ISPs worry that killing FCC net neutrality rules will come back to haunt them
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
It's such a vital telecommunication service that the government should give them subsidies to build out networks and provide subsidies to people with low incomes to purchase their services.
But when it comes to regulation, they want to argue that they are no different than Gmail and that neither the states nor the FCC have any authority to impose basic common carrier rules.
That's not even mentioning the oddness that for the sake of wiretapping, ISPs are considered common carriers subject to CALEA and, like phone services, have to use equipment that complies with federally created specs that allow real-time wiretapping.
But unfortunately the federal judiciary is on a campaign to undermine Congress and federal agencies, so we're at the point where the judiciary is saying that the Federal Communications Commission has no jurisdiction over the most important communication system ever invented despite Congress clearly giving it an authority to do so and providing a framework.
Back in 1995 I was working at QWest (now Century Link), and there was a neighborhood in West Omaha that was a trial for fiber to the home. QWest got a tariff increase approved, to pay for deploying fiber to the home for rural customers, by the year 2K. They never seemed, in any real way, to take steps toward that.
In fact, in the later '90s they were actively NOT deploying fiber to DSLAMs in neighborhoods, to give good DSL, because doing so would allow CLECs to have access to put equipment in neighborhoods. So we all had to suffer with whatever DSL we could get on cable runs that went back to one of two switch buildings serving the town.
Now, 30 years later, they're finally laying fiber. This is after the city is just finishing up laying their own fiber lines to every home and business in town, and I'm imagining that is partly responsible for the telco upgrades.
With this US Supreme Court, I expect this New York Law will be overruled.
But I believe NY has another option. Tax all ISP revenue (before deductions) over a certain amount at 99% (I wanted to say 100). Those funds could then be distributed to the poor.
In the ACA Case, the US Supreme Court upheld the ACA because part of it was considered a Tax. They said they cannot overrule Tax Policy. So this would be an option for New York and other States.
Why? Just because the court is conservative and this is a progressive law, or is there is an actual legal basis for the court to overturn this law?
Lawyers make arguments. Judges make decisions.
The supreme court’s power isn’t checked. The justices have the final say on just about everything.
The law is absurd and absolutely should be stuck down.
Corporations are not people, as much as some court decisions and politicians would like us to believe they are. A corporation's 5th amendment rights cannot be violated, because it does not have those rights.
Corporate charters are allowed to exist at the pleasure of the government.
The Affordable Care Act mechanism always struck me as one somewhat fair way to do it: the insurers set a price for a more-or-less well-defined product in a well-defined market. They compete with each other on that price, then the government achieves its desired social effects by subsidizing low-income insureds in proportion to that commercially-derived price.
Just saying “well, insurance is $5 now” seems less convincingly fair to the people doing the work to deliver the service. And rather less sustainable in the long run.
I'm not even sure if the court will rule at all, since unless I'm mixing up the way things work between different countries, the US Supreme Court gets to pick which cases it considers to be worth taking.
Not too mention the bribery that some members engage in and an unwillingness to abide by any ethical standards.
Then you read that certain members of SCOTUS want to abolish OSHA.
At some point you don’t get to claim to be nonpartisan when you rule by partisan lines.
when laws are made out of Congress, they can be struck down out of Congress. if it's important enough, ask your representatives and senators to turn it into a proper law.
It is a great political strategy tho. Use the courts to tell a do nothing Congress to pass legislation.
(Sir Humphrey)
I agree. The behavior that Justice Sotomayors staff have exhibited in regards to prodding public institutions to buy her books (a practice that has earned her over $3 million since she was appointed to the court) is downright shameful.
At least Congress has an independent nonpartisan ethics board.
It's very clear and obvious, regardless of your political affiliation, that this court:
1. is extremely conservative
2. plays fast and loose with precedent
3. has an originalist stance to the constitution, at least when convenient to conservative political stances
There're multiple landmark cases demonstrating this. To me, this isn't even a political opinion - it's just the clear and evident truth of how this court operates.
What's going on here is that the ISPs are essentially arguing contrary positions of law: to challenge the federal effort, they're arguing that the FCC has no authority to promulgate this kind of regulation; while to challenge the state efforts, they're arguing that the FCC's authority [that they're also arguing doesn't exist in the other case!] supersedes the state's authority.
FCC, or Congress?
The fight to preserve net neutrality rules was actually (and continues to be) a fight to preserve most of the FCC's ability to regulate ISPs at all [1]:
> On October 19, 2023, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes to reclassify broadband internet access service (BIAS) as a Title II common carrier service and reinstate net neutrality rules.
...
> The FCC’s ability to adopt net neutrality rules depends on the legal classification of BIAS under the Communications Act of 1934 (“the Act”). As amended, the act defines two mutually exclusive categories of services: telecommunications services and information services. While telecommunications service providers are treated as highly regulated common carriers under Title II of the act, the FCC has much more limited regulatory authority over information service providers.
The FCC under Ajit Pai changed the classification of broadband providers from Title II ("information services") to Title I ("telecommunications services"). The FCC under Jessica Rosenworcel is trying to change broadband providers back to Title II, which (among other things, I assume) would allow the FCC to treat broadband providers as common carriers. The FCC might be able to regulate rates (meaning prices, not bandwidth) for internet service if ISPs are common carriers, but I'm not completely certain.
The 6th Circuit court case mentioned in the last section of the article is large ISPs' attempt to argue that the FCC has no authority to treat broadband providers as Title II services. Hence, the last section of the article is called
> FCC must show that broadband is telecommunications
The main court case of the article is about a New York state law which would regulate rates for internet service for low-income households. The FCC can't regulate rates without Title II authority. (Relying on the 10th Amendment, I assume) New York believes that the states have the authority to regulate ISPs in such a way (barring constitutional restrictions such as the Dormant Commerce Clause or the First Amendment). The large broadband providers are trying to petition the Supreme Court and argue that the FCC's Title I authority over broadband providers preempts states' attempts to regulate broadband providers in ways that the FCC would only be able to do with Title II authority. If the ISPs' argument prevails, the outcome would be that both the FCC and the states would lack authority to regulate rates on internet service, treat ISPs as common carriers, or impose net neutrality rules.
[1][PDF] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12513
(I'm even going to steelman your argument and assume you meant profit and not revenue.)
That would be amazing.
It would certainly be terrible beyond belief if we all had to rely on municipal internet like Chattanooga.
That's called "taking", and is unconstitutional unless there is just compensation. And "they're not using it, so the value is 0" is not just compensation.
Somehow the total paid by the poor can be prorated to total ISP revenue and taxed based upon that + admin costs. That tax amount will be sent back to the poor as a refund.
Tax is at the revenue level because as we have seen, there are so many deduction they could report 0 income.
IMO, part of why the ACA was upheld is that it is (or was) a model that conservatives wanted to apply when privatizing other government functions. (e.g. Social Security) Roberts in particular appears to believe in this sort of wonkish conservatism and it played well with liberals giving him some of the "above politics" veneer that has since been lost.
I suspect Netflix will last a shorter amount of time with their customers pissed off than the ISPs will last with their customers pissed off.
Personally, I have lots of ISP choice. I can have 80/15 VDSL with consistent speed and latency (22ms to nearest internet exchange), I can use Starlink which is supposed to be pretty reasonable bitrate and 15-50 ms latency, I can use 5G/LTE residential internet with actually good speeds but terrible buffer bloat, or I can pay about $30k to get municipal fiber and a monthly cost above DSL and 5G. No cable for me, Comcast says it's too expensive, even though I'm confident they're on the pole at the corner of the property.
I committed to fiber recently, because a neighbor is doing it for their lots which the phone company refuses to service at all, and sharing construction costs means this is the best deal I'll get. And the trenching company came by and said they'll do directional drilling to get under my driveway so it won't be a big mess. But I don't think any 'normal' people in my situation would ever switch from DSL. If Netflix wants to play the blackout games, there's lots of other streaming services to pick from.
I'm in the UK, and _I_ have ISP choice. I have two separate FTTP providers that have laid fibre to my door that I can choose from. I pay $60/mo for 900/500 guaranteed, but in practice I get 900/900 most of the time. The other provider is slightly more expensive but the same speeds.
If I don't want that, I can have gigabit cable, or two separate ADSL providers that will give me 140mbps (which is resold by countless providers for sub $30/mo)
What do you think Starlink is if not an ISP?