> What is the difference?

I'm buying the infrastructure to communicate from one, and the other does, well, does anything.

Should anyone that uses the telephone to do business, even exclusively, be a Title I carrier? No, that would be absurd because they don't sell telecommunication.

> If a company is using their monopoly, be it a network or a service or a platform, to do anticompetitive things that violate the law and hurt consumers, how are they different?

I mean, I could ask you the same about standard oil and Microsoft. How are they different? They both abused their monopoly.

> Why do ISPs need special regulations that DON'T apply to other types of monopolies

The same reason we grant phone, electric, water, sewer, and natural gas companies the same types of monopolistic leeway in exchange for some additional regulations: infrastructure is expensive and takes up space. It's difficult to have multiple of any of these providers in the same geographic market. How many water lines can you run in a street? Sure, we can run many phone and isp lines, but it becomes extremely messy and leads to other issues that eventually led to the types of regulations in exchange for monopoly were discussing. This isn't a new problem.

Now, I'm not saying Google shouldn't be subject to antitrust law. I'm saying Google doesn't sell me telecommunication services and therefore it doesn't makes sense to regulate it as one. (Project Fi and Google Fiber both fall under their respective FCC regulations.)

Bear in mind, neutrality laws could be just as applicable to platforms as infrastructure. What's the difference between Comcast deciding to charge differently for different types of content on it's lines, and Google deciding to charge differently for different types of content on it's cloud services?

What's the difference between Comcast blocking say, video content it doesn't like, and YouTube doing the same?

> I mean, I could ask you the same about standard oil and Microsoft. How are they different? They both abused their monopoly.

This is my point: I don't see why we need specific laws carved out for ISPs, as opposed to laws that do equally apply to Standard Oil and Microsoft.

The regulations that are being repealed don't solve the problem. They're extremely narrowly designed to regulate a couple businesses by an agency who's job isn't policing business practices, but what those businesses are doing that needs to be regulated is already supposed to be regulated a different way: Anticompetitive practices are already illegal, and we need to enforce those rules. This is an FTC and DOJ problem, not an FCC problem.

> Bear in mind, neutrality laws could be just as applicable to platforms as infrastructure.

You had me here. No they cannot. Google is not selling telecommunication services. Should the Butterball turkey hotline be regulated as a telecommunication provider? No, no they shouldn't. Just because they use phones to do business does not mean they ate a telecommunication provider.

Now, there are a couple things leading to your confusion, I think.

Right now net neutrality is tied to Title II, which gives the isps some leeway in antitrust issues in exchange for more regulation. If you would like to discuss that issue, I'm all for it. However, Google is not a telecommunication provider and net neutrality doesn't need to be tied to Title II. (However, Congress would need to step in at that point.)

So, if your point is why are we granting ISPs any monopoly privileges via Title II (which doesn't happen in quite a direct way), I refer you to why telephones, electric, gas, water, and sewer are regulated as utilities, that is given a monopoly in exchange for tighter regulations.

Why does it matter if Google is a telecommunications service or not? Anticompetitive business practices are illegal, are they not? What makes telecommunications services special in your book?

Why not just let the FTC go after companies (telecommunications or otherwise) when they misbehave?

> Why does it matter if Google is a telecommunications service or not?

Because we're discussing regulations that only apply to telecommunication providers?

I have never said antitrust laws shouldn't be enforced. In fact, I believe net neutrality is important even if we had a bustling isp sector.

Net neutrality is also not an issue because of local monopolies, although they make the issue more visible.

So, until you convince me that Telecommunication regulations should apply to companies that aren't providing telecommunication, I don't understand your point. Specially that data cannot be modified or throttled based upon content or destination.

I'll continue to agree with you that antitrust laws. I'm not sure what your argument is.

Why are we discussing regulations that only apply to telecommunication providers? Why shouldn't Internet companies be subject to identical neutrality provisions?

Why should a platform like YouTube be permitted to make judgment calls on how to handle content on it's services, but ISPs can't make judgment calls on how to handle content on theirs?

You haven't given a single reason for why telecommunications companies are different.

For the same reason we prevent phone companies from doing the same. Until you're ok with phone companies not letting you call the Butterball hotline because they support another turkey company, I don't think you have a point.

Moreover, even without any antitrust issues, the number of ISPs, especially in rural areas will always be limited by start up costs. In cities it'll always be limited by space on lines poles or conduits underground.

I guess until you convince me phone operators shouldn't be regulated as common carriers, you won't convince me isps shouldn't.

It feels like you're actively avoiding the question. Let me show you:

If phone companies blocked you from the Butterball hotline because they support another turkey company, that would be what's known as an "anticompetitive business practice". Now, if you removed the special exemption telecoms get, the FTC would fine them for that, and tell them they can't do it.

In the same way, if ISPs were to prioritize their own video services or block a competitor's, that would also be against antitrust law, and the FTC could fine them for it. Hilariously, the common carrier designation actually prevents this from happening.

At the risk of aggravating the moderators, to ask this a third time what is so special about telecommunications companies, that, unlike other monopolies, need a whole different form of regulation?

> At the risk of aggravating the moderators, to ask this a third time what is so special about telecommunications companies, that, unlike other monopolies, need a whole different form of regulation?

I mean, you could ask the same thing about electric utilities. What's special is that as a society, we've decided that we don't want dozens and dozens of companies running infrastructure through public land. We grant some private companies space, for rent, but that also comes with the burdens of public process. In more space-constrained areas like telephone poles, streets, and conduits, it's often better to have a small number of companies utilize the space, but at the cost of additional regulations.

Electric, gas, phone, and water companies have captive audiences, but at the same time need the PUC to approve rate increases and are required to meet certain performance guidelines.

I'll also ask for the third time: Why should ISPs be different than the phone company?

ISPs shouldn't be different than the phone company: Both should be prohibited from anticompetitive actions via the Sherman Antitrust Act. It's time to do to both El Goog AND ISPs what was once done to a phone company: Breaking them up.

For the record, I didn't address your "space-constrained areas like telephone poles and conduits" before because neither is remotely space-constrained (especially in the fiber age), and this is a complete red herring.

Telecommunications are rolled out either on poles or underground, which incidentally is exactly where our other utilities like electricity, phone, and water/sewage are laid out. We used to have hundreds of wires overhead everywhere and roads being dug up all the time to add new pipes. Our society has decided that the benefits of competition are outweighed by all of destruction and blockage done to the limited space of our roads. Additionally we have decided that those industries are too important to deal with outages that would come from competition and having companies go out of business. Telecommunications have reached that stage in the US at least, and given this space constraint and need to keep the service running 24/7 they should be regulated as utilities. If we split the actual ownership of the wires off into a separate utility and had different companies selling the bandwidth and services like the UKs setup, then leaving the service up to normal regulations would be fine.

As long as they own the physical network they should be a utility