Re: Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

> > In the same way, I don't like the BASIS for this authority... and what it potentially means in the long term... 
> > besides what they state that they intend to do with this new authority they've appointed themselves in the short 
> > term.
> Had some people not apparently taken advantage of the situation as it existed before the proceeding in docket 14-28, 
> it's likely no regulatory actions would have been initiated.

There seems to be a lot of forgotten history in this discussion…

The FCC tried a light-weight low-touch form of open internet regulation.

$CABLECOs sued them and got it eliminated.

Then they tried a different light-weight low-touch form of open internet regulation.

$TELCOs sued them and got it eliminated.

They were left with two basic choices at that point:

        1.      Allow the $TELCO and $CABLECO abuses working against an open internet to continue, which, frankly
                is what most of the more cynical among us expected, especially when Wheeler (who has traditionally been
                a mouthpiece for the $CABLE_LOBBY) announced his initial fast-lane proposal.

        2.      Use real authority and real regulations that exist and make the internet subject to those regulations, 
which
                appears to be what actually happened.

> I'm not cheerleading by any means; I would much prefer less regulation than more in almost every situation; but the 
> simple fact is that people do tend to abuse the lack of regulations long enough for regulatory agencies to take 
> notice, and then everyone loses when regulations come.

In this particular case, I think it is primarily $INCUMBENT_OLIGOPOLY_PROVIDERs which lose. As near as I can tell from 
what is in the actual regulations, everyone else pretty much wins. Yes, there are probably some tradeoffs and I’m sure 
that the incumbents will attempt to find ways to make this as painful as possible for consumers while they throw their 
typical temper tantrums. (Think they’re above temper tantrums, then look at Verizon’s blog in morse code.)

> Reading the R&O once it is released will be very interesting, at least in my opinion, since we'll get a glimpse into 
> the rationale and the thought processes that went into each paragraph and subparagraph of this new section in 47CFR.  
> I'm most interested in the rationale behind the pleading requirements, like requiring complainants to serve  the 
> complaint by hand delivery on the named defendant, requiring the complainant to serve two copies on the Market 
> Disputes Resolution Division of the EB, etc.   This seems to be a pretty high bar to filing a complaint; it's not 
> like you can just fill out a form on the FCC website to report your ISP for violating 47CFR§8.  Heh, part of the 
> rationale might be the fact that they got over 2 million filings on this docket......

I suspect that they want to be able to take real complaints seriously and not waste resources on a large number of 
frivolous complaints. Since the intent is to primarily deal with the B2B interactions between content and service 
providers where one is abusing the other to the detriment of the end-users, I suspect all the intended players have the 
resources to comply with the filing requirements fairly easily, but it prevents every Tom, Dick, and Johnny with a web 
browser from becoming an expensive PITA. Sort of a “You must be this tall to ride” process, for lack of a better term. 
However, that’s pure speculation on my part, and
I agree reading the actual R&O will be interesting.

Overall, I think this may well be the first (mostly) functional regulatory process to occur in recent memory.

Owen