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Tom Wheeler Defeats the Broadband Industry: Net Neutrality Wins In Court (bloomberg.com) 165

Andrew M Harris and Todd Shields, reporting for Bloomberg: The Federal Communications Commission won a major appeals court ruling supporting its efforts to prevent broadband Internet service providers from favoring some types of web traffic over others. The Washington-based court Tuesday denied challenges to the federal government's so-called net neutrality regulations, which were backed by President Barack Obama. The ruling hands a victory to those who champion the notion of an open internet where service providers are prevented from offering speedier lanes to content providers willing to pay for them. It's a defeat for challengers including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., which said the rule would discourage innovation and investment.FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said, "Today's ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire web, and it ensures the Internet remains a platform for unparalleled innovation, free expression and economic growth. After a decade of debate and legal battles, today's ruling affirms the Commission's ability to enforce the strongest possible internet protections -- both on fixed and mobile networks -- that will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future."
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Tom Wheeler Defeats the Broadband Industry: Net Neutrality Wins In Court

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  • Great News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:26AM (#52315249)
    This effectively means it's settled. Comcast et al could still request an en banc hearing from the full Court of Appeals, but that's unlikely to succeed. They could appeal to the US Supreme Court, but with the current 4-4 split on the court, the best they could hope for is that the USSC would split and leave the Appeals Court ruling standing as is, at the same time they'd risk a 5-3 decision affirming net neutrality depending on how Kennedy swings.

    Of course, this could still be overturned if Trump wins and gets to override the pick for the next Justice, nevermind that a GOP congress plus Trump would be free to pass whatever anti-net neutrality legislation they want, or to replace the pro-neutrality majority of the FCC commissioners with a Republican one.
    • Subject of Comment (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'm happier to see that this fellow has more integrity than most thought he'd have, with him being a former lobbyist for these cable companies.

    • Re:Great News (Score:5, Insightful)

      by danomac ( 1032160 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:39AM (#52315379)

      Response translated from AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast: "Waaah, we can't upcharge for any existing or new service that comes along on the internet." Discourage innovation my ass. I'd say it's more likely that people will develop for an open internet than a closed one. After all, the developers would the ones having to pay the ISPs as well as the ISP's customers getting charged more for the service. I don't think that would go well in the long run.

      • Re:Great News (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:44AM (#52316013)

        Discourage innovation my ass.

        You're confused my friend. They mean it will discourage innovation in their price gouging -- I mean -- strategies and business models.

        • by Falos ( 2905315 )
          I dunno, they seem inspired as fuck to find clever workarounds, like exemption towards data caps. I'm sure they're innovating like crazy in thinktanks even now. But thinking is haaaaaard.

          Not that I have a horse in the race. I don't stream video, I don't really smartphone roam (or at all), I'm not really in their crosshairs.
      • You've exactly nailed the issue. This isn't about offering "faster" lanes for people who pay, this is about clogging down and limiting the people who don't pay.

        "That's a nice on-demand video delivery service you've got there - it would be a shame if somethin was to happen to it..."

    • Re:Great News (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:43AM (#52315421) Homepage

      This effectively means it's settled. Comcast et al could still request an en banc hearing from the full Court of Appeals, but that's unlikely to succeed. They could appeal to the US Supreme Court, but with the current 4-4 split on the court, the best they could hope for is that the USSC would split and leave the Appeals Court ruling standing as is, at the same time they'd risk a 5-3 decision affirming net neutrality depending on how Kennedy swings.

      Of course, this could still be overturned if Trump wins and gets to override the pick for the next Justice, nevermind that a GOP congress plus Trump would be free to pass whatever anti-net neutrality legislation they want, or to replace the pro-neutrality majority of the FCC commissioners with a Republican one.

      It's really pretty staggering, considering that Democrats were supposed to be the "party of RIAA" back in the Clinton days (see Hollings, Senator from Disney). Sure, Lamar Alexander (R-Asshole) has been pretty good at picking up all of Hollings business once Hollings left Congress, but it's pretty interesting that the anti-free-internet banner has been picked up so thoroughly by the Republicans.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re:Great News (Score:5, Insightful)

          by kqs ( 1038910 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:50AM (#52316083)

          now that the FCC is regulating the internet, which you may recall got to be what it is today largely because it was unregulated.

          In the late 80s, the internet was just this weird academic network that could not make money so no corporations paid any attention to it. Businesses were fighting over various online services (were you on Compuserve, or AOL, or The Source?). Then the government funded the NSFnet, and let outside companies join onto the NSFnet. And still nobody cared about the internet.

          Then government-funded CERN invented the WWW, and government-funded NCSA invented Mosaic, and people started to care about the internet.

          So "unregulated" for a bunch of government-funded projects is a very relative term. Far less regulated than the other online services, I'll grant you, but those were all regulated by their corporate owners, not by the government.

          And that's really the lesson here. The internet won because it had far less overall regulation, while the other services were locked down and controlled. Now, the big ISPs want to "regulate" their pipes. The government passed a regulation, net-neutrality, which says "nobody can lock-down and control their pipes in certain uncompetitive ways". So, I think that you are arguing for very high (but corporate) regulation, and the NN folks are arguing for very low (but governmental) regulation.

          You want no regulation? As long as it makes money, that cannot happen. But we get to choose between one hands-off sheriff, or a bunch of small despotic warlords. And I'm happy with how the court has chosen.

          • by ubrgeek ( 679399 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @12:05PM (#52316253)
            > were you on Compuserve, or AOL, or The Source?

            Yes. Now get off my lawn.
          • Yes, because this will be the one magic regulation that big business is somehow unable to twist to their advantage.

            I'm in favor of network neutrality, but opposed to Network Neutrality. I just don't believe that new regulatory powers are the cure to problems created by the old regulatory powers.

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          They don't see it that way; principled Republicans see a slippery slope now that the FCC is regulating the internet, which you may recall got to be what it is today largely because it was unregulated. Are such fears grounded in reality? Hard to say; come back in 20 years and let's see what the internet looks like then.

          The FCC is regulating the internet to be fair - nothing more. The internet got the way it is because it was unregulated, but fair. It was only in the past decade that tit was possible to be u

      • It's really pretty staggering, considering that Democrats were supposed to be the "party of RIAA" back in the Clinton days

        Net neutrality has little to do with strong copyright protections. You can easily support strong copyright laws (as well as DRM, closed source software, and other things technophiles hate), while still supporting net neutrality.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:02AM (#52315623)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's settled, legally, but don't think the fight is over. The GOP in Congress will still try to prevent the FCC from enforcing Net Neutrality via methods like defunding the FCC. And, if Trump wins, expect that Wheeler will be pushed out in favor of someone who will do what the industry wants the FCC to do.

    • Of course, this could still be overturned if Trump wins and gets to override the pick for the next Justice, nevermind that a GOP congress plus Trump would be free to pass whatever anti-net neutrality legislation they want, or to replace the pro-neutrality majority of the FCC commissioners with a Republican one.

      Historically, campaign contributions from the telecom industry [opensecrets.org] have slightly favored Democrats (scroll to the bottom). And Hillary Clinton is by far the biggest recipient from that industry in recen

    • Net Neutrality is not necessarily a right vs left or conservative vs liberal issue. The conservatives on the court are not going to reject it merely because a democrat is president. They have managed to have unanimous rulings.

  • ...in fact, there are some pretty clear indicators they already are (see: Netflix). They're playing shell games and trying to obfuscate it, but it's happening. I have no idea how enforceable this will be-- my gut tells me not very.
  • Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:39AM (#52315385)

    I'm trying hard to think no of anything even marginally resembling an innovation which has come from Comcast - but I'm drawing a blank. So I can't see that having it their own way up until now has resulted in what they claim will be stifled by these rules.

    On a side note: Tom Wheeler, I think many of us were wrong about you. Thank you!

    • by wiggles ( 30088 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @10:51AM (#52315523)

      They've had lots of innovation!

      They figured out:

      * data caps

      * Double charging for the same service

      * Outsourced customer service to lowest bidder

      * Customer "retention"

      • Don't forget "charging more for Internet Alone than Internet+TV to discourage people from cutting the cord or from getting TV service from another provider like DirecTV."

      • They've had lots of innovation!

        You forgot the innovation where they make the most recent episode of a TV show on OnDemand expire the same day you're watching it, so if you're just starting a series, you'll either have to binge watch or pay to see the most recent episodes later.

      • Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pak9rabid ( 1011935 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @12:33PM (#52316545)
        Don't forget terminating peoples' BitTorrent connections prematurely by injecting RST packets.
    • Come on! You've got to give them credit for the innovations they've made to suck money from our wallets.
    • Re:Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:09AM (#52315695) Homepage Journal

      Furthermore, I can't imagine any "innovations" that are good for the consumer coming out of all this. All Comcast and Time Warner are doing is "innovating" ways to force people to spend more money even though they're already paying ten times what the service is actually worth.

      What we really need is a national law that outlaws local internet franchise agreements and prevents states and localities from outlawing municipal broadband. I'm lucky enough to live an in area with multiple ISPs, and (surprise surprise) nobody here has implemented data caps. I don't think capitalism is a perfect solution to all of our problems, but it does seem to work reasonably well for keeping internet prices under control.

      • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        (surprise surprise) nobody here has implemented data caps.

        Prohibiting people from running servers is practically the same thing as data caps.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:15AM (#52315743)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I agree with you on both points (#1 wholeheartedly, #2 less so)... but neither one qualifies as "innovation".

      • I agree. I had shitty local ISPs in my small home town. Even the cable internet was terrible. I moved to a Comcast territory and it was night and day. 10x faster for 1/2 the price. And it was extremely reliable. I moved out of Comcast Territory and the regional cable provider was again god awful and then moved again into a DSL territory and it was even worse.

        The most reliable and lowest latency network I've ever had is Comcast. I have a really hard time hating on them.

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      They really pushed high speed internet in the US. I was one of the first people in the country, outside of academia, who had "high speed" internet. It was because Comcast was rolling out "comcast @home" back in the late 90s. It was friekin' awesome and I loved that company for a decade as a result. You could call them and get a static IP address, and talk nerdy with the people who ran their network. Ahhh... the good old days *sniff*.

    • Their innovations consist of ways to extract more money from their subscribers without actually delivering better service. They've also innovated in the ways they obstruct any and all competition from giving their subscribers any other options.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure Comcast will be fine with it once they figure out an appropriate "Neutrality Fee" to add to everyone's bill, and they can explain how these government regulations hurt the consumer so much by forcing them to maintain these expensive policies.

  • So you are saying they won't judge my bits by the slant of their font?? All oppressed bits rejoice!!! You are free!!!
  • I would love for someone during these hearings to ask the lobbyists for these telecom companies how restricting access to every service except the ones that pay will impede innovation. I could use some amusement.
    • by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      My experience with anti-net-neutrality argument breaks into two pieces.

      1)- The principle that the network is owned by the telecoms, and, as their property, they should be free to do as they wish.
      2)- The practical idea that telecoms will have to greatly increase costs to cover all the bandwidth (or even, that they will do so out of spite).

      Any arguments besides these two are generally shills. I've talked with people in real life who honestly hold to one of those two reasons, or both.

      I find (1) somewhat compe

  • The Two Lanes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:01AM (#52315619)

    It's not difficult to work out. If you have a company whose job is road maintenance, say they successfully argue that certain people need to cover the distance quicker. These people would pay extra for the privilege of faster transit, and after all, everyone else still has the original road.

    Only in time, the original road is neglected, it becomes full of pot holes. If any expansion is made, it's made to the faster road, since that makes more money. So as the weeks pass, the original road falls into worse condition, unable to cope with the volume of traffic which is always growing. If anyone complains, then they are just told to pay for the faster lane.

    Eventually the original road is barely navigable, and anyone wanting to travel is forced to pay the extra for the toll road. Eventually, the original road closes. Before long, an idea is floated for a new super-fast road...

    • Re:The Two Lanes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @12:51PM (#52316733) Journal

      everyone else still has the original road

      That's the first lie right there. The first thing they do is fence off the leftmost lane to make the toll lane, which of course needs its own shoulder in case someone breaks down, so better fence off a second lane too. Now, the non paying traffic that was packed in a 4 lane freeway is absolutely crammed into two lanes, or at best mushed into three skinny lanes. Unless, of course, the driver pays to drive in that nice wide, fast lane.

      But here's the difference between toll lanes and the internet: I get to choose if I want to suffer in the slow lane on the highway or pay the $1.30 to get in the toll lane.

      On the internet, these decisions are made for me. For instance, maybe Bing paid $50 million so that anyone going to bing.com gets to take the fast lane. The choice of what quality I get isn't mine, either I go where Comcast tells me I can go quickly, or I go where I want and suffer.

      • That's the first lie right there. The first thing they do is fence off the leftmost lane to make the toll lane, which of course needs its own shoulder in case someone breaks down, so better fence off a second lane too. Now, the non paying traffic that was packed in a 4 lane freeway is absolutely crammed into two lanes, or at best mushed into three skinny lanes. Unless, of course, the driver pays to drive in that nice wide, fast lane.

        I agree with you, but there's also the concern that the government will go with the London model and turn some of the lanes into bus lanes... which are less than 1% utilized, but have to be there anyway. Except, I can't actually imagine how that would work with the internets. That already kind of exists, in private government links, but nobody is talking about forcing people to open their private links for internet carrier traffic so that seems fairly irrelevant.

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      This is actually happening. Are you familiar with the ez-pass express lanes? [fox5dc.com] The government can't afford to build a highway, so they let a private company build it and charge for its use. I find this frightening.

    • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
      Except in this case, the roads are virtually free and the toll booths costs more.
  • ...that the dingo [youtube.com] would not eat the baby.

  • Trying to remember who is head of the FCC and who runs the cable company lobby. They keep switching back and forth...

    • by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @11:26AM (#52315863) Homepage

      In this case, the head of the FCC was a member of a cable company lobbying group and was widely expected to be yet another pro-cable company shill. Except, Tom Wheeler apparently missed the memo and was mistakenly handed one that said "protect the consumers" instead. His run as head of the FCC has been surprisingly fantastic and I hope he continues on to give the cable companies headaches for years to come.

      • by Andrio ( 2580551 )

        John Oliver did a show last year where he mentioned that Tom Wheeler, head of the FCC, was a former telecom lobbyist. He then said that it was like hiring a dingo to watch over your baby.

        Tom Wheeler responded by saying he was not a dingo.

        I guess he was speaking metaphorically and literally when he said that.

  • by Wycliffe ( 116160 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @12:12PM (#52316325) Homepage

    How does the decision affect zero rating and stuff like tmobile's binge on? Although I'm completely in support of net neutrality and all companies should be treated the same, I do support the idea of having different types of traffic. For instance making bittorent traffic lower priority than realtime streaming. This should preferably be controlled by the consumer though where they get some benefit for sending less traffic over the fast lane.

    • I do support the idea of having different types of traffic. For instance making bittorent traffic lower priority than realtime streaming.

      So does Tom Wheeler. What you are describing is "traffic shaping", where different KINDS of traffic can have different priorities. Net neutrality allows that. What it doesn't allow is prioritization of Comcast's streaming traffic over somebody else's streaming traffic.

  • by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @12:52PM (#52316735)

    I know it's popular because the internets want to be free, but I'd ask everyone to actually read the "net neutrality" regulations yourself. It's not about net neutrality per se, it's about something completely different.

    For example, all the peering agreements suddenly come under FCC jurisdiction. Do asymmetric traffic charges count as "favoritism?" Do you even have any understanding of what that means?

    The FCC rule means that everything internet-related comes under their jurisdiction.

    What this means, in short, is your rates will go up...forever.

  • Net Neutrality means ISPs can't legally extort money from websites. It is obvious that Net Neutrality is right, but ISPs are so greedy that they want to extort people!
  • ... my broadband provider is going to have to stop blocking access to GOP websites?

  • by emaname ( 1014225 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @02:29PM (#52317667)

    The broadband companies are going to keep trying until they get the answer they want. Then once they do, there will be no going back.

    Personally I feel it's just a matter of time before they monetize everything on the internet.

    This isn't a great comparison, but I remember cable TV was promoted as "commercial free TV." ie, You could watch TV without commercials.

    Yeah... well... that worked out great.

  • I pay my ISP for a pipe. I request what I want through that pipe and expect my ISP to deliver it without prejudice.

    If I wanted them to decide what gets priority I would subscribe to fucking television.

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