2 ms·
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
by 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 agoTelephony 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 agoCan 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.)