5) "The Obama net neutrality rules were a nice but flawed idea – it made no sense to classify ISPs under Title II as telecoms utilities."
Your explanation as to "why" is incorrect. Telecoms in fact once ran the Internet (think your old, slow, dial-up ISP of yore). Classifying all ISPs as Title II is just a carryover from that and still makes sense as the type of product (information) is the same, the transmission lines are just a bit different (not entirely: dial-up still exists. AOL's still in business. Millions of USians still use dial-up. I'm oversimplifying what I know and will say on this just to keep you from crushing boredom).
Well, no, that’s not entirely correct. Dial-up access was considered a telecoms service under Title II, but other forms of internet access (to include the core connections that made up the backbone of the internet), were considered information services under Title I. Also, not all ISPs are telecoms companies. So I disagree that classifying all ISPs as Title II is a “carryover” – if that was the case, wouldn’t they have been classified as Title II from the beginning?
Also (forgot to mention this at my original go but meant to) if this is all such high drama then what do you make of this mid-summer survey I took? Honestly, I need someone to comment on it, so how about you? https://marahmarie.dreamwidth.org/363580.html
I’ve read it and I’ll post my response in your comments box.
"given that the 2015 net neutrality rules were at best a stopgap" - from what, exactly? They were perfect. I'm not understanding you.
As I said in my post in the original post, I don’t consider Title II to be a “perfect” solution. Here’s why:
Title II was written to enable the FCC to regulate a private telco monopoly (AT&T), which is why it gives the FCC the power to control how much a common carrier can charge consumers, and it dictates neutrality in terms of who can subscribe to the service and what “information” (in this case, phone conversations) could be transmitted. I get why people think Title II works as a net neutrality policy, but it actually imposes way more regulatory power over ISPs than just the neutrality part. The FCC said at the time that if it did reclassify ISPs as Title II, it would selectively enforce it. But that would be subject to the whim of whoever ran the FCC at the time, which could create exactly the kind of uncertainty that telcos rightly complain about – they don’t want the regulations changing on them every time we get a new administration, or the new FCC chairman deciding which parts of Title II will apply this year.
Consequently, I see Title II as a temporary “stopgap” fix while we come up with a new communications law written for a world where literally anything you can stick a modem in can be connected to the internet, and where most services (to include news, entertainment and other forms of speech) are online, so that a good, solid codified net neutrality policy can be put in place that isn't subject to the whim of whoever is in charge of the FCC. Since that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, Title II is probably better than nothing – and as I said, it’s definitely better than Ajit Pai’s “solution”. But I think we can and should come up with something better for this “digital economy” that the telecoms/IT industries are already in the process of developing. We can't regulate it effectively with rules written before World War 2.
And I'm taking the time to say all this because I support your right to have whatever opinion you want, I'd just appreciate it if it's based more concretely in fact and what is currently known about what ISPs can and therefore will or at least "very well might" do. There is no stopping them now. These aren't the exaggerations you were looking for.
I never said they won’t take advantage of the new rules (or lack of them) – I said they won’t pull these worst-case dystopian scenarios where full access is gone forever, you’ll have to pay $29.00 per app per month just to avoid a buffer wheel, and every website that doesn't support Trump/GOP talking points will be blocked, etc. I feel confident in this prediction for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s not a sustainable business model.
2. Even if it was, couldn't they have done all of this ages ago? Up until 2015 there was nothing the FCC could really do legally to stop them. I’m fully aware of the examples of anti-neutrality behavior you mention, and I’ve seen plenty of others. Most of them happened when net neutrality was a philosophical guideline rather than an actual regulation, and yet the major ISPs have somehow never managed to establish the anti-neutrality dystopia that Pai’s new rules supposedly allow them to do – rules that basically take us back to where we were before 2015, with a requirement that they can no longer hide such behavior (which they did in the past). So why would it happen now, when it could have happened before but didn’t?
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2017-12-29 09:53 am (UTC)Well, no, that’s not entirely correct. Dial-up access was considered a telecoms service under Title II, but other forms of internet access (to include the core connections that made up the backbone of the internet), were considered information services under Title I. Also, not all ISPs are telecoms companies. So I disagree that classifying all ISPs as Title II is a “carryover” – if that was the case, wouldn’t they have been classified as Title II from the beginning?
I’ve read it and I’ll post my response in your comments box.
As I said in my post in the original post, I don’t consider Title II to be a “perfect” solution. Here’s why:
Title II was written to enable the FCC to regulate a private telco monopoly (AT&T), which is why it gives the FCC the power to control how much a common carrier can charge consumers, and it dictates neutrality in terms of who can subscribe to the service and what “information” (in this case, phone conversations) could be transmitted. I get why people think Title II works as a net neutrality policy, but it actually imposes way more regulatory power over ISPs than just the neutrality part. The FCC said at the time that if it did reclassify ISPs as Title II, it would selectively enforce it. But that would be subject to the whim of whoever ran the FCC at the time, which could create exactly the kind of uncertainty that telcos rightly complain about – they don’t want the regulations changing on them every time we get a new administration, or the new FCC chairman deciding which parts of Title II will apply this year.
Consequently, I see Title II as a temporary “stopgap” fix while we come up with a new communications law written for a world where literally anything you can stick a modem in can be connected to the internet, and where most services (to include news, entertainment and other forms of speech) are online, so that a good, solid codified net neutrality policy can be put in place that isn't subject to the whim of whoever is in charge of the FCC. Since that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, Title II is probably better than nothing – and as I said, it’s definitely better than Ajit Pai’s “solution”. But I think we can and should come up with something better for this “digital economy” that the telecoms/IT industries are already in the process of developing. We can't regulate it effectively with rules written before World War 2.
I never said they won’t take advantage of the new rules (or lack of them) – I said they won’t pull these worst-case dystopian scenarios where full access is gone forever, you’ll have to pay $29.00 per app per month just to avoid a buffer wheel, and every website that doesn't support Trump/GOP talking points will be blocked, etc. I feel confident in this prediction for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s not a sustainable business model.
2. Even if it was, couldn't they have done all of this ages ago? Up until 2015 there was nothing the FCC could really do legally to stop them. I’m fully aware of the examples of anti-neutrality behavior you mention, and I’ve seen plenty of others. Most of them happened when net neutrality was a philosophical guideline rather than an actual regulation, and yet the major ISPs have somehow never managed to establish the anti-neutrality dystopia that Pai’s new rules supposedly allow them to do – rules that basically take us back to where we were before 2015, with a requirement that they can no longer hide such behavior (which they did in the past). So why would it happen now, when it could have happened before but didn’t?