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Wireless Provider Follows Verizon in Suing FCC to Undo Net Neutrality
by Seton Motley
Metro PCS is an American wireless phone service provider – with coverage reaching about 90% of the nation. Their slogan is "Wireless for All" – and their different price packages are certainly readily accessible for most people.
Some other plans they offer are:
- A $50 plan that has everything above plus international and "premium" text messaging, the MetroNavigator GPS directional service, the ScreenIT caller ID app, mobile instant messaging, corporate e-mail, 1GB of additional data access, and the MetroSTUDIO video service.
- A $60 plan that has all of the above plus unlimited data access and MetroSTUDIO "premium content"—18 video-on-demand channels plus audio downloads.
Those of us now wincing at the thought of our monthly cell bills are also simultaneously thinking – Metro PCS is a pretty good deal. It is certainly one of the more "public-friendly" out there right now.
You would think. Ahh, but the Public Interest Groups (PIGs) have found fault with Metro PCS.
At the behest of no one, Media Marxist PIG outfit Free Press went whining to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – and "call(ed) on (them) to investigate Metro PCS for Internet blocking."
In other words – they are accusing Metro PCS of a Network Neutrality violation.
Never mind that the FCC hasn't yet filed its December 21st totally unlawful Internet power grab order – executed so as to then unlawfully impose Net Neutrality. So it may not yet even be enforceable.
Never mind that Verizon has filed already filed a lawsuit to undo in expedited fashion said order.
In response to Free Press' caterwauling, MetroPCS also filed suit.
The real problem here is the perpetually moving goal post that is "Net Neutrality." Its eternally expansive and elastic definition is changed to suit the Media Marxist moment, and "fit" whatever free market situation the PIGs wish to warp.
It is these Leftist groups that made up the ridiculous notion of Net Neutrality in the first place. An invented solution – with which the Media Marxists then went running around looking for a "problem" to which to apply it.
Net Neutrality is the PIGs way of getting the government's hooks into the Internet. The Web has grown – without any real government involvement at all – into a free speech, free market Xanadu. A whole new world now making up 1/6th of our national economy – and of limitless First Amendment revelry. Including a whole lot of less government, free market talk and talkers – which is not what the Media Marxists wish to see or hear.
So born was Net Neutrality – not to make the Net neutral, but to neutralize the Net.
In 2006, there were but four Net Neutrality principles – to which everyone agreed, no problem. Then with President Barack Obama and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski came two more – which are far more pernicious. Media Marxist Free Press has a lengthy list of even more.
Net Neutrality used to mean the Internet Service Provider (ISP) could not block its customers from receiving lawful content over "the last mile" – meaning the last little bit of the Internet between the ISPs and their customers.
But in the last several months the Media Marxists have come up with several new, very different and incredibly expansive alleged examples of Net Neutrality "violations."
There was the Fox-Cablevision situation. Their mutual broadcast contract expired, so Fox pulled their shows from Cablevision TVs, and briefly blocked their Internet content from Cablevision Web subscribers.
After all, it's their content – they can do with it what they wish, right?
Wrong, say the Media Marxists – Net Neutrality now means that Fox (and everyone else) must provide their content – for free.
Until this incident, the PIGs had rigidly insisted that Net Neutrality was not about content control. Now we know it is.
There is the Comcast-Level 3 situation. Level 3 works with the home-movie monster Netflix, who is looking to move as much as possible away from postal delivery of their movies to Internet delivery thereof. It currently costs them 1/20th as much to deliver via the Web than via the U.S. Postal Service.
But Netflix's ongoing shift to an ever more Internet-intensive delivery model makes them an ever-growing bandwidth hog. And that bandwidth is not in the "last mile" – it is in the Internet "backbone" where a whole host of companies interlock their networks via long established "peering" contracts with one another so as to best deliver content to their customers' "last miles."
So of course Netflix should pay for all this extra bandwidth they'll be hogging, right?
Wrong, say the Media Marxists and Level 3 – Net Neutrality now means that the "peering" system that has existed for, well, ever is now a giant heap of Net Neutrality violations.
That's not an assault on the Internet, is it? Exploding a complex mesh of all-party-agreeable contracts that have existed since virtually the beginning of the Web?
And if Netflix doesn't have to pay for all that bandwidth hogging, guess who does? That would be you and me. Hooray.
Way to look out for the consumers, all you "consumer" groups.
And now we have the Metro PCS situation. Where the cellular provider is giving consumers many options from which to choose – some of which do not allow full access to the Internet. Which means the consumer – not Metro PCS – is "blocking" his or her access to the Internet based upon the phone plan choice he or she makes. Voluntarily.
Because after all, not everyone wants or needs full-on Internet access on their phones. Many, many people don't even want it in their homes – 90+% of residences have access to broadband, but only 66% actually choose to get it.
So if someone wants, you know, a regular cell phone – should they be forced to pay for Internet service they're not going to use?
The "consumer" groups – under the mantle of Net Neutrality – say Yes. And that is patently absurd.
The ever-mutating Net Neutrality is very similar to Global Warming Climate Change. It's hot? It's Global Warming. It's snowing? Global Warming Climate Change. There's an earthquake? Flood? A stiff breeze? It's all Climate Change – and government is the only answer.
So too is Net Neutrality morphed to meet the situational Machiavellian needs of the Media Marxists. Every free market situation is a Net Neutrality "violation" – and government is the only answer.
But to paraphrase the bumper sticker, if government is the answer – it must be a really stupid question.
Seton Motley
President
Less Government
-------------------
Editor in Chief
StopNetRegulation.org
A publication of the Center for Individual Freedom
Twitter.com/SetonMotley
Facebook.com/SetonMotley
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