High Court to Hear Cable Internet Case

Well, that makes sense as all the cable companies are now telephone companies. -Dave

Well by that logic, the telephone companies shouldn't be regulated at ll. -Dave

It's less about whether there will be any control than about who has the control: Federal or local jurisdictions. That was the issue in the Portland case, and since this is the Ninth Circuit, this may be the same case.

Briefly, the City of Portland told TCI (which was bought by AT&T Broadband, and eventually merged with Comcast) that they had to provide "open access" to their lines. That is, if people were to get Internet service through the cable lines, they shouldn't have to choose TCI@Home as their ISP, and could get their ISP services from any ISP.

When the case began, it was beyond what the technology was capable of, but today, there are ways it can be done. For example, some Comcast customers can choose Earthlink as their ISP instead of Comcast HSI.

After the Ninth Circuit ruled that it was a telecommunications component, and should be regulated by the Federal government, and not local governments, the City of Portland essentially lost. The could not force what was then AT&T Broadband to offer other ISP's services through their cable.

The FCC doesn't want to regulate cable Internet. The cable companies don't want the FCC to regulate it, either, but I'm sure that they'd rather have uniform national regulations than a hodgepodge of local regulations to deal with. So if the Supreme Court overrules the Ninth Circuit, that could open the door to more, but less uniform controls and regulations than if the Supreme Court decides that the FCC should be regulating cable internet as a telecommunications component.

This is one of those very complex cases that your preference at first glance may have the opposite effect of what you want. If you want more local control -- more input in your own service -- then you really should be rooting for the Court to find that it's *not* a telecommunications component subject to stricter Federal control.

Of course this is a great over-simplification of the case. But there's no mistake that whichever way things go, we are bound to see changes in how cable Internet service is regulated. Someone will regulate it when it's all said and done. The case isn't concerned with how they'll regulate it, so what will actually happen when all is said and done may be quite unexpected.

The case had nothing to do with telephone service offered by the cable companies. Nothing to do with on-demand programing. Nothing to do with analog or digital cable TV. Nothing to do with anything other than providing Internet service, or more specifically, access to the cable to others to provide Internet service.

What you're saying makes as much sense as saying that cigarettes should be subject to the same regulations as booze because Phillip Morris owns companies that produce and distribute booze. The other endevors of the cable companies have nothing to do with this case.

I may be wrong guys, but I don't think it's about "regulating", but more about "taxing" your HSD service. ;)

YES. You either regulate cable companies like the telephone companies that they actually are, or you don't regulate telephone companies. Seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? You can't on the one hand allow a cable company to act like an unregulated telephone company and then on the other hand say that all telephone companies should be regulated.

If cable companies are exempt from regulation because they are information (ONLY) companies, then they are presumably NOT allowed to offer dial-tone land-line telephone service. But they do JUST that.

On the other hand, land-line telephone companies also operate as an "information" service (IE DSL). So if the cable companies can argue that they are an information service, so can the telephone companies. -Dave

No. That would be a wrong assumption.

Can you walk us through the logic behind that thought?

Okay. Now I see what you missed.

Telephone SERVICE is regulated. The telephone service offered by cable companies IS regulated as a telecommunications service. They don't get a free pass because they're a "cable company".

Services of the telephone companies that aren't telecommunications services aren't regulated as telecommunications service just because they're offered by a "telephone company", and if a cable company -- or a company you want to describe in any manner -- will have any telecommunications services regulated regardless of whether they're a "telephone company".

Warren,

This is completely wrong; they do indeed get a free pass, and I know something of the subject as I work for a government agency that regulates telecommunications companies. Below is a quote from a cnet article to support this:

Ben Charny, Staff Writer, CNET News.com

"providers of VoIP--voice over Internet Protocol--a cheap telephone

service in which phone calls use Internet Protocol (IP) to travel

over

the public Internet, or privately owned high-speed networks based on

IP. The calls are much cheaper than traditionally placed ones mainly

because of IP's efficiencies, plus most IP calls have so far avoided

regulation, while traditional phone companies must collect fees and

taxes from their customers."

Dave was right, and avoiding these fees and taxes, which fund many of our most important ideas of social telecom responsibility is exactly why so many people are interested in voip.

Chip

ok Warren, my apologies as Comcast doesn't offer that in my area (and maybe not here in my state) as I've never heard of what you're describing. I think I understand the idea, but I'm not sure when it comes down to it how it's really different from VOIP, which is not regulated. If it's digitized and sent over cable tv wiring, it's going to be hard to argue that one should be regulated and the other should not be.

Umm...you can have point to point VoIP.

Only times you need a VoIP provider is when you're contacting someone on the POTS (Cellphones fall under this umbrella), or need say a generally accessable phone number (555-1612), or some other features. e.g.voicemail.

Sorry, Chip, but VOIP is very different than the telephone service offered by cable companies. VOIP uses the Internet to deliver service. Phone service offered by Comcast does not use the Internet, and is regulated the same as any other phone company offering local service is regulated.

The phone service provided by cable companies may be a digital data carried on an RF signal to the cable company's headend location, at which point it's connected to the rest of the phone network just as if the headend was a CO. In other words, the headend essentially acts as a CO. At that point, a phone call hits the same telecommunications network the same as a call from a regular phone company. It never hits the Internet.

VOIP isn't regulated if you have DSL, either. VOIP is an Internet thing, leaving the end point on the customers Internet connection, and not hitting the phone network until it gets to where the VOIP provider takes it off the Internet. Essentially you're not making the phone call. The VOIP provider is making a phone call. What you're doing isn't much different than sending an audio IM that someone else is relaying to the phone network.

So it's fairly easy to draw the line where it is, even if it doesn't make practical sense to someone using VOIP the same as they would use a telephone. In other words, it's easier to decide based on what the technology is, rather than how people use the technology.

We are rapidly approaching a point where the definition of "phone company", "cable company" and "ISP" will blur to being the same company. I think all of these regulations need to be thrown in the pot and dished out again. I bet by the end of the decade they will just be selling bandwidth and what you do with it is moot. I'm sure there will still be some POTS service, the same way that we still support granny's 1946 Dumont TV but that is not where most people will be buying their telecom service.

I think you have the real answer nailed down. The regulations may change, but the tax revenue will have to remain the same, or higher.

Warren, I am one of the baby boomers who has recently retired. I wouldn't say I live in poverty, but that is ONLY because both I and my wife worked and we both have retirement, and social security. Anyone who has to get by on a single retirement income is likely to be in poverty unless they provide for themselves outside of SS and/or pension income.

That would make sense except for two things: 1. No level of government is going to give up any existing taxes they get without a fight. 2. No one is going to be able to push through new taxes without committing political suicide.

How things are regulated is going to have more to do with where the tax dollars go than what makes sense. It's not the regulations that matter. It's the tax dollars those regulations generate.

Which makes it even less of a telephone thing.