Re FCC Net Neutrality Repeal Faces One Hell of a Court Fight | DSLReports, ISP Information

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
> Date: December 16, 2017 at 12:06:44 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] FCC Net Neutrality Repeal Faces One Hell of a Court Fight | DSLReports, ISP Information
>
> Dave, and everyone:
>
> DSL Reports is a vehemently anti-ISP Web site, whose advertising revenue comes from corporations which favored the 
> so-called "net neutrality" regulations. And this shows in the extreme bias of the article cited below.
>
> Among other things, the article ignores the fact that most of the verifiable comments in the docket actually favored 
> repeal of the harmful regulations; see
>
> http://www.multichannel.com/news/fcc/survey-most-verifiable-fcc-comments-favor-title-ii-repeal/414891
>
> It also ignores the fact that the FCC - due to both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Supreme Court's ruling 
> in HBO v. FCC - MUST accept and acknowledge all comments, whether they turn out to have come from the person whose 
> name is attached to them or not. If the FCC did not do this, its decision could indeed be challenged in court, as it 
> was in HBO v. FCC. But as an independent expert agency, it is in no way responsible for checking the validity of the 
> name, address, or e-mail address on every comment, nor is it required to count those in favor of or against a 
> particular action. It is only required to CONSIDER the body of comments and the valid points raised in it, and then 
> act according to the expert opinions of the Commissioners.
>
> This is the right thing for it to do. If the FCC were required to confirm the identity of every commenter, it would 
> raise a significant barrier to public input. If it had to count the comments for or against every part of every 
> action, corporate lobbyists could simply stuff the ballot box (as, in fact, the opponents of this week's Order did in 
> this proceeding!). And if the submission of fake comments were grounds for delaying a decision, any person, group, or 
> corporation that had a vested interest could delay action indefinitely by doing so.
>
> Our small ISP celebrated the decision, because it was the first ray of light we have seen since the previous two FCC 
> Orders (one in 2012 and a second in 2015) drove away all of our investors and even motivated our bank to cancel our 
> credit line, despite the fact that it was a secured credit line whose collateral was real estate: our own home! (The 
> bank told us that it simply did not wish to lend to companies in our line of business due to the potentially crushing 
> burden of the regulations.) Our job now is to convince investors that they should invest in us despite concerns that 
> - the next time the White House flips to the opposing party - the regulations will not be reimposed before they can 
> get their money back. We will likely have to commit to an exit strategy that will require us to sell or liquidate our 
> business if this happens... or we may still not be able to obtain the capital we need to grow.
>
> --Brett Glass



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