Reply to post:

While it seems not to matter to folks who read here, All I am saying is that the effect of applying Title II to ISPs is that they cannot prioritise or discriminate in their transmission of traffic.

The most important thing to note is that ISPs are not being classified directly as common carriers because it has always been accepted that they most definitely provide "information services". The question around 'Net Neutrality' was whether the part of their service that involved transmitting bits from on place to another should be considered separately from their other services and classified as a "telecommunications service", such that ISP offer two services: telecommunications services and information services.

So, the non-discrimination requirement only applies to the TRANSMISSION of bits back and forward along the communication medium, not how they decide to count the "information services" - which their streaming TV service mostly definitely is - they provide over the top.

Of course I am not a lawyer and one problem with the Act is that it is a bit too vague - which is why the whole 'are they or aren't they' debate was possible in the first place.

This vagueness means that, as per Chevron (which I have mentioned before,) the FCC has the authority - confirmed by the Supreme Court - to interpret the Act in their role as the government agency created by that same Act for the purpose of enforcing it. That's the whole 'Net Neutrality' issue in a nutshell: the FCC interpreted it one way (classifying ISPs solely as "information service" providers") to start with and then decided that, as the nature of these providers had changed over time, they should re-interpret and re-classify (differentiating between the various services offered and classifying them separately).

The FCC then, really, are the arbiters of what the legislation means so it is important to understand what they have decided. Specifically, it's worth noting that the part that they have decided is a "telecommunications service" is what they refer to as "broadband Internet access". (My emphasis.)

Even more important is to note the FCC's explanation of what, exactly, their interpretation of the Act precludes ISP's from doing. They call these rules their "three bright lines":

• No blocking (of lawful content)
• No throttling
• No paid prioritization

Clearly the first two are easy and Comcast cannot be said to be breaking these - no matter how much one hates them. So, it must be the third so let's, again, look at exactly what how the FCC view their rule against "paid prioritization" and the language they use is: "no fast lanes".

At no point do they talk about how data consumption must be counted, let alone specifically prohibit providers from deciding not to charge for a given volume of data linked to a certain service.

So you can argue that the behaviour Comcast are engaging in is anti-competitive and you can argue that Comcast are an evil company that actively seeks to squeeze money out of customers however they can. And many would agree.

But, if you want to argue that their new practice of not counting data from their own services falls foul of the law as it is and the interpretation of that law as the FCC have publicly stated - not as you think it should be or as you think it should be interpreted - then I'd like to see how you reach that conclusion.

Because what I am saying and that people seem to knee-jerk reaching for the downvote icon is simply that what Comcast is doing should not breach the decision of the FCC that ISPs cannot BLOCK, THROTTLE or PRIORITIZE.

Far too often in these forums it seems that people confuse disliking a companies practices with those practices being illegal or, on the opposite side, confuse an analysis of the legality of those practices with support for them.