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How the FCC Can Save the Open Internet; We should undo the Obama administration’s rules that regulate the web like a 1930s utility.
Topic Started: Nov 21 2017, 08:12 PM (100 Views)
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Director @ Center for Advanced Memetic Warfare
How the FCC Can Save the Open Internet

As millions flocked to the web for the first time in the 1990s, President Clinton and a Republican Congress decided “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet.” In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the government called for an internet “unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” The result of that fateful decision was the greatest free-market success story in history.

Encouraged by light-touch regulation, private companies invested over $1.5 trillion in nearly two decades to build out American communications networks. Without having to ask anyone’s permission, innovators everywhere used the internet’s open platform to start companies that have transformed how billions of people live and work.

But that changed in 2014. Just days after a poor midterm election result, President Obama publicly pressured the Federal Communications Commission to reject the longstanding consensus on a market-based approach to the internet. He instead urged the agency to impose upon internet service providers a creaky regulatory framework called “Title II,” which was designed in the 1930s to tame the Ma Bell telephone monopoly. A few months later, the FCC followed President Obama’s instructions on a party-line vote. I voted “no,” but the agency’s majority chose micromanagement over markets.

LINK

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BuckFan

There are not free markets on Internet access because there are huge barriers to entry for Internet access providers. Typically, like Ma Bell, only one set of wires runs to a house. So there is one provider for truly high speed internet. My neighborhood is a perfect example. We have one cable provider, Spectrum. They have a monopoly on internet access greater than 5 mbps.

When there is truly competition and free markets for access than i will accept free markets for streaming. Until then, providers need to treat all content equally. That is truly an open and free Internet.
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The service providers aren’t any better than the tech giants. To hell with them both. Both greedy, pro censorship, anti consumer. We lose no matter which of them wins.
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Here is a link that will hopefully not have a pay wall in front of the article.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-internet-1511281099?shareToken=stfce76b60cd1b419a95b8598eff24dd79&reflink=article_email_share
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Demagogue
Nov 22 2017, 12:57 PM
Sorry about that....I was able to read the whole thing without the paywall coming up....

via the OP.....

Encouraged by light-touch regulation, private companies invested over $1.5 trillion in nearly two decades to build out American communications networks. Without having to ask anyone’s permission, innovators everywhere used the internet’s open platform to start companies that have transformed how billions of people live and work.

But that changed in 2014. Just days after a poor midterm election result, President Obama publicly pressured the Federal Communications Commission to reject the longstanding consensus on a market-based approach to the internet. He instead urged the agency to impose upon internet service providers a creaky regulatory framework called “Title II,” which was designed in the 1930s to tame the Ma Bell telephone monopoly. A few months later, the FCC followed President Obama’s instructions on a party-line vote. I voted “no,” but the agency’s majority chose micromanagement over markets.

This burdensome regulation has failed consumers and businesses alike. In the two years after the FCC’s decision, broadband network investment dropped more than 5.6%—the first time a decline has happened outside of a recession. If the current rules are left in place, millions of Americans who are on the wrong side of the digital divide would have to wait years to get more broadband.

The effect has been particularly serious for smaller internet service providers. They don’t have the time, money or lawyers to cut through a thicket of complex rules. The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which represents small fixed wireless companies that generally operate in rural America, found that more than 80% of its members “incurred additional expense in complying with the Title II rules, had delayed or reduced network expansion, had delayed or reduced services and had allocated budget to comply with the rules.” They aren’t alone. Other small companies have told the FCC that these regulations have forced them to cancel, delay or curtail upgrades to their fiber networks.
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more....

The uncertainty surrounding the FCC’s onerous rules has also slowed the introduction of new services. One major company reported that it put on hold a project to build out its out-of-home Wi-Fi network partly because it wasn’t sure if the FCC would approve of its business model. Nineteen municipal internet service providers—that is, city-owned nonprofits—told the this past May that they “often delay or hold off from rolling out a new feature or service because we cannot afford to deal with a potential complaint and enforcement action.”

This is why I’m proposing today that my colleagues at the Federal Communications Commission repeal President Obama’s heavy-handed internet regulations. Instead the FCC simply would require internet service providers to be transparent so that consumers can buy the plan that’s best for them. And entrepreneurs and other small businesses would have the technical information they need to innovate. The Federal Trade Commission would police ISPs, protect consumers and promote competition, just as it did before 2015. Instead of being flyspecked by lawyers and bureaucrats, the internet would once again thrive under engineers and entrepreneurs.
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Here is a counter opinion put forth by Popular Mechanics.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a13817671/fcc-net-neutrality-full-repeal-2017/

Quote:
 
The Federal Communications Commission, under Chairman Ajit Pai, is preparing to completely undermine the founding principle that has defined a free and open internet since the foundation of the World Wide Web. The FCC has today released a plan to completely roll back all net neutrality legislation under the guise of "restoring internet freedom."

This is not an enormous surprise. The principle of net neutrality—which ensures internet service providers (ISPs) cannot favor some data over other data—has been contested by large telecom providers and their pro-corporate political allies for years. Initially instituted by the FCC Open Internet Order of 2010, the regulations suffered a setback when in 2014 the DC Circuit Court ruled in favor of Verizon, which had argued the FCC had no authority to enforce the existing legislation. After extreme pressure by the public, the FCC ruled in 2015 to reclassify broadband providers as “common carriers,” thereby re-establishing regulatory control. But shortly following the election of Donald Trump and the installment of a new FCC Chairman, plans were outlined to reverse the 2015 order, with the commission’s panel of three voting two to one in favor of repeal this past May. Today’s news merely establishes a date for the death knell: an FCC meeting on December 14th.

NET NEUTRALITY ESTABLISHES AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD THAT IS UTTERLY ESSENTIAL FOR CONTINUED INNOVATION.
In principle, net neutrality is simple and self-evidently good for internet users. Net neutrality ensures that all bits and bytes that travel across an ISPs network are treated equally, regardless of whether they are part of streaming video, email, Instagram pictures, or bad tweets. This ensures that any company or service, a titan like Facebook or an app coded by your next-door neighbor, has an equal chance of success on the internet. It establishes an even playing field that is utterly essential for continued technological innovation. Net neutrality is what gave a little website called Google the footing to topple stagnating giants like Alta Vista and Yahoo.


There is merit to both arguments. We probably do need net neutrality regulations. It probably should not be done via calling ISP's a common carrier and using the “Title II” framework.
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Demagogue
Nov 22 2017, 01:34 PM
Here is a counter opinion put forth by Popular Mechanics.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a13817671/fcc-net-neutrality-full-repeal-2017/

Quote:
 
The Federal Communications Commission, under Chairman Ajit Pai, is preparing to completely undermine the founding principle that has defined a free and open internet since the foundation of the World Wide Web. The FCC has today released a plan to completely roll back all net neutrality legislation under the guise of "restoring internet freedom."

This is not an enormous surprise. The principle of net neutrality—which ensures internet service providers (ISPs) cannot favor some data over other data—has been contested by large telecom providers and their pro-corporate political allies for years. Initially instituted by the FCC Open Internet Order of 2010, the regulations suffered a setback when in 2014 the DC Circuit Court ruled in favor of Verizon, which had argued the FCC had no authority to enforce the existing legislation. After extreme pressure by the public, the FCC ruled in 2015 to reclassify broadband providers as “common carriers,” thereby re-establishing regulatory control. But shortly following the election of Donald Trump and the installment of a new FCC Chairman, plans were outlined to reverse the 2015 order, with the commission’s panel of three voting two to one in favor of repeal this past May. Today’s news merely establishes a date for the death knell: an FCC meeting on December 14th.

NET NEUTRALITY ESTABLISHES AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD THAT IS UTTERLY ESSENTIAL FOR CONTINUED INNOVATION.
In principle, net neutrality is simple and self-evidently good for internet users. Net neutrality ensures that all bits and bytes that travel across an ISPs network are treated equally, regardless of whether they are part of streaming video, email, Instagram pictures, or bad tweets. This ensures that any company or service, a titan like Facebook or an app coded by your next-door neighbor, has an equal chance of success on the internet. It establishes an even playing field that is utterly essential for continued technological innovation. Net neutrality is what gave a little website called Google the footing to topple stagnating giants like Alta Vista and Yahoo.


There is merit to both arguments. We probably do need net neutrality regulations. It probably should not be done via calling ISP's a common carrier and using the “Title II” framework.
I've been following Ajit Pai for quite a while...in spite him being a McConnell blessed Obama appointee he does appear to be a competitive free market anti-truster and an advocate for less regulation....



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It's a fine line between suppressing information and not losing billions in advertising revenue.

I suspect any changes will hardly be noticeable immediately.
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Nov 22 2017, 01:53 PM
It's a fine line between suppressing information and not losing billions in advertising revenue.

I suspect any changes will hardly be noticeable immediately.
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