Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by bkeroack on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @02:02PM (#14248854)

> He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system.

Even in the 1990s it was obvious that the copper network was obsolete and any additional money put into it would be a wasted investment.

> Comcast sued the Electric Power Board in TN a few years later to keep them from offering Fibre to the home

Chairman Pai specifically speaks about FCC initiatives to increase competition including opening up access to utility poles. It's a difficult issue because many utility poles/corridors are locally or municipally owned and the FCC has no jurisdiction there.

> Even if he says Title II isn't the right framework, why gut it until it's replaced.

The point is that it doesn't need to be replaced. It's a heavy-handed and unnecessary imposition of federal regulation on a market that needs to be as free and open as possible due to the speed of innovation in the tech space.

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Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by zerocrates on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @02:22PM (#14249086)

What's this great innovation in the wireline broadband space being stifled by overeager regulators? Presumably there's some concrete example of what our friends the competitive ISPs want to do and are unable to because of the regulations. Or even, what they _used_ to be able to do: Title II reclassification is obviously very recent and the prior "Open Internet" or net neutrality orders weren't long before that. I suspect that the "innovation" they're looking to provide won't be of the kind most people are interested in fostering.

I'm generally amenable to the argument that robust competition is the best solution and that we should be aiming to reduce those barriers but... unbundling was very unpopular with the ISPs and didn't really work and is dead, and as you said the big last-mile problems are local.

Knowing that the FCC isn't actually successfully creating the robust competitive local broadband markets they say they'd prefer, doesn't it make sense for them to do what they _are_ able to do and keep the existing (already "light touch") regulations?

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Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by AlexandrB on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @02:20PM (#14249060)

> It's a heavy-handed and unnecessary imposition of federal regulation on a market that needs to be as free and open as possible due to the speed of innovation in the tech space.

This is nonsense. Because of the capital investment involved there are few "startups" in the ISP space. If there's technological innovation happening it's not filtering down to the consumer in the form of lower prices.

Here in Canada the effective price of LTE access per GB has continuously gone up in the face of "innovation" on how to structure billing for optimal revenue generation. Meanwhile Canadian ISPs fight any regulation that would help foreign entrants into the space with tooth and nail.

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Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by anigbrowl on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @02:25PM (#14249105)

That's amusing considering that some state governments have been passing laws to prevent cities within their borders from offering any kind of public internet or building their own telecoms infrastructure.

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Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by Karunamon on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @02:19PM (#14249044)

How specifically is Title II "heavy-handed"? What are the legislative requirements that are so burdensome?

I'd be all for the "free and open" solution if we take it to its logical conclusion - that means franchise agreements, single-provider-multi-dwelling building agreements, and so on all become null and void at the same time.

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