The FCC's Network Neutrality Ruling in the Comcast Case: Towards a Consensus with Europe?

In August 2008, the FCC found that Comcast's restrictions on peer-to-peer upload transmissions were unreasonably discriminatory, arbitrarily targeted a particular application, and deprived consumers of their rights to run Internet applications and use services of their choice. The Comcast ruling represents a significant change in the FCC's direction: given the FCC's past decisions that broadband Internet access services do not fall within the "common carrier" category, it is notable that the agency has now imposed nondiscrimination requirements on these services. This Article shows that the rationales articulated in the FCC's Comcast order, stressing both (i) concerns about protecting competition and (ii) concerns about protecting consumers from disruption of their ability to communicate freely and privately, are rooted in centuries of Anglo-American law defining he obligations of "common carriers." The FCC appears to be moving away from its traditional emphasis on the competition policy concerns, which justify asymmetrical regulation of dominant providers for the sake of enabling competition, and toward an emphasis on the consumer protection issues, which justify symmetrical regulation of all service providers regardless whether they have market power. These developments in the U.S. echo the discussion now going on in Europe in the context of the package of proposals on a new common regulatory framework for telecommunications, released by the European Commission on Nov. 13, 2007, and which is now being debated by the European Parliament and Council. On both sides of the Atlantic, a trend is emerging to permit network discrimination only if the discrimination is narrowly tailored to achieve legitimate objectives.network neutrality, discrimination, common carrier, network management, Comcast, European Directives.

The State of Network Neutrality Regulation

The Network Neutrality (NN) debate refers to the battle over the design of a regulatory framework for preserving the Internet as a public network and open innovation platform. Fueled by concerns that broadband access service providers might abuse network management to discriminate against third party providers (e.g., content or application providers), policymakers have struggled with designing rules that would protect the Internet from unreasonable network management practices. In this article, we provide an overview of the history of the debate in the U.S. and the EU and highlight the challenges that will confront network engineers designing and operating networks as the debate continues to evolve.BMBF, 16DII111, Verbundprojekt: Weizenbaum-Institut für die vernetzte Gesellschaft - Das Deutsche Internet-Institut; Teilvorhaben: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)EC/H2020/679158/EU/Resolving the Tussle in the Internet: Mapping, Architecture, and Policy Making/ResolutioNe

Reiter v. Cooper and Unreasonable Rates: Are Reports of the Field Rate Doctrine’s Death Greatly Exaggerated?

Denna studies huvudsyfte är att ta reda på hur pedagoger planerar och arbetar med att hos sina elever utveckla de fem stora förmågorna inom matematik. Dessa fem förmågor är: Begreppsförmåga, kommunikationsförmåga, procedurförmåga, analysförmåga samt metakognitiv förmåga. För att finna svar på den frågeställning som studien har, gällande hur planeringen och arbetet med förmågorna ser ut, användes en kvalitativ forskningsmetod. Genom kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer med sex pedagoger samlades data in. De data som intervjuerna genererade analyserades sedan med hjälp av tidigare forskning och litteratur inom området. I den tidigare forskningen och litteraturen presenteras hur en planering och arbetet med de fem stora förmågorna kan och bör se ut. I studien presenteras även en bakgrund till begreppet The Big Five samt hur dessa kan och bör planeras och arbetas med i relation till matematiken. Avslutningsvis presenteras de resultat som framkommit. I dessa framgår att de pedagoger jag intervjuat på de flesta sätten, följde de råd, tips och kriterier som tidigare forskning och övrig litteratur ansåg att planering och undervisning i de matematiska förmågorna bör bygga på. Dock fann jag två punkter där förbättringar kan och bör ske. Dessa gäller hur material vid genomgångar och under arbetet med förmågorna på ett bättre sätt bör anpassas för eleverna, så att de oavsett var de ligger kunskapsmässigt kan få ta del av och förstå vad och hur förmågorna ska tränas. Pedagogerna bör även bli bättre på att samarbeta med övriga skolämnen och på så sätt förbättra förutsättningarna för- och utvecklandet i förståelsen i förmågorna samt ytterligare inse nyttan av att kunna och använda sig av matematik

Does the net neutrality really preserve the open internet? A critique from the implications of broadband policy

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Market driven network neutrality and the fallacies of internet traffic quality regulation

In the U.S. paying for priority arrangements between Internet access service providers and Internet application providers to favor some traffic over other traffic is considered unreasonable discrimination. In Europe the focus is on minimum traffic quality requirements. It can be shown that neither market power nor universal service arguments can justify traffic quality regulation. In particular, heterogeneous demand for traffic quality for delay sensitive versus delay insensitive applications requires traffic quality differentiation, priority pricing and evolutionary development of minimal traffic qualities.

Market driven network neutrality and the fallacies of Internet traffic quality regulation

In the U.S. paying for priority arrangements between Internet access service providers and Internet application providers to favor some traffic over other traf-fic is considered unreasonable discrimination. In Europe the focus is on mini-mum traffic quality requirements. It can be shown that neither market power nor universal service arguments can justify traffic quality regulation. In particular, heterogeneous demand for traffic quality for delay sensitive versus delay insen-sitive applications requires traffic quality differentiation, priority pricing and evolutionary development of minimal traffic qualities. --

Guardian Knight or Hands Off: The European Response to Network Neutrality. Legal considerations on the electronic communications reform

Network neutrality refers to a policy principle regarding access for online content and service providers to broadband infrastructures. It implies a general and ex ante obligation of non-discrimination for network operators when granting access to providers of online services, with the aim of excluding practices such as blocking access to non-affiliated content, degrading the quality of transmission, imposing unreasonable restrictions or prioritising affiliated content. Whether such obligation should be "cast in the Stone Tables" of the law was first fiercely debated in the United States, and the issue is now gaining increased attention in other parts of the world, including the European Union, where the regulatory framework for electronic communications is currently under review. This article examines whether existing rules already provide the relevant authorities with the necessary tools to take action against broadband providers illegitimately discriminating or blocking content of those who are not prepared to pay a "toll" for the use of higher speed networks or better quality services. It focuses in particular on the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services, including the reform proposals published by the European Commission on November 13th (type should be like 24th below) 2007 and the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on 24th September 2008.network neutrality, regulation, electronic communications, reform proposals.