by TotalyMeow » Thu Dec 22, 2016 5:31 am
I wish I had time to really research this. I'll probably do so after the holidays. But from what I already know and a quick search of the internet to confirm, you're wrong.
Firstly, having the government regulate utilities like gas, electric, and power, hasn't done us any favors. Those services are stagnant and their infrastructure is a joke, because there is no incentive for people to invest in new infrastructure. In some cases, they're a deadly dangerous joke. The gas lines in Chicago and several other major US cities are pushing the century mark and are leaking so badly they need replacement now, yet there is so little money to repair them that they are literally waiting for people to call the utility to tell them they smell gas leaking out of the soil of their yards before those pipes are investigated and replaced. Power companies see solar power as more of a threat to their status quo than a useful new technology to be used. And so on.
Furthermore, the internet may be an essential service, but it should not be a public utility. There is a big difference there. Food is an essential service, but it is not a public utility. Its sale and prices are not regulated by the government. Sure, there are some places where your choice for groceries is pretty much Walmart, but even if Walmart is kinda sucky sometimes in the produce department, it still gets the job done and does it cheaply and efficiently and it's always possible to buy food. And it does so well because it's competitive. It's the same with the internet. Sure, there aren't a lot of choices in some parts of the country for who you will get your internet from but that is really changing fast, and it's changing because it's still competitive for companies to spend on internet infrastructure. True satellite internet is a thing now, not the stupid hybrid/cable crap they had 10 years ago, most places have at least one big cable company and some smaller options, a lot of places have things like Google Fiber, and internet cellular service is damn near everywhere. And it's only going to get better so long as the internet stays deregulated.
As for Claeyt's Netflix example, it has been hugely misrepresented. See, the amount of traffic a site like Netflix inflicts on an ISP is best described as a '*****'. Netflix was paying for some of it's traffic to go over Content Delivery Networks (distributed servers which I understand to be what most of the internet goes through), which comes with a usage fee, and then sought a better deal by paying for access to a certain amount of Comcast's infrastructure through a transit provider (no access fee per use) and then tried to push more data through it than it could handle, and then wanted an upgrade at no extra cost. Comcast said "No, go back to routing your extra through CDN and pay the usage fees". Netflix didn't want to do that so they bought ALL the available transit provider connections and it still wasn't enough. Eventually, the two companies negotiated a deal where Netflix would interconnect with Comcast directly.
Now, Comcast may have been employing some shady deals in there, but here's the thing: It's not up to the FCC to regulate that, nor should it be. We have a perfectly serviceable agency for investigating business practices that are detrimental to the consumer and to competition in the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and it has been doing a good job. But with the FCC ruling the internet a 'utility' the FTC no longer has jurisdiction and is powerless.
Furthermore, the FCC has used the argument that it is important to maintain the internet as an "open platform for free expression, political engagement, education, and economic opportunity", but has not, in any of its investigations, actually been able to identify any threat to said free expression.
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