And again the problem has been mischaracterized. Only one article I read ever
got it right. Neutrality mandates are not "Obama era." They have applied for as
long as telecoms have existed. And the FCC was established largely for this
purpose. Maybe we have more than just one giant AT&T now, but we still have
local monopolies, or maybe two companies, for fixed broadband. For reasons that
have nothing to do with regs.
"In an open letter, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said Congress
should "establish an 'Internet Bill of Rights' that applies to all internet
companies and guarantees neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination
and privacy protection for all internet users." The letter was published in
major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, as an advertisement."
Well, good attempt at deflecting the subject. Users of the Internet have
absolutely no reason to be compelled to neutrality, and no one expects them to
be so compelled. Using my previous example, Moen's site should not be compelled
to offer Peerless or Delta products. That's ridiculous. Users of the telecoms
can be as non-neutral as they like. It is the common carrier that must be
compelled to neutrality.
More to the point, even if AT&T, in a self-serving manner, pretends that "how
the Internet works" has to be defined by Congress, everyone else in the world
already knows how it works, and the model for telecom service neutrality has
been well known for over a century. No need to invent problems.
Privacy rules that should apply to your bank's web site, or to Netflix, or to
Moen's site, are utterly beside the point here. Neutrality mandates on common
carriers is what's in play here. AT&T is free to establish their own web
services, if they like, and play in the same sandbox as other web sites, by
those rules. Just as Google is free to create a broadband service, and follow
the rules that apply to telecom companies. Duh!
Bert
---------------------------------------------
https://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=76544036
AT&T Chief Calls for New Rules for Carriers, Tech Firms
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)
Intraday Stock Chart
Today : Thursday 25 January 2018
Click Here for more AT&T Inc. Charts.
By John D. McKinnon
AT&T Inc., whose broadband internet services stand to benefit from the recent
repeal of net-neutrality rules, is calling on Congress to clarify the law to
eliminate uncertainty for the industry while also imposing new rules on tech
titans such as Google and Facebook Inc.
The move is part of the continuing maneuvering by the two industries and their
allies in Washington and in state capitals for position and political cover in
a number of policy fights, the biggest of which is over net neutrality, the
principle that all internet traffic be treated equally.
The GOP-run Federal Communications Commission in December largely repealed the
Obama-era rules that required broadband providers such as AT&T not to
discriminate among internet traffic, with no blockages or slowdowns for some or
fast lanes for others. Rolling back those rules, which were strongly supported
by the internet companies, handed a big victory to the providers.
In an open letter, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said Congress should
"establish an 'Internet Bill of Rights' that applies to all internet companies
and guarantees neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and
privacy protection for all internet users." The letter was published in major
newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, as an advertisement.
On one level, AT&T's suggestion that it would accept including neutrality
language in new legislation appeared to be an effort to play defense against
attacks over the rollback of the rules. Democrats and advocates of the
net-neutrality rules are expected to make an issue of the GOP action in the
fall's midterms, saying it is a cause that voters, particularly young people,
care about.
There are also expected to be protracted court fights over the issue. Already a
number of state attorneys general and open-internet activist groups are
pursuing court challenges, which are supported by the tech companies. The
net-neutrality issue has been in and out of the courts for the better part of
the past decade, and many involved believe Congress needs to do something to
update the 1996 telecommunications law that largely governs the internet.
Mr. Stephenson cited the current state of confusion over internet rules of the
road, after years of conflicting decisions by federal regulators as well as
federal courts. Pointing to the potential for major new uses for the internet
such as self-driving cars, Mr. Stephenson added that "without predictable rules
for how the internet works, it will be difficult to meet the demands of these
new technology advances."
But AT&T's new proposal -- particularly its suggestion for new consumer-privacy
standards that Silicon Valley has resisted -- also represents a new escalation
of the growing policy and political battles between the providers and the
internet companies. Those battles have become more prominent in recent months,
as the internet companies have come under increasing political pressure under
the Trump administration. The providers in the past have accused the internet
companies of seeking unfair advantage from friendly regulators.
AT&T's new move could even strengthen the outlook for what has been an elusive
deal over how the government should regulate the entire internet economy, if
the internet providers put real weight behind the effort. But prospects for a
global deal appear dim.
Internet companies such as Google long benefited from relatively lenient
government rules aimed at letting the online economy grow -- and, the
net-neutrality action notwithstanding, they have been successful in staving off
regulations they oppose in areas like privacy.
Last year, for example, they beat back an effort by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R.,
Tenn.) to impose new privacy standards on both the internet-service providers
and the internet companies.
For their part, internet companies worry that the providers -- which
effectively control the internet's pipes -- would use their outsize leverage to
muscle unfairly into online services, for example by slowing rival services or
speeding up others' through deals known as paid prioritization.
The internet-service providers generally have pledged to support an open
internet, as AT&T did again in Mr. Stephenson's letter. "We don't block
websites. We don't censor online content. And we don't throttle, discriminate
or degrade network performance based on content. Period," Mr. Stephenson wrote.
He didn't rule out future use of paid prioritization.
Along with the court fights, there are other efforts to restore the Obama-era
internet rules.
Democrats in Congress also are pursuing a long-shot effort to roll back the
FCC's order on Capitol Hill. That effort, led by Sen. Edward Markey of
Massachusetts, quickly gained enough support this month to force a floor vote
in the Senate some time in coming weeks.
That would give Democrats an election-year chance to force GOP lawmakers to
vote on net neutrality. Some tech lobbyists who follow the issue believe
backers would soon have more than the 51 votes needed for passage, though the
effort faces longer odds in the House, and sponsors almost certainly wouldn't
have enough to override a likely veto from President Donald Trump.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@xxxxxxx
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 24, 2018 11:00 ET (16:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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