@Cordfucious v 2.0: Oh, yeah. All the laydeez just loooove my.... brains.

ideaman2020

ALL communications utilities fall under FCC regulation. That includes Comcast and ATT.

JEmlay

All that R&D and investment into packet monitoring hardware and software is wasted!

Joseph

woooww... 5 whole people ruled in this?

well damn, it's easy to bribe 5 people, FAIL

UrIt

P2P muthaf***a, DO YOU SPEAK IT?

"What" ain't no country I ever heard of. They speak English in "What?"

monkeyrotica

@ideaman2020: WOW LOOK AT THE BRAINS ON ideaman!!!

Cordfucious v 2.0

Now they need to straighten up the use of the word unlimited on plans with data caps. I don't care if some plans have data caps. JUST DON'T CALL THEM UNLIMITED.

xxenclavexx

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions. -FCC website

I think they got the rights to cover this issue. It would certainly be a RC helicopter penis in the face for the FCC if they couldn't regulate this area.

dMo

"Chances are the FCC does not legally have the authority to regulate ISPs in the first place."

I know there's all kinds of legal mumbo-jumbo to wade through, but doesn't the first 'C' stand for Communications? Wouldn't ISPs fall under that categorization?

I mean, what other jurisdiction would apply to them? Interstate Commerce??

ideaman2020

Small step in the right direction at least, though I'm not sure if it will have enough momentum to fix the fuck-up that is comcast or any other ISP

Fused7

Yes! FINALLY! Lets hope that it does hold up in court. I'm tired of ISPs (and governments) beeing bitches about P2P

VoidingWarranties

This picture could not get any sweeter.

jmote

@ideaman2020: Yeah, would you mind not waving it around?

Thanks,

Readership

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

each time I see that image I know the article will make me smile.

lilaliendog

@UrIt:

Sense you make none

Fused7

hopefully Comcast won't decide to retaliate by pissing on their customers with a data cap. The only issue I've had with comcast is signal quality from time to time.

Final

A step in the right direction, at least.

liroku

I've never experience the wrath of Comcast, but it's still a great step in the right direction--now they should stop the wire-tapping.

AlphaTeam

So in other words they can still do it, but they have to tell you now...and the ISPs that won't do it will have one loyal customer in me.

WD40

All this means is that the fees you pay will increase due to this. This is going to require more bandwidth to be allocated, which costs money. Either that or they will cap the speeds and/or total amount of data sent in their contracts that you sign up front.

duntov

Damn, the FCC might not have legal power over ISPs?

I'm glad Ofcom does in the UK, or we'd all be getting screwed from here to kingdom come.

Onouris

Oh, yeah... that question about jxn over ISPs might also have come from the assertion that the FCC doesn't have Title II jxn based on the fact ISPs are not common carriers (i.e. wireline/wireless telcos), but rather information services, and so may or may not be regulated under Title I via ancillary authority.

But I don't think this is supposed to stick. Same caveats as above apply.

hologon

One of the major legal arguments that Comcast brought up, and which (I think) was actually cited by Commissioner McDowell goes like this:

The FCC doesn't have jurisdiction to enforce rules made via adjudication, only via rulemaking. The FCC can put out an NPRM (notice of proposed rulemaking), get comments, and then make a rule.

The objection goes sort of like this: You can't make a rule in the process of adjudication (i.e. judge that someone did something wrong by saying that they did something wrong, and then saying they broke that rule, without telling them in advance what the rule is.)

The assertion is that rules and enforcement via adjudication is an ex post facto judgment and should therefore be barred (or at least not binding.)

More specifically, the FCC never told Comcast that it couldn't engage in throttling and type-based filtering (or port-based filtering; it isn't clear), so, it's not fair to say, well, you should be punished for it.

This is specifically based on the fact that net neutrality principles were set down in a "policy statement" and not in a "rulemaking". So the next level of complexity is whether a "policy statement" is considered a binding rule.

The counterargument is that (a) policy statements are general statements of policy and thus are binding rules and (b) that the adjudication is valid as enforcement of a rule because it is more narrowly interpreting a prior rule.

See, [www.wetmachine.com]

Note: I am not a lawyer; I do not speak for my employer; the above content carries no warranty that it is correct.

hologon

@monkeyrotica: LMAO!

DJJS