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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 Int

by 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.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      I'm not telling you that it would somehow be illegitimate for Congress to pass a law delegating to the FCC authority to ensure that ISPs provide FRAND access to different streaming platforms (or whatever) over their IP "dial tone". But Congress pretty clearly has not done so, and just because we might think it's a good idea doesn't mean the FCC can just make that authority up.
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.

by gary_0 2y ago

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.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    I'm not telling you that it would somehow be illegitimate for Congress to pass a law delegating to the FCC authority to ensure that ISPs provide FRAND access to different streaming platforms (or whatever) over their IP "dial tone". But Congress pretty clearly has not done so, and just because we might think it's a good idea doesn't mean the FCC can just make that authority up.

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.