proposed Changes To Net Neutrality 208
Presto Vivace writes with news that the FCC's suggested net neutrality rules are facing opposition in Congress. "FCC chairman Tom Wheeler took the hot seat today in an oversight hearing before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology to testify about current issues before his agency, including net neutrality. The overriding theme of the day? Pretty much everyone who spoke hates the rule the FCC narrowly approved for consideration last week — just for different reasons." Wheeler himself made some interesting comments in response to their questions:
"[He said] the agency recognizes that Internet providers would be disrupting a 'virtuous cycle' between the demand for free-flowing information on one hand and new investment in network upgrades on the other if they started charging companies like Google for better access to consumers. What's more, he said, the FCC would have the legal authority to intervene. 'If there is something that interferes with that virtuous cycle — which I believe paid prioritization does — then we can move against it,' Wheeler said, speaking loudly and slowly. A little later, in response to a question from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Wheeler cited network equipment manufacturers who've argued that you can't create a fast lane without worsening service for some Internet users. 'That's at the heart of what you're talking about here,' Wheeler said. 'That would be commercially unreasonable under our proposal.'"
Here are instructions for how to send your comment to the FCC for those so inclined.
Re:The FCC has no right to dictate terms (Score:1, Interesting)
Venetian traders competed with Greek traders and there was no effective regulation between them besides mutual interest and some treaties.
I am not saying have no law or regulation of any kind. I am rather saying the regulation should be there to ensure a few basic features that if maintained ensure all other features that would be harder to manage.
Here is the regulation we need:
1. State and local governments must be required to allow communications cables to pass through their territory and connect to their residents without interference. A reasonable tax on those cables and leasing of the poles/underground pipes is acceptable however those taxes must not be so excessive that they cause companies not to lease the space in at all. This is the BIGGEST reason we don't have more competition right now. Leasing fees are very high and largely unaffordable for smaller companies.
The fee structure must scale with the business that leases the space. So if I want to put cable on 20 poles and I have 5 customers, I shouldn't be expected to pay AT&T rates for leasing every god damn pole in the city.
Furthermore, ISPs should be encouraged to both maintain their own cables and maintain the poles. As such, local governments would incur no expense because the ISPs would be paying for all upkeep.
2. Establish an internet integration cooperative that has two rules. First that anyone can join the network. Second that anyone inside the network must allow other groups in the network to connect to their network.
If a given organization doesn't want to allow a competitor to connect to the network then they're in breach and everyone else in the network can disconnect from them at will.
This system would self regulate. Yes, if any network became large enough then no one could afford to disconnect from them. However, if there are always lots of networks then no one can afford to disconnect.
3. Allow alternatives to the internet itself. Part of the reason we're getting this fast lane talk is that some organizations would like to bypass the internet entirely. Allow them to do that. The finance industry for example would likely like to have much of their communications flow over private proprietary cables. Same for the military. Same for the universities. Allow it. The more people running cable the better.
This includes private networks. Imagine if your neighborhood wanted to set up its own network that connected all the homes in your neighborhood together. The information and resources not being accessible outside your network. Allow it. Encourage it. The costs are meaningless. The cost of running a Cat5 cable around town with some weatherized switches spread about.
4. Require ISPs to cite the terms of their contracts in their advertisements. If they're slowing down traffic, then put that in the advertisement. Then customers can decide if they want to do business with them.
5. As to slowing down the traffic of other ISPs and not your own customers... that goes back to the trade organization I said we'd need. If a given ISP started filtering other member's traffic then they could have the same done to them in turn or other punitive actions.
Do the above and the internet would largely self regulate. Between the market forces and the trade organization most ISPs would understand that actions have reactions... and the ones that didn't understand would get crushed by competitors.
Message your congress people (Score:5, Interesting)
You CAN influence FCC rules, I have (Score:5, Interesting)
Your post pretty well covered the popular meme on Slashdot. In fact you really CAN influence FCC rule making, I have. I had the opportunity to observe several rounds of 2257 rule making and participating in one around. The FCC does in fact incorporate well reasoned comments into their rules. Chairman Wheeler KNOWS that the proposed rules have problems. He testified it has problems. The problem is, there's not currently a better proposal. "Pretend that they are telephone companies, call them common carriers" is the common refrain on Slashdot. Unfortunately regulating the entire year United States Internet is a little bit more complex than a headline. There's a REASON he isn't categorizing ISPs as telephone companies. If you want to participate directly, you will l need to find out what the problem is, why it doesn't work to just call them common carriers and think that's going to solve anything. What problems does that cause? It does cause real problems, that would really affect you. If you come to understand what those problems are then you can file comments and make a proposal to actually solve the problem. As I mentioned I've done the same with 2257. Actually understand the issues -understand why common carrier status is not by itself an answer and then you can propose actual solutions. The FCC does listen to actual solutions, they listened to mine. Mindlessly repeating a slogan doesn't help them come up with rules that actually work, though.
They want the free market to decide? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, if they want to play hardball, I say let the free market decide - by the companies who are against it putting their money where their mouth is.
Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, etc should announce that any company demanding a fee for preferred bandwidth on their service will no longer be supported at ALL. If, say, Comcast starts charging for premium access, imagine how fast everyone would switch to AT&T or Verizon. Make the providers tout it as a feature instead of a weakness. They are all making money hand over fist as is (Comcast made $1.9B in net income last QUARTER) so gaining customer with the status quo would beat losing tons of slightly more profitable customers any daay.
DISH/Echostar is a good example of a company that plays this game well. They honestly don't give a shit about their customers (or employees) beyond the bottom line, but they do actually have the lowest prices because they are not afraid to play chicken with content providers (by dropping their channels during disputes) and haven't blinked yet...
Comments, WHT, century-old copper vs Google Fiber (Score:5, Interesting)
Several people replied asking for more information. It's really cool that we, as a community, are wanting to engage beyond just a slogan or headline.
My main point was that in my experience the FCC does read comments and incorporate good ideas into the next round of rules. So my post was more about the FCC process than about net neutrality per se. I'm no expert on wholesale bandwidth, though I've run a SMALL hosting company for many years. I'd have to do some research myself before I'd be able to file a useful comments. There's also more to learn than can fit in a reasonable Slashdot post. That said, I can point people in the right direction to learn more. There's a lot to learn, so it will take some time.
The current proposal is informed by the existing comments. Many of the people who bothered to submit a comment to the FCC are knowledgeable about the issue and the direction that the FCC has been thinking about going. You can read comments others have made on various FCC filings here:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments [fcc.gov]
Specifically this one is relevant:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme... [fcc.gov]
Of course there are plenty of less informative comments, too, but there will be some gold in there.
Webostingtalk.com is a forum about web hosting where operators of a lot of small mom-and-pop internet companies discuss these things, as well as people involved with larger operations. There are threads on WHT discussing things in more detail, from people who actually know the difference between single-mode fiber and multimode fiber, and why one might be deployed rather than the other, and what kinds of government policies might influence such choices.
The core problem, as I understand it, is that the thousands of pages of regulations for common carriers are all designed for very mature industries, like POTS. The FCC will say "for the next 20 years, you must provide exactly this grade of service at this cost". It takes a for years to get a new grade of service or a new price approved, so you don't change things every year - more like every 10-20 years. That almost works for railroads and copper phone lines - nothing much has changed in the last 20 years (or 100 years) in the realm of copper phone service - some of the lines are about 100 years old. Do you want your ISP to be providing the same service they did in 1994? Obviously that wouldn't work.
A great example is Google fiber - that would have been all kinds of illegal under a common carrier regulatory regime. That service is GIGABIT - 50X as fast as the competition, for about the same cost as the old cable or DSL. That's exactly the kind of progress we want to promote, not outlaw.
Let's say you wrote a new set of common-carrier style regulations for internet, rather than inheriting most of the POTS bureaucracy. You may recall that for Google Fiber, Google looked for cities where the government would get out of the way and let them get the damn thing built, ASAP. If the FCC were managing ISPs the way they do phone companies, Google wouldn't (couldn't) have deployed quickly in Provo, they would have had to chose a city in Costa Rica or somewhere instead.
Again, I'm not an expert on the wholesale or retail internet market. I commented on the 2257 rules because I did have a useful combination of expertise in that area - and the FCC implemented the suggestions I and others made.