Re:FCC’s comment system targeted by DDoS during filing perio...
by unityByFreedom on Monday May 08, 2017 @05:48PM
(#14295929)
> Wheeler did not take a neutral stance.
I didn't mean to say he did. The president is the only one who can wait and see what the public thinks before speaking. Everyone else has to act in order to test the waters for the President.
> Wheeler's first proposed replacement was weaker. In particular, it would have allowed paid "fast lanes".
Yeah, that's not net neutrality at all. Title II classification was good and overall Wheeler kept the internet open. But, fast lanes don't have any place in a neutral internet.
Wheeler did not take a neutral stance. He was always for net neutrality. Some people were confused on that point because after the courts tossed out the Open Internet Order of 2010, Wheeler's first proposed replacement was weaker. In particular, it would have allowed paid "fast lanes".
It was weaker not because he preferred weaker net neutrality, but rather because he wanted to try to save net neutrality using the same legal authority that the 2010 order used, if he could. That would be very likely to survive further judicial scrutiny, and also not to draw to much Congressional ire.
But from the start he said he was open to reclassifying ISPs as Title II common carriers in order to make a new order that was stronger than the 2010. The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of that, and that's what he went with.
People also get confused about Wheeler's intentions because he was once head of the main cable trade association, and later head of the main cellular/wireless trade association. What is often overlooked is that at those times, those industries were young, small, and trying to compete against big established players (broadcast networks in the case of cable, the big telephone companies in the case of cellular/wireless). Fighting for cable and wireless was the pro-consumer, pro-competition side at the time.
In Wheeler's own words:
Wheeler> You have to think about what I was lobbying for. The cable industry at that point in time was fighting being put out of business by this agency at the request of the broadcasters. Broadcasters wanted to shut down the cable companies. They didn't want to give them access to programming because they didn’t want the content in the market, the competition in the market. And so I joined a crusade—we called it ‘plant a flower in the vast wasteland’—to have choice for Americans in what they see on television.
See this interview if you want to understand Wheeler:
https://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/how-a-former-lobbyi...