Fwd: Re FreePress is suing the FCC. Here's how the process works.

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re FreePress is suing the FCC. Here's how the process
works.
To: <dave () farber net>


At 12:10 PM 12/30/2017, Joel Snyder wrote:

> I have to agree with Larry.  Brett is always an outspoken opponent of
> regulation and acts on the assumption that consumers consider a
> tri-opoly of cable/wireline/wireless as a "real market."

It IS a real market, because it is not a "tri-opoly" at all. Even in the
small town in which I live - an unattractive market to providers, because
revenues are severely limited by the town's population of 30,000 and the
county's population of 50,000 - we have not only incumbent cable and DSL
but 5 cellular providers, 5 WISPs, and three satellite providers, all
providing high speed broadband. My WISP also provides fiber service to
a limited number of locations, though it is not our primary delivery
medium.

> I own an ISP, older than Brett's, and our residential service was
> destroyed by the duopoly of cable/wireline.  I don't hold a
> grudge---cable/wireline out-competed, out-invested, and out-priced me
> and they deserve the business.  But that doesn't mean that there isn't a
> duopoly in our city, now.

Our ISP started operation in 1992. We were, as far as we know, the world's
first wireless ISP, or WISP; we also offered dialup in those early days.
Since Joel hasn't identified the ISP with which he was involved, I cannot
tell whether it was, indeed, in operation before we were, but in any case
those were very different days. No Internet user will tolerate modem speeds
now.

Our ISP has survived - and would have prospered even more were it not
for the FCC's two recent attempts to burden us with crushing regulation -
due to our innovative use of superior technology. Not knowing Joel's
situation, I cannot determine what circumstances might have caused him
to fail to do likewise.

> Yes, we also have a wireless carrier (like Brett's), but neither I nor
> most residential consumers consider them an equal alternative.

They are mistaken. We have several customers who were ill served by the
cable company's fiber and found out gigabit wireless to be a much better
option.

> The anecdotes of the few people who enjoy their wireless carrier
(especially
> when contrasted with the fraudulent sales and contracting processes of
> most cable carriers) are nice to hear, but there is a natural monopoly
> that "wired" carriers have (either incumbent LEC or cable).

There is no such natural monopoly - merely better tech. Our company COULD
overbuild the cable and telephone companies, but our wireless technology
is more reliable and cost-effective. (If people really do prefer fiber,
due to the mistaken belief that it is better, we may now be able to provide
that as well now that the regulations have been repealed and we have a
chance
of raising capital to do it.)

> Statistics from the FCC are clear: in their 2016 report, for broadband
> of 25 Mbps or more, only 3% of "developed census blocks" had 3 carriers.

This false statistic is the result of regulatory overreach. The Wheeler FCC
arbitrarily, and with no regard to science, incorrectly "defined" broadband
as 25 Mbps for one reason and one reason only: so that it could claim that
too few Americans had access to it and that therefore Section 706 of the
Telecommunications Act (codified, for some reason, at 47 USC 1302 rather
than
47 USC 706) authorized it to seize control of the Internet.

The fact is that, according to neurophysiologists, the entire bandwidth of
all of the human senses combined is about 1 Mbps. (Some place it slightly
higher, at 1.25 Mbps.) Thus, to completely saturate all inputs to the human
nervous system, one does not even need a T1 line - much less tens of
megabits.
And therefore, a typical household needs nowhere near 25 Mbps - even if they
were all simultaneously immersed in high quality virtual reality. Even the
figures posted on the FCC's own Web site - giving the approximate bandwidths
required for various services delivered over broadband - could not support
the absurd 25 Mbps number.

Nor did the FCC recognize that raw data rates do not tell the whole story
when it comes to Internet service. Due to the very nature of Internet
protocols, which degrade extremely quickly due to even slight degradation
of service, quality - jitter, freedom from dropped packets, routing,
responsiveness of DNS, etc. - counts far more than claimed quantity.

In short, the FCC adopted 25 Mbps figure - and only in proceedings where it
was convenient; it still regulated lower data rates as "broadband" when it
suited it - purely so that it could attempt to ignore it allowed the FCC to
ignore perfectly adequate sources of broadband service and manufacture a
nonexistent "shortage" of it. It then went on to defy the express will of
Congress, as expressed at 47 USC 230(b), and attempt to regulate the
Internet
so as to serve politically influential corporations.

> You can argue about whether mobile providers will begin to displace or
> supplement the two wired carriers,

They will. But WISPs - fixed wireless broadband providers like myself -
will do even more to do so. Especially since, due to higher quality,
1 Mbps from my own company provides as much utility as 4 Mbps from a
cable company.

> as well as relatively simpler
> switching between carriers, whether it's more important to also provide
> regulation on folks like Facebook, etc., but the bottom line is that few
> households have truly diverse high-quality equal-priced choice in their
> ISP.

The bottom line is that they do - so long as one does not allow oneself to
be deceived by the FCC's self-serving and unrealistic redefinition of
broadband.

> Now, whether the FCC and Title II are the "right way" to do this, I
> can't say. I certainly see the merits of some of the arguments against
> the FCC's regulatory approach.
>
> But sweeping away FCC regulation in the hope that our oh-so-functional
> and oh-so-capable Congress will do a better job in the undetermined
> future by doing it the "right way" strikes me as absurd.

The FCC did not sweep away ALL regulation of ISPs; it swept away
regulations that it was not legally authorized to impose and which did
harm rather than good. It further reauthorized the FTC to deal with
abuses such as deceptive practices - a much needed move.

> If a credible
> congressman had a credible proposal on how to deal with Net Neutrality
> and Internet and carriers, then there might be a more solid argument
> that repealing Net Neutrality at the FCC was a wide move.

There is one. See Marsha Blackburn's recently introduced bill,
H.R.4682. This bill still contains some flaws - such as the inclusion
of the vague term "reasonable network management," which could lead
to endless litigation and uncertainty - but is on the right track.

> But in the absence of a replacement in the wings, I'd say "put the
> pressure on" and then let the Carriers work with their purchased
> Senators and Representatives to come up with a regulatory framework that
> they feel is better.

Unfortunately, it is the edge providers who have purchased legislators -
and, until the most recent election, the White House. Let's hope that
we can nonetheless get to reasonable, "light touch" legislation which does
not destroy broadband competition and strangle investment as the FCC's 2015
regulations did.

--Brett Glass WY7BG, LARIAT.NET



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