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Except the ISPs were never actually throttling content (well, other than BitTorrent, which the FCC promptly told them to stop doing), and the title II regulatio

by exelius 12y ago

Except the ISPs were never actually throttling content (well, other than BitTorrent, which the FCC promptly told them to stop doing), and the title II regulations passed today would have had no impact on the entire Netflix vs. Comcast/Verizon dispute. That boiled down to a dispute over settlement-free peering contracts, which the FCC does now have some oversight, though based on past comments I doubt their decisions would go the way most people would hope. One positive about this is that it will give the FCC some oversight over the pricing of interconnect deals. But interconnect deals will still happen, and they won't be free - these rule changes effectively codified them into law. So Netflix will still have to pay Comcast/Verizon to send lots of traffic to their users, only the FCC now has the ability to regulate the pricing terms of such deals.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Except the ISPs were never actually throttling content (well, other than BitTorrent, which the FCC promptly told them to stop doing) Yeah, but Comcast took that FCC order -- made without any advance regulation -- to the courts, which struck it down on the basis that the FCC could not issue such an order under its ancillary authority. Comcast v. FCC, 600 F. 3d 642, D.C. Cir. (2010). As this specific order to Comcast being struck down was one the things motivating the FCC's initial Open Internet Report and Order which applied nonblocking of lawful applications as a generally-applicable regulation (and which itself was later struck down as being a common carrier regulation which could not be applied without Title II reclassification), its pretty odd to use the existence of the Comcast Order as a way to dismiss the need for generally applicable regulation to prevent blocking (or even, given the history of the subsequent order, to dismiss the need for specifically Title II regulation to prevent blocking.)
- exelius 12y ago
  I'm not saying it was unnecessary to clarify the issue -- it was. But I'm saying it won't have a significant impact on the behavior of ISPs because they weren't really doing it with those methods anymore anyway. Things like data caps and direct interconnect agreements are still allowed; so "fast lanes" will still exist (and are actually now codified into law).

by exelius 12y ago

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Except the ISPs were never actually throttling content (well, other than BitTorrent, which the FCC promptly told them to stop doing) Yeah, but Comcast took that FCC order -- made without any advance regulation -- to the courts, which struck it down on the basis that the FCC could not issue such an order under its ancillary authority. Comcast v. FCC, 600 F. 3d 642, D.C. Cir. (2010). As this specific order to Comcast being struck down was one the things motivating the FCC's initial Open Internet Report and Order which applied nonblocking of lawful applications as a generally-applicable regulation (and which itself was later struck down as being a common carrier regulation which could not be applied without Title II reclassification), its pretty odd to use the existence of the Comcast Order as a way to dismiss the need for generally applicable regulation to prevent blocking (or even, given the history of the subsequent order, to dismiss the need for specifically Title II regulation to prevent blocking.)

exelius 12y ago
I'm not saying it was unnecessary to clarify the issue -- it was. But I'm saying it won't have a significant impact on the behavior of ISPs because they weren't really doing it with those methods anymore anyway. Things like data caps and direct interconnect agreements are still allowed; so "fast lanes" will still exist (and are actually now codified into law).