But as others have noted, sometimes your own Congress person is not on the committee that considers law in the area you are interested in.
For example, the House Subcommittee on Communications is a big one, and telecom policy issues are "my thing", but my Congressman is not on the committee, so who do I write to?
I understand the purpose of the limitation but it severely restricts the usefulness of this effort.
You are correct that, prior to 2005, DSL had to "line share" whereas cable and fiber did not.
Think about that for a moment. Everybody knows that DSL cannot support the bandwidth that cable and fiber can. Yet DSL was the one technology that was saddled with a sharing requirement, while cable and fiber got a "get out of jail free" card?
It never made any sense to me. Which is why, in 2005, the FCC decided to relieve DSL of that burden, to put it on a more equal footing with fiber and coax. Of course, putting all technologies on a equal footing was the right thing to do, but the FCC went in the wrong direction.
They should have made fiber and cable utility services just like DSL was, and forced all three to line share.
Cities and states cannot legally grant exclusive monopolies to cable or telephone companies.
Exclusive cable franchises were banned by the 1992 Cable Act. The 1996 Telecom Act did the same for exclusive telephone certificates (a "certificate" allows a telephone company to do business in a state and is granted by the state PUC).
I'm not saying there aren't "de facto" monopolies, especially in cable (at least telephone companies are required by law to lease components of their networks to competitors; that requirement has never applied to cable companies).
But there is no law that prevents a google (for example) from overbuilding an existing cable or telephone network.
I sent the FCC mailbox some comments and got an acknowledgement email.
Whether that means an actual human looked at it, I can't say. I think the FCC will listen to reasonable comments that are more than simple hyperbolic ventilation of the author's lungs. I note that 99% of the 10,000+ comments received so far are little more than spam, which I hope the FCC ignores.
Simply spamming the FCC with the very same one liner doesn't do the NN cause any good.
Don't incumbents have to get permission to run their wires, and don't incumbents have to follow state and federal rules?
ISTM ALL cable companies, whether new or incumbents, have to follow the same rules. If so, such rules by definition cannot be barriers to entry. If a new entrant has to follow a rule that an incumbent doesn't, THAT would be a barrier to entry. Or if a rule were written such that for all practical purposes, only the incumbent can comply then that too would be a barrier to entry.
John Henderson wrote: "It is nothing more than a means of stripping most people (deemed "not journalists") of their first amendment rights."
I don't think so. No one is being denied their right to publish anything they want. It's just that non-licensed journalists would not be able to shield their sources. Where does the First Amendment say anything about that?
I view this as no different than doctor-patient privilege laws. Real doctors don't have to disclose the content of their patient communications. Quacks, on the other hand, are not provided that same protection.
There is attorney-client privilege and there is doctor-patient privilege. What the two have in common is that, via licensure, the government determines who is a doctor and who is a lawyer.
Quacks and pretend lawyers aren't protected by the laws that protect real doctors and lawyers.
There is no journalist-source privilege that is generally recognized (some states might have it but not all and not the federal government).
If "real" journalists want a similar law that grants them privilege with respect to their sources, maybe they need to let the government license them.
If that is too intrusive, then skip the protection of the law, and suffer jail time for not revealing your sources.
I've worked in government agencies to which people have submitted confidential "redacted" electronic files.
I can't tell you how many times I've had to tell the submitter that their redaction didn't actually do what it was supposed to do; i.e., the redacted text could easily be recovered. Oh, and the documents were subject to state-level FOIA laws.
So to those telling the agency to simply redo them and do it right, it's more complicated than that.
Government neither owns nor controls the entire infrastructure.
The DC Circuit court struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules, so that pretty well demonstrates how little control the government exercises over the infrastructure.
And the idea that government "built" the network is popular but wrong. Saying it over and over doesn't make it any more correct.
How is this any different than 800 service? In the telco world, 800 gives some businesses a competitive advantage over those that don't subscribe. But it's not illegal.
So why are two-sided markets OK in the telco world, but not OK in the broadband world?
NBC, like all media outlets, is falling all over each other praising Julian Assange and wikileaks, but when one of their own posts internal info on the web, all that praise goes out the window.
@coco: true, but you're confusing the world-wide-web with the Internet.
Mosaic truly opened up the WWW to Windows users, but the "Internet" was being used for email, USENET news, telnet sessions, FTP downloads, gopher, etc. before (and in some cases LONG before) the WWW was invented.
On the post: Sunlight Foundation Gives Congress Email Addresses
Helpful first step
For example, the House Subcommittee on Communications is a big one, and telecom policy issues are "my thing", but my Congressman is not on the committee, so who do I write to?
I understand the purpose of the limitation but it severely restricts the usefulness of this effort.
On the post: FCC's Tom Wheeler Says He'll Ask For Public Comment On Whether It's Appropriate To Reclassify Broadband
Re: Re: Dear Tom Wheeler,
Think about that for a moment. Everybody knows that DSL cannot support the bandwidth that cable and fiber can. Yet DSL was the one technology that was saddled with a sharing requirement, while cable and fiber got a "get out of jail free" card?
It never made any sense to me. Which is why, in 2005, the FCC decided to relieve DSL of that burden, to put it on a more equal footing with fiber and coax. Of course, putting all technologies on a equal footing was the right thing to do, but the FCC went in the wrong direction.
They should have made fiber and cable utility services just like DSL was, and forced all three to line share.
On the post: FCC's Tom Wheeler Says He'll Ask For Public Comment On Whether It's Appropriate To Reclassify Broadband
Re: Re:
Exclusive cable franchises were banned by the 1992 Cable Act. The 1996 Telecom Act did the same for exclusive telephone certificates (a "certificate" allows a telephone company to do business in a state and is granted by the state PUC).
I'm not saying there aren't "de facto" monopolies, especially in cable (at least telephone companies are required by law to lease components of their networks to competitors; that requirement has never applied to cable companies).
But there is no law that prevents a google (for example) from overbuilding an existing cable or telephone network.
On the post: FCC's Tom Wheeler Says He'll Ask For Public Comment On Whether It's Appropriate To Reclassify Broadband
Re: An important distinction:
Whether that means an actual human looked at it, I can't say. I think the FCC will listen to reasonable comments that are more than simple hyperbolic ventilation of the author's lungs. I note that 99% of the 10,000+ comments received so far are little more than spam, which I hope the FCC ignores.
Simply spamming the FCC with the very same one liner doesn't do the NN cause any good.
On the post: Interconnection: Or How Big Broadband Kills Net Neutrality Without Violating 'Net Neutrality'
Re: Re:
On the post: How The FCC Plans Neuter The Net, Even As The FCC Insists Everyone's Got It All Wrong
Have you actually SEEN the "proposed" rules?
Either you've seen them (and no one else has), or you're psychic. Do you know if the final rules will read like the (so far unseen) proposed rules?
How else to explain the fact that you can lay out the impact of the proposed rules, sight unseen?
On the post: Washington Post Editorial Board Deploys A Bunch Of Bad Arguments In Its Defense Of The Comcast Merger
Re: The problem is not the merger
ISTM ALL cable companies, whether new or incumbents, have to follow the same rules. If so, such rules by definition cannot be barriers to entry. If a new entrant has to follow a rule that an incumbent doesn't, THAT would be a barrier to entry. Or if a rule were written such that for all practical purposes, only the incumbent can comply then that too would be a barrier to entry.
Do you have any examples of such requirements?
On the post: A Look Back In Techdirt History
Logarithms and slide rules
I feel like I should be yelling, "Get off my lawn"!
On the post: Girl Scouts Get A Badge In Intellectual Property Maximalism
http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaapatch.pdf
and I agree its pretty one-sided. It would be nice to see the actual requirements for the GS patch.
On the post: Girl Scouts Get A Badge In Intellectual Property Maximalism
Re:
On the post: Girl Scouts Get A Badge In Intellectual Property Maximalism
How do you know?
OTOH, I'm sure TechDirt never met a copyright pirate it didn't love . . .
On the post: Senator Schumer More Or Less Admits His 'Media Shield' Law Won't Protect Actual Journalists
Re: Re:
"It is nothing more than a means of stripping most people (deemed "not journalists") of their first amendment rights."
I don't think so. No one is being denied their right to publish anything they want. It's just that non-licensed journalists would not be able to shield their sources. Where does the First Amendment say anything about that?
I view this as no different than doctor-patient privilege laws. Real doctors don't have to disclose the content of their patient communications. Quacks, on the other hand, are not provided that same protection.
On the post: Senator Schumer More Or Less Admits His 'Media Shield' Law Won't Protect Actual Journalists
Journalist-source "privilege"?
Quacks and pretend lawyers aren't protected by the laws that protect real doctors and lawyers.
There is no journalist-source privilege that is generally recognized (some states might have it but not all and not the federal government).
If "real" journalists want a similar law that grants them privilege with respect to their sources, maybe they need to let the government license them.
If that is too intrusive, then skip the protection of the law, and suffer jail time for not revealing your sources.
On the post: CIA Tells FOIA Requester It Can Only Make PDFs By Printing Out Electronic Documents And Re-Scanning Them
I can't tell you how many times I've had to tell the submitter that their redaction didn't actually do what it was supposed to do; i.e., the redacted text could easily be recovered. Oh, and the documents were subject to state-level FOIA laws.
So to those telling the agency to simply redo them and do it right, it's more complicated than that.
On the post: If You Want To Fix U.S. Broadband Competition, Start By Killing State-Level Protectionist Laws Written By Duopolists
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: If You Want To Fix U.S. Broadband Competition, Start By Killing State-Level Protectionist Laws Written By Duopolists
Re:
The DC Circuit court struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules, so that pretty well demonstrates how little control the government exercises over the infrastructure.
And the idea that government "built" the network is popular but wrong. Saying it over and over doesn't make it any more correct.
On the post: AT&T's 'Sponsored Data' Program An Admission That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion
No different than 800 service
So why are two-sided markets OK in the telco world, but not OK in the broadband world?
On the post: NBC Fires Guy Who Posted The Bryant Gumbel/Katie Couric 'What Is Internet' Video
Hypocrites . . .
On the post: NBC Fires Guy Who Posted The Bryant Gumbel/Katie Couric 'What Is Internet' Video
Re:
Mosaic truly opened up the WWW to Windows users, but the "Internet" was being used for email, USENET news, telnet sessions, FTP downloads, gopher, etc. before (and in some cases LONG before) the WWW was invented.
On the post: Feds Just Itching To Regulate The Internet
Re: :S
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