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FCC to Take on Telecoms in Fight for the Future of the Internet

By Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge. Posted September 21, 2009.


It looks like the battle for net neutrality is finally gaining some momentum. This will be the biggest telecom fight in more than a decade.
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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski didn’t mention Net Neutrality when he went before a House subcommittee on Thursday (Sept. 17). The subject will be front and center on Monday (Sept. 21) when Genachowski is expected to give a speech announcing the Commission will vote in October to start a Net Neutrality rulemaking.

Combined with the announcement at the hearing from House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) that he supports Net Neutrality and will support the Net Neutrality legislation proposed by Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), it looks as if the issue which many people waited for a while to take off is finally gaining some momentum.

This will be the largest telecom fight in 14 years, and one well worth fighting. The Internet was created at a time when it was against the law for telephone companies to play favorites with the traffic that went over its network. Now, there are cable and wireless networks, along with the telephone company broadband platform that all have some piece of connections to the Internet, and no legal protections apply to any of it.

In a sense, this FCC rulemaking would help return to the basic legal principles that allowed the Internet to grow and to thrive, and to the environment which led to all the investment, not only in the network, but to all of the software and services on the “edge” of the network that we have today, whether it’s a Google or Yahoo! or Amazon, or any of the hundreds and thousands of small, innovative companies. The proverbial “level playing field” finally will be leveled by rules or by a law, and not at the whim of the telecom companies which control the on-ramps to the Internet in a market in which there is very little competition.

Make no mistake. Simply because the FCC announces an action, the contest won’t be confined to the Commission. Congress will become involved, and from the comments at the hearing of the Communications Subcommittee, the Republicans are ready to rumble. The Republican members, as usual, were forthright in expressing their opposition, as a half-dozen of them did, warning about threats to innovation and investment from an open, non-discriminatory Internet. It’s a tough argument unless you’re a phone or cable company or are subservient to one.

It would have been nice at the hearing had someone backed up Waxman’s announcement with some of their own thoughts. Waxman’s announcement was closely held, but even so, it would have provided a good opportunity for the Democratic members to support publicly the concept of Net Neutrality. Waxman’s announcement will also serve to put the telephone company Democratic acolytes on the Commerce Committee, like AT&T’s Reps. Charlie Gonzales or Verizon’s Eliot Engel, on notice that they may be required to choose between their Committee chairman and their corporate sponsors.


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FCC and monopolies
Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Sep 21, 2009 5:14 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Until the telecom/cable monopolies are broken up and smaller companies and access to the internet via local governments is not stifled by those big corporations, privatizing the internet doesn't appear to be far off. I would also watch out for that effort should this president get a second term. The 1996 Telecommunications Act which "deregulated" for Big Telecom and Media has already turned out to be an economic disaster. As a result there turned out to be fewer choices of providers to choose from. I don't know if the FCC can be trusted either. Like most government agencies, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and suspect that it will be corporate stooge as usual such that whoever has the most money wins !

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Critical public utilities, like clean water, energy & the internet, should be under public control
Posted by: LeftWright on Sep 21, 2009 8:08 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Locally owned by the people they serve, why is this so hard for people to understand?

Maybe when private companies "own" fresh air enough people will realize this basic reality and take back their birthright.

Some things should never be privatized, PERIOD.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

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Monpoly....
Posted by: Spiritgirl on Sep 21, 2009 8:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Didn't Reagan break up the old Ma Bell because it was a "monopoly" and supposedly violated "Anti-trust" and didn't have "Competition"?! Okay, I'm just saying that's the "excuse" they used when they were breaking it apart! And much like water and energy - the net is part of the "public trust" and while rules and regulations need to be in order, that "private enterprise" needs to get their greedy little hands on the money they deem to be made off of it, is yet another reason why it needs to be kept "FREE"!

As for "The Fairness Doctrine", it definitely needs to be brought back into play! I mean listening to the hate, lies, twisted obfuscations, and contortions that have been deemed "free speech" without the real truth & facts that should allow people to reach their own conclusions - means that we have a dumbed down populace, ignorant of what's really going on - that by listening to these whores, they are actually voting against their own pocketbook interests! Ooops my bad, that's what's supposed to be happening!

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» RE: Monpoly.... Posted by: pawheel
We the people have a chance of winning this one
Posted by: MeyravLevine on Sep 21, 2009 11:08 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No, not because Obama/DEMs care about the us.

This is a battle between giants: Application Providers vs. Broadband Providers.

On the side of net-neutrality (and people are Application providers on the net such as Google, MicroSoft, Yahoo, Apple etc etc.

On the other side are the network providers such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast at al.

If the Application Providers are able to buy off enough votes in Congress & Obama admin, we win.

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Net Neutrality and the modern Mafia
Posted by: chetdude on Sep 21, 2009 11:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I offer a short explanation of “net neutrality” in the context of our old friends, the Mafia.

First, the Internet is just a collection of millions of computers (servers) connected by phone lines. The computers are programmed to accept “packets” of information from another server or originator and relay them on towards their final destination. All packets are now treated equally and are passed on as expeditiously as technically possible at the moment they’re received.

Think of the telecoms as the Corleone family of the Internet. They want run the old “Protection Racket”. They would add an extra layer of programming to the servers so that when a packet is received:

1) Is the destination address in our list of “paid up clients”?

2) Yes, move the packet along at normal Internet speeds.

3) No, put it on the bottom of the “uncooperative” stack…slow it down

Don’t let the Mob get away with this rip-off of OUR Internet!

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fly in the ointment of this argument
Posted by: tazdelaney on Sep 21, 2009 12:25 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the 1st amendment states clearly and flatly with no ifs, ands or buts that there shall be no infringement on freedom of the press or expression and congress shall pass no law which allows these things.

but then, in complete contravention of this central freedom, from the very get-go, censorship reigned. jefferson fought it in vain. ben franklin couldn't get his book 'fart proudly' distributed and it didn't become 'legal' until 1972 and even then, found virtually no distributor willing to touch such a subject as human gaseous emissions.

but the killer came in 1933, when a congress in blatant treason to the 1st amendment created the FCC. the FCC backed the national board of review and took part in censorship boards, legislation and judicial actions from the start. if you say a 'dirty word' on MSM, who fines the network and/or culprit? the FCC. their 'reasoning' has always been that the founding farters never foresaw the pervasive dangers of electronic media or else they never would've penned such a right. this combines with the usual religious-rightwing screech 'protect the children.'

a bit which pretty much says it all about america... after the brutal najaf siege in iraq in 2004-5; a soldier's video of an event wound up in all the network news hands. in it, one soldier is manning the camera while his two buddies an he are walking through a cavelike shopping bazaar filled with dead bodies of civilians. on soldier says, "hey, that one's still alive." the other soldier says "fuck him" and blows his unarmed, moaning, defenseless face off." rightly, this was show to the public which should face its atrocities like my lai or auschwitz. but... they had to edit the 'fuck him' for the censors. why that's a dirty word and THE FCC WON'T ALLOW IT.

also of note is that the FCC acts as if it owns the airwaves and communications channels at large. this is like saying that they own the national forests and parks, not the people. the FCC has always worked for, not against the corporatists and their media monopolization and government manipulation of such things as the 'news' shown thereon.

anyone expecting anything other than censorship and corporatization from the FCC or the congress should pull their head out of the sand and have a look at their histories.

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Net neutrality?
Posted by: angelmom1 on Sep 21, 2009 4:23 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I wouldn't know net neutrality if it jumped up and bit me on my computer, all I know is because we live over 20 miles from a phone bank I get dial-up at 26.4Kbps. And there is nothing anyone will do about it, if I want anything faster I have to lay out over $300 up front and then $60 a month for the slowest band width. So, I'll worry about the war on neutrality when I get real internet and can still afford to eat.

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Genachowski opposes the first amendment, he doesn’t defend it!
Posted by: cplot on Sep 22, 2009 7:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
FCC Chairman Genachowski says:

“I believe deeply in the First Amendment and oppose any effort to censor or impose speech on the basis of political viewpoint or opinion.”

What a load of crap. The first amendment doesn’t bar the fairness doctrine. The first amendment might prohibit the regulation of the airwaves, but it certainly doesn’t suggest that once it is regulated it can’t be regulated in a fair way. In fact if Genachowski is going to insist that it not be fair, then there’s no reason we the people should grant the FCC the power to restrict the airwaves. Any one of us should be able to setup a transmitter and start broadcasting on any frequency we choose. People like Genachowski are so disgusting we need them jailed for treason.

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I believe the
Posted by: dadanbetty on Sep 23, 2009 3:36 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
animals who are against net neutraliy are also against the single payer health care system reform. These people are addicted to money like a crack addict is to crack.

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