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They leave the problems for the very end, where they note that the supreme court has already said that classifying a cable modem as an information service is an

They leave the problems for the very end, where they note that the supreme court has already said that classifying a cable modem as an information service is an allowed reading of the law. My overall impression reading the definions is what salawat said, that something about the ordinary use of language isn't happening. But even with those definitions my question would be if broadband isn't a telecommunication service then what is the telecommunication service it is over? Unfortunately, "the supreme court was just plain wrong last time" is not really allowed in legal decisions. It sounds like at least one of the judges wants to argue that since ISP email is no longer generally used things have changed.

jcranmer 8y ago
I haven't read the decision in question carefully, but I did skim some of the briefs in this case. My understanding is that the decision basically said "broadband is providing both telecommunication and information services, so it's acceptable to classify is information service." Mozilla et al. is arguing that the information services broadband--e.g., Usenet, personal website hosting--used to provide are no longer being provided, so that broadband companies are no longer providing the information services needed to let them be classified as information services.
- naasking 8y ago
  > My understanding is that the decision basically said "broadband is providing both telecommunication and information services, so it's acceptable to classify is information service" I don't see why these are mutually exclusive. If they are both, shouldn't they be subject to both sets of rules? Or perhaps they should be required to separate them.
josteink 8y ago
> But even with those definitions my question would be if broadband isn't a telecommunication service then what is the telecommunication service it is over? When you state it like that, the answer is really, really obvious. Too bad the courts won’t allow us to treat this equally simple.
rdiddly 8y ago
"...if broadband isn't a telecommunication service then what is the telecommunication service it is over?" Exactly. The most they can argue credibly is that it's both, not that it's only an information service. And frankly, even saying it's both is an admission of a conflict of interest on the part of the telecom companies. It's a bad idea to have the "information service" and the "telecommunications service" be owned by the same people. But the companies to which Pai and the FCC are apparently playing errand-boys have been doing everything they could in recent years to blur the line. OK fine then, blur the line; in some ways it was an arbitrary distinction anyway. (All communications involves information and all information insofar as it gets transferred involves communication.) But that means you're either 1) strictly a telecom 2) a telecom while maybe being an info svc too, and therefore in a conflict of interest, which I think we should remedy by regulating you as a telecom 3) an information service

jcranmer 8y ago

I haven't read the decision in question carefully, but I did skim some of the briefs in this case. My understanding is that the decision basically said "broadband is providing both telecommunication and information services, so it's acceptable to classify is information service." Mozilla et al. is arguing that the information services broadband--e.g., Usenet, personal website hosting--used to provide are no longer being provided, so that broadband companies are no longer providing the information services needed to let them be classified as information services.

naasking 8y ago
> My understanding is that the decision basically said "broadband is providing both telecommunication and information services, so it's acceptable to classify is information service" I don't see why these are mutually exclusive. If they are both, shouldn't they be subject to both sets of rules? Or perhaps they should be required to separate them.

josteink 8y ago

> But even with those definitions my question would be if broadband isn't a telecommunication service then what is the telecommunication service it is over? When you state it like that, the answer is really, really obvious. Too bad the courts won’t allow us to treat this equally simple.

rdiddly 8y ago

"...if broadband isn't a telecommunication service then what is the telecommunication service it is over?" Exactly. The most they can argue credibly is that it's both, not that it's only an information service. And frankly, even saying it's both is an admission of a conflict of interest on the part of the telecom companies. It's a bad idea to have the "information service" and the "telecommunications service" be owned by the same people. But the companies to which Pai and the FCC are apparently playing errand-boys have been doing everything they could in recent years to blur the line. OK fine then, blur the line; in some ways it was an arbitrary distinction anyway. (All communications involves information and all information insofar as it gets transferred involves communication.) But that means you're either 1) strictly a telecom 2) a telecom while maybe being an info svc too, and therefore in a conflict of interest, which I think we should remedy by regulating you as a telecom 3) an information service