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FCC Releases Full Neutrality Rules
Rules come with three major th...oh look, Santa!
by Karl Bode Thursday 23-Dec-2010 tags: legal · fcc · business
Two days after the FCC voted 3-2 along partisan lines to approve new network neutrality rules, and just as the public and media are all busily packing for grandmas house, the FCC has released their full network neutrality rules (pdf) over at the FCC website. The rules come with three primary focuses: transparency (ensuring ISPs are clear about their network management practices); no blocking (prohibiting an outright blocking of legal content); and no discrimination (prohibiting any non-"reasonable" network management practices. In the FCC's own words:

Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their broadband services;

No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services; and

No unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.

You'd be hard pressed to find any ISP doing the first two after the public lashing Comcast went through in the media -- so they essentially ask ISPs to do things they're already doing voluntarily. The third rule remains particularly murky given the varying definitions of "reasonable," and won't be applied to wireless. It's that last one that will be the most contentious as a result, given that a carrier could, with a little creativity, easily portray anti-competitive behavior as simple, reasonable congestion countermeasures or pricing experimentation. The FCC's rules get only a little more specific here:

In evaluating unreasonable discrimination, the types of practices we would be concerned about include, but are not limited to, discrimination that harms an actual or potential competitor to the broadband provider (such as by degrading VoIP applications or services when the broadband provider offers telephone service), that harms end users (such as by inhibiting end users from accessing the content, applications, services, or devices of their choice), or that impairs free expression (such as by slowing traffic from a particular blog because the broadband provider disagrees with the blogger’s message).

There's 87 pages of rules to dig through, and analysis of the finer legal points of the effort will be ongoing for several weeks. Assuming there's no gaping loopholes (intentional or accidental), the FCC will still have to prove that they have the legal authority to enforce these rules, and the consistent will to enforce them as we ride the political tides.

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anon7

@comcast.net

Hmm

Sounds pretty basic.
WHT

join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX
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Metered Biling for Fixed Wireless (WISPs)

Subject line says it all.

Jim_in_VA

join:2004-07-11
Cobbs Creek, VA
kudos:4

Re: Metered Biling for Fixed Wireless (WISPs)

where do you see this in the PDF, WHT?
WHT

join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX
kudos:5

Re: Metered Biling for Fixed Wireless (WISPs)

said by Jim_in_VA:

where do you see this in the PDF, WHT?

I'm just saying that if a WISP goes the metered billing route, you won't have to deal with all the neutrality mumbo-jumbo.

Item #57 indicates if metered is used (and thus the FCC isn't prohibiting meter or usage based billing), then it has to be clearly annotated.

Jim_in_VA

join:2004-07-11
Cobbs Creek, VA
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Reviews:
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Re: Metered Biling for Fixed Wireless (WISPs)

Are your current customers usage getting so that metered billing is a consideration? Surely annotating that in new subs is not a issues, it would be in the TOS
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WHT

join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX
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Re: Metered Biling for Fixed Wireless (WISPs)

said by Jim_in_VA:

Are your current customers usage getting so that metered billing is a consideration? Surely annotating that in new subs is not a issues, it would be in the TOS

Current and new installs will be metered. My TOS allows me to make changes, just like the twice a year rate increase from cable.

I had one guy last spring ask if his rate would be guaranteed to never increase (I had previously contacted him months before and he was happy staying with his Verizon data card), but I noticed he had a competitor's Nanostation on the roof last month. By coincidence, a friend knows his daughter's boyfriend and they watch on-line TV movies all day and night, and bought an xBox a few weeks ago to get Netflicks.

Linklist
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Longport, NJ
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As Karl says - not much here; but lots of work for lawyers

Transparency. I assume all providers already provide the required info. But it may be on page 23 of a 40 pg TOS that no one ever looks at unless they are planning a lawsuit of some sort.

No Blocking of legal content leaves a big loophole for blocking web sites that offer up copyrighted material either on purpose or even by accident. This loophole could allow ISPs to block Youtube or other sites that provide user contributed material. Now, given how powerful and rich Google is, we all know Youtube won't be blocked. But there are thousands of sites that have illegal content that don't have Google's clout that can be blocked at will - especially from mobile providers.

The No Discrimination rules is the "Full Employment Act" for all the lawyers out there. We can bet on YEARS of civil action over this one. Maybe the lawyers at the FCC put this one in to provide lots of lucrative work for their ABA brethren.
hottboiinnc
ME

join:2003-10-15
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Re: As Karl says - not much here; but lots of work for lawyers

Google power? Lets see them come up with content owners and the ISPs with that one. The only thing that needs to happen is Disney-ABC, Warner Bros/TW, and Comcast NBC to go after all the ISPs and enforce that loophole to block youtube. Google NO way could come close with that.

Frank
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somewhere

Re: As Karl says - not much here; but lots of work for lawyers

said by hottboiinnc:

Google power? Lets see them come up with content owners and the ISPs with that one. The only thing that needs to happen is Disney-ABC, Warner Bros/TW, and Comcast NBC to go after all the ISPs and enforce that loophole to block youtube. Google NO way could come close with that.

Considering practically all of those content companies have a presence on youtube, I would imagine it would be kind of hard to go after youtube in order to have it deemed unlawful when you're actively publishing content there.
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Gbcue
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Re: As Karl says - not much here; but lots of work for lawyers

said by Frank:

said by hottboiinnc:

Google power? Lets see them come up with content owners and the ISPs with that one. The only thing that needs to happen is Disney-ABC, Warner Bros/TW, and Comcast NBC to go after all the ISPs and enforce that loophole to block youtube. Google NO way could come close with that.

Considering practically all of those content companies have a presence on youtube, I would imagine it would be kind of hard to go after youtube in order to have it deemed unlawful when you're actively publishing content there.

You mean, like Viacom vs. Google?

In which Viacom secretly uploaded videos to YT?

»www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6···logyNews
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amarryat
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said by Linklist:

No Blocking of legal content leaves a big loophole for blocking web sites that offer up copyrighted material either on purpose or even by accident.

Agreed. This allows the ISPs to be police, judge, and jury. The FCC should remove "lawful" from the terms and let the legal system handle unlawful content.
droobie
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Bangor, ME

SMTP Blocks

So does this mean residential fixed ISPs will have to take down their Port 25 blocks? That would be interesting if so.
iansltx

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Golden, CO
kudos:2

Re: SMTP Blocks

I'm sure the answer is "no" because they aren't preventing specific competitors' mail services from working, and the spam and such that originates from an open port 25 means that closing it could be considered "reasonable network management"
droobie
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Bangor, ME

Re: SMTP Blocks

It's a 'lawful application or service' and not all ISPs block Port 25, only some. For instance, my cable ISP (Time Warner) does not in this market.

I do question whether blocks on inbound ports at the ISP level would also be considered permitted for the same reason. Running a web server on your residential connection isn't unlawful, but plenty of ISPs block it.

I won't be the only one to ask these questions I figure.
iansltx

join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2

Re: SMTP Blocks

"Reasonable netwrk management" is vague enough that nobody will have to do anything different from what they are doing now.
fiberguy
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Re: SMTP Blocks

said by iansltx:

"Reasonable netwrk management" is vague enough that nobody will have to do anything different from what they are doing now.

BINGO! So the question is.. what's with all the circus acts going on at the FCC these days? Going off of what Karl posted, alone, its safe to say "nothing to see here"..
cornelius785

join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA
Just to play devil's advocate... assuming you want to take the responsibility, wouldn't running your own mail server make you a competitor to your ISP's mail service?
droobie
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Bangor, ME

Re: SMTP Blocks

You assume that all ISPs provide a mail service. Two of the local WISPs here do not provide e-mail in any form. I wouldn't be surprised if more people are pointed toward GMail in the future either.

My argument is that in a 'neutral' environment, I should be allowed to connect to any place on the Internet that is 'legal' to do so. The 'access provider' is supposed to be giving me pure unadulterated access to the Internet of some defined amount for a certain price. They're effectively 'blocking' access to the Internet in some form.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of spam that goes around on Port 25. At the same time, I'm sure there's plenty of questionable materials going around on Port 80. By blocking outgoing or incoming ports, though, they're not 'neutral'. The fact that only 'some' access providers block these things, and others do not, means that it isn't a 'norm' either.

I think the whole Net Neutrality thing is goofy anyway, but it seems they've not passed 'neutrality', they've passed some goofy rules about marketing. Perhaps I'm being myopic.
jcremin

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Siren, WI
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Re: SMTP Blocks

said by droobie:

The 'access provider' is supposed to be giving me pure unadulterated access to the Internet of some defined amount for a certain price. They're effectively 'blocking' access to the Internet in some form.

Depends, if their TOS says you can't run a server, you can't run a server. People who run servers typically use a LOT more bandwidth that the "average" consumer, and they have the plans based on what the average consumer uses. Now if somehow enforceable laws do get written that state an ISP can't block servers, that will cause ISP's to either raise their rates to offset the additional usage, or implement metered billing so those who use more pay more.

said by droobie:

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of spam that goes around on Port 25. At the same time, I'm sure there's plenty of questionable materials going around on Port 80.

Yes, but the difference is that many ISP's do run mail servers, and when spam comes from IP's allocated to them, it is basically the same as being on the fast lane to getting on the blacklist for all other mail servers, so it does cause real harm to communications. The whole email system is well overdue for a full revamp to tackle this type of problem, but there's just no good way to do it and keep backwards compatibility.

56403739
Less than 5 months left
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This ruling has no effect on most network management port blocks, especially ones which have better alternatives available like port 25.

Now, if an ISP starts blocking application ports for things like Skype (as a theoretical example), there might be a case.
droobie
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Bangor, ME

Re: SMTP Blocks

Many things could be claimed in network management, like ISPs that block access to DNS servers outside of their network. Doesn't make it right or 'neutral' however. There's plenty of perfectly valid mail going over port 25 and not all DNS traffic is a DDOS attempt.

The only gain I see is that they have to apparently disclose such things. Being told you're going to be hit with a bat before being hit with said bat is a gain, but a pretty insignificant one in most cases since you're likely getting hit either way.
jcremin

join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2

Re: SMTP Blocks

said by droobie:

Many things could be claimed in network management, like ISPs that block access to DNS servers outside of their network. Doesn't make it right or 'neutral' however. There's plenty of perfectly valid mail going over port 25 and not all DNS traffic is a DDOS attempt.

See my above post regarding SMTP blocking.

For DNS blocking, there are very valid reasons for doing that too. The main reason being that it blocks rogue dns servers harming their customers.

As you point out, there are legit purposes, but it is a balancing act between protecting customers from harmful stuff, and leaving things open.

Enabling or disabling blocks at the account level would be nice for those who do want to use a 3rd party DNS service, but it does add an additional cost to implement.
fiberguy
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said by droobie:

So does this mean residential fixed ISPs will have to take down their Port 25 blocks? That would be interesting if so.

Nothing personal.. but I don't care to see any port 25 blocks removed on residential accounts. I'm perfectly happy not having zombie-computers sending me messages about Brittney Spear's anything..
thedragonmas

join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA
kudos:1
you do realize that port 25 is server to server and you should be using port 587 for client to server? »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mai···Protocol

additionally some isps allow port 25 for there email ON NETWORK. i.e. if your using a laptop at home on XYZ isp port 25 usually will work, but if you go off network i.e. on vacation and your hotel uses ABC isp port 25 submissions wont work. thus why you SHOULD be using port 587.

as to your subject at hand. i see your point. i really do. i dont have a problem with an isp blocking specific ports if they are up front and clear about it. by that i mean easy to find and not burried in 8pt font some where in the TOS.

blocking ports 25,80,8080, and several "windows" ports (i.e. netbios) is apparantly standard for most isp on a residential connection. those same isp's usually do NOT block "any" ports for a business class connection.

now if isp's start blocking ports for say, skype, vonage. etc then id have a problem with it.

ofcourse theyl use "reasonable network management" to block ports used for P2P even legitimate p2p (i.e. linux distro's)

rchandra
Stargate Universe fan
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14225-2105

Re: SMTP Blocks

Nonsense. You're now going to claim I should be running my domain's email only on port 587. This will effectively cut my domain off. My user population will only have outbound service. "Noone" will be trying to contact my MTA on 587, they'll be going in on the standard 25.

I for one do not think blocking TCP/25 in either direction is "reasonable network management." ISPs will try to claim their MTAs are somehow better than mine, but I don't agree. I'm not a spambot or zombie, I think if it weren't for the residential ToS, my MTA is perfectly legitimate.

I fail to see (except for the nebulous "network management clauses") how blocking SMTP or HTTP is any different than blocking Skype or BitTorrent, and therefore shouldn't be blocked or hampered at all.
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funchords
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Re: SMTP Blocks

said by rchandra:

I for one do not think blocking TCP/25 in either direction is "reasonable network management."

I am inclined to agree with you, but "I for one" and myself for two probably won't pass muster. What does the industry generally do and (importantly) why do they do it?

I think enough ISPs block port 25 outgoing and enough mail administrators recommend doing so that ISPs would be able to defend an accusation of unlawful blocking as "reasonable network management."

Robb
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thedragonmas

join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA
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said by rchandra:

Nonsense. You're now going to claim I should be running my domain's email only on port 587. This will effectively cut my domain off. My user population will only have outbound service. "Noone" will be trying to contact my MTA on 587, they'll be going in on the standard 25.

I for one do not think blocking TCP/25 in either direction is "reasonable network management." ISPs will try to claim their MTAs are somehow better than mine, but I don't agree. I'm not a spambot or zombie, I think if it weren't for the residential ToS, my MTA is perfectly legitimate.

I fail to see (except for the nebulous "network management clauses") how blocking SMTP or HTTP is any different than blocking Skype or BitTorrent, and therefore shouldn't be blocked or hampered at all.

actually id tell you to get a business class account for your business. 99% of home users have no need for their own mail server, and isp's can easyly claim SPAM controll for blocking use of mail and webservers on residential accounts.

as for smtp or http being different than skype or bittorrent thats a simple one for the isp's. skype isnt used to send spam, and theyd LOVE to kill off bittorrent if givin the chance.

im playing devils advocate here. id love to be able to run my own server from home, would save me a good chunk of change in hosting costs. but i all so understand why isp's block them on residential accounts. if i really wanted too i could get a business account and call it a day. and if that was cheaper than my hosting id do it.

funchords
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Re: SMTP Blocks

said by thedragonmas:

skype isnt used to send spam

(Shhh, don't tell the [non-]carriers, but, yes it is.)
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droobie
Premium
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Bangor, ME
said by thedragonmas:

actually id tell you to get a business class account for your business. 99% of home users have no need for their own mail server, and isp's can easyly claim SPAM controll for blocking use of mail and webservers on residential accounts.

As an 'access' provider, the electric company does not query the brand, model, or use of my clothes dryer.

If the original intention was to give everyone 'neutral access' to the Internet (similar to a utility, as some online have mentioned), it should be across all protocols and ports, not some for the 'rich business folks' and some for the 'little residential people'.

I'm not talking about speed tiers or 'extras' (like hosting, Static IP, rDNS, etc.) here, I'm talking specifically about access.

said by thedragonmas:

as for smtp or http being different than skype or bittorrent thats a simple one for the isp's. skype isnt used to send spam, and theyd LOVE to kill off bittorrent if givin the chance.

I think your concept of Skype not being used to send spam is incorrect. I get spam from any 'instant message' based service, including AIM, ICQ, MSN, etc. Skype isn't unique in this regard.

Bittorrent has a sufficient amount of 'illegal' activity and can generate havoc on a network. Why wouldn't 'reasonable network management' apply there?

I would expect the ratio of legal/illegal content flying around the Internet is somewhere in the ballpark of (or worse than) the ratio of ham/spam on Port 25.
jcremin

join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2

Re: SMTP Blocks

said by droobie:

said by thedragonmas:

actually id tell you to get a business class account for your business.

As an 'access' provider, the electric company does not query the brand, model, or use of my clothes dryer.

No, but if you want to run a laundromat and you need the appropriate juice to power that many driers, you will be forced to get a commercial electric account.

Running a mail server should also require a business class account, as you are doing something that is more advanced than the average consumer needs, and therefore also should understand how to prevent the abuse of port 25 in the first place.

Linklist
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Longport, NJ
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Cheat Sheet on subjects in FCC rules PDF

The numbers next to the various subjects are the PARAGRAPH numbers in the PDF document, NOT page numbers. So if you want to jump to a spot that interests you in the document, the paragraph numbers are to the left and at beginning of each paragraph.

»hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/a···01A1.pdf

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Para.
I. PRESERVING THE FREE AND OPEN INTERNET..............................................................1
II. THE NEED FOR OPEN INTERNET PROTECTIONS .........................................................11
A. The Internet’s Openness Promotes Innovation, Investment, Competition, Free
Expression, and Other National Broadband Goals............................................................13
B. Broadband Providers Have the Incentive and Ability to Limit Internet Openness ...........20
C. Broadband Providers Have Acted to Limit Openness.......................................................35
D. The Benefits of Protecting the Internet’s Openness Exceed the Costs..............................38
III. OPEN INTERNET RULES.....................................................................................................43
A. Scope of the Rules .............................................................................................................44
B. Transparency .....................................................................................................................53
C. No Blocking and No Unreasonable Discrimination ..........................................................62
D. Reasonable Network Management....................................................................................80
E. Mobile Broadband.............................................................................................................93
F. Other Laws and Considerations.......................................................................................107
G. Specialized Services ........................................................................................................112
IV. THE COMMISSION’S AUTHORITY TO ADOPT OPEN INTERNET RULES ...............115
A. Section 706 of the 1996 Act Provides Authority for the Open Internet Rules ................117
B. Authority to Promote Competition and Investment In, and Protect End Users of,
Voice, Video, and Audio Services...................................................................................124
C. Authority to Protect the Public Interest Through Spectrum Licensing ...........................133
D. Authority to Collect Information to Enable the Commission to Perform Its
Reporting Obligations to Congress..................................................................................136
E. Constitutional Issues........................................................................................................138
V. ENFORCEMENT..................................................................................................................151
A. Informal Complaints........................................................................................................153
B. Formal Complaints ..........................................................................................................154
C. FCC Initiated Actions......................................................................................................160
Federal Communications Commission FCC 10-201
2
VI. EFFECTIVE DATE, OPEN INTERNET ADVISORY COMMITTEE, AND
COMMISSION REVIEW......................................................................................................161
VII.PROCEDURAL MATTERS .................................................................................................164
A. Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis..............................................................................164
B. Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis ...................................................................165
C. Congressional Review Act ..............................................................................................167
D. Data Quality Act..............................................................................................................168
E. Accessible Formats..........................................................................................................169
VIII.ORDERING CLAUSES.......................................................................................................170
APPENDIX A—Substantive Rules
APPENDIX B—Procedural Rules
APPENDIX C—List of Commenters
APPENDIX D—Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis

An example is shown below where paragraphs 17 & 18 are on page 10 of the PDF file.


dslcreature
Premium
join:2010-07-10
Seattle, WA

What about...

While I agree with the sentiment I'm not so sure about the aggregate effects of mitigating factors. From my read it seems ISPs who are open about what they are doing AND give the end user a choice may be able to get away with more than the overarching intent.

What if I offered an Email-only service where you would only have access to sending and receiving email..no web..etc at a significantly reduced price. Would this be allowed?

What if I offered a series of bad choices for access plans including a very detailed list of protocols that would be allowed with each plan. I also offered open Internet but the cost for it would be more than most people would be willing to pay.

Since I am open about what I am doing and I am giving the user a choice how much freedom do I have to define anti-competitive plans in these circumstances just as long as I use a large point font and give the customer lots of check boxes?

If I had a choice between neutrality laws and the government doing something meaningful about opening up the last mile rather than seeing cable monopolies win by default I would chose addressing last mile.

No amount of regulation will protect and improve access to the network more than presence of real competition.
amigo_boy

join:2005-07-22

Re: What about...

said by dslcreature:

What if I offered an Email-only service where you would only have access to sending and receiving email..no web..etc at a significantly reduced price. Would this be allowed?

....

No amount of regulation will protect and improve access to the network more than presence of real competition.

A smorgasbord of choices wouldn't be bad. (I wouldn't mind metered billing either.). But, the real problem is as you noted: lack of competition. Without competition there's no assurance that the buffet or the price per bytes would be customer-driven. No assurance the ISPs capital expenditures, capacity planning, profit margin would be customer driven.

We either need local ISPs to be under public-utility oversight, or municipal ownership of the last mile (allowing ISPs to compete for every household).

Everything else is just addressing the symptoms, not the problem.

56403739
Less than 5 months left
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Naples, FL
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Re: What about...

said by amigo_boy:

Everything else is just addressing the symptoms, not the problem.

And there's the rub. None of this is about customer choice or real competition. The regulations are written by the regulated, and while the surface looks shiny and new the implementation is as hollow and cynical as the term "network neutrality" itself has become. Nothing in here stops Comcast (for instance) from blocking Netflix or Amazon VoD as long as Comcast says you can't use them on a Comcast account, upfront at the ordering stage (while pitching their own VoD services instead). How many people do you think will shrug their shoulders, click "place order" and never look back anyway? They could easily put the competition out of business and be completely within this new regulatory framework, and that is precisely what they bought.

Comcast, AT&T and Verizon wrote these rules; make no mistake that they already have the mechanisms necessary to get around them.
PacketExodus

join:2010-07-26

Tell me...

Is the network management practice of limiting simultaneous connections (which can break some high-performance apps) specifically addressed anywhere in this document? I've never found it to be all that reasonable.
hottboiinnc
ME

join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

FCC

NOT ENFORCABLE

56403739
Less than 5 months left
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Naples, FL
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Re: FCC

said by hottboiinnc:

NOT ENFORCABLE

And your communications law degree is from which institution?

It is as enforceable as Congress says it is. And the FCC was ordered by Congress to come up with this.
jcremin

join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2

Re: FCC

said by 56403739:

said by hottboiinnc:

NOT ENFORCABLE

And your communications law degree is from which institution?

It is as enforceable as Congress says it is. And the FCC was ordered by Congress to come up with this.

I don't believe Congress told them to write net neutrality laws. If they did, a link to such order would be nice to see.

The FCC WAS ordered to draft a broadband plan, but they were still never given any authority to write any of these laws, which does make them unenforceable.
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
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kudos:3

Re: FCC

I agree with what you said.. but it ends when you said "write any of these laws"... only congress can write a law and only a president can sign those bills into law. The FCC can only make a rule,.. there's a big difference there.

Something people also forget is that a governmental body such as the FCC isn't allowed to impose a fine either. Only congress or a court can meddle in those.. yet, for some reason, people continue to let appointed rogue agencies to continue down these roads, and everyone lets them.

The constitution is a fun thing.
jcremin

join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2

Re: FCC

said by fiberguy:

I agree with what you said.. but it ends when you said "write any of these laws"...

Sorry, I should have put the word "laws" in quotes or say "write any of these regulations and pretend they are laws".
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3
said by 56403739:

said by hottboiinnc:

NOT ENFORCABLE

And your communications law degree is from which institution?

It is as enforceable as Congress says it is. And the FCC was ordered by Congress to come up with this.

One doesn't necessarily need a law degree to know something. You answered you own question in that "as congress says it is"... um, have you checked lately to see if they have told the FCC its okay? Last I checked, the courts haven't been too keen to a lot of what the FCC has been doing.

But please, continue on.. we know that some people just love expanded government intrusion into our lives.

anon2

@comcast.net

NN

How many loopholes are in this? It seems pretty vague so far.
rdmiller

join:2005-09-23
Richmond, VA

Boo Hoo!

My heart goes out to the news media "all busily packing for grandmas house". Congress needs to pass a law prohibiting news from happening on long holiday weekends and also on Fridays during the summer.
Roop

join:2003-11-15
Ottawa, ON

legal language... arg.

"may not unreasonably discriminate" = "may reasonably discriminate"

It's much worse when you consider "reasonable" can mean something different to you than it does to me.
Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI
Reviews:
·Charter

Re: legal language... arg.

and this is the crutch that the ISP's will use to keep your torrents shut down. whats reasonable to them(the ISP) may not be reasonable to you, but the responsibility of providing the proof that what the ISP is doing is not reasonable falls on you(the customer) to file a formal complaint with the FCC, and prove thru experts and professionals that the ISP is not being reasonable. The ISP are probably banking on the fact that most people wouldn't have the money to do that, and the people that do have a stake in the company.

rchandra
Stargate Universe fan
Premium
join:2000-11-09
14225-2105

Block? What about NAT?

An ISP could claim, "we don't block DNS; we just NAT all DNS requests to our recursive servers, regardless of the destination address in the packet." Then they'll say that regulation doesn't apply to us because they're not blocking.
--
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when a writer chooses not to follow those rules.


Jeopardy! replies and randomcaps REALLY suck!

rchandra
Stargate Universe fan
Premium
join:2000-11-09
14225-2105

chance to hasten the deployjment of IPv6?

I could claim TWC is totally blocking my access to the IPv6 address space. As long as the FCC are digging their grubby little fingers into TWC's business, maybe I could get them to lean on TWC to deploy v4/v6 dual stack.
--
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when a writer chooses not to follow those rules.


Jeopardy! replies and randomcaps REALLY suck!

BothGunzUP
Premium
join:2002-09-13
Woodbury, NJ

Question...

Could the no blocking rule be applied to content providers blocking Google TV? NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and the like? Doesn't Google TV work via the web, and as such these guys shouldn't be able to block competitors? Is there anyway this could be applied here?
lesopp

join:2001-06-27
Land O Lakes, FL

Hey FCC! Don't just do something, stand there.

Item i will be transformed into legalese and buried deeply in a lengthy over bearing TOS that most do not read. You will not realize that watching streaming content caused you to hit the bit ceiling until you are throttled to dial up speed and now there isn't thing one you can do about it.

Until item ii is fully litigated item iii allows reasonable discrimination.

We're hosed.

internetttt

@72.44.219.x

Untrue!

quote:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee was able to invent the World Wide Web nearly two decades after engineers developed the Internet’s original protocols
monkeys made the internet!

ctceo
Premium
join:2001-04-26
South Bend, IN
Reviews:
·magicjack.com
·AT&T U-Verse

So then...

Why can't I watch the latest episodes of Merlin Season 3 (arguing for those who haven't had the opprotunity) from BBC.com or in the BBC iPlayer?
--
»were.boldlygoingnowhere.org if we don't change out ways!
nOv1c3

join:2006-11-08
Whitney, TX
kudos:1

FCC

Anyone catch the latest polls ?

Just 21% Want FCC to Regulate Internet, Most Fear Regulation Would Promote Political Agenda

»www.rasmussenreports.com/public_···l_agenda

Just shows that the Liberals are just complete idiots in this country :/

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