Court Rejects Suit on Network Neutrality Rules

[upstatecajun]

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Monday rejected as “premature” a lawsuit by Verizon and MetroPCS challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s pending rules aimed at keeping Internet service providers from blocking access to certain Web sites or applications.

While the decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, is a first-round victory for the F.C.C. and its chairman, Julius Genachowski, the real battle over the agency’s attempt to regulate broadband providers has barely begun.

http://www.tloforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=71

[RKP5637]

1. Often I think all utilities should be government owned, because of the bullshit

private companies try to pull. Many of the utility/service providers are bigger than governments. People make the case of competition and private ownership, there is no competition today. Many are monopolies, and they don't get broken up anymore. And I don't care what BS they sling, there is still collusion on pricing.

[onenote]

2. if they are monopolies, who are they colluding with?

I don't know when or where you grew up, but when I was growing up, there was one phone company. Period. that one company was the only choice for local voice service and the only choice for long distance. Then in 1974, Ma Bell was broken up into several regional local phone monopolies. There continued to be one long distance company for a while, but in the 1980s long distance competition began to emerge. While the former baby bells have reconsolidated to a significant extent, there are now multiple choices for local and long distance service from wireline phone companies, wireless companies, cable companies, VoIP. etc.

[RKP5637]

4. Let me rephrase that to there are several big players in one market, the smaller

ones have been eaten up. If At&T buys T-Mobile USA, for example, that's going to be a pretty big chunk of wireless. And if Verizon were to buy Sprint, that would pretty much give most one of two choices.

For electrical here we have no choice. For cable here we have 2 choices. Banking is owned by about 5 companies, etc. Basically for shipping we have 3 choices - UPS, FedEx and USPS.

And if we look at MSM, that's dominated by about 5 major holding companies.

What I am saying is there are becoming fewer companies and the choices are narrowing. And if in computers, MS, for example, is the dominate player in home computing.

[onenote]

5. I agree that the ATT/T-Mobile deal is worrisome

Although in the end, it could have some benefits. For one thing, ATT is a union shop and T-Mobile isn't, which is why the CWA has come out in favor of the deal. Also, as has been the case in some other recent deals, it is probable that if ATT is allowed to go through with the deal (and I don't know that it will), it will have to divest spectrum which likely will end up in the hadns of smaller players who are severely limited in their options today because of the spectrum crunch.

[RKP5637]

7. Those could be some good benefits! n/t

[rrneck]

3. It's just business. nt

[bobbolink]

6. yeah... privatization...no biggie.