Twitter Comes Out In Favor of FCC's Strict Net Neutrality Rules

Democratic FCC commissioner balks at net neutrality rules
thehill.com...

A Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission wants to narrow the scope of new net neutrality rules that are set for a vote on Thursday, The Hill has learned.

Mignon Clyburn, one of three Democrats on the FCC, has asked Chairman Tom Wheeler to roll back some of the restrictions before the full commission votes on them, FCC officials said.

The request — which Wheeler has yet to respond to — puts the chairman in the awkward position of having to either roll back his proposals, or defend the tough rules and convince Clyburn to back down.
It’s an ironic spot for Wheeler, who for months was considered to be favoring weaker rules than those pushed for by his fellow Democrats, before he reversed himself about backing tougher restrictions on Internet service providers.

“Some have expressed concerns about allowing private rights of action in court, failing to consider the impact on smaller [Internet service providers], that including interconnection goes too far or that the case-by-case approach does not go far enough and that the new conduct rule may not be as strong as the previous unreasonable discrimination rule,” she said.

The requested changes come as FCC lawyers are spending hours poring over the text of the rules.

In keeping with FCC procedural rules, the four other commissioners outside of Wheeler’s office got their first look at the rules just two and a half weeks ago. Now they are scrambling to make edits ahead of the vote on Thursday morning.

scrambling to make edits

Interconnection: New Authority to Address Complaints About ISPs’ Practices
For the first time the Commission would have authority to hear complaints and take appropriate
enforcement action if necessary, if it determines the interconnection activities of ISPs are not just and reasonable, thus allowing it to address issues that may arise in the exchange of traffic between mass- market broadband providers and edge providers.

Forbearance

Congress requires the FCC to refrain from enforcing – forbear from – provisions of the Communications Act that are not in the public interest. The proposed Order applies some key provisions of Title II, and forbears from most others. There is no need for any further proceedings before the forbearance is adopted. The proposed Order would apply fewer sections of Title II than have applied to mobile voice networks for over twenty years.

Major Provisions of Title II that the Order WILL APPLY:

The proposed Order applies “core” provisions of Title II: Sections 201 and 202 (e.g., no
“unjust and unreasonable practices”

Allows investigation of consumer complaints under section 208 and related enforcement provisions, specifically sections 206, 207, 209, 216 and 217

Protects consumer privacy under Section 222

Ensures fair access to poles and conduits under Section 224, which would boost the deployment of new broadband networks

Protects people with disabilities under Sections 225 and 255

Bolsters universal service fund support for broadband service in the future through partial application of Section 254.


Major Provisions Subject to Forbearance:

Rate regulation: the Order makes clear that broadband providers shall not be subject to tariffs or other form of rate approval, unbundling, or other forms of utility regulation

Universal Service Contributions: the Order DOES NOT require broadband providers to contribute to the Universal Service Fund under Section 254

The Order will not impose, suggest or authorize any new taxes or fees – there will be no automatic Universal Service fees applied and the congressional moratorium on Internet taxation applies to broadband.
Fostering Investment and Competition
All of this can be accomplished while encouraging investment in broadband networks. To preserve
incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, Chairman Wheeler’s proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, encouraging Internet Service Providers to invest in the networks American increasingly rely on.

The proposed order does not include utility-style rate regulation
No rate regulation or tariffs
No last-mile unbundling
No burdensome administrative filing requirements or accounting standards.

A Case Study: Investment in the Wireless Industry
For 21 years the wireless industry has been governed by Title II-based rules that forbear from traditional
phone company regulation. The wireless industry has invested over $400 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can support investment and competition.
Fewer provisions will apply to ISPs than were applied to wireless carriers.

When Title II was first applied to mobile, voice was the predominant mobile service. During the period between 1993 and 2009, carriers invested heavily, including more than $270 billion in building out their wireless networks, an increase of nearly 2,000%.

originally posted by: Stormdancer777
Democratic FCC commissioner balks at net neutrality rules
thehill.com...

Yeah….

Comcast, Time Warner Cable withdraw funding for dinner honoring FCC's Clyburn

each company has regularly helped fund the Kaitz Dinner for years now. "We absolutely dispute the notion that our contributions have anything to do with currying favor with Commissioner Clyburn or any honoree," Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice told Politico. Fitzmaurice went on to blast any perceived conflict of interest as "purely fiction" and noted Comcast's history of backing the event.

Most people don't understand what happened with the FCC, federal courts and internet regulation in 2010.

The problem is after a beating in federal court the FCC's ability to tell the big guys to play nice disappeared basically, and the meat of the rules were over-turned in a federal court.

Hence the need for Net Neutrality, and a fair playing field for the little guys.

So basically the big players have the right to discriminate and block per whatever they choose, and everyone else can basically go piss up a rope, and there is nothing any one can do about it legally.

www.fcc.gov...

The FCC's rules were challenged in federal court, and on January 14, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the Commission's authority to regulate broadband Internet access service and upheld the Commission's judgment that Internet openness encourages broadband investment and that its absence could ultimately inhibit broadband deployment.

However this is also what happened.

The court upheld the transparency rule, but vacated the no-blocking and no-unreasonable-discrimination rules. The court also invited the FCC to act to preserve a free and open Internet

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I'll tell you what, corporations throw one hell of a dinner party. Not surprised she's scrambling to back peddle. I mean, who wants to miss out on a free all-you-can-eat oyster bar?

originally posted by: amfirst1
a reply to: buster2010

How do u know if it's really net neutrality when no one is allowed to see the Regulations?

Exactly. When will people learn to look beyond the freaking title of a bill?

If legislation were drafted in secret requiring every citizen to get whiskers tatooed on their face, they could get it through if they named it Free Kittens On Your Birthday.

Net neutrality advocates identify holes in FCC’s net neutrality plan
"Legal obstacles" seen in how FCC intends to reclassify broadband.

arstechnica.com...

Attorney Matt Wood, the policy director for advocacy group Free Press, told the FCC last week that it faces "legal obstacles"

"[B]oth the service to the end user and to the edge provider are classified under Title II [of the Communications Act]," the proposal states.

This could get the FCC in trouble, Wood argues:

On the statutory definition question, as we noted in our earlier letter, services purportedly offered to a “remote” edge provider—when there is no physical connection between that edge provider and the carrier in question—are not services offered “directly” to the edge provider according to any precedent we could find. If there is no physical connection, and thus no obvious “direct” relationship between the carrier and the remote edge provider, it is hard to imagine how the service can qualify as a telecom service under Section 153(53) of the Act. That subsection stipulates that a telecom service must be offered “directly” to the recipient.

Likewise, as we also noted in our letter, even in the rare case where there is a direct interconnection with an edge provider this is likely private carriage. Such arrangements are negotiated on an individual basis with the broadband provider, not offered indiscriminately on a common carrier basis “to the public” under the same definition in subsection (53).

Even if the Commission could surmount these statutory barriers, the policy question remains: why would it want to? Our November 5 letter described the seemingly absurd results that could flow from recognizing such a relationship between edge providers and end-users’ broadband providers. Would such an approach suggest or even mandate that every single end point on the Internet is a customer of each and every ISP that provides service to any other single end point on the Internet? Put more colloquially, would every website in the world become a customer of any broadband Internet access service provider whose end-users visit that web

www.theverge.com...

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I'll tell you what, corporations throw one hell of a dinner party. Not surprised she's scrambling to back peddle. I mean, who wants to miss out on a free all-you-can-eat oyster bar?

Again we have a politician trying to take the meat out of the rules and regs.


Where's my double face palm pic? I would wager she's going to get more than a dinner party for this one.

thehill.com...

However, she wants to eliminate a new legal category of “broadband subscriber access services,” which was created as an additional point of legal authority for the FCC to monitor the ways that companies hand off traffic on the back end of the Internet.

Those deals, known as “interconnection” arrangements, became a point of contention last year, when Netflix accused Comcast and other companies of erecting “Internet tolls” before easily passing Web traffic from one network to another.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Thank you for posting all the information. I do hope you are right and I am wrong on this one..... only time will tell. You have researched and have a much firmer grip on this topic than I do. Thankfully this thread was filled with members putting forward thoughts and feelings without the back and forth bickering.

FCC Chair Refuses to Testify before Congress ahead of Net Neutrality Vote

Read more at: www.nationalreview.com...

Wheeler’s refusal to go before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday comes on the eve of the FCC’s vote on new Internet regulations pertaining to net neutrality. The committee’s chairman, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) criticized Wheeler and the administration for lacking transparency on the issue. “So long as the chairman continues to insist on secrecy, we will continue calling for more transparency and accountability at the commission,” Chaffetz and Upton said in a statement. “Chairman Wheeler and the FCC are not above Congress.

Read more at: www.nationalreview.com...

Soros, Ford shovel $196 million to 'net neutrality' groups, staff to White House

www.washingtonexaminer.com...

Liberal philanthropist George Soros and the Ford Foundation have lavished groups supporting the administration’s “net neutrality” agenda, donating $196 million and landing proponents on the White House staff, according to a new report.

www.reuters.com...

Dear FCC: Rethink The Vague "General Conduct" Rule




For many months, EFF has been working with a broad coalition of advocates to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to adopt new Open Internet rules that would survive legal scrutiny and actually help protect the Open Internet. Our message has been clear from the beginning: the FCC has a role to play, but its role must be firmly bounded.

Two weeks ago, we learned that we had likely managed the first goal—the FCC is going to do the right thing and reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, giving it the ability to make new, meaningful Open Internet rules. But we are deeply concerned that the FCC’s new rules will include a provision that sounds like a recipe for overreach and confusion: the so-called “general conduct rule.”

According to the FCC's own "Fact Sheet," the proposed rule will allow the FCC to review (and presumably punish) non-neutral practices that may “harm” consumers or edge providers. Late last week, as the window for public comment was closing, EFF filed a letter with the FCC urging it to clarify and sharply limit the scope of any “general conduct” provision:

Republicans Fear Net Neutrality Plan Could Lead to UN Internet Powers
www.nationaljournal.com...

February 25, 2015 The U.S. government's plan to enact strong net neutrality regulations could embolden authoritarian regimes like China and Russia to seize more power over the Internet through the United Nations, a key Senate Republican warned Wednesday.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota argued that by claiming more authority over Internet access for net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission will undermine the ability of the U.S. to push back against international plots to control the Internet and censor content.

Countries like Russia already have made it clear that they want the International Telecommunications Union or another United Nations body to have more power over the Internet, Thune said.

David Gross, a partner at the law firm Riley Wein who advises tech and telecom companies, agreed with Thune's warning.



The U.S. has consistently argued that the Internet is not a "telecommunication service" and therefore outside of the authority of the International Telecommunications Union, he explained. "If they were to find that Internet service is a telecommunications service, that would undoubtedly make the job of my successors much more complicated," Gross, a former ambassador to the ITU during the George W. Bush administration, said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai: Net Neutrality is a "Solution That Won't Work to a Problem That Doesn't Exist"

reason.com...

Regulating the internet like a utility company, says Pai, will threaten the kind of innovation we've taken for granted over the past 20 years. "Do you trust the federal government to make the Internet ecosystem more vibrant than it is today?" Pai asks. "Can you think of any regulated utility like the electric company or water company that is as innovative as the Internet?"

Background information on all of this.
FCC NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING PDF
This rarely-referenced 99-page PDF outlines Chairman Wheelers intentions with the new Net Neutrality rules.


Text of the Introduction:

1. The Internet is America’s most important platform for economic growth, innovation, competition, free expression, and broadband investment and deployment. As a “general purpose technology,” the Internet has been, and remains to date, the preeminent 21st century engine for innovation and the economic and social benefits that follow. These benefits flow, in large part, from the open, end- to-end architecture of the Internet, which is characterized by low barriers to entry for developers of new content, applications, services, and devices and a consumer-demand-driven marketplace for their products. As the Commission explained in its 2010 Open Internet Order, the Internet’s open architecture allows innovators and consumers at the edges of the network “to create and determine the success or failure of content, applications, services and devices,” without requiring permission from the broadband provider to reach end users. As an open platform, it fosters diversity and it enables people to build communities.

2. We start with a fundamental question: What is the right public policy to ensure that the Internet remains open? This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Notice), and the comment process that follows, will turn on this fundamental question.

3. Today, there are no legally enforceable rules by which the Commission can stop broadband providers from limiting Internet openness. This Notice begins the process of closing that gap, by proposing to reinstitute the no-blocking rule adopted in 2010 and creating a new rule that would bar commercially unreasonable actions from threatening Internet openness (as well as enhancing the transparency rule that is currently in effect).

4. The goal of this proceeding is to find the best approach to protecting and promoting Internet openness. Per the blueprint offered by the D.C. Circuit in its decision in Verizon v. FCC, the Commission proposes to rely on section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. At the same time, the Commission will seriously consider the use of Title II of the Communications Act as the basis for legal authority. This Notice seeks comment on the benefits of both section 706 and Title II, including the benefits of one approach over the other. Under all available sources of legal authority (including also Title III for mobile services), the Commission seeks comment on the best ways to define, prevent and punish the practices that threaten an open Internet. We emphasize in this Notice that the Commission recognizes that both section 706 and Title II are viable solutions and seek comment on their potential use.

5. It is important to always remember that the Internet is a collection of networks, not a single network. And that means that each broadband provider can either add to the benefits that the Internet delivers to Americans—by maintaining Internet openness and by extending the reach of broadband networks—or it can threaten those benefits—by restricting its customers from the Internet and preventing edge providers from reaching consumers over robust, fast and continuously improving networks. This is a real threat, not merely a hypothetical concern.

6. In its 2010 Order, the Commission found that providers of broadband Internet access service had three types of incentives to limit Internet openness. First, broadband providers may have economic incentives to block or disadvantage a particular edge provider or class of edge providers. Second, broadband providers may have incentives to increase revenues by charging edge providers for access or prioritized access to the broadband provider’s end users. In particular, excessive fees could reduce edge provider entry, suppress innovation, and depress consumer demand. Third, if providers could profitably charge edge providers they would have an incentive “to degrade or decline to increase the quality of service they provide to non-prioritized traffic.”

7. Those threats are even more important today because Americans and American businesses have become even more dependent on the Internet. For example, according to the Pew Research Internet Project, as of January 2014, 87 percent of Americans used the Internet, compared to 14 percent in 1995.7 And it is a critical route of commerce, supporting an e-commerce marketplace that now boasts U.S. revenues of $263.3 billion.

8. Of particular concern are threats to American innovation. In “the end-to-end architecture, different economic actors can independently choose their innovation projects.” Innovation is the chief driver of American economic growth, which means that all Americans lose if the opportunity to innovate is curbed. For example, an economic study originally released in February 2012 and updated in July 2013 reported that the app economy is responsible for roughly 752,000 jobs in the United States, which is an increase from zero in 2007 when the iPhone was introduced. But equally important are the jobs that could be—but might not be—created if edge innovation and investment were to be chilled by doubt that the Internet will remain open or, even worse, if openness were defeated.

9. Although the Commission has emphasized for almost a decade the importance of legally enforceable standards, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has twice invalidated the Commission’s attempts, most recently in Verizon v. FCC, decided this January. It is in the absence of these protections for the open Internet that the Commission must act to ensure that new legally enforceable rules are put in place. That is a gap that must be closed as quickly as possible.

10. The remainder of the Notice proceeds as follows. First, we generally propose to retain the definitions and scope of the 2010 rules. Second, we tentatively conclude that the Commission should enhance the transparency rule that was upheld by the D.C. Circuit so that the public and the Commission have the benefit of sunlight on broadband provider actions and to ensure that consumers and edge providers—indeed, the Internet community at large—have the information they need to understand the services they are receiving and to monitor practices that could undermine the open Internet. Third, we tentatively conclude that the Commission should adopt the text of the no-blocking rule from the Open Internet Order with a revised rationale, in order to ensure that all end users and edge providers can enjoy the use of robust, fast and dynamic Internet access. Fourth, and where conduct would otherwise be permissible under the no-blocking rule, we propose to create a separate screen that requires broadband providers to adhere to an enforceable legal standard of commercially reasonable practices, asking how harm can best be identified and prohibited and whether certain practices, like paid prioritization, should be barred altogether. Fifth, we propose a multi-faceted dispute resolution process to provide effective access for end users, edge providers, and broadband network providers alike and the creation of an ombudsperson to act as a watchdog to represent the interests of consumers, start-ups, and small businesses.

a reply to: Stormdancer777

Are you just going to continue to copy-and-paste all the corporate-sponosred propaganda without comment?

Here's an entertaining summary of the important of Net Neutrality from John Oliver

It's from last year, when the FCC was initially supporting the tiered Internet being heavily lobbied by cable companies.

I already have plans to cancel my internet service if this goes though. I lived the first 20 years of my life without it I can do it again.

originally posted by: wantsome
I already have plans to cancel my internet service if this goes though. I lived the first 20 years of my life without it I can do it again.

You have plans to cancel your internet service when things remain the same as they have been for the past 15 years? That makes a lot of sense.

Now Wheeler has turned around and mandated that these firms, which have raped you for a decade with their privileged access to your location, must provision for any enhanced service, such as Netflix, so they can provide it to everyone -- whether you as a customer want to buy it or not.

This is going to radically increase these monopolists costs -- and without any check and balance in the form of competition guess who's going to get the bill for that, plus a nasty markup?

You are.

market ticker

Link to author of the aboves submission to the FCC from may of last year.
market-ticker.org...

What in this regulation prevents the ISPs from raising prices on the consumers due to this. Is metered data with overage or throttling like is common in wireless what we should expect for the future in broadband? If so, how does one justify a business model that uses multimedia ads that could potentially cost their users big bucks from something that runs them over there alotment. Who should be the ones paying for the data from those ads that run automatically? The consumer, the site, or the advertiser.

I work in the wireless industry, and can tell you that that a plurality if not a vast majority of consumers are clueless. I can't tell you how many customers I've seen hit their data alotment from simple stuff like failing to turn off autoplay video in Facebook or watching a movie on Netflix that they had no clue how much data it uses.

Regulated utilities still charge usage to the consumer. Your water usage is billed in gallons; electricity is billed in kilowatt hours. I think this could possibly put an end to unlimited internet.

I'm not necessarily against net neutrality, but I don't think the case forit is as clear cut as those calling for it. I don't envy the position sites like ats are in because of it they are definitely under the gun, and my thoughts are that the consumer will lose either way.

a reply to: jefwane

Thanks for the technical opinon. All this rhetoric and talking points was going nowhere.

Politicians can sell me on the intended consequences all they want; I won't consider supporting something like this until the unintended consequences are sussed out.

originally posted by: jefwane
What in this regulation prevents the ISPs from raising prices on the consumers due to this. Is metered data with overage or throttling like is common in wireless what we should expect for the future in broadband? If so, how does one justify a business model that uses multimedia ads that could potentially cost their users big bucks from something that runs them over there alotment. Who should be the ones paying for the data from those ads that run automatically? The consumer, the site, or the advertiser.

Wired networks already have metered and throttled data.

Multimedia ad's are paid for in the internet service contracts of the websites that are hosting those ad's.

Regulated utilities still charge usage to the consumer. Your water usage is billed in gallons; electricity is billed in kilowatt hours. I think this could possibly put an end to unlimited internet.

Unlimited internet was already ended in many areas. The ISP's chose to use that option years ago. It was actually the very first thing they did to battle the piracy of TV shows before Netflix convinced people to pay for it instead. They probably did it to prevent multiple households from sharing the same wifi signal and splitting costs too. For example, in the town I lived in until recently Suddenlink was the ISP, all speed tiers share the same 150GB/month data cap. If you go over you pay an additional fee. Another example would be ATT Uverse which has a data cap, but is only applied to all non in network services.

That fight was lost long before Net Neutrality ever factored into any of this.