9 ms·

Just my 2 cents, but I don't really see how your first paragraph proves the assertion you make in the second... Arguments about Netflix using too much bandwidth

by yesco 2y ago

Just my 2 cents, but I don't really see how your first paragraph proves the assertion you make in the second... Arguments about Netflix using too much bandwidth on an ISPs network are exactly the kind of thing I'd expect FCC personnel to be sympathetic with considering it's the same argument they use for all the other mediums they cover... It ultimately devolves all discussions into crappy metaphors involving phone and radio when the Internet is really it's own thing and should be treated as such. Meanwhile the FTC handles consumer protection, they are by nature going to be more proactive about this kind of thing. If they handle it then it aligns with their existing incentive structures and they can brag about it to congress in the same way they do for everything else they do when budgeting discussions come up. No matter how I think about it, the FCC just seems incompatible with what most net neutrality advocates, such as myself, actually desire.

gary_0 2y ago
You're both right: - The FCC's founding mission is to safeguard telecommunications mediums as a commons, to the benefit of the public -- a good fit for the Internet. - The FCC is functionally a bureaucracy that grants licenses to discrete chunks of very scarce communications resources -- a bad fit for the Internet. Either way, some agency needs to be put forward as a candidate for preventing monopolistic corporations from abusing the public Internet.
- vel0city 2y ago
  The original FCC mandate in the Communications Act of 1934 was: For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communication, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the Federal Communications Commission, which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act. It has always been for communications by wire and radio. I'd argue fiber optics are just a fancier kind of wire from the understandings of what the intentions were back then.
  - gary_0 2y ago
    That's an interesting point, although wire(ish) mediums have pretty strict limitations until you introduce a packet-switched peer-to-peer architecture, at which point you arguably get a very different situation (and different market dynamics) versus telegraph/telephone networks.
    - ab5tract 2y ago
      Telephony switched to digital in the 90s. This didn’t miraculously change their regulatory status. The early days of the internet were defined by copious options for ISPs because telephone lines were required to be available under common carrier conditions. The only reason this situation deteriorated is that broadband infrastructure was classified as for “information” and not “telecommunications”.
    - wtallis 2y ago
      Can we all agree that if this boils down to a packet-switched vs. circuit-switched distinction as the crux of whether it can be effectively regulated under current law, that is a profoundly stupid outcome and bad public policy? Surely Congress did not intend to concern itself with such implementation details, and if a regulatory regime conceived in a world that was all circuit-switched is now ill-suited to the economics of a world that is mostly packet-switched, it's not the court's place to invent a way to exclude packet-switched networks from laws that don't care about that distinction. (I'm also not at all convinced that internet backbone/backhaul congestion is sufficiently different from telephone switchboard congestion from a standpoint of market dynamics.)
  - tptacek 2y ago
    This is an argument that is made more potent by omitting the 60 years of legislative history that followed the Communications Act, which was enacted specifically and deliberately to unify regulation of the new medium of radio with that of telegraphy.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      I'm just trying to address this idea: > The FCC is functionally a bureaucracy that grants licenses to discrete chunks of very scarce communications I'm pointing out the FCC has historically done a lot more than just issuing licenses for RF, and that communications by wire have been a part of their purview since it's founding. I do agree their roles and rules about what to do with regulating those wires have changed over all those years.
- xp84 2y ago
  > some agency needs to be put forward as a candidate for preventing monopolistic corporations from abusing the public Internet. Agreed. May as well be a dedicated one, as well, to avoid any confusion (although I cringe at the likely billion dollar cost of even a "Hello World" federal agency). Pity that would require an Act of Congress, or rather, it's appropriate that it requires that since we're a republic. It's a pity Congress is itself a failure which appears to have no route to functioning again.
- JSteph22 2y ago
  >Either way, some agency needs to be put forward as a candidate for preventing monopolistic corporations from abusing the public Internet. That would be the DoJ.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
> Netflix using too much bandwidth on an ISPs network Netflix doesn't use any ISP's bandwidth without a colocation agreement. The ISP customers use the bandwidth they have already paid for. If you're going to sell IP services you have to deliver those services honestly and fairly.
- yesco 2y ago
  I fully agree with you here, but people that don't agree still exist despite how obviously wrong they may seem to us.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  That's always confused me about that argument.. They are getting paid, by their customers!
  - trhway 2y ago
    And they are paid for the common carrier service. If they want to be able to slow down some sites - basically it is an editorial action by making some content less available or even de-facto non-available - they should lose the common carrier status with all the consequences of it.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    Seems to me American ISPs have a lot of political power. Not only do they want to extort money they also don't want to upgrade their infrastructure to give the service that the consumer wants.
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      They're quite powerful and get tons of grant money to extend their networks and provide service they never actually provide.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      They don't want to upgrade their infrastructure to give the service that the consumer paid for and they themselves advertise.
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
"Arguments about Netflix using too much bandwidth on an ISPs network are exactly the kind of thing I'd expect FCC personnel to be sympathetic with" I don't quite understand that line of reasoning. I'm paying my ISP in order to access Netflix. Netflix is not using that bandwidth, I'm using the bandwidth in order to access Netflix.

by yesco 2y ago

gary_0 2y ago

You're both right: - The FCC's founding mission is to safeguard telecommunications mediums as a commons, to the benefit of the public -- a good fit for the Internet. - The FCC is functionally a bureaucracy that grants licenses to discrete chunks of very scarce communications resources -- a bad fit for the Internet. Either way, some agency needs to be put forward as a candidate for preventing monopolistic corporations from abusing the public Internet.

vel0city 2y ago
The original FCC mandate in the Communications Act of 1934 was: For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communication, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the Federal Communications Commission, which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act. It has always been for communications by wire and radio. I'd argue fiber optics are just a fancier kind of wire from the understandings of what the intentions were back then.
- gary_0 2y ago
  That's an interesting point, although wire(ish) mediums have pretty strict limitations until you introduce a packet-switched peer-to-peer architecture, at which point you arguably get a very different situation (and different market dynamics) versus telegraph/telephone networks.
  - ab5tract 2y ago
    Telephony switched to digital in the 90s. This didn’t miraculously change their regulatory status. The early days of the internet were defined by copious options for ISPs because telephone lines were required to be available under common carrier conditions. The only reason this situation deteriorated is that broadband infrastructure was classified as for “information” and not “telecommunications”.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    Can we all agree that if this boils down to a packet-switched vs. circuit-switched distinction as the crux of whether it can be effectively regulated under current law, that is a profoundly stupid outcome and bad public policy? Surely Congress did not intend to concern itself with such implementation details, and if a regulatory regime conceived in a world that was all circuit-switched is now ill-suited to the economics of a world that is mostly packet-switched, it's not the court's place to invent a way to exclude packet-switched networks from laws that don't care about that distinction. (I'm also not at all convinced that internet backbone/backhaul congestion is sufficiently different from telephone switchboard congestion from a standpoint of market dynamics.)
- tptacek 2y ago
  This is an argument that is made more potent by omitting the 60 years of legislative history that followed the Communications Act, which was enacted specifically and deliberately to unify regulation of the new medium of radio with that of telegraphy.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    I'm just trying to address this idea: > The FCC is functionally a bureaucracy that grants licenses to discrete chunks of very scarce communications I'm pointing out the FCC has historically done a lot more than just issuing licenses for RF, and that communications by wire have been a part of their purview since it's founding. I do agree their roles and rules about what to do with regulating those wires have changed over all those years.
xp84 2y ago
> some agency needs to be put forward as a candidate for preventing monopolistic corporations from abusing the public Internet. Agreed. May as well be a dedicated one, as well, to avoid any confusion (although I cringe at the likely billion dollar cost of even a "Hello World" federal agency). Pity that would require an Act of Congress, or rather, it's appropriate that it requires that since we're a republic. It's a pity Congress is itself a failure which appears to have no route to functioning again.
JSteph22 2y ago
>Either way, some agency needs to be put forward as a candidate for preventing monopolistic corporations from abusing the public Internet. That would be the DoJ.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

> Netflix using too much bandwidth on an ISPs network Netflix doesn't use any ISP's bandwidth without a colocation agreement. The ISP customers use the bandwidth they have already paid for. If you're going to sell IP services you have to deliver those services honestly and fairly.

yesco 2y ago
I fully agree with you here, but people that don't agree still exist despite how obviously wrong they may seem to us.
rtkwe 2y ago
That's always confused me about that argument.. They are getting paid, by their customers!
- trhway 2y ago
  And they are paid for the common carrier service. If they want to be able to slow down some sites - basically it is an editorial action by making some content less available or even de-facto non-available - they should lose the common carrier status with all the consequences of it.
- Yeul 2y ago
  Seems to me American ISPs have a lot of political power. Not only do they want to extort money they also don't want to upgrade their infrastructure to give the service that the consumer wants.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    They're quite powerful and get tons of grant money to extend their networks and provide service they never actually provide.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    They don't want to upgrade their infrastructure to give the service that the consumer paid for and they themselves advertise.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago

"Arguments about Netflix using too much bandwidth on an ISPs network are exactly the kind of thing I'd expect FCC personnel to be sympathetic with" I don't quite understand that line of reasoning. I'm paying my ISP in order to access Netflix. Netflix is not using that bandwidth, I'm using the bandwidth in order to access Netflix.