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Aclp - Comments To The Fcc Re Net Neutrality - December 2023, New York Law School

Reports and Resources

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Government Information Crackdowns In The Covid-19 Pandemic, Justin Sherman

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of accurate, real-time information and empirical data in a rapidly evolving crisis. Yet it has also captured an opposite issue: the spread of misinformation and disinformation during a public health crisis. Numerous governments have used the Covid-19 pandemic as reason to, legitimately or illegitimately, heighten existing state censorship practices or introduce new practices entirely under the justification of stopping false information about the virus. This report analyzes developments in China, India, and Russia as case studies of government censorship amid the public health crisis. It offers five key takeaways from these case studies. …

Broadband Institute Of California Amicus Brief.Pdf, Jodi Benassi

Jodi Benassi

Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper will examine the FCC’s March, 2015 Open Internet Order with an eye to assessing whether and how the Commission can successfully defend its decision in an appellate court. On two prior occasions, the FCC failed to convince a reviewing court that proposed regulatory safeguards do not unlawfully impose common carrier duties on private carriers. The Commission now has opted to reclassify broadband Internet access as common carriage, a decision sure to trigger a third court appeal. The FCC Open Internet Order offers several, possibly contradictory, justifications for its decision to apply Title II of the Communications Act, subject …

Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Approaches To Network Neutrality: A Cost Benefit Analysis, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

Many advocates for less intrusive government oversight of telecommunications support the migration from regulation by an expert agency to the use of adjudication remedies largely guided by antitrust/competition policy principles. They believe that competition authorities, or reviewing courts can resolve disputes after they have occurred in lieu of having expert regulatory agencies available to anticipate and resolve problems before they become acute. Such ex post remedies typically determine whether anticompetitive conduct has occurred and what marketplace harm has resulted. Advocates for retaining so-called ex ante regulation believe that an expert agency remains essential particularly in light of fast changing market …

What’S New In The Network Neutrality Debate, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

For over ten years, academics, practitioners, policy makers, consumers and other stakeholders have debated whether and how governments should regulate the Internet with an eye toward promoting accessibility, affordability and neutrality. This issue has triggered grave concerns about the Internet’s ability to continue generating substantial and widespread benefits. Advocates for various outcomes have vastly different assessments about many baseline subjects including the viability of sustainable competition and self-regulation. Consumers become agitated and confused by different framing of the issues, particularly when participants in the Internet ecosystem cannot reach closure on interconnection and compensation issues. Increasingly these disputes trigger temporary degradation …

Net Bias And The Treatment Of “Mission-Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any distribution format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a particular channel and in a single presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can …

Sender Side Transmission Rules For The Internet, Tejas N. Narechania, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Since 1966, the Federal Communications Commission has, one way or another, protected businesses that deliver services over the nation’s communications infrastructure. But in January 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the FCC’s net neutrality rules contained in its 2010 Open Internet Order. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has since indicated that he will take up the D.C. Circuit’s invitation to implement rules that, consistent with historic practice, “will meet the court’s test for preventing improper blocking of and discrimination among Internet traffic.”

Chairman Wheeler’s statement invites an obvious question: presuming that the FCC wants …

Network Neutrality: The Global Dimension, Pierre Larouche

Pierre Larouche

This paper first sets out a framework for understanding network neutrality, by organizing the various issues raised in the course of the network neutrality debate. Secondly, recent US legal and regulatory initiatives are briefly reviewed. Thirdly, the situation under EU law is surveyed. Finally, the conclusion compares the two regulatory responses and considers how the global network neutrality debate could unfold. In the short term, ISPs must take measures to deal with imbalances and congestion on their networks. Beyond that, in the longer term, ISPs are looking to introduce differentiated Quality of Service (QoS) offerings, so as to turn their …