Hacker News Reader

Comment by client4 | Hacker News Reader

Hey Now! ...but that's fair, the little ISP's were already for Net Neutrality. *

* ISP Owner in MT

>* ISP Owner in MT

Same, until last year. We never had state customers and of course we ran traffic shaping that didn't look at source address.

Good to hear, since the FCC was so loud about a handful of small ISPs like yours being vaguely against the Title II rules.

Title II != net neutrality. Title II is a highly bureaucratic strong-oversight-in-all-things tool aimed at a completely different problem space, namely providing a legislative solution to the case-law-derived 1980s consent decrees with AT&T & IBM. It covers things that have nothing to do with what ISPs want to deal with as part of their businesses, and places the expensive burden of proof and compliance on the ISP. So yes, it makes sense that small ISPs would not want to compete with the AT&Ts and Comcasts of the world with their armies of compliance officers. You'd never see another small ISP formed again.

Instead Congress needs to create a separate Section III (or whatever) to address net neutrality specifically, and empower the FCC to act within that purview. The FCC does not get to decide on its own that it wants more authority than was previously granted it by Congress.

Congress (and the various involved presidents) deserve to have all the cannons aimed at them. As it stands, people directing their ire at the FCC chairs (on either side) are letting Congress get away with being irresponsible.

This is a common talking point against the FCC retaining Title II classification. While I don't disagree in principle, until Congress acts, Net Neutrality is only achievable in the US via Title II enforcement by the FCC. The FCC reclassifying ISPs as Title I without a corresponding push to have an alternative Net Neutrality plan in place was irresponsible, unethical, and against the will of the constituents of all parties. Ire at Congress for not acting is completely reasonable, but acting as if what the FCC did was in any way acceptable is not.

> and against the will of the constituents

It's Congress's job to be responsive to the will of the constituents, not the FCC. Congress has done a masterful job over the past several decades of outsourcing all the hard and potentially unpopular decisions to a regulatory body and then beating them up for their decisions.

> It covers things that have nothing to do with what ISPs want to deal with as part of their businesses, and places the expensive burden of proof and compliance on the ISP. So yes, it makes sense that small ISPs would not want to compete with the AT&Ts and Comcasts of the world with their armies of compliance officers. You'd never see another small ISP formed again.

The 2015 net neutrality rules applied Title II with forbearance. It left out those things you mention.

Partially applied laws are the building blocks of tyranny - Rule by law instead of rule of law.

> You'd never see another small ISP formed again.

Except the FCC was only enforcing the NN part of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com