RSSComcast challenges FCC's authority in sanction appeal
By Ed Oswald | Published September 5, 2008, 2:14 PM
In a filing Thursday with the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, the broadband service provider argued that the agency did not have the authority to impose sanctions in the first place.
The FCC's order did not fine Comcast, instead ordering the company to make changes to the way it handles traffic. Comcast had already agreed to make such changes on its own, including targeted throttling and a 250 GB cap on bandwidth per customer.
Comcast has made no secret that it believed the FCC does not have the authority to impose such sanctions. If the Internet is considered a telecommunications service, then its regulation falls under the Telecommunications Act, Comcast has argued, and it would indeed be the FCC's job to regulate it.
However, if the Internet is an information service, which opponents of net neutrality have argued -- and Comcast could easily be described as such -- then the regulation could actually fall under the Federal Trade Commission.
Another argument from Comcast is that there were no set rules for the cable provider to follow regarding control over its own network traffic. Moreover, it's arguing the FCC's sanctions against it were based on a list of network neutrality principles, not laws -- thus it had not broken any law.
"We filed this appeal in order to protect our legal rights and to challenge the basis on which the Commission found that Comcast violated federal policy in the absence of pre-existing legally enforceable standards or rules," executive vice president David Cohen said in a statement. "We are compelled to appeal because we strongly believe that, in this particular case, the Commission's action was legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record."
The conundrum over what the FCC should be enforcing, and to what degree, may be attributable to FCC chairman Kevin Martin. Instead of aggressive enforcement and cooperation with Congress on legislation, under Martin's stewardship, the agency has preferred merely to draft broader principles, and only take action when necessary.
The chairman said he was "disappointed by Comcast's decision to appeal," when asked for a reaction to Thursday's filing.
the internet arrives to us how?
[1] - through telephone lines for modem users (FCC territory)
[2] - through telephone lines if you have dsl (FCC territory)
[3] - via two way cable lines where direct end user communications to a remote host travels through cable lines, determining what is viewed (weak but ..still could be considered communication) (FCC territory considering it IS communication)
[4] - via 2 way satellite communications where direct input of the end user communications to a remote host travels through communications airspace (much like a radio wave which is also under the control of the FCC), determining what is viewed (FCC territory)
[5] - through high speed "t rated" and fiber optic lines allowing 2 way communication between the end user and remote servers, determining what content is viewed.
These IMO are all valid reasons why the FCC does indeed have the legal right to censure comcast as it did. I am no lawyer however, just a few reasons I pulled out of my a** :)
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they should hear the appeal and rule for imposing fines for wasting their time. But oh wait Comcast is in this to make money and should have the RIGHT to change the term "unlimited" to mean anything they want or do what they see fit. To bad that does work in other business.. If a hospital does not want to service a hostile or hard to deal with patient then it's called discrimination. they the lawyers come in......
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I tend to disagree. The term unlimited cannot be changed by comcast to mean what it wants. People take comfort in the fact that what something means is clearly defined and the definition of a given thing can be found in the dictionary. The thing comcast CAN do is change the wording so that unlimited refers only to the content viewed, something like "up to 250 gig of unlimited content provided the content is not violating any federal, state or local ordinances" lol
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Comcast never used the word "unlimited" in their contract or their advertising. They've always used the word "up to".
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Comcast provides a Telecommunications service, Google provides an information service. It would be nice judges not only stress the first ruling but go ahead imposing some fines as well. :)
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