Charter Can Charge Online Video Sites for Network Connections, Court Rules (arstechnica.com) 113
Charter can charge Netflix and other online video streaming services for network interconnection despite a merger condition prohibiting the practice, a federal appeals court ruled today. From a report: The ruling [PDF] by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturns two merger conditions that the Obama administration imposed on Charter when it bought Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016. The FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai did not defend the merits of the merger conditions in court, paving the way for today's ruling. The case was decided in a 2-1 vote by a panel of three DC Circuit judges.
The lawsuit against the FCC seeking to overturn Charter merger conditions was filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a free-market think tank, and four Charter users who claim they were harmed by the conditions. The FCC unsuccessfully challenged the suing parties' standing to sue, and it did not mount a legal defense of the conditions themselves. Though Charter did not file this lawsuit, the ISP separately asked the FCC to let the network-interconnection condition and a condition prohibiting data caps expire on May 18, 2021, two years earlier than scheduled. Today's court's ruling seems to render Charter's petition moot as far as the network-interconnection condition goes, but the court ruling did not overturn the data-cap prohibition.
The lawsuit against the FCC seeking to overturn Charter merger conditions was filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a free-market think tank, and four Charter users who claim they were harmed by the conditions. The FCC unsuccessfully challenged the suing parties' standing to sue, and it did not mount a legal defense of the conditions themselves. Though Charter did not file this lawsuit, the ISP separately asked the FCC to let the network-interconnection condition and a condition prohibiting data caps expire on May 18, 2021, two years earlier than scheduled. Today's court's ruling seems to render Charter's petition moot as far as the network-interconnection condition goes, but the court ruling did not overturn the data-cap prohibition.
This is why we need more people like (Score:2, Insightful)
Right now the Foxes are running the hen house.
Re:This is why we need more people like (Score:4, Insightful)
Do not trust the politicians.
Do not forget. None of them are are trying to fix the root cause: no competition on last mile internet service for homes. All zip codes are de-facto monopolies. All these regulations seem to be fine on the outside (I really like net neutrality), but it would not be even necessary in the first place.
Top recipients of Comcast's campaign contributions are...
https://www.opensecrets.org/or... [opensecrets.org]
wait for it:...
Joe Biden, and then Bernie Sanders.
Yep, that's right. Both sides support the current structure.
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wait for it:...
Joe Biden, and then Bernie Sanders.
You lie. As simple as that. Your link shows that members of Comcast (employees or owners) contributed to Biden and Sanders. DUH.
Comcast as an organization donated the grand total of $0 to them.
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Sorry, I should probably write about how the system works. Fortunately the website does that for us:
"NOTE: Organizations themselves cannot contribute to candidates and party committees. Figures on this page include contributions and spending by affiliates."
And, this:
"Joe Biden Holding Kickoff Fundraiser At Comcast Exec’s Home"
https://www.huffpost.com/entry... [huffpost.com]
And of course:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politic... [go.com]
"Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says he doesn't want a super PAC, but he founded
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In most of the world, you go into politics to get in the way to get back out of the way. Here it's the same, they just have to hide it better.
The idea it's public "service", so they are noble, is ludicrous.
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To get in the way to get paid to get back out of the way
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You should try reading Liz Warren's books (Score:2)
These are complex problems and just bitching about them doesn't fix them. It's hard, boring work and it's never done. So you get guys like Bernie & Biden and gals like Warren who compromise what they actually want to get something done becau
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And how would you provide last mile internet server competition?
If someone is on the end of the lien is someone going to run another cable to them?
And how do you propose to pay for the extra lines?
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:1)
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And also a clone of China's social credit system that China is importing to help the Venezuelan dictatorship remain in power. Don't forget that!
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AOC might, she's got an economics degree
It's not about degrees though, it's about the will to sniff out crap like this, and do something about it. AOC seems to be mostly about social injustices, but that's maybe because of what the media here across the pond show us. What is her track record on getting involved in matters of business policies or antitrust issues?
This kind of politician seems to be very rare, the one willing to take on an issue that isn't all over the headlines, dive in and get the facts, and fight for improvement. It's easy
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Fuck it, I'm running for office.
I promised y'all I would always fight for your rights. I started looking into what it takes to run for an office in my town and state.
Seeing as there's a shortage of politicians in it for the people, and I'd rather be dead than for sale, I'm putting myself out there. I'm not interested in money--I don't give a rat's ass about it when it's divorced from the interests of the society that created it. Convenience and my own personal comfort are not high in the list of things I ca
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And they do. The problem is that Comcast et al are not willing to pay for the bandwidth that their users consume while visiting Netflix. They want Netflix to pay not just for their own connection to the backbone, but also for the capacity required to connect Comcast to the backbone so that their users can use Netflix. That's not the way Internet service billing works, nor should it.
The correct answer is for Netflix to say, "Okay, we'll pay for your connection to the backbone, but only if you allow anyon
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Yeah. But I have never had my users' ISP contact me and demand payment. That would be hundreds, if not thousands of parties I would have to pay, in addition to paying for my own Internet connection. That does not happen today. And you appear to be suggesting that it should or at least should be allowed.
> Fuck both of you.
Right back at ya.
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You are trolling or you severely don't understand. This is pay to play. Both sides currently pay for the internet they consume. I pay for mine, you pay for yours, Netflix pays for theirs, and every company pays for theirs. What Charter is doing is the equivalent of holding their users hostage. Our users are paying for the internet and Netflix is paying for their internet, but Netflix is not paying CHARTER. Charter is not the ISP for Netflix, but all the bandwidth is being paid for. Charter just believes the
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:2)
But apple is able to charge iOS devs to access apples customer base.
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:2)
Really? You sure about that? Whatever vendor is paying Apple, certainly isn't "accessing" me. If I want to access them, I can go to their website; Apple doesn't ask for a cut from me nor them.
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:2)
They all pay 30 % to apple.
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:2)
And exactly what "access" do they have of me? My phone, my bank account, my email??!?
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:1)
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People who are corrupt and care more for money than laws or their country or their god, tend to believe all other people are just like them (and thus are easily taken in my con-men who convince them that since all politicians are like that, they may as well vote for the con-men).
Note that not all people are just like them, fortunately, or civilization would have collapsed long ago.
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Wake up, buddy! All of human history and most of the world today is a sordid tale of people going into government so theh can get in the way of others so they can get paid to get back out of the way.
You have to build in principles in the bedrock of a constitution to even dream of merely lowering this.
It's amazing how many politicians even here, with this, and a free press watching, mysteriously finish their careers with tens of millions of dollars, yet no wrongdoing "can be found".
They are all whizzes at t
Re: This is why we need more people like (Score:1)
So if they can charge for connections now (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean that prices will decrease as a result?
"... To begin, the condition plainly caused New Charter to forgo revenue from edge providers. Before the merger, Time Warner, the largest broadband provider among the merging companies, raised substantial revenue from paid interconnection agreements. So did Bright House. But the merger condition prohibits New Charter from using those same revenue sources.
It is also clear that the consumers' bills increased shortly after the merger. Before the merger, France and Haywood [two of the lawsuit filers] subscribed to Bright House's broadband service, and Frank subscribed to Time Warner's. Shortly after, New Charter raised their monthly bills: France's bill increased about 20 percent, from $84 to $101, Haywood's about 40 percent, from $51 to $71; and Frank's about 5 percent, from $75.99 to $79.99."
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You assume that the customer complaints will be heard by the right people.
In all probability, there will be much bitching and whining, almost all of which will get silently directed to /dev/null.
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I saw some records that were either in-process or completed
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It's actually pretty simple. Get some mostly-uncorrupted people at the PUC (and FCC), and elect some mostly uncorrupted people into office (to keep the PUC/FCC honest), and you're golden. You can't control the corruption at the communication company (that's up to the board, who are also often corrupt), but the point of government is to keep not-always-honest companies working to improve the area they serve, not just their own pockets.
Elect corrupt people to govennment and instead you get Ajit Pai.
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And here we are.
The same underlying conditions that brought us to this point are what will, in all likelihood, enable them to quietly persist.
Your proposal has some criteria for its realization that is ultimately, I'm afraid, an unrealistic expectation on how sensible people will actually be.
By the time this problem "corrects itself", if ever, I expect that virtually everyone who might care about this now will be long since dead and gone.
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Ah yes, in a libertarian system that wouldn't be possible, since governments couldn't grant monopolies. There is no other possible way a monopoly could occur. Libertarian systems would certainly be able to cope with a company that owned the lines exploiting its position.
Libertarians talking about people not understanding economics is like flat earthers complaining that the rest of us don't understand physics.
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Company A lays out the lines and makes a profit 10x times what is costs.
Company B comes in and lays a second set of lines to compete. Company A decides to do a promotion, "In the area where Company B has lines we will offer free service for a year to any one who signs a contract".
Company B goes bankrupt, and Company A buys the lines cheaply.
Company C sees what happens and decides not to try and compete, Company A now has a monopoly and no one is willing to compete with them.
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The problem with Republicans that call themselves libertarians is that they are exactly not. Little known fact, libertarianism is a left-wing philosophy founded by socialists. It's true that it is something that tends towards "small government" but that's simply because it is opposed to coercive practices in general. It's also in favor of free immigration, free trade/globalism, anti-war, and anti-nationalist while being pro-legalization of drugs and prostitution. In truth, the ultimate pinnacle of pure
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You’re assuming that Charter doesn’t just redirect to a page explaining that by not paying their protection money, big bad Netflix is stealing from little Timmy whose dad works as a low-level grunt at Charter. Won’t you think of little Timmy?
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It is fraud for cable companies to tell you they offer you a service for $x a month at such and such a speed, then extort a portion of what you pay Netflix, from Netflix, or they will hurt your connection to Netflix.
They should be required to notify you of this at the top of the contract you sign.
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Not at all. Internet bills are not based on the cost of service; they are "whatever the market will bear". If the market will not bear more, then the ISP makes less profit. DIdn't you take introductory economics?
If the revenue won't cover necessary expenses then yes, someone will need to pay. But that's not going to be a problem we'll face in our lifetimes.
Cable companies just want to double bill: charge me to delived Netflix/Youtube/etc to my house, and charge Netflix/Youtube/etc to be delivered to my
There is no profit - prices go up or service goes (Score:2)
Theoretically a company could make "less profit" and survive if they were making 20% or something. Charter isn't.
For every $100 invested in Charter, last year the owners made $1.70. The profit is 1.7%. If it drops by 2%, profit goes negative and the company is on the way to disappearing.
As a percentage of the customer's bill, Charter had $11.7 billion in revenue, $766 million net profit. So 6% of the bill is profit.
Someone tell me again why Charter must provide free web hosting to Netflix, while anyone
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Do you think that somehow Netflix isn't paying for hosting? They have their own servers and do pay for hosting and datacenter space. They are already paying someone else for all the data they are sending out. Charter wants to charge them again to get it to the final destination. Except the customer is already paying to have the data delivered to them as well. Why should Netflix pa
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> They are already paying someone else for all the data they are sending out.
No, that's what every other web site does. Netflix demands that the ISPs give them 10Gbps connections *for free*.
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No, I, the customer watching Netflix, demand such a connection.
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> Netflix offers local boxes free of charge, that can be placed at the ISP
I'm alao offering to let them host my content for free. They won't do it. They say I need to get an account with HostGator or something. Will you please sign my petition to force Comcast to host my site for free? I want to compete with Netflix.
I'll be even cheaper than Netflix, because not only will I let thr ISPs host my site for me (for free), I'm going to show Game of Thrones, I'm offering to show HBO's shows without even ch
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Yay! I want to extort profit like Netflix, and have Charter customers pay for it!
Re: There is no profit - prices go up or service (Score:2)
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> Netflix does not get special treatment any more than any other company.
If you think you can get what Netflix demands, try calling up Comcast and get your 10 Gbps connection to their network, for free. That's what Netflix asks for. Try it for yourself and see.
For every other company, he who sends the packets pays the bill. If I want to send 800 Mbps out, and get 50 Mbps coming in, my company needs to buy 800 Mbps of connections.
What of both companies send about equal amounts of data to each other? Wh
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I go to a website and download a lot of data.
I am sending up 1Kbps in requests for data, they are sending me 10Mbps.
10Mbps > 1Kbps, so I should be being paid to download the data.
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Yeah funny how that works, isn't it. I suppose the thing there is the ISP would be perfectly happy not connecting to you, if you weren't paying. They don't WANT to send you packets.
I suppose the "sender pays" convention for the backbone could have developed the other way around, except then someone could send you junk packets and charge you for it.
"profit" numbers are not so honest (Score:2)
That profit number can be played with like the movie industry... REMEMBER the overhead costs of CEO and management are before you report profits and they can play games with overhead costs to shrink the profit margin which is really just for the owners who can sneak $ to themselves by other methods.
ISPs must PAY for bandwidth and any caching they can do will lower their costs and in an age of default encryption they have far less caching they can do today to save bandwidth than before. Netflix is a single m
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Management, especially top management such as the CEO and CFO, keep their jobs by having HIGH profits. When profits suck, shareholders fire the CEO. A CEO doesn't advance their career by loaing money - they get fired for poor profits.
by the time customers have complained Charter (Score:2)
by the time customers have complained charter has it's own Charterflix service up.
besides, come on, you know they will just make netflix run badly, not block it.
Re: The problem will correct itself. (Score:2)
Ha ha. Comcast did this battle before, it is all backroom deals and lies. They started demanding money from Netflix, then used traffic shaping to duck with their mutual customers. Their support calls would blame the customers network/laptop and charged them. They started their own video competitor and pushed the complainers to pay for that. When authorities got involved they blamed Netflix's network. After Netflix payed up, we learned Netflix had high speed to the ISP, that Comcast allowed on their side unt
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Well that's wonderfully naive. You wrote:
Charter tries to charge Netflix,
Netflix tells them to get bent,
Charter customers can't get Netflix.
Customers complain to whoever granted the local cable monopoly,
local politicians tell Charter to get it fixed right fucking now or lose their franchise,
Charter cuts the crap or loses their last-mile business to a smarter competitor.
What would really happen
Charter tries to charge Netflix,
Netflix tells them to get bent,
Charter customers can't get Netflix.
Customers complain to whoever granted the local cable monopoly,
those politicians feign interest and respond with platitudes
local politicians tell Charter to get it fixed
Charter executives funnel money to those local politicians' re-election funds
local politicians STFU and take the money to use for smearing any candidate that runs against them, rather than having that same money go to that competitor to kick them out,
the next election happens where either a bum is voted out, or a new bum is elected,
nothing actually changes.
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For the most part, if customers find their netflix connection is wonky, but they are getting a good connection from some other sevice (such as one owned by the same company), they end up blaming netflix. They tell all their friends about how spotty netflix is and how well some other service works. as long as they can compare it to to another streaming site being accessed via the same ISP, t
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"whoever granted the local cable monopoly, local politicians tell Charter to get it fixed right fucking now or lose their franchise"
Local franchise monopolies have been illegal for 24 years. If your local "market" is really just one dominant carrier, your local politician does not have the leverage you describe.
Charter = Satans Asshole (Score:2)
As an ex Charter employee, I would love to tell you all the dirty shit they do and how they partner with Comcast to keep prices high and to make sure neither competes with each other. Charter uses technology and methodologies from Comcast, its a part of the cable labs partnership if I remember correctly. I thought about contacting the FCC about it but then realized it wouldn't make a difference. Every manager knows what to destroy in case of an investigation. The fail safe being these systems are publicly e
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Sounds like it would need to be a police raid, maybe starting with a fire drill; everyone gathers outside, then they can announce the raid and let employees go home, while premises are being searched for evidence.
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Do it.
Every little bit counts, and if even one person fails to destroy their piece of the shit pie, it'll reveal that there was a conspiracy to destroy evidence.
Someone will slip up. Someone will crack.
Do it for the rest of us. You have the choice, the knowledge... do you have the will?
Well... (Score:1)
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You are paying for it, through Netflix. So the ISP is getting double-paid, by you, to provide you the service they promise to you in your contract, for a single fee.
WHO Pays (Score:1)
Re: WHO Pays (Score:2)
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So, where does netflix get the money to pay for it? From it's customers or out of thin air?
So in the end I would probably end up paying either way.
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Think about it; if Charter has been able to make a profit for a long time WITHOUT websites needing to pay for data packets crossing Charter's network, why should they be allowed to charge for it now?
Charter just wants a bigger piece of the pie, and in particular, a piece they're not entitled to. They're just being greedy.
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Let me fix that for you:
"Either Netflix charges YOU to increase Charter's profit margin, or Charter has a slighty smaller profit margin." (Replace "Charter" with your local ISP.)
if my ISP got greedy (Score:3, Interesting)
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And if you need the internet for business? Or your kids need it for school? The whole point of contention here is that the ISP is a monopoly and the customers have no choice in the matter.
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> i would cancel service
That works only if there is another ISP available. For instance, my options currently are Comcast, or .. maybe... satellite. Guess which one offers anything close to broadband?
Another case of localized monopolism, aka lock-in. (Score:2)
Should be a crime for the same reason as monopolism: You don't have a choice.
No, not *actually*.
So are they going to split now? (Score:4, Funny)
I mean if the court rules the terms of a contract are null and void it means that the contract needs to be nullified and resigned right? So they are going to split right?
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Why did I get modded funny? Is that like the laughing out of disillusionment kind of funny?
two cans one string (Score:2)
This won't stand (Score:5, Informative)
It was a 2-1 panel decision. The case will be heard by the entire court en banc. There are 17 appellate judges on the DC Court of Appeals.
So let me see if I get this right.... (Score:2)
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death of Net Neutrality (Score:2)
To those who drank the GOP cool aid claiming the elimination of net neutrality would spur competition and decrease costs (I’ve had several argue with me on this site claiming it would) Here you go; Netf
Re: death of Net Neutrality (Score:2)
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It is quite a time-saver!
Re:My prediction. (Score:5, Informative)
You are wrong as usual, because this ruling is simple enough for even you to understand.
Charter wanted a merger, and the FCC said (I'm paraphrasing): "OK, but for 7 years you can't charge online video sites for connections [and some other consumer-focused conditions]." Ajit Pai (in the minority under Obama) voted against the merger because he felt the the consumer-focused conditions imposed by the FCC had “turned the transaction into a vehicle for advancing its ambitious agenda to micromanage the Internet economy."
The merger went though with the consumer conditions, and Charter raised its prices (which it was allowed to do). Several customers sued, claiming that the increase in their rates was because of the conditions imposed by the FCC. Whether these annoyed Charter customers were employees of Charter, libertarians, or just garden variety idiots is an open question.
The FCC, now under Ajit Pai, claimed that this group of customers did not have the right to sue at all. This was a dumb argument, and it lost.
The FCC did not prepare a defense of the consumer-focused conditions on the merits. Therefore, the consumer conditions that Ajit Pai objected to in the first place, were struck down by the court:
The lawfulness of the interconnection and discounted-services conditions are properly before us, yet the FCC declined to defend them on the merits. The agency’s only explanation for doing so was its view that we cannot reach the merits. Having lost on that question, the FCC has no further line of defense. “Because the Commission chose not to argue the merits in the alternative, we have no choice but to vacate the challenged portions of the order.”
This bad decision is by the FCC is unlikely to kill or impoverish anyone, but in normal times it would be enough to remind people to vote the motherfuckers out.
Re: My prediction. (Score:2)
This is the court abdicating its duty. It has the obligation to test the legality of the matter before it even if the other side is not available, and it does NOT have an obligation to simply do whatever the present side wants. This happens all the time in family court.