A article in Wired by Ryan Singel does a nice job of explaining why the cable ISPs need regulation. As this blog has also been saying, reclassification of their services as telecommunications, the current FCC strategy, undoes a bad course steered by the Powell FCC with help from the Supreme Court.
Here’s the money quote:”The broadband barons don’t want to provide you fast internet. It’s too close to being a utility for their tastes (that’s boring and lacks huge profit margins) and requires too much investment.”
What he said! The broadband cable providers’ business model is about restricting the possibilities of the Internet. For example, I suspect your ISP is like mine (I’m stuck with Comcast) in redirecting bad URLs (“404” errors) to their own highly-skewed page of alternative suggestions.
The ISPs want to mislead consumers into thinking that their own email, DNS services, and other content on the home page is the only way to access the Internet. Of course, ISPs are not selling bundled services, contrary to what the Supreme Court said its Brand X decision, but rather telecommunications access along with their own apps, which should compete fairly with the rest of the Internet.
Some minimal common carrier obligation are in order, and the reclassification of cable broadband to Title II is an attempt by the FCC to rebalance the scales.
Otherwise, as Singel, suggests we will end up with true monopolies (a business model Wall Street likes) that will give consumer’s a peephole view of the Web. Unless you want Comcast, Time Warner, and CableVision to be your only source of video, music, news,….
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