As Expected, Court Strikes Down FCC's Net Neutrality Rules: Now What?
from the not-the-end-of-the-world dept
Almost everyone I've spoken to (on both sides of the net neutrality debate) more or less expected the ruling that came down this morning in the DC circuit, in which the appeals court struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules because the the FCC had no mandate under the rules it used to issue that ruling. Basically, this is exactly what lots of us said at the start of this whole process. I've seen a bunch of reports overreacting to this today, from people saying that it's "the death of the internet." It's not. There are problems on both sides here. The telcos absolutely do want to abuse things to effectively double charge both sides. And that could clearly create significant issues with the basic end-to-end nature of the internet.However, on the flip side, we should be equally concerned about the FCC overstepping its bounds and mandate in regulating the internet. Because that opens up the opportunity for the FCC to regulate all sorts of aspects of the internet in dangerous ways. So, this ruling is both good and bad. It stops the FCC from overstepping its bounds... but opens up the opportunity for the telcos to sweep in and try to upset the basic concepts of the internet. It's what happens now that becomes interesting. The court does leave open the possibility that the FCC could use other aspects of its mandate to establish net neutrality rules -- where it has a much more firm legal footing. In other words, the court is telling the FCC basically: you can establish net neutrality rules if you do it correctly.
Separate from that, it's possible that Congress could step in as well -- though the issue of net neutrality in Congress has become partisan, and thus toxic. Of course, in the meantime, it seems likely that the FCC will appeal to the Supreme Court, and there's a decent chance that the Supreme Court will take the case -- though I'd be very, very surprised if the Supreme Court came to a different ruling. The original FCC rule, while well intentioned, definitely stretched the FCC's mandate, and it's no surprise that it's now been slapped down.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: broadband, congress, fcc, mandate, net neutrality
Companies: verizon
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chord cutters are screwed
http://mankabros.com/blogs/chairman/2013/10/25/old-media-fights-back/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
Company acts in own interest shocker
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/11/google_killed_the_hippies_in_2008/
Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality
"In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don’t give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-neutrality/
Ain't it odd how Google has a history of "don't be evil" until it's in power, then abruptly reverses? Who could possibly predict that of a mega-corporation? -- Not Mike! He can't ever see what his precious will do next!
Civilization isn't just to have a few highly "efficient" corporations concentrating wealth: it's to provide FAIRNESS FOR ALL.
06:02:00[h-5-0]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It's the end of the world (as we know it)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
So in other words
That's... not exactly reassuring, but it considering (as far as I've heard anyway) he's not a total corporate lapdog people expected him to be, we might not be as doomed as I originally thought.
As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
How long before?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
This is akin complaining that the local Government won't let you babysit children at your home, when you're trying to run a 40 child daycare out of your house.
If you're going to try to prove something, please research the subject a bit more than just reading headlines and seeing the same word and assuming they're the same thing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
If not, what is his agenda? Anyone been reading this rambling long enough to know who oob supports?
Is it really Mike just making posts just so there is some sort of troll on here at any given time to help galvanize the troops?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It's not exactly a free market when your city's only real options are Craptastic company A or Craptastic Company B, and that's if your lucky. A virtual duopoly (or worse, monopoly) a free market does not make.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
It's probably just some random tinfoil hat guy that occasionally gets drunk/high/whatever and then goes to post on Techdirt because WAKE UP SHEEPLE. And then automatically gets reported by everyone who sees him because oh great it's THAT guy again.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: How long before?
Sad thing is, I wouldn't put it past them to try something like that if they got desperate enough in terms of public opinion.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The logic of the FCC's rules struck down being bad sounds very familiar
By that kind of logic you can justify the government standing back and doing nothing while private individuals/corporations do all sorts of MUCH WORSE things.
I'm not trying to call you or that logic racist, but that's the EXACT logic that some in congress like Barry Goldwater used to justify voting against civil rights acts half a century ago. They didn't say "I'm a racist so I'm voting against this", they said things like this. "Sure racism is a horrible thing, but I don't think we should let the federal government interfere with states by forcing equality onto them. This kind of logic opens the door for the federal government to abuse it's power and do much more dangerous things in the future if these civil rights acts go through".
Allowing the government to step in and stop rampant abuses by the free market that are becoming the reality we warned about years ago doesn't automatically lead to government abuses. Look at utilities like electric and water, they're heavily government controlled, much more so then the Internet, yet do you see the government abusing them? Such as deciding to shut off electricity at the houses of people they don't like? Or letting electric companies tell people or companies "because you use way more watts a month then our customers we're charging you twice as much per watt then everyone else".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: How long before?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Better explanation?
I'm curious as to what their suggestion was, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by 81 pages of legal jargon (and maybe I'm lazy, so what?). Can someone point out what the court's explanations were regarding how the FCC could still accomplish the regulations within the confines of the current law?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yeah
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yeah it limits competition
Don't kid yourself: Free markets don't exist in the US NOT because of the government. They don't exist because big companies like it that way.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: The logic of the FCC's rules struck down being bad sounds very familiar
ISP's live in an upside-down world where buying-in-bulk is gonna cost you extra.
This seems to be because, unlike gas & elec providers, the telco's own the pipes (infrastructure) such that they can charge the supplier of online information (the 0s and 1s that I'm sending you here) *PLUS* the consumer of them (you).
Imagine US telco's dont like techdirt's criticism of US telco's... can they now throttle this website??
[ link to this | view in thread ]
What about all the good things Cable companies do?
The fact of the matter is that this ruling simply makes some common sense adjustments to cyberspace, given the reality of the real world costs:
Mommy bloggers will no longer be able to shill for cloth diaper manufacturers and receive the same level of internet throughput as an established brand like Huggies.
Conspiracy theorists will now have their Monotone YouTube videos shoved to the back of the internet bus, so that people can see better quality content such as more Vice documentaries on people littering.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Cable and DSL ISPs already do that, if you want to run a server. If you want to run a server on AT&T, Sonic, or Verizon , you have to get their more expensive tiers of server. If short, you have to buy business level tiers of service, if you want to run a server.
Wanna run a sever on Comcast or Charter? You will have to shell out for their business level service.
I could seethe same thing happening if people want unrestricted access, so they can make more money.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
People who use too much bandwidth are typically driving up costs for everyone else. They are typically high maintenance customers who over utilize fixed commodities such as customer service resources.
People just don't realize that competition drives down quality along with cost, as it is now, typically these regional cable providers have large numbers of departments and executives and installers, all of which need to be supported in some manner.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
No. No. No!
That's the disingenuous fantasy being sold to the general public, because the public is ignorant enough (about the internet) to fall for it.
"Bandwidth hogs" aren't a problem -- and this was demonstrated in concrete, real-world terms when a fairly large ISP finally accepted an industry expert's challenge, and submitted a moth's logs for analysis.
In short, it turns out almost everyone is a "bandwith hog" because almost everyone wants to use the internet at the same time, when everyone else is using it -- leading to congestion, regardless of whether they are heavy users or not.
At the same time, the clear, top-tier heavy users didn't contribute much more than their fair share to the congestion, because their heavy use was mostly during "quite" hours. In fact, the users with the top-tier plans generally weren't causing as much congestion as those a couple of tiers down -- there was no correlation between over-all bandwidth consumption and contribution to congestion, nor between bandwidth tier and congestion.
The only meaningful correlation was between time of use and contribution to congestion. Which is pretty much what those in the know predicted.
It's just like telephone service. Gossipy Aunt Tilda may be a "phone system hog", yakking away to her friends 14 hours a day -- but that doesn't hurt the service. What hurts the service is when for some reason, everybody in town want's to make a call at the same time (eg Christmas, major news event, etc.) And like the phone system, the best (and oddly enough most cost effective) way to deal with more load than the system can properly handle, is to increase the capacity of the system (and next to that, offer incentives to shift use to less busy hours, when the system has more unused capacity).
The fact that the telcos and ISPs are fighting so hard to implement these more complicated, more expensive, but more profitable, schemes that are actually less effective for solving the alleged problem, is just more proof that this is really about gouging customers, rather than providing fair service at a fair price.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
Your contention that:
"No. No. No!"
...this is all a big myth, just doesn't hold water. For instance:
Take an archetypical heavier than average user who uses a large amount of internet bandwidth. When their entire first season of Game of Thrones torrent seed all of a sudden stops seeding, allowing a rival cyber-hipster release crew to get cred, what is the first thing that he does? He's on the phone immediately wasting valuable customer support resources trying to get answers, when level 3 are the only people located in this country who know what's going and they have gone home for the day.
Just take a gander broadbandreports or dslreports whatever they are calling themselves now, and look at how many threads are discussing alleged youtube bandwidth throttling, now how many calls did those same obsessed users make to the internet service provider demanding answers for their throttling conspiracy theories? Who has time for that? It would better if these users simply had their own 'special' support team who knew how to deal with these special users, instead of needlessly bothering the regular support teams which are only trained in terms of solving real world problems experienced by a majority of users, things that are resolved through various combinations of turning things on and off, like restarting the router, turning the computer on and off again in order to resolve issues, etc...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
Highlights include declaring herself an influential commenter (that honor belongs to Karl and John Fenderson) and pretty much demanding that Mike give her a job as a paid article writer.
She's the crazy copyright/cat lady of TD, and is incapable of reason. Ignore, ignore, ignore.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: The logic of the FCC's rules struck down being bad sounds very familiar
However, they never say how or what with.
The truth is, the far right have been using the Big L's for a long time, feeding them the lie that they're all about small government. They're not, as the latest slew of legislation has proved.
Can we all please stop pretending that principles trump common sense and the needs of the people? We need some government, enough to protect us from the tyranny of the strong. This needs to be paid for by taxes, not via service charges per individual, as this means that justice, etc., would only be available to the richest among us, and of course it would open up the system to all kinds of abuses. Some of you may have noticed this is happening now.
We need governance. The private sector can't and won't deliver that because private individuals and groups act in the best interest of themselves or their particular group, and according to their principles, not for the greater good. They're not neutral, is what I'm saying, and the service providers have got to be neutral or the conditions attached to accessing those services may restrict the people who need them most from receiving them.
Therefore we need government.
Have you ever noticed that whenever the small government types get into office, they get rid of the programs we need and replace them with the programs they want?
I see nothing wrong with municipal broadband and other valuable services as long as private sector service providers are allowed to compete with them. We need net neutrality now and in case you haven't noticed, no private sector provider is providing it. At this point, I'd welcome government regulation that makes them treat us fairly and allow competition instead of locking up the market and pretending that "Take it or leave it" is a choice.
/End rant.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: What about all the good things Cable companies do?
I'd be interested to learn why you think that is a good thing. Bear in mind that to get the "throughput" the established brands get, you need to be as popular. I can't name many mommy bloggers, and if they make a few bucks off of advertising revenue on the back of their popularity, good luck to 'em.
Oh, hang on, my sarcasm detector is playing up. Were you trying to be funny? If so, well played.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
FCC making you pay for YouTube
If u guys make us pay for YouTube u will loose me and the whole USA of device so don't mess with our YouTube
Any question email me back as soon you get this message
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Better explanation?
The entire post is very short and should answer your question pretty well.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: What about all the good things Cable companies do?
Such as? (Enabling internet access over the cable doesn't count).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
They will even be able to redirect clicks. Fck, you wont even know that a competing product exists.
Im gonna be RICH.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: FCC making you pay for YouTube
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Chord cutters are screwed
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: What about all the good things Cable companies do?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: What about all the good things Cable companies do?
Also, it's really cool how most providers offer you free email accounts. Everyone in the family can have their own emails.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: As usual, you don't mention Google in this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]