Comments on: Comcast Didn't Kill Net Neutrality Last Week

By: Does the FCC Plan to Give Up on Broadband Regulation? - A Collection of Latest Happening in Technology Field

Mon, 03 May 2010 19:33:34 +0000

[...] in April after an appeals court overturned a 2008 ruling against Comcast for blocking P2P files . I wrote then that most people believed the FCC would have no choice but to classify broadband as a transport service (GigaOM Pro, [...]

By: Does The FCC Plan to Give Up on Broadband Regulation?

Does The FCC Plan to Give Up on Broadband Regulation? — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:49:34 +0000

By: AT&T Tries to Strong-arm the Feds

AT&T Tries to Strong-arm the Feds — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:05:04 +0000

[...] network neutrality and reclassifying broadband (GigaOM Pro sub req’d) as a transport service rather than an information service. It’s done this before through lobbying efforts and in FCC filings, but in a random press [...]

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:43:57 +0000

"Regulating communications transport is what the FCC was set up to oversee."

Exactly.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:51:52 +0000

You may be confusing Net Neutrality with National Broadband. Net Neutrality is about creating a set of rules by which ISPs are allowed to operate their networks, how they are allowed to make money, and what commercial agreements they are allowed to enter. They don't address network coverage, and they will absolutely make prices go up for everyone, at minimum simply to cover the new costs of government compliance.

That said, DSL is available for $10/month.

What price do you think most folks would find reasonable, since $10/month is evidently too expensive?

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:18:21 +0000

I'm still confused by those calling for "market forces" to provide widespread access to reasonable cost broadband service. As long as the emphasis of the duopoly that provides most broadband service to U.S. consumers, the cable and phone companies, remains expensive premium packages, the concept of Net Neutrality will remain at odds with their business plans.

Oh by the way, most Americans have no concept of what Net Neutrality means and no idea of what its loss would mean to them. Unfortunately poling results usually don't capture that reality.

By: FCC a Political Organization? « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com

FCC a Political Organization? « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:19:39 +0000

[...] the broadband plan or the public safety effort to have the D Block assigned to them, and now even net neutrality since the courts sided with Cox Communications. Cox is trying to manage its spectrum so all of its [...]

By: Comcast Didn’t Kill Net Neutrality Last Week | Hawaii Wedding Photography

Comcast Didn’t Kill Net Neutrality Last Week | Hawaii Wedding Photography — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:04:53 +0000

[...] Read my full analysis on GigaOM Pro here. follow the link for full article on gigaom.com [...]

By: Kevin Walsh

Kevin Walsh — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:35:35 +0000

Heather, my language was intentionally restrictive, i.e., “blocking traffic it dislikes,” because this is how (to use your expression) we’re led to believe the sky will fall in the absence of more restrictive regulatory oversight. Madison River blocked VOIP traffic to protect its POTS revenue stream. This was admittedly stupid and was dealt with using extant regulatory powers. Comcast was attempting (in an admittedly ham-handed way) to deal with bandwidth overloads by injecting rested packets into P2P streams. I’m not as familiar with the Windstream case but it has evidently already been dropped in the face of negative customer reaction.

I don’t go along with the position that bad people out there just haven’t had enough time to do evil things as a reason to regulate the market. Five years is an eternity in this industry.

As to data, the FCC relied on, among other sources, Akamai’s “State of the Internet” report (http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/). It pretty clearly shows that average speeds in the US lead major European countries and are only a bit behind the smaller ones. Most countries with impressive broadband speeds are small, dense and have a history of state-owned PTTs.

By: Andy Green

Andy Green — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:30:59 +0000

This is a twisty, wonkish area to be opinionating about, but here goes. The FCC's case was weak. But that was mostly a consequence of this agency's backpedaling and mishandling of open access or "UNE-L". The TRO of 2003 was the final nail in the coffin, which was mostly upheld by the DC Court of Appeals. The fight this time was around narrowish legal issues ("ancillary authority").

The rest of the world has open fiber/cable networks with multiple providers and reasonable wholesales rates that encourage competition. So in a alternate alien socialist universe (France), if one provider starts messing with your access, you can hop to another one. Sounds like freedom.