November 2014

President Obama and the FCC: A Disconnect Over Net Neutrality?

Michael Botein, professor of law at New York Law School, noted that while the President can’t officially order an independent agency such as the Federal Communications Commission to issue policy, Obama’s comments may have been an attempt to push the commission to act more quickly on network neutrality. “It almost sounds like Obama did this, and then sent a note to Wheeler to say, ‘Oh by the way, we’ve taken this position,’” Botein said. “So I am not sure there’s a lot of coordination going on.”

Christopher Mitchell, director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and an advocate for improved Internet access, said, “I think the President is trying to provide cover for the FCC to take the necessary steps to protect the open Internet despite incredibly strong opposition from the cable/telephone companies and their proxies.” There’s no timetable for the commission to release its final rulemaking on the issue.

FCC Commissioner Pai: Group 'independent' of White House wishes

The Federal Communications Commission must make decisions on open Internet rules independent of President Barack Obama, said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai.

He said "it is unclear" if FCC commissioners will follow Obama's call to use stricter regulations to govern broadband Internet like a utility, similar to traditional telephone service. "That is a terrific question, because the FCC is not an executive branch agency, like say, the Department of Justice or the Department of Defense," he said. "We are an independent agency, and that means we make our decision based not on political considerations, but on the facts that are in the record and on the laws set forth by Congress. That is a really important decision that we have to make, and we should make it independently," he added. The two Republicans on the commission are expected to vote against any proposal, though Commissioner Pai said it is too early to say since he has not seen a specific plan. "I certainly think my focus in this proceeding will be, and I dare say the FCC's focus should be, on what will best promote broadband investment and innovation," he said.

Conservatives Overwhelmingly Back Net Neutrality, Poll Finds

A poll released by the Internet Freedom Business Alliance (IFBA) found that conservatives voters like the idea of net neutrality.

Some 83% of voters who self-identified as “very conservative” were concerned about the possibility of ISPs having the power to “influence content” online. Only 17% reported being unconcerned. Similarly, 83% of self-identified conservatives thought that Congress should take action to ensure that cable companies do not “monopolize the Internet” or “reduce the inherent equality of the Internet” by charging some content companies for speedier access. The poll did not ask participants about specific methods of regulation, like whether the Federal Communications Commission ought to reclassify consumer broadband Internet as a utility under “Title II”—as Obama has called for—or whether it should use “Section 706″ of the Telecommunications Act, another statute relating to broadband infrastructure.

The poll, explained Andrew Shore, the executive director of IFBA, was designed to “get to the heart” of net neutrality by asking voters whether they believed that the government should prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from charging Internet content companies for special access to Internet customers.

Ted Cruz was right about net neutrality: It is a little like Obamacare, after all

How is network neutrality like the Affordable Care Act? Let us count the ways…

Both have been subject to extensive litigation.
Both attempt to address what many perceive to be a market failure.
..By adopting a legally complex regulatory proposal...
…That could be more easily solved with a simpler (but politically controversial) solution.

How the Broadband Industry Hopes to Kill Obama's Network Neutrality Plan

The nightmare scenario for Internet providers is starting to come true. Title II. So it looks like the Internet providers' lobbying campaign to prevent the executive branch from imposing stringent network neutrality regulations has failed. But they have two more branches of government to turn to.

The major broadband providers issued statements saying that they're ready to continue the fight in Congress and in the courts. The companies will find sympathy among Republican lawmakers, who just won control of the Senate. Republicans won't have the 60 Senate seats they need to overcome Democratic filibusters, but that might not matter for net neutrality. Under the Congressional Review Act (which was passed as part of the Republican "Contract with America" in 1996) Congress has an opportunity to fast-track an up-or-down vote on all new federal regulations. Democrats won't be able to block a vote to repeal net neutrality rules. Republicans, however, would still need two-thirds votes in both chambers to reverse a presidential veto. The GOP is unlikely to get much bipartisan support to kill the rules.

The other front in the industry's war against the new regulations will be the federal courts. Even if the courts allow the FCC to classify the Internet under Title II, there would probably be an onslaught of legal skirmishes over how much of the provision should apply.

The FCC is stuck in the past when regulating the Internet

[Commentary] For most of 2014, the Federal Communications Commission has been debating rules to protect the open Internet. The key question is whether the agency should adopt streamlined, modern rules based on the FCC’s general power to promote the broadband Internet market or to reclassify the Internet under archaic public utility rules called Title II. Lately, however, an even more convoluted idea has emerged: a hybrid approach that would dramatically expand regulation of the back end connections between so-called edge companies (apps, content and services) and Internet service providers (ISPs) under the utility approach, while using the lighter-touch general authority for the rest of the network. While much remains unknown about this proposal, what we have heard so far raises serious questions about the depth and reach of government into the Internet. Preserving an open Internet is about giving consumers the freedom to do what they want on the web and creating conditions for greater speeds and lower prices. The net neutrality debate, however, is a referendum on how big a role the government should play in regulating the Internet. Title II really amounts to giving the federal government the power to regulate rates — and state governments the power to impose new taxes on Internet access — and trample over private contracts freely negotiated in a competitive market.

[Powell is president and chief executive of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association]

The Internet’s perfect death

Death hoaxes are a given on the web these days, of course. They’re so widespread and so predictable, in fact, that even the juiciest ones typically fail to register on anything like a mass scale. Of the untold dozens of death hoaxes sites like Huzlers and Empire News have pumped out in the past six months, only a handful have really stuck.

When they’re flying by you on the daily, each hoax seems like a one-off, an aggravating gotcha that boomerangs back into the Internet void before you have the chance to scrutinize it closely. But when you actually zoom out a bit, enough to fit all the biggest hoaxes in one frame, some pretty clear patterns emerge. Like, the Internet prefers to fake-kill men over women. And the favored cause of death is car accidents, versus overdoses, murders, suicides or the unlikely runner-up: falls from cliffs.

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Facebook ‘complicit in political censorship’

The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that Facebook's compliance with content restriction in places like Turkey and Pakistan amounted to the company being "complicit in political censorship."

EFF said Facebook should push back harder on these government requests and at a minimum should disclosure more information about them. "As governments grow aware of the fact that stifling speech is as easy as submitting an order to a corporation, the number of those orders will drastically increase," the group wrote.

FCC Takes Steps to Modernize the Cellular Service

The Federal Communications Commission adopted fundamental, sweeping reforms of rules governing the 800 MHz Cellular (“Cellular”) Service, leading to a vastly streamlined Cellular licensing regime. While the existing Cellular Service licensing model was instrumental over the course of decades in fostering wireless deployment throughout the United States, many of the Cellular model’s legacy elements have become unnecessary or even detrimental to system improvements that depend on deployment of the latest digital technologies.

The FCC now adopts rules for the Cellular Service based on geographic licensing and achieve the regulatory reform goals articulated in the 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order, recently echoed in the FCC Staff Working Group Report on FCC Process Reform, with an approach that differs somewhat from the FCC’s overlay licensing proposal. The FCC eliminates the need for a wide range of regulatory filings, modernize the rules that will remain in place, and delete obsolete provisions. The FCC reduces administrative burdens and time-consuming regulatory processes for licensees, who will benefit immediately from greater flexibility to modify their systems quickly in response to market demands, facilitating advanced broadband services to the benefit of consumers. The updated rules will also be more consistent with those governing other geographically-licensed commercial wireless services.

RTDNA To FCC: We Need Exclusive Spectrum

The Radio-Television Digital News Association is concerned that there is no exclusive spectrum reserved for wireless microphones under the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum repacking plan.

Currently, there are two reserved channels in each market and sometimes local broadcasters need even more spectrum than that. Under the FCC's May proposal, there is no spectrum reserved exclusively for wireless mics, though there is spectrum in the duplex gap -- between wireless upload and download spectrum—that wireless mics can use, though it will have to be shared with unlicensed devices. According to RTDNA Executive Director Mike Cavender, that is better than no spectrum, but "by no means ideal."

Benton

Search