[rayiner]

Note that comments to the FCC are a little different than a letter to your Congressman, in that they have legal significance. The comments become a part of the record that may be reviewed by a court if the agency's rules are challenged. The Administrative Procedure Act allows courts to set aside agency rules that are, among other things, "arbitrary and capricious." In issuing final rules, agencies will generally respond to the major issues raised by the comments, because otherwise parties may challenge the rule in court arguing that the agency acted arbitrarily by ignoring a major aspect of the issue.

On a general note, I don't get the cynicism as to the FCC's intentions here. The FCC already passed net neutrality rules, and those rules were struck down by the D.C. Circuit. Internet companies have argued that the FCC could implement net neutrality if they regulated internet service providers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, but the FCC desperately wants to find a way to avoid doing that. Not because it doesn't want net neutrality, but because Title II is a big regulatory regime with a lot of baggage.

You have to understand that none of this is taking place in a vacuum. There is a general regulatory paradigm that's in vogue at the FCC. The FCC has been thrilled with the results of its "light touch" approach to cellular wireless regulation. That's the mantra of post-Clinton liberals: "we'll have regulations, but lightweight ones." Title II is an FDR-era piece of legislation that is anything but lightweight. Regulating the internet under Title II would invoke a firestorm of criticism from conservatives as well as centrist-liberals who see it as inconsistent with how regulatory agencies should operate in the modern era.

[dragontamer]

Indeed. The FCC is actually on the public's side on this one. For all we know, the FCC has opened things up to public comment on purpose, to prove to the courts that striking down the FCC Network Neutrality rules was a bad idea.

The "enemy" to network neutrality was the DC Circuit court. The FCC wants network neutrality, but it lost the power to make such a rule earlier this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v._...

[AnIrishDuck]

> The "enemy" to network neutrality was the DC Circuit court. The FCC wants network neutrality, but it lost the power to make such a rule earlier this year.

I'm not sure I agree. I think the D.C circuit was correct, and that the FCC doesn't have the right authority under the Title I of the Communications Act. The guilty party is congress, which left the FCC the choice between using the warhammer that is Title II and the inappropriate use of Title I (general provisions).

They need effective tools to regulate correctly, and Congress arguably hasn't given them any. Though nothing says they have to use Title II for the whole internet. I'd personally like to see something like Title II (common carriage) applied to the last mile, and the return of competing ISPs that can leverage that public infrastructure.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The "enemy" to network neutrality was the DC Circuit court. The FCC wants network neutrality, but it lost the power to make such a rule earlier this year.

The DC Circuit made the right decision. The FCC was trying to classify Comcast and Verizon as "information services" which is the classification used for something like a website or an email server. The FCC is not supposed to have that much authority over actual information services.

The problem is the current state of the law. The FCC can either classify broadband as a telecommunications service with all that entails, or classify it as an information service and have insufficient authority to do anything meaningful. There is no intermediate option available, which is what everybody really wants. The ideal would be to change the law to give the FCC the ability to regulate last mile providers in some ways without full Title II classification, but it's unlikely such legislation would pass in the Republican-majority House of Representatives when the status quo is a lack of regulatory authority under the existing classification. It might actually be more likely to pass after reclassification, because it could then be sold as in practice reducing the FCC's authority rather than increasing it. But that would essentially be a rewrite of the Communications Act, which is not anything you can expect to happen in the short term.

[dbpokorny]

"Regulating the internet under Title II would invoke a firestorm of criticism from conservatives as well as centrist-liberals who see it as inconsistent with how regulatory agencies should operate in the modern era."

You end with FUD. Your credibility is at risk.

[rayiner]

As I said, this isn't happening in a vacuum. Silicon Valley sees this issue as a "necessary exception" to a generally "hands off" regulatory regime as to the internet, as Sam Altman articulated the other day, but I think this is more subtle than how your average politician views the situation. Selling this as a party-line, regulation versus deregulation issue is easy.

To highlight what I see as an impedance mismatch between Silicon Valley and Washington, take YC's comment to the FCC. There is a line in there "we should treat the telcos like the utilities they are" or something to that effect. That resounds here on HN, but made me cringe. The failures of utility regulation are a source of embarrassment to both sides of the aisle. Whether we're talking about rolling brownouts or ancient sewer systems dumping waste into rivers, nobody is really happy with how utilities are regulated in the U.S. So why evoke that association? You're guaranteed to alienate all but the hardcore "consumer protection" contingent of liberals, which are a dying breed.

[chimeracoder]

I don't think it's a tough argument that conservatives would be opposed to it, as Title II is undeniably more restrictive (that's why it's being proposed as a means to regulate last-mile Internet in the first place!)

As for the second part, Title II reclassification is controversial enough that even the EFF didn't support it until very recently, and even then only under the assumption that the FCC would practice forebearance[0].

Finally, while I very strongly disagree with many of the things rayiner has posted on this issue in the past (including the interpretation of some of the evidence he cites), it's clear that he has done his research and knows what he's talking about. As far as semi-anonymous/psuedonymous online forum discussions go, that's a reasonable enough amount of credibility for me.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/forbearance-what-it-wh...

[dragonwriter]

> I don't think it's a tough argument that conservatives would be opposed to it,

Well, lots of conservatives (including 2/5 of the FCC) are entirely opposed to any regulation toward neutrality, whether under Title I or Title II or any other basis (and, in fact, many support Congress acting to eliminate any potential basis under which the FCC might adopt pro-neutrality regulations), so, sure, the proposed conservative opposition is not controversial at all (OTOH, its not much a basis for opposing any particular approach if you support the goal of neutrality regulation, since there is strong conservative opposition to the idea of pro-neutrality regulation, independent of the specific authority or mechanism.)