California Delays Net Neutrality Law's Enforcement Until After Court Case (arstechnica.com) 76
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California has agreed to delay enforcement of its net neutrality law until after litigation that will determine whether states can implement their own net neutrality rules. California's net neutrality law was slated to take effect on January 1, 2019. But the Trump administration's Department of Justice and broadband industry sued to block the law and were seeking a preliminary injunction that would halt enforcement until litigation is over.
The DOJ and broadband industry had a good chance of winning a preliminary injunction because the Federal Communications Commission had declared that all state net neutrality rules are preempted. As the DOJ argued, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California must presume that the FCC preemption of state laws is valid since that preemption has not been overturned by any court. In a U.S. District Court filing today, California agreed to take no action to enforce the state net neutrality law until after the U.S. Court of Appeals case is decided and all appeals have been exhausted.
The DOJ and broadband industry had a good chance of winning a preliminary injunction because the Federal Communications Commission had declared that all state net neutrality rules are preempted. As the DOJ argued, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California must presume that the FCC preemption of state laws is valid since that preemption has not been overturned by any court. In a U.S. District Court filing today, California agreed to take no action to enforce the state net neutrality law until after the U.S. Court of Appeals case is decided and all appeals have been exhausted.
If I were a cable company... I would be nervous. (Score:2)
Uh oh, they're looking into other ways to get what they want.
They might not be able to apply the rules, but there are other things they can do to make the cable companies play ball.
When this is over, the cable companies are going to with they hadn't fought this.
I'm just going to make some popcorn and watch.
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When this is over, the cable companies are going to with they hadn't fought this.
Is it a good thing for the companies that when this bill takes effect 100% of the internet users in California (except dialup) will have broadband internet, or is it a bad thing? I seem to recall that the existing ISPs have an interest in getting the broadband numbers up, so if Comcast or Verizon can say that 100% of their customers have broadband I think it's a win for them.
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Is it really broadband if the only sites that load at advertised speeds are those of the ISPs' partners?
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Is it really broadband if the only sites that load at advertised speeds are those of the ISPs' partners?
Under California law currently being dealt with in court, it is broadband.
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its not really about 'advertized speeds', they can tell you that you get 200Mbps all day long, its still broadband as long as you get 25Mbps
As part of its 2015 Broadband Progress Report, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to change the definition of broadband by raising the minimum download speeds needed from 4Mbps to 25Mbps, and the minimum upload speed from 1Mbps to 3Mbps, which effectively triples the number of US households without broadband access. Currently, 6.3 percent of US households d
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its still broadband as long as you get 25Mbps
So you think. But the bill text [ca.gov] defines "broadband internet access service" as:
(b) "Broadband Internet access service" means a mass-market retail service by wire or radio provided to customers in California that provides the capability to transmit data to, and receive data from, all or substantially all Internet endpoints, including, but not limited to, any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, but excluding dial-up Internet access service. "Broadband Internet access service" also encompasses any service provided to customers in California that provides a functional equivalent of that service or that is used to evade the protections set forth in this title.
Dialup is excluded, and there is no mention of speed at all. In their zeal to look like network heros they failed at a basic definition. That T1 line you have been renting from the telco to get your internet over? Broadband! (For those who don't know, T1 is 1.44 "megs".) 1Meg/150k DSL? Broadband!
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but typically when the government hands you a government granted monopoly,
Which ISP is a "government granted monopoly"? Hint: federal law has made exclusive franchises (which is how government granted monopolies used to be granted) against the law. Forbidden by federal law. And that law was passed more than 20 years ago.
They may be defacto monopolies due to economic factors that limit competition, but government-granted no longer.
some already have a captive audience through exclusivity contracts with various municipalities.
If you can find one, please report it ASAP to the FCC and the FTC and the federal DOJ. That municipality is breaking federal law. And anyone who wants
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There are de-facto monopolies in some places for broadband internet services. Less than 10 years ago, but they still exist.
You should read all the words. I said there were defacto monopolies but not government granted ones. I'm even saying that there are ones that exist today, not just ten years ago. And I'll even do one better than you -- I'll admit that they exist in a lot of places.
It's just that they aren't government granted monopolies. Government granted monopolies were written away with the stroke of a pen more than 20 years ago. Maybe you are confused by the different between defacto (in fact) and dejure (in law)?
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Nice try dude.
The definition of terms given as part of this law is only relevant for defining what is covered by this law.
Nothing changes for the time being (Score:2)
For now I doubt the cable ISPs are going to change anything which is basically a neutral net. They'll sit on the current status quo until it becomes clear how all the lawsuits about this are going to be resolved. Why would they take the chance of changing things and riling a bunch of people up about it until they know for sure how it all shakes out? That would be kind of stupid.
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I don't understand WHY calif gave in. did they have to? why play ball with a group of people who actively seek to send this country to 3rd world internet status?
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Because if they lose the court case they're on the hook for the meantime, lawsuits from ISPs could be a lot of money. If they win the case they'll proceed.
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More likely they knew they were going too lose.
Whatever the merits, there's a longstanding principle of federal supremacy in the commerce clause, including something called the "dormant commerce" principle, where, if the government considers regulating something, and chooses not to, by default no state may override their "well-considered regulatory choice" of no regulation.
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And btw, Democrats are not gonna want to try to overturn that principle just for this one issue. They use it all the time to stop conservative states from stepping on federal regulations.
This issue is just strange in the political sense because the "sides" have switched the value they place on state autonomy vs. federal supremacy w.r.t.the commerce clause.
As with the umpire joke,
"Strike!"
"That was a ball!"
"Yesterday it might have been a ball. Tomorrow it might have been a ball. But today, it's a strike!"
He already won (Score:2)
I'm in a Red State and I've done the best I can. Voted in my primaries and in my General. If you're reading this in a Red state now's the time to act. Get enough of the right kind o
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if you wanted the government to have the ability to regulate the internet maybe you should have bitched harder when your Democratic President ceded authority of the internet in 2016 to an international organization. Perhaps california should have filed suit with the international courts instead.
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Wow, grasshopper, no knowledge of history or the Internet!
There is a difference between ICANN's policy of assigning domain names, DNS, and net neutrality. Perhaps some time spent learning (not skimming one Wikipedia article) would make you come across as more informed and therefore deserving of intellectual respect.
But hey, keep trolling by repeating propaganda tweets if it makes you feel good!
Re: Bomber (Score:2)
The Greeks were a lightly burned olive colour, same as they are today.
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umm you are soooooooooooooo wrong, learn your world history you fucktard. Let me guess, best education your libtard friends could provide? For the record there has not been one single race of people that has managed to avoid slaver at some point in the worlds history. Jewish people were slaves, Jewish people owned slaves. Several nations in Africa allow slavery (and still do) and it does not matter what color the slave is.
Re: Bomber (Score:2)
There are no races.
Different nations abolished slavery at different times. Britain in 1070, over 400 years before Europeans discovered America.
The question is not whether you do stupid things, it's when you grow up enough to stop. In your case, I'm not holding my breath. Most nations did grow up, with respect to slavery, America much later than Africa, who in turn were much later than northern Europeans.
(Arguably, slavery still exists as a semi-legit institution in America, they never really grew up.)
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More evil somewhere else does not excuse your own evil.
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In just the past few years we learned all the women ISIS made into sex slaves (of all races). I guess because they're women they dont count as being oppressed by his moronic standards.
Re: Bomber (Score:2)
Of course they have. Most chose to grow up. You, I'm not so sure. That's the difference.
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the guy is Native American, and not in an Elizabeth Warren sort of way. I read that on at least 4 of the 15 websites that announced the arrest earlier.
Re: Bomber (Score:2)
The tribe says otherwise. They deny him ever being a member, ever being affiliated, ever being hired by them.
Elizabeth Warren has at least got genetic markers proving deep ancestry. Note the word "deep". In this context, it means a long, long time ago.
I see no evidence this guy can claim even that.
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Not really. The same facial features can be found in almost any one of East European descent, and a lot of those migrated over a hundred years ago.
The reason is simple and has to do with how slowly things change and DNA migration.
https://dna-explained.com/2017... [dna-explained.com]
https://phillipsdnaproject.com... [phillipsdnaproject.com]
Here's the physiological result:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blo... [bbc.co.uk]
http://realhistoryww.com./worl... [realhistoryww.com.]
As you can see, the migration path cuts through Mongolia and Siberia, on its way to North America via Beringia. The co
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where do you think that Federal Subscriber Line charge that shows up on your bill goes? Here's a hint, it doesnt go to the federal government. Thats right, its a sanctioned bullshit charge the FCC allowed carriers to put on the bills to pay for, get this, developing ADSL (something that already existed) and to this day its still on your bill.
this is the best part, the intent was that it was a surcharge on each copper line going to your building to pay for infrastructure. So lets say you have a PRI for phone
This is a fucking lie (Score:3)
The FCC passed it in 2015 (or 2014) because the FTC lost a court case which said they could no longer enforce NN (and the court said the FCC should make those rules if they needed to be made.) In the interim, ISPs started pulling shady shit pretty fast.
Re:No net neutrality = Internet 2014 (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing out on almost all of the history. Net neutrality was not first introduced in 2014; that wasn't even the start of legal battle over sustaining it.
We had net neutrality by default since the start of the internet, because the early internet was a highly competitive market, piggybacking on top of the phone network that was regulated as a common carrier under Title II, between the two of which no ISP could get away shit like breaking net neutrality.
When broadband happened, the last-mile providers (the phone and cable companies) BECAME the internet service providers, and thus internet service was no longer a competitive market, and internet service per se was not explicitly regulated as a Title II common carrier service, so they could start pulling shady shit like breaking net neutrality.
Then a law was passed saying no, in fact, they cannot pull that shit, and have to keep doing things like they always have been.
That law was later overturned because, as internet service was not classified under Title II, it was deemed to be beyond the jurisdiction of the FCC to regulate that way.
Later, in 2014, the FCC reclassified internet service under Title II after all -- as it should have been from the beginning -- and thus the law requiring ISPs to keep behaving as they always had, neutrally, was applicable again.
Now Pai's FCC has reversed that classification, invalidating that law, and once again clearing the way for the ISPs to start doing things differently than they always have been.
There has been a long war to keep ISPs from breaking the internet. 2014 saw one battle in that war won on the side of consumers. But the war is still going on, and now we, the consumers, are losing out.
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you do realize that the way the rule was implemented it didnt just say you could not slow down traffic, but that you could not prioritize traffic right? Therefore time sensitive RTP traffic like Voice, Video, and Games are stuck in the same queue as spam and Facefuck losers posting pictures of their stupid pets. Since it has been redefined I have noticed a huge upswing in the quality of voice traffic over previously problematic carriers like Cable modems. It was worded as poorly as no-child-left-behind, whi
Re:No net neutrality = Internet 2014 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: No net neutrality = Internet 2014 (Score:1)
Obviously your a poser pretending to know what your talking about. You and your 20-something year old friends need to learn just because you want something to be true doesnt magically make it so. I work for one of the last remaining regional ISPs. Weâ(TM)ve been in business since 1996 when we started with a channel bank of USR modems and a cisco 2501 series router, a T1 connection to the internet, and a frame-relay T1 connection to bellsouth to resell internet to businesses @ 256kbps. I joined them in
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This is the problem in a nut shell (Score:2)
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in what universe do you think net neutrality was 'passed' ?? Please reference the House Bill (HB) or Senante Bill (SB) that was signed into law and please reference its corresponding USC articles. The FCC created these 'rules' and can at any time change them or remove them as easily as they created them, unless or until real legislation is passed that supersedes the power afforded to the FCC. This wouldn't be so laughable if Obummer did not turn around and cede internet authority to the IANA. You cannot c
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Actually, the FCC started adopting net neutrality principles in 2005. This was after ISPs tried to block VOIP and video services that competed with the ISP's offerings.
But you're correct, the Internet will function just as it did back then before the FCC put an end to those practices. At least until ISPs start running their own news services and blocking their competitors...
Re: No net neutrality = Internet 2014 (Score:2)
Net neutrality existed in 1970, as data was regulated the same way as all other televoms even over X.25 and other data-only connections.
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pretty sure Iran has been saying this for the last 10 years at least and they have nothing to do with hitler.
So it went like... (Score:1)
FCC: It is outside the scope of the FCC to regulate Net Neutrality, so we're removing those regulations.
CA: Okay, here are some new regulations with respect to Net Neutrality.
FCC: Not so fast! The jurisdiction of the FCC preempts all state net neutrality regulations.
CA: But you just said it's outside your scope?!
FCC: Well, er, uh ... have a lawsuit.
Spoiler Alert, they can't (Score:2, Informative)
Or don't, but then stop bitching when government regulations you like go away.
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It's not the federal bureaucrat (Score:1)
There is no explicit law covering Net Neutrality that Pai is required to enforce. There _is_ common carrier, which by all rights should apply, but he can and does argue that it does not apply. The courts never fully ruled on that, and with the current Supreme Court sta
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.
Just because something comes into my state from out of state doesn't mean I can't make it illegal to do business in my state with whatever that is. I cal legally block it at the border and tough luck to you unless congress specifically makes a law that says I have to allow it (like the gu
New innovative network design (Score:1)
Innovative new networks that will have a freedom to connect without having to ask for a gov to define speed and who in a community will be getting connected.
Why go back to federal and state rules setting demands on what a new network can and must do?
simple, just tax (Score:2)