broadband

The Washington Post is a legacy, old school fake news outlet. Aside from the New York Times, no newspaper carries more national clout.

Why is net neutrality, the controversial notion that all Internet traffic should be treated the same, so difficult to resolve? An underappreciated reason is each side defines the core terms of net neutrality very differently.

Everything these companies own, owe themselves to Internet Service Providers (ISPs.)

Some municipalities around the country have tried, and failed to set up or operate their own broadband communications networks, to compete in the business of broadband service. The reasons for the failures are numerous, but in all cases taxpayer money was put at risk often without approval of taxpayers and often wasted.

When a Republican majority takes over at the Federal Communications Commission on Jan. 20, expect an immediate and profound regulatory mindset reset to reasoned, fact-based decision-making and regulatory humility.

A Ninth Circuit Court decision overturned an FTC enforcement action against AT&T for “throttling” broadband data speeds by definitively ruling that the FTC did not have any legal jurisdiction over AT&T (and other common carriers) because of the explicit common carrier exemption in the FTC’s core Section 5 legal authority.

Despite claims of helping low-income earners access the Internet, and thereby joining the digital economic revolution, taxpayer-funded Internet infrastructure projects have a long and expensive history of failing to achieve their stated goals, even though government Internet services enjoy advantages over private businesses.

A recurring headline in the Age of President Barack Obama begins with things like “Obama Administration Issues New Rules…” and “Administration Targets…” and various variations on this theme. To wit:

I’ve heard the following quote ascribed to National Basketball Association (NBA) player, coach and executive Pat Riley – but the Internet is not giving up the ghost on provenance to him or anyone else. As I recall, the recitation is: “That player is drowning in Lake Me.” Meaning a person who is totally self-absorbed. Transfixed by their own navel (which actually has a name – Omphaloskepsis). A person who finds himself endlessly fascinating – and utterly invaluable.

And that, in a nutshell, is the lion’s share of Google’s business model. And business – is booming. Google is worth a net $350 billion. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Denmark – is $342 billion.

Let me try to explain to a consumer what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) arbitrarily has done, and apparently intends to do, for consumer internet privacy protection going forward.

We free marketeers repeatedly reassert the obvious – that government abusing the private sector hurts the private sector. Pro-government fetishists try mightily to deny Reality – claiming that bigger government doesn’t damage the sectors over which it lords.

In arbitrarily applying Title II telecommunications rules to only the ISP half of Internet communications, while politically exempting the entire edge half of Internet communications in its Open Internet order, the FCC has ensured that information that was proprietary and controllable in the closed telephone world becomes public and uncontrollable in the open Internet world.