Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
A Federal Communications Commission lawyer faced a skeptical panel of judges today as the FCC defended its repeal of net neutrality rules and deregulation of the broadband industry.
FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson struggled to explain why broadband shouldn't be considered a telecommunications service, and struggled to explain the FCC's failure to protect public safety agencies from Internet providers blocking or slowing down content.
Oral arguments were held today in the case, which is being decided by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (Audio of the four-hour-plus oral arguments is available here.) Throttling of firefighters' data plans played a major role in today's oral arguments.
[...] The lawsuit seeking to overturn the net neutrality repeal was filed by more than three dozen entities, including state attorneys general, consumer advocacy groups, and tech companies such as Mozilla and Vimeo.
(Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Monday February 04 2019, @11:58AM (5 children)
I'm not sure I'd consider snail mail telecommunications, but yeah, that's a bit of a nitpick and not really relevant to this case, and I pretty much agree with your other points.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 04 2019, @01:43PM (4 children)
Fair point - I believe telecommunications was conceived in the era of the telegraph, to describe near-instant communication farther than you can shout.
Snail-mail is more like recordkeeping, where the records can be hand carried.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 04 2019, @04:27PM (3 children)
Wikipedia suggests first use of the word was 1904. Telegraph and telephone were well established though not universally entrenched. (Semaphore, too, come to that). The new player was radio - you had something no longer dependent on wires. Finally there were enough entities to require a taxonomic grouping.
None of which disowns what y'all were trying to say really. picky, picky, picky lawn......
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 04 2019, @05:52PM (2 children)
> Telegraph and telephone were well established though not universally entrenched. (Semaphore, too, come to that).
Hey, don't forget the other photonic communication: smoke signals. You're welcome Buzzy.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 04 2019, @06:07PM (1 child)
Hmm..... flattered or insulted? Life is full of such massively important quandaries. Maybe I'll defer until the mistaken identity is confirmed by smoke signal.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 04 2019, @07:54PM
Questions abound. Like, they're no good on a windy day, so what then? And, they dissipate fairly quickly, so were people assigned to look for them? Was there a set time of day to send them? How about at night? Someday I'll study up on smoke signals.