The battle for network neutrality: wars with operators and first courts
On December 14, 2017, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abrogated the net neutrality rules in force in the country. Since then, opponents of the FCC decision, including senators and members of Congress, have announced their intention to sue the Commission, reverse the decision and even join opposition to federal legislation.
We will look at the consequences of the December meeting in the following parts of the series of articles, and now we will continue to tell the story of the concept of Net Neutrality.
/ Flickr / Stephen Melkisethian / CC
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Recall that in 2002, the FCC obliged to consider the cable Internet information service, and DSL - telecommunications.
In 2004, FCC Chairman Michael Powell formulated "the four fundamental principles of Internet freedom":
These principles have not been officially documented. Michael Powell declared them at the Silicon Flatirons Symposium event. The FCC chairman expected the industry to follow new principles, as he saw in them an aid to the development of broadband.
Not everyone shared the vision of the head of the FCC - as early as 2005, a precedent arose for infringing the rights of users. The Madison River Communications provider from North Carolina has closed access to its Vonage VoIP service, which has competed with its own voice application, Madison River. The FCC conducted an investigation and fined the provider. So the commission for the first time confirmed that the rules of net neutrality are binding.
The next important milestone in the history of Net Neutrality is June 27, 2005. The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, which forced cable companies to “share” their infrastructure with Internet service providers. The reason for this was the claim of the California provider Brand X against the FCC. He challenged the status of cable Internet as an informational, and not as a telecommunications service, in accordance with the “Law on Communications”.
Brand X's position was that cable networks should be considered as telephone lines. The court did not answer the question of how to classify broadband. He simply supported the authority of the FCC to define this classification.
Based on a court decision, a few months later, the FCC changes the DSL classification as a service. Thus, telephone companies were freed from the need to “share” their infrastructure with Internet service providers. DSL has become regarded as an information service. The ruling equated telephone companies with cable.
In the same landmark for net neutrality in 2005, the FCC's new chairman Kevin Martin put the principles voiced by his predecessor into rules that, however, did not receive the status of official legislation. The rules are as follows:
The last significant event of that year was the public complaint of Edward Whitacre, CEO of AT & T, in an interview with BusinessWeek about companies such as Google and Yahoo. He stated that they are “freeloaders” in relation to the infrastructure of providers.
The year 2006 was remembered for trying to update the “Law on Communications”. Senator Ted Stevens (Ted Stevens) delivered a speech at the Senate Trade Committee, in which he described the Internet as a “set of pipes”. So he wanted to convince the Senate of the need to lift restrictions on telecommunications companies, but instead created a meme . The 83-year-old senator used this metaphor with pipes to criticize the proposed amendment to the bill, but, in fact, demonstrated his lack of understanding of the Internet.
In 2007, a series of articles were published, investigating the violation of the principles of the “open Internet” by Comcast. It was proved that the operator prevented the exchange of files for BitTorrent users on their network. Representatives of Comcast claimed that they were simply trying to optimize traffic, and this is not about blocking, but about slowing down.
/ Wikimedia / Shaynedwyer / CC
The BitTorrent Comcast Conflict was developed in 2008. The companies announced an agreement in March. It assumed that Comcast would manage its network, “not oppressing” any particular protocol or type of traffic, such as BitTorrent, even at the time of network congestion. This allowed BitTorrent users to continue using the service without fear that Comcast would slow down file transfer. Later, Kevin Martin confirmed that slowing down BitTorrent traffic was illegal. The company was ordered to stop the lock, but it was not penalized.
The following year, AT & T operator forced Apple to block Skype and other VoIP services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted iPhone users to not be able to access any application that would allow them to make calls in an alternative way.
In 2009, the Commission also began the procedure for adopting formal rules for Net Neutrality. In particular, two new principles were proposed:
On April 6, 2010, the US Court of Appeals sided with Comcast, which had previously sued the FCC. The commission, according to the judges, had no right to intervene in the conflict of the operator with BitTorrent. The position was as follows: the FCC relies on laws that give the Commission certain powers, but they are not enough to take the measures that have been passed against Comcast. Thus, it was questioned whether the FCC could even regulate net neutrality.
The year 2010 ended with the Commission adopting the rules of net neutrality with the support of the new chairman Julius Genachowski. A classification of two types of services regulated by different rules has been adopted: wireless networks and fixed broadband.
Several rules were decisive:
With such results, the Commission entered a new decade, which brought the industry new laws and the change of established rules. We will tell about this in the next part of the series of articles.
PS Here are some more materials from our blog:
We will look at the consequences of the December meeting in the following parts of the series of articles, and now we will continue to tell the story of the concept of Net Neutrality.
/ Flickr / Stephen Melkisethian / CC
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Underlying principles
Recall that in 2002, the FCC obliged to consider the cable Internet information service, and DSL - telecommunications.
In 2004, FCC Chairman Michael Powell formulated "the four fundamental principles of Internet freedom":
- free access to content;
- free application launch;
- free connection of devices;
- free information on service conditions.
These principles have not been officially documented. Michael Powell declared them at the Silicon Flatirons Symposium event. The FCC chairman expected the industry to follow new principles, as he saw in them an aid to the development of broadband.
Not everyone shared the vision of the head of the FCC - as early as 2005, a precedent arose for infringing the rights of users. The Madison River Communications provider from North Carolina has closed access to its Vonage VoIP service, which has competed with its own voice application, Madison River. The FCC conducted an investigation and fined the provider. So the commission for the first time confirmed that the rules of net neutrality are binding.
The next important milestone in the history of Net Neutrality is June 27, 2005. The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, which forced cable companies to “share” their infrastructure with Internet service providers. The reason for this was the claim of the California provider Brand X against the FCC. He challenged the status of cable Internet as an informational, and not as a telecommunications service, in accordance with the “Law on Communications”.
Brand X's position was that cable networks should be considered as telephone lines. The court did not answer the question of how to classify broadband. He simply supported the authority of the FCC to define this classification.
Based on a court decision, a few months later, the FCC changes the DSL classification as a service. Thus, telephone companies were freed from the need to “share” their infrastructure with Internet service providers. DSL has become regarded as an information service. The ruling equated telephone companies with cable.
In the same landmark for net neutrality in 2005, the FCC's new chairman Kevin Martin put the principles voiced by his predecessor into rules that, however, did not receive the status of official legislation. The rules are as follows:
- the right of access to legal content of your choice;
- the right to run applications and services of your choice;
- the right to connect devices that do not harm the network;
- the right to compete between network providers, providers of applications and services, and content providers.
The last significant event of that year was the public complaint of Edward Whitacre, CEO of AT & T, in an interview with BusinessWeek about companies such as Google and Yahoo. He stated that they are “freeloaders” in relation to the infrastructure of providers.
The year 2006 was remembered for trying to update the “Law on Communications”. Senator Ted Stevens (Ted Stevens) delivered a speech at the Senate Trade Committee, in which he described the Internet as a “set of pipes”. So he wanted to convince the Senate of the need to lift restrictions on telecommunications companies, but instead created a meme . The 83-year-old senator used this metaphor with pipes to criticize the proposed amendment to the bill, but, in fact, demonstrated his lack of understanding of the Internet.
War FCC and Comcast
In 2007, a series of articles were published, investigating the violation of the principles of the “open Internet” by Comcast. It was proved that the operator prevented the exchange of files for BitTorrent users on their network. Representatives of Comcast claimed that they were simply trying to optimize traffic, and this is not about blocking, but about slowing down.
/ Wikimedia / Shaynedwyer / CC
The BitTorrent Comcast Conflict was developed in 2008. The companies announced an agreement in March. It assumed that Comcast would manage its network, “not oppressing” any particular protocol or type of traffic, such as BitTorrent, even at the time of network congestion. This allowed BitTorrent users to continue using the service without fear that Comcast would slow down file transfer. Later, Kevin Martin confirmed that slowing down BitTorrent traffic was illegal. The company was ordered to stop the lock, but it was not penalized.
The following year, AT & T operator forced Apple to block Skype and other VoIP services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted iPhone users to not be able to access any application that would allow them to make calls in an alternative way.
In 2009, the Commission also began the procedure for adopting formal rules for Net Neutrality. In particular, two new principles were proposed:
- The broadband Internet service provider must eliminate the discriminatory attribute in the processing of legitimate content, applications and services;
- The broadband Internet service provider must disclose information relating to network management and other practices relevant to the user and the content, application and service provider.
On April 6, 2010, the US Court of Appeals sided with Comcast, which had previously sued the FCC. The commission, according to the judges, had no right to intervene in the conflict of the operator with BitTorrent. The position was as follows: the FCC relies on laws that give the Commission certain powers, but they are not enough to take the measures that have been passed against Comcast. Thus, it was questioned whether the FCC could even regulate net neutrality.
The year 2010 ended with the Commission adopting the rules of net neutrality with the support of the new chairman Julius Genachowski. A classification of two types of services regulated by different rules has been adopted: wireless networks and fixed broadband.
Several rules were decisive:
- Wireless and wired network providers must manage them transparently;
- Blocking traffic on the Internet is prohibited by both fixed and wireless operators.
- Fixed network operators do not have the right to block authorized materials, services, applications or devices in their network.
- Wireless network operators cannot block access to sites and applications that compete with voice or video operator services.
- Fixed network operators are not entitled to unreasonably discriminate traffic in their network.
With such results, the Commission entered a new decade, which brought the industry new laws and the change of established rules. We will tell about this in the next part of the series of articles.
PS Here are some more materials from our blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/344912/
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