Comments on: Who Wins & Loses Under FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

By: Web Video Weekly: Comcast-NBCU Fallout, Google’s New CEO, Roku’s Moves, Hulu Goes Into Production | TELEVISUAL

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:53:45 +0000

[...] FCC Net Neutrality Fallout (NewTeeVee): Plus: do Americans really not support it? Does paid prioritization violate the [...]

By: MichaelRBarnard

MichaelRBarnard — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:51:34 +0000

Into this political hotbed, I’ll toss “The Internet Needs to be Free” http://michaelrbarnard.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/the-internet-needs-to-be-free/

By: MetroPCS LTE Plans Charge More For Skype and Streaming: Tech News and Analysis «

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:27:17 +0000

[...] it appears poised to test the latest net neutrality rules enacted by the FCC, which created fewer protections for discrimination of mobile content. Free Press, a media advocacy [...]

By: cain

cain — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:43:03 +0000

The FCC looks to revive Ham radio. The message will get out somewhere.

By: Kevin Walsh

Kevin Walsh — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:30:53 +0000

As much as I disagree with the premise underlying the FCC’s Order (i.e., that absent a regulatory cop on the beat businesses will inevitably adopt nefarious habits), I think the Commission is to be commended for regulatory restraint. They explicitly refrained from applying this Order to coffee shops.

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:59:41 +0000

It’s highly unlikely that the divided Congress can summon the will to do that, and even if they did, the President would veto it. The R’s had their chance to direct the FCC by passing the Waxman Bill before the election, and they demurred. That was a green light for the FCC to act, and there’s no taking it back now.

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:24:04 +0000

I tend to agree. Economies of scale matter in networking, and the power of national regulators to alter that fact is essentially nil; they may as well be trying to regulate the sunrise.

There’s a Rasmussen survey out today to the effect that NN is only supported by the “political class,” some 21% of likely voters, so this remains a losing issue for partisans. I wonder how long it will be until the advocates realize that NN isn’t the magic wand they want it to be; probably a long time, as they’ll quibble with the rules rather than the concept.

By: Jeff Turner

Jeff Turner — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:06:26 +0000

I believe that pure backbone providers, like L3, will continue selling transit to large enterprise business customers. Assuming the FCC rules take effect, and the FCC lets the “paid peering” sleeping dogs lie, power will shift toward the combination of backbone and “eyeball” broadband network providers. Unless you have both a decent wholesale business along with a broadband network with many subscribers, you simply will no longer have the negotiating power in those peering and transit agreements. In effect we’ll see a new Tier 1 club which will be almost entirely composed of access/backbone combination network providers.

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:03:38 +0000

Don’t worry, Richard; they know better than to respond to lobbyists like yourself.

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:48:59 +0000

I’m curious about something that I think you’ll know the answer to. It’s no secret that the backbones are in trouble, shrinking route miles, laying people off, earnings squeezed, and consolidating. Level 3 wants to be a CDN now because they’re never going to retire their heavy debt load.

Is this order going to accelerate their demise and/or consolidation? I think it creates an opportunity for them to offer paid peering for large business customers, but I’m not sure how useful it’s going to be. It seems to me that it will hurt Netflix and Skype as well, even though they’re getting what they asked for. Gee.