
FCC Commissioner Vows to Ignore Staff's 'Serious Concerns' About Net Neutrality - ourmandave
http://gizmodo.com/fcc-commissioner-vows-to-ignore-staffs-serious-concerns-1791100189
======
mtgx
If only Republicans actually stood up to market principles and they didn't
just use them as an excuse to help their big corporation buddies, and then
_that 's it_.

I actually believe a free market full of competition would work _way better_
than most regulations would in trying to restrict a few monopolies from doing
harm. Although I don't think a free market should be free of any regulations.
A baseline of regulations is needed to ensure that competitors play fair.

We actually have proof of this with Google Fiber. Wherever Google Fiber would
land, previous local monopolies would trip over themselves to drastically
increase the value of their offerings (but still being significantly behind
Google Fiber). As soon as Google announced it would kill Fiber, all of that
stopped, and they even reduced the value in their offers in some places.

I get it that cable companies need to be somehow rewarded for digging ditches
to lay cable, but that doesn't necessarily mean they ought to be given a legal
monopoly in that state or city. If you must, just pass a law that would force
that cable provider to license its cables at a fair price. Then you'd have
some competition, but it would also get to recover the cost of digging (the
more competitors/clients the faster it can do that).

~~~
clarkmoody
You want Republicans to be Libertarians, which they are not.

I think the cable companies probably waited for government-granted monopolies
before they invested in the last-mile infrastructure, because they wanted to
be sure it would be worth it. So on a free market, the investment in
infrastructure would have been slower (probably), but competition would be
better long-term.

Although any infrastructure discussion must include the phenomenon of suburban
sprawl fueled by government's over-investment in roads.

~~~
maxxxxx
I would be with libertarians if they didn't go to the extreme of wanting no
regulations. There should be regulations for the environment and for creating
fair market conditions. Healthbcare should be regulated in some way to ensure
accessibility.

Whatever I hear from libertarians will lead to people with money accumulating
all power in the same way we see now.

~~~
clarkmoody
Libertarians oppose crony capitalism and the use of state power for special
interests in general.

The libertarian theory on regulation is that the market punishes bad behavior
way more effectively than the government, which can always be swayed by
political forces. During the Industrial Revolution, for instance, judges sided
with corporations in pollution cases, thinking, "We can't hinder industrial
progress for the sake of a few people's lungs." So the government granted
monopoly pollution privileges to industry. Under a free market property rights
scenario, any damage done to another person via pollution would be grounds for
a suit against the polluter, no special government protection.

Edit: take a closer look at libertarian writings on environmentalism and
pollution

~~~
maxxxxx
In the libertarian world you just sue when you are being wronged and justice
will be done. In reality if you sue a big company you have to go against an
army of lawyers, expert witnesses they can buy and media campaigns. You simply
can't win that unless you have a lot of money. We still would have lead paint
if the EPA hadn't banned it. How can a single family prove to a court that
whatever problems their children have is caused by lead paint? Fund a clinical
study for a few million dollars?

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firasd
This “zero rating” was the bone of contention in the big fight against
Facebook’s Free Basics in India, where this sort of price discrimination for
data was eventually blocked. We did this after the grassroots movement for Net
Neutrality in the US, so maybe it’s time for the US to pick up the baton
again… the price of net neutrality is eternal protest?

~~~
Someone1234
Eternal or until Internet is correctly reclassified as a public utility like
roads, bridges, and other vital infrastructure.

Then the government can pick up responsibility for the last mile, and you can
buy internet service from one of a two dozen different providers (who utilise
and pay rent on the government's last mile cabling).

That's where we'll wind up eventually. Government will put fiber into every
home, then cable companies and internet companies will use that fiber and pay
a fee to the government while charging end users.

~~~
germinalphrase
Other than political will - is there anything preventing local municipalities
from doing this right now?

~~~
jellicle
What has happened to many municipalities that tried is that the incumbent
telcos went to the state legislature and had laws passed making it illegal for
cities to run their own telecom infrastructure.

Basically, the political will has to be present at the city AND state level
for this to happen. And that turns out to be a small set.

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LeifCarrotson
The actual letter from the likely future commissioner:

> STATEMENT OF FCC COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI

> On the FCC’s Midnight Regulation of Free Data

> WASHINGTON, January 11, 2017.—It is disappointing that the FCC’s current
> leadership has yet again chosen to spend its last days in office the same
> way it spent the last few years—cutting corners on process, keeping fellow
> Commissioners in the dark, and pursuing partisan, political agendas that
> only harm investment and innovation.

> This time the midnight regulations come in the form of a Bureau-level report
> casting doubt on the legality of free data offerings—offerings that are
> popular among consumers precisely because they allow more access to online
> music, videos, and other content free of charge. This report, which I only
> saw after the FCC released the document, does not reflect the views of the
> majority of Commissioners. Fortunately, I am confident that this latest
> regulatory spasm will not have any impact on the Commission’s policymaking
> or enforcement activities following next week’s inauguration.

> It was my hope—as I have consistently expressed to my colleagues—that we
> could spend the remaining days of this Administration working together with
> bipartisan comity to ensure a smooth transition. It is sad that the outgoing
> leadership of the agency has chosen a different path.

> Office of Commissioner Ajit Pai: (202) 418-2000

> Twitter: @AjitPaiFCC

> [https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/ajit-
> pai](https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/ajit-pai)

From
[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-342990A1.d...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-342990A1.docx).
Note the .docx (not .html or even .pdf) suffix on that link. Note the .docx
suffix and weep.

Contrast this with Tom Wheeler's report from yesterday:
[http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342982A1.pdf)
(.pdf, which your browser probably handles well) which, starting on page 15,
analyzes existing wireless carrier zero-rating plans and finds issue with
AT&T's Sponsored Data zero-rating its own DirectTV service, suggesting that
"these sponsored data offerings may harm consumers and competition by
unreasonably discriminating in favor of downstream providers owned or
affiliated with the network providers."

Tom, we're going to miss you.

~~~
acomjean
Commissioner Pai seems to have rebranded "Zero-Rated" content as "free data
offerings", but its not really free, you already are a paying customer.

Also really political wording: "popular among consumers precisely because they
allow more access to online music, videos, and other content free of charge"

instead of the more accurate

"access to our chosen providers online music... without counting against your
data cap"

ok t-mobile is the one company that doesn't charge to be a "chosen provider",
but the others.

This doesn't bode well..

~~~
LeifCarrotson
It's both better and worse than that. The FCC has no problem with "zero
rating" or "sponsored data" per se.

Instead of paying Netflix $8/mo to stream content from their servers to
peering network providers, and then paying AT&T a marginal $4/mo to take that
data from the peering servers to their towers and eventually to your phone,
you could pay Netflix $12/mo and have them pay $4/mo to AT&T on your behalf.

Annoying and problematic for sure - you can bet that some sites like fcc.gov,
for example, are unlikely to pay AT&T for sponsored data, that this makes it
more difficult for upstarts, and that this allows AT&T to offer less general-
purpose data and more control over bandwidth. But it could in theory be done
fairly.

Nonetheless, the clear and present issue is that DirectTV, owned by AT&T, is
getting this "sponsored data" class for free. If DirectTV were offered the
same deal as Netflix, who were offered the same deal as fcc.gov and
news.ycombinator.com, that would be one thing. But they're not. And that's
discrimination.

------
mulmen
If we really care about net neutrality is it viable to create our own ISPs?
Are net neutrality rules different between the backbone networks?

~~~
croon
Can you get around last mile monopolies?

~~~
SEJeff
Without laying fiber or networks to the millions of homes around the entire
united states (kind of like google tried and found not economically viable),
no.

~~~
rayiner
That is, ironically, a problem largely created by public interest minded
people. Most places in the U.S., it is illegal for an ISP startup to be like
Apple: targeting the lucrative high end of the market and working down. You
have to build out to every neighborhood, even in nehgborhoods where the cost
of build out will be more than what you can hope to make from subscribers
there.

That means even behemoths find it difficult to enter each others' markets.
Baltimore, for example, wants fiber. Verizon was ready to build fiber. It
would have been easy--Baltimore's suburbs are already wired. But the city
wouldn't give Verizon a television license (fundamental to the economics of
broadband) without universal build out. But it just didn't make sense to do
that in a city where a third of the population is below the poverty line.

In fact, nobody has been willing to build fiber in Baltimore on those terms,
despite the city railing against Comcast and trying to get a competitor.

~~~
SEJeff
Not quite, that is an issue, but not remotely the biggest one. The biggest
problem (and google themselves admit this!) is planning and zoning happens at
the city and even county / neighborhood level. If you want to move into a city
like say Chicago you don't just need to pass city muster. You need to get the
alderman to agree for each small neighborhood. What if you need to lay fiber
through neighborhood B to reach neighborhood C from neighborhood A and the
zoning committee in B denies you? Well that just cut off a large swath of
potential clients. This is fundamentally a problem with all infrastructure
improvements in the US. The local communities have too much control over what
happens. This is also why things like infra happen to move so quickly in a
place like say China where the federal govt can trample over all local
regulations. For things like infrastructure, this is a great thing.

------
croon
Every day something worse.

~~~
ajmurmann
Yes. A few days ago I remembered the floating island states that were
discussed a few years back. Ever since I can't stop to fantasize about it.

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karmelapple
What is the best concrete action to take to express our concerns to the FCC?

~~~
wodencafe
But if the new FCC Commissioner's mind is already made up before he takes the
job, there is no incentive to listen to our concerns.

~~~
karmelapple
If a commissioner can make a decision unilaterally and not be subject to
concerned citizens and lawmakers saying "that's a bad idea," then something is
wrong.

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westmeal
Whoopee.

