[Hrgeeks] Save the Internet: Support Net Neutrality!

[Scott Dorsey]

> > Talk to anyone who got their First Phone before about 1980 or so.
> 
> Wasn't it illegal to connect an independently made device to the Bell 
> network back then? You used to have to rent your answering machine from 
> the phone company.

Not by 1980.  

First of all we had the Carterfone Agreement in 1954 which allowed you to
connect certain things up to telephone company telephones.  You could not
connect up terminal equipment.

If you wanted to connect terminal equipment up to the telephone system, you
had to rent a DAA (Data Access Arrangement) from the telephone company for
two dollars a month.  This provided filtration, ground isolation, and some
amount of current and voltage protection preventing you from putting too
high levels on the line.

This persisted up until the early seventies (but before the breakup) when
the FCC put in place a licensing procedure for products to be licensed for
interconnection to the telephone network.  If you were a modem manufacturer,
you could get your product type-accepted by the FCC to establish it would not
unbalance the line or cause crosstalk, then sell it to customers who could
connect it without a DAA.

This remains the case today, although today the market is flooded with a lot
of crap that hasn't actually passed type-acceptance testing, though there is
nobody to enforce them.
 
> Digital switching came in the 70s, I'd be hard pressed to believe the 
> sound quality on analog switches was better than digital.

Depends on the exchange.  Long lines digital transmission started coming in
in the early 1960s, replacing FDM "Telpak" cables with TDM digital circuits.
(That's where the T in T-1 comes from.)  Digital switching was a different
thing altogether... in fact you could argue the original Strowger switch was
digital.  What you're talking about is "electronically controlled switching"
and in general it was a good thing... and the phone company introduced it
with no prodding from the government, because it was a profit center for
them.

> > 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.
> 
> At various points in their time, Ma Bell wanted to do all sorts of nice 
> things, like charge people an extra fee to use a modem, and require people 
> using a lot of modem time to buy a separate business priced phone line.

Of course.  They are the exact same things that the telcos want to do today.
That doesn't change anything.  The pressures on the telcos are exactly the
same... and if you think that there is actual competition between wireline
telcos, you are very deluded.  

> > Electronic Communication Privacy Act which was basically railroaded through
> > Congress by the cellphone lobby.
> 
> RCPA and such was a result of politicians getting busted due to 
> evesdropping, no?

No, but that sure didn't hurt matters.  The thing is, the Communications Act
of 1934 _already_ made it illegal to divulge private communications to a
third party.  What the politicians got busted for was already illegal, there
wasn't any need for a new law.

The ECPA does a lot of really silly things, like define a subcarrier as a
form of encryption... which means that listening to FM in stereo is
technically illegal.  It was a law written without benefit of technical
expertese.

> > 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
> 
> I didn't think there was a field station in Norfolk? Thought it was moved 
> to Chesapeake or something? I remember the facility in Virginia Beach that 
> was eventually sold and has gone through a number of companies.

Whoops, you're right... I know that got moved, but now it has been closed so
if you DID actually have an engineer come to investigate an interference 
issue, he'd be coming down from Landover Maryland.  The chances of that
happening are... slim....
 
> > 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.
> 
> Trust me. The FCC still does quite a bit of testing. You can go online on 
> their site, and look up products by FCC ID, and get the reports. You can 
> see the hardware sitting in the test chamber, and the captures from test 
> equipment looking for RFI and such.

Yup.  But I can also go to Wal-Mart and see plenty of consumer products that
don't even come close to meeting Part 15 specs.  Just pick up any touch lamp
and see.  Admittedly there are a lot more products being sold today than
ever before, but if laws are not enforced they do no good.
--scott