pcmag.com— The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has come up with fascinating and complicated solution to the broadband and Net neutrality problem. We break it down for you.
May 6, 2010View in Crawl 4
Private Agencies can be boycotted. If you don't like the ESRB, you can call attention to the problem and destroy the only thing ESRB has: your trust. Insurance Companies, Banks, and website verifiers are built upon trust. We don't need a single agency, like the FCC, to make all of the decisions. If we let people regulate it themselves, many small organizations will spring up who have nothing to market with but their trust.
Ok to people against net neutrality... Suppose you want to go on youtube using a service like comcast. And suppose youtube's CEO did Comcast's CEO's mother (citation needed)... or didnt want to pay the subscription fees. You would end up with youtube **lagging** with a slower speed through your connection.To put it even simply, Say you own a samsung bluray player... and the bluray cd you bought was from Sony... because those two dont have endorsements with each other, your movie is now lagging as well. Of course free market economy dictates that you are free to own several Bluray players (your choice as a consumer) to play something as simple as a movie properly WITHOUT lag.... or you can opt to (as a free consumer in a free market) to own a sony blu ray player (overpriced) and buy **only** cds made by sony, just so you can watch a movie properly. All that hassle for a movie.Now imagine doing that and more (contracts and whatnot) just so you can access a bloody website properly.
I read an article earlier this week detailing exactly the legal arguments the FCC was using to justify this "third way" classification. And at first, it made my head hurt. Plus I was wondering what they were going to do instead of reclassifying broadband as a Title II service. But in the end I think that what they've come up with is a very solid legal argument. The last time the FCC's authority to reclassify broadband was argued--before the Supreme Court no less, was to reclassify it as a Title I service. The FCC found that the Communications Act was vague enough to leave such matters as classifications to be determined by the FCC, and that they could classify broadband as Title I, and potentially change their mind at any point and reclassify as Title II--so they're perfectly within their rights to do so. They also need to do so, now that the appellate court in the Comcast case decided basically that the FCC's ancillary regulatory authority over Title I is much more shaky than was previously the case. Also relevant, is in one of the last updates to the Communications Act, Congress granted the FCC the authority to issue forbearances to certain regulations that apply to all Title II services, with regard to regulating ISPs in particular.So what the FCC is doing, is reclassifying broadband (or at least the transmission part of it--the ISP side, not content or non-transmission related Internet services) as Title II services, but then issuing forbearances to most of the regulatory provisions that apply to Title II services--EXCEPT for provisions that deal with things like Common Carrier rules and status. Which is pretty much exactly how dialup ISPs were regulated and are still regulated today (and how all ISPs were regulated until ~2002.) Also, despite talk of scary possibilities in the future that the FCC might go draconian with new regulations--under Title II, forbearances aren't just something that the FCC has the prerogative to issue. If a provider wants a forbearance, there's a straightforward legal test in the statute to obtain a forbearance in court if the FCC won't issue one willingly.
slash the corporations from that list and you got the perfect solution actually. i keep forgetting but there was this article right here in digg where time warner suddenly became a magically people's company because the actual county was planning on doing away with them and having a state owned service.... it could actually work. But of course we got lobbyists and bloody politicians....
Nope, sorry, that's not what the FCC is proposing. They're wisely contending that broadband Internet access is two services. The transmission service, which the ISP provides, will be subject to regulation under Title II (with forbearances for all but some of the most fundamental regulations.) The Information service, of which in your situation Youtube is the example, is not subject to regulation under Title II. (And nothing in the Title II regulations that the FCC is proposing would censor any web content).
javaroastMay 8, 2010
Have fun living in imaginary land, because the market you describe is nothing like the market that exists.
skyler827May 8, 2010
Private Agencies can be boycotted. If you don't like the ESRB, you can call attention to the problem and destroy the only thing ESRB has: your trust. Insurance Companies, Banks, and website verifiers are built upon trust. We don't need a single agency, like the FCC, to make all of the decisions. If we let people regulate it themselves, many small organizations will spring up who have nothing to market with but their trust.
isa9191May 8, 2010
Ok to people against net neutrality... Suppose you want to go on youtube using a service like comcast. And suppose youtube's CEO did Comcast's CEO's mother (citation needed)... or didnt want to pay the subscription fees. You would end up with youtube **lagging** with a slower speed through your connection.To put it even simply, Say you own a samsung bluray player... and the bluray cd you bought was from Sony... because those two dont have endorsements with each other, your movie is now lagging as well. Of course free market economy dictates that you are free to own several Bluray players (your choice as a consumer) to play something as simple as a movie properly WITHOUT lag.... or you can opt to (as a free consumer in a free market) to own a sony blu ray player (overpriced) and buy **only** cds made by sony, just so you can watch a movie properly. All that hassle for a movie.Now imagine doing that and more (contracts and whatnot) just so you can access a bloody website properly.
venom8599May 8, 2010
I read an article earlier this week detailing exactly the legal arguments the FCC was using to justify this "third way" classification. And at first, it made my head hurt. Plus I was wondering what they were going to do instead of reclassifying broadband as a Title II service. But in the end I think that what they've come up with is a very solid legal argument. The last time the FCC's authority to reclassify broadband was argued--before the Supreme Court no less, was to reclassify it as a Title I service. The FCC found that the Communications Act was vague enough to leave such matters as classifications to be determined by the FCC, and that they could classify broadband as Title I, and potentially change their mind at any point and reclassify as Title II--so they're perfectly within their rights to do so. They also need to do so, now that the appellate court in the Comcast case decided basically that the FCC's ancillary regulatory authority over Title I is much more shaky than was previously the case. Also relevant, is in one of the last updates to the Communications Act, Congress granted the FCC the authority to issue forbearances to certain regulations that apply to all Title II services, with regard to regulating ISPs in particular.So what the FCC is doing, is reclassifying broadband (or at least the transmission part of it--the ISP side, not content or non-transmission related Internet services) as Title II services, but then issuing forbearances to most of the regulatory provisions that apply to Title II services--EXCEPT for provisions that deal with things like Common Carrier rules and status. Which is pretty much exactly how dialup ISPs were regulated and are still regulated today (and how all ISPs were regulated until ~2002.) Also, despite talk of scary possibilities in the future that the FCC might go draconian with new regulations--under Title II, forbearances aren't just something that the FCC has the prerogative to issue. If a provider wants a forbearance, there's a straightforward legal test in the statute to obtain a forbearance in court if the FCC won't issue one willingly.
honoredmuleMay 8, 2010
+1 paragraph A-1 paragraph B
isa9191May 9, 2010
slash the corporations from that list and you got the perfect solution actually. i keep forgetting but there was this article right here in digg where time warner suddenly became a magically people's company because the actual county was planning on doing away with them and having a state owned service.... it could actually work. But of course we got lobbyists and bloody politicians....
venom8599May 9, 2010
Nope, sorry, that's not what the FCC is proposing. They're wisely contending that broadband Internet access is two services. The transmission service, which the ISP provides, will be subject to regulation under Title II (with forbearances for all but some of the most fundamental regulations.) The Information service, of which in your situation Youtube is the example, is not subject to regulation under Title II. (And nothing in the Title II regulations that the FCC is proposing would censor any web content).