File
151215889622.gif
- (501.52KB
, 300x272
, JyrIfuU.gif
)
The proposal to turn the Internet into cable television:
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1122/DOC-347927A1.pdf
This will be "considered" at the FCC's monthly meeting on December 14th.
It's not what I thought it was. I thought it would be about putting control of the internet into corporate hands, raising the cost of hosting and streaming services nationwide, and forcing the people to pay for access to individual web sites like cable TV channels. It does those things, but its higher priority is undoing things that were done during the previous administration. This is yet another attempt by the current administration to make the American people and the world forget there was ever a black president by erasing any trace of a political legacy that could be attributed to his leadership (even though the president has no authority to direct the FCC). Destroying the internet as we know it will be a side effect.
Specifically, the proposal reverses this order:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf
Highlights:
Key to the proposal is defining broadband Internet access as a luxury, not a utility. Specifically, to reclassify broadband ISPs as Title I "information services", reversing their 2015 reclassification as Title II "telecommunications services" and bringing us back to 2014's Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, in which it was determined that the FCC relinquished the authority to regulate broadband ISPs blocking or throttling any information being transmitted through their networks by distinguishing them from "common carriers" as was confirmed in 2004's NCTA v. Brand X Internet Services.
The proposal repeats certain words and phrases to an almost hypnotic effect, among them "restore internet freedom" (what it purports to do) and "heavy-handed, utility-style regulation" (in reference to the 2015 order) and "light touch" (to describe it's strategy of regulation-free regulation that will magically prevent the telecom conglomerates from holding the internet for ransom).
It also claims that it will increase ISP transparency, except for all those "burdensome" transparency requirements added in 2015 (like requiring ISPs to disclose packet loss and when their network policies will affect their service) and modify some of the requirements from the 2010 Open Internet Order for "increased" transparency.
Oh, and there will be no further need for the FCC's 2015 conduct rules, because transparency and ...you can personally sue them yourself if you think they are violating the open Internet? No seriously, that's the proposal: individual people can use the existing legal system to defend their access to the Internet, if they can prove their ISP is doing something wrong, and they have the money, and the time, and ...yeah, not likely.