The American Spectator : Taking Title to the Internet

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Taking Title to the Internet

By The Prowler on 2.22.10 @ 6:08AM

Obama's net-neutering continues. Plus: Garbage diplomacy.

OBAMA'S NET NEUTERING
In the fight over the Obama Administration and Federal Communications Commission's attempts to regulate the Internet via a policy known as "net neutrality," a court case involving a cable company and an online company that enables Internet content sharing is forcing the Obama Administration to look for new ways to gain control of Internet networks.

Last month a federal court raised doubts about whether the FCC had jurisdiction over Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as the company in question, Comcast, and AT&T and Verizon, when the FCC made a 2008 ruling that Comcast had illegally blocked the Internet content-sharing application BitTorrent. The court's questioning of the FCC authority now has many -- including senior FCC staff -- believing that the federal court will side with Comcast and rule that the agency has only "ancillary jurisdiction" over broadband services.

But already, the FCC is strategizing on how it can gain regulatory control of the Internet and the broadband networks that connect to it, if the courts rule against them. According to FCC sources, the agency is considering "reclassifying" broadband Internet services under rules that were once used for rotary phone service. To do this, the FCC would categorize broadband networks under Title II, or common carriage rules. Broadband networks have thus far been regulated under Title I, a section for "enhanced communications services."

"You have one set of rules, Title II, that were used for rotary phones, before there was a lot of competition in the communications space, like wireless and the like, and then you have Title I, which has rules more in line with the high-tech world," says an attorney who until recently worked at the FCC. "Common sense says, keep broadband and the Internet under rules for the modern world, not the rules that applied to a technology that was obsolete two decades ago. This just shows how desperate these people are to regulate the networks."

The Washington Post reported that, "Under Title II… the FCC could pursue its net neutrality rules." The FCC would also be able in some ways to "nationalize" the broadband networks, requiring that the high-speed broadband networks deployed via private investment to the tune of more than $80 billion by companies like Comcast and AT&T be opened and accessible to any company that wanted to use them at a price set by the federal government. Such an approach is supported by left-wing organizations that have advised the Democrat staff at the FCC, such as MoveOn.org, FreePress, both entities financed in part by George Soros, and Public Knowledge.

"Some people will disagree, but in my view we're talking about a policy approach that would effectively kill broadband and the Internet, and would allow the federal government to decide which companies or entrepreneurs get to do what on which networks, and at what price," says the former FCC attorney. "People should remember what it was like when we had the government controlling the phone company and the rotary phone and nothing else. Do they remember what it was like when the big innovation in phone service was a phone color other than black? Do they really want the government that deeply involved in something that has done pretty well without them being that heavily involved?"

Press reports indicate that the FCC has been mulling the Title II gambit since late last year, when it became clear the FCC might not have jurisdiction over regulating the Internet. The Title II scheme might be launched via the National Broadband Plan, which the FCC intends to release some time in mid-March. The Wall Street Journal reported that "Federal regulators are considering whether the government should take greater control of the Internet and ask consumers to pay higher phone charges in order to provide all Americans with cheaper access to broadband Internet service." [Emphasis added.] The FCC has estimated that it could cost taxpayers, as much as $350 billion -- more than a quarter trillion dollars -- to achieve that goal.

GARBAGE DIPLOMACY
State Department sources say that when the Communist Chinese government formally complained to the White House and State about President Barack Obama's private meeting with the Dalai Lama last week, the White House passed along photos showing the Dalai Lama being escorted out a side entrance to the West Wing, where mounds of trash bags lay on the ground. The intent: to show the Chinese government that the administration had not treated the Tibetan religious and political leader with a level of respect past Presidents have afforded the man. For example, in 2007 President George W. Bush proudly attended the ceremony at which the Dalai Lama received a Congressional Medal of Freedom.

topics:
Net Neutrality

Letter to the Editor View all comments (11) | Leave a comment

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.22.10 @ 8:49AM

That's all Americans need right now, higher charges on technical based services, when many are stretched to the limit.

A Faustian government scheme if there ever were one.

Shamus| 2.22.10 @ 9:22AM

It's not likely that courts will approve regulations specifically designed to flout their authority.

Ken (Old Texican)| 2.22.10 @ 12:23PM

A "coup de' etat" must begin with taking over communications. In former days, that meant radio and TV.

Today, the internet is a major segment of the "national consciousness".

Please prepare for sites like Am Spec to be silenced.

(If it is, hunker down and lock and load.)

Dan| 2.22.10 @ 12:40PM

I've commented on the FCC's directive, command-from-on-high, whatever want to call it, when it came up at other tech sites a week or so ago. Let me assure you, from the responses out there, *people get it.*

They laughed at the FCC. They sited companies' rights to build out however they damn well please. People know the truth behind how far the FCC's power (or lack thereof) should range.

Anyone who knows a lick about business and strives to see their own succeed has and will side with providers on this point. Opening the door to gov't. control to the extent of this grab is something no one who works for their income wants.

Liam| 2.22.10 @ 2:45PM

Why do the democrats want to do this?

Push back--November 2, 2010.

WAKE UP| 2.22.10 @ 4:02PM

I think you'll have to move quicker than that.

Liam| 2.23.10 @ 2:12AM

What would you suggest--armed rebellion?

dwight| 2.22.10 @ 6:21PM

Hmm, been fighting this battle for almost thirty years now. Won it, a long time ago, but the corpse keeps raising itself from the grave, and must be put down, again and again.

Here's the deal, two ways. Back in the day, AT&T claimed it cost them money to send 'bits'. They charged by the bit for transmission, on wires they had installed more than fifty years before. They charged to send bits, literally, across the street, in places like NY.NY. Any technical mind can see this is enormously profitable. We stopped 'em then, back in the early 80's and they sure didn't go broke as a consequence.

Now, the 'Broadband Service Providers' claim it will cost them $80 Billion to provide High Speed across the nation, and would prefer to meter rates. Shall we examine that?

Approximately 350 million people in America, so we're talking somewhat more than $200 per person in new investment, which might take them a few months to get back. We're talking plastic, not copper wire, where 'wire' is used, and, most importantly, we're talking WiMax or better.

My numbers show that we can provide brand new 25o megabit (25 megabyte per second) connections to everyone in America, simultaneously, for a bit less than $80 Billion. That's a totally new build out folks. So, essentially, and AGAIN, the Telco's are asking the people to pay for their infrastructure twice. They want us to pay to build it, and then pay again to rent it from them, as if it were theirs. Nice deal for some CEO's, huh?

The real gag is that we already bought this a second time. The telcos threw $10 trillion, in the nineties, into fiber infrastructure. (Ever wonder where our MCI money went?) They lost our shirts for us* when WDM came in, because suddenly, we had too much bandwidth, way too much. (WDM=Wave Division Multiplexing=5 times throughput through fiber=different colors of light) (*DotCom Crash)

Ideally, (yeah right) every household would buy a two hundred dollar WiMax unit ($22 Billion) and pay for it's electricity (a few cents a month). The result would be an Internet that worked better than anything we'll ever be offered by the Telco's. It's not odd to someone like me, that WiMax, a standard that was invented for individual use, was absconded with by the Telcos and made to appear as if it required 'professional' implementation. WiMax units are CHEAP, and insanely effective at resolving issues like this one...

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Try to understand, these are the very same folks who charge a dime to send a text message of less than 140 characters. For those of you who don't have a clue how all this works, that might, somehow, seem fair. However, deep underneath the surface, everything that gets sent electronically, gets sent as 256 character packets. Everything. And, as it turns out, the telco folks needed to send information about usage, back to HQ for billing purposes, which fit in 116 characters. This left 140 characters, unused and wasted, in which a few clever, non-telco, folks packed a short, but free, message system. The Telco's made off with this system, again, for free. Now, when the Telcos, charge you, to send an SMS, not only are they making an almost *infinite markup, they're taking advantage of your ignorance to make you pay for something they need to bill you with. (* Sending a single packet through the Internet is so cheap as to be almost immeasurable. Maybe a few quadrillionths of a cent. Put it this way, all the SMS's sent in a day, cost less than a few cents and yet consumers pay tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for them! KaChing!)

It's the usual schtick. Remain ignorant of what you're buying and they'll take you to the cleaners. Speaking of which, I've got some great deals on real estate...

Yosemeti Sam| 2.23.10 @ 10:33AM

Re column - "Is our Children Learning?"

To American Spectator:

Appears I strike Liberal/Leftist nerves.

Do you or do you not validate email addresses
with posts?

You let an asshole - pardon the shorthand -
speak as if he were me.

Get your AS act together!

Do you have hacker firewalls - at all?

If not - moving on!

AS Webmaster - what's up with this compromise?

Marv Swett| 2.23.10 @ 1:26PM

As usual, there is more to this issue than the author of, or commentators on, this article care to cover in sufficient detail. The best treatment of the FCC broadband issue can be found at Ars Technica, an industry website dedicated to following technology issues with more than just a passing fancy. Their coverage corrects much of the blatant disregard for fact that is so evident in this article.