quote:
And this is why I say that issue should be decided upon by a vote of our elected representatives and not by a court or an appointed commission.

Well the FTC and FCC get their authority from Congress, which is where the common carrier exemption comes from.

I'm 100% for letting Congress decide (

) and get something passed (

) on NN and on local and state government red tape.

However, I see that as a reason to delay this repeal and not as the reason to eliminate the current net neutrality protections. Roll back the protections after, not before, Congress can decide on it.

I'm 100% for deregulation of ISPs and the internet once actual competition and choice exists for consumers in the USA. That's what the FCC should have been focusing on, but instead they've actually sided with local governments and the big ISPs in those disputes under Pai. I think they'd have the Constitutional authority to do so too under the commerce clause specifically protecting interstate commerce.

Hopefully the new mesh and spectrum technologies being developed allow for cheaper costs of installing door to door network infrastructure. Currently though, it's naive to believe small business and new competition can exist or thrive with the barriers to entry including legal battles with the incumbent ISPs on the local scale.

Someone on the OT brought up Texas power deregulation as an example of why deregulation works. However, this was accomplished via regulations such as creating price floors and forcing incumbent providers to lease out their utility lines (a major issue with new ISPs is accessing utility polls - Google struggled with this).