[Hrgeeks] Save the Internet: Support Net Neutrality!

[Scott Dorsey]

>> 
>> This doesn't fix more than a fraction of the things that Reagan broke, but
>> it goes a little bit toward trying to fix them.  The FCC was not always
>> a disfunctional organization and I don't think it has to remain one.
>
>I don't think I've ever spoken to a broadcast professional who'd
>agree with that sentiment.

Talk to anyone who got their First Phone before about 1980 or so.

I know, I used to bitch myself about technical requirements and about how
stupid having to do constant proof of performance tests was.  But then 
things changed... and wow, it got worse.

>Furthermore, many, many of the current rules stem from the Communications 
>Act of 1996, signed by Clinton.  About all Reagan did was break up 
>Ma Bell and let them repeal the fairness doctrine.  Again, I think you 
>would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks both of those were really 
>bad things.

The breakup of Ma Bell actually happened during the Carter administration,
although actually the original lawsuit filing took place in Nixon's last days.
It was a terrible, terrible mistake, but it wasn't the FCC's fault or the
president's fault either, and is basically irrelevant here.

I'm talking about things like the removal of the duopoly requiremenets, the
near-total elimination of technical standards, etc.  I'm not even touching on
things that Congress screwed up during the Reagan years, like the horrible
Electronic Communication Privacy Act which was basically railroaded through
Congress by the cellphone lobby.

You'll notice that the First Phone was replaced with the much easier General
test... and then even that went away so that anyone with a screwdriver and
a multimeter can now call himself a broadcast engineer (and many do).  This
also has not helped technical standards.

There was a time when you could call the FCC with an interference complaint
and they'd send out an engineer who would deal with it.  Now I think the
field station in Norfolk has two engineers for most of the whole Mid-Atlantic 
region.  There was a time when the FCC actually made sure that products that
had Part 15 approval really DID have Part 15 approval rather than just a 
sticker printed in China saying that they did.  That time is long gone,
because the FCC has no technical staff to do these things any more.

The Communications Act of 1996 has a lot of flakiness in it, but things were
pretty horribly mangled long before it was put into place.
--scott