back to article FCC chair refuses to make net neutrality rules public before approval

FCC chair Tom Wheeler has refused to release the net neutrality rules that the regulator will vote on later this month. The decision whether to make a document public before it faces formal approval rests with the FCC chair but, despite requests from Congress and two of his own commissioners, Wheeler has refused to do so, …

  1. Jim Mitchell

    Is there a way to tell if the picture at the top of the article is stock footage or actually of FCC chair Tom Wheeler? In general, these pictures/graphics need some captions, or at least hover over text.

    1. DNTP

      Caption this picture:

      "Tom Wheeler demonstrates how much cable companies care about customer rights by pinching his fingers tightly together. 'They care less than this much,' he says, making expressly clear through cunning use of an opposable thumb and four digits that he is suggesting a quantity already indistinguishable from infinitesimal."

  2. Mark 85

    No giving the Cables a heads up?

    Might be a good strategy. Once approved by FCC, the battleground will be in Congress which, given the nature of things there, will either deadlock or require a lot more lobbyists flying into town with bigger suitcases. From the FCC standpoint, they did the right thing (no matter what that thing is) and Congress gets to take the heat.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: No giving the Cables a heads up?

      So you don't think it will wind up in the courts?!? Let's be honest, no matter what the FCC says at least one company is going to sue if they don't like the tint of the glasses so if it isn't rosy all around it's going to be a court action. Now I'll ask which acts faster, congress or the courts? Keep in mind that congress is quite clearly the opposite of progress.

  3. Dan Paul

    Cable companies are ALL monopolies in the US.

    The FCC needs to regulate Time Warner and Comcast, prevent their merger, and mandate that they BOTH share each others systems so there can be some form of competition.

    They must provide published pricing that is no greater than their "Bundled" pricing, allow alacarte channel offerings and full descriptions of the channels in each "package". The practice of renting equipment must be banned. You can buy it outright, buy it from a retailer or over time but when it's paid for the charges STOP.

    Either they share the cable systems with each other or the FCC must allow Verizon or Google to share them. Come hell or high water, there WILL be some competition in cable TV and Internet.

    If there is not competition, then it is readily apparent that the FCC has been bought off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cable companies are ALL monopolies in the US.

      They can't mandate that kind of sharing since practically all the cabling in the US is privately-owned. IOW, if Comcast is the only one able to send stuff down it's pipes, it's because it owns the pipes. A carrier usually cannot be told what it can do with its own infrastructure as that intrudes on property rights.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ala carte channels are a wet dream

      The cable companies have ZERO control over this. They can't sell you the Disney channel without ESPN, or TBS without CNN because the owners of those networks sell them in bundles. If you want to mandate that Disney offer Disney channel and ESPN separately, you might as well mandate that GM sell their cars and engines separately. Both would be quite an intrusion into how a company chooses to offer their products.

      If they ever do sell channels ala carte, you aren't going to get what you hope for, which is probably "I'm paying $100 for 300 channels now, but there are 15 channels I actually want so it should only cost me $5" If they sell them ala carte they'll probably sell them for several dollars each, so your 15 channel package might be $50 and you don't end up saving nearly so much as you think you should. Look at Dish's Sling TV offering - 12 channels for $20. If those are the right 12 channels, that's great, if you want FS1 instead of ESPN2, too bad.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

        > you might as well mandate that GM sell their cars and engines separately.

        A better car analogy would be requiring you to buy a Ford Focus, Ka and Fiesta rather than any single one.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

        > Both would be quite an intrusion into how a company chooses to offer their products.

        I agree, but the reality is that the cable companies are looking at a pretty bleak future with increased competition. Mandating a break up of the channel packages is not necessary. The like of Netflix, Hulu and many more independents are eating their lunch.

        Cable companies are shitting themselves at the prospect of becoming dumb pipes since that is a race to the bottom. The various offerings like CraveTV from Bell are efforts to stop the hemorrhaging but it won't work.

        I kid you not, cable TV as it looks now will be gone within 3 years (or sooner). It won't be gradual. Like video shops, the industry will tip just enough to cause an avalanche. Personally, I think that a lot of them will go bust since they will be unable to change their business models fast enough, especially since TV is their current cash cow. I can't wait.

        1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

          Re: "I kid you not, cable TV as it looks now will be gone within 3 years (or sooner)."

          I'll take that bet - at least for the US. This is very similar to the landline-to-cellphone-only switch. Yes, many have ditched their landlines, but we are nowhere NEAR the "death of landlines." The death of "cable as it looks now" will be slowed significantly for the same reasons - older and/or technophobic users. My octogenarian mother can spell "internet" and that's pretty much her limit. She has a DVR and television service provided by her cable company. It works the way she wants it to and she is VERY averse to major change. On the other end of the spectrum, my 20-year-old University student son will probably NEVER use cable as anything more than a fast ISP. And if, as is currently planned, Google Fiber appears in his part of Austin, TX, then he'll tell the cable to shove off completely.

          On paper, the innovation and subsequent change should be driven by younger consumers. However, reality is that a good many of younger consumers have far less disposable income than older/more established folks. As long as cable companies are making money off "old school" television viewers, the change will be slow. And almost certainly painful for all.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "I kid you not, cable TV as it looks now will be gone within 3 years (or sooner)."

            > I'll take that bet - at least for the US. This is very similar to the landline-to-cellphone-only switch.

            We'll have to wait to see.

            The thing is, the cellphone companies are the cable incumbants and they managed to make cellphones a premium service. They're popular and fashionable, so pretty expensive compared to land lines. The challengers to the cable companies are deliberately cheap and they're catching on fast. Their offerings are clearly better for consumers economically.

            The question really is whether or not their low pricing is sustainable and if, when the dust clears, we are left with competition or another set of monopolistic incumbants.

      3. stewwy

        Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

        Why bother with an outmoded concept? The interweb thingy gives anyone mildly intelligent enough granularity to watch the PROGRAM they are interested in. ;-)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

          But not to RECORD it. There's still a demand for POTV (plain-old TV) in that end since it's the one medium channel owners cannot completely control. As long as I maintain the means to permanently record shows (and my current setup allows me to do this even for HD), cable still has a customer in me...for now.

          1. Eddy Ito

            Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

            Why would you need to record it when you get to pick the time to watch? The biggest hurdle is for movies which, given the length, requires the ability to pause, at times for days, and resume where you left off. Other than that, recording is only to watch something again and honestly there isn't much on TV I'd want to see a second time.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

              Well, there is for me, and once I record it, I don't want to bother anybody about a rerun ever again. No worry about bandwidth and availability. My recording, my rules.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Ala carte channels are a wet dream

                You guys don't really think they'll willingly give up all that revenue and all the free or cheap sources of programming will remain as free or cheap when everything (especially sports) has moved there, do you? Dream on.

                The reason why programmers are encouraged about moving to online streaming is because they can make it so you CAN'T skip the commercials. There are 15-20 minutes of commercials on TV and a couple minutes or sometimes even zero minutes of commercials online. You don't think that's how it will always be, do you?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems to me this is a good plan.

    If Wheeler releases the plan ahead of time, that gives the cable companies ages to get their lobbying boots on to try and scupper it in the media before it gets to an actual vote.

    Credit to the guy though. This kind of thing can make or break a career.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Getting nervous...

    That this might be one of those careful what you wish for situations. We'll end up with rules that protect neutrality at the cost of something else... probably something not so popular with the public. Still it sounds as though they can only remove parts of current legislation and not add to them? They may still come up with some sort of hybrid which will promote unexpected legal precedence.

  6. William Donelson

    Republicans: Hey, tell us your plans so we can sink them.

    Republicans: Hey, tell us your plans so we can sink them.

    1. Donn Bly
      Holmes

      Re: Republicans: Hey, tell us your plans so we can sink them.

      I take it you prefer the "you have to vote on it before you can read it" stance the Democrat's took on the Affordable Care Act?

      The United States is a Republic. We elect our representatives, who then are supposed to vote on our behalf. As such, as much as the populace (us) would like to know the details, we don't really need to know as we aren't the ones doing the voting. I can't really fault Wheeler there.

      But this vote is especially important as the ones doing the voting in this case are not elected, they are appointed. The elected representatives which provide oversight of these appointed positions have asked for the information, and he has denied it. Those elected representatives, regardless of party affiliation, DO need to know, and trying to hide it from them is very disingenuous.

      And, quite honestly, if the FCC's plans aren't seaworthy enough to survive pot shots from a few politicians who are more interested in pandering to lobbying groups then doing their jobs, then those plans probably DO need to be sunk. More likely, perhaps the weak areas would be exposed and corrected before the vote, resulting in better regulation.

      1. tom dial Silver badge

        Re: Republicans: Hey, tell us your plans so we can sink them.

        This is an example of Mr. Obama's transparent government:

        http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment

        "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."

  7. Orion2454
    FAIL

    Gov't, what could go wrong?

    I've been trying to think of all the good innovation that happened with the telecom act of 1934...touch tone phones?

    If we've gotten to this point without regulation, one would think less regulation is the answer.

    But that's ok, if this doesn't work I'm sure the government will admit it, right?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's the govt!

    what could go wrong?

  9. Orestal

    Good move by wheeler

    The second the details are released every republican senator will start to harass the proposal and cable companies will blanket lobby and throw sueballs against it.

    I believe that the republicans are programmable with basic phrases here are some of them:

    Posting: broadband provider - scientist - business owner -

    Issue: net neutrality - climate change - washing your hands after using the toilet -

    "I am not a {insert posting here} but I do not believe {insert issue here} is a problem, especially one that needs investigating or regulating by the government".

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