6 ms·

Comcast Comments on FCC's Proposed Rules

30 points by schnable 12y ago

cordite 12y ago
They support an open internet and the ideals of innovation. They do not like the solution proposed (Title II reclassification) Here's an abbreviated list that they pose at the bottom > We do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II for at least four reasons: > 1. Title II is unnecessary > 2. Title II poses significant legal risks > 3. Title II has proved to be a failure > 4. reclassification .. will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation.
- schnable 12y ago
  Title II is not "the solution proposed," it is one possible way to implement net neutrality.
  - cordite 12y ago
    It seems to be the way that freedom activists are pushing for. I am not aware of other formally proposed plans.
    - hgsigala 12y ago
      The fact is that there are two ways to go about this: Allow fast lanes or do not allow fast lanes. If you do not want to allow fast lanes then there are two routes to go about this: section 706 of telecom act or title ii of telecom act. The route via 706 was just struck down in court. Hence the next routes available are a) allow fast lanes or b) do not allow fast lanes via title II.
      - eli 12y ago
        Or Congress could simply grant the FCC explicit authority to regulate network neutrality without title II reclassification. I believe there's already at least one bill to do this.
        fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        Potentially a better (or maybe potentially worse) solution, but it simply isn't going to happen with the Congress we have right now.
        hgsigala 12y ago
        Congress did grant the FCC explicit authority to regulate. It was the Telecom Act. What the FCC has to decide on its own is what part of the Telecom Act to use in enforcing. This is not a Congressional issue. And the Court made that very clear. The FCC currently has everything it needs. edit: I think that the bill you are referring to is Leahy's which would only give political support and not really give it new authority.
  - diafygi 12y ago
    Can you elaborate on other possible plans?
    - otterley 12y ago
      The problem is that the FCC is bounded by the authority given to it by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act was passed about 5 years before the Internet became a ubiquitous service unto itself (as opposed to a healthy selection of cheap dialup providers) and wasn't written with today's realities in mind. What really needs to happen IMO is "none of the above" - Congress needs to get its act together and pass a revised Telecommunications Act that reflects reality, so that the FCC has more flexibility to regulate beyond choosing a regulatory box to fit ISPs in ("information service" and the weak regulation that entails, vs. "telecommunications service" and the common carrier overhead that entails).
      - cordite 12y ago
        I fear that congress would just pass whatever lobbyists hand them.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        >Congress needs to get its act together and pass a revised Telecommunications Act that reflects reality That's a more proper solution, but it is pretty clear that this Congress isn't able to do anything of the sort, and IMO we can't wait for another one to come along.
    - eli 12y ago
      Well, I think simply granting the FCC the authority to bring back the "open internet" rules that were in place until a court struck them down early this year.
  - Tobani 12y ago
    The whole "Fast Lanes" argument is really just imposing "Slow Lanes." It feels like the ISP claiming its not their fault they don't have the capacity to provide the service they already sold to the customer. I think people want TItle II partially as retaliation for the ISPs being as terrible as they are. Price/MBit hasn't gone down much(any) for me over the past 10 years. If Google can have 0 infrastructure in a town and wire it up at gigabit speeds, why is it so hard for the ISPs to improve? Its because they don't care have 0 incentive. Maybe we set a moving limit. Internet connection under 50Mbit /down or < 10 Megabit up is classified as title II. Maybe then they'll have incentive to innovate. 2 years down the line its 50/15... I don't know.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > I think people want TItle II partially as retaliation for the ISPs being as terrible as they are. I think people want Title II because they support the general direction of the 2010 FCC regulations, and recognize that those are very much common-carrier style regulations and that there is significant doubt that they can both pass legal muster under Title I and retain their substance
- oddevan 12y ago
  I realize this is a tl;dr summary, but none of these points are very strong, particularly the last one: > 4. reclassification .. will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation. There is a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire internet NOW because the one government body tasked with keeping the internet free lacks the power to do so. THAT is the reasoning behind Title II: giving the FCC the power to actually do something.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > They do not like the solution proposed (Title II reclassification) Title II is not the solution proposed by the FCC, its an alternative to Title I (Section 706) regulation on which the FCC asked for comment. FCCs proposed solution in the NPRM is revising its approach to Section 706 regulation in a way which it hopes will survive court review better than the last attempt at this, rather than resorting to Title II.
mkautzm 12y ago
"We do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II for at least four reasons: ... reclassification of broadband under Title II will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation." I would be willing to buy this if there was actually reasonable investment to begin with. I'm from ND, and we have about 15~ rural cooperative telecom companies. If you take a look at this map: http://www.dakotacarrier.com/network.asp http://www.dakotacarrier.com/network.asp You can see their respective boundaries. The white area is the major cities. Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, etc. Guess who has fiber? Not the major cities! BEK is offering 200Mb fiber AND cable TV for 65 dollars a month in a lot of their coop zone, and it continues to expand. Fargo, the largest metro area has Cable One, which offers 50/10 connections for 70 dollars a month and has a bandwidth cap of 50GB. Now, a lot of that infrastructure has come on the back of free money from the federal government, but major ISPs got that too. If major ISPs actually used their pools of cash to build out infrastructure instead of actively trying to remove fiber from their competition, then I'd be more inclined to believe this. As I see it, major ISPs have completely mismanaged their position in the market and instead of making a reasonable best effort to keep people happy, they've done the bare minimum and have abused the technical ignorance of most residential customers for their benefit. It's for reasons like that that I support Title II reclassification.
- schnable 12y ago
  In the major metros Comcast has increased speeds regularly and also offers hundreds of wifi hotspots that customers can use. In many of these areas they also compete with Fios of course.
  - shimshim 12y ago
    I live outside of Nashville and they are now offering me 109mb for about $90 a month. My current speed has continued to increase as well, about 2 smaller MP3 songs per second.
    - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
rayiner 12y ago
> Our support of the 2010 Open Internet Order was so strong that we voluntarily agreed in our NBCUniversal transaction to be bound by those rules even if they were struck down by the courts. As a result of the DC Circuit decision and our commitment, we are now the only ISP in the country legally bound by the entire set of Open Internet rules. Interesting fact I wasn't aware of.
- hgsigala 12y ago
  It wasn't so "voluntary" when you are doing it to get FCC/ Justice Department approval for a 6 billion dollar merger.
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    I think the interesting point is that they are now bound by it, one way or another. Given that, it makes sense that they'd support the notion that all other competitors be required to do the same. I don't think this is particularly altruistic in that light.
    - hgsigala 12y ago
      I would agree if it were not for the fact that they are only bound to the Open Internet Order until 2018. They also did this while fighting it in court. The Verizon suit which struck down the Open Internet Rules only came as a result of a previous Comcast suit.
th3iedkid 12y ago
any comments from netflix on this?
pessimizer 12y ago
This is pretty easy to say for Comcast because their television services won't be bound by net neutrality, but competing television services from other ISPs delivered over IP wouldn't be able to make quality of service guarantees for their own offerings. Am I reading this wrong?
- bdb 12y ago
  No, you are not.
bdb 12y ago
Comcast simultaneously claims that some of their own VoD services -- services delivered via your cable modem, through your router and home wifi network -- don't count, because they're part of your cable service, not the internet, so they're allowed to treat them differently. http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/the-facts-about-xfinity-tv-and-xbox-360-comcast-is-not-prioritizing http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/the-facts-about-...
- SnacksOnAPlane 12y ago
  I thought the VoD services were implemented by having a bunch of HD channels reserved as VoD stations. Then when you order something, the system tells your cable box to change to X channel, where the VoD stream plays. So it's not actually using the same system as your internet service. I could be totally wrong on this, though.
mwsherman 12y ago
Comcast is supporting having their competitors being bound by net neutrality. Comcast already is, due to the terms of the NBC merger. So they want their competitors to “suffer” similarly. And they don’t want mobile to impinge on the fixed-line market, so they support NN in mobile, too. A good analogy is WalMart supporting a minimum wage. They support it because it hurts their competitors (local Mom & Pops) more. [1] Remember regulation isn’t “rules of the road”. It’s an input into a complex system. [1] http://clipperhouse.com/2010/02/22/net-neutrality-and-preserving-the-dinosaurs/ http://clipperhouse.com/2010/02/22/net-neutrality-and-preser...
aridiculous 12y ago
Gosh I love that 2/3 of this post is legalese. This is blogging in 2014.
- fu9ar 12y ago
  The reclassification of broadband services is primarily a legal issue. The activists promoted this Title II "common carrier" classification and many people just parroted that without asking what that really meant. Nothing is simple when it comes down to USA spanning policy. The scope creep has introduced a number of bugs in the system over the years.
Picard 12y ago
Is it phone carriers that are really on board with making fast lanes? I'm pretty sure Verizon paints it's red signs with the blood of innocent children.

30 points by schnable 12y ago

They support an open internet and the ideals of innovation. They do not like the solution proposed (Title II reclassification) Here's an abbreviated list that they pose at the bottom > We do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II for at least four reasons: > 1. Title II is unnecessary > 2. Title II poses significant legal risks > 3. Title II has proved to be a failure > 4. reclassification .. will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation.

schnable 12y ago
Title II is not "the solution proposed," it is one possible way to implement net neutrality.
- cordite 12y ago
  It seems to be the way that freedom activists are pushing for. I am not aware of other formally proposed plans.
  - hgsigala 12y ago
    The fact is that there are two ways to go about this: Allow fast lanes or do not allow fast lanes. If you do not want to allow fast lanes then there are two routes to go about this: section 706 of telecom act or title ii of telecom act. The route via 706 was just struck down in court. Hence the next routes available are a) allow fast lanes or b) do not allow fast lanes via title II.
    - eli 12y ago
      Or Congress could simply grant the FCC explicit authority to regulate network neutrality without title II reclassification. I believe there's already at least one bill to do this.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        Potentially a better (or maybe potentially worse) solution, but it simply isn't going to happen with the Congress we have right now.
      - hgsigala 12y ago
        Congress did grant the FCC explicit authority to regulate. It was the Telecom Act. What the FCC has to decide on its own is what part of the Telecom Act to use in enforcing. This is not a Congressional issue. And the Court made that very clear. The FCC currently has everything it needs. edit: I think that the bill you are referring to is Leahy's which would only give political support and not really give it new authority.
- diafygi 12y ago
  Can you elaborate on other possible plans?
  - otterley 12y ago
    The problem is that the FCC is bounded by the authority given to it by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act was passed about 5 years before the Internet became a ubiquitous service unto itself (as opposed to a healthy selection of cheap dialup providers) and wasn't written with today's realities in mind. What really needs to happen IMO is "none of the above" - Congress needs to get its act together and pass a revised Telecommunications Act that reflects reality, so that the FCC has more flexibility to regulate beyond choosing a regulatory box to fit ISPs in ("information service" and the weak regulation that entails, vs. "telecommunications service" and the common carrier overhead that entails).
    - cordite 12y ago
      I fear that congress would just pass whatever lobbyists hand them.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      >Congress needs to get its act together and pass a revised Telecommunications Act that reflects reality That's a more proper solution, but it is pretty clear that this Congress isn't able to do anything of the sort, and IMO we can't wait for another one to come along.
  - eli 12y ago
    Well, I think simply granting the FCC the authority to bring back the "open internet" rules that were in place until a court struck them down early this year.
- Tobani 12y ago
  The whole "Fast Lanes" argument is really just imposing "Slow Lanes." It feels like the ISP claiming its not their fault they don't have the capacity to provide the service they already sold to the customer. I think people want TItle II partially as retaliation for the ISPs being as terrible as they are. Price/MBit hasn't gone down much(any) for me over the past 10 years. If Google can have 0 infrastructure in a town and wire it up at gigabit speeds, why is it so hard for the ISPs to improve? Its because they don't care have 0 incentive. Maybe we set a moving limit. Internet connection under 50Mbit /down or < 10 Megabit up is classified as title II. Maybe then they'll have incentive to innovate. 2 years down the line its 50/15... I don't know.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > I think people want TItle II partially as retaliation for the ISPs being as terrible as they are. I think people want Title II because they support the general direction of the 2010 FCC regulations, and recognize that those are very much common-carrier style regulations and that there is significant doubt that they can both pass legal muster under Title I and retain their substance
oddevan 12y ago
I realize this is a tl;dr summary, but none of these points are very strong, particularly the last one: > 4. reclassification .. will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation. There is a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire internet NOW because the one government body tasked with keeping the internet free lacks the power to do so. THAT is the reasoning behind Title II: giving the FCC the power to actually do something.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> They do not like the solution proposed (Title II reclassification) Title II is not the solution proposed by the FCC, its an alternative to Title I (Section 706) regulation on which the FCC asked for comment. FCCs proposed solution in the NPRM is revising its approach to Section 706 regulation in a way which it hopes will survive court review better than the last attempt at this, rather than resorting to Title II.

mkautzm 12y ago

"We do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II for at least four reasons: ... reclassification of broadband under Title II will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation." I would be willing to buy this if there was actually reasonable investment to begin with. I'm from ND, and we have about 15~ rural cooperative telecom companies. If you take a look at this map: http://www.dakotacarrier.com/network.asp http://www.dakotacarrier.com/network.asp You can see their respective boundaries. The white area is the major cities. Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, etc. Guess who has fiber? Not the major cities! BEK is offering 200Mb fiber AND cable TV for 65 dollars a month in a lot of their coop zone, and it continues to expand. Fargo, the largest metro area has Cable One, which offers 50/10 connections for 70 dollars a month and has a bandwidth cap of 50GB. Now, a lot of that infrastructure has come on the back of free money from the federal government, but major ISPs got that too. If major ISPs actually used their pools of cash to build out infrastructure instead of actively trying to remove fiber from their competition, then I'd be more inclined to believe this. As I see it, major ISPs have completely mismanaged their position in the market and instead of making a reasonable best effort to keep people happy, they've done the bare minimum and have abused the technical ignorance of most residential customers for their benefit. It's for reasons like that that I support Title II reclassification.

schnable 12y ago
In the major metros Comcast has increased speeds regularly and also offers hundreds of wifi hotspots that customers can use. In many of these areas they also compete with Fios of course.
- shimshim 12y ago
  I live outside of Nashville and they are now offering me 109mb for about $90 a month. My current speed has continued to increase as well, about 2 smaller MP3 songs per second.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago

rayiner 12y ago

> Our support of the 2010 Open Internet Order was so strong that we voluntarily agreed in our NBCUniversal transaction to be bound by those rules even if they were struck down by the courts. As a result of the DC Circuit decision and our commitment, we are now the only ISP in the country legally bound by the entire set of Open Internet rules. Interesting fact I wasn't aware of.

hgsigala 12y ago
It wasn't so "voluntary" when you are doing it to get FCC/ Justice Department approval for a 6 billion dollar merger.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  I think the interesting point is that they are now bound by it, one way or another. Given that, it makes sense that they'd support the notion that all other competitors be required to do the same. I don't think this is particularly altruistic in that light.
  - hgsigala 12y ago
    I would agree if it were not for the fact that they are only bound to the Open Internet Order until 2018. They also did this while fighting it in court. The Verizon suit which struck down the Open Internet Rules only came as a result of a previous Comcast suit.

th3iedkid 12y ago

any comments from netflix on this?

pessimizer 12y ago

This is pretty easy to say for Comcast because their television services won't be bound by net neutrality, but competing television services from other ISPs delivered over IP wouldn't be able to make quality of service guarantees for their own offerings. Am I reading this wrong?

bdb 12y ago
No, you are not.

bdb 12y ago

Comcast simultaneously claims that some of their own VoD services -- services delivered via your cable modem, through your router and home wifi network -- don't count, because they're part of your cable service, not the internet, so they're allowed to treat them differently. http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/the-facts-about-xfinity-tv-and-xbox-360-comcast-is-not-prioritizing http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/the-facts-about-...

SnacksOnAPlane 12y ago
I thought the VoD services were implemented by having a bunch of HD channels reserved as VoD stations. Then when you order something, the system tells your cable box to change to X channel, where the VoD stream plays. So it's not actually using the same system as your internet service. I could be totally wrong on this, though.

mwsherman 12y ago

Comcast is supporting having their competitors being bound by net neutrality. Comcast already is, due to the terms of the NBC merger. So they want their competitors to “suffer” similarly. And they don’t want mobile to impinge on the fixed-line market, so they support NN in mobile, too. A good analogy is WalMart supporting a minimum wage. They support it because it hurts their competitors (local Mom & Pops) more. [1] Remember regulation isn’t “rules of the road”. It’s an input into a complex system. [1] http://clipperhouse.com/2010/02/22/net-neutrality-and-preserving-the-dinosaurs/ http://clipperhouse.com/2010/02/22/net-neutrality-and-preser...

aridiculous 12y ago

Gosh I love that 2/3 of this post is legalese. This is blogging in 2014.

fu9ar 12y ago
The reclassification of broadband services is primarily a legal issue. The activists promoted this Title II "common carrier" classification and many people just parroted that without asking what that really meant. Nothing is simple when it comes down to USA spanning policy. The scope creep has introduced a number of bugs in the system over the years.

Picard 12y ago

Is it phone carriers that are really on board with making fast lanes? I'm pretty sure Verizon paints it's red signs with the blood of innocent children.