1. Allow network providers to continue to expand their network, while growing their own services on top of their own network which will compete with third party services. If those other services compete heavily with their own, they will enact tiers or reduce reliability so that their service is better/cheaper/etc.
2. Regulate network providers, while still allowing them to grow services on top of their own networks and allowing third party services to compete more fairly. Network expansion may be slowed due to the loss of service revenue, but new service business risk will be lowered as they won't be competing unequally with their own (or customer's) network providers.
We got into this mess because networks were classified as information services in the first place. We wouldn't allow the oil companies to own the car business, nor would we allow the electric companies to own the appliance business.
Why should we think this would work any different?
Utility companies get public access across the country to install their cables and pipes. They're using vast public resources. Customers often have few or no choices.
In my opinion, the only reasonable option is regulation. I don't typically like regulation, as I think it hurts small business. But the tradeoff here is that some business will be hurt, while many more businesses should flourish.
Option #1 sounds like what we have today, which for all of the spin does not seem to be that bad. I don't buy Netflix's stance of no culpability in network peering deals gone awry. My ISP (AT&T) blocked outbound port 25 as an anti-spam measure, but at my request removed that block. I have observed no other interference by my ISP in my daily use of the Internet. Aside from some buffering on Netflix, what exactly is the mainstream beef with the Internet today? It's way better than it was 5 years ago, which in turn was better than it was 10 years ago.
There has been a building fear of some coming changes, presumably related to implementation of Quality of Service on Internet packets. QoS was originally considered a good idea by many of us. Now we seem to be collectively convinced that it would certainly be used for evil. But we've not yet seen how that might play out. It looks like we maybe never will.
Option #2 sounds like new legislation and not Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.
Regulation is not always bad, but Title II is broad and current promises of forbearance should be taken with a heaping serving of salt. I feel that whatever rational or irrational fears were building, this was not an urgent matter despite what appears to be a massive amount of astroturfing by Netflix and its kin to spin the current Internet's tubes as ensnared at every opportunity by nefarious ISPs. I want a better ISP like anyone else, but Netflix is no angel here. Whenever a big business (e.g., Netflix) campaigns for the rules to change in order to smite its enemies—especially when painting it as a do or die, time-critical matter—my opinion of them is tainted.
Time and deliberation should have been taken to create the proper legislation for the situation at hand. The US has developed what I see as a dangerous and wrong-headed distaste for legislative deliberation, what with Congresses being labeled "do nothing" and frequent complaints of gridlock, as if those are bad things. They are in large part evidence of no consensus, which means subverting the legislative process is likely a mistake.
A great side-effect of deliberation in the legislative process is that the market sometimes creates a superior solution in the meantime. In many cases doing nothing and allowing things to find a way is precisely the right course of action.
> Regulation is not always bad, but Title II is broad and current promises of forbearance should be taken with a heaping serving of salt.
If they are part of the regulatory package, they are as concrete as the Title II classification itself. They aren't "promises", they either are or are not part of the regulation.
1. Allow network providers to continue to expand their network, while growing their own services on top of their own network which will compete with third party services. If those other services compete heavily with their own, they will enact tiers or reduce reliability so that their service is better/cheaper/etc.
2. Regulate network providers, while still allowing them to grow services on top of their own networks and allowing third party services to compete more fairly. Network expansion may be slowed due to the loss of service revenue, but new service business risk will be lowered as they won't be competing unequally with their own (or customer's) network providers.
We got into this mess because networks were classified as information services in the first place. We wouldn't allow the oil companies to own the car business, nor would we allow the electric companies to own the appliance business.
Why should we think this would work any different?
Utility companies get public access across the country to install their cables and pipes. They're using vast public resources. Customers often have few or no choices.
In my opinion, the only reasonable option is regulation. I don't typically like regulation, as I think it hurts small business. But the tradeoff here is that some business will be hurt, while many more businesses should flourish.