[opendtv] Re: AT&T Chief Calls for New Rules for Carriers, Tech Firms

From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 07:12:09 -0500

On Jan 25, 2018, at 10:26 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

And again the problem has been mischaracterized. Only one article I read ever
got it right. Neutrality mandates are not "Obama era." They have applied for
as long as telecoms have existed. And the FCC was established largely for
this purpose. Maybe we have more than just one giant AT&T now, but we still
have local monopolies, or maybe two companies, for fixed broadband. For
reasons that have nothing to do with regs.

Thanks to John for attempting to put this issue into the proper perspective. If
Congress wants the FCC to regulate the Internet in some way, they need to say
so. The last thing they said - but perhaps not clearly enough - was to “Keep
your damn hands off of the Internet.”

But that’s not all they said in 1996.

They also said that the era of heavy handed regulations of telecommunications
was OVER. That there was no longer a need for regulated monopolies in
telecommunications; that these industries could do a better job of managing
their infrastructure and innovation than a Federal agency deeply rooted in the
past, and a philosophy that utilities are natural monopolies.

I have pointed out on multiple occasions that the ISP playing field is NOT just
one or two local monopolies for fixed service. We have cable, Telco FTTH
overbuilds of cable, DSL, Satellite, cellular wireless, fixed wireless, and a
growing number of municipal providers.

And then there is Google Fiber, which cleans up the messes left by
municipalities that mismanage their own overbuilds of the local utilities they
regulate and feed upon. The FCC is rightly concerned that these state and local
regulators will feast on the opportunity to make companies, working to deploy
5G, pay through nose for pole attachments and right-of-ways.

You love to talk about the neutrality of the AT&T telco monopoly. But that
neutrality came at great cost to consumers, and ended at local, state and
national borders. Yes everyone could interconnect, but the cost to do so was
exorbitant; if you doubt this, just look at the fact that long distance
interconnection is now virtually free, both for telco systems and Internet VOIP
systems.

Well, good attempt at deflecting the subject. Users of the Internet have
absolutely no reason to be compelled to neutrality, and no one expects them
to be so compelled.

Sorry, but that’s just not true anymore.

First you need to define “users.”

Is that you and me, or Google and Facebook?

Obviously, you and I do not need to be neutral. Freelists.org does not block
any users or moderate the lists they host; they do allow moderated lists,
something I have resisted since OpenDTV started two decades ago.

Google and Facebook are NOT NEUTRAL.

Should they be?

That is now a burning question for anti-trust regulators around the world. It
is easy to say, start a competitor to these services; but it is nearly
impossible to do so given the scale of their global operations.

The examples of these services violating the very rules you cherish should be a
bright red flag to you Bert. There are some Net Neutrality zealots out there
who believe that Facebook allowed foreign nationals to interfere with our
elections, and that they are still doing it.

The fact that anyone can use Internet Edge Services to influence people is not
in question; the real question is whether elections can ever be held without
all kinds of people and media trying to influence the outcome.

They cannot.

The FCC has been regulating a highly partisan broadcast industry since shortly
after its inception. For decades they have used heavy handed regulation to
manage a broadcast oligopoly, beholden to the politicians. With “The Fairness
Doctrine” they attempted to create the illusion of neutrality; it didn’t work.

Now that the illusion has been removed, we are left with the reality that the
broadcast media can no longer be trusted; they are now a branch of one
political party.

Is that what you want for the Internet?

Using my previous example, Moen's site should not be compelled to offer
Peerless or Delta products. That's ridiculous. Users of the telecoms can be
as non-neutral as they like. It is the common carrier that must be compelled
to neutrality.

That’s absurd, not to mention completely irrelevant.

The issue is as stated by AT&T; protection of privacy, and the treatment of ALL
points of view in a neutral manner by these global monopolies.

More to the point, even if AT&T, in a self-serving manner, pretends that "how
the Internet works" has to be defined by Congress, everyone else in the world
already knows how it works, and the model for telecom service neutrality has
been well known for over a century. No need to invent problems.

It is the proponents of Title II regulation that have been inventing problems
Bert. And as John correctly noted, this all happened during the Obama
administration, which attempted to impose Net neutrality rules on multiple
occasions. In virtually every case cited as an example of a net neutrality
violation, it turned out that the reality was far different than the invented
problem. In the end, Obama used his pen and his FCC to impose an illegal
classification of ISPs.

You note that AT&T could try to compete with Google or Facebook. In reality
this would be very difficult, as ISPs cannot see most of the content that moves
through their routers. And one of the first regulations imposed on ISPs by the
Wheeler FCC was the privacy rules, which would have prevented any future
attempt by ISPs to enter the Edge Provider businesses. These rules were
eliminated just weeks after the current Congress convened.

Privacy rules that should apply to your bank's web site, or to Netflix, or to
Moen's site, are utterly beside the point here. Neutrality mandates on common
carriers is what's in play here.

No Bert.

The future of the Internet is in play here.

Will it remain the “Wild West,” where anything goes, or do we need some rules
that apply to EVERYONE that touches the Internet?

John is correct, that Congress needs too provide the guidance in this area. But
we must also be careful what we ask for. Too often, when Congress steps in, the
unintended consequences are worse than the problem they were trying to fix.

The FISA situation is a prime example. The intentions were well meaning. The
abuses are bringing the nation to the brink of a crisis unlike any in our
history.

Do we want Congress to place the Net Neutrality rules you desire into
legislation, and find out later that the legislation forces a back door into
everything that moves through the internet to “protect us?”

AT&T is free to establish their own web services, if they like, and play in
the same sandbox as other web sites, by those rules.

They are not. They do not have access to the data that the Edge Services have
used to build their monopolies. It’s a bit like saying that Microsoft can
challenge Google in search...how many people use Bing?

Just as Google is free to create a broadband service, and follow the rules
that apply to telecom companies. Duh!

Thanks Captain Obvious.

Google does compete in this area.

The rules are much different than those that apply to Edge Providers.

The main barriers to entry to the ISP business are CAPITAL and local
regulation/fees. Google has plenty of capital; and they took advantage of
failed municipal attempts to overbuild the regulated broadband services,
cutting deals with cities that were not available to the Telcos and Cable
companies.

Now that the Title II order has been revoked, the stage is set for real
competition and another massive round of investment in ISP infrastructure...

Regards
Craig

References:
- [opendtv] AT&T Chief Calls for New Rules for Carriers, Tech Firms
  - From: Manfredi, Albert E

[opendtv] Re: AT&T Chief Calls for New Rules for Carriers, Tech Firms

Other related posts: