Net neutrality and corporate meddling

[Tegis]

So, Obama put a rather big foot down regarding this in the US

 

 

 

Here in Sweden the mediamafia is trying to get ISPs to start blocking stuff on their behalf. Tossers

 

So, how's the UK and the rest of the world doing?

 

Thoughts?

 

edit: this might be more off topic-ish than the techroom . If so, move it mods

Edited November 11, 2014 by Tegis

[The_Rev]

It will all go to the way TV is at the moment eventually. It has to so that an incredibly small number of people can make an incredibly large amount of money.

[leviramsey]

It's hard for me to think of a case where more people have been conned via their own idiocy than we're seeing getting conned into supporting net neutrality.

[blandy]

It's hard for me to think of a case where more people have been conned via their own idiocy than we're seeing getting conned into supporting net neutrality.

What  - you mean dumbasses like 

 

Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol and considered a "father of the Internet," as well as Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web

.

[Tegis]

Well, how about that.

 

In Net Neutrality Victory, F.C.C. Classifies Broadband Internet Service as a Public Utility

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes.

Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core of free expression and democratic principles.”

The new rules, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the Internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for Internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.

Explaining the reason for the regulation, Mr. Wheeler, a Democrat, said that Internet access was “too important to let broadband providers be the ones making the rules.”

Clicky

 

[The_Rev]

That happened because congressmen were shit scared of voter backlashes in their constituencies in the next election.   The problem the rest of the world has is we are kinda bound by what the USA does just because of the population and size of economy they have.   I'm not sure about Sweden but I know in the UK at least we have much more choice over ISP than the average person currently "enjoys" in the states where the free market has basically allowed local monopolies to spring up on a massive scale.   I believe that this public utility bill may lead to the situation across the pond moving more into line with what we have here where third parties can piggyback on the networks of established companies and only have to worry about providing the last mile. This is so consumer friendly I am actually stunned it's a realistic possibility in 2015. 

[Tegis]

Pretty much the same here. One really good thing popping up in many cities are "city-based" fiber roll-outs provided by the Municipality itself with the aid of some taxmoney. Then they sell the capacity to providers without any favouritism. Keeps a healthy competition going along with the mobile networks.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Tegis

[leviramsey]

That happened because congressmen were shit scared of voter backlashes in their constituencies in the next election.   The problem the rest of the world has is we are kinda bound by what the USA does just because of the population and size of economy they have.   I'm not sure about Sweden but I know in the UK at least we have much more choice over ISP than the average person currently "enjoys" in the states where the free market has basically allowed local monopolies to spring up on a massive scale.   I believe that this public utility bill may lead to the situation across the pond moving more into line with what we have here where third parties can piggyback on the networks of established companies and only have to worry about providing the last mile. This is so consumer friendly I am actually stunned it's a realistic possibility in 2015.

The local monopolies largely arise because local governments effectively auction off monopoly franchises to cable companies (and the settlement patterns are such that DSL isn't viable). Every indication from the FCC has been that that regime won't change and that they'll forebear (i.e. ignore) any local loop unbundling requirements in Title II.

Ultimately the FCC will probably forebear any regulations that might have a real effect on anything, which is for the best.

(That said, the change in regulatory regime may have just made the NSA's surveillance legal)

Crucially, FISA’s definition of a “wire communication” covered any communication– telephonic or digital — in transit over facilities operated by a “common carrier.” This is actually a bit of an anachronistic holdover specific to FISA: The statutes governing criminal wiretap investigations were amended in 1986 to make a provider’s “common carrier” status irrelevant, but the language in FISA remained.

Then, in 2005, came the Supreme Court’s decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Services vs. Brand X Internet Services. On its face, the case had nothing to do with surveillance, but with the contentious debate over “net neutrality.” In 2002, the Bush-era FCC issued a controversial deregulatory ruling stating that broadband Internet over cable wires should be classified as an “information service,” rather than a “telecommunications service” (like traditional telephone service).

Small ISPs like Brand X, as well as supporters of government-enforced “net neutrality,” argued that federal law required broadband to be classed as a “telecommunication service” subject to “common carrier” requirements — just as phone companies are. That designation means, in part, that they had to make their infrastructure available at low cost to competitors.

The Supreme Court ultimately rejected that argument, finding that the FCC had discretion to decide how cable broadband should be categorized, even if there were grounds to question that choice. The FCC promptly acted on that ruling, but provided for a one-year transition period before those common carrier requirements entirely expired.

This gives us a conspicuous coincidence: The mysterious FISC decision described by Boehner would have happened shortly after broadband providers were freed of the last vestiges of “common carrier” status.

“If FISA’s reference to ‘common carrier’ were interpreted in accord with the Communications Act,” Kris and Wilson explain, explicitly citing the Brand X decision, “information (such as e-mail) being carried on a cable owned and offered by a cable modem service provider would not be a ‘wire communication’ under FISA, and acquisition of such information would not be ‘electronic surveillance’ under” the definition that applies to traditional phone calls.

Edited February 28, 2015 by leviramsey