[1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Statement by Chairman Genachowski, "The Third Way: A Narrowly Tailored Broadband Framework".

[Gnarlodious]

On 5/6/10, Marianne Granoff wrote:

>>  http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-297944A1.pdf

To summarize the problem:

"The legal theory that the Comcast opinion found inadequate has its
roots in a series of controversial decisions beginning in 2002 in
which the Commission decided to classify broadband Internet access
service not as a “telecommunications service” for purposes of the
Communications Act, but as something different—an “information
service.”

Personal commentary:

Its not hard to understand this description. Comcast has always been a
Republican corporation with a lot of political influence. As such, its
primary intent is to deliver content to consumers, a strictly one-way
pipeline. Internet was considered from its inception as being an
accessory to Cable TV, which is why even today your standard Comcast
internet lets you download at 8 megabits while upload is about 10
times slower. Comcast never WANTED the internet to be democratic and
two-way, and so they put obstacles in the way of interaction. You will
especially notice this problem if you have websites and attempt to
upload to a server. Comcast doesn't WANT you to send anything, if they
had their 'druthers it would be to force you to be a passive consumer
and never talk back.

So the "information service" classification makes sense for Comcast
2002. Nowadays, Comcast can barely handle a Skype connection or a
video chat. To do that, they would have to balance their upstream and
downstream speed. But Skype and Video Chat are "Telecommunications",
not "information service". And that is the crux of the matter. It's
technically possible to offer equal duplex speed, but it would cut
into the "media delivery" role they have built into the system. So
that is why Comcast is so virulently against the Telecommunications
classification.

And I might add, this also applies to RCN, RoadRunner, COX, Charter
and other cable internet providers. Coincidentally, they are all
"entertainment companies" who also provide "media content". DSL is
provided by actual "Telecommunications" companies and do not suffer
the same technical limitation of cable. If the FCC were to mandate
Telecommunications capable internet, cable companies would have to
totally re-engineer their systems.

-- Gnarlie
http://Gnarlodious.com/