Net Neutrality: "Obama and the FCC are too scared of their money and influence to fight for you"
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The FCC could very easily recover from this decision.
The agency could decide to properly re-regulate ISPs by issuing a rule finding that reverses the de-regulation of the Bush era.
The Supreme Court is very clear on this. When the de-regulation happened, the FCCs decision was fought by a company called Brand X, which relied on the regulations to provide internet service.
The Supreme Court ruled that the FCCs decision to un-regulate wasnt necessarily the best interpretation of the law, but that the FCC had the unilateral power to decide whether something was a telecom service (like the phone company) or an information service (like a Bloomberg terminal.)
The flip-side of that ruling is that the Supreme Court made it very clear that the FCC could, if it had the will and political capital, simply decide to reverse itself.
The first Obama FCC chief, Julius Genachowski, declined to do so and instead presided over a two-year, Bill Clinton-esque proceeding that created some fairly weak rules built on a legal foundation made of Lincoln logs.
The new FCC chief, Tom Wheeler, is of the same persuasion and previously served as a lobbyist for the cable industry. He will not pick this fight. He may seek to draw it out with an appeals process, but hes not going to reclassify ISPs as utilities.
That means the big telecoms, with their massive lobbying arms and campaign cash, have won.
So whats to be done?
Tactically, ISPs have to be fought on every attempt to usurp the network.
But long term, the only way to fight Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner Cable is to build municipal fiber networks that operate on open-access principles. Google Fiber, which Google has launched in a few cities, is a frenemy to this battle...
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https://medium.com/p/4a7f7b1fcb4f
SolutionisSolidarity
(606 posts)If the FCC doesn't reclassify ISP's as common carriers, then he doesn't really support net neutrality. Sadly, the head of that department doesn't have a great track record on NN.
villager
(26,001 posts)Alas.
Faryn Balyncd
(5,125 posts)pa28
(6,145 posts)"I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality".
OK then. Now we get to find out exactly who is driving the car.
villager
(26,001 posts)Will be very interesting to see, indeed....
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)to ending the Bush/Obama tax cuts? To a public option for health care? To not adopting the chained CPI for SS?
Gee, I wonder why all of those people who voted for Candidate Obama in 2008 aren't very excited any more.
msongs
(67,433 posts)marmar
(77,088 posts)Not only are they selling us up the river, they're sending us COD.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Change
Samantha
(9,314 posts)a couple of years ago. I wish everyone would boycott them. I now am a Verizon customer, but I am slowly planning to move away. I just can't see supporting these corporations that act in their own best interests and kick to the curb what their customers want. I can't take them down but I am not going to help prop them up.
Sam
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Health "care", TPP, KeystoneXL, union busting, education corporatization, the pitiful minimum wage proposal (which will fail), and so on.