Hacker News Reader

Comment by cordite | Hacker News Reader

They support an open internet and the ideals of innovation.

They do not like the solution proposed (Title II reclassification)

Here's an abbreviated list that they pose at the bottom

> We do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II for at least four reasons:

> 1. Title II is unnecessary

> 2. Title II poses significant legal risks

> 3. Title II has proved to be a failure

> 4. reclassification .. will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation.

View on HN

I realize this is a tl;dr summary, but none of these points are very strong, particularly the last one:

> 4. reclassification .. will create a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire broadband industry, thereby retarding investment and innovation.

There is a huge cloud of uncertainty over the entire internet NOW because the one government body tasked with keeping the internet free lacks the power to do so. THAT is the reasoning behind Title II: giving the FCC the power to actually do something.

> They do not like the solution proposed (Title II reclassification)

Title II is not the solution proposed by the FCC, its an alternative to Title I (Section 706) regulation on which the FCC asked for comment. FCCs proposed solution in the NPRM is revising its approach to Section 706 regulation in a way which it hopes will survive court review better than the last attempt at this, rather than resorting to Title II.

Title II is not "the solution proposed," it is one possible way to implement net neutrality.

It seems to be the way that freedom activists are pushing for. I am not aware of other formally proposed plans.

The fact is that there are two ways to go about this: Allow fast lanes or do not allow fast lanes. If you do not want to allow fast lanes then there are two routes to go about this: section 706 of telecom act or title ii of telecom act.

The route via 706 was just struck down in court. Hence the next routes available are a) allow fast lanes or b) do not allow fast lanes via title II.

Or Congress could simply grant the FCC explicit authority to regulate network neutrality without title II reclassification. I believe there's already at least one bill to do this.

Potentially a better (or maybe potentially worse) solution, but it simply isn't going to happen with the Congress we have right now.

Congress did grant the FCC explicit authority to regulate. It was the Telecom Act. What the FCC has to decide on its own is what part of the Telecom Act to use in enforcing. This is not a Congressional issue. And the Court made that very clear. The FCC currently has everything it needs.

edit: I think that the bill you are referring to is Leahy's which would only give political support and not really give it new authority.

Can you elaborate on other possible plans?

The problem is that the FCC is bounded by the authority given to it by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act was passed about 5 years before the Internet became a ubiquitous service unto itself (as opposed to a healthy selection of cheap dialup providers) and wasn't written with today's realities in mind.

What really needs to happen IMO is "none of the above" - Congress needs to get its act together and pass a revised Telecommunications Act that reflects reality, so that the FCC has more flexibility to regulate beyond choosing a regulatory box to fit ISPs in ("information service" and the weak regulation that entails, vs. "telecommunications service" and the common carrier overhead that entails).

I fear that congress would just pass whatever lobbyists hand them.

>Congress needs to get its act together and pass a revised Telecommunications Act that reflects reality

That's a more proper solution, but it is pretty clear that this Congress isn't able to do anything of the sort, and IMO we can't wait for another one to come along.

Well, I think simply granting the FCC the authority to bring back the "open internet" rules that were in place until a court struck them down early this year.

The whole "Fast Lanes" argument is really just imposing "Slow Lanes." It feels like the ISP claiming its not their fault they don't have the capacity to provide the service they already sold to the customer.

I think people want TItle II partially as retaliation for the ISPs being as terrible as they are. Price/MBit hasn't gone down much(any) for me over the past 10 years. If Google can have 0 infrastructure in a town and wire it up at gigabit speeds, why is it so hard for the ISPs to improve? Its because they don't care have 0 incentive.

Maybe we set a moving limit. Internet connection under 50Mbit /down or < 10 Megabit up is classified as title II. Maybe then they'll have incentive to innovate. 2 years down the line its 50/15... I don't know.

> I think people want TItle II partially as retaliation for the ISPs being as terrible as they are.

I think people want Title II because they support the general direction of the 2010 FCC regulations, and recognize that those are very much common-carrier style regulations and that there is significant doubt that they can both pass legal muster under Title I and retain their substance

Reply on news.ycombinator.com