[AGSchneiderman]

I’m glad you asked – this is a very important question. In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers, which is something we have seen in the past where regulations were lacking.

As a preliminary matter, it’s important to recognize that net neutrality principles and protections in different forms have actually been around since 2005 and even earlier. So the flourishing of the internet and everything relying on it during that time occurred under the protections. A few years ago, however, the courts struck down one form of net neutrality protections (those that had relied on Title I of the Communications Act), so then in 2015 the FCC put net neutrality protections back in place under Title II instead (they also expanded the earlier protections, e.g., to include protections against abuses related to interconnection, which had not been the subject of net neutrality protections before 2015). Now, in 2017, the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to repeal net neutrality protections altogether (and the courts’ earlier decisions effectively foreclose a return to net neutrality protections under Title I). So that would be entirely new territory for the internet.

Why do we think that’s bad? Well, as I explained in my own public comment in the current proceeding (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10717583023587/FINAL%20RIF%20Co...), we’ve seen how companies behave in the absence of net neutrality protections, specifically in the area of interconnection before it was regulated in 2015, and their unregulated conduct harmed consumers. In essence, they made a deliberate business decision to let the quality of internet access degrade, knowing that it hurt consumers, to try to squeeze revenue out of edge providers like Netflix and backbone providers like Cogent and Level 3. Plus, we know that many consumers have few ISPs to choose from, so competition isn’t as effective a check as in other markets. So I believe strong net neutrality regulations are needed to avoid harms to consumers.

[DigitalJack]

Could you please reference what it was the courts struck down related to Title I enforcement? This is news to me and I'm very interested in a more complete view of things.

[tony101]

This might be what AG Schneiderman is referring to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...

[AGSchneiderman]

In 2014 the court struck down net neutrality rules that prevented blocking and discrimination, which the FCC had issued under Title I of the 1934 Communications Act. But in 2016 the court upheld net neutrality rules that prevented blocking and discrimination, which the FCC had issued under Title II.

Going back to the early 2000s, the FCC has espoused broadband neutrality principles that prevented discrimination against certain types of traffic. In 2005, the FCC articulated these principles in what became known as the “four freedoms” and used them to stop network providers from discriminating against traffic that competed with their own services, for example: in 2005 the FCC stopped phone company Madison River’s blocking of Vonage VoIP calls that competed with Madison’s call service; and in 2008 the FCC stopped Comcast’s blocking of online video services that competed with its on-demand cable offering.

Comcast sued, and in 2010 a federal appellate court ruled that Title I didn’t authorize the FCC to make Comcast comply with the FCC’s net neutrality policies. So the FCC then issued a new regulation in 2010 that, among other things, banned blocking and other “unreasonable discrimination.” Verizon then sued, and in 2014 the same court ruled that anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules couldn’t be imposed under Title I. The court suggested, however, that the FCC could issue such rules if it reclassified broadband internet in a way that put them under Title II. In 2015, the FCC issued neutrality rules under Title II, and when ISPs again sued, the court this time upheld the rules and they are currently in effect.

Chairman Pai’s FCC wants to repeal those rules, even though the court held that they were valid in 2016, and even though the courts orders from 2010 and 2014 essentially preclude the FCC from issuing neutrality rules under Title I.

If you want to take a really deep dive into the history of neutrality, which goes back 50 years, I recommend reading this: https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-fccs-net-neutrality-plan...

[rsync]

"In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers"

It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical.

A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition.

I am sympathetic to the cause of net neutrality but surely you can do better than this ...

[thomastjeffery]

Internet is a utility, and it is controlled predominantly by 6 companies.

There is simply not enough competition to rely on the free market to keep net neutrality as a fiscal priority.

Until the oligopoly is broken up, and everyone has competitive access to the internet, we need some way to ensure that net neutrality happens.

Without net neutrality, businesses using the internet itself , and even free nonprofit services will be unable to compete with large corporations like Facebook, Google, etc. because they won't be able to afford to pay ISPs for the right to reach customers without unreasonable bandwidth constraints.

[rsync]

"There is simply not enough competition to rely on the free market to keep net neutrality as a fiscal priority."

You're answering a question I didn't pose.

I wasn't even specifically speaking about net neutrality - something I am sympathetic to.

I was lamenting the fact that the level of discourse is lower than I'd hope it to be. Knee jerk "that guys not on my team" responses aren't helping to encourage me.

[thomastjeffery]

> You're answering a question I didn't pose.

I am clearing up some points you seem to have misunderstood or glossed over.

> > > "In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers"

> > It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical.

> > A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition.

Since, as you pointed out, a business prioritizes profits over customers, there needs to be an incentive for these businesses to prioritize their customers. That incentive is either competition or regulation.

The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical.

This is the same problem that net neutrality exists to prevent, just in a different problem space: Without a free market, competition is unfeasible.

> Knee jerk "that guys not on my team" responses aren't helping to encourage me.

Could you elaborate on what you see as a "knee jerk response"? I am not seeing any here.

[waterhouse]

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical.

Could you explain why that is?

[thomastjeffery]

There are 6 ISPs that control the majority of the market for the entire US. Most Americans have only one ISP to choose from.

When a company like Comcast or Verizon owns, or owns the rights to the existing infrastructure, they can refuse to sell or lease that infrastructure to other businesses, thereby stifling competition.

That is the current state of affairs.

For a competing business to be successful, it needs infrastructure, most of which is currently controlled by 6 large companies who do not want competition, so competing businesses fail.

[thomasfortes]

Would you like to have 30 different companies digging your street to lay cables?

Or 10 energy cables over your street because energy competition would be great?

Even in a perfect world, infrastructure is a natural monopoly.

The government could handle all the big scale infrastructure and let small players handle the last mile, but that's not the case and even if it was, people would still complain.

[losteric]

Business prioritizes profit over people. Regulations exist to rule out profit-seeking behavior that is ultimately detrimental to society

[kelnos]

It's part of the bargain: we recognize that these sorts of companies form monopolies[0], and in exchange for those monopolies, we impose regulation to keep them from engaging in the negative, anti-consumer practices often associated with running a monopoly.

We expect that if there were a competitive landscape, the companies that succeed would find a balance between profit and providing the services and quality that customers demand, but we don't have a competitive landscape, so we need to ensure that happens by other means.

[0] My take on why this is ok, and why we don't really want the proliferation of these sorts of companies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15858078

[robertpateii]

It's not nonsensical, but it does imply some assumptions about a free market and the social contract.

Governments exist to benefit their citzens. A free market is a great benefit thanks to competition forcing out businesses that don't prioritize their consumers.

This assumes perfect competition though and it assumes a lot of things that are not realistic such as there being no barriers to entering a market. Clearly there are massive barriers to becoming a new ISPs so some non-zero amount of regulation is reasonable.

tl;dr: It's reasonable for a captialist government to intervene when the free market fails to incentivize businesses to benefit citizens.

[tripzilch]

> a free market and the social contract

you have to pick one!