On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 08:50 -0500, Ruben Safir wrote: > Common carrier > >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia > Jump to: navigation, search > A common carrier is an organization that transports a product or service > using its facilities, or those of other carriers, and offers its > services to the general public. > > Traditionally common carrier means a business that transports people or > physical goods. In the 20th century, the term came to refer also to > utilities (those transporting some service such as communications or > public utilities). The term differs from private carrier, which operates > solely for the benefit of one entity and does not offer services to the > general public > > > > That should end the discussion on common carriers. Any fair minded > individual can clearly understand that the sentence > > "Internet Service Providers generally wish to avoid being classified as > a "common carrier" and, so far, have managed to do so." > > means that ISPs have managed enough political power to prevent their > rightful regularity definition as common carriers. But that has nothing > to do with the clear fact that they are a common carrier, and if they > mess up network neutrality, they will be facing far more regulations to > protect the public from any gross violation of unfair business practice. > > Ruben
Ruben, Wikipedia is not an authoritative reference. The FCC and the Federal government make the rules. An online, publicly editable application does not make a strong supporting reference. While it can often provide a good summary for people who won't take the time to hunt down the original sources themselves. Its is still just job blow writing down his interpretation. -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
