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FCC’s grab for new regulatory power could go beyond broadband providers

American

American

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FCC

Internet application and content companies, what some refer to as “edge providers,” are increasingly concerned by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) newfound ability to regulate the Internet, and rightfully so.

For years, edge providers — Pandora, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, to name just a few — have flourished from the government’s hands-off approach to the Internet. Both Republicans and Democrats championed a structure that allowed the “application layer” of Internet architecture to be free from government intervention, apart from occasional Federal Trade Commission activity. That is now subject to change.

A very real threat is that edge providers could fall within the reach of the FCC’s newly invented authority to regulate the Internet under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently announced the Commission will seek comment on proposed new net neutrality rules that will “meet the court’s test.” His focus may be on broadband providers, but edge providers shouldn’t be lulled into complacency. The notion of preserving an “open Internet” is so vague that any rules meant to accomplish that goal could unintentionally impact edge providers’ business models.
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Awesome, more regulation. Why? Because we can. :roll:
 
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This regulatory control is going to end badly.
 
This guy is utterly ignorant and has no idea what he is talking about, but still managed to somehow end up reaching the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. Today the forces of stupidity and incompetence score one for the good guys.
 
American said:
FCC



Awesome, more regulation. Why? Because we can. :roll:
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I'm at the point where I'd just get rid of the FCC. There are legitimate purposes of it, protection of property and such to ensure no piracy...but they are far far far over the line.
 
American said:
FCC

Awesome, more regulation. Why? Because we can. :roll:
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A very real threat is that edge providers could fall within the reach of the FCC’s newly invented authority to regulate the Internet under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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So the FCC is using powers created under a bill passed by a Republican House & Republican Senate and you're... blaming Obama? ODS in full swing with this one. Again, bill sponsored by Republicans, passed by Republicans and now complained about its usage by Republicans. Your post is like being mad that Republicans will use the nuclear option promoted by Harry Reid.
 
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MrVicchio said:
Electing someone like Obama... and people are shocked by this?
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Obama isn't the cause of this. This is the Republocrat machine in full force, enlarging government as quickly and aggressively as possible. Obama is just 1 cog in the machine.
 
Hatuey said:
So the FCC is using powers created under a bill passed by a Republican House & Republican Senate and you're... blaming Obama? ODS in full swing with this one. Again, bill sponsored by Republicans, passed by Republicans and now complained about its usage by Republicans. Your post is like being mad that Republicans will use the nuclear option promoted by Harry Reid.
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No the FCC is reinterpreting some that was use one way for a very long time.
 
Hatuey said:
So the FCC is using powers created under a bill passed by a Republican House & Republican Senate and you're... blaming Obama? ODS in full swing with this one. Again, bill sponsored by Republicans, passed by Republicans and now complained about its usage by Republicans. Your post is like being mad that Republicans will use the nuclear option promoted by Harry Reid.
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Hmm...did you read the article? From the article....

Congress never intended to give the FCC that authority. I know because I was in the room, as a congressional staffer, when that deal was made. For years, the FCC held the same conclusion. But in 2010, when the FCC’s attempt to use other statutory provisions to regulate broadband providers failed, it re-interpreted Section 706 as a new legal basis to impose net neutrality restrictions. Although, the D.C. Circuit vacated most of those restrictions in January, the decision explicitly sanctioned Section 706 as an independent grant of regulatory authority.

As a result, we now live in a world where the FCC can arguably adopt almost any rule that conceivably promotes broadband deployment. As Judge Laurence Silberman summarized in his dissent: “Presto, we have a new statute granting the FCC virtually unlimited power to regulate the Internet.”
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So...your contention is that Republicans shouldn't be mad because a clause that was made by them is being re-interpreted to mean something that they never meant it to be interpreted as? Why shouldn't they be mad? If you went and called some asian as being an asshole would you be pissed if someone went and interpreted that as calling all asians assholes, thereby putting you in a racist light with all of your asian friends? (just for the sake of arguement lets say you do have asian friends if you don't OK?) I would imagine that you'd be pretty pissed. And you'd have a right to be. So...why shouldn't repbulicans be pissed if someone re-interprets a clause that they made?
 
American said:
FCC



Awesome, more regulation. Why? Because we can. :roll:
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What do you expect?

If it isnt regulated to hell and back then whatever is left isnt over taxed into oblivion its not OK to use according to our government.

We are fighting it right now with the FDA and vaporizers (AKA e-cigs)

The US government has to have its dirty paws in every single thing and if they cant figure out how to get their greedy grubby little fingers in it they simply make it illegal.
 
American said:
FCC



Awesome, more regulation. Why? Because we can. :roll:
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The Libertarian rule is simple: if you build your business partially or wholly out of free public (taxpayer) resources (i. e. federal/state subsidies), then you must be regulated. Otherwise, you're completely left alone.

Broadband providers received billions of dollars in subsidies to build their infrastructes, whereas the majority of pure content providers did not.

Therefore, broadband providers should be regulated, whereas content providers shouldn't. The End.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Hmm...did you read the article? From the article....



So...your contention is that Republicans shouldn't be mad because a clause that was made by them is being re-interpreted to mean something that they never meant it to be interpreted as? Why shouldn't they be mad? If you went and called some asian as being an asshole would you be pissed if someone went and interpreted that as calling all asians assholes, thereby putting you in a racist light with all of your asian friends? (just for the sake of arguement lets say you do have asian friends if you don't OK?) I would imagine that you'd be pretty pissed. And you'd have a right to be. So...why shouldn't repbulicans be pissed if someone re-interprets a clause that they made?
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Are you seriously against net neutrality?
 
Ikari said:
I'm at the point where I'd just get rid of the FCC. There are legitimate purposes of it, protection of property and such to ensure no piracy...but they are far far far over the line.
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Is it even legal? I assume people are just going to yell "commerce clause!", but do we really think the founders meant to empower the govt to control all means of information sharing? Its one thing for them to protect individuals from electronic leakage so that everyone has the same access to wireless bandwidth, but its over the line when they control fixed lines, protocols, content, etc. Consumers can do that themselves.
 
Mithros said:
Are you seriously against net neutrality?
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I am. Net neutrality is a dumb idea. What service is provided between a company and a consumer is between them. If a company wants to charge someone more for watching pron than doing email, they should be free to do so, and the consumer should be free to reject it and lose their service (or go with someone else). If you think its a great idea, start your own ISP and youll apparently have millions of customers. Or get everyone to stop paying comcast, and theyll change or go out of business.
 
jonny5 said:
I am. Net neutrality is a dumb idea. What service is provided between a company and a consumer is between them. If a company wants to charge someone more for watching pron than doing email, they should be free to do so, and the consumer should be free to reject it and lose their service (or go with someone else). If you think its a great idea, start your own ISP and youll apparently have millions of customers. Or get everyone to stop paying comcast, and theyll change or go out of business.
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Sure if the internet was made up of ISPs. But that's not the way the internet works. The internet runs mainly on public networks on opensource software. The ISP's only control the onramps.

Here: use this and trace to figure out how you're connecting to say this site: Look at all of the computers that you're bouncing over.
Traceroute, Ping, Domain Name Server (DNS) Lookup, WHOIS

I'm pretty close to a backbone and I still hit 9.

What if Comcast decides that they are going to make their own netflix alternative. Should they be allowed to throttle netflix so that it's essentially unwatchable to gain a commercial advantage? Net Neutrality gives small players an even playing field. It rewards innovation. The people pushing against net neutrality are trying to profit from work they didn't do; that's why EVERY single tech company is pro net neutrality.
 
I think the internet is the greatest tool for innovation, entrepreneurship, and education that the world has ever seen. And if it is going to remain that way, anti-competitive behavior should be kept to a minimum. It was also developed with an enormous amount of taxpayer funding, so I think the taxpayers get to have a little bit of a say in how business is conducted on the infrastructure they paid for.
 
Mithros said:
Sure if the internet was made up of ISPs. But that's not the way the internet works. The internet runs mainly on public networks on opensource software. The ISP's only control the onramps.

Here: use this and trace to figure out how you're connecting to say this site: Look at all of the computers that you're bouncing over.
Traceroute, Ping, Domain Name Server (DNS) Lookup, WHOIS

I'm pretty close to a backbone and I still hit 9.

What if Comcast decides that they are going to make their own netflix alternative. Should they be allowed to throttle netflix so that it's essentially unwatchable to gain a commercial advantage? Net Neutrality gives small players an even playing field. It rewards innovation. The people pushing against net neutrality are trying to profit from work they didn't do; that's why EVERY single tech company is pro net neutrality.
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A backbone is hardware put in and owned by an ISP. The internet is many ISPs all connected together. There is no 'public network'.

If comcast doesnt want to carry netflix, that is their perogative. They OWN their company and can run it as they see fit. So, yes, I support freedom, and free markets. And I am against the federal govt assuming powers I never granted it and micromanaging the economy.
 
Deuce said:
I think the internet is the greatest tool for innovation, entrepreneurship, and education that the world has ever seen. And if it is going to remain that way, anti-competitive behavior should be kept to a minimum. It was also developed with an enormous amount of taxpayer funding, so I think the taxpayers get to have a little bit of a say in how business is conducted on the infrastructure they paid for.
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Except they didnt pay for the billions upon billions of infrastructure that came after it. Those were the consumers of the companies who DID. The govt did not pay for the hundreds of thousands of miles of cables all around the world, the switches that connect then, the apps that run on them. These are paid for by private companies.


The Internet? We Built That
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/magazine/the-internet-we-built-that.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
 
jonny5 said:
A backbone is hardware put in and owned by an ISP. The internet is many ISPs all connected together. There is no 'public network'.

If comcast doesnt want to carry netflix, that is their perogative. They OWN their company and can run it as they see fit. So, yes, I support freedom, and free markets. And I am against the federal govt assuming powers I never granted it and micromanaging the economy.
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Internet backbone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nope. Backbones are Tier 1 networks. By definition, a Tier 1 network is an IP network which conducts traffic via settlement-free interconnection. There are seven of them in the US: L3, TeliaSOnera, CenturyLink, Vodafone, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. ISPs are Tier 2 and Tier 3 networks. That means your traffic is going to often go Source->T3->T2->T1->T2->T3->You.

660px-Internet_Connectivity_Distribution_%26_Core.svg.png


I don't understand this mindset in which someone gets to profit from something someone else did. Comcast didn't build the internet. They didn't write the code which runs the internet. They didn't develop, build, own, or maintain the hardware which serves as the backbone of the. They didn't pay for any of the innovation. They only serve as the offramp taking traffic from the internet to you house. Why should Comcast be able to force businesses to pay them more in order to stay in business. That's closer to extortion than anything else.

What if the Tier 1 providers were to do the same thing? Do you think any of the ISP's clamouring for the ability to gouge their customers would just take that sitting down?
 
Hatuey said:
So the FCC is using powers created under a bill passed by a Republican House & Republican Senate and you're... blaming Obama? ODS in full swing with this one. Again, bill sponsored by Republicans, passed by Republicans and now complained about its usage by Republicans. Your post is like being mad that Republicans will use the nuclear option promoted by Harry Reid.
Click to expand...
Just in case anyone at DP forgot, partisanship still rules the day! As poster's comments like this illustrate, some people will go a mile out of their way make "partisanship" the central theme of.............everything.

Ikari said:
Obama isn't the cause of this. This is the Republocrat machine in full force, enlarging government as quickly and aggressively as possible. Obama is just 1 cog in the machine.
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Obama is a "cog" in the republican machine?

Wow only two pages in and this thread has already been derailed. And in more than one direction. Yay.:shock:

Me? I'm against granting the FCC any more power than they have managed to grab for themselves. Regardless that republicans and democrats created it in 1934. There really is nothing surprising about the idea that another federal agency seeks to grow and strengthen itself. No matter which recent POTUS you pick. So call them republicrats and democants if you want, but blame them both and all. Rather than reach back to 1934 for a brain dead reason we should not have an opinion or be opposed to this today. Yeah that's a brilliant approach to stupidity!:doh
 
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Mithros said:
Internet backbone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nope. Backbones are Tier 1 networks. By definition, a Tier 1 network is an IP network which conducts traffic via settlement-free interconnection. There are seven of them in the US: L3, TeliaSOnera, CenturyLink, Vodafone, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. ISPs are Tier 2 and Tier 3 networks. That means your traffic is going to often go Source->T3->T2->T1->T2->T3->You.

660px-Internet_Connectivity_Distribution_%26_Core.svg.png


I don't understand this mindset in which someone gets to profit from something someone else did. Comcast didn't build the internet. They didn't write the code which runs the internet. They didn't develop, build, own, or maintain the hardware which serves as the backbone of the. They didn't pay for any of the innovation. They only serve as the offramp taking traffic from the internet to you house. Why should Comcast be able to force businesses to pay them more in order to stay in business. That's closer to extortion than anything else.

What if the Tier 1 providers were to do the same thing? Do you think any of the ISP's clamouring for the ability to gouge their customers would just take that sitting down?
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Nope, A tier1 network is owned by private companies. They have private agreements as to how traffic travels. There is nothing public about it. Comcast gets to profit from it, because they own a significant percentage of it. They install the switches and routers, they run the cables, they install the servers and software, and keep it running. They connect to other ISPs. Thats what the internet is. The taxpayers, the govt did nothing but fund the initial idea, and then regulate the hell out of it, when private individuals and companies made it truly what it is.

Youre right though that if Tier1 companies decided to change the business model, their competitors wouldnt like it. They would use their own leverage to deal with it. Consumers would too. Thats what commerce is.
 
solletica said:
The Libertarian rule is simple: if you build your business partially or wholly out of free public (taxpayer) resources (i. e. federal/state subsidies), then you must be regulated. Otherwise, you're completely left alone.

Broadband providers received billions of dollars in subsidies to build their infrastructes, whereas the majority of pure content providers did not.

Therefore, broadband providers should be regulated, whereas content providers shouldn't. The End.
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I didn't hear anything libertarian.
 
We need to stop this nonsense and keep net neutrality going
 
tacomancer said:
We need to stop this nonsense and keep net neutrality going
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At this point in time I'm forced to agree with you. Plus, I bloody love your forum handle. I'm about to do some tacomancing myself. With extra green salsa.;)
 
Filthy McNasty said:
Just in case anyone at DP forgot, partisanship still rules the day! As poster's comments like this illustrate, some people will go a mile out of their way make "partisanship" the central theme of.............everything.


Obama is a "cog" in the republican machine?

Wow only two pages in and this thread has already been derailed. And in more than one direction. Yay.:shock:

Me? I'm against granting the FCC any more power than they have managed to grab for themselves. Regardless that republicans and democrats created it in 1934. There really is nothing surprising about the idea that another federal agency seeks to grow and strengthen itself. No matter which recent POTUS you pick. So call them republicrats and democants if you want, but blame them both and all. Rather than reach back to 1934 for a brain dead reason we should not have an opinion or be opposed to this today. Yeah that's a brilliant approach to stupidity!:doh
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I didn't say Republican. Read more carefully.
 
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