WEBVTT - The Net Neutrality War 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.200 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.120 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:26.200 are here? So several years ago, during the Trump administration 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:31.800 here in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.040 held a vote to repeal an earlier set of rules 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.400 called the Open Internet Order. The board of the FCC, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:45.640 made up of five appointees, voted three to two to 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.760 repeal those rules, despite the fact that there were concerns 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.680 there was hanky panky going on when the FCC sought 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:58.120 out public opinion on the matter. Currently, the Attorney General 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.120 for the state of New York is composing fines on 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.399 several companies found to have been guilty of essentially stuffing 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.600 the ballot boxes. As it were, These companies apparently impersonated 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.880 more than a million US citizens posting fake comments to 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.679 the FCC that were in favor of the repeal of 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.360 these rules. Considering that the FCC justified its vote on 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.680 the matter at least partly and it being a reflection 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.000 of the will of the people, this is bad and hey, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:30.800 if you have to rig a system in order to win. 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.720 Then by definition, you're really a loser. So I thought 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.000 maybe we'd look back on what net neutrality is. What 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:44.000 is that concept? Why is there a debate about net neutrality? 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.280 Because there is, And while I am firmly in the 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.520 net neutrality camp, I acknowledge there are points being made 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.720 by people who are against net neutrality that you can't 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.360 just wave off. There are some valid points on the 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.800 other side. But what do the difference have to say 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.440 about net neutrality? Why is it tricky for the FCC 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.960 to enforce net neutrality? And how does the presence or 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.040 absence of net neutrality affect people like you and me? Now, 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.400 when I say you and me, I mainly mean people 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.320 here in the United States for this specific case, but 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.920 there are other places where this is an issue too. 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.640 I mean, obviously there are places in the world where 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.720 the government takes a much more active role in what 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.080 people can or cannot access on the internet. Here in 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.440 the US, Ideally you're supposed to be able to access 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.600 pretty much anything, but that's not necessarily how it turns out. 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:42.200 So first, let's define net neutrality. When you boil it down, 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.799 net neutrality is all about treating the ones and zeros 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.760 that are zipping across the Internet as if they're all 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.359 the same, which, by the way, some of the founders 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.280 of the or you know, people who created the protocols 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.360 of the Internet, say was never their intent. Vince Surf 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.320 and Bob conn have both said that they never intended 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.000 for all packets to necessarily be treated the same when 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.399 they were building out TCPIP protocols, which is interesting. Net 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:13.400 neutrality means that the various entities that own the infrastructure 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.360 or the pipes if you are a series of tubes, 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.200 if you like. If we're going to go way back 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.160 into the analogies of the Internet anyway, net neutrality says 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.640 that the companies that own that infrastructure should allow traffic 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.320 to flow through those pipes no matter where that traffic 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.160 originated from. So there should be no preferential treatment. There 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.560 should be no slowing of someone else's zeros and ones, 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.600 there should be no blocking a competitor from accessing your infrastructure. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.320 It's meant to keep the Internet a machine that lets 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.040 information go to wherever it needs to go to without 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.960 being hindered along the way. This definition has actually expanded 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.000 a little bit over the years. Back when folks were 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.400 first starting to talk about net neutrality. Really, the only 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.920 way you could access the Internet was by computer, the 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.920 only meaningful way that most people could access was by computer. However, 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.360 since then, we've had a revolution of devices that can 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.160 tap into the network of networks that include smartphones and 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:16.440 tablets and Internet of Things devices, even some vehicles or 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.279 accessing information on the Internet. So another element of the 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.080 concept of net neutrality tends to be that you should 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.200 be able to access information on the Internet no matter 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.800 what device you are using to do so. So, if 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.640 a company happens to own some of the infrastructure of 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.839 the Internet, and also happens to be involved in the 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.200 creation of hardware, it would be against the principles of 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.880 net neutrality for that company to allow its own devices 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.120 access to its pipes. But did I entry to anyone else. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.520 So in other words, let's say that you have an 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:53.760 ISP and the ISP is offering to lease you a 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.240 modemen router. So as part of your service, you can 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.200 essentially rent a mode and a router from this company, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.479 which means that you are adding to your monthly bill. However, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.720 you could just go out and buy a modem and 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.640 a router and then have that connected to your service, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.400 which might require some extra steps to get it activated 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.200 because it's not part of the proprietary system, but it 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.640 should be fine. The ISP should not block you from 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.440 using some other motiven router just because it doesn't come 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.960 from them, and that would in turn mean you would 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.120 spend less on your monthly ISP bill because you're not 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.920 renting from them. One then neutrality says is that such 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:41.920 an ISP couldn't come out and say no, no, no, no, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.160 you have to use our stuff or you can't use 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.160 anything else. These ideas are not just abstract concepts. Many 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.719 companies involved in at least some part of the Internet 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:56.359 infrastructure are also content providers. In other words, they don't 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.720 just own the pipes that stuff is moving through, they 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.000 create some of the stuff that's going through those pipes. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.960 So one of the big examples centering around net neutrality 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.719 for years was that a company like Comcast, the largest 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.960 telecommunications company in the world, which has its own online 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.160 content products that's putting it lightly because they own NBC Universal, 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.559 they might purposefully slow down or block traffic coming from 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:27.560 some other content service like Netflix, And so that would 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.400 mean if you're a Comcast customer, and you're trying to 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.120 connect to Netflix, you might end up hitting some some 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.080 traffic slowdown, like things might take a while to buffer 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.640 before you can watch them. But curiously, if you were 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:45.520 to switch to Comcasts owned and operated streaming services, there's 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.320 no such slowdown. It just loads super fast and you 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:53.159 can watch without problems. So potentially that could drive customers 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:58.560 to subscribe to Comcast's own services and to not subscribe 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.360 to competitors, which seems to be a little bit anti competitive, right, 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.160 I mean, why make a better product if you can 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.080 just block your customers from getting to a competitor, Right, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.720 You don't need to make anything great if you can 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.480 just prevent anyone from having a choice. If you're the 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.920 only game in town, you don't have to make your 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.400 game better. And you might think, hey, that does sound 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.640 kind of anti competitive, and you're absolutely right it is. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.200 And keep in mind that here in the United States, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.920 many people have very few options when it comes to ISPs. So, 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.960 for example, I live in an area. I am in 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.320 the city of Atlanta, not just like in metro Atlanta. 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:42.120 I'm in the city and I have precisely one option 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.640 when it comes to a provider that can give me 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.400 speeds higher than one hundred and fifty megabits per second. 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.040 So one option is not an option, right, That's it. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.720 That's all I've got. The other quote unquote options are 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.520 for significantly slower speeds. So I could go with a competitor, 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.120 but one and I would not be paying significantly less, 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.160 and two, I would be getting a service that is 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:08.560 significantly slower. So if I go to a site by 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.880 the way that checks for providers based on my ZIP code, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.320 I get tons of options for insanely fast connectivity, like 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.080 way faster than what I actually have. But if I 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.640 actually go through the steps to get to a point 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.000 where I would order such a service, by the time 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:25.840 you get to the last step, you get a message 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.440 that essentially says we're sorry that service isn't available at 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.240 your location or something like that, which just shows that 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.720 I am in that position where that a lot of 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.880 people are in in the United States where you do 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.800 not have options when it comes to your choice or provider, 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.040 so there is no competition in your particular area and 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.880 you're left with whatever is there. And that means that 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.640 you know, if I don't have a choice in provider, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.440 if I want a good broadband speed, and if that 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.480 provider were to decide to discriminate against other competes editors, 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:02.520 I just wouldn't be able to get that content, or 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.320 at least it would be a real hassle for me 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.720 to get that content. I wouldn't have an option to 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.480 view that in any other way. Even if I wanted 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.480 to subscribe and I wanted to be a paying customer, 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.120 I wouldn't be able to see, say, the stuff on 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.120 Netflix if Comcast decided, no, we're going to block Netflix's content. 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:24.640 So net neutrality is meant to make sure that doesn't happen, 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.400 where you don't have a fractured internet where depending upon 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.760 your ISP you can access certain columns of content but 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.600 not others. And if you're on a different ISPs, it's 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.400 a totally different shakedown of what you can and can't access. 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.360 It becomes a less useful tool, right, the Internet becomes 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.000 broken at that point. If you and another person are 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.880 on two different services, you have two totally different experiences 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.839 of what the Internet is because of those restrictions. That's 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.719 what net neutrality is supposed to prevent. Now let's get 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:02.199 into the complicated legal quagm around net neutrality. So here 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.920 in the US, we've got ourselves a handy dandy law 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.680 called the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four. And yes, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.040 in order to understand net neutrality in its path through 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.720 the US, we have to start nearly a century ago. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.440 In fact, technically we could go back even further and 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.080 go back beyond a century to talk about stuff like railroads, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.960 which I guess you could say laid the track for 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.400 some of the concepts around net neutrality. But I'm going 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.120 to be kind, I'm not going to go back quite 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.199 that far. So the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.840 set a whole bunch of ground rules to try and 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.679 untangle the chaotic mess that was threatening to make communication 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.960 an unfair and uneven landscape. The Act sets out rules 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.360 for assigning frequencies for broadcasts and coming up with rules 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.800 for stuff like commercials and setting various standards. And it 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:55.400 also established the Federal Communications Commission or f c C, which, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.160 by the way, in its rule states that at least 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.880 one member must be of a different party, So you 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.439 can't have an FCC that's made up entirely of Democrats 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.760 or Republicans or whatever. It has to have a balance, 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:11.760 and by balance I mean at least one member has 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:16.640 to be the opposing party. That Act largely classified communications 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.560 companies as common carriers, that is, they fall under a 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:25.120 regulatory body, in this case, the FCC that enforces rules 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.840 to ensure that these carriers treat everyone fairly. A common 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.960 carrier can't deny service on the grounds of discrimination. For example, 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.000 it can't be that two people show up and one 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:37.959 person is allowed to use the service and the other 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:42.920 one isn't, and there's no legal reason for the discrimination. 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.280 This concept goes all the way back to the railroads. 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.840 So for communications networks, it helped create an environment in 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.920 which telephone companies couldn't deny access to their own lines 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.800 to other companies. And that's good because you didn't want 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.960 a situation where the only folks you could talk to 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.839 on the phone would be fellow customers of the same 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.280 phone company you belong to. The Communications Act of nineteen 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.000 thirty four set out these common carriage rules in the 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.880 section called Title iiO. Now, there were seven sections or 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.680 titles in the nineteen thirty four Act, and Title two 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.600 are the ones that are subject to regulation under the 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:25.120 authority of FCC. However, a bunch of other communications services 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:31.040 were deemed different enough from these to fall under Title I, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.559 which did not allow the FCC the authority to regulate them. 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:41.199 So certain services were considered immune to this like they 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:46.199 were exceptions to regulation. And largely the thought was that 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:52.360 regulation could potentially inhibit growth and innovation, and therefore these 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:58.640 younger forms of communication should not be stifled by regulation. 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.240 And then Title II was a different story. Now, over 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.320 the years, some of the measures of the nineteen thirty 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:09.240 four Act had unintended consequences. For example, it helped the 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.000 rise of monopolies, namely AT and T, which essentially had 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.640 a total monopoly on the phone industry in the United 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:18.960 States until it was forced to break up into several 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.840 other companies in the nineteen eighties. That story is its own, 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.480 super complicated mess, and it goes beyond what we'll talk 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.680 about here. Things got more complicated with the invention of 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.240 cable television and other innovations, and you had weird rules 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.200 that would allow phone companies to do one thing and 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:39.320 cable companies to do something else. And we were rushing 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.840 toward an era where everybody was essentially allowing digital information 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.680 to pass over their networks, and yet there were different 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.440 rules in place as to which companies could do what. 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:54.360 So things were getting messy, so the government would try 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.640 to fix it, and it got messier. I'll explain more 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:11.040 after we come back from this quick break, Okay. So 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.520 cable companies first emerged in the late forties and really 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.120 grew in like the seventies and eighties, and there were 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.600 some amendments to the Communications Act that changed things a 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.680 little bit, but what was really needed was a new 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.280 approach to telecommunications and that's when we got the Telecommunications 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.000 Act of nineteen ninety six. So this was the first 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.640 major rewrite of communication law in more than sixty years. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.840 This Act was meant to ease off on some regulations 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.680 in an effort to encourage more competition in the industry. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.600 And it gets way more complicated from there. And a 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:49.040 full disclosure, I am not a lawyer. Waiting through the 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.800 mountains of documents to get a firm handle on these 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.960 various designations would take me ages. So I'm actually relying 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.840 heavily on the work of other people here, and trust me, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:00.880 like I was following up and trying to go down 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.880 to other rabbit holes and find, you know, things that 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.400 I could specifically cite. And it got hard. A lot 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.040 of sources out there make some pretty general claims that 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:16.680 I think mostly are correct, but they get details wrong. 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:22.800 And that's infuriating because I don't have a month to 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.800 just read legal documents to figure out what's the best 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:28.360 way to communicate this is. So I'm going to be 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.560 painting in some pretty broad strokes. But in nineteen ninety six, 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.680 the Internet was still a pretty young entity, at least 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.080 to the general public. I mean, most of the general 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.640 public had no idea what the Internet was before the 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.360 World Wide Web started to take shape, and even then, 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:49.560 the web was a pretty niche interest area, mostly like 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:55.760 students and some businesses and government agencies. So we're ignoring 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.080 the fact that you folks had been working on the 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.400 network of networks for a couple of decades at this point. 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.320 I mean, the Internet wasn't like it was brand new, period. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.240 It was just something that for a lot of people 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.320 was an unknown entity until really the nineties. We were 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.280 just starting to gear up toward the fervor that would 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.200 lead to the dot com bubble in nineteen ninety six, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.360 and so there was kind of a need to address things. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.040 The nineteen ninety six Act made a lot of changes. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.600 It made it okay for different types of companies to 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:28.760 jump into the business that was usually restrained for other industries. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:34.000 So what this really meant was that two giant industries 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.920 were able to suddenly compete against one another. So you 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:43.680 had telephone companies which normally just offered telephone services, but 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:48.960 now because of the way that information could travel, could 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.200 actually also offer up video channels to subscribers. Then you 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.200 had cable companies that said, hang on, we can offer 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.280 telephone services to our customers. Dogs and cats living together, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.160 mass hysteria. And it was not clear at first whether 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.199 or not it would be legal for these industries to 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.040 kind of branch out and to start to incorporate the 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:18.040 services of other industries into their own. This was a 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:22.119 muddy ground. The Act also defined, and I use the 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:27.040 term loosely, the concept of information services. So these are 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.959 services that are all about sending, retrieving, storing information across 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:38.119 telecommunications services. So they're all the companies that facilitate information 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.240 moving from one point to another along various communication lines. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.720 By the way, communication lines aren't always physical lines because 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.520 they this can include stuff like radio signals and that 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:55.840 kind of thing. Now, information services would fall under Title 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.239 one services. That would mean the FCC would not have 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.400 the legal authority to regulate any business that was classified 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.520 as Title one. So if a business were deemed to 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.480 be about information services, about the facilitating of information moving 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.520 across networks, they'd be Title one and the FCC couldn't 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.160 burst in and tell them how to do stuff. Now, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.720 putting aside the complicating factor that a lot of companies 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:26.400 that facilitate the movement of information also own the infrastructure 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.359 that the information is moving across, that they are a 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:33.720 telecommunications company, it would mean that if they were deemed 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.400 an information services company, the FCC would not be able 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.680 to weigh in on their business, even though they also 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.280 would perform as a telecommunications company. At least the FCC 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.720 couldn't do so with any actual authority. The FCC could try, 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.560 but then the company could sue the FCC, take it 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.800 to the courts, and the courts would determine whether or 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:59.360 not the FCC actually had the authority to regulate, and 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.000 this began to raise concerns in the field of network communications. 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.560 So keep in mind that back in the nineties and 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:10.480 even into the early two thousands, folks weren't too concerned 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.399 about where the Internet was going yet, because it was 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:18.480 still fairly primitive, websites weren't particularly sophisticated. We had only 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.399 seen hints at what would become the uses that would 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.720 demand increasing amounts of bandwidth. So you weren't going to 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.080 be able to watch an ultra high definition movie on 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.800 streaming back in two thousand. For example, services like YouTube 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.800 wouldn't come along until the mid two thousands. But even 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:40.160 though most uses of the Web and the Internet weren't 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.440 super bandwidth heavy, some people were starting to get a 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:48.560 little concerned about the lack of rules and regulations for 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.520 ISPs to follow. So they could see the writing on 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.520 the wall, ISPs would have an incentive to manage demand 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.800 on their networks. Now you can manage demand a lot 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.080 of different ways. You could do is you could try 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.080 and build out your infrastructure so it can handle more traffic, 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.320 but that requires a huge investment to do. Another thing 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.240 you could do is you could insert impediments to heavy 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.439 duty users of the Internet. You know, maybe slow down 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.280 stuff that would have a really heavy demand on the 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.760 bandwidth of your network, just throttle it so that way 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.800 everybody else can still use your network without having their 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:30.399 experience impacted as a result. Heck, maybe you identify something 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.960 that's causing huge spikes and Internet traffic across your network 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.359 and you just block it entirely. It's not like the 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.600 FCC could do anything about it because your title one service. Baby. 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:42.320 They would come down and say, hey, you can't block 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:46.080 this content, and you'd just say, yeah, I can, because 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.359 you can't stop me. You don't have the authority to 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.520 do it. Also, keep in mind this was the time 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.760 when peer to peer networks and piracy were starting to 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.880 go banana. That complicates things because not only did those 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.520 activities boost network activity right you started to see spikes 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:07.600 in network traffic, you also had these massive entertainment studios, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.880 some of which would end up merging with these ISPs 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.400 that were threatening to bring down the hammer of thor 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:18.080 on anyone who facilitated the illegal sharing of intellectual property. 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:21.520 So you had the internal pressure of wanting to keep 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.160 your network moving smoothly. You had external pressures saying, hey, 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.240 there's a lot of illegal activity going across your network 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.239 and if you don't do something about it, there's going 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.119 to be a problem. And it all led to concerns 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:38.440 that again, the entire landscape of Internet access in the 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:43.679 United States could become unfair, uneven, fractured. Even so, tons 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.200 of cable companies really pushed the FCC to classify their 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.480 services as Title I, as information services in other words, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.080 rather than Title two, which would mean they would be 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:57.120 a carrier service or a cable provider as defined under 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:02.400 the rarely mentioned Title three. So Title two common carriers 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.879 essentially Title III cable provider. The cable companies were saying, Oh, 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.080 we're not cable providers. We're information services. That's really what 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.160 we are. Yeah, some of us, some of our customers 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.520 are using our services to watch cable, but we're just 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:19.880 information services. We fall under Title I, and that would 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.440 mean that these cable companies could operate under less regulation, which, 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:25.480 to be fair, meant they could get away with a 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.040 whole lot more shenanigans than if they were forced to 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.639 play by a more strict set of rules. Now, some 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.600 would argue the looser regulations would give companies the chance 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.680 to create better services for customers, and that it could 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.440 lead to greater competition between providers in an effort to 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:42.720 find the best strategy to make a profit. It just 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.000 didn't turn out to do that. But yeah, this is 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.640 often an argument you will hear against regulation, the fear 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.800 that regulation will stifle competition and innovation, and as a result, 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:55.800 none of us get the really cool new stuff that 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.399 we would get if the government would just back the 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.280 heck off. Problem is, when the government does back the 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:04.760 heck off, often what we see as one company start 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.879 to dominate an industry, and then there's no incentive for 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:13.280 the company to innovate because that company already has all 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:15.680 the customers, Like, you don't need to win the customers. 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:19.720 You've got them all, So where's the incentive to do better. 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:22.960 It's a very complicated thing. And of course things got 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:26.800 even more messy because the FCC agreed that cable based 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.320 ISPs would fall under Title IE, and this angered other 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:34.919 types of ISPs like DSL providers. Right, so a cable 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.000 company that was an Internet service provider would be a 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:42.200 Title one service, but a DSL company that provided Internet 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:47.000 service would be considered a Title TiO entity, which meant 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:49.760 the DSL companies were saying, hey, you're giving cable companies 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:54.400 an unfair advantage. You're not imposing these rules on them, 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:58.639 but you are on us. Where's the logic in that? 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:01.640 So the whole matter went to court, and things kind 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.240 of flip flopped around for a bit. At one point, 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:07.880 the court found that the FCC had misclassified cable ISPs 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:11.120 and said that they had to classify cable companies as 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.920 Title TiO because they were clearly telecommunications companies and not 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:19.840 just information services. And then the cable industry appealed this decision. 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.359 The whole thing ultimately went to the Supreme Court, and 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:28.880 the Supreme Court, led by Clarence Thomas, overturned that decision 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:31.879