HDTV Almanac - FCC Loses on Net Neutrality

[alfredpoor]

Something big happened yesterday. It sounds a little geeky at first, but the implications are serious. Here’s the quick summary. Comcast penalized some of their broadband subscribers for downloading too many movies (presumably from pirate sites, but that’s beside the point) by slowing down their Internet connections. The FCC stepped in and ruled that Comcast [...]

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[gartrste]

And it could also result in your internet service provider blocking all traffic to and from the Drudge Report, Fox News, Michelle Malkin's, and Ann Coulter's web sites...

Or all traffic to and from Huffington Post, OpenSecrets, WikiLeaks, TalkingPointsMemo...

Or all traffic to and from Catholic websites...or Jewish websites....or Baptist websites...

Or all traffic to and from PBS and the BBC...

Or all traffic to and from YOU and random hours during the day, because your son ticked the owner of your cable provider's daughter off by abandoning her at the prom in favor of the honey with the see-through dress...

[akirby]

The Comcast issue was about bandwidth which increases the ISP costs dramatically. With most people having access to at least 2 ISPs now I just don't see any of that happening. There is too much competition for one ISP to drive away customers by limiting the sites they can visit.

[Shane]

With most people having access to at least 2 ISPs...

I don't mean to be picky, but can you quantify that? I think "most" may be a bit of a stretch. Unless you're talking about slower speed/dial-up ISPs.

Even so, it won't matter how many broadband ISPs you have to choose from if they're all degrading internet video in favor of their particular brand of VOD. Same goes for degradation of Skype in favor of Digital Phone service, or etc. etc. etc. I'm sure you can see the anti-competitive (ie monopolistic) tendencies here if they (the ISPs) are allowed to continue to favor one type of traffic over another.

Just my $0.02

- Shane

[gartrste]

Most cable companies make $39 to $59 a month off each customer from that horrible baseline they call "basic cable". But there are ever more ways to get your entertainment directly from the producer's website, or from free Internet TV...

This move is also one of those "Head 'em off at the pass!"; who would want to spend half a c-note each month for something they can meet or beat on the Internet for free? Do you think Comcast et al are going to give high priority to the traffic coming from their free competition? Or the reverse?

This move has all kinds of ramifications - ranging from enforcing an illegal monopoly to denying the right to free speech to individual Americans.

[akirby]

I was mostly considering cable vs. DSL but there is also dial up, satellite and Wi-Fi. I agree there is potential for abuse but I think natural competition will win out OR if it does become an actual problem that we'll see new legislation.

Let's say Comcast decides to slow down DirecTV ondemand Video. Can DirecTV sue Comcast now under other laws?

[gartrste]

Between the this court decision and the Bush Administration's influence on the FCC resulting in cable not being defined as a communications interface, nobody can sue Comcast for anything.

They can interfere with, block, or even change anything that traverses their pipe....Stalin's dream.

[akirby]

And their customers can promptly cancel service and switch to DSL (in most areas). If broadband ISP was truly a monopoly and there was no alternative then I'd be more inclined to agree that net neutrality should be enforced. And I think if we see abuses then we'll see regulations to counter that. I believe the gov't is waiting to see if competition enforces neutrality naturally and if not I think they'll step in. To me that's preferable to adding more and more regulation that may not be necessary.

[gartrste]

Typical DSL speed is 1.5 Mbps / 128 Kbps down/up.

Cable speed is five times that, typically 5 Mbps / 500 Kbps down/up.

That is a massive speed hit; the equivalent of saying that if the consumer doesn't like the pilot telling them what they are permitted to say and and listen to while flying, they can take the bus. The cable companies know that - they know they've got the consumer between a rock and a hard place because in most cases around the United States they have a monopoly on acceptable speed.

I hope you are right, and legislation comes that defines cable as a communications interface and thus protected from manipulation and political censorship.

With the recent Supreme Court decision that gave the corporations the right to free speech as if they were living human beings, reinforced by the recent D.C. District Court ruling saying that the amount of money given to PACs and so on could not be capped, those with sufficient wealth can buy all of the advertising space (and even the programming) on the traditional media sources of television, radio, newspapers, and magazines and ensure that the American people only hear one voice, one opinion.

You can afford that, when you can tap the entire asset base of all of America's corporations; you're not even spending your own money.

This court action that overturned the FCC now paves the way for the mega-corporations to legally decide what the American people can hear and say over the Internet, eliminating the last affordable form of mass communication.

If it stands, then democracy in America is done; it will have been priced out of the reach of the American people.

(Even if it doesn't stand, democracy in America is in deep doo-doo; mom and dad and grandma and grandpa vote - but how much time do they spend on the Internet? All that they're going to hear and read is whatever the people with the most money want them to hear and read. They'll be going to sleep and getting up to the paranoid histrionics of Glenn Beck rather than the soothing strains of Glenn Miller.)

[akirby]

I wouldn't say massive. I have 6 mb DSL and I think it's available up to 12 mbps depending on location. And AT&T Uverse (which uses copper twisted pair phone lines just like DSL) goes up to 18 mbps. The difference with DSL is that you have a dedicated connection so your speed won't vary much. With cable it's essentially a big LAN so your 5 or 10 mbps top speed may only be 1 or 2 mbps if your neighbors are all downloading movies and playing online video games at the same time. I can also say that going from a 12 mbps comcast cable connection to a 6 mb DSL connection was totally transparent with no visible differences, although I don't download a lot of movies or huge files.