WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: What is a Common Carrier? 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.400 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.919 a love of all things tech. It's time for a 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:25.599 text Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published on February nine, 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:31.280 two thousand fifteen. It is titled what is a Common Carrier. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.639 When we did this episode, it was when there were 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:39.320 discussions among politicians and the Federal Communications Commission in the 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.919 United States the FCC, about classifying internet service as a 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.080 common carrier, and so we made this episode in order 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.400 to kind of talk about what that means and what 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:55.720 would imply should internet service be classified that way. Things 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:02.840 changed dramatically in the following presidential administration after and now 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:07.000 we're seeing them change again. So still relevant. So let's 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.720 listen to this classic episode What is a Common Carrier? 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.920 So I thought I would explain what common carriers are 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.800 in general, how have they apply to the Internet or 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.840 don't apply up till now anyway, and how this might 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.800 change things in the future, and also just to clear 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.160 up some misconceptions about the whole thing. So first, in 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.880 the United States, the term common carrier is a legal 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.039 definition that means an individual, a company, or a public 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.160 utility like municipal buses, which is in the regular business 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:43.600 of transporting people and or freight. And that's distinguished from 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.360 a private carrier, which only transports occasionally or as a 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:52.200 one time only event. So it originally referred to a 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.320 physical conveyance of carrying people or cargo from one place 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:58.880 to another. In fact, in the United States, this was 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.160 first put into law in the Inner State Commerce Act 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.720 of eight seven, which regulated the railroads. Other countries have 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.160 had similar policies dating back hundreds of years. Some of 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.560 them are formally put down into law, some are just 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.200 simple traditions that have held over over the course of time. 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.160 But over time the definition here in the United States 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.880 has expended to cover services that carry more than uh 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.639 these physical things. They can carry intangible things like voice communication. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.640 Now one of the most important facets of common carriers 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.040 is that they are not allowed to discriminate against passengers 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.160 or cargo. They're legally bound to carry all of them 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.520 as long as there's enough capacity. Uh. They also have 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.160 to have the fee to carry the passenger or freight 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.040 to be paid. I mean that that has to happen too, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.720 so they don't do it for free. Uh and as 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.320 long as there are no reasonable grounds to deny entry. 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:55.280 So in other words, let's have an example. Let's say 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.040 there's a city bus with plenty of seats available. That 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.160 bus would not be allowed under common carriage laws to 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.560 refuse service to a person who has bus fair unless 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.560 the bus driver had reasonable grounds to deny entry. So 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.880 let's say that the person who wants to get on 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.480 the bus is waving around a huge club and singing 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.280 Beach Boys songs at the top of his lungs. That 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.840 you probably wouldn't think that guy is safe to let 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.040 onto your bus. You might be able to argue those 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.919 are reasonable grounds to deny entry. However, assuming that that 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.400 person waiting for the bus has shows no reason why 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.640 you would deny him or her entry, you have to 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.840 let that person on by the rules of common carriage. 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.640 Another important element is that common carriers are expected to 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.360 charge what is called a reasonable price, sometimes a just 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.320 and reasonable price for their services. So this really means 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.000 a common carrier can't charge one person more than another 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.800 person for no good reason. Now, there aren't good reasons 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.680 to charge different amounts in specific examples. So let's say 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.480 you are a freight company, for example, and you're hired 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:06.560 to transport hazardous materials. That could justify a higher transportation 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.080 fee for that particular job because it comes with greater 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.000 risk than what it would normally be for you know, 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:17.400 regular cargo. So there are exceptions. But otherwise you couldn't 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:21.200 say I'm going to charge everyone in this town one 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.120 price to ride on my train, but everyone in this 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.520 other town has to pay this other price only because 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.400 I hate that town, so that town has everyone there 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.280 has to pay me more as I don't want them 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.320 on my train. Otherwise that would not be allowed, so 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:42.800 let's move ahead. In nineteen ten, seven Act was modified 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:47.480 so that it also covered telegraph and the burgeoning telephone companies. 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.360 One of the issues customers faced in those early days 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.200 was a lack of assurance that their telegraph messages would 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.520 actually get through to their intended destinations. So some companies 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.080 were charging extra fees to in sure that the message 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.600 would be repeated all the way down to the end 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.560 of the line. Now courts decided that that was an 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.320 unfair practice. That a customer has a reasonable expectation that 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.120 a service provider will actually provide the service that was 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.520 paid for and should the customers shouldn't be charged extra 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.359 just to be certain of it. Moreover, it should be 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.760 on service providers to prove they are doing their job, 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.840 rather than the burden being on customers to prove that 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.840 the providers are falling short. Because the providers are privy 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:34.839 to all the information, so they should be the ones 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.160 who had the responsibility to prove that they're doing what 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.600 they say they're doing. And another issue was the fact 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.840 that the telephone system in the United States was effectively 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.440 a monopoly. Bell Telephone, which became a T and T 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.400 in eight five, got a headstart on other companies and 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.280 laid on infrastructure that only worked with the phones made 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.160 by Western Electric. So you have this partnership between Bell 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.599 Telephone and Western Electric, which effectively meant they were the 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.560 only players in town. If you were an independent uh 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:08.200 telephone service company, your phones would not work on the 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.320 Bell Telephone infrastructure, so that edged out competitors, and in 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.400 nineteen thirteen, Bell Telephone in the US Justice Department worked 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.599 out a deal to limit Bell from scooping up independent 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.560 competing companies and from preventing other competitors from using Bell's 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.719 long distance lines they were allowed to use Bells network. 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.880 This was in response to an antitrust lawsuit that was 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.240 being brought against Bell Telephone, and in order to head 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.760 it off, Bell Telephone said, you know what, we're going 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.679 to change these policies we've had so that you don't 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.960 sue us. And it worked and the value of the 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.120 service was considered to be too important to allow unregulated 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.920 control of it. So that's where we started seeing some 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.800 regulation enter into the telephone industry. Now, there's a series 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.840 of tech Stuff podcasts about the history of A T 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.320 and T in which Lauren Voege, Obama and I explored 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:56.960 how A T and T came about and how it 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.839 was split up more than once due to concerns like these. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.839 If you are interested in that, you should go check 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:08.120 out those episodes. Now, getting back to the telephone industry 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.880 as a whole, in nineteen thirty four, Congress pass the 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.560 Communications Act, which created the Federal Communications Commission, which oversaw 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.760 radio transmissions as well as telecommunications. So this is what 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:25.440 established the Title two that the FCC refers to today 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.320 when it comes to I s p s. They talked 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:31.200 about reclassifying I s p s under Title two. This 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.880 is the Act that classified telephone systems as common carriers. 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.120 It's been amended several times over the following decades, including 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.120 extensive alterations that were made during the Telecommunications Act of 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.160 nineteen nine six. So let's move on to transmitting computer 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.040 data over networks. In nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, before 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.360 most people knew about a network of networks. You know, 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.880 our bonnet was a thing. Internet was becoming a thing, 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.560 but most people didn't know about it. The common way 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.320 to connect to a computer was to use a modem 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.760 for direct machine to machine connection over the telephone system. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.360 So you would have a dial up modem and you 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.360 would use it to dial a phone number. The computer 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.960 on the other end would essentially answer the phone, and 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.920 then you would have computer to computer communication. But it 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.880 wasn't an Internet, right, It wasn't a network of networks. 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:24.080 It was the machine to machine communication. Regular computer data 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.400 was considered a transmission service and fell under titled two, 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:34.719 which meant that any any transmission service cannot be prioritized, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.840 it can't be discriminated against. It all has to be 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.240 treated equally. But there were specific services companies provided in 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.040 which you could connect to a computer to get a 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.840 get particular information like a weather report or stock information 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.000 or sports scores, things like that. These were considered to 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.559 be enhanced services, so this was classified under Title one 0:08:55.640 --> 0:09:00.000 of the Communications Act, which is unregulated. So the transmission 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.640 was regulated, but these specific services were unregulated. The enhanced 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.240 services didn't fall under common carriage terms. Companies could charge 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.280 a fee for customers to use them that would be 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:11.040 on top of any phone bill for use of the 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.920 transmission lines themselves. Okay, so let's say a phone company 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.880 offers up its own enhanced service and some other company 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.400 offers a competing enhanced service. The transmission of data falls 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.640 under common carriage, which means that phone company could not 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.840 prevent customers from accessing the competitors enhanced service. That would 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.600 be unfair. So this is the beginning of the concept 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:41.840 of net neutrality. The Telecommunications Act redefined enhanced services as 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:46.680 information services and also ratify the differences between transmission services 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.199 information services, putting into policy what the FCC had sort 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.280 of made up as it went along, so the transmission 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.800 of services met the terms of common carriage. The telephone 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.520 company treated all dial up services the same, all had 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:04.000 equal access under the system, the actual services, the apps 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.960 that people were accessing, those were enhanced or information services. 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.800 We'll be back with more about common carriers after these 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:27.080 brief messages. That's not confusing enough, Let's move into the 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.920 early era of broadband. This is when we start seeing 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.240 dial up modems fade away and DSL began to arrive. Now, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.200 the FCC continued to apply that distinctions made during the 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.719 telephone era. The phone companies would have to carry DSL 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.800 signals as common carriage. They couldn't discriminate against them. The 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:49.359 apps are services running on the DSL connections were unregulated 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.560 information services. And then we get to two thousand two. Now, 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.599 this is when cable TV companies began offering transmission services 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.960 of Internet data at high speeds, at least relative to 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.480 dial up speeds at any rate. And this is where 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.680 things get muddy. See the FCC classified cable broadband service 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.439 under Title one, not titled two. That means both the 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:16.800 transmission of data over cable and the information services provided 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.480 would be unregulated. There will be no reason for regulation 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.360 there because it's all under Title one. So why not 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.440 treat cable transmission of data the same way as the 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.480 telephone system largely comes down to politics. At this time, 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.080 Republicans had a majority in government and they favored deregulation. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.640 And the reasons for favoring deregulation was that they thought 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.800 it was going to promote risk taking and competition and innovation. 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.720 The in reality, that's not necessarily the case. I mean, 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.600 if you look at the Bell telephone system story, that 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:53.439 kind of shows what happens with deregulation, and it required 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.960 the government to actually come in and intervene in order 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:01.840 to avoid a monopoly that could completely take advantage of customers. Well, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.440 in two thousand five, the f c C said that 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.400 DSL would also be reclassified under Title one, So this 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.600 makes the the whole situation even more complicated. Telephone systems 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.559 are still titled too, but DSL and cable are now 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.199 Title one and are unregulated. Now this meant that cable 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.400 and DSL companies wouldn't have to ask permission to incorporate 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.640 fast lanes for the Internet, so they could give preferential 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.920 treatment to some customers over others for a fee. And 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.480 because Title one is unregulated, there also was no fear 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.280 of the FCC butting in should a cable or DSL 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.800 company block data they didn't want to carry, such as 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:42.480 data from a competitor or from torrent sites. So, you know, 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.320 we talked earlier about the common carriers. You know, one 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.080 of the defining factors is that they cannot refuse service 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.920 as long as a person is able to pay the fee. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.640 If it's a Title one, it's not a common carrier, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.280 and so it can deny service. So if you own 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:05.359 the transmission lines and you have a content provider like YouTube, 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.000 and you think, I've got my own content provider program 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.560 where people users can upload video, and I don't want to. 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.920 I don't want to compete against YouTube because YouTube is 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.040 gonna is gonna make my tool obsolete. I'm just not 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.599 gonna allow YouTube to go across my transmission lines. Technically, 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.040 you could do that under Title one, because there's no 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.199 you're not a common carrier. You're not You're not obligated 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.120 to carry all legal information. Beyond that, there was no 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.360 requirement for cable companies to provide services for a quote 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.920 just and reasonable fee end quote. They could charge whatever 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.600 they wanted. So in two thousand and eight things came 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:47.079 to a head. The FCC find Comcast because Comcast had 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.839 blocked peer to peer traffic through bit torrent. Now, first 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.280 we have to keep in mind there's nothing inherently illegal 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.880 or immoral or unethical about bit torrent. There's nothing wrong 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.400 with the technology. It's a method of data transmission that 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.760 works well for large files. Peer to peer is great 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.040 if you're trying to move a huge amount of information 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.280 in a relatively short amount of time. Now, some of 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:14.080 those files were pired in material. They were illegal files, 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.760 and there were plenty of huge files that were legal. 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.440 They should have been able to transmit freely. But because 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.560 bit torrent was being seen as the pirate tool, Comcast 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.080 blocked it. So the FCC gets involved, and the FEC 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.480 says to Comcast, hey, you can't do that. You can't 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.680 just block this stuff just because you don't like some 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.800 of the activity that's going on over there. And Comcast 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.800 responds with I'm sure we can. We're not common carriers 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.160 were classified under Title one, not Title two. And the 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.560 FCC says uh, And it goes to court and the 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:51.240 courts end up agreeing ultimately with Comcast. The FCC doesn't 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.760 have the authority to regulate cable companies because they're classified 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.920 as Title one not Titled two. So that's why there's 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.080 now this move to reclass VI I s p s 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.200 under Title two instead of Title one. So the argument 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.320 for reclassification is that it will require I sps to 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:11.040 play fairly with content providers and with customers. The companies 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.200 will have to adhere to the rules of Title two 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.520 and will come under the regulation of the f c C. 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.280 So a company like Comcast, which isn't just a transmission 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.920 service provider but is also a content provider, can't favor 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.480 its own services at the expense of others. However, even 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.320 in this proposal, FCC Chairman Wheeler has suggested that the 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.120 FCC would forbear or waive certain elements of Title Too 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.960 not directly associated with net neutrality, which includes the requirement 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.840 to share networks and on rate regulations. So while cable 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.200 companies wouldn't be able to block legal content or prioritize 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.400 traffic for sites for a price, they could totally continue 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.880 to charge customers whatever they like for their services. So 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.960 some people object to reclassifying I s p s as 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:01.440 Titled too. Like the cable companies, they really object to 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.400 it now. They say that if the cable companies are 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.080 real or I s p s or reclassified as title 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:12.960 to the Internet, will become heavily regulated uh and innovation 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.760 will be stifled. But the flip side of this is 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.520 that it will be a fair playing ground. So if 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.480 we had access to lots of competitors in the I 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.440 s P space for service, I wouldn't be really concerned 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:31.280 about deregulation because we could always switch providers if we 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.640 didn't like the service, if we felt they were being unfair, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.600 we could look to a competitor, and in fact, that 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.520 competition could drive everyone to being as fair as possible 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:45.000 so that they didn't run off their customers. But the 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.920 truth of the matter is that many people, including myself, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.600 have very limited choices when it comes to I s 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.000 p s. In some cases, there's no choice at all. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.120 You have one option. You either go with this company 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.120 or you don't have internet. That's a problem with dealing 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.320 with an effective and pie. The consumer loses out. And 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:04.879 the cable industry claims that this regulation is going to 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:10.200 discourage those companies from investing in infrastructure because it will 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.040 hurt revenue to have regulation. They said that if the 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.919 government determines how much money we're able to make, then 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.320 there's no reason for us to try and innovate and 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.720 build out our infrastructures. On the other hand, it encourages 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.040 new players in the space like Google Fiber, which is 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.720 investing huge amounts to bring broadband speeds to households in 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.320 certain markets. So if the cable companies wish to keep 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.000 their customers, they'll have to compete with the newcomers, which 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.800 means that it does encourage investment in infrastructure, it just 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.840 means lower profits. That's really what these big companies are 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:51.200 afraid of. So they either continue to compete by building 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.760 out this infrastructure or they get out of the game entirely, 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.160 which I don't think is a likely outcome now. As 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.600 for excessive regulation, I don't diticipate that being a huge problem. 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.360 I think we're more likely to see the FCC watching 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.760 to make sure cable companies follow the rules under title 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:11.720 two should that reclassification actually happen. That wraps up that 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:16.080 classic episode about common carriers. Hope you found that informative 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.119 and interesting. If you have suggestions for topics that we 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.359 should cover on future episodes of Tech Stuff, please reach 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.520 out to me on Twitter. The handle for the show 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.720 is tech Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:36.960 again really soon. Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.000 For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.359 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:44.320 your favorite shows.