Common carrier
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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.
A property common carrier is an organization (often a commercial or private business but sometimes a government agency) that provides transportation of persons or goods, often over a definite route according to a regular schedule, making its services available to all who choose to employ them. Airlines, railroads, bus lines, cruise ships and trucking companies are examples of property common carriers.
Post offices would also be considered common carriers but as universally they are operated by governments they are often treated differently from commercial organizations, such as given special privileges.
Common carriers generally exist under a different regulatory regime than specialised carriers, are subject to different laws, and sometimes to different treatment in other ways (e.g. taxation). For example, common carriers generally explicitly have no legal liability for the contents of freight shipped through them unless the customer has purchased excess insurance for that purpose.
A public utility is an organization that holds itself out to the public for hire to provide utility services, such as communication by radio like cellular telephone and satellite television; telecommunication by wire such as telephone, cable tv and the Internet; transmission by physical connection of supplies such as electricity, natural gas, water and sewer services, etc.
With the deregulation of public utilities it may also be used in relation to a common carrier company that provides the final transmission link to consumers' homes or businesses, but consumers can buy their gas or electricity from any of a number of supplier companies, all of whom feed power into the common transmission line (see electricity retailing).
Telecommunications
In the telecommunications regulation context in the United States, telecommunications carriers are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission under title II of the Communications Act of 1934.
Computer networks (for example, the Internet) that are built on top of telecommunications networks are Information Services or Enhanced Services,[[Citing sources citation needed]] and are generally regulated under title I of the Communications Act (other networks, such as cable video networks or wireless taxi dispatch networks, are neither telecommunications carrier networks nor information services).
Internet Service Providers have argued against being classified as a "common carrier" and, so far, have managed to do so. The argument of ISPs against common carrier classification has largely conflated "telecommunications carriers" with "common carriers," assuming that if they were labeled as "common carriers," they would be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act by the FCC. This is incorrect; as noted above, you can be a common carrier without being a telecommunications carrier. The FCC proceeding that established that Internet networks are not telecommunications carriers is the Computer Inquiries. A later FCC report, IN RE FEDERAL-STATE JOINT BOARD ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE, Report to Congress, 13 FCC Rcd. 11501 (1998), reviewed this policy (this report was not an order and did not have the effect of regulatory law - it is however, an excellent capture of FCC policy at that time).
The policy of the FCC has evolved. Traditionally, an Internet network information service would acquire its telecommunications needs from a telecommunications carrier. It was an Internet network layered on top of a telecommunications network. Pursuant to recent FCC decisions, however, Internet DSL and Internet Cable services are now considered combined as one "information service." There is no telecommunications carrier service underneath for other ISPs to use. This has resulted in a transformation of the ISP market. Previously, thousands of ISPs had access to the telephone network. Now, with no broadband telecommunications carrier service avaiable, there are generally only two Internet broadband providers in a residential market: the cable Internet provider and the DSL Internet provider. Cable ISPs and the DSL ISPs have market power and have both the incentive and opportunity to discriminate with regard to content and applications used over their networks. The AT&T CEO has declared that Google should no longer get a free ride, and should pay AT&T in order to be delivered to AT&T's customers. This is a dramatic departure from 100 years of telecommunictions carrier history.[[Neutral point of viewneutrality disputed]]
Internet networks are in many respects already treated like common carriers. ISPs are largely immune from liability for third party content. The Good Samaritan provision of the Communications Decency Act established immunity from liability for third party content on grounds of libel or slander. The DMCA established that ISPs which comply with DMCA would not be liable for the copyright violations of third parties on their network.
External links
- [Cybertelecom :: Notes :: Common Carrier]
- [FCC Wireline Competition Bureau], formerly the Common Carrier Bureau
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