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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday February 25 2017, @11:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the helping-the-big-boys dept.

ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers won't have to follow rules that require greater disclosures about fees and data caps after a vote today [pdf] by the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC's Republican majority approved the change to help small providers avoid "onerous reporting obligations" included in the 2015 net neutrality order, they said. But by setting the threshold at 250,000 subscribers and exempting small ISPs owned by larger companies, the FCC is effectively "exempt[ing] billion-dollar public companies" from rules that can be complied with in mere hours each year, said Mignon Clyburn, the FCC's only Democrat.

The commission's 2015 order temporarily exempted ISPs with 100,000 or fewer subscribers from the so-called enhanced transparency requirements, but that exemption expired in December 2016. Clyburn said she would support reinstating the exemption for ISPs with 100,000 or fewer subscribers, but she [pdf] dissented from today's order.

The 250,000-subscriber exemption won't apply to the top broadband providers such as Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, and others. But it will exempt many ISPs owned by conglomerates, Clyburn said.

"Many of the nation's largest broadband providers are actually holding companies, comprised of many smaller operating companies," Clyburn said. "So what today's Order does is exempt these companies' affiliates that have under 250,000 connections by declining to aggregate the connection count at the holding company level."

The original exemption [pdf] for ISPs with 100,000 or fewer subscribers was applied to the aggregated total of subscribers "across all affiliates," so that small ISPs owned by big holding companies wouldn't be exempt. That changed today, according to Clyburn.

Source: ArsTechnica

Also at TechCrunch


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  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:43PM

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:43PM (#471950)

    I am an unhappy customer of one of the "big guys." I don't like ISP spying any more than I like Amazon purchase-tracking, etc.

    What I am wondering is if this whole "could be completed within hours" blurb is really the case. Even if it were, does somebody who handles reporting information to the Federal government need to be highly qualified? Most certainly. This does not suggest that they would leave themselves available on the dole for job openings which provided "a few hours a year" of work in the currently very small "local ISP" business community.

    I am certain that if said small ISP reported figures incorrectly that it could result in fines, levees, and legal fees that could bankrupt a fledging ISP in their first year of business. It really seems to me on the surface like this is just easing a burden.

    If the local small ISP isn't competing with the larger one, they aren't going to succeed, and thus this isn't a problem. However, if they're going to offer quality customer support and invest more money in ensuring uptime for their user-base, why not let them keep on doing what they're doing uninhibited until they're big enough? Even if it cost the company "Only a few days and $10,000" to get all of the stuff together - why? Why bug them? They're still paying business taxes - why not let them put that $10k toward a new water cooler?

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  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday February 27 2017, @12:00PM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Monday February 27 2017, @12:00PM (#472211)

    It appears that they would have to provide full disclosure of actual costs to the consumer as well as some network performance statistics. That does not appear too onerous to me, the first should be a given for any business and the second should be data they are already looking at for their own purposes.

    • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday February 27 2017, @02:55PM

      by linkdude64 (5482) on Monday February 27 2017, @02:55PM (#472290)

      That also sounds pretty reasonable, but I am still waiting for somebody to call me "Literally Hitler" for suggesting to reduce regulation.