from the taking-what-they're-giving-cuz-i'm-shilling-for-a-living dept.
Jon Brodkin over at Ars Technica is reporting on a scheduled vote next month (10 July 2019) at the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The decision would invalidate San Francisco's Article 52[PDF], which requires property owner-owned cable plant to be shared by multiple ISPs.
As Brodkin reports:
The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month on whether to preempt a San Francisco city ordinance that was designed to promote broadband competition in multi-unit buildings.
San Francisco's Article 52, approved in December 2016, lets Internet service providers use the existing wiring inside multi-unit residential and commercial properties even if the wiring is already used by another ISP that serves the building. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors and then-Mayor Ed Lee approved it in order to spur competition in multi-unit buildings where occupants often have only one option for Internet service.
The ordinance only applies when the inside wiring belongs to the property owner. Under the rule, property owners who have outfitted their buildings with Internet wiring cannot deny access to ISPs, making it harder for them to strike exclusive deals with Internet providers.
[...] When San Francisco passed its rule, the city argued that property owners were sidestepping a federal law that "bans property owners, landlords, and property managers from entering into exclusive agreements with service providers."
Despite that federal law, "local ISPs estimate that approximately 500 multi-dwelling unit buildings, representing more than 50,000 units, have limitations in place that effectively deny them the opportunity to provide Internet access," the city's Board of Supervisors said at the time. The new ordinance was written to "clos[e] these glaring loopholes... and establish parameters and requirements for how and when qualified ISPs can provide service to multi-unit buildings."
[...] The FCC's decision to preempt the rule comes in response to a February 2017 petition[PDF] from the Multifamily Broadband Council (MBC), a trade group for ISPs that serve multi-tenant properties.
[...] San Francisco opposed the MBC preemption request, not surprisingly. The city told the FCC that its rule doesn't conflict with FCC regulation because it only applies to wiring owned by a property owner.
"Article 52 does not impose any obligation to share existing wiring owned by a cable television provider or telecommunications provider, nor does it allow a communications provider to access any UNEs [unbundled network elements] owned by a telecommunications provider," San Francisco said. San Francisco also said the FCC's priority in this case should not be to "protect the business model favored by MBC's members."
What say you, Soylentils?
Is the FCC limiting competition and picking winners by favoring incumbent ISPs/exclusive agreements?
Is San Francisco abridging the rights of property owners to use their infrastructure as they see fit?
Should the FCC have a say in local wiring codes?
Does the result of such local regulation (increased choice/competition in multi-unit buildings) justify modifying existing building codes in this way?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Monday June 24 2019, @01:05PM
ISP's don't want competition, they want bigger profits.
Ajit Pai has his instructions.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday June 24 2019, @01:32PM
So we have Google on the other side of this, but lobbying may be ineffective if Ajit Pai is the deciding vote on most issues.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Monday June 24 2019, @01:37PM (12 children)
FCC being front-desk service for Comcast, AT&T etc. FAA as Boeing mouthpiece. FDA pampering Big Pharma. Deafening federal silence on personal privacy. Feudalism.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 24 2019, @02:18PM (1 child)
Front desk service? I wasn't aware that you got service from them. You take what they offer, or you do without!
(Score: 4, Funny) by redneckmother on Monday June 24 2019, @06:09PM
The "service" is the kind a bull provides to a cow.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @05:26PM (7 children)
You forgot the best part: Morons finally realizing what "conspiracy theorists" and "racists" have been telling them is going on for decades. But will it stick? Will you forget as soon as there is a democrat president?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @05:51PM (2 children)
Почему вы беспокоитесь об этом сайте? почему вы не работаете на сайтах, которые имеют большее значение и имеют больше пользователей?
мы получаем достаточно жалоб на то, что уже не комментируем достаточно людей.
Pochemu vy bespokoites' ob etom sayte? pochemu vy ne rabotayete na saytakh, kotoryye imeyut bol'sheye znacheniye i imeyut bol'she pol'zovateley?
my poluchayem dostatochno zhalob na to, chto uzhe ne kommentiruyem dostatochno lyudey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:48PM (1 child)
All those "russian trolls" need to do is tell the truth, because idiots have been voting for republicrats for so long everything is corrupt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:52PM
Юрий говорит, чтобы ты передал свою задницу ВаПо и разбудил тех идиотов.
Те, что здесь, уже в нашем кармане.
Начните делать свои квоты, или мы все получим,
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 24 2019, @05:59PM (3 children)
Last time we got a Democratic president we got Net Neutrality out of the deal.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @07:50PM (2 children)
And I noticed no difference at all... Meanwhile more spying, more wars, more debt, more expensive healthcare (and everything else), etc. All the trends normal people career about continued down the bad path. It makes no difference at all to most people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @10:42PM (1 child)
I pay less now, without any government subsidy.
Don't you have some vodka to drink blinis to eat?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @10:52PM
I assure you I pay far less than you, without any insurance at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday June 24 2019, @07:24PM (1 child)
1. The government is helping the people.
2. Corporations are people too!
3. A government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.
4. qed. Profit!
Action required when executive bonuses are at steak!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 25 2019, @12:03AM
I like MBA/executive bonus steaks burnt to a crisp.
A pity they serve them this style only with an entree of engineers lay offs, this usually ruins my appetite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 24 2019, @02:18PM (1 child)
The FCC has no business regulating this whatsoever. The ISP's aren't Common Carriers, right? Then what is their jurisdictional basis?
As to Pai's justification about signal quality and technical standards, I'd like to understand how allowing multiple comapanies' access might degrade the signal or technical standards inside buildings. And the answer to that is to amend the technical standards to say that any group seeking to share/join a building must ensure their signal quality meets standards and be responsible for any enhancements required. So it doesn't pass a smell test.
This is about profit, pure and simple.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 24 2019, @06:01PM
It's very easy to understand: a Trump stooge is lying.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mobydisk on Monday June 24 2019, @06:55PM (3 children)
This is how the infrastructure should be run. Just like how power lines can be used by multiple power providers, fiber lines should be usable by multiple ISPs. We actually have this back in the 1990s, and we called it "dial-up." Some of you may remember: you could select from many different internet service providers using the same wire! Today, this is somehow considered to be technologically impossible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Monday June 24 2019, @09:37PM (2 children)
It's not that simple. Power lines are not used my multiple different power providers. It's just power going across the lines, and then a bunch of accounting for credits. There is still a single utility company that is responsible for the physical lines and their maintenance. Truly separate use would mean another power company having rights to access the utility poles and install additional lines. I don't believe that is done.
It may be technologically impossible to share the infrastructure for Internet. Dial-up was a much slower speed and analog. To say you could select from many different ISPs isn't exactly true, or relevant. You could really only select from one telephone company providing you PSTN service. It's obvious that the "ISP" in dial-up case is simply the party you are calling, but "ISP" in how we speak of it today was the telephone company. You didn't actually have a choice, that was an illusion. It was all AT&T so to speak. The ISPs were an extra added cost on top of that.
Anything copper past dial-up is going to be either DSL technology, or coax technology using cablemodems. Neither of those allow simultaneous use by multiple parties WRT the last mile. Fiber lines are no different either. I can't think of anything that will segment fiber so that two different pieces of equipment could use it for their purposes. It will still come down to company A that owns and operates the copper/fiber runs, and companies B, C, & D can request access. Sonic, by law IIRC, has the rights to access the last mile, or engage in some credit accounting with AT&T. That is only for DSL though, coax has no such laws that I'm aware of. In all cases though, there is no actual sharing at a technological level. You need to be physically reconnected to a different ISP, or AT&T needs to specially route your traffic to Sonic networks.
What cities need to do is realize this first. The answer is to REMOVE private companies from the last mile period. Cities need their OWN fiber infrastructure, and should at most pay private companies to operate it. Not charge for bandwidth, or be allowed any behavior WRT content being transferred. Once a city has this, they can then negotiate with Level 1 players to provide peering/transit agreements to hook up that cities fiber network to the Internet. At this point you would have a single entity responsible for your last mile, that by law doesn't give two shits about content, and can be configured individually to route to the ISP/Network of your choice. That's not the same as trying to share a physical line amongst multiple parties (technically not feasible), and is instead simply a configuration and routing issue. Even better, it might be possible to have more than one provider at one time. Meaning, your own network at home is connected via that last mile to multiple other networks. Homes might not do this all the time, but businesses absolutely would.
Of course, all this just considers wired internet. Wireless providers can of course establish their own last mile very easily, along with satellite providers coming into the market soon. The WORST wireless though to purchase is Comcast though. You're not helping anyone, and it's just stealing service away from a residential connection that is not properly compensated.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday June 24 2019, @10:25PM
I'd point out that we're specifically talking about already pulled cable in multi-unit buildings.
Presumably that cable plant terminates at a central patch panel/location which, in most cases, can be easily patched from one ISP's CPE to another's.
While that's not necessarily the case in buildings where the cable plant is installed by ISPs (e.g., cable TV/internet providers/FTTH, etc.), if things are done intelligently, that needn't be an issue.
In the building where I live, there are two cable companies that are able to service units in the building. In cases where it's a switch from one provider to another, they just patch the cable from the appropriate unit from one concentrator to another. No muss, no fuss.
Single-unit premises are a different matter altogether, but that's not what TFA is about. But even with those, if the cable plant is intelligently deployed (yes, I do realized that's probably too much to ask), supporting multiple providers with a single cable infrastructure on a residential street or in an office park *could* be feasible and cost-effective. However, I won't hold my breath.
All that said, you have a valid point more generally, which is why municipal broadband makes so much sense.
Sadly, pieces of shit like Ajit Pai will fight that sort of thing as long as their masters continue to reward them for doing so.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday June 24 2019, @10:26PM
Oops. I replied before reading your entire comment. It seems we're in complete agreement. My apologies for not reading all the way through before responding.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr