[opendtv] Re: Wheeler Makes It Official: It's Title II for ISPs | Multichannel

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 02:42:33 +0000

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

> THe government established the rules that have allowed these
> oligopolies to prosper. AFTER consumers complained about the
> "unregulated" cable industry. The 1992 Cable Act was supposed
> to control the runaway rate increases. INstead it added fuel
> to the fire with retrans consent.

That's your flight of fancy. The truth is, regulation did not address the 
reasons why prices could keep climbing uncontrollably. The reason was lack of 
any credible competition among the service providers. What the FCC might have 
done, perhaps, is regulate the prices as local governments do for power. I 
already showed you how that keeps the cost of power down. The FCC could also 
have mandated connection standards and so on. But really, more competition 
would solve these problems naturally.

But competition among broadband providers is still not in the cards, not until 
maybe 5G cellular.

> But you claim Title II was what made the Internet happen.
> Right?
>
> But when the Title II enabled services went away the Internet
> economy has really grown and prospered.
>
> Seems to be an oxymoron.

Not at all. The Internet for the masses became successful *only* thanks to 
Title II phone lines, yes. But that didn't begin until 1991. Before that, the 
Internet was already being used by DoD and by universities. So it was neutral 
then, simply because there were no commercial conflicting interests involved.

With broadband, of course it becomes even better than it was with dialup, 
because it carries that much more varied traffic effectively.

The problem now is that those few broadband providers that can credibly exist 
have a conflict of interest, which only seriously emerged in the past handful 
of years, so they threaten neutrality to favor their own non-neutral services. 
And quite honestly, they did this to themselves. That Comcast vs Netflix 
debacle was one really dumb move, if you take the longer view. It got people 
all wound up.

> The MVPDs are going forward, moving their services to the
> Internet,

Some are, like Dish. Others, like TVE, are trying to put old constraints on the 
Internet unnecessarily. Tell me when you can subscribe to Comcast TVE, Craig. 
And when you can, I'll bet you that the bundles they offer won't resemble any 
of the traditional ones.

Bert

 
 
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