The other day I posted about the FCC losing it’s battle with Comcast and the fact that the FCC has no right to step in on Comcast to make them be more transparent about how they manage their broadband system. Well, today in the news, it appears that the FCC is not giving up it’s fight against regulating the internet.
The FCC plans to use a couple of century old laws that kept companies like Ma Bell and railroads from monopolizing in their industries. Since the internet became “privatized” in the mid 1990′s, there really hasn’t been much done about what to regulate, who regulates it and why it must be regulated in the first place. Now that companies like Google are trying to make country-wide broadband affordable for everyone, the FCC is taking notice and will make sure to keep a close eye on how Google will manage this type of broadband movement.
I understand that monopolies must be checked up on, but when nobody else is making a move like the broadband plan, they why can’t a company with resources take over and just get it done? Today, 95% of American’s are connected to broadband in one way or another. From an article in the Washington Post:
Nonetheless, the FCC may still consider imposing early-20th-century vintage “common carrier” regulations on 21st-century broadband technologies. One result of the new rules could be to make it harder for the operators of broadband “pipes” to build “smart” networks, which offer connectivity and other services or products.
Comcast has throttled access to media services which compete with it’s cable tv offerings (hulu, bittorrent, youtube). Comcast currently forces some subscribers to view ads using a dns trick. They offer no “unthrottled/un-hacked” service… for any price. There are millions of americans who have no other broadband choices.
“Hands off” isn’t working anymore.