It's such a vital telecommunication service that the government should give them subsidies to build out networks and provide subsidies to people with low incomes to purchase their services.
But when it comes to regulation, they want to argue that they are no different than Gmail and that neither the states nor the FCC have any authority to impose basic common carrier rules.
That's not even mentioning the oddness that for the sake of wiretapping, ISPs are considered common carriers subject to CALEA and, like phone services, have to use equipment that complies with federally created specs that allow real-time wiretapping.
But unfortunately the federal judiciary is on a campaign to undermine Congress and federal agencies, so we're at the point where the judiciary is saying that the Federal Communications Commission has no jurisdiction over the most important communication system ever invented despite Congress clearly giving it an authority to do so and providing a framework.
Q.com has recently been going around our town laying fiber. This is CenturyLink.
Back in 1995 I was working at QWest (now Century Link), and there was a neighborhood in West Omaha that was a trial for fiber to the home. QWest got a tariff increase approved, to pay for deploying fiber to the home for rural customers, by the year 2K. They never seemed, in any real way, to take steps toward that.
In fact, in the later '90s they were actively NOT deploying fiber to DSLAMs in neighborhoods, to give good DSL, because doing so would allow CLECs to have access to put equipment in neighborhoods. So we all had to suffer with whatever DSL we could get on cable runs that went back to one of two switch buildings serving the town.
Now, 30 years later, they're finally laying fiber. This is after the city is just finishing up laying their own fiber lines to every home and business in town, and I'm imagining that is partly responsible for the telco upgrades.
>ISPs asked the US Supreme Court to strike down a New York law that requires broadband providers to offer $15-per-month service to people with low incomes
With this US Supreme Court, I expect this New York Law will be overruled.
But I believe NY has another option. Tax all ISP revenue (before deductions) over a certain amount at 99% (I wanted to say 100). Those funds could then be distributed to the poor.
In the ACA Case, the US Supreme Court upheld the ACA because part of it was considered a Tax. They said they cannot overrule Tax Policy. So this would be an option for New York and other States.
A potential legal basis is preemption by federal explicit non-regulation of the space.
What's going on here is that the ISPs are essentially arguing contrary positions of law: to challenge the federal effort, they're arguing that the FCC has no authority to promulgate this kind of regulation; while to challenge the state efforts, they're arguing that the FCC's authority [that they're also arguing doesn't exist in the other case!] supersedes the state's authority.
Requiring companies to provide a service to certain customers at a set price without compensation is a violation of the 5th Amendment. Pf course, New York and other states got away with this when they refused to allow evictions during the early years of the Covid Pandemic... but it this law goes even further, isn't during a health emergency, and doesn't even allow for a theoretical debt to be "owed" that there is no chance of ever collecting.
The law is absurd and absolutely should be stuck down.
Compelled pricing is quite rare, for example when regulators used it as an alternative to breaking up the original phone monopoly. If they don't admit there's a monopoly that should be subject to special regulations or face immediate break up then its not clear why they are forcing supposedly normal market participants to specific pricing.
I think they could find another reason to strike it down.
IMO, part of why the ACA was upheld is that it is (or was) a model that conservatives wanted to apply when privatizing other government functions. (e.g. Social Security) Roberts in particular appears to believe in this sort of wonkish conservatism and it played well with liberals giving him some of the "above politics" veneer that has since been lost.
NY wants to have ISP charge the poor $15, so all pretax revenue over that $15 amount paid by the poor will be taxed at 99% (or 100%), up to NY.
Somehow the total paid by the poor can be prorated to total ISP revenue and taxed based upon that + admin costs. That tax amount will be sent back to the poor as a refund.
Tax is at the revenue level because as we have seen, there are so many deduction they could report 0 income.
It would be great if they stopped doing business in that state. The government could then assert ownership over all their infrastructure, divide it up among smaller local governments, who could then provide competitively-priced municipal broadband service.
I’d like to see Netflix cut off any ISP that refuses to follow the neutrality rules voluntarily. See how long they last with most of their customers pissed off.
Netflix doesn’t have the leverage anymore. If people start having problems with it, even when caused by ISPs, people will just subscribe to Disney or Max or whatever. Long gone are the days where they can perform such grandstanding.
Netflix used to be the champion you think of, but in the past ten years has a moat because of this anti-competitive behavior. OpenConnect keeps them competitive by reducing the margins paid to brokers like Akamai.
> See how long they last with most of their customers pissed off.
I suspect Netflix will last a shorter amount of time with their customers pissed off than the ISPs will last with their customers pissed off.
Personally, I have lots of ISP choice. I can have 80/15 VDSL with consistent speed and latency (22ms to nearest internet exchange), I can use Starlink which is supposed to be pretty reasonable bitrate and 15-50 ms latency, I can use 5G/LTE residential internet with actually good speeds but terrible buffer bloat, or I can pay about $30k to get municipal fiber and a monthly cost above DSL and 5G. No cable for me, Comcast says it's too expensive, even though I'm confident they're on the pole at the corner of the property.
I committed to fiber recently, because a neighbor is doing it for their lots which the phone company refuses to service at all, and sharing construction costs means this is the best deal I'll get. And the trenching company came by and said they'll do directional drilling to get under my driveway so it won't be a big mess. But I don't think any 'normal' people in my situation would ever switch from DSL. If Netflix wants to play the blackout games, there's lots of other streaming services to pick from.
That doesn't sound like lots of choice, that sounds like you have one decent choice, or you can pay to have fibre laid.
I'm in the UK, and _I_ have ISP choice. I have two separate FTTP providers that have laid fibre to my door that I can choose from. I pay $60/mo for 900/500 guaranteed, but in practice I get 900/900 most of the time. The other provider is slightly more expensive but the same speeds.
If I don't want that, I can have gigabit cable, or two separate ADSL providers that will give me 140mbps (which is resold by countless providers for sub $30/mo)
TV Channels frequently did this game with satellite TV providers and usually came out on top. I suspect Netflix has more leverage than most streaming services do.
With ̶S̶t̶a̶r̶l̶i̶n̶k̶ small satellites like cubesat and other wireless technology, it will soon be feasible to bring your internet service directly to the consumer without an ISP in the middle at all.
Readit News
It's such a vital telecommunication service that the government should give them subsidies to build out networks and provide subsidies to people with low incomes to purchase their services.
But when it comes to regulation, they want to argue that they are no different than Gmail and that neither the states nor the FCC have any authority to impose basic common carrier rules.
That's not even mentioning the oddness that for the sake of wiretapping, ISPs are considered common carriers subject to CALEA and, like phone services, have to use equipment that complies with federally created specs that allow real-time wiretapping.
But unfortunately the federal judiciary is on a campaign to undermine Congress and federal agencies, so we're at the point where the judiciary is saying that the Federal Communications Commission has no jurisdiction over the most important communication system ever invented despite Congress clearly giving it an authority to do so and providing a framework.
http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/
Back in 1995 I was working at QWest (now Century Link), and there was a neighborhood in West Omaha that was a trial for fiber to the home. QWest got a tariff increase approved, to pay for deploying fiber to the home for rural customers, by the year 2K. They never seemed, in any real way, to take steps toward that.
In fact, in the later '90s they were actively NOT deploying fiber to DSLAMs in neighborhoods, to give good DSL, because doing so would allow CLECs to have access to put equipment in neighborhoods. So we all had to suffer with whatever DSL we could get on cable runs that went back to one of two switch buildings serving the town.
Now, 30 years later, they're finally laying fiber. This is after the city is just finishing up laying their own fiber lines to every home and business in town, and I'm imagining that is partly responsible for the telco upgrades.
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With this US Supreme Court, I expect this New York Law will be overruled.
But I believe NY has another option. Tax all ISP revenue (before deductions) over a certain amount at 99% (I wanted to say 100). Those funds could then be distributed to the poor.
In the ACA Case, the US Supreme Court upheld the ACA because part of it was considered a Tax. They said they cannot overrule Tax Policy. So this would be an option for New York and other States.
Why? Just because the court is conservative and this is a progressive law, or is there is an actual legal basis for the court to overturn this law?
What's going on here is that the ISPs are essentially arguing contrary positions of law: to challenge the federal effort, they're arguing that the FCC has no authority to promulgate this kind of regulation; while to challenge the state efforts, they're arguing that the FCC's authority [that they're also arguing doesn't exist in the other case!] supersedes the state's authority.
The law is absurd and absolutely should be stuck down.
IMO, part of why the ACA was upheld is that it is (or was) a model that conservatives wanted to apply when privatizing other government functions. (e.g. Social Security) Roberts in particular appears to believe in this sort of wonkish conservatism and it played well with liberals giving him some of the "above politics" veneer that has since been lost.
(I'm even going to steelman your argument and assume you meant profit and not revenue.)
Somehow the total paid by the poor can be prorated to total ISP revenue and taxed based upon that + admin costs. That tax amount will be sent back to the poor as a refund.
Tax is at the revenue level because as we have seen, there are so many deduction they could report 0 income.
That would be amazing.
I suspect Netflix will last a shorter amount of time with their customers pissed off than the ISPs will last with their customers pissed off.
Personally, I have lots of ISP choice. I can have 80/15 VDSL with consistent speed and latency (22ms to nearest internet exchange), I can use Starlink which is supposed to be pretty reasonable bitrate and 15-50 ms latency, I can use 5G/LTE residential internet with actually good speeds but terrible buffer bloat, or I can pay about $30k to get municipal fiber and a monthly cost above DSL and 5G. No cable for me, Comcast says it's too expensive, even though I'm confident they're on the pole at the corner of the property.
I committed to fiber recently, because a neighbor is doing it for their lots which the phone company refuses to service at all, and sharing construction costs means this is the best deal I'll get. And the trenching company came by and said they'll do directional drilling to get under my driveway so it won't be a big mess. But I don't think any 'normal' people in my situation would ever switch from DSL. If Netflix wants to play the blackout games, there's lots of other streaming services to pick from.
I'm in the UK, and _I_ have ISP choice. I have two separate FTTP providers that have laid fibre to my door that I can choose from. I pay $60/mo for 900/500 guaranteed, but in practice I get 900/900 most of the time. The other provider is slightly more expensive but the same speeds.
If I don't want that, I can have gigabit cable, or two separate ADSL providers that will give me 140mbps (which is resold by countless providers for sub $30/mo)
What do you think Starlink is if not an ISP?
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