Net Neutrality - Obama shows support

[Zanza]

Obama Calls on FCC to Issue Rules Protecting 'Net Neutrality'
President Weighs In as Agency Seeks to Finish Regulations

President Barack Obama on Monday called for the Federal Communications Commission to expand its authority over broadband providers in setting "the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality," the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

In a detailed statement and video, Mr. Obama called for bright-line rules that ban broadband providers from blocking websites or cutting deals with content companies for better access to consumers, known as pair prioritization.

"We cannot allow Internet service providers to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas," Mr. Obama said.

To achieve that goal, the president called for the FCC to increase its regulatory authority over the broadband industry by placing them in the same category as public utilities or common carriers, such as the old landline phone network.

The FCC has struggled to finish its rules for how broadband providers treat Internet traffic, and most recently Chairman Tom Wheeler has been floating a plan that would reclassify part of the broadband network as a common carrier, to give the FCC authority to block content deals it views as harmful or anticompetitive.

Mr. Obama wants the FCC to go even further, according to people familiar with the White House's position. While Mr. Wheeler's so-called hybrid plan would be apply utility-like regulations to part of broadband, Mr. Obama wants the agency to reclassify the entire network under Title II of the Communications Act, then enact bright line rules banning broadband providers from blocking, slowing down, or giving preferential treatment to some websites.

Mr. Obama also called for the FCC not to use its authority to regulate broadband prices or impose other outdated regulations designed for the phone network.

Mr. Obama's position was greeted warmly by net neutrality supporters, who have flooded the agency with millions of comments this year calling for strong net neutrality rules.

The broadband industry quickly expressed its displeasure at the prospect of greater regulation by the FCC.

"We are stunned the President would abandon the long-standing, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme Title II regulation," National Cable and Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell said.

"Heavily regulating the Internet will lead to slower Internet growth, higher prices for consumers, and the threat of excessive intervention by the government in the working of the Internet," Mr. Powell said. "We will fight vigorously against efforts to impose this backwards policy."

Net neutrality supporters have argued that any rules that don't include full reclassification are destined to fail in court. Both sides have acknowledged that regardless of what rules the FCC adopts, litigation appears all but certain.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-calls-on-fcc-to-issue-rules-protecting-net-neutrality-1415633678

I don't really understand how the American government works with respect to an agency like the FCC. Is it somehow bound by what Obama wants or is it fairly independent and his opinion doesn't mean much for actual policy?

[Admiral Yi]

I believe he's making a pitch for changes to the FCC authorizing legislation, not lobbying them to come to a certain decision.

To answer your question, I've never heard of a regulatory agency like the FCC defying a president's wishes.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yi - I think what Obama is proposing here is that the FCC designate the ISPs as common carriers.  As I understand it, the FCC could do that without any additional legislation.

[Admiral Yi]

kay

[Grey Fox]

It just needs to do it.

You can do it, FCC.

[The Minsky Moment]

This is sort of a beware of getting what you ask for kind of moment.

The big broadband providers challenged the old FCC net neutrality regs as being beyond the statutory authority of the FCC.  They argued that because the FCC had chosen to regulate them as "information services" and not "telecommunications services" the FCC could not apply those rules.  And they won in court.

The FCC has been mulling whether to get around the ruling by designating some subset of what the ISPs do as a "telecom" service, but pre-election it was a lot of tiptoeing about.  Obama probably figures now it doesn't matter much who he posses off and so is proposing going whole hog and putting the entire thing under the "telecommunications" box.  Which arguably would end up being a worse outcome for the broadband providers than if they had just lost the NN case.

[Jacob]

This is sort of a beware of getting what you ask for kind of moment.

The big broadband providers challenged the old FCC net neutrality regs as being beyond the statutory authority of the FCC.  They argued that because the FCC had chosen to regulate them as "information services" and not "telecommunications services" the FCC could not apply those rules.  And they won in court.

The FCC has been mulling whether to get around the ruling by designating some subset of what the ISPs do as a "telecom" service, but pre-election it was a lot of tiptoeing about.  Obama probably figures now it doesn't matter much who he posses off and so is proposing going whole hog and putting the entire thing under the "telecommunications" box.  Which arguably would end up being a worse outcome for the broadband providers than if they had just lost the NN case.

Will it last?

And would schadenfreude be appropriate here?

[Norgy]

I notice the paragon of intellectual debate Ted Cruz already is slamming Obama on Twitter.

[Siege]

He want more taxes.

[Jacob]

He want more taxes.

I assume that now that Obama is for it, you're against net neutrality, right?

[Admiral Yi]

Could someone summarize the risks of net nonneutrality to me? 

[Jacob]

Could someone summarize the risks of net nonneutrality to me?

This is not the comprehensive summary, but rather my limited understanding:

With non-neutrality the carriers can prioritize certain traffic over other, this means the following:

- big profile traffic (domestic streaming services etc) will likely be faster, while other stuff (like porn or stuff from non-major sites or foreign providers, or your game downloads) may be slower and less reliable.

- this means lots of money for the carriers, as big players trying to roll out or maintain streaming services et. al. will have to pay to ensure priority.

- this in turn makes breaking into markets relying on the internet harder, as more cash is required to compete to ensure an even footing. Your new independent movie streaming service or alternative viewpoint broadcast is going to be less attractive if it's slower and less reliable than the major corporation offering.

[The Minsky Moment]

This is implicit in what Jake said, but one possible result would be a transfer of resources from content providers to ISPs.

I say possible because in theory it is possible that a very desirable content provider (say Netflix purely for example) could try to play chicken and play a tough line hoping the ISPs won't risk dropping them and alienate their customer base (this assumes the customer base has another viable alternative for service).

[Admiral Yi]

I had gotten the impression from Moldy's highly technical discussion of upgrading the site that it is currently possible to pay for faster uploads.  Big Pipe or Tube or whatever he hell he was on about.

Is that correct?  If so, how does this relate to the issue of neutrality?

If net neutrality were to be enforced does that mean upgrading upload would not be an option?

Or does it mean that for a given hardware connection, the price and speed would have to be the same?

Or something totally different?

[Tamas]

I had gotten the impression from Moldy's highly technical discussion of upgrading the site that it is currently possible to pay for faster uploads.  Big Pipe or Tube or whatever he hell he was on about.

Is that correct?  If so, how does this relate to the issue of neutrality?

If net neutrality were to be enforced does that mean upgrading upload would not be an option?

Or does it mean that for a given hardware connection, the price and speed would have to be the same?

Or something totally different?

As I understand, and I can be wrong, is that without net neutrality (ie. presently), lets say you start a small company streaming stuff ala Netflix. You need a huge upload capacity for that. But your ISP can say "Screw you I don't have that much for you" and that would be because Netflix can pay some huge extra to the ISP so that it allocates most of its available capacity to Netflix's servers.