Comments on: At FCC, change must be the mantra

Policy analyst Randolph J. May says the Federal Communications Commission should make needed market reforms to communications policy.

[cidman2001]

Sounds good, but....

I'm not sure giving providers free reign to dictate content and pricing for what travels on their networks is a good idea. Take for instance, the other day, when the 3 major carriers came out (within hours of eachother)and all announced $99 unlimited plans. Where's the competition there? How does this collusion benefit the consumer? This is not the market dictating the cost at all, and probably cries for closer scutiny. If the services offered here in the US (some people are still only offered dial-up internet) are years behind the technology offered in developing nations, why should we be deregulating the industry? If a person in Micronesia is getting broadband at 5 times the speeds offered here, at 3 times a cheaper cost, it doesn't make sense to deregulate the industry until these companies prove they've built the infrastructure to support the users beyond a level of third world countries.
These companies have made huge profits and made marginal investments on the backs of consumers for years. They need to pony up before we take off the training wheels!

[fgoldstein]

More monopoly

This is just more shilling by the right-wing noise machine, paid by the big incumbent telephone companies and broadcasters. Monopolizing radio is okay because there are ipods? Gee, there were 78s when the Comm. Act of 1934 was passed... what's really changed? It's not about playing records, it's about control of information. Likewise, he pretends that telecom is sufficiently competitive, even though the Bells have huge market dominance and control over essential facilities.

Market-oriented blather is merely a lousy excuse to use right-wing political ideology to justify harming the public.

[CanadianGeezer]

Gratuitously Self-Serving Article

One seldom has a chance other than in the rarified world of political lobbyists and other narcissistic environs to hear such self-serving blather. This sort of argumentation amounts to postulating that reverting to the realm of the robber barons is a viable contention for dealing with the poor services offered up to the American public.

I'm certainly glad to be a Canadian when I hear and read this sort of "Horse-Hockey" being spewed as rational consideration to be undertaken by powers that be. Good luck friends in the American consumer market ... you are going to need it when this sort of opportunistic type gains power in controlling internet access and services.

The article reminds all that Net Neutrality is absolutely essential for real "Freedom" not the corporate controlled monopoly of the pigopolists!

[T38]

USF

(Disclaimer: I am a network administrator for a telco in Alaska that receives funding from the Universal Service Fund)

I am a little concerned about your suggestions for capping the USF. While there are indeed a lot of places where the USF is no longer really necessary, and costs *could* be borne by the market, there are still a lot of places that can't. The company I work for provides service in such an area. We supply broadband and dial-up Internet, local, long-distance and wireless telephone and lifeline services to a section of Alaska that is roughly the size of the entire state of Oregon. This is an incredibly remote area -- the only way in to a lot of these villages is either by snowmobile, dog sled (yes, for real) or airplane; there are no roads between most of these villages. In the summer, this area is a swamp; in the winter, it is wind-swept, icy wasteland. The company I work for built a terrestrial microwave network using a combination of USF funds and various federal grants so that we could bring affordable communications to the people in these villages. Even though we use a lot of open source software to run our network, it is still unbelievably expensive to provide service to these areas. In most cases, if something breaks, it's a $1K charter flight to get a repair man and equipment to the site. Because of this, our hardware has to be very, very robust. We recently lost a site because winds over 100 miles an hour knocked a microwave dish off of one of our towers in a remote area. It was several weeks before the weather relented enough to get a flight in to determine what the cause of the outage was, and then it was several more weeks before the terrestrial conditions improved enough to get a crew up the mountain to the microwave tower to effect the repairs.

My point in all of this is that it is still far too soon to place a lot of new restrictions and limitations on USF. While there are a lot of places that *can* operate competitively in an open market without government subsidies, there are still many places that can't. Even our biggest customers, the schools and health clinics that operate in our service area could not afford to pay for the service we provide if USF was no longer available to telcos like the one I work for. Please think very carefully before deciding that subsidizing rural communications carries is no longer necessary or economically efficient.

[drywallbmb]

Yes and no

I agree that the FCC needs to dramatically overhaul the way it classifies and
regulates communications.

I disagree that "loosening the regulatory grip" will produce more desirable
outcomes that the current regime. If anything, we need the FCC to take a more
proactive approach to encouraging competition, rather than "deregulating" so the
incumbents can collude and shut out potential new competitors.

Take Net Neutrality, which you oppose. Consider this:

1. If broadband were a competitive market, there would be no need for Net
Neutrality regulations: consumers would punish providers for obvious
discrimination by switching to a competitor. But broadband in America is not
a competitive market, nor will it be anytime soon, thanks in part to FCC
"deregulation" that abandoned the requirement that providers offer Unbundled
Network Elements ? an approach proven in other countries to foster competition.
Right now, over 96% of broadband connections in the U.S. today are thru the
cable/telco duopoly.

2. In the absence of competition, ISPs have little reason to fear a consumer
backlash for engaging in discriminatory, anticompetitive behavior.

3. ISPs have strong economic incentives to discriminate. If Comcast offers phone
service over their wires, it's in their financial interest to degrade Vonage. If
Verizon is profiting from partnerships with content producers by distributing
video, it's in their interests to degrade video being delivered by alternate vendors,
such as Vuze. And so on. Any new application that has profit potential will need
to cut the ISPs in on the profits to be allowed to flourish. It's smart business for
the ISPs, but bad for innovation.

The FCC needs to consider not just the markets they regulate, but the markets
affected by the regulation. Look what consolidation in radio has wrought ? giants
like Clear Channel bought up stations, homogenized programming, and now both
the radio and music industries are suffering. A similar "deregulatory" approach to
Internet service could have a similarly negative effect on networked applications.

[chash360]

Answer is right in front of us....

Who owns this country's intricate highway system? This vast network of roads and bridges and tunnels? Is it the contractors that built them? No. Do we all benefit from this shared resource? provided at the public's expense, yes.

Would not the same philosophy applied to communication networks, be just as viable as they are for the highway network? Absolutely!

This country could not operate without Comunication or Transportation, we provide the people (Individuals, business, and governemnt)with adequate avenues of transportation, but do nothing for comunication, there is not even a decent Emergency Broadcast System anymore.

The telcos, whether or not they compete, do create incompatibility in the market place. can you imagine what it would be like if the side of the road you drive on, was determined by what kind of car you drive?

The telcos are happy to suckle on your hard earned money and not re-invest in upgrades, and expansion, etc.

When you have a pot hole in your local road though, there is an avenue for it to be addressed. When traffic gets too much we can solve the problem many ways, instead of just telling people tuff, live with it.

The networks need to belong to the people as a whole, to be paid for and upgraded, directly by the gov. then available to all to use, at cost, no profits.

I would pay taxes for this, its a valuable, and neccessary infrastructure that we must have.

The FCC should be a standardizing body, specifying/approving formats, protocols, power spectrums, etc. such that device OEMs can simply comply to, rather than lisence for. And certainly NOT selling out americans with bandwidth auctions to the highest bidder. And NOT a babysitter, to monitor and control everything either.

There is a way to do this, a way that even the most paranoid of gov power can accept...they just need to do it.

[AlphaUser]

The Real Story Is In The Comments (as usual)

Who's yanking CNET's chain? As usual, the real story here is in the comments. Read them, be greatful for the practice of free speach (not just the theory), and think about what net neutrality means to you.

[ktmotox]

I Agree

Isn't it great to get lots of comments attached to news stories? Traditional news papers are now so limited in comparison as to be totally obsolete. Given their recent record, every New York Times story needs to be enhanced with talkback comments. Talkback gives instant correction, expansion, and debate.

[rshelton3000]

Change the mantra

No. The mantra should not be "Change". This leads to change for changes sake. The mantra should be "SAFETY". Change only those processes and procedures that do not lead to "SAFETY".