Posted on 02/24/2015 6:37:38 PM PST by robowombat
FCC to Vote on Net Neutrality Rules on Thursday Written by Bob Adelmann
On Thursday consumers will finally be able to see and read the FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) planned new rules to regulate the Internet. Deliberately hidden from public view, the 332-page document is expected to be passed by the FTC, as demanded by President Obama last November when he told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to adopt the “strongest possible rules” in regulating the Internet.
Leaks from the document were inevitable, and critics have slowly pieced together the latest attack on Internet freedom. Five times legislation has been offered in Congress to mandate “net neutrality,” and five times it has failed. Twice courts have struck down previous efforts to regulate the Internet. This time, however, ignorance and momentum are likely to rule the day, and the Internet.
ULINE Shipping Supplies Huge Catalog! Over 29,000 Products. Same Day Shipping from 11 Locations www.ULINE.com The main excuse for implementing the new invasions is the statists’ favorite complaint: Internet service providers “discriminate.” They discriminate by charging different rates and providing different services for their customers, based upon usage, content, the size of the servers providing the service, the complexity of the platforms connecting the data between providers and end users, the type and expense of the equipment used to facilitate that data flow, as well as the mode of communication. This is awful. This can’t be allowed. Something must be done.
In other words, all automobiles, in the worldview of the Obamas and the Wheelers (and their facilitators seeking to benefit from less competition, such as Facebook, Google, and Netflix), ought to be beige in color, have identical horsepower, the same number of doors, and get the same gas mileage no matter how far or fast they may be driven. After all, in their worldview, offering free market choices is a sin from which only government agencies such as the FCC can save us.
Readers of the new rules will no doubt find phrases such as the following, which have appeared in previous attempts to rein in the Internet: “Broadband service providers may only prioritize … based on the content, applications, or services … purchased by the end user, without charge for such prioritization.”
This will require Wheeler and his statists at the FCC to change the classification of the Internet from “information services” companies to “telecommunications companies” in order to inflict the much more onerous rules the agency applies to them. In short, the new regs will turn the Internet into a bland, beige, highly regulated, inefficient, and costly utility. Not only will Internet customers be charged more, through the levying of various fees and service charges, but many of them will resign from the Internet because of those increased costs, resulting in fewer choices.
Those remaining will begin to enjoy a service that is less innovative, with slower speeds and less content than would be the case, as entrepreneurs are now being treated as unnecessary impediments to neutrality. As the authors of a backgrounder on the Internet for the Heritage Foundation noted, “Most of the practices identified by regulation supporters as activities that should be prohibited are in fact beneficial for consumers … efforts to regulate the internet would hurt the very consumers those advocates claim to [want to] protect.”
One simple example will suffice. One of the most cited incidents reflective of the dangers inherent in today’s Internet, according to net neutrality supporters, occurred between Madison River Communications (MRC) located in rural Mebane, North Carolina, and Vonage. Back in 2004 MRC blocked Vonage, a voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) telephone provider, from using its service as it competed with a local similar service. The FCC mandated a settlement that would likely have occurred anyway without federal interference. Today, residents in Mebane have access to five broadband providers, giving MRC plenty of competition and plenty of reason to be more responsive to the needs of its customers.
And this is the single case most often referred to by statists building their case for giving the FCC more power to interfere in such local matters.
But the “control” mindset is firmly implanted as evidenced by Matt Wood, a writer for the Free Press blog. He observed, “Letting the carriers charge more or less money to reach certain sites is discriminatory, and it’s not how the Internet is supposed to work.”
No, Matt, that’s exactly how the Internet is supposed to work, if it’s left alone to provide competitive services to its customers. Once the FCC is empowered to interfere, however, Matt, the new “net neutral” Internet will be slower, most costly, and less useful to those customers.
There are other dangers to “net neutrality” as well. As David Farber, a former chief technologist of the FCC, expressed it:
My fear is that regulating the Internet like a telecommunications service [utility] potentially opens a Pandora’s box.
Once that box is opened, it will prove impossible to close. Good intentions expressed by Wheeler to use a “light touch” in the early days of the new regulatory paradigm will hardly provide insurance against vastly more invasive intrusions by his future replacements. As the policy director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Clyde Wayne Crews, put it:
In expanding utility regulation into the modern era, what the FCC is doing will set new precedents that irretrievably undermine [the Internet’s] critical infrastructure’s evolution across sectors and harm the nation.
A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.
Just defund the FCC.
Write them out of the budget!
The GOP is as useless as a teat on a male rattlesnake.
> ULINE Shipping Supplies Huge Catalog! Over 29,000 Products. Same Day Shipping from 11 Locations www.ULINE.com The main excuse for implementing the new invasions is the statists’ favorite complaint: Internet service providers “discriminate.” They discriminate by charging different rates and providing different services for their customers, based upon usage, content, the size of the servers providing the service, the complexity of the platforms connecting the data between providers and end users, the type and expense of the equipment used to facilitate that data flow, as well as the mode of communication. This is awful. This can’t be allowed. Something must be done.
Oh so this is about fairness and punishing some Internet providers and making them all charge the same rate type of thing eh? BULL EFFING SHIP! This is about using that as an excuse to get your greedy little hands in the Internet packet stream so you can monitor it, control it, and silence dissenters who don’t agree with your message! You $&%# lying sack of $hip!
THAT'S why ... or rather THIS IS WHY ... we have lost all sense
Politics moves quickly slow ...
Quickly to confuse the moment ... slowly to bide time until it's time to spring
Every man that had one of these sluts in his neighborhood will regret not slashing tires and spiking driveways for the rest of his life
The sorry sack o'shit(s) deserve each other
Right, why bother voting when those we elect will not vote the will of those that elected them. I’m done voting ... doesn’t seem to matter, the libs will win no matter what.
That description of net neutrality is rubbish. It has nothing to do with making everyones internet service the same. Customers can still get faster service and be charged more for it.
Net neutrality is about stopping the access providers (cable and phone companies mostly) from treating the websites a customer chooses to visit differently depending on whether that website has paid the ISP.
Tell me about it, the GOP is completely gone, it’s like this phantom party that exists solely to give people the illusion that they have a choice when it comes to elections. If it was up to me, every last person from Obama down to the entire Congress with the exception of a few would be arrested for treason. They do NOT rep the people of this country, they are enemies of the people. F them all!
Pure tyranny.
Correct. Don’t vote. Train. Train for violence. Too late for anything else.
Obama’s speech writer has prepared a great speech so Obama can brag and claim victory for the little guy , BARF
ARREST THE FCC COMS THAT VOTE FOR THIS! There must be some law they are breaking!
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny stuff right there....
Why, all we need is the GOP to take the presidency, then they can AGAIN.....increase the size/scope of gov’t.
Hell, I can’t remember the name of the LAST Dept. they ‘0’d out’. Can anyone else??
Certainly seems like all the pieces are coming together. Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the most devastating, well planned terrorist attack to ever strike AMERICAN soil.
My Rep [Bob Latta—OH] introduced H.R. 279 but what good it will do I dunno. But keep screaming, everyone who’s watching as of late are all totally PO’d, and it shows. Maybe sheer numbers and noise can stifle ignorance and momentum—wehave 36 hours to holler, don’t let up and tell your friends as well.
Are you kidding? We’re still paying for the Spanish-American War.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
