of the 21.7 million public comments supporting the rule change were likely faked. I commented and there were 3 other comments with all my information that were the exact opposite of my position, using the exact same comment on all 3 of those faked comments. That didn't just happen out of the blue and it wasn't just online trolls.

'open comment' period prior to the criminal Pai's ruling, and my comments certainly were in favor of keeping net neutrality.

... to decide many questions requiring more than a modestly sophisticated layman’s understanding of technical issues. Senators and Representatives, too. There should be a ‘qualification’ or ‘certification’ available, and people making decisions on technology issues required to have such a imprimatur in order to rule on cases within that purview.

(It would be nice to use similar qualification to filter message boards and discussion forums 🤔.)

I said that judges making decisions on technical matters beyond the scope of lay acquaintance with the technology should be qualified to comprehend the arguments. Having arguments ‘dumbed down’ for decision makers is pretty silly.

Internet/Broadband is a public utility. Period. The public deserves to have access to it without the price-gouging and tier-based tolls of providers.

If it weren’t, the silliness of arguing about bandwidth would be obvious.

Yes. Internet bandwidth is a public good and should be regulated as such.

and testify. Lots of materials used are prepared by SMEs within the telephone companies too, in advance of the testify dates, so attorneys and their staffs are usually pretty well prep'ed or have detailed position papers on the topics to be discussed.

I hope senators and legislators are prepared in a similar manner (I don't know about them), but I did help prep our (at my former place of work, a major telecommunications company) in-house teams going before the FCC in some matters. The FCC and staff, I'm not sure about, on how they prep'ed, you would think that they would have the technical qualifications to judge on matters related to telecommunications but I doubt it, being a political appointed office (perhaps their staff have the qualifications).

This is one of the sad things about regulation via the FCC, or each states' regulatory commissions, in that every time a rate increase is needed or a new service or etc., is developed, a trip to the public utility commission and/or FCC was mandated. Some deregulation allowed certain factors in a company's mix of business (fall below a certain percentage, land lines within a market) allows it to finally escape regulation.

SME’s are often required to ‘spin’ information as they dumb it down. Let the decision makers gain native proficiency in understanding the basics of a field before they re required to make crucial decisions involving regulation.

nefarious goals are in mind instead of the common sense ones (be smart on making decisions like you say). Take care.

In medical cases, each side has their "experts" to testify. Civil engineering failures. All sorts of liability cases. The list goes on.

SMEs are never neutral. They testify on behalf of one side or the other. This is the nature of jurisprudence.

to address your concerns, but their decisions are then reviewed by courts.

The suits call into question the legality of such a move. Technology has nothing to do with it at this point. The moral argument of handing the internet over to profiteers is not a legal issue and has no venue other than the ballot box.

Fortunately, the panel seems to be leaning two to one for dismissing the repeal of net neutrality. Fingers crossed.

This way they get neutral advice to help make their decision.

The problem with requiring a judge to have a technical qualification, is that you then have to get someone who is dual certified in both law and a specialized technical field. Such people are very hard to find. So you would end up with cases with nobody qualified to judge them.

Here is how one of the leading pro-net neutrality groups characterized the issues presented in the brief they filed with the Court of Appeals:

"Whether the Order’s reclassification of broadband Internet access service as an “information service,” and mobile broadband Internet access service as a "private mobile service,” misinterprets or violates the law; and the FCC’s failure to consider the evidence, abandonment of the open Internet rules, and denial of motions to introduce additional evidence, violates the APA or is otherwise contrary to law."

Terms like "telecommunications" and "information services" and "private mobile service" are defined statutory and/or regulatory terms, established by Congress and/or the FCC. Technical experts play a small role in addressing these legal issues.

If you were right, by the way, it would mean that Joe and Jane Q. Public shouldn't have much of a role when Congress and/or agencies make decisions on matters with a technical component.

Internet is used more than phone lines now. Broadband IS telecommunications!!!

No matter how absurd a claim, you never know how a court might rule on it. After all, a court in 1970 ruled that "It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency 'In God We Trust' has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion."

Whether it is used more or less than phone service doesn't impact the application/interpretation of that definition.

The relevant terms include telecommunications carrier, telecommunications, and information services, defined in 47 USC as follows:

A “telecommunications carrier” is a “provider of telecommunications services,” which is “an offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public. . . .” 47 USC §§ 153(51), (53). “Telecommunications,” in turn, is defined as “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change.
in the form or content of the information as sent and received.” Id. § 153(50). Telecommunications services allow users to reach “information services,” defined as an “offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications . . . .” Id. § 153(24).

reported on it at all, not a peep, including MSNBC. They know there is no defending the FCC decision so they forbid even talking about it.

Could someone explain to me how the Internet is not a telecommunications medium, given that my phone service - provided by my Internet provider - is VOIP? I would be real curious to see the answer.

the telecoms are trying muddy the water for financial gain. I hope the judges see though it. To bad the FCC isn't standing up for the people like it should. They have sold us out.

constitutes telephony (e.g., analog data etc.) vs. telecommunications...and there literally isn't a difference in the technologies, its just semantics, and thus, different pricing applies, different cost structures applies, different laws (for example, telecommunications services are deregulated, vs. the vast bulk of telephone services, the land lines, etc. are regulated). All it does is freedom from regulations, and different pricing...

I'm not disagreeing with the argument that the definition of the term "telecommunications" should encompass Internet Access, just that the issues are not, thanks to the statutory provisions at issue, as clear as they might otherwise be.

They should enter "packet switching" as the search input. If the descriptions and definitions in the first few results don't convince then, I'm sure there is a person with telecom bona fides available to the "repeal" side that can explain it in under a minute.

...i.e. that they don't just facilitate communication, they also provide an information service. But that seems really weak to me. Even a telecommunications service needs a method to route person/device A to person/device B, a DNS function is in effect just a fancy switchboard, not an information service. And caching is not integral to the existence of broadband, nor does the end user's device ever specifically request that info be provided specifically from the cache. If I come up with a way to get you your milk more quickly, that doesn't make me a cow.