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by dragontamer 4351 days ago
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._...
2 comments
AnIrishDuck 4351 days ago
> 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.

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AnthonyMouse 4351 days ago
> 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.

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