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Comment by radisb | Hacker News Reader

"Its chairman has long argued against the rules, pointing out that before they were put into effect in 2015, service providers had not engaged in any of the practices the rules prohibited."

That begs the question: Why then do they oppose the rules if only to start engaging in the practices they prohibit?

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2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to it.

2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers.

2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't like there was competition for their cellphones. 2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except youtube. (edit: they actually sued the FCC over this)

2011-2013 - AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet because it competed with their bullshit. edit: this one happened literally months after the trio were busted collaborating with Google to block apps from the android marketplace

2012 - Verizon was demanding google block tethering apps on android because it let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction. (edit: they were fined $1.25million over this)

2012 - AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.

2013, Verizon literally stated that the only thing stopping them from favoring some content providers over other providers were the net neutrality rules in place.

In other words, Ajit Pai is blatantly lying. These rules were put in place in response to abuses by telecoms. I'm disappointed at how little context is ever given by the media on these issues.

I'd really like to see what he has to say in response to these events, if he has at all. This seems to be the weakest part of his overall argument. Anticompetitive violations _have_ happened in the past in the absence of Title II regulation despite his saying otherwise. That being said, (rural) ISP firms have apparently written to say they are pleased with lifting this regulation:

"VTel wrote to say that 'regulating broadband like legacy telephone service would not create any incentives for VTel to invest in its network. In fact, it would have precisely the opposite effect.' The company went on to say that it's now 'quite optimistic about the future, and the current FCC is a significant reason for our optimism.' Indeed, VTel just announced that it has committed $4 million to upgrade its 4G LTE service and to begin rolling out faster mobile broadband that will start its transition to 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity." [1]

[1]: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect...

edit: Okay, I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. I'm legitimately curious to hear what Pai has to say about past violations. (Seriously, if anyone has a link, please feel free.)

I just don't see how this helps innovation at all, unless they plan to actively start chopping up blocks of the Internet and offering regulated services.

You literally required less hardware with network neutrality because you didn't need any packet shaping routers.

See my comment below.[1] Regulation tends to impose higher barriers to entry for smaller businesses. (See 'regulatory capture' for what happens to larger businesses.)

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17284559

>Regulation tends to impose higher barriers to entry for smaller businesses

Sure, they can, but what about in this specific scenario? How does NN deter small ISP's? The big ISP's already stomp out all small options anyway, I don't think NN is a problem.

Yea, if anything NN regulations make it easier for smaller ISPs because they don't have to buy routers that can do packet shaping, throttling or other types of filtering in order to compete with the bigger companies.

I'm really not sure, that's Pai's argument. It seems to be a mixed bag [1][2]. Some ISPs don't mind the regulatory burden, and some don't really notice it. Bigger ISPs (like Verizon) also claim that this regulation hurts innovation, and corroborate that with a downtick in broadband investments in 2015 when the rules passed, but for all we know that could have been orchestrated.

[1]: https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/13/net-neutrality-small-isp...

[2]: https://www.fastcompany.com/40499904/small-isp-disputes-fcc-...

ISPs' own statements contradict the investment claim.[1]

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/title...

Right, which is why you could argue that downtick was orchestrated. In that article you linked Pai cited research claiming investments went down, but Free Press found otherwise.

>Bigger ISPs (like Verizon) also claim that this regulation hurts innovation

I don't really want innovation from my ISP aside from investing in infrastructure. Their version of "innovation" is, in reality, "how to bilk our customers for more $$$ by delivering shit they neither want nor need."

I realize they've also claimed that they need more money to re-invest in infrastructure, but that claim appears to be a lie given their recent investments and prior statements.

> Ajit Pai is blatantly lying

He is, for sure. I don't think Pai is an idiot, or a moron or ignorant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He realizes it's all bullshit and is selling this crap to the public anyway.

He's a tool's tool. That giant mug? He literally mugs[1] for a corporation's product that is flavored sugar for children. He knows what he's doing.

[1] "mug" v. slang (orig. Theatre). a. intr. To pull a face, esp. in front of an audience or camera, to grimace; to over-act.

Not even just regular old lying. The 2013 one from Verizon is pretty damning, considering that is his former employer (or "former," depending on how you feel about it).

Do you have a source/cites for this list? I'd to give it to my congressman.

https://www.cnet.com/news/telco-agrees-to-stop-blocking-voip...

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a679f360-9890... (article from '08)

https://www.wired.com/2009/10/iphone-att-skype/

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_go...

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/verizon-tethering-fcc/

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/23/technology/att-facetime/inde...

https://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2013/09/18/verizons-pla...

Bonus:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21376597/ns/technology_and_science...

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-...

Credit to https://www.reddit.com/user/IncredibleTeacherMan

The argument goes that ex-ante regulation imposes unnecessary costs in the form of regulatory compliance for smaller businesses, erecting a higher barrier for entry into the ISP market. Or something like that.

I'd be more sympathetic to that if this FCC had done anything productive to expand the competitive landscape for ISPs.

Where I live we have exactly two choices, and one is satellite based.

I mean, that is what Pai claims to be doing here: reducing regulatory burden on smaller ISPs so that more can compete.

"Monday, we are ending this flawed approach and allowing smaller internet service providers to focus their efforts on deploying more broadband, connecting more Americans with digital opportunity, and offering more competition in the marketplace." [1]

[1]: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect...

Right, but many areas have entered into township agreements where only one provider is allowed to provide service to residents. These agreements carry fun legal print like requiring the town to reconvene with the provider before the agreement can be terminated... at which point, the provider will give whatever benefits the smaller provider was intending to provide and then some.

I don't buy it. This won't change anything. Except for how less useful your internet connection would be.

If the focus were on smaller ISPs, why not make the new rules target only smaller ISPs instead of all of them?

How did that work out between 2005 and 2015?

Before 2015 they had the same regulatory landscape, and no additional competition.

Not quite. There were net netrality regulations before 2015, but it was struck down because isp's weren't under title 2, so in 2015 they were reclassified under title 2. Thats what was ended.

How could net neutrality possibly increase costs of compliance for small businesses? Net neutrality is a default state.

By virtue of this state being regulated, smaller businesses have to spend a non-trivial percentage of their money ensuring compliance with regulation.

This is a theory that has no backing evidence with this specific issue.

The biggest reason is that the net nuetrality rules required the FCC to also switch to Title II regualtion, which gives the FCC much broader and stronger regulatory powers. The FCC has chosen to not use those powers, but they could, for example, start regulating prices.

There also might be new business models that are better for the consumer that doesn't actually cause the problems net neutrality proponents fear. For example, some of Tmobile's actions were probably not neutral, but Tmo wasn't really harming customers. In other words, we shouldn't ban something unless we know its actually harmful.

> In other words, we shouldn't ban something unless we know its actually harmful.

That is like saying we shouldn't have checks on a president's power because they might be a good dictator. In the long run preventing ISP's abuses is going to be more beneficial than "beneficial" infringements on NN. Imho ISPs shouldnt have the power to determine which companies qualify for unlimited data streaming even if they aren't using that power to shut down competitors (yet)

Saying that we shouldn't ban businesses and consumers from engaging in voluntary activities unless harm can be demonstrated is actually nothing like saying we shouldn't have checks on the president's power because they might be a good dictator.

I fully support net neutrality but some of these analogies are absurd.

That is bad analogy. NN could always be implemented later and a dictator can't just be voted out of office.

Unchecked presidential power can do literally anything to you, without recourse.

Unchecked power of an ISP can do literally anything to your internet service, and only as long as you stay with that ISP. Unchecked and abused power of an ISP also leads to other ISPs competing on "not doing the X harmful thing that Y ISP does", meaning that in the aggregate the harmful ISP loses business anyway.

> That begs the question: Why then do they oppose the rules if only to start engaging in the practices they prohibit?

Isn't it because title 2 imposes a heavier regulatory burden than just net neutrality rules? Congress should just pass a net neutrality bill without using title 2 imho.

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