You are here How FCC Regulation Would Change the Internet
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2009-10-30 14:17
The FCC's claims that their proposed net neutrality regulations would just "preserve" the open Internet are simply not true. The facts are clear that the FCC's proposed regulations would:
- Be a big change in FCC Internet policy;
- Implement big Internet policy changes without Congressional authorization; and
- Change the Internet in big ways.
- (The one-page PDF version of this post is here.)
The FCC’s proposed net neutrality regs are a big change in FCC Internet policy; they would:
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Replace the FCC’s voluntary net neutrality guidelines with mandated net neutrality regulations;
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Selectively apply net neutrality regulations to only broadband and not to applications/content providers like the current principles do;
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Add two completely new net neutrality principles that are not found in law or congressional policy;
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Expand application of net neutrality to wireless and satellite broadband for the very first time;
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Expand consumers access to content entitlement by adding entitlement to send/distribute content as well;
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Redefine entitlement to competition in the current fourth principle, to favor resale competition over facilities-based competition;
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Subject broadband companies to a new "Mother-may-I" FCC approval process for offering new managed services and for experimenting with new business models; and
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Subordinate private standard-setting bodies, like the IETF, to new FCC omni-technical oversight/approval.
The FCC’s proposed Internet policy changes, unauthorized by Congress, would effectively:
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Ignore a decade of overwhelming bipartisan consensus to not tax or regulate the Internet;
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Declare for all practical purposes that, ISPs are a bigger free speech threat than Government, despite the First Amendment;
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Abandon existing Congressional Internet policy, which is “to preserve the… competitive free-market… Internet… unfettered by Federal or State regulation;”
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Undermine the purpose of the 1996 Telecommunications Act: “to promote competition and reduce regulation” by promoting regulation that would reduce facilities-based competition;
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Redefine the well-understood notion of an “open” market that means competition-driven to now mean government-driven:
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Replace the current technology-neutral policy with a new industrial policy that openly favors Google, eBay, and Amazon, over boradband competitors;
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Implement the introduced, but never-passed, Markey-Eshoo bill (HR 3458); and
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Subordinate current consensus universal broadband policy to new and controversial net neutrality policy.
The FCC’s proposed Internet regulations would likely change the Internet by:
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Transforming it from user-driven/centric/governed to more FCC-driven/centric/governed;
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Morphing the current privately-run Internet into a government-run Internet;
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Revolutionize the current voluntary bottom-up Internet into a coerced top-down Internet;
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Introducing new business, investment, operational Internet uncertainty where little existed;
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Supplanting the Internet’s inherent efficiency with the Government’s inherent inefficiency;
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Setting a new international example of government Net interference rather than restraint;
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Barring broadband companies from entering and competing in the cloud computing business;
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Forcing one-way convergence, where apps can converge into conduit, but no conduit can converge into apps;
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Discouraging investment by everyone to favor investment by Google, eBay, and Amazon.
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