FCC chair Wheeler proposes using Title 2 authority to make internet a utility

• Jawbreaker

  QuakerOats;1709985 wrote:We became the greatest, most innovative, most prosperous, and most generous nation in world history because we began from the premise of LIMITED government and individual liberty. As government has grown BIG in recent decades and freedoms have diminished under crushing regulation, we have begun our decline, particularly relative to the rest of the world.
  
  But many simply cannot see the forest for the trees.

  Judging from your comments, I guess you are fine with certain ISPs blocking access to applications and services. That is a great way to foster innovation.
• BoatShoes

  derek bomar;1709693 wrote:
  Now...are there bad economics with respect to lack of competition in terms of ISPs? Yes. But how is a lack of competition with respect to ISPs in any way related to stopping ALL ISPs from being able to intentionally slow your service based on what data you are requesting? They're not related. Tomorrow the FCC/Congress could come out and tear down the barriers to entry/break up oligarchies somehow and Net Neutrality wouldn't stop any new player from entering the game, as it's how the internet has always worked (up until last year).

  Keep in mind that when municipalities have tried to offer their own Internet service so-called competition loving Republicans like Marsha Blackburn who are suddenly now against Net Neutrality because Obama endorsed it jump to try and pass laws preventing them from being able to do so. The same people now complaining about this saying what they want is "moAr C0mpetiTi0n!" consistently oppose more competition!
  
  https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150302/06091030179/martha-blackburn-rushes-to-defense-awful-protectionist-state-broadband-laws.shtml
  
  This issue demonstrates how truly broken our political system is. A couple of years ago I thought this was something libertarians, progressives and conservatives could all agree on. I would see threads on reddit and other forums with libertarians saying this was within the proper scope of government, etc.
  
  But now, because Obummer endorsed it libertarians and conservatives hate it and are calling it a conspiracy by Netflix when Netflix only wanted Title II authority, if at all, as a last resort.
• superman

  As a libertarian, I oppose it because it is a couple hundred pages of new regulations that were hidden from view until they were passed.
• QuakerOats

  I believe the hundreds of pages of new reg's are still hidden from view.
  
  Of course this takeover of the internet by obama has somewhat overshadowed his other major overreaches last week: banning certain ammo by executive order, and his desire to unilaterally raise corporate taxes.
  
  The assaults on The People rain on.
  
  Change we can believe in ...
• QuakerOats

  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-broadband-fees-20150409-story.html#page=1
  
  "The federalgovernment is sure to tap this new revenue stream soon to spend more ofconsumers' hard-earned dollars," warned Ajit Pai, a Republican on the FCC."So when it comes to broadband, read my lips: More new taxes are coming.It's just a matter of when."<o></o>
  Higher fees onInternet bills could make the service unaffordable for some people, reducing broadbandadoption instead of expanding it, critics said.
  
  
  
  More BIG government
• ohiobucks1

  

  Tom Wheeler spoke to my law school a little while ago, and while I still don't agree with the new regulations, he had some good points. #1 being costs would soar if we let verizon and comcast control who can use what internet. In his opinion the internet should be open to all...
• gut

  ohiobucks1;1720459 wrote: #1 being costs would soar if we let verizon and comcast control who can use what internet.

  that's some quality fascism.
  #1 broadband provider is Comcast, with 31M subscribers (after TW acquisition, which how does it get approved if they had the power Wheeler implies?)
  #2 is AT&T with 17M subscribers
  #3 is CenturyLink with 6.4M
  #4 is Charter with 5M
  #5 is Verizon and Cox with 4M
  
  I'll tell you why Comcast/TW didn't get blocked (though it probably should have had to divest some individual markets) - it's still less than 40% market share when, historically, it takes at least 60% for the FTC to get concerned...and that's without close substitutes.
  
  But Verizon has about 1/3 of cellular, along with AT&T. And it's pretty clear cellular will soon be a direct competitor of broadband. Lump it all together and VZW becomes the biggest player with about 30% share. Short of collusion, there's no reason to think it was going to play out as Wheeler suggests unless there's collusion or the FTC lets them all merge into 1 or 2 companies.
  
  The monopoly pricing is a scare tactic, and it's been very effective on people who didn't take economics. All you have to do is look at operating margins, and they're pretty much right where they should be (far from a monopoly gouging the consumer). Quaker got this one right - this is about finding an excuse for govt to invade the internet so they can get a piece of the pie.
• MontyBrunswick

  

  gut;1720464 wrote: All you have to do is look at operating margins, and they're pretty much right where they should be (far from a monopoly gouging the consumer).

  You're completely delusional if you think that way. You do know that:
  
  A) most people only have 1 option for home broadband
  B) the profit margin on home broadband is super high and only growing wider.
  
  
  The FCC rules aim to protect those two points from getting worse. Comcast and all of the other bigwigs wanted to change for access to certain websites. The these rules stopped that.
  
  It's easy for people who don't understand the Internet to inject politics into a move like this, but the FCC got it right.
• gut

  MontyBrunswick;1720560 wrote:You're completely delusional...

  Show me the excessive profit margins (which would require some understanding of how to read an income statement). That shit costs like, a lot, of money to build you know. I did a google search, so I know what article(s) you read about "super high profit margin" and I weep for you.
  
  And the FCC is talking out of both sides of the mouth here....you can't claim monopoly pricing is a fear and concern if you approve the Comcast/TW merger. This is just how they justify to the ignorant coming in to regulate so they can tax the hell out of everything.
• MontyBrunswick

  

  gut;1720661 wrote:That shit costs like, a lot, of money to build you know.

  Most of those networks were built out 50+ years ago. The same copper wires that first supplied phone service to homes back in the day still provide DSL service to millions of homes. I'm good friends with a contractor for TWC and he said that most of the equipment they work on in rural areas is 20 years old, but due to the converting of the analog network to digital, they still easily meets capacity demands. In areas where they are out of capacity, they simply upgrade it and "we're good for another 15 years".
  
  Look at it this way...you know how cable providers have been offering phone plans for the past 10-15 years? You actually think they're out there running new fiber to everyone's local hub? Nope. Technology and compression techniques improved, and they just piled the phone (VOIP) service right on top of an infrastructure that was already in place. It costs them literally nothing to enable that feature and then charge for it. The $10 a month is almost entirely profit. Another thing they started doing in the past 5 years is charging for cable modem rentals.
  
  You me or anyone else can buy a modem for about $60. Now imagine if you're TWC (or any other large telecom)...you can probably buy modems in bulk for well under retail. For simplicity, let's say they can get them for $40. The cable company will turn around and issue that modem to you and charge you $5/mo to rent it. If that subscriber is still around after 8 months, you're looking at pure profit each month until the cable modem stops working. Now add that up to the hundreds of millions of subscribers. Profit.
  
  Couple that with the fact that bandwidth prices have PLUNGED in the past 15 years...
  
  Telecom/Cable companies like to say that it costs enormous amounts of money to expand to new areas because it DOES. However, the cost of providing service to areas that already exist is nearly nothing.
  
  I presume you're talking about the Huffington Post article that got a lot of buzz. In no way shape or form do I believe TWC gets 97% profit. 80%? Yeah, that wouldn't shock me one bit.
  
  And the TWC/Comcast merger is on hold. I don't even know if that'll get approved.
• gut

  MontyBrunswick;1720715 wrote: Telecom/Cable companies like to say that it costs enormous amounts of money to expand to new areas because it DOES. However, the cost of providing service to areas that already exist is nearly nothing.
  
  I presume you're talking about the Huffington Post article that got a lot of buzz. In no way shape or form do I believe TWC gets 97% profit. 80%? Yeah, that wouldn't shock me one bit.
  
  And the TWC/Comcast merger is on hold. I don't even know if that'll get approved.

  Again, show me the excessive profit margins. You can't just claim monopoly rents without demonstrating there are actual monopoly rents. Everything I've seen is boogeyman fear mongering, because neither the margins nor market share come close to rising to economically concerning levels.
  
  And investment is depreciated over decades...80% marginal profit might be accurate, but it ignores the investment allocation. The upfront investment costs are HUGE, and recovered over years and years. That's why margins aren't excessive.
  
  Agree it will be interesting if the TWC/Comcast merger gets approved. The AT&T/TMo merger got rejected as did the Sprint/TMo merger, to the surprise of more than a few analysts - neither merger reached the 60% threshold even ignoring substitutes and other competition.
• MontyBrunswick

  

  TWC miraculously finds a way to increase speeds six-fold shortly before Google Fiber comes to town
  
  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2481311,00.asp
• MontyBrunswick

  

  Rut roh. Comcast backing out after facing government opposition to the deal.
  
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/comcast-said-planning-to-withdraw-offer-for-time-warner-cable