Later this month, the FCC will vote on applying Title II (or at least parts of it) to the internet’s last mile, and all indications are that it will pass. While the new regulatory regime will surely be challenged in court, this time the legs holding it up look quite a bit less frail. What do readers think, and how strongly do you think it? Pick two thoughts you most identify with, or add your own:
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Categories: Government Regulations · Polls
Applying Title II will be a rolling disaster over the next few years, just watch.
I can’t believe they let it get this far.
Screw you, John Oliver!
I wonder how long they’ll forbear the stuff they say they’ll forbear…
Help us, Congress!
Investment will dry up, leaving the last mile withering.
Investment will NOT dry up, that is a joke and a card that the ILEC’s and Cable Companies are playing. You did just fine as it was which is basically how with Title II it would say.
Got a couple hundred thousand I can borrow?
I do not think investment means what you think it means.
Money transferred from one party to another for the purpose of building something with it? Sounds like investment to me.
Was replying to Jason’s comment. your snarky comment is indeed investment. Title 2 will result in using otherwise investment ready dollars for corporate welfare, among other useless things.
Jason, this is typical of the sensibility that was borne out by the silly Oliver bit that every millenial idiot thinks is actual news. Because you think the govt. is going to stick it to Comcast and AT&T – and fundamental misunderstanding of how innovation funding works, it therefore must be good policy.
Just wait til you see how shitty your internet becomes. The irony is you will go asking the government for more “help” – never realizing or acknowledging that the previous round of help is what effed it to begin with.
my favorite quotes from others so far:
“nothing says forward-looking for the 21st century like a regulated utility.”
and
“your government is here to solve another problem you didn’t know you had… because won’t someone think of the children and old people?!”
and
“The history of regulated network industries, whether transportation or communication or energy, is threefold:
1. regulators reorganize the industry into a protectionist cartel
2. this arrangement suits consumers poorly—exactly the opposite of what is the professed intention
3. investment and innovation atrophy.”
As a member of a pretty interesting startup that was preparing US expansion, I can tell you that the review of possible licensing and red tape that we now have to think through is not trivial or some machinations of a whiny right wing conspiracy decrying government run amok. Its real and shits going to get tougher for the small guys.
But hey, the cat memes and spam will be delivered as good as they’ve ever been.
We’ll have to pass the bill to find out whats in the bill!
Congress, lawyers, someone has to act to stop this debacle.
Maybe we could all just de-peer Comcast to force the bad actors to not make this bloody hell on us all?
That’s the unfortunate outcome of applying regulatory requirements on ISPs. The big guys have the legal resources to squeeze through it all. The small ISPs, historically more innovative and having a happier subscribers, will see increased OPEX and general hurdles.
Internet “ACCESS” should be viewed as a utility.
How does Provo UT get Cableco Gigabit service for $70/mo. (supposedly) while Atlanta GA pays Cableco $59.95/mo for 25MB service which actually performs at less than 10MB non-synchronous? AND, they have the audacity to offer a BURST product of 50MB for $69.95?
I guess 2nd place gets a set of steak knives.
I think that this entire thing has to go down as Silicon Valley’s first / most amazing miscalculation. If i have this right, websites want regulation from the FCC, an agency that has been captured by ATT, VZ, Comcast, etc.
While complaining about Taxi and Limo Commissions (and every other form of regulation), the SV giants have decided to “opt-in” to the antiquated and “heavily influenced” regulators of the telecoms. Assume this means the end of skype, whatsapp, messenger platforms, etc. As they get regulated, taxed, manipulated, etc., these guys become the new biz equivalent of CLEC’s (and we all know how that worked out!).
The absurdity of the whole story is that this ball got rolling with Netflix wanting cheap bandwidth (recall that if they bought IP from non-imbalanced backbones, this would not be an issue).
Have fun lobbying against ATT-SBC-BellSouth-PACBELL and VZ-GTE-NYNEX-BellAtlantic, et al. Add in cable duopolists for fun.
What could possibly go wrong ?!
And they could not have picked a worse time to ask the gov to “help” – during an administration that never saw a crisis they didn’t want to exploit to grow their power base and hand out favors to cronies.
Still waiting for release and democratic review of the documentation in the “most transparent administration in history”…?