FCC votes for Open Internet

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Just passed 3-2. Bans throttling for example (wired or wireless). More to follow ...
 
http://deadline.com/2015/02/fcc-passes-net-neutrality-vote-internet-regulations-1201381827/

FCC Adopts Vigorous Open Internet Rules, Presaging Fight With ISPs

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The FCC just handed an historic victory to net roots activists — one that seemed politically beyond the pale a year ago. Chairman Tom Wheeler and two fellow Democrats on the commission voted to classify the Internet as a public utility in support of new rules that bar Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling any content company’s transmissions.

The reclassification and net neutrality rules will take effect 30 days after they’re printed in the Federal Register.

Supporters say the changes are essential to protect competition as media and communications increasingly reach people via a handful of cable and phone companies — often local monopolies or oligopolies.

The Internet “has redefined commerce and entertainment” and is “the ultimate vehicle for free expression,” Wheeler says. It “is too important to be left without rules and a referee on the field.” He says that the rules work for wireless carriers, and will not affect ISPs’ revenue streams. He also defended the FCC’s decision to apply net neutrality to wireless providers, and to interconnection with content distributors. “We will protect the values of an open I both in the last mile as well as at the point of interconnection.”

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said that “we can not have a two-tiered Internet with fast lanes…and the rest of us lagging behind.” Fellow Democrat Mignon Clyburn thanked the 4 million people who wrote the FCC, overwhelmingly to support net neutrality rules.

Some ISPs likely will sue to block the FCC decision. Many say the rules could backfire by chilling investment in the highly lucrative service. They also fear that the FCC will regulate rates, even though Wheeler’s proposal specifically disclaims authority to do so.

“This will be a boon for trial lawyers” and could lead to taxes on the Internet that “will leave a welt on consumers’ wallets,” GOP Commissioner Ajit Pai says. “The Internet is not broken. There is no problem for the government to solve….The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” He predicted that the changes will be overturned either by a court or by Congress. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly echoed those views, calling the FCC vote a “monumental and unlawful power grab.”

Verizon SVP Michael Glover says the decision is “a radical step that presages a time of uncertainty for consumers, innovators and investors.”

As a technical matter, vote means that regulators can enforce fair-play rules much as they have for phone companies, using authority Congress granted the agency in 1934 under Title II of the Communications Act. Up to now, the FCC had more limited oversight power after it deemed the Internet to be an information service governed by section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The agency’s hand was forced by a series of court decisions that found the FCC lacked authority to establish strong open Internet rules without reclassifying the medium. Comcast successfully appealed a 2008 FCC order for the cable giant to stop slowing transmissions from BitTorrent. (Comcast agreed to stop, but still took the FCC to court.)

Regulators regrouped and adopted formal net neutrality rules in 2010. But Verizon challenged them, leading to a pivotal appeals court ruling in January 2014 that remanded the rules. Regulators overstepped their authority, justices said, after having decided to “classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers.”

Wheeler initially sought to revive the open Internet rules without reclassification, even though fellow Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel had indicated that they wanted to go farther. Public pressure for a definitive change built after HBO’s John Oliver called on viewers to lobby the FCC for tough rules. In November President Obama — who supported net neutrality in his election campaigns — urged the independent agency to support reclassification.
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Huge news and I for one am totally for net neutrality. Unfortunately we are stuck here in a country that is still pushing back digital television migration so categorizing traffic in a neutral manner is a long, long way off...
 
Brilliant news, I'm guessing the two stooges are "sponsored" by some or other telco's
 
I don't know, this is absolutely great news and various security concerns are appropriately covered as well, but this news is only big in SA on MyBroadband... I would had appreciated some local yeas.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
I don't know, this is absolutely great news and various security concerns are appropriately covered as well, but this news is only big in SA on MyBroadband... I would had appreciated some local yeas.
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Net neutrality is at least half a century away in SA - assuming it ever arrives. ANC has more important things to do, like tax hardworking people to pay for Nkandla.
 
The_Assimilator said:
Net neutrality is at least half a century away in SA - assuming it ever arrives. ANC has more important things to do, like tax hardworking people to pay for Nkandla.
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Content distribution is global. It is only that I expected more interest, players in the industry.
 
No, the FCC didn't vote for an open internet. They voted for a government-controlled internet. Obama has done exactly what Putin dreams to do: government regulation, which over time morphs into government control.

A free and unregulated internet has served us well for two decades. This 'net neutrality' move marks the beginning of a new era of state control. It's a sad day for liberty.
 
Arthur said:
No, the FCC didn't vote for an open internet. They voted for a government-controlled internet. Obama has done exactly what Putin dreams to do: government regulation, which over time morphs into government control.

A free and unregulated internet has served us well for two decades. This 'net neutrality' move marks the beginning of a new era of state control. It's a sad day for liberty.
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I haven't been following this closely, please explain ...
 
biometrics said:
I haven't been following this closely, please explain ...
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I think Arthur is pointing to the Republican stance:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rules-ban-ISPs-throttling-download-speed.html

OBAMA WILL WRECK THE INTERNET ECONOMY, SAYS FCC COMMISSIONER

A Republican Federal Communications Commission board member last month issued a doomsday warning on his government agency's plan to adopt so-called net neutrality rules.

Republican commissioner Ajit Pai pushed back on the decision by holding a press conference to disparage the FCC's 332 page 'secret plan' to take control of the internet that he cautioned would bring about 'adverse consequences to the entire Internet economy.'

Pai warned 'that consumers that use less data may end up subsidizing consumers that use more data' and have 'less choice and less free data' if the plan is put into effect.

'My bottom line, if you like your current service plan, you should be able to keep your current service plan,' he said. 'The FCC shouldn't take it away from you.'

Referring to the proposal as 'President Obama's plan,' Pai said it 'gives the FCC broad and unprecedented discretion to micromanage the Internet.'

'This plan gives a Washington bureaucracy a blank check to decide how Internet service providers deploy and manage their networks from the last mile all the way through to the Internet backbone.'

Like other Republicans who oppose net neutrality rules, Pai said they would 'open the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband' that could climb as high as $11 billion.

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HOW TRUE ARE THE CLAIMS ON NET NEUTRALITY?

The claim: President Obama's plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the internet.' — Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai.

The facts: It's a shift, but the FCC hasn't proposed regulating internet content or controlling access to websites. The question is how to regulate internet service so providers don't block or slow web traffic for financial gain.

The FCC is independent from the administration. While Obama has put pressure on the FCC to enact tougher regulations, and he appointed Wheeler to head the agency, this is not the president's call.

The claim: FCC Chairman 'Wheeler has chosen to ignore the unprecedented Internet innovation, investment and job creation that have all thrived without government intervention and regulation.' - Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a Feb. 19 statement.

The facts: It is true that the internet has flourished and is lightly regulated compared with other industries.
It's also true that this exponential growth occurred under a system in which broadband providers mostly agreed not to discriminate against web traffic.

Providers operated under the threat of regulation for several years until late 2010, when the FCC adopted open Internet rules. Those rules were in effect until early 2014, when a federal court struck them down. So it's not true that there hasn't been any government regulation.

The claim: 'There will be no rate regulation' of IInternet service. — FCC Chairman Wheeler.

The facts: Under Wheeler's plan, broadband providers won't have to get their rates approved ahead of time by the FCC.

But the law would allow the FCC to step in if charges were 'unjust or unreasonable.' The law also allows the FCC to investigate consumer complaints.

So it's possible that consumers can claim price gouging and regulators will get involved. Mobile voice services have been under similar rules for years, and the FCC points out that it has never regulated those prices.

The claim: 'No tariffs or new taxes.' — FCC Chairman Wheeler.

The facts: Wheeler's plan won't apply new fees or taxes. The Internet Tax Freedom Act bans taxes on internet service, and that law should still apply even if the FCC reclassifies the internet as a telecommunications service under Title II.

What Wheeler doesn't mention is that the tax ban expires again in October. Unless Congress passes a permanent bill, as some lawmakers want, state governments are likely to start pushing back on this temporary relief bill, especially as landline revenues decline.
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Arthur said:
No, the FCC didn't vote for an open internet. They voted for a government-controlled internet. Obama has done exactly what Putin dreams to do: government regulation, which over time morphs into government control.

A free and unregulated internet has served us well for two decades. This 'net neutrality' move marks the beginning of a new era of state control. It's a sad day for liberty.
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Not really
The Internet has been "regulated" since day 1 - regulated by a series of contracts and conventions voluntarily entered into [with obligations flowing from representations rather the coercion] and backed by the legal system - from time to time the US government has tried to impose its will and to upend the contracts or assume critical control with the most public example having taken place in 1998 when in contravention of years at the behest of Clinton thug Ira Magaziner (as a side note so much of Obama's administration has actually been cleaning up the mess Ira stoked) the US Department of Commerce overrode the IANA and a rather coerced peace treaty between the racketeer that was the DOC and ICANN (set up in the wake of the coercion being applied by the DOC and pressingly required on Jon Postel's death)

The Bush administration in 2006 made it very clear that the interests of the US government and "free trade for US enterprises" (lovely little pile of Republican bullshit there) would dictate renewals of ICANN's authority to act as IANA and that practice of having a de facto Guantanamo clause (even if some notion of multi-stakeholder was written in) in control of the Internet was only moved to be shut down in 2014 - under Obama.

This entire "debate" represents the problem with both proponents of government regulation and those who have a nationalist-American_exceptionalist bend (Rand Paul) who have created a deeply political debate of political bullshit that has completely plastered over the actual root problem: Back in the early days of the consumer internet when commercial ISPs were entering the scene networks interconnected voluntarily on various terms that have a ring of "net neutrality" to them. Federally mandated telecommunications provisions (which were agreed to by the telecos back in the day to have access to Federal way-leaves ... and of course to strong arm local potential competitors - you know the free market for us but not others sort of thing) ensured that telecommunications companies didn't cause a ruckus and so things went on. Under the Clinton administration in IIRC 1995 Clinton acting against the advise of the pioneers of the Internet (including ol Al Gore who will never live down "inventing the Internet") a special dispensation FORCING telecos and ISPs to interconnect to cable operators networks were made. This was golden for the cable operators - telephone providers were heavily regulated and locked into network neutrality provisions - and so had to work within the bounds of their DSL operations and the leasing of T1 lines for businesses whereas the cable cartel were able to build a position which lead to AOL (whose core on-line business was until 1993 not "Internet") merging with Time Warner (and what a disaster that was)
It was great for consumers in some respects - getting cable based deployments and the pressure on telecos to deliver fibre and improve DSL etc ... within 5 years of the deal forced on them by the ol Fed - but it created an inevitable mismatch that has lead to the situation we are sitting with today AND shaped the development of the US market into a consumer Internet access market focus for quite some time until the market adjusted [think London and Amsterdam vs the US].

In a free market net neutrality clauses in contracts and representations would be enforced. The devil really is in the detail but after Clinton's interference with the Internet and Bush's occassional little foray into the industry through national security and treasury pretexts there really is little short of usurping contracts that Obama could do that would represent a "new era" of state control.
 
Republicans say you should be able to keep your plan if you like it, and making Internet cheap for everyone will make it too expensive to maintain. Sounds familiar.
 
Paul, the entire Obama/Wheeler move is totally unnecessary.

Besides, no-one really knows what the regs are. As you say, the devil is in the detail, and in this case we have 317 pages of unpublished secret regulations - ample space for a hundred demons to dance.

It's astonishing that so few people see the irony in a vote on secret regulations no-one has seen. The very process contradicts the spirit of openness that it ostensibly I'd meant to protect.

It is beyond reason that anyone can support a process of such significance without knowing what exactly they're supporting. The regs are still secret.

Putin is no doubt doing a delighted jig in gratitude to Obama and Wheeler. This is exactly what he wants.
 
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