Verizon: We Won't Sue If FCC Returns To Weak Neutrality Rules

We re-rolled. If the results are not as favorable as our original roll, we demand a do-over to re-roll again. Rinse, repeat.

Only when we win everything we want, will we agree the process is "fair and balanced."

The federal government is much bigger and more resourceful than Verizon. So why is FCC so afraid of lawsuits?

Let's not be afraid to stand up for what's fair. Internet today carries not only telecommunications, but also commerce and entertainment. So we should set up some basic rules for all ISPs where they are not prohibited from earning a fair income for their investment but customers get fair access to internet without traffic discrimination.

It sounds almost as if they don't want any fuzzy language in the new rules that can be taken to court.

quote:

---

The federal government is much bigger and more resourceful than Verizon. So why is FCC so afraid of lawsuits?

---

Political blowback. These companies are deep-pocketed campaign contributors to both parties, and actually standing up to them and doing your job is not fashionable if you're interested in having your next election campaign adequately bankrolled, or want that cabinet position appointment.

Wheeler's at the end of his political career, so I honestly think the only reason he's hesitating here (after a decade of debate) is he's trying to look for options outside of all out war (I don't believe they exist but his hybrid idea shows that he does) and/or he's being particularly meticulous when it comes to the precise wording of the rules and running them past a number of different lawyers to maximize the FCC's legal chances.

They need to leave the damn Net alone and simply reclassify 'lobbying' as 'bribery'. This bullshit would stop nearly overnight and give new meaning to the term 'political blowback'. It will be one fine day when Verizon et al. is/are kicked in the nuts so hard they sing soprano permanently.

You might want to add. The FCC could lose the case.

quote:

---

Political blowback. These companies are deep-pocketed campaign contributors to both parties

---

Why should partisan matters affect FCC? Isn't it supposed to be an independent commission, or how exactly is it elected?

Verizon's mentality is that it is the 800 lb gorilla. I know, I have negotiated substantial contracts with them. The have the reliable revenue stream of a public utility, but have been allowed to shed most of the liabilities that would balance out their monopoly. Their legal strategy is simple -- the cost of a suit challenging the authority of the FCC to re-classify broadband is nothing compared to the revenue that they can generate by extorting money from Netflix and other high traffic users. Verizon's analysis has nothing to do with the facts and nothing to do with the law -- simply dollars and cents.

Bribes are BiPartisan, It's about the only thing politicians can reliably agree on.
The FCC is appointed by the Prez who takes money and confirmed by the senate who also takes money.
The FCC then gets money after their terms by being hired by the companies they regulate...
Yay for "independent" Commissions

It's not elected. It's appointed, and it's often nothing BUT political appointments. The industries the FCC is *supposed* to regulate are the ones steering the appointments, as stated earlier, by their support of campaign contributions, perks, and PAC donations.

How, exactly, is my Verizon service not netural right now? Please enlighten me as to what hosts I cannot access on my connection, what services I cannot use on my connection, what is being actively blocked or throttled based on the destination of the IP packets I choose to send to or receive from.

There aren't any. The government needs to keep their damn hands off of the Internet. It works fine, and has been working fine since its inception.

All of this bullshit because one video provider on the net decided to use the cheapest transit provider they could find who didn't want to pay more money for sending more traffic than they received? Then that video provider either needed to pony up the dough to get a better service provider on their end or go out of business. Period.

I know the Verizon hate is strong here, and for good reason much of the time. I surely don't like their business practices of hanging up on landline and rural customers and failing to upgrade their physical plants, not one bit. But those are separate issues. Name one thing being blocked on my Verizon connection and I'll get behind some legislation, but until then there is absolutely no reason to run around screaming that the sky is falling and demanding the Mother Government save us from ourselves once again.

Even when I had Verizon DSL many moons ago, before they unloaded the neglected copper plant in my area to Frontier, a deal that should have been blocked by any competent regulator, I could still access and use any service and communicate with any host I damned well pleased. This isn't about neutrality, for many people it's just a way to channel their telco hate and "stick it to the man". If anything, we should be looking for regulation that forces them to upgrade crumbling wireline infrastructure to fiber as a matter of national security.

But this neutrality garbage is just smoke and mirrors and will only end up breaking more things than it fixes. That's a guarantee.

The FCC is not going to lose a lawsuit about them declaring something Title II unless congress can get Obama to agree to a change in the law. The FCC has blanket authority to declare a service Title II and they have blanket authority once a service is declared Title II to regulate it how they see fit.

Title II is a very powerful weapon, that's why the ISPs freaked out so badly when Wheeler suggested it. Heck they call called up their pet congresscritter and had their tame ones make public statements threatening to revoke FCC Title II authority because of how afraid they are. They wouldn't be doing that if they thought they could just beat the FCC in court.

Title II is an extremely powerful weapon that Congress gave the FCC back when they weren't full of a bunch of nitwits that don't know anything about maintaining free markets. As long as they use a light touch with the rules they develop after declaring Title II they will help reestablish a free market in an area that's been slowly corroding away to Monopoly abuse.

There is absolutely no reason any interconnecting company or content provider should have to pay a last mile network for delivery (as if it's a transit fee) of requested information as long as they are providing the information to the closest ISP designated POP for that ISP. This belief that they somehow get to charge Netflix to deliver requested content as a measure to protect their own video revenues is a blatant market distortion that needs to be stomped out by some effective Title II rules. Otherwise the market will continue to be distorted by blatant monopoly abuse.

Well said.

.Were you aware that until, what 2002, the Internet and ISPs operated under Title II?

Maybe you should rethink your position?

LOL Verizon. Couldn't leave good enough alone!

Don't you just want to smash it in with a rock?

The Internet was actually invented by the government. The military needed a redundant network that could survive a nuclear attack during the cold war.

Just tossing that out there.

The IPS have mentioned many times especially earlier in the Net Neutrality debate, that they don't want to be "just dumb pipes". They want to be gate keepers. That is the only way they can really capitalize big time on the Internet. They are just smart enough not to say this publically now days.
Market restraints will only provide so much money when you constantly have to upgrade plant and speeds without raising prices by much.

You couldn't be more wrong about this issue being a "stick it to the man" issue. This is about keeping the ISP as just dumb pipes and not gate keepers before they have tapped a 50 billion dollar a year gold mine and we have to fight the political machine then.

..that's the FCC just a shaking in thier boots. Hey Verizon - !

Can we both agree this argument is really about money? The big ISPs would be happy to leave the internet alone if they could continue to make more and more money. Title II puts that future money at risk.

If we now agree this argument is about money, we can then discuss how internet is sold. Just like telephone service, it is over sold. It literally depends on everyone not using it at the same time. When the year 2000 rolled around the phone companies were concerned that too many people would simply pickup the handset of their home phone. The phone companies can't even create dial tone for all the phones on their network simultaneously.

I worked for a small fixed wireless ISP nearly a decade ago. It was routine to over sell bandwidth 20:1. Meaning for every 1 Mbps of capacity at the tower we could sell twenty 1 Mbps connections. We were dealing with much slower speeds so I'm not sure how this scales today, with 25-100 Mbps connections on cable. But services like Netflix really mess with this 20:1 ratio. And that effects what this argument is really about, MONEY.

I also agree that Netflix should not have to pay for access to the last mile!

Add a clause that they cannot sue and must use Arbitration for any disputes.

quote:

---

It literally depends on everyone not using it at the same time

---

That's bunk. Current day networks can handle simultaneous load of ISP users (unless you are talking bout DDoS attacks on one server, that's another matter). And if they can't, they need to build up their capacity.

quote:

---

And that effects what this argument is really about, MONEY.

---

Meaning that instead of selling vacuum and getting easy money for nothing, ISPs now actually need to go and build networks that match actual usage? Yep, they should. If they don't want to, they should go out of business.

you are a crazy person. wireline upgrades should be made as a "matter of national security"? and you're calling net neutrality "smoke and mirrors"?

does gravity make you float off into space on your planet?

It is most certainly not bunk for what I'll broadly term residential class service, amd even some lower end business class services. Look at your contract (a.k.a. terms of use, terms of service, acceptable use policy, etc.). There is extremely likely language in it that says you understand it is a best-effort service. Oversubscription has been a common and generally accepted practice even since the dialup days as a way of reducing costs.

On the other hand, if your contract were to read "X CIR" for whatever value of X, then yes, the ISP has a contractual obligation to ensure somehow their links to/from where you're connected have that stated X available. After all, they have committed (the "C" in "CIR") to you that the stated rate is ALWAYS available. And that is CONSIDERABLY more expensive to implement than best-effort, so your bill will be commensurately more expensive; you ain't gettin' no 30 Mbps for only $70 per month or whatever.

Now...if your ISP oversubscribes you and the rest of its customers on your node (head end, DSLAM, whatver) such that you rarely get the rate sold to you, that may be an occasion for something like suing for false advertising. But other than that, unless you have specifically ordered service with a CIR, as far as I know you don't have a legal basis for a complaint. The ISP will simply point to the best-effort language in their ToS and ask you to be on your not-so-merry way.

quote:

---

Oversubscription has been a common and generally accepted practice even since the dialup days as a way of reducing costs.

---

And modern networks address this issues quite nicely. Congestion is not a problem anymore.