New bill would prohibit FCC from reclassifying broadband as utility

Translation: &quot;Someone just paid me a lot of money.&quot;<p>Wouldn&#x27;t enforcing neutrality be the most minimal form of regulation, where without that baseline it&#x27;s impossible for some companies to compete?<p>It&#x27;s not like declaring it a utility would mean, like in the days of AT&amp;T, that Comcast would be required to put up pay internet terminals in the middle of the woods, no matter the cost, or lock in to a particular pricing structure.

&gt; Reclassification would heap 80 years of regulatory baggage on broadband providers<p>Can anyone shed some light on what this baggage might consist of? I&#x27;ve heard rumblings that common carrier status might have unintended consequences, but I haven&#x27;t actually seen them enumerated.<p>&gt; imposing monopoly-era telephone rules and obligations on the 21st Century broadband marketplace<p>Last-mile ISPs are usually local monopolies. I see a lot of handwaving here about regulating &quot;the Internet&quot; rather than specific classes of company.<p>Would Title II reclassification only involve consumer ISPs, or would it also affect backbone providers like Level 3?<p>&gt; We support the efforts ... to codify current policy<p>A great tactic on both sides is to claim that you&#x27;re fighting for the status quo, which works pretty well. The Net Neutrality argument is &quot;let&#x27;s fight to keep ISPs from selectively deprioritizing traffic because that would break the Internet.&quot; The other side&#x27;s argument is &quot;let&#x27;s fight to keep government from interfering because that would break the Internet&quot;.

Jeepers, our legislators really suck. You think utility regulation is too onerous, reform <i>that</i>. But trying to pre-empt the regulatory process (which involves exhaustive solicitation and categorization of public comment, unlike the legislative branch) is just pouring sand in the works. The government would function a lot better if Congress would let it operate instead of constantly trying to fine-tune it.

I&#x27;m at a friend&#x27;s house who has Comcast and I can&#x27;t load any pages from pcworld.com, and <a href="http://www.isup.me/pcworld.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.isup.me&#x2F;pcworld.com</a> says it&#x27;s just me. Hopefully that&#x27;s just a coincidence...

I&#x27;m tempted to refute his points, but it&#x27;s not like anybody here doesn&#x27;t get why &quot;the internet economy&quot; would be helped by neutrality. So I&#x27;ll just sigh and vaguely wonder what it costs to buy a congressional representative these days.