Netflix

Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Dial-up Rules for the Broadband Age?” -- here -- which rebuts Marvin Ammori’s Wired op-ed: “We’re about to Lose Net Neutrality – and the Internet as we know it.”

This is Part 35 of the FCC Open Internet Order Series.

FCC Open Internet Order Series

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

A Modern Vision for the FCC: How the FCC Can Modernize its Policy Approaches for the 21^st Century

Join NetCompetition® and an esteemed panel to discuss: how the FCC can modernize its policy approaches to adapt to modern technology and market realities and unleash innovation, investment and consumer welfare in the 21^st century global economy. The panel will discuss:

• The transition to all Internet-Protocol communications networks;
• Spectrum incentive auctions and building the long-term spectrum pipeline; and
• Internet ecosystem competition and the future of the FCC.

Where: 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515

When: Monday, November 4, 2013

Time: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM

If the Washington Post had fact-checked Save-the-Internet’s spin, or even sought out an alternative viewpoint for balance, they easily could have avoided the obvious fundamental factual mistakes in their article: “What Europe can teach us about keeping the Internet open and free.”

First, Mr. Fung inaccurately attributed Save-the-Internet’s extreme and highly-controversial definition of net neutrality -- “all Internet traffic, no matter where’s its going or who it came from, should be treated the same” -- as the FCC’s “concept of net neutrality,” when the FCC’s compromise net neutrality definition was much less controversial and very different than the Post’s Save-the-Internet characterization.

Expect net neutrality proponents to pressure the FCC to reclassify broadband as a Title II common carrier telephone service, if as many expect, the D.C. Appeals Court overturns much, or possibly all, of the FCC’s Open Internet Order in the coming months.

Observers of the September 9^th oral argument heard Judges Tatel and Silberman strongly question the legality of applying common carrier-like regulation to an unregulated information service.

If you want to know why it would be a legal non-starter for the FCC to then completely reverse course and try to reclassify broadband as Title II common carrier service, please listen to my video explanation, starting at 7:52. (The written version of my argument is part 5 of this post.)

Professor Susan Crawford’s Bloomberg op-ed, “New FCC Head Must Reclaim Authority over Telecom,” exposes a profound lack of substance, in being unable to identify any real market problem warranting FCC regulation.

Let’s review Professor Crawford’s litany of contrived policy problems.

First, she charges that ISPs are working “to ensure no regulator has any real authority over them.” No, ISPs are pointing out the unique excessiveness of having THREE government entities having authority over them on the same general matters. ISPs are not asking for any reduction in authority for the DOJ or the FTC. Specifically, Verizon is asking the D.C. Appeals Court to decide if the FCC exceeded its legal authority in imposing prophylactic common-carrier-like regulation on companies that have not done anything wrong.   

Economic rationality, competition, and broadband pricing freedom are the big winners, and common carrier-like net neutrality was the big loser, if the Appeals Court panel decides Verizon v. FCC as expected.

Monday’s intense tag-team grilling of the FCC’s lawyer by Judges Tatel and Silberman left most observers thinking the Court will decide it is illegal for the FCC to impose common-carrier-like regulation on broadband providers -- regardless of what else they decide.  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           

September 9, 2013

Contact:  Scott Cleland                                                 

703-217-2407

“A Very Good Day for Broadband Pricing Freedom”

Please click here for Google-YouTube's Internet Video Distribution Dominance -- Part XII of my seven-year, Googleopoly research series. 

• This is must read for anyone interested in: Google antitrust; Google's liability for willful blindness to piracy and copyright infringement, and the legal implications of Google trying to solve its access-to-quality-video content-problem by acquisition of Dish, DirecTV or a major studio/TV network.

Google-YouTube’s Internet Video Distribution Dominance -- Part XII of Googleopoly Research Series

• Why Internet video distribution competition is substantially lessened;

• How Google-YouTube anti-competitively gained Internet video distribution dominance; &

Please see my latest Daily Caller Op-ed "Professor Crawford's Obsolete Public Utility Thinking for Broadband" -- here.

• It's a critical review of Professor Susan Crawford's new book on broadband and media concentration.
• It's also Part 16 of my Obsolete Communications Law research series.

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Obsolete Communications Law Research Series:

Note: Please see here for a summary powerpoint presentation of the problems with obsolete communications law.