It's a good example of why we have representatives representing the people and we don't have a traditional democracy.

Exactly. It's worrisome to me that nearly all political campaigns have been driven by emotional rubbish without any regard for possible repercussions. Yet, you're decried and rebuked for daring to suggest that we probably ought to stop and think very cautiously about what it is we're asking for!

On the other hand, our representatives are paid for by lobbyists and seldom appeal to their constituents even if it's in the latter's best interests.

I can only hope at this point that these regulations are not so overbearing and damaging that it harms innovation. But with 700+ regulations on the books now, I'm feeling somewhat pessimistic. I rather wish the FCC focused exclusively on what it was so-called "net neutrality" was originally intended to do. But now I'm afraid that if their language is too broad, Mark Cuban may be right, and it might affect QoS and related protocols. (I don't think that would happen--and I feel Mr. Cuban may be a touch paranoid--but politicians aren't exactly known for their technological prowess either.)

I'm truly sorry for my pessimism. I just don't have much faith.

One positive about this is that it will give the FCC some oversight over the pricing of interconnect deals. But interconnect deals will still happen, and they won't be free - these rule changes effectively codified them into law. So Netflix will still have to pay Comcast/Verizon to send lots of traffic to their users, only the FCC now has the ability to regulate the pricing terms of such deals.

Yeah, but Comcast took that FCC order -- made without any advance regulation -- to the courts, which struck it down on the basis that the FCC could not issue such an order under its ancillary authority. Comcast v. FCC, 600 F. 3d 642, D.C. Cir. (2010).

As this specific order to Comcast being struck down was one the things motivating the FCC's initial Open Internet Report and Order which applied nonblocking of lawful applications as a generally-applicable regulation (and which itself was later struck down as being a common carrier regulation which could not be applied without Title II reclassification), its pretty odd to use the existence of the Comcast Order as a way to dismiss the need for generally applicable regulation to prevent blocking (or even, given the history of the subsequent order, to dismiss the need for specifically Title II regulation to prevent blocking.)

No, the usual process is NPRM, comment period, Final Rule. The NPRM was last spring, the comment period took up much of last year, and the Final Rule is now.

> I suspect if the rules are too far-reaching, they'll be mired in litigation for years.

There'll be litigation for years in any case (whether the rules will be blocked while it proceeds is less certain.)

> Hopefully the regulations will be released to the public so we can start disseminating them today or tomorrow.

They won't be published until all the commissioners have finished their commentary (particularly, the opposing commissioners). That will almost certainly take more than a day or two.

It's long passed time that I can add edits to my original comments (so obviously, there's no point), but I've included what I've found, and why I was incorrect here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9116126

So it looks like the timeframe we're expecting is 30+ days or so to allow for a) the commentary you mentioned and b) the reconsideration period to come to an end for parties wishing to file petitions against the rules.

Thanks!

That was all done last year. Now the rules are out.

The problem is that I had been "corrected" (incorrectly) in a discussion elsewhere when I mentioned there was only the one comment period by someone who stated that there would, in fact be a period after the rules were voted on where there would be a second period to accept comments from the public. I should have looked it up myself, rather than taking the correction at face value.

In fairness to the individual who attempted to correct me, I think he/she was confusing the reconsideration period with a second round of comments. It's a fair and reasonable mistake to make, so with that in mind, I suppose you could correct my initial post to make mention of the reconsideration period in lieu of what I wrote.

One of the issues I take with some of the pro-net neutrality crowd is that they're willing to vehemently hyper-correct everything, including statements that were not wrong, and due to the insistence of some of the comments I read, I made the mistake of presuming my initial understanding was wrong.

Go figure. It's too late for me to correct my original post, but feel free to use this as an addendum to it. :)

http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/rulemaking-process-fcc

As dragonwriter wrote in reply to me--and as you can read above--there's at least 30 days after the rule vote before they become available to allow for analysis and for dissenting petitions to be filed during the reconsideration period.

It should be interesting to see what happens at this point.

Isn't that just politics in general?

It's like everything else in the last 20+ years. Someone drafts a bill that sounds like a good idea, then before you know it, it balloons to thousands of pages of rhetoric drafted by every lobbyist in Washington.

I don't know what the answer is. I can think of a few solutions, but they're impractical and would never happen.

Republicans: Want the government out of it. Democrats: Only care about it to the extent that it's a nexus of class/race warfare.

Only when it benefits big business. Republicans are more than happy to stick the government into your religion, your health decisions, your recreational drug use, etc.

I suppose they could try to defund the FCC, but I guarantee that would never happen.

However, I can say with a straight face that I know plenty of people who might make that sort of suggestion...