Note that the DC Court of Appeals is the one that the Filibuster Crisis was all about. According to the Wikipedia, it still(!) has three vacancies, and the Senate Republicans have spent the last ~N months preventing any of the Obama administrations nominees from being confirmed to the Court.
I couldn't agree more. There's absolutely no way this ruling can benefit the customers. The article mentionned that the FCC could rewrite its rule so to fit under the law, so it may very well be far from over.
The FCC could reclassify ISPs as telecommunication providers, which would remove the basis for the finding that the non-blocking and non-discrimination rules were (as common carrier rules, which cannot be applied to information service providers) outside their authority.
Of course, such a decision would itself be challenged, with ISPs arguing that what they do is not "telecommunications" as defined in the Telecommunications Act (I'm not saying this argument would be correct, but its not an uncontroversial position that the conflict between the order and the law can be remedied by simply reframing the order without a change in the law.)
I believe the two judges (Rogers and Tatel) that struck down the FCC's regulations were Clinton nominees. The one who dissented in part was a Reagan nominee (Silberman).
In terms of judicial politics (as opposed to legislative politics of judicial nominations), this isn't Democrats vs. Republicans. This is Clinton and Bush II nominees vs. everyone else.
Fair point; just because you like a politician doesn't mean you'll like their judge or all of their decisions. Heck, maybe if the panel for this case had been an Obama, Clinton, and Reagan appointee, the Obama and Reagan appointees would have sided against the Clinton.
The DC Court handles all of these big, Federal cases that make the top of HN. A President's impact on the DC Court is almost as important as their impact on the Supreme Court.
> The DC Court handles all of these big, Federal cases that make the top of HN.
No, it doesn't. The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit handles appeals of federal regulatory agency decisions, but -- while this FCC decision is an example of those -- you don't see a lot of them make the top of HN. Most of the "big, federal" cases that make the top of HN are either:
1) criminal cases, which go to trial in the District Court in which the crime occurred, and for appeal to the Circuit Court in which that District Court is located (which might happen to be the DC Circuit if the trial was originally in the District Court for the District of Columbia, but usually that's not the case); or
2) coyright cases, which again go through any of the District Courts for trial, and the corresponding Circuit Court for appeals; or
3) patent cases, which go to trial in the District Court in which the crime occurred, and for appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal (not DC) Circuit.
While the DC Circuit is very important, its not that commonly involved in cases that make the front page of HN.
> I believe the two judges (Rogers and Tatel) that struck down the FCC's regulations were Clinton nominees. The one who dissented in part was a Reagan nominee (Silberman).
Note that Silberman's dissent was because Silberman thought the whole Open Internet Order should have been struck down (including the disclosure requirements), while Rogers and Tatel only thought that that the requirements they characterize as "common carrier" requirements (non-discrimination and non-blocking) should be struck down.
So this wasn't "Clinton appointees vote against FCC, Reagan appointee backs FCC".
The DC Circuit may have three vacancies (I'll trust your representation) but it also has the lightest workload per judge in the country:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230393690...
"For the 12-months ending in September, the D.C. Circuit had 149 appeals filed per active judge. By comparison, the 11th Circuit had 778 appeals filed per active judge for the same period... The national average of appeals per active judge is 383."
Counting cases per judge is a legitimate method of weighing workload only if the cases are drawn from a similar universe. Among the geographical circuits other than the DC Circuit, this may be reasonable, given that their appellate jurisdiction is similar in subject matter. But given that the DC Circuit handles comparatively few of the kinds of cases that the other circuits handle (having only a single subordinate district court from which to handle regular appeals of the type other circuit courts handle), but has a special role handling appeals of federal regulatory decisions, you aren't comparing like cases to like cases when you compare case numbers between the DC Circuit and the other circuits. You'd run into the same kind of issue comparing the Federal Circuit to other circuits.
Of course, I'm not at all surprised to see a News Corp outlet overlook a critical distinction that is inconvenient for the propaganda interests of the Republican Party.
It's misleading to compare the number of appeals per judge between the D.C. Circuit and other circuits, because the D.C. Circuit has a very different docket composition. Certain kind of appeals are much easier and quicker to resolve than others: criminal sentencing appeals, habeas petitions, immigration appeals, routine civil matters like foreclosures or certain benefits awards, etc. While the D.C. Circuit does hear these sorts of cases, it does so only for the ~600k people in the District of Columbia. The other circuits, on the other hand, have a much larger number of these cases because they cover several states and usually 20-35 million people each.
The D.C. Circuit's docket consists very disproportionately of highly complex regulatory appeals, which take much more time than simpler types of cases. These cases are not only often very factually complex, but of a nature that leaves more scope for appellate review. Roughly speaking, when a circuit court reviews the factual findings or discretionary actions of a lower court, it does so deferentially. E.g. an appellate court reviews sentences imposed by a district court only for abuse of discretion. However, a circuit court reviews the legal conclusions of a lower court from scratch (de novo). Regulatory appeals in the D.C. Circuit are much more likely to turn on complex issues of legal interpretation that the appellate court must review from scratch, than on factual disputes that the appellate court need only review for clear error.
You're certainly right that the DC Circuit will get a disproportionate number of regulatory appeals, but we don't know whether that fact actually matters without knowing what percentage of their workload involves complex cases, and whether they need equal staffing numbers. (I don't know the answer.)
The D.C. Circuit has 10% criminal cases. 5 circuits have above 25% criminal cases. The D.C. Circuit has over 30% administrative cases, most circuits have under 10%. The D.C. Circuit has almost no private prisoner cases (cases by prisoners against state officials for violations of rights), while most circuits have over 15%. The D.C. Circuit has over 20% U.S. civil cases (civil cases in which the U.S. is a defendant), while most circuits have under 5%.
Even within those divisions there are relevant distinctions. An appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals is an "administrative" case, but it's a much simpler matter to resolve, usually, than say a challenge to an EPA regulation. So while the 9th Circuit has almost 30% "administrative cases," each of those are likely much simpler to resolve than each administrative case on the D.C. Circuit's docket (not many people are getting deported from D.C.)
That is entirely irrelevant. I say outright that the exact reason I want to see more judges appointed to this court is to pack it with judges who are more likely to produce decisions I agree with. You respond by accusing my of wanting to do exactly what I want to do. So?
As an aside, why do you say that the DC Circuit is "underworked" instead of saying that the 11th Circuit is "overworked"?
Points for honesty, but unless other HN readers share your own particular political preferences, saying "I want it!" isn't exactly a compelling policy argument. I mean, I want ponies.
If you're right that the 11th Circuit is overworked, then that point actually cuts against your argument: let's put more judges there where they need more help, and not the DC Circuit.
I think it's a much easier argument to make. It is not necessary to convince people that they want the President's nominees -- presuming they are qualified -- confirmed to the judiciary. It is only necessary to convince people that it is fair for the President's nominees to be confirmed. People like fairness, so it's an easy argument.
The system is, we have these seats, created by acts of Congress, which need to be filled. The President nominates candidates -- ideally candidates recommended by the Congressmen in the region, for regional appointments -- and the Senate vets them, and confirms or denies their appointment. The Republicans, however, aren't playing fair: they have been refusing to even allow votes on the candidates, even while admitting the candidates are qualified. Furthermore, they are not cooperating in the nomination process, refusing to recommend candidates to the President.
It's not fair, and everything after that is camouflage. If it was really a concern about the workload of the judiciary, and act of Congress could add or remove seats as necessary. But it isn't, and Congress isn't acting -- they are refusing to act, never in good faith and rarely at all.
Not to argue your point (which is 100% right IMHO), but this decision is pretty right on the merits.
They refused to classify the providers in a way that gave them express statutory authority to promulgate these regulations, and the court called them on it.
I want to see this happen, but the right way is for the FCC to stop pussyfooting around and classify them as common carriers, which they are, so it can regulate them as such.
I understand your point, but I just don't see the ethical implications. Net neutrality, may be important, but it is a legal directive. Not supporting, or actively working to abolish net neutrality, isn't unethical.
without net neutrality we get an internet where the rich get preferential treatment, and where providers can pick and choose between people using their services. how is working towards that not unethical?
The rich get the treatment they can pay for, and most providers give better service to those who can afford to pay more. I can understand the objection to that at a meta level, but I don't see the need to single out the internet for special consideration.
It's comments like these that make me not like net neutrality. There is no way you are going to stop people who spend more money from being able to enjoy better Internet connections.
On the other hand, ISPs ought to be stopped, in general, from discriminating against traffic based on a) their desire to sell their own service that competes with it, or b) who you are connecting to.
I'm not sure I see a difference between your position and the position of the person you're replying. What you're saying is basically how I translated zem's comment in my mind. When he said "rich", I assumed the rich people who own the ISPs(or are friends of the owners) altering QoS for different sites/services. Or maybe I'm projecting my own thoughts onto zem's comment.
actually, i was referring to producers - consumers are mostly affected by net neutrality due to what they do and do not get access to (as gated by the isps). however, with net neutrality thrown out of the door netflix can afford to pay for "up bandwidth", but e.g. a small competitor would be pushed out of the market.
> It's comments like these that make me not like net neutrality. There is no way you are going to stop people who spend more money from being able to enjoy better Internet connections.
Agreed, so there's no need to give them more ways to enhance their advantage. They are too far ahead already. Because that's what is all about...
Why should ISP 's be stopped from discriminating? A company that blocked Google would find its competitor's saturation bombing ads for "Google compatible" Internet service.
Followed by the tort lawyers saturation bombing ads for class action lawsuits alleging breach of contract and tortious interference in contracts.
right, but a company who blocked a startup competing with google would face next to no backlash, while (if they were big enough) severely disadvantaging said startup. heck, it doesn't take blocking - what if google loaded in 0.05 seconds and duckduckgo loaded in 1 second? i'm pretty sure that would push most of the users google's way.
This, right here, is the real danger - that relinquishing net neutrality will end up stifling competition and, thus, innovation.
You can't prioritise some packets without disadvantaging others. Unless the rules were crafted very, very carefully (and, let's face it, do we really think that would happen), I could easily envisage major connectivity providers auctioning off a handful of "prime video streamer" slots to companies like YouTube and Netflix, leaving other companies' services unusable. And that's just what I can imagine - the unintended consequences that I can't imagine are potentially far, far worse.
We got from 14.4k dial-up to multi-megabit always-on broadband (both fixed-line AND mobile) without compromising on net neutrality. The potential disadvantages far outweigh the claimed advantages.
>without net neutrality we get an internet where the rich get preferential treatment
Net neutrality does nothing for rich or poor. The rich already benefit from better connectivity and internet access. Net neutrality doesn't automatically make internet cheaper either, in fact, it may make it more expensive because the telecoms cannot complement their internet fees with money collected from Youtube and Netflix for priority access. So at least theoretically, net neutrality could imply higher internet fees for the end-user.
I don't know which way you lean ideologically, but your line of reasoning is similar to arguing that cable packages are unethical, because the rich have better access and selection than the poor. You can argue it, but I'd disagree. The USA, along with most of the world, has a mixed economy which has capitalism as its foundation, complemented by a strong government which provides for common infrastructure, safety net, and regulation. There's a very good reason for having such a system, but it does mean that there will exist poor and rich (and everything in-between). Saying something is unethical just because there would be a difference between what the rich and the poor would have available to them is irrational. It most certainly doesn't apply to Net Neutrality.
//
For the record, I do support Net Neutrality, but I wouldn't characterize it as a moral or ethical issue. I see it as just good policy because it levels the playing field between big and small players, which makes everyone better off (rich and poor). Microsoft, Netflix, Google, Apple, Amazon are going to be fine in a non-net-neutral world, startups and mid-sized companies will be at a disadvantage.
I would say that there is an unethical conflict of interest now with the at least Comcast. Comcast offers home security monitoring now. They could, they haven't said they would, start to require their home security competition to pay for access to the pipe to the home. It's the same thing with Comcast's on-demand vs Netflix. Comcast is going to favor its own offering to the detriment of the competitor. They should not be allowed to do this.
They should be given two options: 1) open network and they can keep all their extras like security or 2) close network but no extras.
Option 2 is unworkable because you just end up with company A providing access with no extras but preferential service for company B as a "valued partner" and excluding all of company B's competitors.
see my reply to macspoofing - this is not about how fast your home internet is, it is about your ability to send stuff in the other direction. i'm not particularly concerned about cable tv because there isn't much leverage in having better access to tv shows; however, being better able to participate in a two-way flow of information potentially carries huge leverage abilities, and the people who already have influence/money/power will be further advantaged by the new system.
I think you may have a warped view of the problems that lack of Net Neutrality would bring. Content creation, and ... errr.. "participation in a two-way flow of information" is not particularly served by Net Neutrality. Writing and consuming blogs, IMs, twitter comments, emails, forum posts and reddit comments would be virtually unchanged since those are all bandwidth-cap friendly activities and don't particularly need a large pipe anyway ( A basic 5MB connection is more than enough ). Communication apps such as Skype and Hangouts may be affected (though they don't consume that much bandwidth and also don't require a particularly fat pipe). However most are controlled by big conglomerates who would be willing to pay the telecom toll and so may actually work better in a non-neutral internet.
HD Video streaming services and software downloads (e.g. via Steam or Xbox) are probably the things most affect by Net Neutrality, especially since telecoms have competing services and those types of services benefit immensely from unlimited caps and lots of bandwidth.
So I'm still confused as to what argument you're trying to make. You're hand-waving quite a bit trying to position it as a grave ethical issue and I just don't see it. Again, I think Net Neutrality should be the law of the land. It benefits everyone (except telecoms) and it's been a huge success so far. Let's keep it.
That's a fairly narrow and presumptious definition of the possible consequences resulting from a lack of Net Neutrality. There is no real limitation on how the ISPs can wield their power AFAIK. For instance, why wouldn't they offer HuffingtonPost (essentially a blog) the opportunity to buy faster access for their readers?
But, even if we were to take your assumptions at face value, I'm not sure how you gloss over other details (such as their ability to price competitors like Netflix out of the market or essentially hold their users for ransom to the highest bidder).
Given that they are quasi-monopolies in most cases, these are certainly issues that deal with consumer choice on one end and access to opportunity on the other (i.e. for content providers, startups, etc.). In other words, these are issues of fairness. How can something be both made willfully unfair, yet be ethical? Would you not agree that fairness as a principle is morally right? That is the definition of ethical.
You made the argument in another comment that it's no more a matter of ethics than is raising taxes. But, certainly you can envision a scenario under which taxes can be raised in a manner and/or at the behest of certain groups which would make it unethical?
If none of this makes sense to you, then therein lies the divergence. It's one regarding the basic definition of ethical.
All I argued that it isn't an ethical issue. Because it isn't.
>How can something be both made willfully unfair, yet be ethical?
Is it unethical that Yankees spend twice the league average on their ball-club because it is most certainly unfair. After all, not every team gets to be based in New York.
And I'd be careful with words like 'fairness'. A socialist and a libertarian will have vastly different definitions of what is 'fair' and what is 'unfair'. To you it's unfair that Netflix may get priced out by a Telecom, but then again, Netflix didn't spend billions building and maintaining the infrastructure, as well as acquiring all those customers. Telecoms got subsidies to build their infrastructure, but they never agreed to Net Neutrality. Is that fair?
Yes, they are quasi-monopolies, and they are regulated as such. There are things they can do, and there are things they can't do. The things they can't do aren't things that are necessarily unethical. They are just regulations passed by democratically elected representatives.
So why is it so wrong in treating Net Neutrality as just a legislative issue, as opposed to a violation of a non-existent human right?
>But, certainly you can envision a scenario under which taxes can be raised in a manner and/or at the behest of certain groups which would make it unethical
Yes, I can envision such a scenario but low or high tax policy still isn't intrinsically an ethical issue. All you've argued is that it may be unethical to cheat the system in order to pass your pet tax policy. So yes, measures which are used to pass pro or anti net neutrality laws may be unethical.
You know many countries are working on giving the internet natural right status.
If the net wasnt neutral there would be no google we'd all be stuck using yahooor dogpile. The net and all its services would look a lot more like cable was begining to. I find it hard to take anyone seriously when they are defending companies that would have you pay in the blood of your first born if they could get away with it. You think the net would have gone mainstream? You think that facebook would exist? Amazon?
The world has changed with open unfiltered acess to the internet, anything trying to lock it down and monopolise the network transmissions at a base level is incredibly unethical and an attack on so many parts if your life now.
Its too much of a burden on carriers to be regulated like they should be? Fuck me man, its too much of a burden on the world at large not to.
The fcc needs to call them carriers, be done with it, fix the pricing, fix the dodgy dealing and if need be deregulate the issues that seem to be getting isps in such a huf.
I am not arguing that everything that is unfair is unethical, so your Yankees analogy doesn't apply.
We have heavily subsidized these companies. It's a bit of a rouse to say that they never agreed to Net Neutrality so shouldn't be beholden to it. The need for Net Neutrality arose because they wanted to go beyond their purview and accrete more power unto themselves. They are supposed to be serving customers, not holding access to them for ransom. Yes, they have invested in their infrastructures, and their reward is that they get to charge customers to access it, which they do handsomely.
BTW, your question implying some unfairness to the ISPs goes beyond a question of ethics (on which we'll agree to disagree) to an argument against Net Neutrality. Maybe that's where your real disagreement lies and the question of whether it's an ethical issue really isn't "all you're arguing".
> I understand your point, but I just don't see the ethical implications. Net neutrality, may be important, but it is a legal directive. Not supporting, or actively working to abolish net neutrality, isn't unethical.
So, according to you allowing a light weight to fight a heavy weight is ethical? In my view, it is not. Big corporations enjoy already great advantages that come from their size. If we let this go, we'll turn an oligopoly into a monopoly.
So imagine now if some ISP will have to BUY access to Netflix, Google, etc. So say 5 years from now, 1 carrier gives you Bing, Yahoo and Twitter while the other one gives you only Google. If you take the former you'll have to buy a proxy into Google because Google didn't pay the carrier and the carrier doesn't want free rides on his network. This could deteriorate faster then we might dare to think.
>So, according to you allowing a light weight to fight a heavy weight is ethical?
It's neither ethical nor unethical, that's all I'm saying. It's like saying "tax-cuts are unethical because of one thing or another". You can try to argue that, sure, but I think it'd be irrational.
By the way, I do support Net Neutrality because it's a good policy that makes everyone better off.
Arguably the telecoms too. They benefit from an increased requirement for their services, but that only happens as new and compelling services are created and catch on. Under what conditions are these services most likely to come about? Well, we've been able to compare networks where content and carrier have ties, and neutral networks. Think AOL versus the web. We have some idea which one does better.
Introducing extra data fees isn't necessarily the walled garden, I suppose, but depending on the structure, it walks us back some degree on the spectrum between the web and AOL.
Both.
The last time anything like this was proposed (and then it had the support of Google, etc), there was a huge showdown.
The problem you have here is simple: The messaging is very hard to get to politicians in a way that makes it clear what a big deal this is, and how bad it's been.
They have no concept of things like "broadband speeds".
On one side, they get told by the telecom union, verizon, comcast, ex-FCC chairs who are now lobbying, etc, that "if you impose these rules, we'll lose jobs and money, and it'll make the world a worse place. Plus, regulation has been stifling us for years. We want to do amazing things like increase speeds in your area, but we can't afford to invest if we have all these regulations, and if these guys won't pay their fair share" (The telecoms have their own made up presentations about how they really didn't waste billions of dollars and give people nothing in return but higher prices)
There is a lot inaccurate with this message, but it's still hard to counter. When what you mostly have is industry groups and tech companies arguing on the other side, it is hard for politicians to not believe their main beef is "we don't want to pay for this".
The "consumers are already paying these costs, people shouldn't pay twice" argument doesn't really fly.
If it affected politicians and their constituents ability to watch football, this would be easy.
Instead, it usually seems like it just affects some confusing and far away thing they don't want to bother understanding, or worse, take the telecom companies side on.
This would be a lot easier if there were millions of tech people arguing on the right side here, but that never actually happens
(I'll also point out Google took a huge hit back then for getting what it could out of this, when it was fairly clear even then that the FCC's position was going to be a loser in court. It was raked over the coals by everyone, including the same organizations now commenting on this court decision saying how the FCC should do something different. It was clear the FCC wasn't going to change its mind then, and Google at least got people something out of this nothing. Of course, i'm quite biased here).
You touch on a lot of good points, but I'd argue that there are some overarching issues as well. Fundamentally, our legislators and our regulatory bodies do not share certain values in common with a certain subset of technology companies. "Open" and "neutral" are words that have self-evident value to your typical Google engineer, but mean nothing to most people in government. The langua franca in regulatory circles today is neo-classical economics. That's why we're talking about cap & trade and spectrum auctions and insurance mandates.
Effective lobbying organizations have learned to speak the language. Environmental organizations these days aren't appealing to the duty of people to preserve the environment for future generations. They're talking in terms of externalized costs and how allowing pollution undermines economic efficiency.
From the FCC's point of view, the decision not to regulate the internet was considered a huge win. To this day, they crow about how abstaining from applying the heavy-handed common carrier regulations to internet service allowed it to blossom into what it is today. It's considered a massive success for policy that favors deregulation and private investment.
You can't get anywhere in this sort of environment speaking the language of "neutrality" and "openness." Post-Clinton, nobody in Washington speaks that language anymore.
And to be perfectly fair to everyone involved, nobody wants ISPs classified as common carriers, not with all the additional baggage that entails. Maybe Congress needs to legislate to give the FCC authority to implement certain "light touch" regulations over internet providers, but nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of oppressive 1950
s-1970's style regulatory burden.
I don't disagree with you at all. You are completely correct that the message people want to use here just isn't going to resonate right now.
When you say " To this day, they crow about how abstaining from applying the heavy-handed common carrier regulations to internet service allowed it to blossom into what it is today."
You hit the nail on the head here. Of course, this mixes up correlation and causation, but yes, the FCC somehow believes they played some role in all of this, when in fact, things happened despite them, not because of it...
The carrier have no reason to negotiate any regulation at all. Everyone is willing to give them everything they want, for nothing. The only thing that scares them is the uncertainty of courts, and they are doing wonderfully there :)
Intuitively, I would have thought that this would be horrible news for content providers/distributors, and great news for wireless carriers. However, today, Google, Facebook, Amazon &etc are flying, while Verizon and AT&T are falling.
Does anyone in the industry know what this is all about, and what importance this decision really has on the future of mobile?
> Well right now carriers can be gatekeepers until the SCOTUS takes stand or FTC pick up their game if I understand the whole mess correctly.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has nothing to do with this.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does.
> Everybody loses in the short term because the future is uncertain.
The incumbent carriers that had already been instituting practices that violate the at least the non-discrimination provision clearly benefit in the short term.
Note that your flying providers are huge. The hope of network neutrality is to turn the networks into gatekeepers to eliminate competition.
So say I want to create in my garage, an online store to compete with Amazon selling in the pet rock market. Oh what a pity, all your online shopping traffic got dropped at our border routers. We can "fix things" for you for a modest fee, just like Amazon. Of course we have a minimum payment of $50M/month to "fix" things. Oh you say you can't pay $50M out of your garage? Well our internet isn't for people like you anymore.
So yes, its very good news for large content providers because it eliminates any need for product development and eliminates competition.
The other way it eliminates competition is Amazon might be able to afford a department of a couple people to do nothing all day but negotiate with ISPs, but a startup could never spare the manpower. So startups could only release on TWC or Charter or AT&T or ... rather than everywhere on the internet.
This all sounds like a negative for the large companies I mentioned. Yeah, it's a lot worse for the small guys, under your assumptions[1], but in the end, the ISP is still taking money out of Amazon's pocket. Relatively speaking, this sounds like better news for ISPs than it is for Amazon's potential to squeeze out competition.
[1] Though, I think small sites would just engage in collective bargaining of sorts.
> Oh you say you can't pay $50M out of your garage? Well our internet isn't for people like you anymore.
The fact that it doesn't work that way already is largely just an accident of history, and I don't know if its necessary to keep that status quo artificially. Small entities are just in a bad leverage position, especially when their "product" depends heavily on someone else's very expensive and hard to reproduce infrastructure. Look at the app market. The people selling the infrastructure (Apple, Samsung) make all the money, because lots of people can write apps but very few can build cell phones. That's the natural state of things.
That is an odd analogy, and I don't think infrastructure providers making all the money is "the natural state of things".
The people actually building the infrastructure (Android) arent't making much any money with it, while those using it (Samsung) are. That is how its supposed to work; if power companies and utilities had been able to extract all the profit from manufacturing companies and discriminate against specific ones or have the ability to simply deny necessary upgrades, we would still be using oil lights.
I also respectfully disagree on the "very expensive" part. Internet access is one of the cheapest basic services, trivial to scale and the variable costs are basically zero. There is no inherent difficulty in transporting bits! Consider other infrastructure. Providing reliable electricity is very difficult (you need to balance demand and supply at all times), there is a very harsh regulatory environment that is constantly changing (in some countries, pocos need to prioritize renewable energy and pay guaranteed prices to customers inserting it), the hardware necessary is copper-heavy and poses significant reliability and safety issues.
Meanwhile, we are being reluctant to regulate internet providers to the point where they are the fast, dumb pipe we need, because lawmakers are clueless how this internet thing works (the 'cloud' isn't helping) and internet providers have this dream where they are the premier entertainment and media source (wakeup; YouTube and Netflix exist).
Android is part of the platform, but it's clearly not the capital intensive part of the cell phone infrastructure. That's be the CPUs, the DRAMs, the flash memory, etc.
> Meanwhile, we are being reluctant to regulate internet providers to the point where they are the fast, dumb pipe we need
Why should we regulate the telecoms into being fast, dumb pipes because that is what best serves the Youtubes and Netflixes of the world?
> because lawmakers are clueless how this internet thing works
There is a difference between not understanding the internet, and having a different value structure with respect to the internet. Saying that telcoms should be "fast, dumb pipes" isn't a matter of technical fact. It's not a part of any RFC. It's a (very software-centric) normative judgment about how the ideal organizational structure of the internet. It's certainly more consistent with how most software people view the internet to treat the physical infrastructure as dumb pipes, but that view has no technical basis. TCP/IP works just fine if AT&T gives higher priority to packets originating from companies that pay to play.
CapEx obviously doesn't tell the story, certainly not for companies like AT&T and Verizon. Try fundamentals; Moores has done good work for bandwidth, as media is still being streamed at 6 MBit. I'm not sure lawmakers understand this; there is no capacity problem. Technology is vastly ahead of growth and certainly consumer access to bandwidth. Meanwhile, internet providers are trying to tell lawmakers they need to make YouTube (and customers) pay for traffic because theres somehow congestion.
Of course it's not a technical fact. The basic idea is that regulating them to be the dumb pipe can yield the biggest gain for the general economy, while they get the benefit of a low margin, but extremely stable business (as with any other infrastructure).
The obvious problem right now is that instead of competing with each other, internet providers are trying to compete with their customers. That is not the sign of a working market, and it is not acceptable for critical infrastructure. Regulation is needed, and certainly not towards giving providers more flexibility.
> CapEx obviously doesn't tell the story, certainly not for companies like AT&T and Verizon. Try fundamentals; Moores has done good work for bandwidth, as media is still being streamed at 6 MBit.
It's hilarious for you to say CapEx doesn't matter, then invoke Moore's law, which is rooted in exponentially increasing CapEx! Guess who is in the top-5 of the CapEx list along with AT&T and Verizon? Hint: it's Intel.
"Small entities are just in a bad leverage position, especially when their "product" depends heavily on someone else's very expensive and hard to reproduce infrastructure"
Small entities already pay their fair share for access to that infrastructure. Have you forgotten that startups have to pay for their Internet service? The Internet is not a fancy cable TV system where service providers negotiate contracts with websites. Nobody needs "leverage" on the Internet; you are limited by your technical capabilities, not by your negotiating skills, and that is what makes the Internet a great step forward.
Net neutrality is why we do not talk about "paying for Verizon access" or "paying for Comcast access," but rather, "Paying for Internet access."
What you're describing is a fiction, a fiction that only exists because of the status quo. At the end of the day, the internet is just very expensive physical infrastructure in the form of coaxial and fiber optic cables and wireless base stations all over the country. Right now, the companies that own the physical infrastructure are happy to sell bandwidth on a non-discriminatory basis, but there is nothing inherent in the technology that requires them to do this. There is nothing inherent in the technology that prevents them from giving better service to the big company that is willing to pay a lot of money than to the start-up that can't afford to pay a lot of money.
Imagine an urban parking lot that's near a number of stores. For awhile, it operates on a non-discriminatory basis. Everyone pays to park, and then goes wherever they want. One day, Wal-Mart moves in and cuts a deal with the parking lot. In return for a giant check each month, the parking lot will let Wal-Mart customers park for free. Now, Wal-Mart has a huge edge over the neighboring mom and pop stores. Is this wrong? Or is this just how the world works?
What you're doing is making a normative point: nobody should need leverage on the internet. That's a fine thing to believe, but it's just a belief. It's nothing inherent in the architecture of the internet.
"There is nothing inherent in the technology that prevents them from giving better service to the big company that is willing to pay a lot of money than to the start-up that can't afford to pay a lot of money."
No, but the technology is also not designed to facilitate such discrimination, and everything about the design of the Internet assumes net neutrality. There is nothing in TCP/IP that uniquely identifies services, nor anything that facilitates a notion of classes of service. One service may have multiple hosts and multiple IP addresses. One IP address may be shared by multiple services. It may or may not be possible to inspect packets to determine which service they belong to; nowhere is any promise of "inspectability" made.
So while nothing prevents it, imposing such fees does require substantial new infrastructure to be deployed and new protocols to be developed. In other words, the Internet itself has to change to accommodate such a system -- because as designed, the Internet assumes neutrality.
So, the court agrees with many others that the FCC needs to re-label cable companies as communication common carriers before regulating them as common carriers. I guess that's good?
Is it a difficult thing technically or only politically for the FCC to change their minds / admit they did this wrong in the first place?
What is the downside of treating the cable networks as communications media?
It goes over the transition from telegraph to telephone to internet, talks about the rise of media conglomerates, and basically explains how we're in the mess we're in today. Quite an enjoyable read, especially when learning about the differences between old and new styles of monopolies.
What the court is saying is that, if the FCC refuses to classify broadband providers as common carriers, then, because they neither receive the same protections as common carriers nor have the same responsibilities, they can't be regulated as if they were common carriers.
The FCC could change their rules to treat broadband suppliers as common carriers. However, that's something that big-name broadband providers don't seem to want, as it would reduce their freedom of operations.
But what mjmahone17 is saying is that the FCC should label broadband providers (in my view: both wired and wireless) as common carriers which would undo the "information services" label put on them in 2002 (http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/n...)
No liability for how third parties using your network (e.g. for libel or violating copyrights). There may be other regulations that limit or eliminate this liability though.
So, right now, if someone detonates a bomb with a cell phone, Verizon/AT&T is basically a co-conspirator? You'd think they'd want to be a common carrier, at least if it weren't for the US's general lack of enthusiasm for holding corporations responsible for anything.
Um, no. That common carriers aren't liable for something doesn't imply non-common carriers are liable. Moreover, IANAL, but I can't imagine common carriers are exempt from prosecution for criminal conspiracy.
My knowledge of Anti-Trust laws dates back to elementary school, but how is it legal for the companies that maintain the infrastructure to be in the content game as well, when other content providers can't compete on favorable pricing for bandwidth?
Because it's considered "vertical integration" and therefore not subject to anti-trust laws. Comcast merging with Time Warner would be considered horizontal; Comcast merging with NBCU was considered vertical and therefore allowed to go forward in January 2011.
I'm currently reading Susan Crawford's book Captive Audience, which is a detailed history of this exact topic. Recommended. Here's a talk she gave at Harvard summarizing the story and issues at stake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R4xhwy-1oI
We'll be getting some leading net neutrality scholars and lawyers to annotate the doc, so check back later today for interesting, in-depth analysis along-side the key passages in the case.
It is obvious that they are, de facto, common carriers.
Give up the lobbyist payola, reclassify them, and introduce some real competition to my now more frequent than annual Crapcast price bumps (or significant humps, as it were).
(And in my case, this is primarily for Internet, although basic cable comes along as a quasi-freebie -- it costs, but then a discount on the combined package largely or totally negates that cost.)
Otherwise, you can bet I'm not voting for either major party, next time around.
As a consumer, I find that the only way to defeat this bullshit, is to stop paying for it. If I had an alternative to Crapcast in my neighborhood, I'd take it. (I don't count AT&T, because for a lonnngggg time they refused to deploy high speed Internet here, and because their policies and behaviour are just as bad. As well, they've personally screwed me in a prior location, as I've commented before.)
You do understand that regulating carriers as if they were utilities but then demanding more competition is inconsistent? Utilities get monopoly protection in return for offering universal service. That's the quid pro quo.
I think he's hoping if all ISPs become highly regulated common carriers, then all neighborhoods will have to be supplied with uverse, cablemodems, and long range wifi/wisp service, instead of just some.
So there's one and only one highly regulated cable provider, and one and only one uverse , not sure about the WISP thing...
But that's at odds with the call for more competition. In a more competitive market, providers would compete to provide faster and faster service in the most densely-populated, highest-value markets. E.g. basically T-Mobile's strategy in the U.S. They spend their limited infrastructure capital on rolling out fast LTE in key markets, while leaving non-urban areas with HSPA or even no service at all.
I may be wrong, but I believe this would re-introduce avenues for competitors to lease capacity on -- if properly regulated -- a parity basis with the incumbent's own cost to provide.
Let some government cost accountants loose on these incumbents' books. Then let me buy my capacity from a company that isn't trying to screw me vertically nor horizontally and that doesn't e.g. conscript me into a basic cable TV package when all I want is Internet.
Perhaps then, as well, we would be able to actually segregate infrastructure development and maintenance costs and be sure we are getting what we are paying for. E.g. if my cost goes up, it's because I'm actually getting more in return. At a time when wholesale bandwidth costs have been halving year upon year (at least, as of a couple of years ago), the near doubling of my monthly bill over the past few years is sorely in need of some -- independent and measurable and demonstrable -- justification.
Finally, Internet is no longer a luxury. It's a necessity. With often only a single distributor in many locations, they are effectively a common carrier.
After all the bad behaviour on the part of these companies, I have ZERO sympathy left for them. They've abused their positions. It's time for that abuse to end.
P.S. Yeah, I'm pissed. Probably not the best position from which to comment.
This month's Crapcast bill contained another circa 5.5 % increase -- for nothing. It's been well less than a year since their last increase, and inflation is running far under that figure.
As for build-out costs: I notice when my neighbours (that's one family of two adults) are home on weekends, because my one, rather occasional Netflix stream drops from quality 4 to 3 or not infrequently to 2. They aren't doing diddly to improve capacity/delivery in my neighbourhood.
Hmm ... I think that the grandparent meant that any company should be confined to doing one thing.
One company maintains and lays cables, other provides connectivity to said cables etc. Which means that you could buy connectivity to internet from various suppliers depending on your needs.
This doesn't seem like a good idea either, which seems odd for me to say since it was also portrayed as a bad idea in Atlas Shrugged.
Essentially if a company has to rely on other companies and cannot do the work themselves if they are capable of doing so, then results and competition may actually suffer if there are weak links or no competition at any point in the chain.
How can something or someone be half-dead? Life is a binary thing, you are either YES (1) alive or NO (0) dead. I fail to comprehend how any respectable (tech) journalist would call something "half-dead". It implies there is a state between being alive and death when this is clearly not the case.
I don't think this tangent adds much to the intended discussion, and I feel you're missing the point of the original post. There is much more to talk about here than the definition of death. However; I would like to both humour and disagree with you, I don't think there is an agreed position of what it really means to be alive. Is someone in a vegetative state really alive? If a human is on their deathbed with absolutely no chance of recovery, although they're not technically dead, they're not really alive either. There is most definitely a transition.
What I wish would happen is that organizational forces were focused on breaking up ISP monopolies over the pipes. Essentially, building a firewall between infrastructure and content. It would create a market...remember that thing we think controls America's destiny...that would lead to faster bandwidth and also ISPs that offer free, open, and protected services.
Am I experiencing deja-vu? I fee like many of these comments (and their responses!) are exact reposts from earlier submissions about this very same topic.
"The court is saying the FCC needs to reclassify providers"
"The Republicans are holding up nominations"
>In its ruling against the FCC’s rules, the court said that such restrictions are not needed in part because consumers have a choice in which ISP they use.
"(1) Advanced communications services
The term “advanced communications services” means—
(A) interconnected VoIP service;
(B) non-interconnected VoIP service;
(C) electronic messaging service; and
(D) interoperable video conferencing service."
"(11) Common carrier
The term “common carrier” or “carrier” means any person engaged as a common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio or interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy, except where reference is made to common carriers not subject to this chapter; but a person engaged in radio broadcasting shall not, insofar as such person is so engaged, be deemed a common carrier."
"(24) Information service
The term “information service” means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service."
I'm not a lawyer, but consider myself well grounded in tech and telecom, but reading these definitions I'm kind of at a loss. In common law, my understanding is that a "common carrier" is someone that makes transport services available to the public. These can be physical, such as shipping a crate, or technological (telecom) in nature. By that inference, transporting packets of information is essentially same as transporting normal packages.
Unfortunately, the "by wire or radio or interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy" is so period-specific that one could argue that it doesn't apply and the (24) Information Services is so broad and vague, it could practically be applied to anything.
One interesting bit, which makes me think that there is hope, is the definition of advanced communications, that include both VoIP and messaging services. Sadly, their definitions are not that broad...
The definition of "common carrier" implies a lot more than just "carries goods for the public." For example, common carrier status implies regulation, often of rates, and liability on the part of carriers for any losses. In the world of telecom, it represents a whole host of regulations. For example, telephone carriage is taxed to fund something called the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes infrastructure development of telecom service to rural areas.
One of the key purposes of the 1996 telecom act was to deregulate the industry to the extent that it was possible. The FCC consequently decided to treat internet service as an "information service" under the Act, so as to avoid subjecting it to all the regulations applicable to "common carriers."
So while you could argue that modern ISPs resemble common carriers in certain ways, one of the ways they do not is that they are relatively unregulated, and there was a lot of intent and purpose behind the decision to treat them that way.
While there might have been reason to not regulate in the past, schemes like the ones advocated by Verizon really strike me as questionable. In 1996, we had to worry about these networks really catching on. In 2014, it's hard to imagine not having them.
Consider a simple ad supported news site. It may run ads hosted on hundreds of sources. When the page loads, the browser requests individual images from different sources. If some are not paying the verizon tax or not paying enough, the page loads slower or with broken content. This is pretty foundational stuff. It really isn't all that different from having different audio quality in a phone call depending if the local exchange operator was paid extra or not.
As the result, it seems to me that classification and the additional regulation is warranted.
common carrier n. - an individual, a company or a public utility (like municipal buses) which is in the regular business of transporting people and/or freight.
freight n. - Goods carried by a vessel or vehicle, especially by a commercial carrier; cargo.
Packets are neither classified as people nor freight.
Does anyone have a good solution for this argument? I find myself wildly sympathetic to both sides of it. Is there any way to decentralize internet access in the future (something like what the utopian ideal of solar powering your home would be for electricity)?
To the extent that near-future cellular data connections are good enough for most things, they introduce a lot of additional choice. Instead of just cable, DSL, or satellite, you can also throw three or more cellular networks into competition.
As for wired connections, I see a way to get competitive pricing there too. Neighborhoods and towns should invest in their own last-mile fiber, and then buy transit at competitive rates. They could outsource the operation of the local network, but they would retain ownership of it and can always get competitive bids for another operator.
Quote from the linked article, "(net neutrality rules) forbid ISPs from blocking services or charging content providers for access to the network." But that is confusing. ISPs are already charging content providers for access to the network. Netflix and Google need to pay for their bandwidth.
Actually, web neutrality means the ISPs should treat all data in their network equally.
Net neutrality never existed to begin with. It is a pipe dream of those who think Americans still live in the 'Land of the free'.
Ever wondered why youtube videos seems to work for shit over some connections that are rated at a high throughput on speed tests? Yep... data discrimination in action. Especially on providers that also provide television? Hmmm... I wonder why a tv provider would want to slow down youtube. Duh.
Also, for those who think net neutrality is a good thing; grow up. It is a good thing. Some thing actually -are- more important than others. I would prefer that I can actually get regular html pages at high speed while some dumbass is streaming a 4k video of some random off joke on the work connection. I realize this is just a local network example, but it ties all the way to the globe if you think about it for a bit.
The end of net neutrality would be the end of spam. Why? Because if you charge a slight amount for email, it removes spammers ability to send 20 billion of them. They've tried this repeatedly though and it never took on. So long as the internet is a wild west of chaos, there can be no real improvement on the quality of the whole system.
Keep smoking weed and believing. If you smoke enough maybe you'll start believing that the world really follows whatever delusional model you are believing in.
We could make all the laws we want about Net Neutrality, it wouldn't change the fundamental flaw that made this problem possible in the first place: too much centralization.
I hear that the US, there are only 2 ISPs: one of the big 2, or the little local one. In France, we have about 4. At the other end, we have Google, Amazon, but most notably we have YouTube and Netflix.
Clearly the market is not efficient. Why do we have so big players in the first place? Why do we tend to have only the big players?
Because of the infrastructure. In the way the internet is distributed, artificial economies of scale and barriers to entry favour the big ISPs (this is clearly the case in France, I suppose the US is the same). And, we have asymmetric bandwidth, which kills peer to peer exchanges. If people were allowed to host servers at home, there would be no need for things such as YouTube, Blogger, or Facebook (search engine are still a thorny problem, though).
If we got rid of this over-centralization, it would be harder to discriminate your bandwidth in the first place. Net Neutrality would be the default, instead of something we have to fight for.
4 major broadband providers would be a lot better than 2. In the US, the two are the cable TV company, and the telephone company. Recently, a telephone companies came to a marketing agreement with the cable companies; the telco would control the wireless connections, and stop seriously competing on the wired broadband side. So, we might be moving to de facto monopolies for fixed line.
How does France have 4 providers? Wherever we tried line-sharing here, the ILEC would stop repairing the lines used by competitors until the customers switched to the incumbent.
The trick in France is, the last line often belongs to the former National Monopoly (which has been privatized since, and is now called the "historical operator"). Since monopolies are bad, the historical operator has an obligation of leasing its copper wires.
It's still bad, and we still have a relatively high barrier to entry, but it is possible. There exist for instance a number of little non-profit providers (not among the big 4), who make do by sub-leasing part of the big one's network.
There are still problems of the sort you're talking about (like "it's not us, it's the other company your data goes through"), but as people are now able to cut themselves off completely from the historical operator, their actual provider has to (and do) take responsibility, and fix the line.
As an aside, it is somewhat written in our law that to be called an "internet connection", it must provide a public IP address, and the user must be able to do whatever she wants. There are violations (Orange blocks the outgoing SMTP port), but it mostly holds: users are all allowed to host servers —though asymmetric bandwidth makes this impractical. Note that mobile connections are called "data" deals, not "internet" deals.
That's like saying the rest of the world shouldn't care about the UK's content filtering. None of us live in isolation; all our lawmakers are friends and they like to share ideas and cut deals.
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[ 498 ms ] story [ 3280 ms ] threadThese things matter.
Of course, such a decision would itself be challenged, with ISPs arguing that what they do is not "telecommunications" as defined in the Telecommunications Act (I'm not saying this argument would be correct, but its not an uncontroversial position that the conflict between the order and the law can be remedied by simply reframing the order without a change in the law.)
- Allow for consolidation of radio stations (and thus, the meteoric rise of ClearChannel)
- Allow for consolidation of telecommunications companies (and thus, almost the major phone service companies are the progeny of the Baby Bells)
It also did some very good things, like requiring entrants into the data services market to interconnect with incumbents.
But it also allowed telecoms to rip off the USGOV and taxpayers in extraordinary lengths (see previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7021057 )
The DC Court handles all of these big, Federal cases that make the top of HN. A President's impact on the DC Court is almost as important as their impact on the Supreme Court.
No, it doesn't. The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit handles appeals of federal regulatory agency decisions, but -- while this FCC decision is an example of those -- you don't see a lot of them make the top of HN. Most of the "big, federal" cases that make the top of HN are either:
1) criminal cases, which go to trial in the District Court in which the crime occurred, and for appeal to the Circuit Court in which that District Court is located (which might happen to be the DC Circuit if the trial was originally in the District Court for the District of Columbia, but usually that's not the case); or
2) coyright cases, which again go through any of the District Courts for trial, and the corresponding Circuit Court for appeals; or
3) patent cases, which go to trial in the District Court in which the crime occurred, and for appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal (not DC) Circuit.
While the DC Circuit is very important, its not that commonly involved in cases that make the front page of HN.
Note that Silberman's dissent was because Silberman thought the whole Open Internet Order should have been struck down (including the disclosure requirements), while Rogers and Tatel only thought that that the requirements they characterize as "common carrier" requirements (non-discrimination and non-blocking) should be struck down.
So this wasn't "Clinton appointees vote against FCC, Reagan appointee backs FCC".
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230393690... "For the 12-months ending in September, the D.C. Circuit had 149 appeals filed per active judge. By comparison, the 11th Circuit had 778 appeals filed per active judge for the same period... The national average of appeals per active judge is 383."
These things matter.
Of course, I'm not at all surprised to see a News Corp outlet overlook a critical distinction that is inconvenient for the propaganda interests of the Republican Party.
The D.C. Circuit's docket consists very disproportionately of highly complex regulatory appeals, which take much more time than simpler types of cases. These cases are not only often very factually complex, but of a nature that leaves more scope for appellate review. Roughly speaking, when a circuit court reviews the factual findings or discretionary actions of a lower court, it does so deferentially. E.g. an appellate court reviews sentences imposed by a district court only for abuse of discretion. However, a circuit court reviews the legal conclusions of a lower court from scratch (de novo). Regulatory appeals in the D.C. Circuit are much more likely to turn on complex issues of legal interpretation that the appellate court must review from scratch, than on factual disputes that the appellate court need only review for clear error.
The D.C. Circuit has 10% criminal cases. 5 circuits have above 25% criminal cases. The D.C. Circuit has over 30% administrative cases, most circuits have under 10%. The D.C. Circuit has almost no private prisoner cases (cases by prisoners against state officials for violations of rights), while most circuits have over 15%. The D.C. Circuit has over 20% U.S. civil cases (civil cases in which the U.S. is a defendant), while most circuits have under 5%.
Even within those divisions there are relevant distinctions. An appeal from the Board of Immigration Appeals is an "administrative" case, but it's a much simpler matter to resolve, usually, than say a challenge to an EPA regulation. So while the 9th Circuit has almost 30% "administrative cases," each of those are likely much simpler to resolve than each administrative case on the D.C. Circuit's docket (not many people are getting deported from D.C.)
As an aside, why do you say that the DC Circuit is "underworked" instead of saying that the 11th Circuit is "overworked"?
If you're right that the 11th Circuit is overworked, then that point actually cuts against your argument: let's put more judges there where they need more help, and not the DC Circuit.
The system is, we have these seats, created by acts of Congress, which need to be filled. The President nominates candidates -- ideally candidates recommended by the Congressmen in the region, for regional appointments -- and the Senate vets them, and confirms or denies their appointment. The Republicans, however, aren't playing fair: they have been refusing to even allow votes on the candidates, even while admitting the candidates are qualified. Furthermore, they are not cooperating in the nomination process, refusing to recommend candidates to the President.
It's not fair, and everything after that is camouflage. If it was really a concern about the workload of the judiciary, and act of Congress could add or remove seats as necessary. But it isn't, and Congress isn't acting -- they are refusing to act, never in good faith and rarely at all.
They refused to classify the providers in a way that gave them express statutory authority to promulgate these regulations, and the court called them on it.
I want to see this happen, but the right way is for the FCC to stop pussyfooting around and classify them as common carriers, which they are, so it can regulate them as such.
They are just afraid of the political whining.
It's comments like these that make me not like net neutrality. There is no way you are going to stop people who spend more money from being able to enjoy better Internet connections.
On the other hand, ISPs ought to be stopped, in general, from discriminating against traffic based on a) their desire to sell their own service that competes with it, or b) who you are connecting to.
Your interpretation is ... strange. The big telecoms are publicly owned. So those "rich people who own the ISPs" are shareholders?
I'm pretty sure zem referred to "rich" and "poor" consumers of internet services. Not telecoms, not corporations.
Agreed, so there's no need to give them more ways to enhance their advantage. They are too far ahead already. Because that's what is all about...
Followed by the tort lawyers saturation bombing ads for class action lawsuits alleging breach of contract and tortious interference in contracts.
You can't prioritise some packets without disadvantaging others. Unless the rules were crafted very, very carefully (and, let's face it, do we really think that would happen), I could easily envisage major connectivity providers auctioning off a handful of "prime video streamer" slots to companies like YouTube and Netflix, leaving other companies' services unusable. And that's just what I can imagine - the unintended consequences that I can't imagine are potentially far, far worse.
We got from 14.4k dial-up to multi-megabit always-on broadband (both fixed-line AND mobile) without compromising on net neutrality. The potential disadvantages far outweigh the claimed advantages.
Net neutrality does nothing for rich or poor. The rich already benefit from better connectivity and internet access. Net neutrality doesn't automatically make internet cheaper either, in fact, it may make it more expensive because the telecoms cannot complement their internet fees with money collected from Youtube and Netflix for priority access. So at least theoretically, net neutrality could imply higher internet fees for the end-user.
I don't know which way you lean ideologically, but your line of reasoning is similar to arguing that cable packages are unethical, because the rich have better access and selection than the poor. You can argue it, but I'd disagree. The USA, along with most of the world, has a mixed economy which has capitalism as its foundation, complemented by a strong government which provides for common infrastructure, safety net, and regulation. There's a very good reason for having such a system, but it does mean that there will exist poor and rich (and everything in-between). Saying something is unethical just because there would be a difference between what the rich and the poor would have available to them is irrational. It most certainly doesn't apply to Net Neutrality.
//
For the record, I do support Net Neutrality, but I wouldn't characterize it as a moral or ethical issue. I see it as just good policy because it levels the playing field between big and small players, which makes everyone better off (rich and poor). Microsoft, Netflix, Google, Apple, Amazon are going to be fine in a non-net-neutral world, startups and mid-sized companies will be at a disadvantage.
They should be given two options: 1) open network and they can keep all their extras like security or 2) close network but no extras.
HD Video streaming services and software downloads (e.g. via Steam or Xbox) are probably the things most affect by Net Neutrality, especially since telecoms have competing services and those types of services benefit immensely from unlimited caps and lots of bandwidth.
So I'm still confused as to what argument you're trying to make. You're hand-waving quite a bit trying to position it as a grave ethical issue and I just don't see it. Again, I think Net Neutrality should be the law of the land. It benefits everyone (except telecoms) and it's been a huge success so far. Let's keep it.
But, even if we were to take your assumptions at face value, I'm not sure how you gloss over other details (such as their ability to price competitors like Netflix out of the market or essentially hold their users for ransom to the highest bidder).
Given that they are quasi-monopolies in most cases, these are certainly issues that deal with consumer choice on one end and access to opportunity on the other (i.e. for content providers, startups, etc.). In other words, these are issues of fairness. How can something be both made willfully unfair, yet be ethical? Would you not agree that fairness as a principle is morally right? That is the definition of ethical.
You made the argument in another comment that it's no more a matter of ethics than is raising taxes. But, certainly you can envision a scenario under which taxes can be raised in a manner and/or at the behest of certain groups which would make it unethical?
If none of this makes sense to you, then therein lies the divergence. It's one regarding the basic definition of ethical.
>How can something be both made willfully unfair, yet be ethical?
Is it unethical that Yankees spend twice the league average on their ball-club because it is most certainly unfair. After all, not every team gets to be based in New York.
And I'd be careful with words like 'fairness'. A socialist and a libertarian will have vastly different definitions of what is 'fair' and what is 'unfair'. To you it's unfair that Netflix may get priced out by a Telecom, but then again, Netflix didn't spend billions building and maintaining the infrastructure, as well as acquiring all those customers. Telecoms got subsidies to build their infrastructure, but they never agreed to Net Neutrality. Is that fair?
Yes, they are quasi-monopolies, and they are regulated as such. There are things they can do, and there are things they can't do. The things they can't do aren't things that are necessarily unethical. They are just regulations passed by democratically elected representatives.
So why is it so wrong in treating Net Neutrality as just a legislative issue, as opposed to a violation of a non-existent human right?
>But, certainly you can envision a scenario under which taxes can be raised in a manner and/or at the behest of certain groups which would make it unethical
Yes, I can envision such a scenario but low or high tax policy still isn't intrinsically an ethical issue. All you've argued is that it may be unethical to cheat the system in order to pass your pet tax policy. So yes, measures which are used to pass pro or anti net neutrality laws may be unethical.
Neither did the telecoms spend billions in developing movie streaming software, yet they benefited from all the content consumption.
> Telecoms got subsidies to build their infrastructure, but they never agreed to Net Neutrality. Is that fair?
Neither did they explicitly assert that they will be net-biased.
If the net wasnt neutral there would be no google we'd all be stuck using yahooor dogpile. The net and all its services would look a lot more like cable was begining to. I find it hard to take anyone seriously when they are defending companies that would have you pay in the blood of your first born if they could get away with it. You think the net would have gone mainstream? You think that facebook would exist? Amazon?
The world has changed with open unfiltered acess to the internet, anything trying to lock it down and monopolise the network transmissions at a base level is incredibly unethical and an attack on so many parts if your life now.
Its too much of a burden on carriers to be regulated like they should be? Fuck me man, its too much of a burden on the world at large not to.
The fcc needs to call them carriers, be done with it, fix the pricing, fix the dodgy dealing and if need be deregulate the issues that seem to be getting isps in such a huf.
We have heavily subsidized these companies. It's a bit of a rouse to say that they never agreed to Net Neutrality so shouldn't be beholden to it. The need for Net Neutrality arose because they wanted to go beyond their purview and accrete more power unto themselves. They are supposed to be serving customers, not holding access to them for ransom. Yes, they have invested in their infrastructures, and their reward is that they get to charge customers to access it, which they do handsomely.
BTW, your question implying some unfairness to the ISPs goes beyond a question of ethics (on which we'll agree to disagree) to an argument against Net Neutrality. Maybe that's where your real disagreement lies and the question of whether it's an ethical issue really isn't "all you're arguing".
So, according to you allowing a light weight to fight a heavy weight is ethical? In my view, it is not. Big corporations enjoy already great advantages that come from their size. If we let this go, we'll turn an oligopoly into a monopoly.
So imagine now if some ISP will have to BUY access to Netflix, Google, etc. So say 5 years from now, 1 carrier gives you Bing, Yahoo and Twitter while the other one gives you only Google. If you take the former you'll have to buy a proxy into Google because Google didn't pay the carrier and the carrier doesn't want free rides on his network. This could deteriorate faster then we might dare to think.
It's neither ethical nor unethical, that's all I'm saying. It's like saying "tax-cuts are unethical because of one thing or another". You can try to argue that, sure, but I think it'd be irrational.
By the way, I do support Net Neutrality because it's a good policy that makes everyone better off.
In some philosophical traditions making everyone better off is the actual definition of ethical.
Everyone except telecoms (and possibly the big guys who could afford the telecom toll).
Introducing extra data fees isn't necessarily the walled garden, I suppose, but depending on the structure, it walks us back some degree on the spectrum between the web and AOL.
The problem you have here is simple: The messaging is very hard to get to politicians in a way that makes it clear what a big deal this is, and how bad it's been.
They have no concept of things like "broadband speeds". On one side, they get told by the telecom union, verizon, comcast, ex-FCC chairs who are now lobbying, etc, that "if you impose these rules, we'll lose jobs and money, and it'll make the world a worse place. Plus, regulation has been stifling us for years. We want to do amazing things like increase speeds in your area, but we can't afford to invest if we have all these regulations, and if these guys won't pay their fair share" (The telecoms have their own made up presentations about how they really didn't waste billions of dollars and give people nothing in return but higher prices)
There is a lot inaccurate with this message, but it's still hard to counter. When what you mostly have is industry groups and tech companies arguing on the other side, it is hard for politicians to not believe their main beef is "we don't want to pay for this".
The "consumers are already paying these costs, people shouldn't pay twice" argument doesn't really fly.
If it affected politicians and their constituents ability to watch football, this would be easy.
Instead, it usually seems like it just affects some confusing and far away thing they don't want to bother understanding, or worse, take the telecom companies side on.
This would be a lot easier if there were millions of tech people arguing on the right side here, but that never actually happens
(I'll also point out Google took a huge hit back then for getting what it could out of this, when it was fairly clear even then that the FCC's position was going to be a loser in court. It was raked over the coals by everyone, including the same organizations now commenting on this court decision saying how the FCC should do something different. It was clear the FCC wasn't going to change its mind then, and Google at least got people something out of this nothing. Of course, i'm quite biased here).
Effective lobbying organizations have learned to speak the language. Environmental organizations these days aren't appealing to the duty of people to preserve the environment for future generations. They're talking in terms of externalized costs and how allowing pollution undermines economic efficiency.
From the FCC's point of view, the decision not to regulate the internet was considered a huge win. To this day, they crow about how abstaining from applying the heavy-handed common carrier regulations to internet service allowed it to blossom into what it is today. It's considered a massive success for policy that favors deregulation and private investment.
You can't get anywhere in this sort of environment speaking the language of "neutrality" and "openness." Post-Clinton, nobody in Washington speaks that language anymore.
And to be perfectly fair to everyone involved, nobody wants ISPs classified as common carriers, not with all the additional baggage that entails. Maybe Congress needs to legislate to give the FCC authority to implement certain "light touch" regulations over internet providers, but nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of oppressive 1950 s-1970's style regulatory burden.
When you say " To this day, they crow about how abstaining from applying the heavy-handed common carrier regulations to internet service allowed it to blossom into what it is today."
You hit the nail on the head here. Of course, this mixes up correlation and causation, but yes, the FCC somehow believes they played some role in all of this, when in fact, things happened despite them, not because of it...
The carrier have no reason to negotiate any regulation at all. Everyone is willing to give them everything they want, for nothing. The only thing that scares them is the uncertainty of courts, and they are doing wonderfully there :)
Does anyone in the industry know what this is all about, and what importance this decision really has on the future of mobile?
Everybody loses in the short term because the future is uncertain.
Edit: Wrong TLA agency
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has nothing to do with this.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does.
> Everybody loses in the short term because the future is uncertain.
The incumbent carriers that had already been instituting practices that violate the at least the non-discrimination provision clearly benefit in the short term.
So say I want to create in my garage, an online store to compete with Amazon selling in the pet rock market. Oh what a pity, all your online shopping traffic got dropped at our border routers. We can "fix things" for you for a modest fee, just like Amazon. Of course we have a minimum payment of $50M/month to "fix" things. Oh you say you can't pay $50M out of your garage? Well our internet isn't for people like you anymore.
So yes, its very good news for large content providers because it eliminates any need for product development and eliminates competition.
The other way it eliminates competition is Amazon might be able to afford a department of a couple people to do nothing all day but negotiate with ISPs, but a startup could never spare the manpower. So startups could only release on TWC or Charter or AT&T or ... rather than everywhere on the internet.
[1] Though, I think small sites would just engage in collective bargaining of sorts.
The fact that it doesn't work that way already is largely just an accident of history, and I don't know if its necessary to keep that status quo artificially. Small entities are just in a bad leverage position, especially when their "product" depends heavily on someone else's very expensive and hard to reproduce infrastructure. Look at the app market. The people selling the infrastructure (Apple, Samsung) make all the money, because lots of people can write apps but very few can build cell phones. That's the natural state of things.
The people actually building the infrastructure (Android) arent't making much any money with it, while those using it (Samsung) are. That is how its supposed to work; if power companies and utilities had been able to extract all the profit from manufacturing companies and discriminate against specific ones or have the ability to simply deny necessary upgrades, we would still be using oil lights.
I also respectfully disagree on the "very expensive" part. Internet access is one of the cheapest basic services, trivial to scale and the variable costs are basically zero. There is no inherent difficulty in transporting bits! Consider other infrastructure. Providing reliable electricity is very difficult (you need to balance demand and supply at all times), there is a very harsh regulatory environment that is constantly changing (in some countries, pocos need to prioritize renewable energy and pay guaranteed prices to customers inserting it), the hardware necessary is copper-heavy and poses significant reliability and safety issues.
Meanwhile, we are being reluctant to regulate internet providers to the point where they are the fast, dumb pipe we need, because lawmakers are clueless how this internet thing works (the 'cloud' isn't helping) and internet providers have this dream where they are the premier entertainment and media source (wakeup; YouTube and Netflix exist).
And there is nothing cheap about providing internet access. AT&T and Verizon lead the country in annual capital expenditure: http://news.investors.com/technology/091913-671712-institute....
> Meanwhile, we are being reluctant to regulate internet providers to the point where they are the fast, dumb pipe we need
Why should we regulate the telecoms into being fast, dumb pipes because that is what best serves the Youtubes and Netflixes of the world?
> because lawmakers are clueless how this internet thing works
There is a difference between not understanding the internet, and having a different value structure with respect to the internet. Saying that telcoms should be "fast, dumb pipes" isn't a matter of technical fact. It's not a part of any RFC. It's a (very software-centric) normative judgment about how the ideal organizational structure of the internet. It's certainly more consistent with how most software people view the internet to treat the physical infrastructure as dumb pipes, but that view has no technical basis. TCP/IP works just fine if AT&T gives higher priority to packets originating from companies that pay to play.
Of course it's not a technical fact. The basic idea is that regulating them to be the dumb pipe can yield the biggest gain for the general economy, while they get the benefit of a low margin, but extremely stable business (as with any other infrastructure).
The obvious problem right now is that instead of competing with each other, internet providers are trying to compete with their customers. That is not the sign of a working market, and it is not acceptable for critical infrastructure. Regulation is needed, and certainly not towards giving providers more flexibility.
It's hilarious for you to say CapEx doesn't matter, then invoke Moore's law, which is rooted in exponentially increasing CapEx! Guess who is in the top-5 of the CapEx list along with AT&T and Verizon? Hint: it's Intel.
Small entities already pay their fair share for access to that infrastructure. Have you forgotten that startups have to pay for their Internet service? The Internet is not a fancy cable TV system where service providers negotiate contracts with websites. Nobody needs "leverage" on the Internet; you are limited by your technical capabilities, not by your negotiating skills, and that is what makes the Internet a great step forward.
Net neutrality is why we do not talk about "paying for Verizon access" or "paying for Comcast access," but rather, "Paying for Internet access."
Imagine an urban parking lot that's near a number of stores. For awhile, it operates on a non-discriminatory basis. Everyone pays to park, and then goes wherever they want. One day, Wal-Mart moves in and cuts a deal with the parking lot. In return for a giant check each month, the parking lot will let Wal-Mart customers park for free. Now, Wal-Mart has a huge edge over the neighboring mom and pop stores. Is this wrong? Or is this just how the world works?
What you're doing is making a normative point: nobody should need leverage on the internet. That's a fine thing to believe, but it's just a belief. It's nothing inherent in the architecture of the internet.
No, but the technology is also not designed to facilitate such discrimination, and everything about the design of the Internet assumes net neutrality. There is nothing in TCP/IP that uniquely identifies services, nor anything that facilitates a notion of classes of service. One service may have multiple hosts and multiple IP addresses. One IP address may be shared by multiple services. It may or may not be possible to inspect packets to determine which service they belong to; nowhere is any promise of "inspectability" made.
So while nothing prevents it, imposing such fees does require substantial new infrastructure to be deployed and new protocols to be developed. In other words, the Internet itself has to change to accommodate such a system -- because as designed, the Internet assumes neutrality.
Is it a difficult thing technically or only politically for the FCC to change their minds / admit they did this wrong in the first place?
What is the downside of treating the cable networks as communications media?
There are some thoughts on that here, though note the source: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/government-policy/the-fcc-hav... .
It goes over the transition from telegraph to telephone to internet, talks about the rise of media conglomerates, and basically explains how we're in the mess we're in today. Quite an enjoyable read, especially when learning about the differences between old and new styles of monopolies.
The FCC could change their rules to treat broadband suppliers as common carriers. However, that's something that big-name broadband providers don't seem to want, as it would reduce their freedom of operations.
I'm currently reading Susan Crawford's book Captive Audience, which is a detailed history of this exact topic. Recommended. Here's a talk she gave at Harvard summarizing the story and issues at stake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R4xhwy-1oI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast_NBC_merger
(thanks for the link, interesting reading)
http://www.ustelecom.org/news/newsletters/broadband-connecti...
We'll be getting some leading net neutrality scholars and lawyers to annotate the doc, so check back later today for interesting, in-depth analysis along-side the key passages in the case.
Give up the lobbyist payola, reclassify them, and introduce some real competition to my now more frequent than annual Crapcast price bumps (or significant humps, as it were).
(And in my case, this is primarily for Internet, although basic cable comes along as a quasi-freebie -- it costs, but then a discount on the combined package largely or totally negates that cost.)
Otherwise, you can bet I'm not voting for either major party, next time around.
As a consumer, I find that the only way to defeat this bullshit, is to stop paying for it. If I had an alternative to Crapcast in my neighborhood, I'd take it. (I don't count AT&T, because for a lonnngggg time they refused to deploy high speed Internet here, and because their policies and behaviour are just as bad. As well, they've personally screwed me in a prior location, as I've commented before.)
You do understand that regulating carriers as if they were utilities but then demanding more competition is inconsistent? Utilities get monopoly protection in return for offering universal service. That's the quid pro quo.
So there's one and only one highly regulated cable provider, and one and only one uverse , not sure about the WISP thing...
Let some government cost accountants loose on these incumbents' books. Then let me buy my capacity from a company that isn't trying to screw me vertically nor horizontally and that doesn't e.g. conscript me into a basic cable TV package when all I want is Internet.
Perhaps then, as well, we would be able to actually segregate infrastructure development and maintenance costs and be sure we are getting what we are paying for. E.g. if my cost goes up, it's because I'm actually getting more in return. At a time when wholesale bandwidth costs have been halving year upon year (at least, as of a couple of years ago), the near doubling of my monthly bill over the past few years is sorely in need of some -- independent and measurable and demonstrable -- justification.
Finally, Internet is no longer a luxury. It's a necessity. With often only a single distributor in many locations, they are effectively a common carrier.
After all the bad behaviour on the part of these companies, I have ZERO sympathy left for them. They've abused their positions. It's time for that abuse to end.
P.S. Yeah, I'm pissed. Probably not the best position from which to comment.
This month's Crapcast bill contained another circa 5.5 % increase -- for nothing. It's been well less than a year since their last increase, and inflation is running far under that figure.
As for build-out costs: I notice when my neighbours (that's one family of two adults) are home on weekends, because my one, rather occasional Netflix stream drops from quality 4 to 3 or not infrequently to 2. They aren't doing diddly to improve capacity/delivery in my neighbourhood.
One company maintains and lays cables, other provides connectivity to said cables etc. Which means that you could buy connectivity to internet from various suppliers depending on your needs.
Essentially if a company has to rely on other companies and cannot do the work themselves if they are capable of doing so, then results and competition may actually suffer if there are weak links or no competition at any point in the chain.
This isn't what stops it. Most honestly believe they are doing the right thing when they oppose it.
Ignorance, not maliciousness.
The FLOSS advocate in me is sad, as this is a compromise that I don't want to see go away.
in theory vs. in practice
"(1) Advanced communications services The term “advanced communications services” means— (A) interconnected VoIP service; (B) non-interconnected VoIP service; (C) electronic messaging service; and (D) interoperable video conferencing service."
"(11) Common carrier The term “common carrier” or “carrier” means any person engaged as a common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio or interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy, except where reference is made to common carriers not subject to this chapter; but a person engaged in radio broadcasting shall not, insofar as such person is so engaged, be deemed a common carrier."
"(24) Information service The term “information service” means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service."
I'm not a lawyer, but consider myself well grounded in tech and telecom, but reading these definitions I'm kind of at a loss. In common law, my understanding is that a "common carrier" is someone that makes transport services available to the public. These can be physical, such as shipping a crate, or technological (telecom) in nature. By that inference, transporting packets of information is essentially same as transporting normal packages.
Unfortunately, the "by wire or radio or interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy" is so period-specific that one could argue that it doesn't apply and the (24) Information Services is so broad and vague, it could practically be applied to anything.
One interesting bit, which makes me think that there is hope, is the definition of advanced communications, that include both VoIP and messaging services. Sadly, their definitions are not that broad...
One of the key purposes of the 1996 telecom act was to deregulate the industry to the extent that it was possible. The FCC consequently decided to treat internet service as an "information service" under the Act, so as to avoid subjecting it to all the regulations applicable to "common carriers."
So while you could argue that modern ISPs resemble common carriers in certain ways, one of the ways they do not is that they are relatively unregulated, and there was a lot of intent and purpose behind the decision to treat them that way.
Consider a simple ad supported news site. It may run ads hosted on hundreds of sources. When the page loads, the browser requests individual images from different sources. If some are not paying the verizon tax or not paying enough, the page loads slower or with broken content. This is pretty foundational stuff. It really isn't all that different from having different audio quality in a phone call depending if the local exchange operator was paid extra or not.
As the result, it seems to me that classification and the additional regulation is warranted.
freight n. - Goods carried by a vessel or vehicle, especially by a commercial carrier; cargo.
Packets are neither classified as people nor freight.
As for wired connections, I see a way to get competitive pricing there too. Neighborhoods and towns should invest in their own last-mile fiber, and then buy transit at competitive rates. They could outsource the operation of the local network, but they would retain ownership of it and can always get competitive bids for another operator.
Actually, web neutrality means the ISPs should treat all data in their network equally.
Ever wondered why youtube videos seems to work for shit over some connections that are rated at a high throughput on speed tests? Yep... data discrimination in action. Especially on providers that also provide television? Hmmm... I wonder why a tv provider would want to slow down youtube. Duh.
Also, for those who think net neutrality is a good thing; grow up. It is a good thing. Some thing actually -are- more important than others. I would prefer that I can actually get regular html pages at high speed while some dumbass is streaming a 4k video of some random off joke on the work connection. I realize this is just a local network example, but it ties all the way to the globe if you think about it for a bit.
The end of net neutrality would be the end of spam. Why? Because if you charge a slight amount for email, it removes spammers ability to send 20 billion of them. They've tried this repeatedly though and it never took on. So long as the internet is a wild west of chaos, there can be no real improvement on the quality of the whole system.
Keep smoking weed and believing. If you smoke enough maybe you'll start believing that the world really follows whatever delusional model you are believing in.
I hear that the US, there are only 2 ISPs: one of the big 2, or the little local one. In France, we have about 4. At the other end, we have Google, Amazon, but most notably we have YouTube and Netflix.
Clearly the market is not efficient. Why do we have so big players in the first place? Why do we tend to have only the big players?
Because of the infrastructure. In the way the internet is distributed, artificial economies of scale and barriers to entry favour the big ISPs (this is clearly the case in France, I suppose the US is the same). And, we have asymmetric bandwidth, which kills peer to peer exchanges. If people were allowed to host servers at home, there would be no need for things such as YouTube, Blogger, or Facebook (search engine are still a thorny problem, though).
If we got rid of this over-centralization, it would be harder to discriminate your bandwidth in the first place. Net Neutrality would be the default, instead of something we have to fight for.
How does France have 4 providers? Wherever we tried line-sharing here, the ILEC would stop repairing the lines used by competitors until the customers switched to the incumbent.
It's still bad, and we still have a relatively high barrier to entry, but it is possible. There exist for instance a number of little non-profit providers (not among the big 4), who make do by sub-leasing part of the big one's network.
There are still problems of the sort you're talking about (like "it's not us, it's the other company your data goes through"), but as people are now able to cut themselves off completely from the historical operator, their actual provider has to (and do) take responsibility, and fix the line.
As an aside, it is somewhat written in our law that to be called an "internet connection", it must provide a public IP address, and the user must be able to do whatever she wants. There are violations (Orange blocks the outgoing SMTP port), but it mostly holds: users are all allowed to host servers —though asymmetric bandwidth makes this impractical. Note that mobile connections are called "data" deals, not "internet" deals.
If a web service is hosted, say, in Europe and is being consumed by a customer also in Europe, will they be affected? AFAICT, they shouldn't.