Regulating the Internet "Like a Utility" Won't Yield an Open Internet
Many of the millions of comments in the net neutrality proceeding, urge the FCC to impose net neutrality rules by regulating the Internet "like a utility." It won't work. Simply reclassifying ISPs as (Title II) common carriers will trigger a vast flood of litigation, but bring little relief to consumers who simply want unfettered access to the Internet. We can't find a way to write a net neutrality rule in a manageable number of words, and still leave only minimal discretion to the ISP. An ISP with a good lawyer - and they all have good lawyers - could plausibly argue that the rule allows almost any activity at all.
There is a way to solve this problem: a rule that requires the ISP to open its channels (cable or phone line or fiber) to competing ISPs. Under this approach, a consumer dissatisfied with the performance of one ISP could easily switch to another with no change to the household wiring - an impossibility in today's system. We know this approach works because it did work, very well, all through the Internet's dial-up days. A set of FCC rules called Computer III required just the kind of shared access to those lines that we propose here. That is the only practical way to bring about net neutrality.
In the early 2000s, following the advent of broadband, the FCC made a colossal two-part error. First, it declined to apply Title II and Computer III shared access requirements to cable broadband delivery. Second, a few years later, it removed those same existing requirements from telephone company DSL broadband. The result today is Internet monopolies, or duopolies at best, in nearly every U.S. market.
http://www.commlawblog.com/2014/10/articles/internet/regulating-the-internet-like-a-utility-wont-yield-an-open-internet-unless-/
There is a way to solve this problem: a rule that requires the ISP to open its channels (cable or phone line or fiber) to competing ISPs. Under this approach, a consumer dissatisfied with the performance of one ISP could easily switch to another with no change to the household wiring - an impossibility in today's system. We know this approach works because it did work, very well, all through the Internet's dial-up days. A set of FCC rules called Computer III required just the kind of shared access to those lines that we propose here. That is the only practical way to bring about net neutrality.
In the early 2000s, following the advent of broadband, the FCC made a colossal two-part error. First, it declined to apply Title II and Computer III shared access requirements to cable broadband delivery. Second, a few years later, it removed those same existing requirements from telephone company DSL broadband. The result today is Internet monopolies, or duopolies at best, in nearly every U.S. market.
http://www.commlawblog.com/2014/10/articles/internet/regulating-the-internet-like-a-utility-wont-yield-an-open-internet-unless-/
"Congress enacted Title II in 1934 primarily to regulate telephone service. Telephones of that era delivered exactly one functionality: real-time voice transmission. Non-discrimination meant that everybody got a dial tone on equal terms. That was easy to regulate. Enforcement was easy, too, since one company handled local service in nearly every city and town, and was also the country's only long-distance provider.
The Internet is vastly more complicated, with astronomical numbers of providers and services. A simple rule saying nothing more than ISPs "shall not discriminate" would be meaningless. An ISP's capacity is, after all, finite. At peak times it may not be able to accommodate 100% of all potential content - email, Facebook posts, Netflix video, VoIP calls, people working from home, casual browsing. At those times, some discrimination must necessarily occur in allotting access to providers. The question, then, is how to ensure that the discrimination is "fair". An effective non-discrimination rule would give an ISP managing a traffic overload clear guidance on which bits to send on and which to hold back in every possible situation. More than that, a proper rule would let the ISP program in algorithms that make these decisions automatically, on the fly."
What, there was never a capacity limit on the ability of a local CO switch to handle voice traffic? Everybody gets a dial tone, no matter how many highrises suddenly appear? Let's see, where would that capacity come from... from the provider (AT&T in that scenario) PROPERLY MAINTAINING THEIR NETWORK. The ISP business is exactly NO different. They should keep their network maintained and upgraded to allow the traffic that they are actively selling to business and consumer. "An ISP's capacity is, after all, finite." As if 1930 AT&T's capacity was magically infinite.
What a load of hogwash. The entire article is a waste of time. You can tell it was written by lawyers and not technologists.
Even their "solution" reeks of magic non-techie thinking. Oh, the miracle of competition will suddenly mean that congested hybrid coax-fiber infrastructure and leased lines will be able to deliver higher capacity just by changing a bill-to address. Have these people ever SEEN a cable modem?? You're on Time Warner's cable infrastructure, you get the capacity of Time Warner's cable infrastructure, no matter who is branding it and collecting the checks.