Re:F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules
by tptacek on Thursday December 14, 2017 @09:31PM
(#15929270)
Many Republicans do support those principles, today. They simply believe that the FCC doesn't need to impose Title II regulations on ISPs to accomplish it. For instance: the Republican component of the FCC strongly believes it's already unlawful to block legal content to consolidate and exploit ISP market positions, and that the FTC already has the power to enforce that regulation.
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Yeah. We probably would have been better off if people had accepted Wheeler's first proposal for the 2015 Order. That was the one that stayed under Section 706, and so would not have been able to do everything that had been done under the 2010 Order because of the court decision that struck down the 2010 Order. It would have had to allow "fast lanes".
But I don't see any net neutrality issue with "fast lanes" AS LONG AS the ISP does not slow other things down in order to force the use of "fast lanes" to get normal advertised speeds. Paid "fast lanes" might be anti-competitive in some cases, but that should be handled under antitrust law.
ISPs probably actually do belong under Title II as far as actually providing internet access goes --I don't see anything fundamentally different from a policy point of view about the internet compared to, say, the telephone system. But that should probably be done by Congress, not the FCC.