January 14, 2018 at 18:43The battle for net neutrality: operator wars and the first courts
On December 14, 2017, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expectedly abolished the country's network neutrality rules. 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 go into opposition to federal law.
We will look at the implications of the December meeting in the following parts of a series of articles, and now continue to tell the story of Net Neutrality. / The Flickr / Stephen Melkisethian / CC
Recall that in 2002, the FCC obliged to consider cable Internet as an information service, and DSL as a telecommunication one.
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 the new principles, as he saw them as an aid to the development of broadband.
Not everyone shared the vision of the head of the FCC - already in 2005 there was a precedent for infringement of user rights. Provider Madison River Communications from North Carolina has closed for its subscribers access to the VoIP-service Vonage, which competed with its own voice application Madison River. The FCC investigated and fined the provider. So the commission for the first time confirmed that the rules of network neutrality are binding.
The next major 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 lawsuit of the California provider Brand X against the FCC. He disputed the status of cable Internet as an information and not as a telecommunication service, in accordance with the Law on Communications.
Brand X's position was that cable networks should be seen as telephone lines. The court did not answer the question of how broadband should be classified. He simply supported the authority of the FCC to define this classification.
Based on court decision, months later by FCCchanges the classification of DSL as a service. Thus, telephone companies were freed from the need to "share" their infrastructure with Internet service providers. DSL has come to be seen as an information service. The ruling equated telephone companies with cable companies.
In the same significant year for network neutrality in 2005, the new FCC chairman Kevin Martin formalized the principles voiced by his predecessor into the rules, which, however, did not receive the status of official legislation. The rules are as follows:
The last significant event of that year was a public complaint by Ed Whitacre, AT&T CEO, in an interview with BusinessWeek against companies such as Google and Yahoo. He stated that they are “freeloaders” in relation to the infrastructure of providers.
2006 was remembered as an attempt to update the “Law on Communications”. Senator Ted Stevens (Ted Stevens) spoke at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee with a speech in which he described the Internet as "a set of tubes." So he wanted to convince the Senate to remove 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, showed his lack of understanding of the Internet.
In 2007, a series of articles was published investigating Comcast’s violation of the principles of “open Internet”. It was proven that the operator prevented file sharing for BitTorrent users on their network. Representatives of Comcast claimed that they were just trying to optimize traffic, and this is not about blocking, but about slowing down.
/ Wikimedia / Shaynedwyer / CC
The conflict between Comcast and BitTorrent was developed in 2008. Companies announcedagreement reached in March. It suggested that Comcast would manage its network without “harassing” any particular protocol or type of traffic, such as BitTorrent, even at the time of network congestion. This allowed BitTorrent users to continue to use the service without fear that Comcast would slow down file transfers. Kevin Martin later confirmed that slowing down BitTorrent traffic was illegal. The company was ordered to stop the block, but it was not fined.
Next year, AT&T operator forcedApple block Skype and other VoIP services on 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 process of adopting Net Neutrality formal rules. 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, did not have the right to intervene in the operator’s conflict with BitTorrent. The position was this: the FCC relies on laws that give the Commission certain powers, but they are not enough to take the measures that have been taken in relation to Comcast. Thus, it was questioned whether the FCC could regulate network neutrality at all.
2010 ended with the adoption by the Commission of the rules of net neutrality with the support of the new chairman, Julius Genachowski. The classification of two types of services, regulated by different rules, is adopted: wireless networks and fixed broadband.
Several rules have become decisive:
With these results, the Commission entered a new decade that brought the industry new laws and a change in established rules. We will talk about this in the next part of a series of articles.
PS Here are some more materials from our blog:
We will look at the implications of the December meeting in the following parts of a series of articles, and now continue to tell the story of Net Neutrality. / The Flickr / Stephen Melkisethian / CC
Fundamental principles
Recall that in 2002, the FCC obliged to consider cable Internet as an information service, and DSL as a telecommunication one.
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 receipt of information about the conditions of service.
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 the new principles, as he saw them as an aid to the development of broadband.
Not everyone shared the vision of the head of the FCC - already in 2005 there was a precedent for infringement of user rights. Provider Madison River Communications from North Carolina has closed for its subscribers access to the VoIP-service Vonage, which competed with its own voice application Madison River. The FCC investigated and fined the provider. So the commission for the first time confirmed that the rules of network neutrality are binding.
The next major 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 lawsuit of the California provider Brand X against the FCC. He disputed the status of cable Internet as an information and not as a telecommunication service, in accordance with the Law on Communications.
Brand X's position was that cable networks should be seen as telephone lines. The court did not answer the question of how broadband should be classified. He simply supported the authority of the FCC to define this classification.
Based on court decision, months later by FCCchanges the classification of DSL as a service. Thus, telephone companies were freed from the need to "share" their infrastructure with Internet service providers. DSL has come to be seen as an information service. The ruling equated telephone companies with cable companies.
In the same significant year for network neutrality in 2005, the new FCC chairman Kevin Martin formalized the principles voiced by his predecessor into the rules, which, however, did not receive the status of official legislation. The rules are as follows:
- the right to access legal content of one’s 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, application and service providers, as well as content providers.
The last significant event of that year was a public complaint by Ed Whitacre, AT&T CEO, in an interview with BusinessWeek against companies such as Google and Yahoo. He stated that they are “freeloaders” in relation to the infrastructure of providers.
2006 was remembered as an attempt to update the “Law on Communications”. Senator Ted Stevens (Ted Stevens) spoke at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee with a speech in which he described the Internet as "a set of tubes." So he wanted to convince the Senate to remove 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, showed his lack of understanding of the Internet.
FCC War and Comcast
In 2007, a series of articles was published investigating Comcast’s violation of the principles of “open Internet”. It was proven that the operator prevented file sharing for BitTorrent users on their network. Representatives of Comcast claimed that they were just trying to optimize traffic, and this is not about blocking, but about slowing down.
/ Wikimedia / Shaynedwyer / CC
The conflict between Comcast and BitTorrent was developed in 2008. Companies announcedagreement reached in March. It suggested that Comcast would manage its network without “harassing” any particular protocol or type of traffic, such as BitTorrent, even at the time of network congestion. This allowed BitTorrent users to continue to use the service without fear that Comcast would slow down file transfers. Kevin Martin later confirmed that slowing down BitTorrent traffic was illegal. The company was ordered to stop the block, but it was not fined.
Next year, AT&T operator forcedApple block Skype and other VoIP services on 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 process of adopting Net Neutrality formal rules. In particular, two new principles were proposed:
- A broadband internet service provider should eliminate the discriminatory feature in the processing of legitimate content, applications and services;
- A broadband Internet service provider should disclose information regarding network management and other practices that are relevant to the user and provider of content, applications and services.
On April 6, 2010, the US Court of Appeals sided with Comcast, which had previously sued the FCC. The commission, according to the judges, did not have the right to intervene in the operator’s conflict with BitTorrent. The position was this: the FCC relies on laws that give the Commission certain powers, but they are not enough to take the measures that have been taken in relation to Comcast. Thus, it was questioned whether the FCC could regulate network neutrality at all.
2010 ended with the adoption by the Commission of the rules of net neutrality with the support of the new chairman, Julius Genachowski. The classification of two types of services, regulated by different rules, is adopted: wireless networks and fixed broadband.
Several rules have become decisive:
- Wireless and wired network providers must manage them “transparently”;
- Blocking traffic on the Internet is prohibited by both fixed and wireless operators.
- Fixed-line telecom operators do not have the right to block permitted materials, services, applications or devices on their network.
- Wireless network operators cannot block access to sites and applications that compete with the operator’s voice or video services.
- Fixed-line telecom operators do not have the right to unjustifiably discriminate traffic on their network.
With these results, the Commission entered a new decade that brought the industry new laws and a change in established rules. We will talk about this in the next part of a series of articles.
PS Here are some more materials from our blog: