It's put up or shut up time on Net Neutrality. That's what Rob Pegoraro wrote in the Washington Post earlier this week.
And he's right.
The fate of the open Internet now rests in the hands of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. The chairman just needs to muster the courage to do right by the millions of Internet users who demand an Internet of, for, and by the people.
Rep. Henry Waxman tried last week to craft a bipartisan compromise on Net Neutrality only to have his bill deep-sixed by hostile Republicans on the House Commerce Committee, who are eager to smother the open Internet should voters hand them a majority in November.
Waxman passed the issue back to Genachowski with clear instructions to "move forward" and reassert the agency's authority to protect consumers against content blocking efforts by the likes of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
 Genachowski's Choice |
FCC No Brainer
Genachowski now simply needs to buck up. His next step would seem a no brainer to anyone viewing the issue from beyond the Beltway: reclassify broadband under Title II so the FCC can protect Internet users against corporate censors.
Sadly, the view from the eighth floor of the FCC - which has been circled by industry lobbyists for months - is not so apparent.
Pegoraro wrote:
The issue here is simple: Should the government prevent Internet providers from discriminating for or against legitimate sites, services and applications?The FCC can save us from a future where corporations privilege certain content over others by following Genachowski's original plan unveiled in 2009 and "write a simple set of net-neutrality rules," concludes Pegoraro.
That's not a theoretical risk. Telecommunications firms and some networking experts have argued for the right to charge other sites more for faster delivery of their data or put the brakes on some online uses that they feel clog their networks.
"An agency chair has to make tough decisions which, more often than not, contradict the desires of the largest companies with stakes in the outcomes, Free Press President Josh Silver told NPR last night. "Julius Genachowski is terrified of making those decisions."
We've Got Your Back, Julius
Delivering on Net Neutrality isn't that frightening. Genachowski just needs to call a Commission vote to restore the FCC as a watchdog of our online rights. He has the legal clearance, political cover and momentum to make this vote happen. He just needs to be reminded of that:
1. Congressional leadership: House Commerce Committee Chairman Waxman told Genachowski to "move forward under Title II." Support for FCC action has also been voiced by leading Democrats on the Commerce Committee, including Reps. Anna Eshoo, Ed Markey and Jay Inslee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has given Genachowski the nod, calling Net Neutrality, reclassification and universal access "priorities for us";
2. Opinion leaders in media: Pegoraro's Washington Post column was just one among the clamor of voices in media calling for action. The editorial boards of major daily newspapers, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Seattle Times, the San Jose Mercury News and USA Today, have called for FCC action;
3. Genachowski is the swing vote for a majority of FCC Commissioners in favor of Title II and Net Neutrality. Both Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps have indicated that they favor this move. To get it done, Genachowski simply needs to call the vote;
4. President Obama has publicly urged Net Neutrality protections on at least seven occasions. He appointed Genachowski with the understanding that this would be job one at the FCC;
5. In 2009, the FCC's commissioned a Harvard study, which concluded that Bush-era deregulation created a latticework of local broadband monopolies and stuck Americans paying more for some of the slowest Internet speeds in the developed world. The study concluded that reclassification would restore our global Internet leadership;
6. And, most importantly, more than two million Americans have demanded that Washington protect the open Internet from blocking and discrimination by corporations.
The chairman can put a clear Net Neutrality standard on the books by calling a commission vote and reclassifying.
The move has the added benefit of giving clearance for the agency to proceed on plans to bridge the nation's digital divide and invite more consumer choice into a broadband marketplace dominated by too few players.
All of our efforts to make this happen have come to this moment, right now, and to this chairman, Julius Genachowski. He simply needs to step up.
Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr
Like, this could be one of those moves that sounds like a good idea, but then later on, as it is underway, we find out that it creates more problems than it solves. We've seen those kinds of inefficiencies in government before. They're not unsolvable problems, but they add a layer of confusion to the public image of the problems in a way that it can become harder to lead people in the correct direction.
If this is done, does that, for example, really mean that other past decisions are automatically rescinded or overturned? I would imagine that instead, unless some careful moves are made, the decisions would be somehow cumulative.
A retroactive or re-setting idea may be easy for us to understand; but, oftentimes governmental laws and regulations don't work that way. In those times when we've seen politicians try to force it (Don't ask don't tell or Bush administration anti-terror policies) sometimes there have been corrosive results.
So, it would seem to me that the time for imposing the framework that would enable net neutrality may be here, but there's still going to have to be a carefully enacted, specific successful plan.
this is no easy matter. I have blogged on both the Pegoraro and Kang articles here:
http://wp.me/p11Ics-1A.
It doesn't matter that you "have" a lot of voices screaming to regulate the Internet. That doesn't make it right, nor easy-peasy to accomplish.
The only ones proposing a radical overhaul of the way the Internet works are these companies -- like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon -- that want to take away users' ability to chose where they go and what sites, services and applications they get to chose when they go online.
That fundamental openness is what Sir Tim Berners-Lee envisioned when he first conceived the Web's open framework, and it's why he is such a strong advocate for Net Neutrality protections today. It's what has made the Internet such a powerful engine of, for, and by the people who use it. This democratic openness is only now under threat as the carriers start to push paid prioritization schemes that would let them take away users' ability to speak freely and chose.
As for easy to accomplish: 1. the FCC has clearance from the Supreme Court to reclassify; 2. The chairman has the votes. 3. Hundreds of thousands of people have written the FCC urging they move forward.
He just needs to do it.
http://mediafreedom.org/2010/09/net-neutrality-anything-but-sensible-and-limited-says-free-press/
The Chairman's "Third Way," based on Sections 201 and 202 of the Comm Act, open the
gate to full on Internet regulation. It will not be employed in a "limited or sensible" fashion. Just look at the America Public Media letter - which you've endorsed - to get a sense of how unlimited it will be exploited.
You decry prioritization as a slippery slope, but seem purposely oblivious to Sections 201, 202's history - thousands of regulations made over 75-years that use the simple nexus of
non-discriminatory "phone regulation" to reach well beyond the phone itself, killing
innovation and, strangely, competition.
Who wants to go back there when the market has de facto Net Neutrality regulation built
into it?
The comment by "polisonic " is not on point - and is therefore nonsense.
There have been no regulations issued to undo, and no regulation beyond net neutrality are anticipated.
The fact that more regulations are unlikely but possible is not a problem, unless government having the means to solve problems is a problem.
http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2010/03/27/danger-at-the-fcc-an-omnibus-warning/
and at 11:29 he is answered! Took you a while!
LOL
Why Broadband Service in the U.S. Is So Awful -- and one step that could change it
By The Editors, October 4, 2010
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=competition-and-the-internet
In another matter, where are the telecoms astroturfers and shills? It's so quiet here without them. Maybe they just don't bother attacking articles that don't make the home page -- not enough eyeballs to be worthwhile.
http://www.alternet.org/story/148397/how_the_phone_companies_are_screwing_america:_the_$320_billion_broadband_rip-off
With these new regs even if you manage to hang in there, work hard and beat the odds and get listed, your site will be less accessable as the large corporations will drive up the cost of being assured your site will load in a reasonable time.