The FCC Issues its Proposal On Net Neutrality; Protesters Are Tossed from Hearing

As spring unfolds here in the Northern Hemisphere, the future of the free and open Internet hangs in the balance. As such, I strongly believe everyone should have at least some understanding of what is at stake. When most people hear or read the words “net neutrality” their eyes glaze over with a feeling of confusion and despair: “I can’t remember, am I supposed to be for or against this?” This is exactly how the lawyers and lobbyists in D.C. want it, but unless the citizenry is informed we could lose the most important weapon of free speech in the history of mankind.

Recognizing the convoluted nature of the subject, I did my best to lay out what “net neutrality” is and what is at stake with the current FCC rule-making process in my recent post: Say Goodbye to “Net Neutrality” – New FCC Proposal Will Permit Discrimination of Web Content.

Well the FCC voted on its proposal yesterday and it passed with a 3-2 vote. More on that later, first I want to share an article I recently read on The Verge, which is extremely important to understand before you form an opinion on what should be done.

The first buzzword you need to familiarize yourself with is “Title II regulation.” Title II refers to a key section of the Communications Act, which has to do with the classification of telephone providers as “common carriers,” and subjects them to increased regulation and oversight. When the Communications Act was updated in 1996, it appears that broadband providers would not be deemed “common carriers,” which would allow them to be largely unregulated. Yet, Verizon decided it wanted to be regulated under Title II when building out its broadband network. Why would it do

The FCC is looking for the authority to regulate the internet in the same way they regulate traditional phones.

The FCC is rapidly running out of a reason to exist as traditional phones go away.

In the FCC's recent "proposed rulemaking", they keep using the term "open", but they just use it as a buzzword without really any relevance to what they're talking about.

What they're talking about is mostly bandwidth, like in (see the document, elsewhere):

2. Proposed Elements of an Enforceable Legal Rule

a. Prohibiting Only Commercially Unreasonable Practices

116. Sound public policy requires that Internet openness be the touchstone of a new legal standard. Accordingly, we tentatively conclude that the Commission should adopt a rule requiring broadband providers to use “commercially reasonable” practices in the provision of broadband Internet access service. Our proposed approach is both more focused and more flexible than the vacated 2010 non-discrimination rule. It would prohibit as commercially unreasonable those broadband providers’ practices that, based on the totality of the circumstances,threaten to harm Internet openness and all that it protects.

Ok, this is moronic.

a) they want to restrict commercial practices to what is commercially reasonable ? Duh. The obvious devil is in the details. That's entirely open-ended. Once given authority to require practices be commercially reasonable, they can make as many regulations as they want and simply keep continuing to "adjust" what they DEEM to be "commercially reasonable". Who died and made them king ? Why would the weirdos at the FCC be better at deciding what is reasonable and dictating regulations according to their whim, as opposed to if something is SO IMPORTANT that it needs to be regulated, let's pass a law in Congress. Not like the government will concern themselves with anything other than selectively enforcing it, but at least our vital internet would have it's day of public debate before changes are made to the "regulations", instead of the FCC just changing them at their (or some consultant/lobbyist's) whim.

b) the real point - THERE'S NO NEED FOR ANY REGULATION. Consumers can plainly see if their internet connection is too slow for their liking. If it's too slow - THEY EITHER 1) CHANGE CARRIERS or 2) BUMP UP THEIR CONNECTION SPEED (paying a little more) WITH THEIR CURRENT CARRIER. Not a problem, everyone already does this. On the other end, people creating content, applications, etc., let's call them website owners - they ALSO can very easily find out if the connection their webserver has to the internet is too slow for their liking. They currently do the same thing: ask their carrier to bump up their speed and pay for the faster speed, or if they're unhappy with the carrier, SWITCH carriers. Not a problem, everyone already does this.

c) Connection speed has nothing to do with openness. Openness has to do with the CONTENT itself. If I'm not allowed to receive packets destined for port 80, I can't host a website. But duh, if that's the case, I either paid for a package that includes port 80 access or I didn't. If I'm not happy, I change carriers.

d) What the FCC really wants: for now, ANYTHING. Just to get in the business of regulating the internet somehow, any way, some way. So they keep saying open, open, open, a million times. They keep saying there are "problems" that the FCC needs to "fix".

e) Once the FCC has that first little tiny regulatory authority, THAT'S ALL THEY NEED. Because (LOLOLOLOLOL) every government agency knows (LOL) they are then free to expand their authority without any limit whatsoever. Just one step at a time. That's how the department of agrigulture and the department of education have SWAT teams.

f) The only thing remotely meaningful is this scenario: I have a new site called pietervideo that competes with youtube. Let's say youtube makes a deal with the few MONOPOLY carriers, so that every cellphone user slows down the speed of pietervideos, while allowing youtube videos to run at full speed. Yes, that's a problem, not for openness, per se, but for unfair competitive business practices, which pieter could battle in court over - and pieter should win his case if users can see the difference. Once again, FCC is NOT NEEDED to do ANYTHING in this regard.

g) the word "open" in technology today carries with it various connotations. Programming interfaces that are not proprietary are said to be "open". Though when you think about it, whatever board or foundation that administers the "open" standard - has simply taken the place of the company which had a proprietary standard. The "open" foundation or board owns the copyright to its interfaces, they will vigorously oppose anyone who tries to change or add to their standard without their approval. So it's not "open" in the sense that anyone can just change the standard. It's open in that supposedly various commercial businesses that adopt the standard will all have an equal treatment regarding the standard not favoring particular companies. What we see in practice, however, is that market-leading companies dominate the boards and foundations, so that instead of fighting each other with "dueling standards", they agree on standards enough to keep out any new standards that would compete with them. At most there are typically 2 or 3 competing standards, each backed by major market players. The companies don't need their officers to sit on these technical boards, they have their head egghead employees sit on the boards, and therefore they can coordinate standards activity with company software development. Small startups are thus confined largely to existing standards. If a startup's "new proprietary programming interface" would be 10 times better than an existing standard... well... they gotta push their own new standard on their own. Of course, if it takes off, the "open" corporate people will push them to make their standard an "open" standard, thereby limiting their influence over their own standard.

https://new.icann.org/ are the internet standards people, and their http://www.iana.org/about department handles names, numbers and protocols.

Interesting links on internet administrative organization:

ICANN
Internet Engineering Task Force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority

And yes, here's a link on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Federal Communications Commission, circa 1934:
FCC,
which came into being well after the first signalling tom-toms, right around the time of the invention of two cans with the string between them.

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