This is the eleventh installment in our series on the proposed Net Neutrality regulations. If you haven’t followed “Neutrality’s Reality” from the beginning, the introduction is in the Arizona Daily Independent at here..
“Interfere thou not with thy Leader.” [I Barack 4:1]
The Commission has refused—stubbornly—to give consumers a choice of internet service providers layered on top of, instead of one and the same with, the monopolies of phone and cable connections. And the Commission is clearly eager to cultivate new tax revenue streams from internet connectivity.
Yet, they continue to produce antique, irrelevant legal sources. Why the tremendous effort at staging a distraction?
“Third, the Order’s provisions on mobile broadband also are based on Title III of the Communications Act. The Order finds that mobile broadband access service is best viewed as a commercial mobile service or its functional equivalent.”
● Title III is “Provisions Relation to Radio”, and is still in the Act from 1934! What the Commission wants to promulgate as relevant legal precedent is far more akin to a six-year-old begging his mother to let him play in mud puddles because the neighbor kid’s mom let him.
● Title III addresses licenses for radio operators, regulations on interference, foreign ships, foreign communications, operation of transmitting apparatus, construction permits, distress signals, prohibition against shipment of certain television receivers, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and other topics utterly irrelevant to the modern internet. Except, that is, for one key point that falls under another regulation the Commission is considering: Title III exempts from regulation all government-operated radio stations. This is a dangerous provision.
Why should you worry about the Commission exempting government from regulation? If the government becomes a competitive player in the broadband marketplace, but can remain free of these new regulations, what snooping, prying, decrypting, and censoring can the government perform unbeknown to you? The Commission has taken up this debate under separate proceedings and a different guise, “preemption”. This concept will receive its own treatment later in this series.
“Congress requires the FCC to refrain from enforcing—forbear from—provisions of the Communications Act that are not in the public interest. The Order applies some key provisions of Title II, and forbears from most others. Indeed, the Order ensures that some 27 provisions of Title II and over 700 regulations adopted under Title II will not apply to broadband. There is no need for any further proceedings before the forbearance is adopted.”
● The last sentence drips of hubris: It attempts to quell any and all debate over the regulation. There is absolutely need for further proceedings, as all of Title II warrants forbearance. There are demonstrably more than 27 provisions of Title II that cannot or should not apply to broadband internet. Clearly, the Commission is stretching the provisions it retained.
●This paragraph only holds true if the public interest is congruent to what the Commission wants, whether or not the Commission’s actions would actually foster innovation and competition. In reality, the best service to the public would be for the Commission to open spectrum and issue, say, three paragraphs of new guidance, instead of no new spectrum and 325 pages of lies.
“The proposed Order would apply fewer sections of Title II than have applied to mobile voice networks for over twenty years.” [Emphasis original to the source]
●Mobile voice networks would require E911, for example, and, as they interconnect directly to voice networks, must comply with voice network standards. Again, here are provisions that are patently inapplicable to the broadband internet infrastructure. This statement is meaningless, and serves only to foster a false sense of rationality behind the application of antiquated law to a modern technology.
One might question internet-to-phone calling, however. Such a call triggers an interconnection, but it requires a device to take traffic off the internet and pass it to the phone network. This requires a separate step that is governed as a device attached to a phone network, as it should be. The internet does not connect directly to the phone network, and does not run phone system protocols inherently.
Of course the new regulations apply fewer sections of Title II to the internet than had applied to mobile voice: There are scant few provisions that the Commission could bend into appearing to apply to the internet; mobile networks are an extension and an evolution of the traditional phone network.
Nearing the end of the press release, the Commission has yet to offer any help to spur innovation, has exempted government-operated internet access from regulation, patted itself on the back for forbearing the unbendingly inapplicable clauses of Title II, and lied to you to make you think regulation over mobile carriers has been a “light touch”.
At long last, after much ado, the Commission finally gives a hint as to what provisions of Title II it will mercilessly mangle into new regulations; that comes tomorrow in the Arizona Daily Independent.