QuoteObama 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 Obama also called for the FCC not to use its authority to regulate broadband prices or impose other outdated regulations designed for the phone network.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?
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.
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.
kay
It just needs to do it.
You can do it, FCC.
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.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 10, 2014, 02:27:09 PM
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?
I notice the paragon of intellectual debate Ted Cruz already is slamming Obama on Twitter.
He want more taxes.
Quote from: Siege on November 11, 2014, 12:04:46 PM
He want more taxes.
I assume that now that Obama is for it, you're against net neutrality, right?
Could someone summarize the risks of net nonneutrality to me?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 11, 2014, 12:10:37 PM
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.
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).
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?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 11, 2014, 12:34:10 PM
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.
Something totally different.
As a customer, different speed are available to you to buy some offer faster access some offer slower access for a lower price(sometimes). That's the size of the pipe you use to connect to the web. Like plumbing a 12inch pipe allows more water then a 2inch pipe.
Net neutrality refers to how ISP/Backbone providers/exchangers/Other treat each packet* of data. Net neutrality means they must treat them all equally & not offer prefered treatment to packets from a particular origin.
*The internet is a collection of billions & billions of small packet travelling the pipes. That's the water.
The very future of ISP shareholder value is at stake.
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 11, 2014, 12:40:53 PM
Something totally different.
As a customer, different speed are available to you to buy some offer faster access some offer slower access for a lower price(sometimes). That's the size of the pipe you use to connect to the web. Like plumbing a 12inch pipe allows more water then a 2inch pipe.
Net neutrality refers to how ISP/Backbone providers/exchangers/Other treat each packet* of data. Net neutrality means they must treat them all equally & not offer prefered treatment to packets from a particular origin.
*The internet is a collection of billions & billions of small packet travelling the pipes. That's the water.
Ah, right. I do know how network traffic works though, thankyouverymuch.
Thanks Frenchy, very helpful.
Surely porn packets should get right-of-way.
Quote from: The Brain on November 11, 2014, 01:05:05 PM
Surely porn packets should get right-of-way.
TREKKIE! <_<
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 11, 2014, 12:10:37 PM
Could someone summarize the risks of net nonneutrality to me?
It means that your ISP (i.e. Comcast) not just gets money from you for your connection to them but also from the content providers (i.e. Netflix) for actually letting you use that connection at the speed you bought for that particular service. They would throttle certain content, either because it is their direct competition (when they offer content themselves) or because they need leverage to ask these content providers for fees. Obviously they would only target big, easily identifiable content providers (Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, maybe MMO games, maybe big porn sites).
The pro argument for non-neutrality is that it allows the infrastructure providers to recoup their investments in better infrastructure by being able to get fees from content providers as some content providers disproportionately benefit from these investments without own commercial risk taking.
The contra argument is of course that these content providers are the avantgarde of the internet that actually creates new attractive service and that the speed of innovation would go down if they could use the infrastructure that the ISP's direct customers already paid for anyway.
Thanks Fritz, very helpful. ^_^
I'm glad we've got some bright sparks on the forum; I've on occasion wondered what the issue was about, but not being techy and lazy couldn't be arsed to read up on it.
Now thanks to you guys, I have a modicum of understanding. :cheers:
Quote from: Zanza on November 11, 2014, 02:22:28 PM
Obviously they would only target big, easily identifiable content providers (Netflix, Spotify, Youtube, maybe MMO games, maybe big porn sites).
It's questionable on whether they would only target the big content providers. They could just as easily throttle all content except for those that pay to get priority, and the pricing could be dependent on volume (or buy X GB of throughput at the faster rate, if you exceed then you'll be kicked to the slower speed).
The costs around serving broadband are mostly driven by traffic volumes. Giving you a higher speed generally only costs more in so far as you use more traffic (this all depends on regulatory regimes and the market setup, but it's the underlying mechanism). As first p2p and later streaming took off, traffic levels exploded. This drives a massive cost for ISPs that have to expand significantly to meet rising demands. Shaping, traffic management etc are all tools that can be employed to mitigate the flood.
It's pretty common to give a lower priority to e.g. P2P traffic in times of congestion, e.g. prime time or while a build out is ongoing. With P2P a very small minority of users (say 1%) will often account for massive amounts of traffic (say 20%), with everyone else essentially subsidising it.
The big fear is streaming traffic being put under a non neutral regime. Because of the way interconnections and CDNs work, there's currently a lot of variation in how services are treated on different networks. The overt "charge us or else" threat is hard to really employ - anyone big enough to make a difference will obviously have wide adoption with your customers - so it's a hard sell.
Not sure where I sit on this one - but it's mostly about who pays for what among big corporations, not really freedom of expression etc. Someone has to pay for the increasing build out, prices are going down for consumers and ISPs are struggling to keep up. Having the Internet grind to a halt by overload isn't a great prospect either.
bogh!!!!!
How's it going?
... and it sounds like you know what you're talking about on this too.
It's all good. Have a kid now etc. In New Zealand doing streaming video product management.
I've worked in either ISPs or online streaming all my working life more or less.
I still fall on the pro-net neutrality side, but I've seen some silly stuff coming from pro-NN activists over the years. There was a widely-circulated video (I think there were similar chain-type emails that circulated before that) a few years ago that told us that we were headed for ISPs only allowing us to access 10-15 websites and that we'd have to pay extra to access additional sites.
Quote from: derspiess on November 12, 2014, 10:18:17 AM
There was a widely-circulated video (I think there were similar chain-type emails that circulated before that) a few years ago that told us that we were headed for ISPs only allowing us to access 10-15 websites and that we'd have to pay extra to access additional sites.
And don't think they wouldn't try if they could.
:D
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 12, 2014, 10:55:35 AM
Quote from: derspiess on November 12, 2014, 10:18:17 AM
There was a widely-circulated video (I think there were similar chain-type emails that circulated before that) a few years ago that told us that we were headed for ISPs only allowing us to access 10-15 websites and that we'd have to pay extra to access additional sites.
And don't think they wouldn't try if they could.
They certainly could if they wanted to, but I think that would be a disastrous business model.
Quote from: frunk on November 12, 2014, 11:02:20 AM
They certainly could if they wanted to, but I think that would be a disastrous business model.
Too esoteric.
Quote from: frunk on November 12, 2014, 11:02:20 AM
They certainly could if they wanted to, but I think that would be a disastrous business model.
Doubtful, since they're monopolies in most parts of the country by now. Verizon,
Comcast Xfinitiny and the others can bundle their prices any way they see fit. It's what the more esoteric call "maximizing profits".
The sheep will eat what is placed in the slop trough, unless they're fortunate enough to face the southern skies for a satellite dish.
And as a consumer, you don't like it? It's a Yi Country; you don't have to have it.
In much the same way that the cable companies currently restrict their customers to 15 channels. :yes:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 12, 2014, 11:24:36 AM
In much the same way that the cable companies currently restrict their customers to 15 channels. :yes:
Quote from: frunk on November 12, 2014, 11:02:20 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 12, 2014, 10:55:35 AM
And don't think they wouldn't try if they could.
They certainly could if they wanted to, but I think that would be a disastrous business model.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 12, 2014, 11:24:36 AM
In much the same way that the cable companies currently restrict their customers to 15 channels. :yes:
They do, you have to pay more money per channel/bundles you get.
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 12, 2014, 11:28:18 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 12, 2014, 11:24:36 AM
In much the same way that the cable companies currently restrict their customers to 15 channels. :yes:
They do, you have to pay more money per channel/bundles you get.
Now, now, let's not confuse the issue with increased costs and reduction of services over the last several years. That would be maximizing profits and minimizing costs, and well all know the cable companies are about so much more than that.
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 12, 2014, 11:28:18 AM
They do, you have to pay more money per channel/bundles you get.
My example was a bad one. Cable companies charge more for more channels because the channels charge them. Web sites don't charge ISPs for hits.
The problem is that the number of cable channels isn't even close to the number of different websites. Are there even a thousand different distinct cable channels? Maybe a hundred get 99% of the eyeballs. Websites number in the millions, and you'd have to probably include a couple thousand to get that 99% threshold. What makes it even worse is that websites are interlinked, with even the most mainstream of mainstream sites linking to relatively obscure websites. I don't think anyone would want an internet where a significant fraction of links were broken just because your provider doesn't give you access.
Quote from: bogh on November 12, 2014, 02:26:31 AM
It's all good. Have a kid now etc. In New Zealand doing streaming video product management.
I've worked in either ISPs or online streaming all my working life more or less.
STEM POTM.
Isint technology advancing fast enough to make all this discussion a moot point?
I mean, google is laying that thick wire in Utah...
What does Google fiber have to do with how ISPs treat the information that flows through that fiber?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 12, 2014, 11:32:27 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 12, 2014, 11:28:18 AM
They do, you have to pay more money per channel/bundles you get.
My example was a bad one. Cable companies charge more for more channels because the channels charge them. Web sites don't charge ISPs for hits.
No but ISPs would like to charge Websites for hits.
So would I. So what?
That's the end of the open & free internet you know today & it gets replace by the cable tv model.
Do you mean if ISPs ever find themselves in the situation that they are not subject to net neutrality they will begin charging customers for hits?
First will come the deals with content providers, I do believe eventually they will turn to charge us for specific access to websites.
If Verizon has a deal with HBO that hits to HBO get better speed, why would it not also charge customers to have that speed to access HBO.
Just like how TV providers have deals that put the best channels in the most popular packages, customers are in-turn charged more for that package.
The point I'm trying to get to, is: what are they waiting for? They're not covered by net neutrality right now.
They operate in an highly regulated business venture, if you rattle the cage too much you get shutdown. It's better to play nice & let the FCC make the rules. Challenge in courts if you disagree with the rules.
OK. But that brings us full circle. If they want to do something, but won't, so what?
The incentive is for the regulator to provide a framework where business can flourish while also protecting the rights & interests of customers.
I believe a neutral internet is necessary part of the modern western life style, just like access to electricity. Regulating that is better than letting big TVco decide how our society functions.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 12, 2014, 09:43:40 PM
The point I'm trying to get to, is: what are they waiting for? They're not covered by net neutrality right now.
The FCC was drafting new rules.