FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/23/fcc-weakens-net-neutrality-rule-in-a-prelude-to-larger-rollbacks/
316 comments
You're quite right. Normally I'm pretty good about that. (At least, I remembered today: https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/24/fcc-prepares-to-pull-broad...)
This article went through several revisions as I did research so the original opening couple paragraphs and links got lost in the shuffle. I've added the link back in.
This article went through several revisions as I did research so the original opening couple paragraphs and links got lost in the shuffle. I've added the link back in.
Wow, thank you for this response. An author responding to a comment on their article seems rare in my eyes. Do you think this kind of commentary should happen on the TC website instead of a third party site? Do you think Facebook comments are conducive to constructive commentary on your articles?
I am with you. It would be better news sites have their own comment system. It's very sad that most US news sites axed their comment section or just include the crud FB comment widget. It's appalling that even sites like IMDb removed their comments and forum. Is this pure incompetence or a war on freedom of human right to speak/write openly? How hard is it to maintain comment section, can't you moderate the comments like it worked fine everywhere for decades? I am more and more the opinion we really need an MySpace successor to balance Facebook. MySpace was always about anon user accounts, express yourself, in internet anonymity, do things you like with people who have the same interests. Facebook is all about real identity, it can create a lot of bad blood and bad mood. It's really cumbersome to use it for anything of special interest like computers (yes nowadays, most just care about smartphones, not how it works) as your friends will see all your interactions and react on it.
See here on HN, lots of insightful comments from anon accounts. What do you get from FB comments section - spam from bots and subjective blabla. Please suggest to your higher up to add a proper comment section.
See here on HN, lots of insightful comments from anon accounts. What do you get from FB comments section - spam from bots and subjective blabla. Please suggest to your higher up to add a proper comment section.
Personally I see no sense in trying to contain discussion on-site rather than here, on Facebook, or reddit etc. People want to discuss things in the community of their choosing. Better to intelligently collate and sort those conversations. I wrote about it here if you're curious:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/shouts-and-murmurations/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/shouts-and-murmurations/
I actually believe exactly the opposite, it was chance that you saw this post on HN and had the good faith to update the article, and I believe fostering a nice community on your own sites increases the odds of these kinds of events, and in the end improves reporting accuracy and quality (among plenty of other benefits).
Look like the date is wrong at the start of the article. http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...
... and also plenty of links to their own articles!
Undersandly, the conversation in here revolves around the technicalities and semantics of net neutrality. But this isn't an issue of technology. It's a political issue, or worse, an ideological issue. It's not about the empirical truths of net neutrality, or the collective intent of those who created, and those who continue to develop the technology that has woven itself into the fabric of humanity. It's about idealouges imposing their ideals on every facet of our lives, regardless of the facts.
The sad fact is, this is yet another grim attack on net neutrality by nefarious agents who see the web as something to be dominated and bent to their will exclusivley for political and economic gain.
Like it or not, the work we do is going to become highly politicised. Are we ready for this? Do we have the moral fortitude to resist the influence that fuzzy, sloppy, and emotive politics seeks to have on our discussions?
I think back to how we handled the Brendan Eich debacle. I (regretfully) came down on the punitive side of that argument. And I participated in that debate with a level of anger and vitriol that embarrasses me now. But whichever side you took, there's no doubt that for a brief moment we were deeply divided. The Brendan Eich story was a flash in the pan compared to what is about to happen.
Should we engage in political debate, or should we avoid it? Can we buck the trend and participate in political debate in way that doesn't tear us apart, or should we ignore it as it happens around us and impacts upon our lives and work? Or is there a path between the extremes, where we can be neither ignorant to our political leanings nor beholden to them?
I don't dare offer any advice on how we should prepare ourselves for what is about to come, I just hope we can all think about how we hope to respond before it happens.
One thing I will say though, being someone prone to highly emotional reactions in all aspects of my life; developing software in teams has taught me the value of "strong opinions, weakly held".
The sad fact is, this is yet another grim attack on net neutrality by nefarious agents who see the web as something to be dominated and bent to their will exclusivley for political and economic gain.
Like it or not, the work we do is going to become highly politicised. Are we ready for this? Do we have the moral fortitude to resist the influence that fuzzy, sloppy, and emotive politics seeks to have on our discussions?
I think back to how we handled the Brendan Eich debacle. I (regretfully) came down on the punitive side of that argument. And I participated in that debate with a level of anger and vitriol that embarrasses me now. But whichever side you took, there's no doubt that for a brief moment we were deeply divided. The Brendan Eich story was a flash in the pan compared to what is about to happen.
Should we engage in political debate, or should we avoid it? Can we buck the trend and participate in political debate in way that doesn't tear us apart, or should we ignore it as it happens around us and impacts upon our lives and work? Or is there a path between the extremes, where we can be neither ignorant to our political leanings nor beholden to them?
I don't dare offer any advice on how we should prepare ourselves for what is about to come, I just hope we can all think about how we hope to respond before it happens.
One thing I will say though, being someone prone to highly emotional reactions in all aspects of my life; developing software in teams has taught me the value of "strong opinions, weakly held".
I think the tech industry and HN crowd are waking up too late, and this might be because of the previous HN cultural wave. Initially HN was like the slashdot crows, in that it was geeky and making money of being entrepreneurial was an ideal, and not a way of life.
Eventually that changed as the culture shifted to enabling and succeeding in startups. A lot of the meta culture and crowd is now many steps away from the old hacker roots and far closer to the entrepreneur /wanterpreneur group.
This latter group really isn't in it to get into a political battle, and it makes no sense to get involved in a waste of time. As a result achieving critical mass, or uniting people under political oriented architectures won't happen soon enough.
Maybe it's time to head back to /. ?
Eventually that changed as the culture shifted to enabling and succeeding in startups. A lot of the meta culture and crowd is now many steps away from the old hacker roots and far closer to the entrepreneur /wanterpreneur group.
This latter group really isn't in it to get into a political battle, and it makes no sense to get involved in a waste of time. As a result achieving critical mass, or uniting people under political oriented architectures won't happen soon enough.
Maybe it's time to head back to /. ?
im ignorant here. What was HN like initially? I assumed since it was the discussion board of a startup accelerator that it was always pretty focused on that.
Hmmm.
Yes and no. The question/answer is of degrees.
I can't point to a categorical set of submissions/comments to provide you with some perfect bouquet of HN circa 2008 vs 2012 or such.
Essentially it started out more as hackers figuring out how to hack becoming entrepreneurs or making things work - to entrepreneurs or startup founder babies figuring out what to do. So HN was more geeky initially, and the techie perspective of what startups are doing.
Now it's slightly more towards the startup side looking at the tech perspective.
This is all relative. If you compared HN crowd to the WSJ and it's consumers, this site would be far and ahead a site of techies talking tech stuff.
I hope this helps, because this is making a risky argument since it's subjective.
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Part of this is covered by basic theory of websites - initially a site has a simple good or utility, (information, expertise) and attracts only people in the know. They come to discuss their field.
Eventually, if the knowledge allows people to get ahead, your culture shifts, as more people come to the site. Your experts to normal concentration shifts. PG has a good article on this, he identifies what he calls midbrow arguments.
Yes and no. The question/answer is of degrees.
I can't point to a categorical set of submissions/comments to provide you with some perfect bouquet of HN circa 2008 vs 2012 or such.
Essentially it started out more as hackers figuring out how to hack becoming entrepreneurs or making things work - to entrepreneurs or startup founder babies figuring out what to do. So HN was more geeky initially, and the techie perspective of what startups are doing.
Now it's slightly more towards the startup side looking at the tech perspective.
This is all relative. If you compared HN crowd to the WSJ and it's consumers, this site would be far and ahead a site of techies talking tech stuff.
I hope this helps, because this is making a risky argument since it's subjective.
---------
Part of this is covered by basic theory of websites - initially a site has a simple good or utility, (information, expertise) and attracts only people in the know. They come to discuss their field.
Eventually, if the knowledge allows people to get ahead, your culture shifts, as more people come to the site. Your experts to normal concentration shifts. PG has a good article on this, he identifies what he calls midbrow arguments.
My understanding is that it was originally just a place for people in YC-funded startups (or people otherwise affiliated with YC) to share useful/interesting links and information with each other. I don't associate HN (then or now) with any particular crowd, it's just an ever-evolving nexus of common interests that YC maintains as a public service more than anything else.
I bet it's more focused on geeky interests and less focused on entrepreneurial topics than it was originally. Longtime readers might sense that it's more dumbed down or diluted now, but I suspect that's really just those longtime readers themselves getting more knowledgeable over the years, and HN seeming less revelatory than it did in the past. :)
Example: it seems like everyone I know used to read Slashdot but stopped at some point when they realized how much the discussion quality had deteriorated. What's funny is how different people's timelines are. I thought Slashdot was a great resource in 1998 but felt like the quality of the comments had descended to mostly garbage by 2001. I know other people who are way smarter than me (but a few years younger) who will swear that Slashdot was awesome in 2003 when they started reading it, but lament its downfall circa 2008 or something. The biggest factor in an individual's Slashdot timeline seems to be, they loved it when they were younger, less mature, and less knowledgable, then as they got older and more experienced they started getting annoyed by it. But really, Slashdot's demographics didn't change nearly as much as they did.
I bet it's more focused on geeky interests and less focused on entrepreneurial topics than it was originally. Longtime readers might sense that it's more dumbed down or diluted now, but I suspect that's really just those longtime readers themselves getting more knowledgeable over the years, and HN seeming less revelatory than it did in the past. :)
Example: it seems like everyone I know used to read Slashdot but stopped at some point when they realized how much the discussion quality had deteriorated. What's funny is how different people's timelines are. I thought Slashdot was a great resource in 1998 but felt like the quality of the comments had descended to mostly garbage by 2001. I know other people who are way smarter than me (but a few years younger) who will swear that Slashdot was awesome in 2003 when they started reading it, but lament its downfall circa 2008 or something. The biggest factor in an individual's Slashdot timeline seems to be, they loved it when they were younger, less mature, and less knowledgable, then as they got older and more experienced they started getting annoyed by it. But really, Slashdot's demographics didn't change nearly as much as they did.
No, I know what you mean - I'm accounting for that.
Forum history and human behavior on the web is my hobby subject.
In this case I'm not saying it's become smarter or less earth shattering. I'm saying that the average focus has shifted, as a cultural shift in the community which come so here.
Forum history and human behavior on the web is my hobby subject.
In this case I'm not saying it's become smarter or less earth shattering. I'm saying that the average focus has shifted, as a cultural shift in the community which come so here.
[deleted]
You can get an idea of front page by using https://news.ycombinator.com/front
> Front page stories from today so far, ordered by time spent there.
> To see other days, add a day to the above URL in yyyy-mm-dd format. Example: front?day=2016-06-20.
> Front page stories from today so far, ordered by time spent there.
> To see other days, add a day to the above URL in yyyy-mm-dd format. Example: front?day=2016-06-20.
>You can get an idea of front page by using https://news.ycombinator.com/front
But not to find out what HN was like initially (which was the GP's concern); try a date before 2014-11-11 and you get "We don't have this data before 2014-11-11."
But not to find out what HN was like initially (which was the GP's concern); try a date before 2014-11-11 and you get "We don't have this data before 2014-11-11."
It's funny that we're so divided on what to do about this, because when the plan by big ISPs to start discriminating based on site popularity was announced, basically everybody from right and left was outraged by those plans.
Then it became some kind of political football and people were divided up on how to respond to it.
Then it became some kind of political football and people were divided up on how to respond to it.
Pay close attention. This is how people manage to kill normal sensible ideas.
The attack comes on several levels, all of which are dependent on having at least some website/newsite which is willing to repeat your claims.
Your audience can be broken into 3 buckets (several more, but 3 is enough for a demonstration)
1) The first bucket is non-experts but intelligent. Tie them down in various plausible sounding arguments, primarily designed to appeal to people who dont't know the subject, but can make out logical sounding arguments. These people become your rank and file who serve to sound convincing and tie up experts
2) Experts - With your rank and file, tie up all people who know the subject, or increasingly develop methods to keep them distant from actual contact with people. Over simplify their arguments and try and engage Experts in the arena of PR.
3) Everyone else - show that experts are out of touch, or just lie, advertise the benefits and leave out the risks. Point out that experts are currently in debate and cant settle on the benefits (thanks to your hard work).
The general 3 steps to spreading FUD
The attack comes on several levels, all of which are dependent on having at least some website/newsite which is willing to repeat your claims.
Your audience can be broken into 3 buckets (several more, but 3 is enough for a demonstration)
1) The first bucket is non-experts but intelligent. Tie them down in various plausible sounding arguments, primarily designed to appeal to people who dont't know the subject, but can make out logical sounding arguments. These people become your rank and file who serve to sound convincing and tie up experts
2) Experts - With your rank and file, tie up all people who know the subject, or increasingly develop methods to keep them distant from actual contact with people. Over simplify their arguments and try and engage Experts in the arena of PR.
3) Everyone else - show that experts are out of touch, or just lie, advertise the benefits and leave out the risks. Point out that experts are currently in debate and cant settle on the benefits (thanks to your hard work).
The general 3 steps to spreading FUD
Yeah, that's the thing. It's not hard to turn right & left against each other, then the lobbyists profit off of that. Just had to get each side to want to use the problem for their own political ends and divide us over how to address it.
But I think we should try to remember and go back to the fact that essentially nobody likes what the ISPs want to do at all. If we could find a more agreeable way to address it and not let it get twisted to further other agendas, I think most people could agree that it needs to be stopped.
But I think we should try to remember and go back to the fact that essentially nobody likes what the ISPs want to do at all. If we could find a more agreeable way to address it and not let it get twisted to further other agendas, I think most people could agree that it needs to be stopped.
The lesson I've learned is that this is no longer the world for the open exchange of ideas. Mostly because people are already waiting to subvert your arguments.
This is dealt with by PR, advertising and focus groups.
This is dealt with by PR, advertising and focus groups.
The big mainstream political topics might be getting more intertwined, but don't think for a moment that means we weren't already heavily politicized. It's been that way for at least as long as I've been paying attention. So many overlapping opinions can feel less political when the people that would disagree aren't paying attention (or dissent isn't noticeable).
We've spent the last decades proving that there is no soul and no ethics to be found here. Just sleazy after the fact rationalization. Morally bankruptcy extends all the way into the design of software. We abuse the unearned trust of users that have no option but to come to us for tools. And devour our own when they stray too far from the fashionable perspectives.
The end of net neutrality makes us face the possibility of someone doing to us what we did to the nobodies: forcing ourselves into the middle of their day-to-day business and instead of just facilitating what they want to do, finding every single way to extract money from that privileged position.
Like the man who worries about the possibility of his country becoming a police state to distract himself from the fact it already is, we debate topics as if our little slice of the world hasn't already been hollowed out. Even if we don't like that Eich was run out of town, the fact it happened feeds the lie we tell ourselves: that we have the ability spot actual wrongdoing and act meaningfully to stop it.
The system didn't need anything more out of Eich, so he can be disappeared over $1k to Prop 8. Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg have overseen the destruction of privacy as a human value, but they're fine and nobody cares all that much about losing it. The system needed privacy to go.
In 50, 100, 200+ years, when people look back at our time now, who do you think will be seen as more malicous? Eich or Zuck? How long until golden boys of tech turn out like Christopher Columbus? A reductionist and simplistic fairy tale about his amazing contribution to our history has eventually swung. Now all you see are people that continue to "bust myths" about this monster, long after everyone has stopped believing them.
We've spent the last decades proving that there is no soul and no ethics to be found here. Just sleazy after the fact rationalization. Morally bankruptcy extends all the way into the design of software. We abuse the unearned trust of users that have no option but to come to us for tools. And devour our own when they stray too far from the fashionable perspectives.
The end of net neutrality makes us face the possibility of someone doing to us what we did to the nobodies: forcing ourselves into the middle of their day-to-day business and instead of just facilitating what they want to do, finding every single way to extract money from that privileged position.
Like the man who worries about the possibility of his country becoming a police state to distract himself from the fact it already is, we debate topics as if our little slice of the world hasn't already been hollowed out. Even if we don't like that Eich was run out of town, the fact it happened feeds the lie we tell ourselves: that we have the ability spot actual wrongdoing and act meaningfully to stop it.
The system didn't need anything more out of Eich, so he can be disappeared over $1k to Prop 8. Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg have overseen the destruction of privacy as a human value, but they're fine and nobody cares all that much about losing it. The system needed privacy to go.
In 50, 100, 200+ years, when people look back at our time now, who do you think will be seen as more malicous? Eich or Zuck? How long until golden boys of tech turn out like Christopher Columbus? A reductionist and simplistic fairy tale about his amazing contribution to our history has eventually swung. Now all you see are people that continue to "bust myths" about this monster, long after everyone has stopped believing them.
> I think back to how we handled the Brendan Eich debacle. I (regretfully) came down on the punitive side of that argument.
Can I ask why? I know many sober, moral and analytic people who got themselves quite riled up and (in my eyes) burned an accused man before the facts were all in. I understand why any angry crowd saturating a company's dial-in board would make any employer say "I don't know what's right or wrong - but you are a costly employee to keep on!" To me, that seems like the opposite of justice-seeking behavior.
But, I've been told, that my views on these things are too blinkered, and I'd like hearing it from your perspective (esp. now that you've calmed down!)
Can I ask why? I know many sober, moral and analytic people who got themselves quite riled up and (in my eyes) burned an accused man before the facts were all in. I understand why any angry crowd saturating a company's dial-in board would make any employer say "I don't know what's right or wrong - but you are a costly employee to keep on!" To me, that seems like the opposite of justice-seeking behavior.
But, I've been told, that my views on these things are too blinkered, and I'd like hearing it from your perspective (esp. now that you've calmed down!)
I can see how a bit of outrage about this is how the NRA got to the place it is today. This by itself isn't that meaningful, but anything can be politicized, turn public opinion and gain momentum. That's why the NRA's position is to say NO to any kind of gun regulation, because they know that's how you ensure guns are made available and gun culture is for sure secure.
In the tech community I see people rising up against any kind of movement against net neutrality. And I do not want to see it erode. But I worry that by becoming averse to any reversal, any compromise, the communities stance will eventually be so politicized that it is just another part of the unreasonable and ultra biased political landscape that grinds progress to a halt.
In the tech community I see people rising up against any kind of movement against net neutrality. And I do not want to see it erode. But I worry that by becoming averse to any reversal, any compromise, the communities stance will eventually be so politicized that it is just another part of the unreasonable and ultra biased political landscape that grinds progress to a halt.
There are pros and cons to gun ownership; it both contributes to and harms the public good. Net neutrality is a more lopsided issue—the arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion and promoting a tragedy of the commons, or else they're non-specific arguments against regulation of any kind.
Taken on its own and rationally, the net neutrality issue is much less amenable to producing a permanent stalemate than gun control. Existing political factions can incorporate positions on net neutrality into their existing political stalemate, but outside of such a context it's pretty easy to see that holes in net neutrality like the one here are absurd—why should smaller monopolies have more leeway to abuse their customers than large monopolies?
Taken on its own and rationally, the net neutrality issue is much less amenable to producing a permanent stalemate than gun control. Existing political factions can incorporate positions on net neutrality into their existing political stalemate, but outside of such a context it's pretty easy to see that holes in net neutrality like the one here are absurd—why should smaller monopolies have more leeway to abuse their customers than large monopolies?
I'm in favor of net neutrality.. but lets be serious.. there are users who are far more "using" of their bandwidth than others. And any given company should have every right to sell/filter as necessary those users. But as to what content they filter, imho that's a different story.
But the two get muddled quite a bit.. and what happened between Verizon and Netflix is an outright shame, but I can kind of see both sides regardless of where I stand personally. The trouble is where to draw the line, and what lines to draw from a legal standpoint.
Drawing only from what I got from the article, they're only requiring these companies to be more transparent to their customers, and I'm all for that. I think the 100k customer break was probably reasonable, but even the 250k break won't affect the really big players in the space.
My bigger fear is where individual states are legislating against local communities/cities offering broadband.
But the two get muddled quite a bit.. and what happened between Verizon and Netflix is an outright shame, but I can kind of see both sides regardless of where I stand personally. The trouble is where to draw the line, and what lines to draw from a legal standpoint.
Drawing only from what I got from the article, they're only requiring these companies to be more transparent to their customers, and I'm all for that. I think the 100k customer break was probably reasonable, but even the 250k break won't affect the really big players in the space.
My bigger fear is where individual states are legislating against local communities/cities offering broadband.
> And any given company should have every right to sell/filter as necessary those users.
You've been misled. Filtering isn't necessary. If a user is contributing to congestion on an oversubscribed line, you can drop some of their packets to reduce their usage to a fair share, without having to single out any specific types of traffic. ISPs don't have to be non-neutral in order to keep their service running. This is true at any scale, which is why having an exception for smaller ISPs is completely unjustified and is nothing but a foot in the door for those who would dismantle net neutrality entirely. Raising the pointless threshold is just a step toward that anti-consumer goal.
You've been misled. Filtering isn't necessary. If a user is contributing to congestion on an oversubscribed line, you can drop some of their packets to reduce their usage to a fair share, without having to single out any specific types of traffic. ISPs don't have to be non-neutral in order to keep their service running. This is true at any scale, which is why having an exception for smaller ISPs is completely unjustified and is nothing but a foot in the door for those who would dismantle net neutrality entirely. Raising the pointless threshold is just a step toward that anti-consumer goal.
> there are users who are far more "using" of their bandwidth than others.
Neutrality doesn't prohibit charging for utilization.
Neutrality doesn't prohibit charging for utilization.
To be fair, your "arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion" already sounds a bit "ultra biased".
What if someone wants to start an ISP, and charge less for a lower QoS band? Is that legalized extortion?
(Not to say it would be a good idea, I agree that it is a slippery slope)
What if someone wants to start an ISP, and charge less for a lower QoS band? Is that legalized extortion?
(Not to say it would be a good idea, I agree that it is a slippery slope)
What do you mean "charge less for a lower QoS band"? Net neutrality has nothing to say about an ISP that wants to offer both 10Mbps and 100Mbps plans, or business-class plans that offer an SLA for a higher price than ordinary residential plans.
This hypothetical company wants to drop packets from lower tier customers first, when congested, and oversubscribe their fiber to reduce costs.
That still doesn't sound like it would violate net neutrality. NN is about not discriminating based on content. In this case all content is still treated the same. Now, if they throttled everything except a few 'vital' resources, then you'd have an issue.
Continuing the hypothetical :)
Let's say we need to drop packets from my lower tier. We'd prefer to keep a good experience for those customers if possible, so it would arguably be preferable to drop lower utility packets rather than grind everyone in that tier to a halt.
If 90% of the packets were coming from streaming video, the ISP could drop them all without affecting that tier's ability to access their bank accounts.
That is really the crux of the issue, because it is very close to reality.
Let's say we need to drop packets from my lower tier. We'd prefer to keep a good experience for those customers if possible, so it would arguably be preferable to drop lower utility packets rather than grind everyone in that tier to a halt.
If 90% of the packets were coming from streaming video, the ISP could drop them all without affecting that tier's ability to access their bank accounts.
That is really the crux of the issue, because it is very close to reality.
I think you've taken the hypothetical far beyond plausibility. If you think you need to drop 90% of a customer's traffic because of congestion internal to your network, something has already gone badly wrong. I don't think it's realistic to hypothesize that you have a functioning and profitable ISP that enforces strict priority of higher-paying customer traffic over lower tiers rather than proportional or equal allocation of available bandwidth.
But setting aside the question of whether anybody would sign up for such a shitty ISP, you don't suddenly need to throw out 90% of a customer's traffic unless you're suddenly hit by a DDoS that you can't mitigate in any saner fashion. Congestion that bad will build gradually, and you'll have plenty of RTTs to send congestion signals to your customers. If a customer is running an application that is so unresponsive to congestion signals that they end up using 10x the bandwidth your backhaul has available for them, then that customer can have no reasonable expectation that any other applications remain usable. Any sane video streaming service would have lowered the resolution and then dropped the connection entirely as the congestion developed and packet loss increased.
Ignoring even that, you still haven't come up with a situation that requires non-neutral traffic management. AQMs like Stochastic Fair BLUE and Cake will automatically identify the unresponsive flow(s) and probabilistically drop those packets at whatever rate is necessary to alleviate the congestion, converging on 100% drop probability as the flow continues to behave like a DoS, while well-behaved TCP-like flows are minimally impacted (aside from a degree of congestion signalling necessary to keep their total bandwidth usage within the limit of what's available). SFB and Cake don't care about where the traffic is going other than to identify what flow it belongs to. They don't care what kind of traffic it is, they just care about how it behaves. They're neutral algorithms, and they provide a reasonable solution to the unreasonable challenge you've posed.
But setting aside the question of whether anybody would sign up for such a shitty ISP, you don't suddenly need to throw out 90% of a customer's traffic unless you're suddenly hit by a DDoS that you can't mitigate in any saner fashion. Congestion that bad will build gradually, and you'll have plenty of RTTs to send congestion signals to your customers. If a customer is running an application that is so unresponsive to congestion signals that they end up using 10x the bandwidth your backhaul has available for them, then that customer can have no reasonable expectation that any other applications remain usable. Any sane video streaming service would have lowered the resolution and then dropped the connection entirely as the congestion developed and packet loss increased.
Ignoring even that, you still haven't come up with a situation that requires non-neutral traffic management. AQMs like Stochastic Fair BLUE and Cake will automatically identify the unresponsive flow(s) and probabilistically drop those packets at whatever rate is necessary to alleviate the congestion, converging on 100% drop probability as the flow continues to behave like a DoS, while well-behaved TCP-like flows are minimally impacted (aside from a degree of congestion signalling necessary to keep their total bandwidth usage within the limit of what's available). SFB and Cake don't care about where the traffic is going other than to identify what flow it belongs to. They don't care what kind of traffic it is, they just care about how it behaves. They're neutral algorithms, and they provide a reasonable solution to the unreasonable challenge you've posed.
I think you slightly misunderstood the hypothetical (well, I stated it poorly). In this case, the network is congested and we need to drop packets from a low tier. In the low tier, 90% of the packets are (hypothetically) video streaming. It doesn't need to drop 90% of the packets, I'm just characterizing the traffic in that tier. This is also fairly representative of evening traffic in the US from a residential ISP.
The ISP cannot fully rely on all parties behaving well, unfortunately. The question is: Can the ISP drop packets from this low priced tier that it knows are likely video streaming, even well behaved video streaming, over other packets? Is that acceptable, or "legalized extortion"?
Obviously it would selectively drop DOS traffic first, as you mentioned, but we are past that point.
The ISP cannot fully rely on all parties behaving well, unfortunately. The question is: Can the ISP drop packets from this low priced tier that it knows are likely video streaming, even well behaved video streaming, over other packets? Is that acceptable, or "legalized extortion"?
Obviously it would selectively drop DOS traffic first, as you mentioned, but we are past that point.
> The question is: Can the ISP drop packets from this low priced tier that it knows are likely video streaming, even well behaved video streaming, over other packets?
Such a policy is not necessary for the ISP to deliver good quality of service. Content-neutral traffic management is good enough, and often better than poorly-designed discriminatory traffic management policies. There's no real upside to permitting ISPs to engage in this kind of discrimination.
Such a policy is not necessary for the ISP to deliver good quality of service. Content-neutral traffic management is good enough, and often better than poorly-designed discriminatory traffic management policies. There's no real upside to permitting ISPs to engage in this kind of discrimination.
Are you claiming that, for any fraction x of traffic that must be dropped, overall subscriber utility is completely independent of what type of traffic is dropped?
That sounds like something that could be badly implemented, but there's nothing unreasonable about the idea in general. Oversubscribed services are par for the course. If your neighborhood's uplink is saturated during a period of heavy usage, do you really expect each customer to get 1/N share of the bandwidth, or do you expect the customers paying for the 100Mb plan to get up to 5 times more bandwidth than the customers paying for the 20Mb plan? Either way, it's obviously not suffering from the kind of unfairness that gives preference to certain usage patterns over others, and it doesn't involve any extorting of upstream content providers or other form of double-charging for services.
This is not a violation of network neutrality. You are allowed both to treat different types of traffic and different groups of customers differently.
What you aren't allowed to do is treat traffic of the same variety differently depending on whether the endpoint paid you money.
The people being extorted aren't even your customers they are people who want to do business with your customers.
What you aren't allowed to do is treat traffic of the same variety differently depending on whether the endpoint paid you money.
The people being extorted aren't even your customers they are people who want to do business with your customers.
Charging more for something that costs more to the ISP isn't a net neutrality issue. Net neutrality is about charging for things that cost nothing to the ISP, but are worth more to the consumer.
>Net neutrality is about charging for things that cost nothing to the ISP, but are worth more to the consumer.
That's certainly not what it's about. Business charge people all of the time based on what they think the customer will pay, regardless of what it costs them (see most "limited edition" versions of games, DVDs, etc).
The reason net neutrality is important is because many ISPs are effectively monopolies so there is no competition to keep them in check.
That's certainly not what it's about. Business charge people all of the time based on what they think the customer will pay, regardless of what it costs them (see most "limited edition" versions of games, DVDs, etc).
The reason net neutrality is important is because many ISPs are effectively monopolies so there is no competition to keep them in check.
it seems to be rather against the very spirit of a system that
1) routes traffic in the manner it does
2) specifies access in the manner it does
3) has a history and culture as such
in short: it's against the internet itself...
is the internet biased?
I think the issue is rather like a court case: sure, there are 2 litigants, but in the end one is determined to be "correct" and the other loses...
if a famous data scientist publishes a research paper and I stand up naked on my desk and shout "peanut butter sandwiches!" at the top of my lungs, the peer review committee has no obligation to include my response in the process surrounding the review of said paper.
If a doctor or car mechanic gives a diagnosis in the field of their expertise, their opinion will be given more weight than if I ask a passerby their opinion on my illness or automobile.... i could go on and on making examples where 2 or more "sides" may appear wishing representation and where they don't necessarily warrant/merit it.
one has no obligation to represent litigants as holding an equal stature in validity, it's the a-priori presumption of the possibility of such that allows people to initially listen and nod, before one makes them aware of how bat-poo crazy one is, lol
in short: it's against the internet itself...
is the internet biased?
I think the issue is rather like a court case: sure, there are 2 litigants, but in the end one is determined to be "correct" and the other loses...
if a famous data scientist publishes a research paper and I stand up naked on my desk and shout "peanut butter sandwiches!" at the top of my lungs, the peer review committee has no obligation to include my response in the process surrounding the review of said paper.
If a doctor or car mechanic gives a diagnosis in the field of their expertise, their opinion will be given more weight than if I ask a passerby their opinion on my illness or automobile.... i could go on and on making examples where 2 or more "sides" may appear wishing representation and where they don't necessarily warrant/merit it.
one has no obligation to represent litigants as holding an equal stature in validity, it's the a-priori presumption of the possibility of such that allows people to initially listen and nod, before one makes them aware of how bat-poo crazy one is, lol
> if a famous data scientist publishes a research paper and I stand up naked on my desk and shout "peanut butter sandwiches!" at the top of my lungs, the peer review committee has no obligation to include my response in the process surrounding the review of said paper
This is definitely the most unique argument I've heard in favor of net neutrality
This is definitely the most unique argument I've heard in favor of net neutrality
You want these companies to profit. If they don't profit they won't build out infrastructure. I think you should be much more grateful to ISPs for the service they provide instead of angry for chargin what is in your opinion too much
This isn't about the overall pricing, though since ISPs are a natural monopoly they do require regulation to keep their pricing fair. The end result of both effective competition and regulation of non-competitive markets should be minimally profitable companies.
This is about ISPs having unfair power to manipulate a market that isn't even part of their core business. Traffic carriers shouldn't have control over the competitive landscape for content providers.
This is about ISPs having unfair power to manipulate a market that isn't even part of their core business. Traffic carriers shouldn't have control over the competitive landscape for content providers.
> Net neutrality is a more lopsided issue—the arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion and promoting a tragedy of the commons, or else they're non-specific arguments against regulation of any kind.
Not really. I think that's just your bias for net neutrality showing through.
In my opinion, because of the way internet providers have been allowed legal monopolies, net neutrality is going to be required for fair internet access as the ability for the market to determine winners and compete has been taken away by politics.
But if I was the owner of the pipes themselves? I'm not so sure I'd see it the same way. Try to think about it from another perspective. If you owned something that cost a lot of money to install that connects multiple houses together and then, years later, the government stepped in and explained how you could or could not make money off of it because everyone wants to use it, I'm not so sure you'd feel very positive about it.
Granted it's an imperfect analogy but just trying to show you that even when you think an issue is lopsided, it may not be and it can be difficult to let go of as many BIASes.
Not really. I think that's just your bias for net neutrality showing through.
In my opinion, because of the way internet providers have been allowed legal monopolies, net neutrality is going to be required for fair internet access as the ability for the market to determine winners and compete has been taken away by politics.
But if I was the owner of the pipes themselves? I'm not so sure I'd see it the same way. Try to think about it from another perspective. If you owned something that cost a lot of money to install that connects multiple houses together and then, years later, the government stepped in and explained how you could or could not make money off of it because everyone wants to use it, I'm not so sure you'd feel very positive about it.
Granted it's an imperfect analogy but just trying to show you that even when you think an issue is lopsided, it may not be and it can be difficult to let go of as many BIASes.
> If you owned something that cost a lot of money to install that connects multiple houses together and then, years later, the government stepped in and explained how you could or could not make money off of it because everyone wants to use it, I'm not so sure you'd feel very positive about it.
Who cares what the corporate owners feel? They're custodians of infrastructure that was built with substantial government assistance; they knew there would be strings attached, even if they expected in the near term to stay a step or two ahead of the regulators. They have every right to be disappointed when the government does its job and restrains their greed, but that disappointment has no bearing on what actually makes for good public policy. Those corporate owners you pity are taking actions that harm the public interest. The government is not solely responsible for creating the situation that requires a choice between making Comcast execs feel bad or letting Comcast wreak havoc on the Internet's economics. Comcast et al. are trying to expand the scope of their power over the utility infrastructure they manage; net neutrality regulation isn't about disallowing anything that the ISPs have a long-established history of doing, so don't imply that the government is pulling the rug out from under their existing business model.
Net neutrality is a lopsided issue. That doesn't mean that the clear right answer is a win-win situation all around. Every issue the government faces could hypothetically be dealt with in a manner that greatly enriches a chosen few, but the existence of those alternatives does not establish their validity or suitability for accomplishing the government's purpose of promoting the general welfare. If you want to call my position biased, you can't stop at merely pointing out that my preferred solution would be less than perfect for somebody, because that's true of every possible solution.
Who cares what the corporate owners feel? They're custodians of infrastructure that was built with substantial government assistance; they knew there would be strings attached, even if they expected in the near term to stay a step or two ahead of the regulators. They have every right to be disappointed when the government does its job and restrains their greed, but that disappointment has no bearing on what actually makes for good public policy. Those corporate owners you pity are taking actions that harm the public interest. The government is not solely responsible for creating the situation that requires a choice between making Comcast execs feel bad or letting Comcast wreak havoc on the Internet's economics. Comcast et al. are trying to expand the scope of their power over the utility infrastructure they manage; net neutrality regulation isn't about disallowing anything that the ISPs have a long-established history of doing, so don't imply that the government is pulling the rug out from under their existing business model.
Net neutrality is a lopsided issue. That doesn't mean that the clear right answer is a win-win situation all around. Every issue the government faces could hypothetically be dealt with in a manner that greatly enriches a chosen few, but the existence of those alternatives does not establish their validity or suitability for accomplishing the government's purpose of promoting the general welfare. If you want to call my position biased, you can't stop at merely pointing out that my preferred solution would be less than perfect for somebody, because that's true of every possible solution.
> Who cares what the corporate owners feel? They're custodians of infrastructure that was built with substantial government assistance; they knew there would be strings attached, even if they expected in the near term to stay a step or two ahead of the regulators[...]Net neutrality is a lopsided issue. That doesn't mean that the clear right answer is a win-win situation all around.
So what you're saying is that because they agreed to X terms from the government that they should have always expected for the government, later on, to add additional terms to it even in cases where they may not have accepted government assistance? You do realize there are some companies and situations in which infrastructure was entirely laid with little or no government assistance, right? I'm not saying that's common (as far as I understand it isn't) but those people paid a considerable amount of money to do that likely without expecting the government to step in and tell them what they can and cannot do with it.
You seem to have side-stepped my original point, however as I never wanted to argue which side is correct or who's side has merits. In your point of view the argument is lopsided and it's just black and white. What my respond should have shown you is that it isn't clearly black and white.
You would be better for it to try and see both side's point of view instead of completely dismissing one because "who cares what the corporate owners feel".
"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."
So what you're saying is that because they agreed to X terms from the government that they should have always expected for the government, later on, to add additional terms to it even in cases where they may not have accepted government assistance? You do realize there are some companies and situations in which infrastructure was entirely laid with little or no government assistance, right? I'm not saying that's common (as far as I understand it isn't) but those people paid a considerable amount of money to do that likely without expecting the government to step in and tell them what they can and cannot do with it.
You seem to have side-stepped my original point, however as I never wanted to argue which side is correct or who's side has merits. In your point of view the argument is lopsided and it's just black and white. What my respond should have shown you is that it isn't clearly black and white.
You would be better for it to try and see both side's point of view instead of completely dismissing one because "who cares what the corporate owners feel".
"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."
>You would be better for it to try and see both side's point of view instead of completely dismissing one because "who cares what the corporate owners feel".
In this instance the other side is largely a tiny fraction of the population. It would be like if the other side of the gun control argument was gun manufacturers instead of millions of Americans who own guns.
This issue is lopsided in that destroying net neutrality would harm almost everyone to benefit a few thousand people.
>In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him,
It's easy to understand the goals of for-profit corporations. They exist to maximize profit. There is nothing else to understand. They will support any legislation that will increase their profit and oppose any legislation that will reduce it.
In this instance the other side is largely a tiny fraction of the population. It would be like if the other side of the gun control argument was gun manufacturers instead of millions of Americans who own guns.
This issue is lopsided in that destroying net neutrality would harm almost everyone to benefit a few thousand people.
>In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him,
It's easy to understand the goals of for-profit corporations. They exist to maximize profit. There is nothing else to understand. They will support any legislation that will increase their profit and oppose any legislation that will reduce it.
> In this instance the other side is largely a tiny fraction of the population.
You're correct but it's irrelevant. A smaller representation does NOT make an issue lopsided in justification.
This is all highly contextual and will only lead to further, circular arguments.
> This issue is lopsided in that destroying net neutrality would harm almost everyone to benefit a few thousand people[...]It's easy to understand the goals of for-profit corporations. They exist to maximize profit. There is nothing else to understand. They will support any legislation that will increase their profit and oppose any legislation that will reduce it.
This isn't true. There are many people, not part of the corporations that are constantly referred to, that also do not want net neutrality as it gives the government control over vital, information sharing infrastructure. Remember Prism?
Not only do I see the issue as not lop sided but I see each point as being a series of trade offs. I do not see an outcome that is great for everyone in any of the available directions.
You're correct but it's irrelevant. A smaller representation does NOT make an issue lopsided in justification.
This is all highly contextual and will only lead to further, circular arguments.
> This issue is lopsided in that destroying net neutrality would harm almost everyone to benefit a few thousand people[...]It's easy to understand the goals of for-profit corporations. They exist to maximize profit. There is nothing else to understand. They will support any legislation that will increase their profit and oppose any legislation that will reduce it.
This isn't true. There are many people, not part of the corporations that are constantly referred to, that also do not want net neutrality as it gives the government control over vital, information sharing infrastructure. Remember Prism?
Not only do I see the issue as not lop sided but I see each point as being a series of trade offs. I do not see an outcome that is great for everyone in any of the available directions.
>You're correct but it's irrelevant. A smaller representation does NOT make an issue lopsided in justification.
The issue is lopsided in terms of cost benefit analysis. Nothing more. The benefits to the shareholders and employees of a few corporations are vastly outweighed by the detriment to the rest of society.
Regulations change and companies have to adapt. The risk of changing regulations is part of the cost of doing business. Sure we should try minimize onerous regulation, but often there is no other viable alternative.
A hypothetical situation to illustrate this point:
A company buys land from a local government with permission to use it as a mercury disposal site. 40 years later the federal government passes a law that no new mercury can be dumped within 10 miles of a town of more than 10k people. The company has to close down the site. Sucks for the company. The owner thinks it's not fair, but the cost benefit analysis wasn't even close. In the end I'm not terribly concerned that the people affected by the disposal site weren't empathetic to the owner's plight.
>This isn't true. There are many people, not part of the corporations that are constantly referred to, that also do not want net neutrality as it gives the government control over vital, information sharing infrastructure. Remember Prism?
How does making it illegal for ISPs to favor traffic from some sources over others enable the government to take control over information sharing infrastructure?
Do fair housing laws give the government control over vital shelter providing infrastructure?
This is just a Republican talking point. There is no innate reason that net neutrality regulation should harm individual privacy. Net neutrality doesn't mean government take over of the internet.
The issue is lopsided in terms of cost benefit analysis. Nothing more. The benefits to the shareholders and employees of a few corporations are vastly outweighed by the detriment to the rest of society.
Regulations change and companies have to adapt. The risk of changing regulations is part of the cost of doing business. Sure we should try minimize onerous regulation, but often there is no other viable alternative.
A hypothetical situation to illustrate this point:
A company buys land from a local government with permission to use it as a mercury disposal site. 40 years later the federal government passes a law that no new mercury can be dumped within 10 miles of a town of more than 10k people. The company has to close down the site. Sucks for the company. The owner thinks it's not fair, but the cost benefit analysis wasn't even close. In the end I'm not terribly concerned that the people affected by the disposal site weren't empathetic to the owner's plight.
>This isn't true. There are many people, not part of the corporations that are constantly referred to, that also do not want net neutrality as it gives the government control over vital, information sharing infrastructure. Remember Prism?
How does making it illegal for ISPs to favor traffic from some sources over others enable the government to take control over information sharing infrastructure?
Do fair housing laws give the government control over vital shelter providing infrastructure?
This is just a Republican talking point. There is no innate reason that net neutrality regulation should harm individual privacy. Net neutrality doesn't mean government take over of the internet.
> The issue is lopsided in terms of cost benefit analysis. Nothing more. The benefits to the shareholders and employees of a few corporations are vastly outweighed by the detriment to the rest of society.
We're arguing past each other (I had already addressed this but I digress).
> How does making it illegal for ISPs to favor traffic from some sources over others enable the government to take control over information sharing infrastructure?
Never said it would enable the government to "take control over information sharing infrastructure". Net neutrality govern by the FCC gives them powers over the internet itself that can affect not just our country but other countries as well.
This is a common talking point by the EFF folks regarding pros and cons of net neutrality.
We're arguing past each other (I had already addressed this but I digress).
> How does making it illegal for ISPs to favor traffic from some sources over others enable the government to take control over information sharing infrastructure?
Never said it would enable the government to "take control over information sharing infrastructure". Net neutrality govern by the FCC gives them powers over the internet itself that can affect not just our country but other countries as well.
This is a common talking point by the EFF folks regarding pros and cons of net neutrality.
> What my respond should have shown you is that it isn't clearly black and white.
And you completely failed to do so. All you showed was that there exists somebody who doesn't want net neutrality. You didn't even show whether they have any non-selfish reasons for that opinion. You showed the existence of opposition, not the existence of reasonable or viable opposition.
The merits of a side's arguments must be considered when judging whether an issue is largely one-sided, because it is always possible to construct unreasonable arguments against something.
I'd like to know roughly what you would consider to be sufficient justification for calling a politicized issue one-sided with respect to its public policy soundness.
And you completely failed to do so. All you showed was that there exists somebody who doesn't want net neutrality. You didn't even show whether they have any non-selfish reasons for that opinion. You showed the existence of opposition, not the existence of reasonable or viable opposition.
The merits of a side's arguments must be considered when judging whether an issue is largely one-sided, because it is always possible to construct unreasonable arguments against something.
I'd like to know roughly what you would consider to be sufficient justification for calling a politicized issue one-sided with respect to its public policy soundness.
> And you completely failed to do so. All you showed was that there exists somebody who doesn't want net neutrality.
That shows it isn't black and white. You can't have a group of people who has differing opinions than yours and simply write them off. There are various ways of weighing ones position. Maybe it ends up being morally wrong for a large amount of people but that still does not make it "black and white".
Very, very, very little of life is actually black and white. When you show an inability to see something from another perspective you will fail ever convincing them of your side.
> You didn't even show whether they have any non-selfish reasons for that opinion[...]You showed the existence of opposition, not the existence of reasonable or viable opposition.
Irrelevant. To many on the other side your point may not be reasonable or viable. Does that mean they are equally able to say the issue is "black and white" in their favor? No.
> I'd like to know roughly what you would consider to be sufficient justification for calling a politicized issue one-sided with respect to its public policy soundness.
I'm not sure I would call many if any issues one-sided. That's just not how life works and is incredibly rare.
That shows it isn't black and white. You can't have a group of people who has differing opinions than yours and simply write them off. There are various ways of weighing ones position. Maybe it ends up being morally wrong for a large amount of people but that still does not make it "black and white".
Very, very, very little of life is actually black and white. When you show an inability to see something from another perspective you will fail ever convincing them of your side.
> You didn't even show whether they have any non-selfish reasons for that opinion[...]You showed the existence of opposition, not the existence of reasonable or viable opposition.
Irrelevant. To many on the other side your point may not be reasonable or viable. Does that mean they are equally able to say the issue is "black and white" in their favor? No.
> I'd like to know roughly what you would consider to be sufficient justification for calling a politicized issue one-sided with respect to its public policy soundness.
I'm not sure I would call many if any issues one-sided. That's just not how life works and is incredibly rare.
We need an NRA for the free internet.
The thing about democracy based on mass mobilization of different interest groups is that no negotiation or compromise is possible, because leaderless groups are incapable of doing anything so complex. Compromises only happen person to person between strong leaders or between small groups of elites that both groups accept -- "Only Nixon could go to China".
But for the last 30 years, both the left and the right (for both good and bad reasons) have been tearing down the very idea of legitimate elite authority, whether it's from politicians, academics, or anyone else. Who today has the moral standing to make reasonable compromises that everyone would accept?
But for the last 30 years, both the left and the right (for both good and bad reasons) have been tearing down the very idea of legitimate elite authority, whether it's from politicians, academics, or anyone else. Who today has the moral standing to make reasonable compromises that everyone would accept?
>That's why the NRA's position is to say NO to any kind of gun regulation, because they know that's how you ensure guns are made available and gun culture is for sure secure.
There also exist groups whose sole purpose is to make gun ownership infeasible for the vast majority of Americans. Given this, I don't believe their position is unreasonable - the threat to their values and culture is very real.
There also exist groups whose sole purpose is to make gun ownership infeasible for the vast majority of Americans. Given this, I don't believe their position is unreasonable - the threat to their values and culture is very real.
There exist groups whose sole purpose is... every conceivable political position. This argument is so general as to be completely reversible. "We have to support the NRA to stop excessive anti-gun legislation," but also "we have to support gun banners in order to stop excessive pro-gun legislation." It's a recipe for endless polarization.
Does anyone with a strong understanding of internetworking, peering and transit contract negotiation actually believe that "net neutrality" is possible? traffic shaping of saturated links seems like a necessary outcome to not undermine the smaller users (i.e. low bandwidth communications) that are impacted by heavy users (i.e. video streaming) if two peering parties can't come to terms on cost sharing for link upgrades.
Does anyone with a strong understanding of internetworking, peering and transit not see the difference between QOS for technical reasons and things like zero rating?
It seems a lot of people are invested in muddying the difference.
It seems a lot of people are invested in muddying the difference.
If you aren't shaping based on which endpoints paid a bribe we don't have much of an issue do we.
Google network neutrality then come back.
Google network neutrality then come back.
Can't you just share the available bandwidth fairly between users in that case?
Does anyone actually believe we will "run out of bandwidth" to the point where traffic shaping will become essential?
Traffic shaping of saturated links sounds like a waste of time and resources when it's so much easier to just upgrade the hardware. It's cheaper too! It also happens to be the fucking purpose of the ISP (to provide adequate bandwidth for their customers).
Think of how much it costs to pay people to manage an incredibly complicated traffic ruleset--not to mention the massively increased CPU overhead--versus a one-time hardware purchase.
What you're talking about is either an ISP that's dying and can't afford to upgrade their shit or a greedy evil monster that simply wants to extract more profit from existing infrastructure in the most obtuse and invasive way possible.
Traffic shaping of saturated links sounds like a waste of time and resources when it's so much easier to just upgrade the hardware. It's cheaper too! It also happens to be the fucking purpose of the ISP (to provide adequate bandwidth for their customers).
Think of how much it costs to pay people to manage an incredibly complicated traffic ruleset--not to mention the massively increased CPU overhead--versus a one-time hardware purchase.
What you're talking about is either an ISP that's dying and can't afford to upgrade their shit or a greedy evil monster that simply wants to extract more profit from existing infrastructure in the most obtuse and invasive way possible.
> Traffic shaping of saturated links sounds like a waste of time and resources when it's so much easier to just upgrade the hardware. It's cheaper too! It also happens to be the fucking purpose of the ISP (to provide adequate bandwidth for their customers).
This is a very naive comment. For anything other than a dedicated "business class" circuit with hard performance guarantees, speculation and shaping is involved in delivering the end product.
This is a very naive comment. For anything other than a dedicated "business class" circuit with hard performance guarantees, speculation and shaping is involved in delivering the end product.
> For anything other than a dedicated "business class" circuit with hard performance guarantees, speculation and shaping is involved in delivering the end product.
The alternative to a connection with a SLA guarantee is a best effort connection, not discriminatory traffic shaping. Underprovisioning part of your network doesn't require you to show favoritism to certain traffic—the normal way to cope with larger than expected usage is to just start dropping packets where there's congestion. That doesn't imply or require traffic shaping.
The alternative to a connection with a SLA guarantee is a best effort connection, not discriminatory traffic shaping. Underprovisioning part of your network doesn't require you to show favoritism to certain traffic—the normal way to cope with larger than expected usage is to just start dropping packets where there's congestion. That doesn't imply or require traffic shaping.
> the normal way to cope with larger than expected usage is to just start dropping packets where there's congestion.
And lo and behold, that's what ISP's have always offered to consumers. There's a reason connections are always advertised as "up to 50Mbps" instead of "50 Mbps", hell, even my "business" connection with the local cable company has absolutely no guarantee beyond "we'll have someone out to repair your service within 4 hours".
And lo and behold, that's what ISP's have always offered to consumers. There's a reason connections are always advertised as "up to 50Mbps" instead of "50 Mbps", hell, even my "business" connection with the local cable company has absolutely no guarantee beyond "we'll have someone out to repair your service within 4 hours".
No it isn't. The "up to" is because the last mile is over copper wires which are variable so not everyone will get the same speed.
ISPs will generally not sell you a plan that advertises throughput in excess of the achievable modem sync speed, unless your achievable speed is already below their lowest tier of service. AT&T won't let you sign up for 18Mbps DSL if you live 2km from a DSLAM that doesn't even have ADSL2+ equipment. The "up to" provision is because their backhaul capacity is less than the sum of the last-mile connection speeds.
My last mile is 1 GBps fiber. I have a choice of a hundred or so ISPs over that fiber. The cheapest ones drop to single-digit megabit speeds during peak hours because the ISPs have such oversubscribed interconnections.
> just start dropping packets where there's congestion
Aside from being normal, do you think this is preferable because it is fair?
I think of QoS as a way of allowing more types of SLA to exist. Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure.
Isn't any backbone link in a sense a way of shaping traffic? The old pattern (from point A to B, say) may have been less efficient than the new pattern (using the new link).
The link makes economic sense to install simply because there is demand for bandwidth from A to B. If there weren't, a link would have been installed elsewhere instead. The price of the new link is passed along to downstream and upstream providers.
Assuming that each ISP has a shaping model in place that is generally fair, is there really any difference between these three things:
- the ISP shopping upstream providers based on SLA committments for traffic X
- the ISP imposing QoS that addresses the quality experienced by customers using traffic X
- the ISP investigating upgrading networking hardware to allow for superior handling of traffic X
I'd argue that in every case the ISP has a cost and a benefit. In the case of the QoS change, the cost is that some customers might be slightly worse off (those who used traffic Y but never used traffic X).
Aside from being normal, do you think this is preferable because it is fair?
I think of QoS as a way of allowing more types of SLA to exist. Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure.
Isn't any backbone link in a sense a way of shaping traffic? The old pattern (from point A to B, say) may have been less efficient than the new pattern (using the new link).
The link makes economic sense to install simply because there is demand for bandwidth from A to B. If there weren't, a link would have been installed elsewhere instead. The price of the new link is passed along to downstream and upstream providers.
Assuming that each ISP has a shaping model in place that is generally fair, is there really any difference between these three things:
- the ISP shopping upstream providers based on SLA committments for traffic X
- the ISP imposing QoS that addresses the quality experienced by customers using traffic X
- the ISP investigating upgrading networking hardware to allow for superior handling of traffic X
I'd argue that in every case the ISP has a cost and a benefit. In the case of the QoS change, the cost is that some customers might be slightly worse off (those who used traffic Y but never used traffic X).
Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure.
Another possibility: as a major ISP nears network capacity, they can implicitly (or explicitly, depending on law) solicit revenue streams from Youtube and many others for "priority access" to their somewhat- or completely-captive customer base. Eventually, secondary tiers are created to efficiently segment the content market -- a priority plan conveniently sized for every budget. Those who can't or won't pay fall into an ever decreasing performance category as the priority slices are snatched up.
The ISP then starts selling premium bundles on the customer side -- Platinum Service will include Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, Apple (and get our bonus in-house streaming service at no extra charge!). Platinum-Plus, for another $14.95 per month plus fees, adds priority streams from your choice of up to three major sports content sources. And Platinum-Pro adds non-degraded VPN so you can work from home. Choice!
The ISP is monetizing the fact that they're NOT adding capacity. Eventually they can choose to take the hit to their numbers and make that investment, but they'll do so within the now-normal tiered framework -- offering new capacity and premium deals at the top of the stack, rather than letting the bottom free-ride into better service.
Another possibility: as a major ISP nears network capacity, they can implicitly (or explicitly, depending on law) solicit revenue streams from Youtube and many others for "priority access" to their somewhat- or completely-captive customer base. Eventually, secondary tiers are created to efficiently segment the content market -- a priority plan conveniently sized for every budget. Those who can't or won't pay fall into an ever decreasing performance category as the priority slices are snatched up.
The ISP then starts selling premium bundles on the customer side -- Platinum Service will include Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, Apple (and get our bonus in-house streaming service at no extra charge!). Platinum-Plus, for another $14.95 per month plus fees, adds priority streams from your choice of up to three major sports content sources. And Platinum-Pro adds non-degraded VPN so you can work from home. Choice!
The ISP is monetizing the fact that they're NOT adding capacity. Eventually they can choose to take the hit to their numbers and make that investment, but they'll do so within the now-normal tiered framework -- offering new capacity and premium deals at the top of the stack, rather than letting the bottom free-ride into better service.
You are describing a content lock-in dystopia. Yes, this would be anticompetitive (and appropriately addressed by the FTC or DOJ, not the FCC) and it is among the more unlikely scenarios.
The parent post is a little hyperbolic, but ISPs are certainly willing to artificially limit capacity upgrades as a way to extract tolls from content providers. Remember the spat between Verizon and Level3/Netflix?
http://web.archive.org/web/20160405105037/http://blog.level3...
Both networks had plenty of capacity internally; the bottleneck was a single router at each interconnect location which Verizon refused to upgrade.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160405105037/http://blog.level3...
Both networks had plenty of capacity internally; the bottleneck was a single router at each interconnect location which Verizon refused to upgrade.
Sure, I'm painting a picture to illustrate the point. But reductio ad absurdum can be a useful way to explore the problem. I don't think there's anything in my scenario that's beyond the pale. We could get there by degrees in an aggressively unfettered market.
>We could get there by degrees in an aggressively unfettered market.
Don't you mean the heavily regulated market we have now that prevents new ISPs from easily servicing customers? The entire reason ISPs can behave like this is because customers realistically have no alternatives.
Look at how Comcast behaved in markets where Google Fiber showed up. They often increased bandwidth and reduced prices effective immediately to try to keep customers. An 'unfettered market' would be one where an ISP doesn't have to spend years negotiating with city councils just to get the privilege to put fiber in utility tunnels where local cable companies already have it.
Don't you mean the heavily regulated market we have now that prevents new ISPs from easily servicing customers? The entire reason ISPs can behave like this is because customers realistically have no alternatives.
Look at how Comcast behaved in markets where Google Fiber showed up. They often increased bandwidth and reduced prices effective immediately to try to keep customers. An 'unfettered market' would be one where an ISP doesn't have to spend years negotiating with city councils just to get the privilege to put fiber in utility tunnels where local cable companies already have it.
Your "unfettered market" would still leave incumbents with the massive advantages conferred by their natural monopoly; it just lessens the artificial barriers to competition on top of that. Your "unfettered market" would not be a healthy competitive market. Government intervention akin to local loop unbundling would be necessary to create a freely competitive market where one will not naturally develop.
Google Fiber gave up on silicon valley because of the regulatory burden of convincing local governments to let them install fiber. Let that sink in.
Google, who has enough cash to pay for nearly half of the entire Comcast company, was not able to rollout fiber to the area because of government regulations.
Why do you think they started in Kansas City of all places? It wasn't because they thought that was the strongest market for fiber in the country. It was because they actually convinced the government to let them bring fiber to peoples' homes.
>Government intervention akin to local loop unbundling would be necessary to create a freely competitive market where one will not naturally develop.
While this would make it even cheaper to get into the market, there is no proof that a market wouldn't develop if the government wasn't already intervening to make it so difficult to build networks.
Google, who has enough cash to pay for nearly half of the entire Comcast company, was not able to rollout fiber to the area because of government regulations.
Why do you think they started in Kansas City of all places? It wasn't because they thought that was the strongest market for fiber in the country. It was because they actually convinced the government to let them bring fiber to peoples' homes.
>Government intervention akin to local loop unbundling would be necessary to create a freely competitive market where one will not naturally develop.
While this would make it even cheaper to get into the market, there is no proof that a market wouldn't develop if the government wasn't already intervening to make it so difficult to build networks.
> While this would make it even cheaper to get into the market, there is no proof that a market wouldn't develop if the government wasn't already intervening to make it so difficult to build networks.
Local governments aren't completely undemocratic. If the local government is hesitant to let corporations start digging up the streets and yards, it's likely that the residents are similarly hesitant to invite that sort of disruption. How many people are actually eager to have a second gigabit-capable cable buried through their yard? Whether or not the federal government intervenes, there will always be barriers to an upstart ISP. Yes, with all local restrictions usurped, a company as large as Google can certainly deploy new infrastructure to select markets where there's sufficient demand for a more reasonable alternative to the incumbent ISP. But that's still a far cry from a functioning competitive market. Who would fund construction of a third set of cables, or the sixth? Even with local restrictions removed, how much capital does it take to build a competitive ISP from scratch (keeping in mind that Google wasn't quite starting from scratch)?
In the most pedantic sense, there's obviously no proof that a functioning competitive marketplace would develop, but we are talking about a real natural monopoly, and that means something. Building last-mile infrastructure is very expensive. Each new competitor faces much worse prospects for recouping their initial investment, much more resentment from their prospective customers, and the incumbent(s) can always undercut you at the drop of a hat. Given the choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling solution—it doesn't have the high costs of building redundant infrastructure, it doesn't make a mess of the town, and it leads to the same end result of diverse choices for services.
Local governments aren't completely undemocratic. If the local government is hesitant to let corporations start digging up the streets and yards, it's likely that the residents are similarly hesitant to invite that sort of disruption. How many people are actually eager to have a second gigabit-capable cable buried through their yard? Whether or not the federal government intervenes, there will always be barriers to an upstart ISP. Yes, with all local restrictions usurped, a company as large as Google can certainly deploy new infrastructure to select markets where there's sufficient demand for a more reasonable alternative to the incumbent ISP. But that's still a far cry from a functioning competitive market. Who would fund construction of a third set of cables, or the sixth? Even with local restrictions removed, how much capital does it take to build a competitive ISP from scratch (keeping in mind that Google wasn't quite starting from scratch)?
In the most pedantic sense, there's obviously no proof that a functioning competitive marketplace would develop, but we are talking about a real natural monopoly, and that means something. Building last-mile infrastructure is very expensive. Each new competitor faces much worse prospects for recouping their initial investment, much more resentment from their prospective customers, and the incumbent(s) can always undercut you at the drop of a hat. Given the choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling solution—it doesn't have the high costs of building redundant infrastructure, it doesn't make a mess of the town, and it leads to the same end result of diverse choices for services.
It's not unlikely — in fact, the mobile carrier I'm using had done this exact thing, as had T-mobile.
"We throttle speeds to several streaming services. Pay only 5$ a month to get unlimited Spotify and YouTube"
"We throttle speeds to several streaming services. Pay only 5$ a month to get unlimited Spotify and YouTube"
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Backbone capacity is a separate issue from last-mile connectivity. Only one is truly a natural monopoly.
I don't care whether YouTube directly builds out backbone capacity or whether they outsource that to Level 3.
Incumbent last-mile providers enjoy a privileged position that gives them unfair bargaining power over end users. They should not be allowed to decide which content providers and applications get to have a successful business model. If anybody gets to pick winners and losers like that, it should be a democratically elected government, but it would be far better to just prohibit last-mile providers from imposing unfair artificial limits or costs.
If T-Mobile wants to make a deal with YouTube to provide a subsidized video streaming service with dedicated bandwidth to guarantee a certain level of video quality, then that service should be billed and provisioned separately from their common-carrier Internet and phone services. If they want this YouTube streaming service to be wireless, then they should have to acquire a separate spectrum license from the FCC and convince the FCC why a dedicated YouTube service deserves a slice of the public's limited RF spectrum when there are other video providers on the public Internet that would be disadvantaged.
I don't care whether YouTube directly builds out backbone capacity or whether they outsource that to Level 3.
Incumbent last-mile providers enjoy a privileged position that gives them unfair bargaining power over end users. They should not be allowed to decide which content providers and applications get to have a successful business model. If anybody gets to pick winners and losers like that, it should be a democratically elected government, but it would be far better to just prohibit last-mile providers from imposing unfair artificial limits or costs.
If T-Mobile wants to make a deal with YouTube to provide a subsidized video streaming service with dedicated bandwidth to guarantee a certain level of video quality, then that service should be billed and provisioned separately from their common-carrier Internet and phone services. If they want this YouTube streaming service to be wireless, then they should have to acquire a separate spectrum license from the FCC and convince the FCC why a dedicated YouTube service deserves a slice of the public's limited RF spectrum when there are other video providers on the public Internet that would be disadvantaged.
> If anybody gets to pick winners and losers like that, it should be a democratically elected government, but it would be far better to just prohibit last-mile providers from imposing unfair artificial limits or costs.
Isn't it the proper authority of the FTC or DOJ to enforce anticompetitive behavior? Do we need the FCC also dipping in to impose penalties on firms who may have already spent a lot of money in the spectrum auction?
What privileges does winning the spectrum auction permit companies?
To your last point, what if T-Mobile showed that by following its preferred QoS scheme it actually transferred more information over its last mile link?
Economic incentives typically reward the highly efficient use of a resource. Being able to get an extra bushel of corn from an acre of land is one example, as is being able to get an extra Megabyte of data over a pipe each hour.
In the case of residential bandwidth packages, the metric for how effectively an ISP is maximizing the available resource should simply be its own competitive choices. Should T-Mobile sacrifice $1M in profit each month simply so that any customers who happen to be using an obscure protocol can get slightly better service?
It seems that Net Neutrality is akin to the government forcing corn farms to plant 25% of their fields with different crops, just in case anyone wants to buy them, and to force those farmers to offer them for sale even if they don't believe anyone wants to buy them.
I think if we want to go down the path of the fine-grained allocation of the spectrum as a public good, there would be large scale, sweeping changes that we'd make. Why should we waste spectrum broadcasting over-the-air TV in 1080i? Why should soap operas be broadcast in full quality or even broadcast at all? Why should anyone have LTE bandwidth when some people can't afford 2G?
Isn't it the proper authority of the FTC or DOJ to enforce anticompetitive behavior? Do we need the FCC also dipping in to impose penalties on firms who may have already spent a lot of money in the spectrum auction?
What privileges does winning the spectrum auction permit companies?
To your last point, what if T-Mobile showed that by following its preferred QoS scheme it actually transferred more information over its last mile link?
Economic incentives typically reward the highly efficient use of a resource. Being able to get an extra bushel of corn from an acre of land is one example, as is being able to get an extra Megabyte of data over a pipe each hour.
In the case of residential bandwidth packages, the metric for how effectively an ISP is maximizing the available resource should simply be its own competitive choices. Should T-Mobile sacrifice $1M in profit each month simply so that any customers who happen to be using an obscure protocol can get slightly better service?
It seems that Net Neutrality is akin to the government forcing corn farms to plant 25% of their fields with different crops, just in case anyone wants to buy them, and to force those farmers to offer them for sale even if they don't believe anyone wants to buy them.
I think if we want to go down the path of the fine-grained allocation of the spectrum as a public good, there would be large scale, sweeping changes that we'd make. Why should we waste spectrum broadcasting over-the-air TV in 1080i? Why should soap operas be broadcast in full quality or even broadcast at all? Why should anyone have LTE bandwidth when some people can't afford 2G?
> To your last point, what if T-Mobile showed that by following its preferred QoS scheme it actually transferred more information over its last mile link?
That is very obviously not even close to being the right metric. All you need to do is find the one customer with their laptop tethered and running Backblaze or bittorrent, and give him all the bandwidth. Don't bother slicing up the airtime to serve other customers, because that'll just reduce the total data rate.
> Should T-Mobile sacrifice $1M in profit each month simply so that any customers who happen to be using an obscure protocol can get slightly better service?
Yes, unless they're prepared to stop advertising it as an Internet connection. If they're all allowed to be an "Internet service provider" that is really just a HTTP(s) service provider, then we're shutting out any invention that isn't well-suited to what T-Mobile can double-charge for—any P2P application, incompatible but superior successors like QUIC, and more specialized protocols like SCTP. Technologies that are obscure today could be lucrative and more resource-efficient next year, if allowed to blossom.
That is very obviously not even close to being the right metric. All you need to do is find the one customer with their laptop tethered and running Backblaze or bittorrent, and give him all the bandwidth. Don't bother slicing up the airtime to serve other customers, because that'll just reduce the total data rate.
> Should T-Mobile sacrifice $1M in profit each month simply so that any customers who happen to be using an obscure protocol can get slightly better service?
Yes, unless they're prepared to stop advertising it as an Internet connection. If they're all allowed to be an "Internet service provider" that is really just a HTTP(s) service provider, then we're shutting out any invention that isn't well-suited to what T-Mobile can double-charge for—any P2P application, incompatible but superior successors like QUIC, and more specialized protocols like SCTP. Technologies that are obscure today could be lucrative and more resource-efficient next year, if allowed to blossom.
Don't you think there's enough demand for halfway decent VPN service that a fair bit of market incentive exists for T-Mobile not to hinder opaque packets too much?
> Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure.
That half of it isn't the problem, and I doubt anyone would argue against reasonable things that make it easier for a provider to increase their network capacity.
The problem is what it does to YouTube's competitors: they now suffer because YT can afford to ask T-Mobile to make their traffic more important.
That half of it isn't the problem, and I doubt anyone would argue against reasonable things that make it easier for a provider to increase their network capacity.
The problem is what it does to YouTube's competitors: they now suffer because YT can afford to ask T-Mobile to make their traffic more important.
> The problem is what it does to YouTube's competitors: they now suffer because YT can afford to ask T-Mobile to make their traffic more important.
But simply by virtue of YouTube's market share, an economic incentive exists to install backbone links that help route YouTube's traffic (as opposed to others'). In other words, if two backbone links might be installed, the one whose outcome makes access to Youtube more reliable is more likely to be installed than one that makes unknown startup's service more reliable.
In other words, network topology adapts to traffic demand (albeit more slowly than traffic shaping).
But simply by virtue of YouTube's market share, an economic incentive exists to install backbone links that help route YouTube's traffic (as opposed to others'). In other words, if two backbone links might be installed, the one whose outcome makes access to Youtube more reliable is more likely to be installed than one that makes unknown startup's service more reliable.
In other words, network topology adapts to traffic demand (albeit more slowly than traffic shaping).
> In other words, network topology adapts to traffic demand (albeit more slowly than traffic shaping).
A fair traffic management policy would allow for YouTube users to consume bandwidth in exact proportion to their share of overall demand for bandwidth. Traffic shaping on top of that could only have the effect of meaning that a YouTube user will get more bandwidth than their Netflix-using neighbor even if they're both paying for the same service and both content providers have CDN nodes at the same local peering point. That's not adapting to demand, that's artificially distorting the market.
A fair traffic management policy would allow for YouTube users to consume bandwidth in exact proportion to their share of overall demand for bandwidth. Traffic shaping on top of that could only have the effect of meaning that a YouTube user will get more bandwidth than their Netflix-using neighbor even if they're both paying for the same service and both content providers have CDN nodes at the same local peering point. That's not adapting to demand, that's artificially distorting the market.
> A fair traffic management policy would allow for YouTube users to consume bandwidth in exact proportion to their share of overall demand for bandwidth.
I think this statement is in effect a straw man, since the relevant consideration for QoS is the timing of consuming that bandwidth.
If you mean instantaneous bandwidth, then you are saying that both Youtube customers and Netflix customers should be able to use a circuit that they primarily use for watching video to also be equally optimized for real time protocols.
If you argue that a VOIP customer should be able to place a call with the absolute minimal latency the network can provide, even if it means that video content will (on average) buffer for an extra second, that is not an example of a fair system, just one that is extremely friendly to VOIP.
Why shouldn't someone be able to start a Skype competitor that offers latency characteristics for audio calls that rivals POTS latency? As it stands, Skype unusable for low latency coms both because of protocol/codec design and typical network characteristics.
So, I think that unless you enthrone modern "typical" characteristics as ideal then it's hard to argue that imposing restrictions of what shaping approaches can and should be utilized is somehow qualitatively neutral, rather than simply benefitting incumbent interests.
I think this statement is in effect a straw man, since the relevant consideration for QoS is the timing of consuming that bandwidth.
If you mean instantaneous bandwidth, then you are saying that both Youtube customers and Netflix customers should be able to use a circuit that they primarily use for watching video to also be equally optimized for real time protocols.
If you argue that a VOIP customer should be able to place a call with the absolute minimal latency the network can provide, even if it means that video content will (on average) buffer for an extra second, that is not an example of a fair system, just one that is extremely friendly to VOIP.
Why shouldn't someone be able to start a Skype competitor that offers latency characteristics for audio calls that rivals POTS latency? As it stands, Skype unusable for low latency coms both because of protocol/codec design and typical network characteristics.
So, I think that unless you enthrone modern "typical" characteristics as ideal then it's hard to argue that imposing restrictions of what shaping approaches can and should be utilized is somehow qualitatively neutral, rather than simply benefitting incumbent interests.
> "If you mean instantaneous bandwidth, then you are saying that both Youtube customers and Netflix customers should be able to use a circuit that they primarily use for watching video to also be equally optimized for real time protocols.
> If you argue that a VOIP customer should be able to place a call with the absolute minimal latency the network can provide, even if it means that video content will (on average) buffer for an extra second, that is not an example of a fair system, just one that is extremely friendly to VOIP."
That's the real straw man. The current state of the art for QoS is active queue management that both increases effective link utilization and reduces latency to a point that VoIP is usable, as compared with naive FIFO queuing with tail drops when the queues are full. That's why I said QoS isn't a zero-sum game. In the real world, you don't actually have to choose between throughput and latency; both can be good enough for what people normally want to do. VoIP traffic doesn't cost enough bandwidth to have a significant impact on Netflix video quality, and firing up a Netflix stream doesn't have to produce queuing latencies that make VoIP unusable. And none of this requires any traffic shaping rules that deliberately identify what's video or VoIP—that's an objective criteria for "neutral" that doesn't force ISPs to use naive sub-optimal traffic management.
> If you argue that a VOIP customer should be able to place a call with the absolute minimal latency the network can provide, even if it means that video content will (on average) buffer for an extra second, that is not an example of a fair system, just one that is extremely friendly to VOIP."
That's the real straw man. The current state of the art for QoS is active queue management that both increases effective link utilization and reduces latency to a point that VoIP is usable, as compared with naive FIFO queuing with tail drops when the queues are full. That's why I said QoS isn't a zero-sum game. In the real world, you don't actually have to choose between throughput and latency; both can be good enough for what people normally want to do. VoIP traffic doesn't cost enough bandwidth to have a significant impact on Netflix video quality, and firing up a Netflix stream doesn't have to produce queuing latencies that make VoIP unusable. And none of this requires any traffic shaping rules that deliberately identify what's video or VoIP—that's an objective criteria for "neutral" that doesn't force ISPs to use naive sub-optimal traffic management.
> And none of this requires any traffic shaping rules that deliberately identify what's video or VoIP
True, so why is net neutrality necessary then? Do you think ISPs are making this possible out of the goodness of their hearts?
I'd argue that their profit motive has made this happen because it's what consumers demand, and the internet (protocols and services) has changed rapidly enough that entrenched patterns have not really emerged.
True, so why is net neutrality necessary then? Do you think ISPs are making this possible out of the goodness of their hearts?
I'd argue that their profit motive has made this happen because it's what consumers demand, and the internet (protocols and services) has changed rapidly enough that entrenched patterns have not really emerged.
Making what happen? ISP's aren't deploying fq_codel, but they're still buying Sandvine deep packet inspection equipment.
And people are perfectly fine with that! Define a service level, any level, then you have a product to sell.
But the current situation, where they sell "up to" whatever the last mile will sustain and then don't ever upgrade backbones, don't add interconnects, that particular fraud can not go on. A market doesn't work when vendors can sell you a product, lock you in and face no repercussions when they don't deliver even 10%.
But the current situation, where they sell "up to" whatever the last mile will sustain and then don't ever upgrade backbones, don't add interconnects, that particular fraud can not go on. A market doesn't work when vendors can sell you a product, lock you in and face no repercussions when they don't deliver even 10%.
As long as a competitive market exists, I'm happy to let the market work out who has the better strategy: hardware oriented vs rulesets, etc. But where there is no competition (e.g. the last residential mile), I want regulations protecting me as a consumer with various accessibility, privacy, and fairness guarantees.
> Does anyone actually believe we will "run out of bandwidth" to the point where traffic shaping will become essential?
Traffic shaping has always been essential. Bandwidth has never been infinite, and there's always been latency vs. bandwidth tradeoffs that need to be managed.
Traffic shaping has always been essential. Bandwidth has never been infinite, and there's always been latency vs. bandwidth tradeoffs that need to be managed.
> Bandwidth has never been infinite, and there's always been latency vs. bandwidth tradeoffs that need to be managed.
Dropping packets has always been necessary. Traffic shaping has never been necessary, and modern fair AQM algorithms are a net win to both throughput and latency relative to the most commonly deployed congestion management strategies, so that latency vs bandwidth tradeoff is far more illusory than you think.
Dropping packets has always been necessary. Traffic shaping has never been necessary, and modern fair AQM algorithms are a net win to both throughput and latency relative to the most commonly deployed congestion management strategies, so that latency vs bandwidth tradeoff is far more illusory than you think.
Unfortunately profit is almost always made from oversubscribing the lines.
Do you also argue strenuously against optimizing software CPU and memory consumption?
> It's the FUCKING PURPOSE of AWS to run my code! Why don't they just buy more hardware to make it run faster?
> It's the FUCKING PURPOSE of AWS to run my code! Why don't they just buy more hardware to make it run faster?
Has Amazon ever delivered less than what was advertised when you paid for it?
I mean, I never experienced anything like that but geniunely curious if it is a thing (Might be possible in AWS lambda etc.)
I mean, I never experienced anything like that but geniunely curious if it is a thing (Might be possible in AWS lambda etc.)
no. there is a service level agreement so if they don't meet the promises there is repurcussione. it's also not an apt analogy considering one can easily switch to Azure or Google Cloud or Self hosting whereas most people are stuck with one ISP that has a monopoly in that area
AFAIK Level3 a few years back offered AT&T to pay and do the upgrade of the links on the AT&Ts side, which they refused.
At this point its blatant monopolistic anti-consumerism.
At this point its blatant monopolistic anti-consumerism.
I think it was Verizon, not AT&T. Some peering point in the LA area was overloaded, primarily due to Netflix traffic.
Peering and transit links simply shouldn't ever be saturated. If the parties can't come to terms then the government should set the rate at zero (Judgment of Solomon style).
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Isn't the idea of network neutrality to prevent discriminating between traffic sources, not quantities? I.e. providers can still charge an arm and a leg for heavy users, and allow 'light' users to pay significantly less (maybe based on some non-linear scale?)
Yeah, but anti-neutrality people tend to try to create the other narrative. Popular metaphor I've seen is "net neutrality is like telling the post office they have to charge the same for a large heavy package and an envelope". Which is not true, you have to charge the same for each heavy package regardless of what is in it, but you can still charge more than an envelope.
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So there's "internetworking, peering and transit contract negotiation", etc.
And then there's "Comcast allowed to bundle internal video streaming platform with bandwidth in order to compete against Netflix"
It's completely trivial for the FCC to allow the former and clamp down hard on the latter.
And then there's "Comcast allowed to bundle internal video streaming platform with bandwidth in order to compete against Netflix"
It's completely trivial for the FCC to allow the former and clamp down hard on the latter.
Eisenach wrote some papers on using existing antitrust laws rather than NN laws to punish anticompetitive behavior, which I think is reasonable. Apply the laws we already have, don't make new laws that prevent reasonable behavior.
Antitrust laws may not prevent bundling and other anti-competitive behavior.
For example, Apple has so far been allowed to bundle Apple apps with phones, forbid any competing apps, and require developers to distribute apps through the App Store.
For example, Apple has so far been allowed to bundle Apple apps with phones, forbid any competing apps, and require developers to distribute apps through the App Store.
I see the main difference here being you don't need to buy an Apple phone
The same argument would be made in areas where you can choose between DSL and cable Internet.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if satellite and wireless Internet were offered as evidence of sufficient competition in the market.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if satellite and wireless Internet were offered as evidence of sufficient competition in the market.
Indeed - a 256kbps connection provides sufficient competition with a 1gbps connection in the eyes of the courts so far.
Why is it trivial?
There is a difference between shaping traffic to better fit the capacity available, and constricting traffic since you're incentivized to push alternate traffic from a business partner. The latter is what NN advocates are trying to discourage, and it does arguably mess with the 'level playing field' notion.
I don't think this distinction is as trivial as you think. Especially in a legal sense. Unless you want judges adjudicating in the Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it" sense, which can get scary.
The legal system is built on intent and purpose, so from a legal sense, such distinction is not trivial but its quite normal. What we as a society might want to avoid is ISP that calls a company and say "Would it not be terrible if you lost access to a third of the population in this country. Pay us now, or we will redirect those users to a competitor."
That's already covered by antitrust law
If your traffic shaping rules are different depending on protocol or port number or source or destination IP or AS, then that's discriminatory. Within the space of packet scheduling policies that treat all protocols equally, it is still possible to be somewhat discriminatory and it is still possible to do good QoS. Further and more careful regulations may be necessary, but it is certainly possible to cleanly prohibit a large category of bad behavior without having harmful side effects.
The net neutrality battle is over shaping traffic to maximize profits, not shaping traffic to maximize throughput/usability.
In a dollar-shaped traffic paradigm, you might slow down traffic even when your link is 3/4 empty, in order to maximize profits.
In a dollar-shaped traffic paradigm, you might slow down traffic even when your link is 3/4 empty, in order to maximize profits.
Net neutrality refers to packet shaping by source and destination.
QoS refers to packet shaping by type of content.
QoS refers to packet shaping by type of content.
I don't fully agree with those definitions. ISPs need to be prohibited from preferring HTTP and TCP over other protocols. They should be permitted to perform only the kinds of QoS that will treat two traffic flows with the same data rate and packet sizes equally even if they are using different protocols and port numbers. Overt discrimination rules that specify preferences for certain endpoints or certain types of traffic (as identified by inspecting packets) is wrong, but fair QoS that only considers actual traffic patterns and only operates in the event of actual congestion is beneficial without being harmfully discriminatory.
ISPs need to be prohibited from preferring HTTP and TCP over other protocols
If anything, it would be the reverse.. HTTP and TCP (which doesn't care if its packets arrive out of order) getting deprioritized in the face of streaming content (which does). That kind of blows your restriction away. QoS under heavy load is the difference between everybody getting to use their apps and one or two people getting to use their apps.
Thing is, there's no successful ISP in the world that has enough capacity to service maximum bandwidth from all of their customers at the same time. There's always going to be a fudge factor worked in, and QoS to help out when that goes wrong.
If anything, it would be the reverse.. HTTP and TCP (which doesn't care if its packets arrive out of order) getting deprioritized in the face of streaming content (which does). That kind of blows your restriction away. QoS under heavy load is the difference between everybody getting to use their apps and one or two people getting to use their apps.
Thing is, there's no successful ISP in the world that has enough capacity to service maximum bandwidth from all of their customers at the same time. There's always going to be a fudge factor worked in, and QoS to help out when that goes wrong.
Out of order delivery is a complete red herring. Modern QoS systems don't cause packet re-ordering, though they do cause some re-transmits for flows that don't support ECN and thus need packet loss as a congestion signal. Video streaming like Netflix and YouTube has buffering far in excess of the RTT, so retransmissions don't hurt noticeably.
But you're still missing the main point, which is that good QoS doesn't need rules that single out and privilege or deprioritize any specific classes of traffic. Discrimination rulesets are obsolete. A network with good AQM at points of potential congestion will support full bandwidth utilization with sufficiently low latency for applications like VoIP and gaming, which can coexist alongside video streaming and bulk file transfers. QoS can be both effective and neutral with respect to content type and transport and destination.
Bad obsolete QoS shouldn't be used as an argument against net neutrality regulations. If it happens that net neutrality regulations both prohibit unfair business practices and require ISPs to fix broken congestion management, that's a good thing.
But you're still missing the main point, which is that good QoS doesn't need rules that single out and privilege or deprioritize any specific classes of traffic. Discrimination rulesets are obsolete. A network with good AQM at points of potential congestion will support full bandwidth utilization with sufficiently low latency for applications like VoIP and gaming, which can coexist alongside video streaming and bulk file transfers. QoS can be both effective and neutral with respect to content type and transport and destination.
Bad obsolete QoS shouldn't be used as an argument against net neutrality regulations. If it happens that net neutrality regulations both prohibit unfair business practices and require ISPs to fix broken congestion management, that's a good thing.
Interesting example there, because if you apply traffic shaping against video streaming you either force it to reduce quality or ruin it completely.
What everyone is worried about is that ISPs will threaten to "shape" Netflix traffic unless Netflix pay them - straightforward extortion. Or zero-rate Facebook traffic while counting use of independent non-Facebook news sources against users' quotas.
What everyone is worried about is that ISPs will threaten to "shape" Netflix traffic unless Netflix pay them - straightforward extortion. Or zero-rate Facebook traffic while counting use of independent non-Facebook news sources against users' quotas.
That's not how it will play out, though. Even without network neutrality rules in-place, that would run afoul of anti-trust and consumer protection law.
The way ISPs will extract money is by nominally creating a two -tiered network. The lower tier will be the default tier. All external traffic will be routed over it by default. Entities like NetFlix will be able to pay the ISP to have their traffic routed over higher tier. The higher tier will have better latency, will be charged against an end-users throughput meter at a discounted rate, or both.
It will be a form of hidden price discrimination and thus a form of hidden tax on the market. price discrimination is usually a good thing, and even a hidden tax isn't per se bad. The reason this is bad is it will allow the ISPs to extract far more wealth from the Internet than they would ever add by improved and cheaper service.
A free market requires transparency in pricing between Alice and Bob. If Mallory can insert herself between Alice and Bob, she can obscure pricing signals. That means Bob will have a more difficult time assessing the worth of services provided him by Mallory and Alice. That also implies he'll have trouble assessing the value proposition of competitors to Alice and Mallory.
Comcast may try to extort money from Netflix, but alot of people assume that in the long-run Netflix would benefit from the tactic. They have a huge first-mover advantage. Comcast would never be able to provide a service like Netflix as well as Netflix does. The result will be that while Comcast may extract profits from Netflix, Netflix and other incumbents will have less competition and in the long-term might even benefit relative to net neutrality. Comcast will effectively provide a moat for Netflix and other incumbents in the form of higher barrier to market entrance for startups, as the incumbents will pay an effectively cheaper per-byte rate (much cheaper than in a net neutrality world) given their huge volume. Furthermore, incumbents will be a cash-cow to the ISPs, creating significant incentive to be hostile to competitors.
The losers will be consumers, prospective competitors, and overall technological and market vibrancy. But all of this will, again, be largely hidden. The solution is simple, obvious, fair, well-understood, but stark, especially in the context of a conservative narrative about regulation. It also has tons of precedent going back hundreds of years in terms of the legal and economic study of common carriers. The end-to-end principle of networks is conceptually related, too. The malady will be an obscure low-grade fever that saps value and weakens competitiveness, but will largely go ignored over time, after which people will wonder why the pace of innovation slowed down so much.
The way ISPs will extract money is by nominally creating a two -tiered network. The lower tier will be the default tier. All external traffic will be routed over it by default. Entities like NetFlix will be able to pay the ISP to have their traffic routed over higher tier. The higher tier will have better latency, will be charged against an end-users throughput meter at a discounted rate, or both.
It will be a form of hidden price discrimination and thus a form of hidden tax on the market. price discrimination is usually a good thing, and even a hidden tax isn't per se bad. The reason this is bad is it will allow the ISPs to extract far more wealth from the Internet than they would ever add by improved and cheaper service.
A free market requires transparency in pricing between Alice and Bob. If Mallory can insert herself between Alice and Bob, she can obscure pricing signals. That means Bob will have a more difficult time assessing the worth of services provided him by Mallory and Alice. That also implies he'll have trouble assessing the value proposition of competitors to Alice and Mallory.
Comcast may try to extort money from Netflix, but alot of people assume that in the long-run Netflix would benefit from the tactic. They have a huge first-mover advantage. Comcast would never be able to provide a service like Netflix as well as Netflix does. The result will be that while Comcast may extract profits from Netflix, Netflix and other incumbents will have less competition and in the long-term might even benefit relative to net neutrality. Comcast will effectively provide a moat for Netflix and other incumbents in the form of higher barrier to market entrance for startups, as the incumbents will pay an effectively cheaper per-byte rate (much cheaper than in a net neutrality world) given their huge volume. Furthermore, incumbents will be a cash-cow to the ISPs, creating significant incentive to be hostile to competitors.
The losers will be consumers, prospective competitors, and overall technological and market vibrancy. But all of this will, again, be largely hidden. The solution is simple, obvious, fair, well-understood, but stark, especially in the context of a conservative narrative about regulation. It also has tons of precedent going back hundreds of years in terms of the legal and economic study of common carriers. The end-to-end principle of networks is conceptually related, too. The malady will be an obscure low-grade fever that saps value and weakens competitiveness, but will largely go ignored over time, after which people will wonder why the pace of innovation slowed down so much.
> actually believe that "net neutrality" is possible?
I don't think very many of the net-neutrality zealots have much technical understanding of internetworking or how ISP business models work.
Anything other than a dedicated, business class circuit has a lot of shaping and speculation baked in. This is why "residential" bandwidth is so much cheaper than dedicated.
One commenter last time this came up mentioned that the best practice for residential bandwidth providers is to have 50% headroom. As QoS algorithms get better, and traffic patterns are better understood, the amount of headroom ISPs need to buy will decrease, or it will get cheaper (as upstream providers arbitrage into a peak / off-peak (expected vs unexpected) model.
The thing we need to preserve about ISP incentives is that there should always be an incentive to improve network quality.
However for networks, quality is in the eye of the beholder. If your customers want to download 4K movies, maybe 1000ms of latency is not a big deal.
But if they want to do remote screen sharing or gaming (where even small latency is noticeable) then 1000ms latency would cause the ISP to go out of business.
The technical aspect of this that many people miss is that the same piece of cable can support very different traffic patterns (often but not always) AT THE EXPENSE OF other ones. Net neutrality seemingly advocates having lawyers and politicians come up with the "correct" shaping for all traffic, with no knowledge of what an ISP's customers want to use the circuit for, and no knowledge of what protocols might become popular next year.
Net Neutrality advocates want politicians and lawyers to effectively force ISPs to support a QoS that is closer to some unspecified ideal which those pols and lawyers have no idea about. They are simply being pressured/hired to do something they are clueless about, which helps some businesses and hurts others.
Google wants net neutrality because all service providers prefer that others bear the cost of delivering their content to end users. All content providers would generally agree.
But last mile providers would disagree, because they are faced with spikes in demand and growing/shrinking user-bases and are fighting not just against the price of bandwidth but the technological limits imposed by cable modems, LTE, etc. They would rather not have added constraints placed upon them (which will add costs).
While someday it may be necessary to prevent predatory QoS schemes from being imposed, there is not an adequate level of sophistication in regulators to trust them to create wise regulation in this area.
I don't think very many of the net-neutrality zealots have much technical understanding of internetworking or how ISP business models work.
Anything other than a dedicated, business class circuit has a lot of shaping and speculation baked in. This is why "residential" bandwidth is so much cheaper than dedicated.
One commenter last time this came up mentioned that the best practice for residential bandwidth providers is to have 50% headroom. As QoS algorithms get better, and traffic patterns are better understood, the amount of headroom ISPs need to buy will decrease, or it will get cheaper (as upstream providers arbitrage into a peak / off-peak (expected vs unexpected) model.
The thing we need to preserve about ISP incentives is that there should always be an incentive to improve network quality.
However for networks, quality is in the eye of the beholder. If your customers want to download 4K movies, maybe 1000ms of latency is not a big deal.
But if they want to do remote screen sharing or gaming (where even small latency is noticeable) then 1000ms latency would cause the ISP to go out of business.
The technical aspect of this that many people miss is that the same piece of cable can support very different traffic patterns (often but not always) AT THE EXPENSE OF other ones. Net neutrality seemingly advocates having lawyers and politicians come up with the "correct" shaping for all traffic, with no knowledge of what an ISP's customers want to use the circuit for, and no knowledge of what protocols might become popular next year.
Net Neutrality advocates want politicians and lawyers to effectively force ISPs to support a QoS that is closer to some unspecified ideal which those pols and lawyers have no idea about. They are simply being pressured/hired to do something they are clueless about, which helps some businesses and hurts others.
Google wants net neutrality because all service providers prefer that others bear the cost of delivering their content to end users. All content providers would generally agree.
But last mile providers would disagree, because they are faced with spikes in demand and growing/shrinking user-bases and are fighting not just against the price of bandwidth but the technological limits imposed by cable modems, LTE, etc. They would rather not have added constraints placed upon them (which will add costs).
While someday it may be necessary to prevent predatory QoS schemes from being imposed, there is not an adequate level of sophistication in regulators to trust them to create wise regulation in this area.
> The technical aspect of this that many people miss is that the same piece of cable can support very different traffic patterns AT THE EXPENSE OF other ones.
QoS isn't always a zero-sum game. Even non-interactive HTTP downloads benefit from reduced queuing latency, because TCP congestion control is more accurate when it gets timely feedback. On the flip side, explicit rules to never drop packets matching a certain signature often produces a negative sum game, and one that is easily abused.
QoS isn't always a zero-sum game. Even non-interactive HTTP downloads benefit from reduced queuing latency, because TCP congestion control is more accurate when it gets timely feedback. On the flip side, explicit rules to never drop packets matching a certain signature often produces a negative sum game, and one that is easily abused.
> QoS isn't always a zero-sum game.
True, I didn't mean to imply that. Just that if you have a network cable the QoS can be used in a lot of different ways to maximize the amount of information going over the cable, and that not all optimization schemes can be used at the same time.
True, I didn't mean to imply that. Just that if you have a network cable the QoS can be used in a lot of different ways to maximize the amount of information going over the cable, and that not all optimization schemes can be used at the same time.
I know several people who are highly involved with the FCC, telecom industry, and telecom law that think that "network neutrality" is just 2 words. Until 1970, and only because of lawsuits, it was illegal to connect anything to your phone line. You could get any phone you wanted from Ma Bell as long as it was black.[0] If you wanted a different color you had to pay extra. It took force to make Ma Bell and the FCC allow you to plug in your own phone, your own computer, etc. The FCC supports monopolies, if you want competition you should applaud the deregulation of telecom.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone#Ownership_...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone#Ownership_...
Huh?
The only reason you could connect "any lawful device" after 1968 was because of the FCC "Carterphone" rulemaking.
In its absence, Ma Bell would have kept forced leasing of standard phones as long as possible. Perhaps I'm misunderstand you (or missing sarcasm?).
The only reason you could connect "any lawful device" after 1968 was because of the FCC "Carterphone" rulemaking.
In its absence, Ma Bell would have kept forced leasing of standard phones as long as possible. Perhaps I'm misunderstand you (or missing sarcasm?).
The FCC was regulating the monopoly! And why would anyone want a monopoly to exist? "Cheap phone service for grandma". That's always been the justification for all the insanity. It took years to deregulate and allow true competition, and it always came through because of lawsuits. Telecom is an industry run by lawyers.
How do you imagine the deregulation in this article will help competition? Specifically, that is.
By allowing upstart MVNO's to avoid arduous regulation processes. I am involved with 2 MVNO's that have been trying to merge for over a year, they don't have that many customers, and no one opposes it. Yet the FCC dragged their feet with no updates and no reason for the delay. This has real world, multi-million dollar consequences. The process is moving forward now since Ajit got hired.
Armchair technologists read an article about net neutrality on arstechnica and think it's black and white. News flash - telecom and ISP's have been shaping traffic since the beginning! You think NetFlix has high quality video on shitty connections because they are nice? Wrong! They pay for the privilege.[0]
I say, let the free market decide. The history of telecom is beyond insane. If you actually care about this stuff maybe you should learn more. This book is pretty esoteric but it gives the true history https://www.amazon.com/Great-Telecom-Meltdown-Fred-Goldstein...
[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304834704579401...
Armchair technologists read an article about net neutrality on arstechnica and think it's black and white. News flash - telecom and ISP's have been shaping traffic since the beginning! You think NetFlix has high quality video on shitty connections because they are nice? Wrong! They pay for the privilege.[0]
I say, let the free market decide. The history of telecom is beyond insane. If you actually care about this stuff maybe you should learn more. This book is pretty esoteric but it gives the true history https://www.amazon.com/Great-Telecom-Meltdown-Fred-Goldstein...
[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304834704579401...
>By allowing upstart MVNO's to avoid arduous regulation processes.
This doesn't seem that arduous to me. The article estimates regulatory compliance will only take 6.8 hours.
>I say, let the free market decide.
Is that not the point of this regulation? It provides more information to consumers so they are better able to decide. Free markets only work when there is transparency about what is being bought and sold.
>I am involved with 2 MVNO's that have been trying to merge for over a year...
This has nothing to do with the regulatory rollback in the article.
>Armchair technologists...
We can discuss without getting bent out of shape.
This doesn't seem that arduous to me. The article estimates regulatory compliance will only take 6.8 hours.
>I say, let the free market decide.
Is that not the point of this regulation? It provides more information to consumers so they are better able to decide. Free markets only work when there is transparency about what is being bought and sold.
>I am involved with 2 MVNO's that have been trying to merge for over a year...
This has nothing to do with the regulatory rollback in the article.
>Armchair technologists...
We can discuss without getting bent out of shape.
Telecoms are a classic example of a natural monopoly - which is to say it would be monopoly whether there's regulation or not.
How do you imagine there would be competition in, say, fibre? A bunch of companies all running their own last mile? That's incredibly inefficient.
How do you imagine there would be competition in, say, fibre? A bunch of companies all running their own last mile? That's incredibly inefficient.
The whole thing should be a public utility like water, electricity, and sewer.
Yes, just like sewers: http://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-area-st....
Also, nobody advocating for "treating telecom like a utility" is actually advocating for that. Try looking up the cost of a county water/sewer hookup sometime. It's not free, and your $50/month water bill doesn't pay for it. I'm paying off a $30,000 bill to get "public utility" water and sewer access. That's pretty typical.
If we required every house builder to pay thousands of dollars up front to install fiber people would be frothing at the mouth.
Also, nobody advocating for "treating telecom like a utility" is actually advocating for that. Try looking up the cost of a county water/sewer hookup sometime. It's not free, and your $50/month water bill doesn't pay for it. I'm paying off a $30,000 bill to get "public utility" water and sewer access. That's pretty typical.
If we required every house builder to pay thousands of dollars up front to install fiber people would be frothing at the mouth.
$30,000 seems like a lot unless you live in a very rural area. Where I live in Michigan it's $1,410 for a hookup within 500 feet of a road. Why is it so expensive where you are?
Also, fiber would probably be pretty cheap once the infrastructure was already in place. A single phase overhead power line is often provided for free to new homes and underground service runs about $3.50/foot so I imagine fiber would be similarly cheap.
Also, fiber would probably be pretty cheap once the infrastructure was already in place. A single phase overhead power line is often provided for free to new homes and underground service runs about $3.50/foot so I imagine fiber would be similarly cheap.
Where in Michigan? Here's the fee schedule in my county: http://www.aacounty.org/departments/inspections-and-permits/.... Fairfax County, where my parents live is similarly expensive: about $25,000 for a smallish house.
Midland county. Here's a similar document for an area near me; the city doesn't seem to have a fee schedule online anywhere.
http://www.lincoln-twp.org/forms%20policies/New%20Water%20Co...
$2,520 is what they charge for water; not sure what it is for wastewater - they may not have a public sewer system - but it's about $3,500 where I live. It used to be $150 (seriously, not a typo) and people got really upset when they raised it by a few thousand dollars all at once a few years ago.
I guess it's not a very densely-populated area and the state is surrounded by water so that might explain why it's so cheap.
http://www.lincoln-twp.org/forms%20policies/New%20Water%20Co...
$2,520 is what they charge for water; not sure what it is for wastewater - they may not have a public sewer system - but it's about $3,500 where I live. It used to be $150 (seriously, not a typo) and people got really upset when they raised it by a few thousand dollars all at once a few years ago.
I guess it's not a very densely-populated area and the state is surrounded by water so that might explain why it's so cheap.
You don't have to speculate, it's cheap:
https://arstechnica.com/business/2015/08/how-a-small-city-of...
https://arstechnica.com/business/2015/08/how-a-small-city-of...
Sandy's system covers the 2,400 housing units within city limits, and it cost $7.5 million, so it cost over $3,000 per house to wire up (or $3,500 per subscribing household). Which is actually on the higher side considering that Sandy is a pretty dense little city (about double the density of a typical suburb).
Assuming the city can get a 4% bond, and depreciates the asset over 20 years, about $27 of that $40 goes just to depreciation and interest.
That cost is actually fairly typical. What isn't typical is an 83% uptake rate. Average for municipal providers is about 54%, and average for private FTTH providers like Verizon is 30-35%. If your uptake rate is 35% instead of 83%, your monthly cost in depreciation and interest alone jumps to $64. That's before the cost of bandwidth, maintenance, customer service, etc., which typically eats up about half the monthly bill.
Assuming the city can get a 4% bond, and depreciates the asset over 20 years, about $27 of that $40 goes just to depreciation and interest.
That cost is actually fairly typical. What isn't typical is an 83% uptake rate. Average for municipal providers is about 54%, and average for private FTTH providers like Verizon is 30-35%. If your uptake rate is 35% instead of 83%, your monthly cost in depreciation and interest alone jumps to $64. That's before the cost of bandwidth, maintenance, customer service, etc., which typically eats up about half the monthly bill.
Except once it's hooked up, it doesn't need to be hooked up again.
And given that most providers will make you pay to run a line to your house, you don't exactly have a leg to stand on
And given that most providers will make you pay to run a line to your house, you don't exactly have a leg to stand on
I would argue that wired and wireless are very different beasts. If you want to regulate fiber, that's debatable, but a competitive wireless landscape is ripe for competition given all the possibilities for delivering service.
This raises the limit on the number of subscribers a provider can have before regulation kicks in. In other words, a larger number of smaller providers have one less regulation to worry about.
Isn't more competition among providers what we want? Shouldn't we be doing everything we can – even if it's saving 6.8 hours per year in regulatory compliance – to help these smaller guys be able to take on these horrible behemoths like AT&T and Comcast?
Isn't more competition among providers what we want? Shouldn't we be doing everything we can – even if it's saving 6.8 hours per year in regulatory compliance – to help these smaller guys be able to take on these horrible behemoths like AT&T and Comcast?
By the way, every time I've noticed the FCC has come up on HN in the recent past, an aged account has always posted a pro Trump's FCC comment with an argument tweaked for HN's biases, as seen above, and if that is the only comment you read in the thread, you'd falsely conclude that they're right and believe that Ajit Pai's version of the FCC will be better for business than Tom Wheeler's.
Ajit Pai's FCC will be better for business, incumbent businesses like Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon, who'd rather not actually pay for network engineers, sysadmins, or software developers, and just sit there raking in cash, without owing anything to the communities they're in.
Reduced-cost access for people that can't afford it was the first thing on the chopping block, as well as for schools and libraries. Next up is net neutrality; this is undoubtedly the first move of many on this front.
In other news today, laws subjecting ISPs like Comcast and AT&T to get permission from you, before sharing browsing history, location, and other sensitive data. Don't be fooled, Ajit Pai's FCC is a friend to big business.
Ajit Pai's FCC will be better for business, incumbent businesses like Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon, who'd rather not actually pay for network engineers, sysadmins, or software developers, and just sit there raking in cash, without owing anything to the communities they're in.
Reduced-cost access for people that can't afford it was the first thing on the chopping block, as well as for schools and libraries. Next up is net neutrality; this is undoubtedly the first move of many on this front.
In other news today, laws subjecting ISPs like Comcast and AT&T to get permission from you, before sharing browsing history, location, and other sensitive data. Don't be fooled, Ajit Pai's FCC is a friend to big business.
I'm certainly not sitting here agreeing with everything Pai's FCC has or will do, nor am I pro-Trump (not that it matters). My belief is their decisions will be a mixed bag in the long term.
What I've noticed is that almost every FCC decision since Pai took over has been spun as weakening net neutrality, which I think is incorrect and unfair.
What I've noticed is that almost every FCC decision since Pai took over has been spun as weakening net neutrality, which I think is incorrect and unfair.
In what way do you expect it to be a "mixed bag"? What are the positive parts? You seem to claim smaller ISPs will benefit, but we've already got a dearth of small ISPs in the US and I don't see the FCCs decisions likely leading to more of them, as other commenters have pointed out. So what, specifically, will be better? "Friendlier" to businesses is as much nonsense as words like "wellness" to people, so I'm looking for actual, real-world positive things.
Here's how I see it...
A positive decision is one that removes regulation or protects us from the government.
A negative decision is one that adds regulation or protects incumbents in the industry.
We can disagree on that, but we probably agree on the bigger issue: keeping a free and open internet. I want that as much as you probably do, I just don't believe government should play the role of guardian of the internet.
I see this specific decision as positive because it removes one more (albeit small) hurdle from competitors entering the market. Believe it or not, but all of this regulation protects the AT&Ts and Comcasts because they already have the infrastructure to comply. But a small, scrappy startup? It's hard enough building a quality service, but even harder when you have to devote a large chunk of time and money to even qualifying to play.
A positive decision is one that removes regulation or protects us from the government.
A negative decision is one that adds regulation or protects incumbents in the industry.
We can disagree on that, but we probably agree on the bigger issue: keeping a free and open internet. I want that as much as you probably do, I just don't believe government should play the role of guardian of the internet.
I see this specific decision as positive because it removes one more (albeit small) hurdle from competitors entering the market. Believe it or not, but all of this regulation protects the AT&Ts and Comcasts because they already have the infrastructure to comply. But a small, scrappy startup? It's hard enough building a quality service, but even harder when you have to devote a large chunk of time and money to even qualifying to play.
People agree with someone you disagree, so it must be a conspiracy. Also I think you underestimate the intelligence of the average commentor.
Look at the comment and submission history of the account he responded to. It's a well maintained shill used for propaganda and likely one of many.
This is then kind of thing you see in authoritarian states and rather chilling.
This is then kind of thing you see in authoritarian states and rather chilling.
Ummm... I looked at the account, and it doesn't look like a shill account in the slightest.
In this case, I personally came to the comments to say exactly what the top comment said: This is raising the subscriber compliance limit from 100k to 250k. Nothing to see here. No "threat" to net neutrality at all, except if you're trying to sensationalize it.
I'm more worried about net neutrality when it's giant companies like Verizon or Comcast. Not so much about the compliance of smaller companies, who:
1. Aren't big enough fish to cause the kinds of problems with product adoption that most of the net neutrality worst-case scenarios depict.
2. Aren't big enough to cut the deals with larger content suppliers that net neutrality is trying to prevent.
3. Frequently are barely able to survive at those scales, so the extra regulatory burden isn't actually worth cutting into their meager profits.
In this case, I personally came to the comments to say exactly what the top comment said: This is raising the subscriber compliance limit from 100k to 250k. Nothing to see here. No "threat" to net neutrality at all, except if you're trying to sensationalize it.
I'm more worried about net neutrality when it's giant companies like Verizon or Comcast. Not so much about the compliance of smaller companies, who:
1. Aren't big enough fish to cause the kinds of problems with product adoption that most of the net neutrality worst-case scenarios depict.
2. Aren't big enough to cut the deals with larger content suppliers that net neutrality is trying to prevent.
3. Frequently are barely able to survive at those scales, so the extra regulatory burden isn't actually worth cutting into their meager profits.
That's jumping to quite the conclusion. As I've responded to a few people here, I have a site where I write about technology and freedom. Net neutrality is a big topic in that area, but I also write about privacy, free speech & censorship, cryptocurrency & blockchain, etc.
I am certainly not a shill, nor spreading propaganda for any one or any industry. I'm a software developer who works in a completely unrelated industry to telecom.
Look, we probably agree on the primary issue here: to maintain a free and open internet. I dislike the AT&Ts and Comcasts as most do here, and I choose not to do business with them.
Where we likely disagree is how to maintain a free and open internet. I don't believe the government should play that role, as they often (in my opinion) push for more and more control once their foot is in the door. That's not what I want.
> This is then kind of thing you see in authoritarian states and rather chilling.
No, actually, throwing labels like "shill" and "propaganda" at someone to discredit them and squelch their desire to speak freely is what you find in authoritarian states.
Every time I post an opinion that goes against the net neutrality norm, I'm accused of being an agent of the FCC or telecom industry.
Can I not hold an opinion that differs from the norm? I posted (in my opinion) a question to provoke thought and discussion in a completely non-trolling, non-harassing, non-toxic way.
I am certainly not a shill, nor spreading propaganda for any one or any industry. I'm a software developer who works in a completely unrelated industry to telecom.
Look, we probably agree on the primary issue here: to maintain a free and open internet. I dislike the AT&Ts and Comcasts as most do here, and I choose not to do business with them.
Where we likely disagree is how to maintain a free and open internet. I don't believe the government should play that role, as they often (in my opinion) push for more and more control once their foot is in the door. That's not what I want.
> This is then kind of thing you see in authoritarian states and rather chilling.
No, actually, throwing labels like "shill" and "propaganda" at someone to discredit them and squelch their desire to speak freely is what you find in authoritarian states.
Every time I post an opinion that goes against the net neutrality norm, I'm accused of being an agent of the FCC or telecom industry.
Can I not hold an opinion that differs from the norm? I posted (in my opinion) a question to provoke thought and discussion in a completely non-trolling, non-harassing, non-toxic way.
To be fair: even assuming subverter is a shill, it's far more likely that the account is being directed by the ISP lobby or related interests than by the FCC, whose employees are bland bureaucrats except at the very top. That's not authoritarianism, it's just astroturf. Non-government entities have been doing it for decades too.
Neither is true. I'm a software developer who works in a completely unrelated industry. I'm just intrigued by technology and freedom, which is what I write about on my site – and why most of my HN comments and submissions are on related topics.
I mean, the GP's name is: subverter. Like, it's in their flippin name.
Quoting the top definition of "subvert" from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/subverter:
> To overthrow or destroy (a government or an established order or authority).
Note the part in parenthesis, which is exactly why I chose the name for my site. I do not like the FCC, nor government in general.
How does that square with my original comment? In my view, one less government regulation is a step in the right direction. I want government to stop forcing itself into the role of regulator of the internet.
> To overthrow or destroy (a government or an established order or authority).
Note the part in parenthesis, which is exactly why I chose the name for my site. I do not like the FCC, nor government in general.
How does that square with my original comment? In my view, one less government regulation is a step in the right direction. I want government to stop forcing itself into the role of regulator of the internet.
I'm going to have to start shilling for conservatives so people give me accolades for my username
The person you’re referring to has three comments in total, and of their submissions only ONE has anything to do with FCC.
You’re attacking person, not argument, and rather ineffectively.
EDIT: Okay, you meant someone else. Still, calling someone with almost 10 year active account a shill requires more evidence than this. Stick to the facts.
You’re attacking person, not argument, and rather ineffectively.
EDIT: Okay, you meant someone else. Still, calling someone with almost 10 year active account a shill requires more evidence than this. Stick to the facts.
Huh? The guy with the 10 year post history called Subverter a shill. Subverter has a 43 day post history, three anti-net neutrality comments, and two anti-net neutrality submissions. You can't see one, because it was flagged:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565023
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565023
That was certainly a badly worded title on my part. Shortly after posting it to HN – and reading the comments – I went back and amended the title and included a note about it in the post. It was a mistake and I take responsibility.
The reason I have a 43 day post history is because that's how long my site of the same name has been in existence. I've been a long-time reader of HN and commented (albeit rarely) under my own name for many years.
The reason many of my comments and submissions have been net neutrality related is because it's exactly the type of topic that my site deals with: technology and freedom. In addition to privacy, free speech & censorship, cryptocurrency & blockchain, etc.
The reason I have a 43 day post history is because that's how long my site of the same name has been in existence. I've been a long-time reader of HN and commented (albeit rarely) under my own name for many years.
The reason many of my comments and submissions have been net neutrality related is because it's exactly the type of topic that my site deals with: technology and freedom. In addition to privacy, free speech & censorship, cryptocurrency & blockchain, etc.
I have skimmed your website at the time and found it really interesting.
I find this “shillcalling” very annoying, but I understand where it’s coming from. If you look at Reddit, for example, it has been an entire two weeks of constant “Bill Gates is great” posts. Astroturfing is out of control.
At the same time it makes discussion impossible. I have myself been called a “shill” on several occasions now (not here), just by disagreeing with the narrative slightly. Any dissent is now seen with suspicion which just pushes everyone more and more to the extremes.
Since you made a post about machine learning assisted moderation, I am wondering if you thought about how ML could be used to bring back discussion to a neutral, or at least merit-based scoring?
It seems everyone wants to apply ML to the content itself (like Perspective), but wouldn’t it be more effective to instead use ML to assign weight to the ratings? For every topic there must exist a subset of people that can judge it by its merit, without immediately succumbing to their biases. It seems if you could identify that subset of users, and weight their scoring more (and that subset might be different per topic), then it should be possible to avoid the usual traps of popularity-based scoring systems, including astroturfing and vote manipulation.
What do you think?
I find this “shillcalling” very annoying, but I understand where it’s coming from. If you look at Reddit, for example, it has been an entire two weeks of constant “Bill Gates is great” posts. Astroturfing is out of control.
At the same time it makes discussion impossible. I have myself been called a “shill” on several occasions now (not here), just by disagreeing with the narrative slightly. Any dissent is now seen with suspicion which just pushes everyone more and more to the extremes.
Since you made a post about machine learning assisted moderation, I am wondering if you thought about how ML could be used to bring back discussion to a neutral, or at least merit-based scoring?
It seems everyone wants to apply ML to the content itself (like Perspective), but wouldn’t it be more effective to instead use ML to assign weight to the ratings? For every topic there must exist a subset of people that can judge it by its merit, without immediately succumbing to their biases. It seems if you could identify that subset of users, and weight their scoring more (and that subset might be different per topic), then it should be possible to avoid the usual traps of popularity-based scoring systems, including astroturfing and vote manipulation.
What do you think?
I thought it said “you responded” instead of “he responded.” You’re right.
I think you are mistaken it says created: 43 days ago
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> Isn't more competition among providers what we want?
Only at some levels. Physical last-mile connectivity is a natural monopoly; we shouldn't want more than one trench along each driveway. If an ISP has a local monopoly that only covers one city rather than a whole state, that doesn't change the dynamics of what's fair to their users.
Only at some levels. Physical last-mile connectivity is a natural monopoly; we shouldn't want more than one trench along each driveway. If an ISP has a local monopoly that only covers one city rather than a whole state, that doesn't change the dynamics of what's fair to their users.
I would think that any many decently populated areas, it's at least a "duopoly". You would have the cable company and the phone company competing. I have a choice between Comcast and AT&T.
This is a short-term situation that is already mostly dead. The pre-existing infrastructure of POTS and CATV wiring was re-purposed to provide Internet connectivity. But the last-mile POTS infrastructure is completely saturated and xDLS services cannot compete against DOCSIS. Comcast can upgrade you from 20Mbps to 1Gbps by replacing the box down the street and selling you a new modem. AT&T has to dig up the street and run new cables through the walls of your house to accomplish the same.
POTS still has alot of life left in it. It just hasn't seen any investment. Long-term it could handle greater overall capacity given each household has a physically dedicated line to an aggregation point.
Phone companies just need to invest in putting the DSL modems closer to the households, say at the neighborhood cabinet rather than the switching station. A literal mile is too far. VDSL2 can do 100Mb/s in each direction at 500 meters, and there's no bandwidth contention with your neighbor. And VDSL2 is extremely mature, hardly the state of the art. By comparison, at the office I pay $450/month for dedicated 100Mb/s fiber service from Cogent. And the POTS infrastructure is just about as reliable--which is to say, very reliable.
I live in San Francisco, which is already extremely dense. AT&T owns the POTS system, but they refuse to put in the investment. My switching station is almost 2 miles away. I finally got fiber from Sonic.net. They're investing in hanging fiber over much of the westerner half of the city at a time when AT&T is hemming and hawing about upgrading their cabinets. And interestingly, my fiber service runs straight to that switching station 2 miles away.
The only reason cable dominates is because the phone companies aren't interested in competing. AT&T and Verizon own a huge amount of the POTS infrastructure, but are entirely focused on mobile and cable. It's a ridiculous state of affairs having so much infrastructure managed by the same oligopoly. When I cancelled Comcast and told them I was only paying $40/month for Gigabit fiber there was a long pause--he was absolutely incredulous. Was it a promo price, he asked. (No.) He knew there was no chance of retaining me as a customer.
Phone companies just need to invest in putting the DSL modems closer to the households, say at the neighborhood cabinet rather than the switching station. A literal mile is too far. VDSL2 can do 100Mb/s in each direction at 500 meters, and there's no bandwidth contention with your neighbor. And VDSL2 is extremely mature, hardly the state of the art. By comparison, at the office I pay $450/month for dedicated 100Mb/s fiber service from Cogent. And the POTS infrastructure is just about as reliable--which is to say, very reliable.
I live in San Francisco, which is already extremely dense. AT&T owns the POTS system, but they refuse to put in the investment. My switching station is almost 2 miles away. I finally got fiber from Sonic.net. They're investing in hanging fiber over much of the westerner half of the city at a time when AT&T is hemming and hawing about upgrading their cabinets. And interestingly, my fiber service runs straight to that switching station 2 miles away.
The only reason cable dominates is because the phone companies aren't interested in competing. AT&T and Verizon own a huge amount of the POTS infrastructure, but are entirely focused on mobile and cable. It's a ridiculous state of affairs having so much infrastructure managed by the same oligopoly. When I cancelled Comcast and told them I was only paying $40/month for Gigabit fiber there was a long pause--he was absolutely incredulous. Was it a promo price, he asked. (No.) He knew there was no chance of retaining me as a customer.
VDSL2 is great for the areas where most of the customers are already close enough to benefit. But outside of urban areas, you're still proposing almost the same degree of disruption to the neighborhood as a full fiber deployment. Instead of digging up the road and my yard and putting new cables into my house, you're now merely digging up the road and putting new boxes in every fifth yard. And all to offer downstream service that is almost as fast as what the DOCSIS provider currently delivers, and upstream capacity that most customers won't see much benefit from.
The dedicated last hop bandwidth of DSL sounds nice, but in practice the shared nature of DOCSIS usually isn't a problem and when it is the solution is no more expensive or invasive than what DSL requires up front for every neighborhood.
The dedicated last hop bandwidth of DSL sounds nice, but in practice the shared nature of DOCSIS usually isn't a problem and when it is the solution is no more expensive or invasive than what DSL requires up front for every neighborhood.
The vast majority of Americans live in neighborhoods far more dense than that, even deep in the suburbs. I can't find the figures for America, but according to this presentation 100% of Europeans live within 500 meters of their distribution cabinet: http://www.wik.org/fileadmin/Konferenzbeitraege/2007/VDSL-Co...
I agree DOCSIS has been good enough. But with the shift to services like Hulu and NetFlix I would argue that it's nearing a threshold. And even if it weren't, I bet if a telephone company had somebody as highly motivated as Elon Musk, they'd be able to eat their local cable company's lunch.
I agree DOCSIS has been good enough. But with the shift to services like Hulu and NetFlix I would argue that it's nearing a threshold. And even if it weren't, I bet if a telephone company had somebody as highly motivated as Elon Musk, they'd be able to eat their local cable company's lunch.
AT&T is not interested in delivering video over wires. They want to move customers to DirectTV as quickly as possible. There is no marginal cost to deliver video over satellite to an additional customer as far as Infrastructure.
Same as the other child comment. Every locale I've been to has had at least 3 choices with an occasional 4th: a cable company, a phone company, and a satellite company. The 4th is typically a very small, local ISP.
The cable company has always had the most bang for the buck. It's something like 60Mb down at about $1/Mb. The phone company is the underdog that gets you from under the thumb of the cable company at a lower speed. It's something like 25Mb down at about $1.50/Mb. Satellites are basically a last resort. I can't recall speeds, but it's abysmally slow at a high price. That's nothing new though.
The local ISP is something that I've always wanted to go with, but they never have the speeds. It's always some form of ADSL capped at around ~15Mb down and ~1.4Mb up somewhere between $1 to $1.50/Mb down.
Your two real choices are cable or phone company, and if you go with the phone company, you pay more for less while still under the stranglehold of a large carrier.
The cable company has always had the most bang for the buck. It's something like 60Mb down at about $1/Mb. The phone company is the underdog that gets you from under the thumb of the cable company at a lower speed. It's something like 25Mb down at about $1.50/Mb. Satellites are basically a last resort. I can't recall speeds, but it's abysmally slow at a high price. That's nothing new though.
The local ISP is something that I've always wanted to go with, but they never have the speeds. It's always some form of ADSL capped at around ~15Mb down and ~1.4Mb up somewhere between $1 to $1.50/Mb down.
Your two real choices are cable or phone company, and if you go with the phone company, you pay more for less while still under the stranglehold of a large carrier.
I have gigabit internet from AT&T - $70 a month. On my best computer I routinely get 900Mbps+/900Mbps+. No data caps, no extra fees.
Even in the few areas where Comcast does offer 1Gbps they still only have 35Mbps up stream. It's the cable companies that are being left behind by fiber deployments.
Even in the few areas where Comcast does offer 1Gbps they still only have 35Mbps up stream. It's the cable companies that are being left behind by fiber deployments.
Verizon stopped deploying FIOS to new cities in 2010 and entirely in 2015. Since then, they've begun building out in Boston, but future plans are unclear. AT&T has been deploying new fiber, but that was a condition for them to acquire DirecTV. It's a long way from being an option for most Americans.
It's not really a choice. AT&T in my area of SF is still crap compared to Comcast.
So yes, I could choose to use AT&T, but I would be getting substantially worse service. All cities should be investing in building out infrastructure themselves, as it would increase the desire for companies and people to live and work where they have better connectivity.
So yes, I could choose to use AT&T, but I would be getting substantially worse service. All cities should be investing in building out infrastructure themselves, as it would increase the desire for companies and people to live and work where they have better connectivity.
Cities have no money. All across the country, they're insolvent and drowning in pension and other liabilities.
SF is flush right now, which makes it particularly outrageous that it doesn't invest in infrastructure. But SF's behavior also tells you how cities got so deeply in debt with nothing to show for it.
SF is flush right now, which makes it particularly outrageous that it doesn't invest in infrastructure. But SF's behavior also tells you how cities got so deeply in debt with nothing to show for it.
A number of cities have tried to build fiber networks only to be thwarted by ISP lobbying at the state level. Some had their eyes on Google Fiber. SF is studying municipal fiber, although I don't know how seriously.
I supported the Obama FCC's attempts to preempt those state laws, but most states have no such laws to begin with: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-21-laws-state....
E.g. in Maryland, nothing precludes Baltimore from building its own broadband network. It just has no money. Ditto Chicago, or New York. The laws applying to Philadelphia or anywhere in California shouldn't really stop construction either.
E.g. in Maryland, nothing precludes Baltimore from building its own broadband network. It just has no money. Ditto Chicago, or New York. The laws applying to Philadelphia or anywhere in California shouldn't really stop construction either.
You can't get Fibre in your part of SF?
The only place in the city residential FTTP is an option (other than to larger apartment buildings) is, AFAIK, Sonic's FTTP trial in the Sunset.
The NIMBY is strong in San Francisco. Apparently, even the imposition of the above-ground junction boxes are too much for people here, and so, once again, "We are why we can't have nice things."
Even — if not especially — in a place like San Francisco.
My choices, where I live, are Comcast and DSL (I'm just out of LoS for Monkeybrains). So I give Sonic money every month for a pretty hideous dollar:bandwidth ratio, comparatively, because that's still better than Comcast, in my book.
The NIMBY is strong in San Francisco. Apparently, even the imposition of the above-ground junction boxes are too much for people here, and so, once again, "We are why we can't have nice things."
Even — if not especially — in a place like San Francisco.
My choices, where I live, are Comcast and DSL (I'm just out of LoS for Monkeybrains). So I give Sonic money every month for a pretty hideous dollar:bandwidth ratio, comparatively, because that's still better than Comcast, in my book.
nope.
I have 60mb service from Charter and 45 from AT&T and many in my area have 1g service from AT&T as well. They are rolling out fiber at a rapid pace.
Local loop unbundling is what you need like the UK has
The problem is that most americans get their internet over coxial cable owned by the local cable co. Most cable company networks don't have individual loops to unbundle.
You share a loop with the whole neighborhood.
I've heard people claim it is possible, but I'm not really sure how.
You share a loop with the whole neighborhood.
I've heard people claim it is possible, but I'm not really sure how.
They're already running their phone and Internet services on the same infrastructure but different VLANs. It shouldn't require new hardware to add half a dozen more VLANs for the different backhaul providers and apportion bandwidth inside the last-mile network equally between VLANs.
It won't technically be "loop unbundling" but it's not like it's particularly difficult - it's how MVNOs work.
Do we want secret network caps and slowdowns to be how they compete against the big boys?
This ^
I say this every time and no one has ever been able to answer: how is a simple "don't prioritize traffic" some kind of competition-killing regulation, and how would removing it actually create competition anyway?
I say this every time and no one has ever been able to answer: how is a simple "don't prioritize traffic" some kind of competition-killing regulation, and how would removing it actually create competition anyway?
If you phrase it as just "don't prioritize traffic", you've just broken most CDNs, as well as QoS that optimizes for latency/bandwidth to improve VoIP and similar.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with, for instance, a content provider handing an ISP a box that sits on their network, mirrors/caches content, and serves it up to that ISP's customers. That helps the content provider, the ISP, and the ISP's customers. And I don't think the majority of "net neutrality" advocates want to break that.
When people talk about "net neutrality", the problems they have in mind tend to look like either an ISP extorting content providers to extract extra revenue, or an ISP giving their own first-party services an advantage by deliberately degrading third-party services. For instance, see Comcast and Netflix.
But even then, how do you draw a bright line between "deliberately degrading", "not giving an advantage to", and "not doing anything to address bandwidth problems when they arise"? (Comcast could claim the latter regarding Netflix, even though it seems obvious what it means when they don't arrange additional bandwidth on those saturated links.) What if the ISP provides the CDN infrastructure, rather than the content provider? What if the ISP contracts with a third-party CDN?
How would you suggest writing a regulation that doesn't break CDNs and similar, and that can tell the difference between "deliberately hurting" and "not helping"? How will that regulation adapt when people come up with new ideas to make the web faster?
(One angle I could imagine working: limiting the ability of one company or family of companies to run both an ISP and network services via that ISP. Still hard to write something robust, though.)
There's absolutely nothing wrong with, for instance, a content provider handing an ISP a box that sits on their network, mirrors/caches content, and serves it up to that ISP's customers. That helps the content provider, the ISP, and the ISP's customers. And I don't think the majority of "net neutrality" advocates want to break that.
When people talk about "net neutrality", the problems they have in mind tend to look like either an ISP extorting content providers to extract extra revenue, or an ISP giving their own first-party services an advantage by deliberately degrading third-party services. For instance, see Comcast and Netflix.
But even then, how do you draw a bright line between "deliberately degrading", "not giving an advantage to", and "not doing anything to address bandwidth problems when they arise"? (Comcast could claim the latter regarding Netflix, even though it seems obvious what it means when they don't arrange additional bandwidth on those saturated links.) What if the ISP provides the CDN infrastructure, rather than the content provider? What if the ISP contracts with a third-party CDN?
How would you suggest writing a regulation that doesn't break CDNs and similar, and that can tell the difference between "deliberately hurting" and "not helping"? How will that regulation adapt when people come up with new ideas to make the web faster?
(One angle I could imagine working: limiting the ability of one company or family of companies to run both an ISP and network services via that ISP. Still hard to write something robust, though.)
> There's absolutely nothing wrong with, for instance, a content provider handing an ISP a box that sits on their network, mirrors/caches content, and serves it up to that ISP's customers. That helps the content provider, the ISP, and the ISP's customers. And I don't think the majority of "net neutrality" advocates want to break that.
...until the ISP decides to charge a large amount of money for the ability to do that, and then under-provision their peering links so that there is no other way to have adequate performance.
But there is a simple way to fix that. Require last mile ISPs to do free peering with anyone who has traffic for their last mile customers. If you bring traffic directly to their local central office, they have to take it and deliver it up to the speed that they've sold to their customers.
Then they can offer all the CDN service they like, which people will use as long as they're charging market rates but decline and rely on peering (and install their CDN equipment across the street) if they try to charge monopoly prices.
...until the ISP decides to charge a large amount of money for the ability to do that, and then under-provision their peering links so that there is no other way to have adequate performance.
But there is a simple way to fix that. Require last mile ISPs to do free peering with anyone who has traffic for their last mile customers. If you bring traffic directly to their local central office, they have to take it and deliver it up to the speed that they've sold to their customers.
Then they can offer all the CDN service they like, which people will use as long as they're charging market rates but decline and rely on peering (and install their CDN equipment across the street) if they try to charge monopoly prices.
> ...until the ISP decides to charge a large amount of money for the ability to do that, and then under-provision their peering links so that there is no other way to have adequate performance.
The latter is the primary problem here.
> Require last mile ISPs to do free peering with anyone who has traffic for their last mile customers.
What does "last mile ISP" mean here? DSL is no longer competitive, and most implementations of cable and fiber have no separation between "infrastructure provider" and "bandwidth provider".
> If you bring traffic directly to their local central office, they have to take it and deliver it up to the speed that they've sold to their customers.
What if their central office isn't connected to anyone else directly, because they get all their bandwidth and peering from one or more of the major backbones? Presumably they can say "go to those backbones", rather than having to start making peering arrangements with individual services.
> but decline and rely on peering (and install their CDN equipment across the street) if they try to charge monopoly prices
What if their central office doesn't have an "across the street" where you can put servers? Or what if they don't have a "central office", period?
The latter is the primary problem here.
> Require last mile ISPs to do free peering with anyone who has traffic for their last mile customers.
What does "last mile ISP" mean here? DSL is no longer competitive, and most implementations of cable and fiber have no separation between "infrastructure provider" and "bandwidth provider".
> If you bring traffic directly to their local central office, they have to take it and deliver it up to the speed that they've sold to their customers.
What if their central office isn't connected to anyone else directly, because they get all their bandwidth and peering from one or more of the major backbones? Presumably they can say "go to those backbones", rather than having to start making peering arrangements with individual services.
> but decline and rely on peering (and install their CDN equipment across the street) if they try to charge monopoly prices
What if their central office doesn't have an "across the street" where you can put servers? Or what if they don't have a "central office", period?
I appreciate that you bring these questions up but your overall point seems to be "this is complicated and you can't provide logically / morally perfect arguments", which seems a little pointless.
All legal matters are complicated, but we're a modern society full of a lot of bright people and "free market lol ISPs get to be highway robbers now" doesn't seem like the best we can do.
I also disagree with the notion that inconveniencing some billionaires is less moral than hurting millions of consumers and setting a horrible precedent, so: regulate the shit out of them. If poor people can bootstrap huge medical bills then ISPs can handle some simple regulation.
e: you didn't make that point about prioritizing rich over poor etc, that was directed more broadly at net neutrality opponents
All legal matters are complicated, but we're a modern society full of a lot of bright people and "free market lol ISPs get to be highway robbers now" doesn't seem like the best we can do.
I also disagree with the notion that inconveniencing some billionaires is less moral than hurting millions of consumers and setting a horrible precedent, so: regulate the shit out of them. If poor people can bootstrap huge medical bills then ISPs can handle some simple regulation.
e: you didn't make that point about prioritizing rich over poor etc, that was directed more broadly at net neutrality opponents
My argument isn't "this is complicated so let's not"; it's "this is complicated and needs to be handled with care, not with a trivial attempted fix like 'dumb pipes only' the way people often seem to think". Together with a healthy dose of "regulation has historically failed to adapt to future technologies". And we don't really want regulations that privilege the tech we currently know over the future tech we don't; that tends to lead in unpleasant directions, including regulatory capture and blocking of future competitors.
I think the fundamental problem here is that in most locations we don't have a market at all, free or otherwise. We're looking at all these restrictions in an effort to work around the fundamental problem of "people have little to no choice in ISPs". If you're going to have one ISP in an area and regulate its behavior heavily, you might as well just have the government run it. (Note: that's not a recommendation.)
I'd be entirely in favor of solving the problem by saying "last-mile infrastructure (from customers all the way to the nearest meet-me room) is a public utility, all ISPs have to remain separate from the last-mile infrastructure". If the average customer had a choice of half a dozen or more ISPs, none of these problems would arise, because any ISP stupid enough to make services deliberately worse would get dropped in favor of ISPs that don't. ISPs could then compete on everything from services provided, customer service, neutrality, geek-friendliness, IPv6 availability, CDNs/mirrors, or anything else they think people want.
I think the fundamental problem here is that in most locations we don't have a market at all, free or otherwise. We're looking at all these restrictions in an effort to work around the fundamental problem of "people have little to no choice in ISPs". If you're going to have one ISP in an area and regulate its behavior heavily, you might as well just have the government run it. (Note: that's not a recommendation.)
I'd be entirely in favor of solving the problem by saying "last-mile infrastructure (from customers all the way to the nearest meet-me room) is a public utility, all ISPs have to remain separate from the last-mile infrastructure". If the average customer had a choice of half a dozen or more ISPs, none of these problems would arise, because any ISP stupid enough to make services deliberately worse would get dropped in favor of ISPs that don't. ISPs could then compete on everything from services provided, customer service, neutrality, geek-friendliness, IPv6 availability, CDNs/mirrors, or anything else they think people want.
> "this is complicated and needs to be handled with care, not with a trivial attempted fix like 'dumb pipes only' the way people often seem to think"
Why do you think turning ISPs into dumb pipes only would not fix most, if not all, problems?
The reason we have all these problems is that the ISPs do not want to be dumb pipes only.
Why do you think turning ISPs into dumb pipes only would not fix most, if not all, problems?
The reason we have all these problems is that the ISPs do not want to be dumb pipes only.
Because many customers don't actually want a dumb pipe.
Dumb pipes don't come with email addresses.
Dumb pipes serve YouTube more slowly, and might not have the capacity for HD/4K video. (Look at what server the video comes from; if you're on a major ISP, the server name likely has your ISP's name in it.)
Dumb pipes serve Netflix more slowly.
Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
Dumb pipes might not get as many customers.
Dumb pipes cost more.
Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I don't just want a raw connection to a major bandwidth provider, though.
See also the last paragraph of my previous reply: I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
Dumb pipes don't come with email addresses.
Dumb pipes serve YouTube more slowly, and might not have the capacity for HD/4K video. (Look at what server the video comes from; if you're on a major ISP, the server name likely has your ISP's name in it.)
Dumb pipes serve Netflix more slowly.
Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
Dumb pipes might not get as many customers.
Dumb pipes cost more.
Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I don't just want a raw connection to a major bandwidth provider, though.
See also the last paragraph of my previous reply: I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
> Because many customers don't actually want a dumb pipe.
Yes, they do. That's exactly what they want. A dumb pipe that transports their bits and nothing more.
I'm omitting your list about dumb pipes, as nothing you write has anything to do with dumb pipes and is all completely wrong.
> Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I don't just want a raw connection to a major bandwidth provider, though.
Hate to disappoint you, but there are no smarts in any ISP datacenter. It's just a big router and some interconnects. Raw bandwidth is all you get, if you are lucky.
> See also the last paragraph of my previous reply: I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
It's not that simple, there are a lot of implementation details that matter. Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale?
Yes, they do. That's exactly what they want. A dumb pipe that transports their bits and nothing more.
I'm omitting your list about dumb pipes, as nothing you write has anything to do with dumb pipes and is all completely wrong.
> Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I don't just want a raw connection to a major bandwidth provider, though.
Hate to disappoint you, but there are no smarts in any ISP datacenter. It's just a big router and some interconnects. Raw bandwidth is all you get, if you are lucky.
> See also the last paragraph of my previous reply: I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
It's not that simple, there are a lot of implementation details that matter. Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale?
I think we have a serious problem of definitions (which goes back to what I said about this being not trivial to define): we're both saying the phrase "dumb pipe" and apparently meaning quite different things by it. Defining terms differently does not invalidate arguments, it just means we're talking past each other.
> Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale?
In an ideal world? A form of local loop unbundling, with a not-for-profit entity running/maintaining the local fiber, and umpteen ISPs readily available to handle termination and routing at the other end.
> Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale?
In an ideal world? A form of local loop unbundling, with a not-for-profit entity running/maintaining the local fiber, and umpteen ISPs readily available to handle termination and routing at the other end.
> Dumb pipes don't come with email addresses.
Neither do rack servers. End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly.
> Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
> Dumb pipes cost more.
Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
> I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
Sure it would. But it has to be one or the other. Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
Neither do rack servers. End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly.
> Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
> Dumb pipes cost more.
Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
> I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
Sure it would. But it has to be one or the other. Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
> Neither do rack servers. End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly.
Of course; they buy it from ISPs, and now you have the same problem again.
> The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
It doesn't matter how much your fiber can transfer if the arrangements at the meet-me room can't get you that much content for a price you want to pay.
> Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
For the same bandwidth? Yes. Raw bandwidth costs more than a plan from an ISP offering that much bandwidth.
> Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
I don't want a single choice of ISP, whether that ISP has agreed to network neutrality restrictions or to divest any particular services. I'd like a dozen ISPs to choose from, and then the rest stops causing a problem.
Of course; they buy it from ISPs, and now you have the same problem again.
> The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
It doesn't matter how much your fiber can transfer if the arrangements at the meet-me room can't get you that much content for a price you want to pay.
> Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
For the same bandwidth? Yes. Raw bandwidth costs more than a plan from an ISP offering that much bandwidth.
> Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
I don't want a single choice of ISP, whether that ISP has agreed to network neutrality restrictions or to divest any particular services. I'd like a dozen ISPs to choose from, and then the rest stops causing a problem.
> What does "last mile ISP" mean here?
It means you control a physical data wire that goes into more than a thousand residential buildings.
> DSL is no longer competitive, and most implementations of cable and fiber have no separation between "infrastructure provider" and "bandwidth provider".
You're the last mile ISP if you're the infrastructure provider regardless of whether you're also the bandwidth provider.
> What if their central office isn't connected to anyone else directly, because they get all their bandwidth and peering from one or more of the major backbones? Presumably they can say "go to those backbones", rather than having to start making peering arrangements with individual services.
Outside of megaplayers like Netflix and Google who are effectively Tier 1 networks unto themselves, the backbones and CDNs are the people who use the free peering. Some website like Yelp or Expedia doesn't want to peer with ISPs or run a CDN, they want to pay Akamai et al to take care of that.
> What if their central office doesn't have an "across the street" where you can put servers?
You can put them wherever you want to. Nobody stops you from putting all your servers for the whole world in one city, or having regional hubs, or doing whatever you want. That's your network, not the last mile ISP's. Level 3 can run fiber from an office 200 miles away if they think that's worth it over buying closer office space.
> Or what if they don't have a "central office", period?
Then where do they normally peer with other networks or operate CDN hardware?
It means you control a physical data wire that goes into more than a thousand residential buildings.
> DSL is no longer competitive, and most implementations of cable and fiber have no separation between "infrastructure provider" and "bandwidth provider".
You're the last mile ISP if you're the infrastructure provider regardless of whether you're also the bandwidth provider.
> What if their central office isn't connected to anyone else directly, because they get all their bandwidth and peering from one or more of the major backbones? Presumably they can say "go to those backbones", rather than having to start making peering arrangements with individual services.
Outside of megaplayers like Netflix and Google who are effectively Tier 1 networks unto themselves, the backbones and CDNs are the people who use the free peering. Some website like Yelp or Expedia doesn't want to peer with ISPs or run a CDN, they want to pay Akamai et al to take care of that.
> What if their central office doesn't have an "across the street" where you can put servers?
You can put them wherever you want to. Nobody stops you from putting all your servers for the whole world in one city, or having regional hubs, or doing whatever you want. That's your network, not the last mile ISP's. Level 3 can run fiber from an office 200 miles away if they think that's worth it over buying closer office space.
> Or what if they don't have a "central office", period?
Then where do they normally peer with other networks or operate CDN hardware?
> If you phrase it as just "don't prioritize traffic", you've just broken most CDNs, as well as QoS that optimizes for latency/bandwidth to improve VoIP and similar.
This is simply incorrect. CDNs are not prioritized on any ISP network. CDNs work because they have a shorter route to the end user, not because they have a higher priority.
ISPs should not and do not apply QoS in their core for VoIP or anything else when it's part of generic Internet traffic. It's the end users responsibility to QoS police VoIP or other traffic on their WAN interface. The ISP just shifts the bits.
Not privatizing traffic does not break CDNs nor customer QoS. Neither of these things have anything to do with net neutrality.
> But even then, how do you draw a bright line between "deliberately degrading", "not giving an advantage to", and "not doing anything to address bandwidth problems when they arise"?
It's pretty obvious how you draw that bright line. Don't prioritize and don't congest interfaces.
> How would you suggest writing a regulation that doesn't break CDNs and similar, and that can tell the difference between "deliberately hurting" and "not helping"?
Easy. As I already wrote, forbid prioritizing and saturation of network interconnects.
> How will that regulation adapt when people come up with new ideas to make the web faster?
It does not need to when done right, as explained above.
> One angle I could imagine working: limiting the ability of one company or family of companies to run both an ISP and network services via that ISP. Still hard to write something robust, though.)
Nothing hard about it. It's called functional separation and it's a widely applied remedy to the anticompetitive nature of telecom markets in other countries.
This is simply incorrect. CDNs are not prioritized on any ISP network. CDNs work because they have a shorter route to the end user, not because they have a higher priority.
ISPs should not and do not apply QoS in their core for VoIP or anything else when it's part of generic Internet traffic. It's the end users responsibility to QoS police VoIP or other traffic on their WAN interface. The ISP just shifts the bits.
Not privatizing traffic does not break CDNs nor customer QoS. Neither of these things have anything to do with net neutrality.
> But even then, how do you draw a bright line between "deliberately degrading", "not giving an advantage to", and "not doing anything to address bandwidth problems when they arise"?
It's pretty obvious how you draw that bright line. Don't prioritize and don't congest interfaces.
> How would you suggest writing a regulation that doesn't break CDNs and similar, and that can tell the difference between "deliberately hurting" and "not helping"?
Easy. As I already wrote, forbid prioritizing and saturation of network interconnects.
> How will that regulation adapt when people come up with new ideas to make the web faster?
It does not need to when done right, as explained above.
> One angle I could imagine working: limiting the ability of one company or family of companies to run both an ISP and network services via that ISP. Still hard to write something robust, though.)
Nothing hard about it. It's called functional separation and it's a widely applied remedy to the anticompetitive nature of telecom markets in other countries.
> CDNs are not prioritized on any ISP network. CDNs work because they have a shorter route to the end user, not because they have a higher priority.
So, anyone who can successfully define what they're doing as "not prioritizing" can entirely sidestep any regulation you have in mind.
Putting a server in the ISP's datacenter is a common approach. Traffic to those servers doesn't have to go over any external peering links.
> ISPs should not and do not apply QoS in their core
Many do. As one simple example, look at the ISPs that accelerate the first N bytes of connections, to prioritize interactive requests over bulk transfers/downloads. Other ISPs apply more sophisticated approaches.
> It's pretty obvious how you draw that bright line. Don't prioritize and don't congest interfaces.
> forbid prioritizing and saturation of network interconnects
So, receive and deliver all traffic, regardless of available capacity or financial constraints? Provision every part of the network so it can handle all the traffic passing over any other part, because they're not allowed to limit bandwidth in any way at any point?
A saturated interconnect might mean "we're trying to screw Netflix", or it might mean "we can't afford it right now" (either because they're a small ISP and don't have the money, or because they're spending it on something their customers want more).
So, anyone who can successfully define what they're doing as "not prioritizing" can entirely sidestep any regulation you have in mind.
Putting a server in the ISP's datacenter is a common approach. Traffic to those servers doesn't have to go over any external peering links.
> ISPs should not and do not apply QoS in their core
Many do. As one simple example, look at the ISPs that accelerate the first N bytes of connections, to prioritize interactive requests over bulk transfers/downloads. Other ISPs apply more sophisticated approaches.
> It's pretty obvious how you draw that bright line. Don't prioritize and don't congest interfaces.
> forbid prioritizing and saturation of network interconnects
So, receive and deliver all traffic, regardless of available capacity or financial constraints? Provision every part of the network so it can handle all the traffic passing over any other part, because they're not allowed to limit bandwidth in any way at any point?
A saturated interconnect might mean "we're trying to screw Netflix", or it might mean "we can't afford it right now" (either because they're a small ISP and don't have the money, or because they're spending it on something their customers want more).
> So, anyone who can successfully define what they're doing as "not prioritizing" can entirely sidestep any regulation you have in mind.
This argument makes no sense. Colocating a CDN node has nothing to do with prioritization. Nobody is fiddling with any QoS settings.
> Putting a server in the ISP's datacenter is a common approach. Traffic to those servers doesn't have to go over any external peering links.
What is your point?
> As one simple example, look at the ISPs that accelerate the first N bytes of connections, to prioritize interactive requests over bulk transfers/downloads.
This is an incorrect characterization of PowerBoost. PowerBoost uncaps your DOCSIS connection temporarily to take advantage of any momentarily free spare capacity. This is not prioritization, it's getting a free tier upgrade temporarily.
> Other ISPs apply more sophisticated approaches.
Such as?
> So, receive and deliver all traffic, regardless of available capacity or financial constraints?
Don't be silly. As long as the ISP provides whatever speed tier they sold to the consumer all is good and well. If they cannot do that then they are shortchanging the consumer and should be penalized for that.
> Provision every part of the network so it can handle all the traffic passing over any other part, because they're not allowed to limit bandwidth in any way at any point?
Yes, to the extent required to provide the service they sold.
> A saturated interconnect might mean "we're trying to screw Netflix", or it might mean "we can't afford it right now" (either because they're a small ISP and don't have the money, or because they're spending it on something their customers want more).
If you saturate your interconnect you fail at ISPing. There is no excuse. Interconnect capacity is cheap and plentiful.
This argument makes no sense. Colocating a CDN node has nothing to do with prioritization. Nobody is fiddling with any QoS settings.
> Putting a server in the ISP's datacenter is a common approach. Traffic to those servers doesn't have to go over any external peering links.
What is your point?
> As one simple example, look at the ISPs that accelerate the first N bytes of connections, to prioritize interactive requests over bulk transfers/downloads.
This is an incorrect characterization of PowerBoost. PowerBoost uncaps your DOCSIS connection temporarily to take advantage of any momentarily free spare capacity. This is not prioritization, it's getting a free tier upgrade temporarily.
> Other ISPs apply more sophisticated approaches.
Such as?
> So, receive and deliver all traffic, regardless of available capacity or financial constraints?
Don't be silly. As long as the ISP provides whatever speed tier they sold to the consumer all is good and well. If they cannot do that then they are shortchanging the consumer and should be penalized for that.
> Provision every part of the network so it can handle all the traffic passing over any other part, because they're not allowed to limit bandwidth in any way at any point?
Yes, to the extent required to provide the service they sold.
> A saturated interconnect might mean "we're trying to screw Netflix", or it might mean "we can't afford it right now" (either because they're a small ISP and don't have the money, or because they're spending it on something their customers want more).
If you saturate your interconnect you fail at ISPing. There is no excuse. Interconnect capacity is cheap and plentiful.
Thanks for the robust answer.
I think the CDN fix could be built right into net-neutrality laws: If you're going to support that functionality then also do it equally to any CDN that is also willing to foot the bill and/or meets certain criteria. For example, don't only let Netflix's smaller competitors let that box sit on your network.
(No, this regulation wouldn't be burdensome either.)
QoS is something I'm unfamiliar with when it comes to ISPs. I personally wouldn't be offended if some small % of bandwidth was dedicated to services consumers and businesses use that require priority, such as VoIP. As long as that applied to all VoIP services and apps equally, though I'm not sure how you would be able to tell.
I think the CDN fix could be built right into net-neutrality laws: If you're going to support that functionality then also do it equally to any CDN that is also willing to foot the bill and/or meets certain criteria. For example, don't only let Netflix's smaller competitors let that box sit on your network.
(No, this regulation wouldn't be burdensome either.)
QoS is something I'm unfamiliar with when it comes to ISPs. I personally wouldn't be offended if some small % of bandwidth was dedicated to services consumers and businesses use that require priority, such as VoIP. As long as that applied to all VoIP services and apps equally, though I'm not sure how you would be able to tell.
> As long as that applied to all VoIP services and apps equally, though I'm not sure how you would be able to tell.
The only fair way to do this is to use port numbers and protocols and endpoint IP addresses only for the purpose of telling which packets belong to which traffic flow or customer. For deciding which flows get priority, you should look only at the actual pattern of traffic: sparse low-rate flows should be assumed to be interactive, in the same manner that your operating system's CPU scheduler assumes that processes with intermittent load are more latency-sensitive than long-running sustained loads. To see how this kind of packet scheduling works in the real world, look at the fq_codel and cake queue disciplines in Linux. The former has become the default for many Linux distributions and is used by some of the more modern commercial wireless routers.
This will have the side effect that my ssh session will get the same preferential treatment as your VoIP, unless I'm using it to tunnel rsync.
The only fair way to do this is to use port numbers and protocols and endpoint IP addresses only for the purpose of telling which packets belong to which traffic flow or customer. For deciding which flows get priority, you should look only at the actual pattern of traffic: sparse low-rate flows should be assumed to be interactive, in the same manner that your operating system's CPU scheduler assumes that processes with intermittent load are more latency-sensitive than long-running sustained loads. To see how this kind of packet scheduling works in the real world, look at the fq_codel and cake queue disciplines in Linux. The former has become the default for many Linux distributions and is used by some of the more modern commercial wireless routers.
This will have the side effect that my ssh session will get the same preferential treatment as your VoIP, unless I'm using it to tunnel rsync.
"Apply the same requirements to all services" certainly seems plausible, though that relates more to antitrust than net neutrality.
Defining "willing to foot the bill and/or meets certain criteria" would still require very careful drafting to avoid breaking things, though.
Defining "willing to foot the bill and/or meets certain criteria" would still require very careful drafting to avoid breaking things, though.
There is a case to be had for how vertical-integration makes businesses more efficient and means there can be some cost-savings for consumers (e.g. if Comcast zero-rated their own streaming video service and included it in their customers' cable Internet fees then consumers would save $10/mo they wouldn't be paying to Netflix - in much the same way Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer meant no-one pays for Netscape or Opera anymore).
A problem with simplifying the problem to "prioritizing traffic" when engaging with laypeople is that opponents of net-neutrality can set-up a strawman argument presenting NN as "treating gaming and porn traffic the same as vital 911 and emergency services traffic on the Internet!" (i.e. conflating NN with QoS), or arguing it's only fair that popular services pay for the extra data transfer they use (that's what peering agreements are for and is unrelated to NN), or worse: proclaiming NN will enable child pornography: https://thenextweb.com/us/2010/08/19/riaa-speaks-out-against... - we should call it what it is: anti-economic rent-seeking behavior on the part of the monopolistic audience gatekeepers.
I believe NN is an example of a "good" regulation necessary to enable free markets - I'd wager the majority of genuine (non-astroturf) NN opponents take the stance in the sincere belief that Government 'interference and regulation' should not impact ISPs' internal business practices - so you should frame it as something "that enables free-markets and increases competition which is better for the consumer and industry" (and avoid the R-word)
A problem with simplifying the problem to "prioritizing traffic" when engaging with laypeople is that opponents of net-neutrality can set-up a strawman argument presenting NN as "treating gaming and porn traffic the same as vital 911 and emergency services traffic on the Internet!" (i.e. conflating NN with QoS), or arguing it's only fair that popular services pay for the extra data transfer they use (that's what peering agreements are for and is unrelated to NN), or worse: proclaiming NN will enable child pornography: https://thenextweb.com/us/2010/08/19/riaa-speaks-out-against... - we should call it what it is: anti-economic rent-seeking behavior on the part of the monopolistic audience gatekeepers.
I believe NN is an example of a "good" regulation necessary to enable free markets - I'd wager the majority of genuine (non-astroturf) NN opponents take the stance in the sincere belief that Government 'interference and regulation' should not impact ISPs' internal business practices - so you should frame it as something "that enables free-markets and increases competition which is better for the consumer and industry" (and avoid the R-word)
As a NN opponent, you have somewhat captured my viewpoint.
Mostly I think NN is fighting the last war. NN proponents continually assert there is no competition for wired Internet and, therefore, it must be regulated. I think looking at wired Internet defines much too narrow a market. As wireless proliferates, it will become increasingly important, and competition in wireless is alive and well. The recent reignition of wars over "unlimited" data underscores this.
I am reminded of the zeal to regulate or break up Microsoft. I was one of those zealots. Of course, then mobile changed everything, and now it doesn't matter so much that Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows PCs.
If I were Comcast I'd be scared, and legitimately so. The wireless players have access to most American consumers. Each cable operator only has access to the homes that get its wire--a small fraction of the market available to a wireless company. We're better off with vibrant cable operators who can compete with wireless however they see best. If that means zero rating or non-neutral networks, OK.
Further, I am struck by the arrogance of the belief that the government knows best how to regulate this market. Looking back I think it's absurd that I wanted government to break MS into "browser co." and "OS co." The market took care of this problem and now Windows users proactively install Chrome. I think that in a few short years, the drive to regulate the Internet will look like similar folly.
So in short I see no problem here to solve and I do not think government should get involved.
Mostly I think NN is fighting the last war. NN proponents continually assert there is no competition for wired Internet and, therefore, it must be regulated. I think looking at wired Internet defines much too narrow a market. As wireless proliferates, it will become increasingly important, and competition in wireless is alive and well. The recent reignition of wars over "unlimited" data underscores this.
I am reminded of the zeal to regulate or break up Microsoft. I was one of those zealots. Of course, then mobile changed everything, and now it doesn't matter so much that Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows PCs.
If I were Comcast I'd be scared, and legitimately so. The wireless players have access to most American consumers. Each cable operator only has access to the homes that get its wire--a small fraction of the market available to a wireless company. We're better off with vibrant cable operators who can compete with wireless however they see best. If that means zero rating or non-neutral networks, OK.
Further, I am struck by the arrogance of the belief that the government knows best how to regulate this market. Looking back I think it's absurd that I wanted government to break MS into "browser co." and "OS co." The market took care of this problem and now Windows users proactively install Chrome. I think that in a few short years, the drive to regulate the Internet will look like similar folly.
So in short I see no problem here to solve and I do not think government should get involved.
Wireless competition is only alive because the government blocked the merger of T-Mobile and AT&T and then of Spring and T-Mobile. This then forced T-Mobile (and now Sprint) to get creative in trying to compete with Verizon and AT&T.
Also, wireless is not really competition for home internet. Try cancelling your home internet service and relying solely on one of the wireless carriers and see how far you'll get. The latency, bandwidth and reliability of wireless are much worse than wired networks. The wireless carriers simply don't have the spectrum to provision the same capacity that people routinely use on their home internet connections. With the move to unlimited data plans the only solution will have is severely throttling the traffic of people that actually try to use a substantial amount of data.
Also, wireless is not really competition for home internet. Try cancelling your home internet service and relying solely on one of the wireless carriers and see how far you'll get. The latency, bandwidth and reliability of wireless are much worse than wired networks. The wireless carriers simply don't have the spectrum to provision the same capacity that people routinely use on their home internet connections. With the move to unlimited data plans the only solution will have is severely throttling the traffic of people that actually try to use a substantial amount of data.
Wireless is not for everyone--not yet. However, many people do not use a lot of bandwidth and they may find wireless to be quite adequate. As wireless bandwidth goes up in quality and down in price, people might truly start to "cut the cord".
Twenty years ago you could substitute "cellular" for "wireless" and "landline" for "home internet" and make the same claims. No one dreamed people would eliminate land phones back when only a few had a "car phone".
Twenty years ago you could substitute "cellular" for "wireless" and "landline" for "home internet" and make the same claims. No one dreamed people would eliminate land phones back when only a few had a "car phone".
A strange thing I've noticed about telecoms in the US is that prices never fall - instead consumers just get more value and are constantly upsold higher-value offerings - this is not a bad thing in itself, but whereas in the UK and most of Europe I can get a a few gigs of 4G/LTE data for my phone for about €10 - something you'd have to pay $50+ for in the USA. The same goes for home internet - the cheapest non-promotional rate in my area is $45/mo for 10mbps, but pay $20/more and you get 100mbps. Why isn't there a sub-$30/mo offering? I believe these prices remain comparable to what they cost (sans-handset subsidy cost) over the past 20+ years.
> The same goes for home internet - the cheapest non-promotional rate in my area is $45/mo for 10mbps, but pay $20/more and you get 100mbps. Why isn't there a sub-$30/mo offering?
I know that Cox has some kind of "low speed, low price" offering, that I believe is under $30/month - but they kinda hide it on their site; I think you have to explicitly call and ask for it. See here (scroll near the bottom):
https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.h...
Note the "Starter Package", then note the package one level up ("Essential"). If you click on the link next to the "Starter Package" for pricing, you will be taken to another page - where the lowest shown tier is for the "Essential Package". But I'm pretty sure you can get the "Starter Package" if you call first.
There's also this for low-income families:
http://connect2compete.org/cox/
I know that Cox has some kind of "low speed, low price" offering, that I believe is under $30/month - but they kinda hide it on their site; I think you have to explicitly call and ask for it. See here (scroll near the bottom):
https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/speeds-and-data-plans.h...
Note the "Starter Package", then note the package one level up ("Essential"). If you click on the link next to the "Starter Package" for pricing, you will be taken to another page - where the lowest shown tier is for the "Essential Package". But I'm pretty sure you can get the "Starter Package" if you call first.
There's also this for low-income families:
http://connect2compete.org/cox/
Because the business model of the carriers is built on a fairly high ARPU of about $45-55. They need to protect that average revenue per user, so they don't really care what they sell you as long as they get the revenue. At first it was voice minutes. Then as those got cheaper more of the money was made on domestic roaming and long-distance charges. Then those went away and they replaced them with SMS charges. Then revenue shifted to data. At this point data makes up about 60% of the revenue, and I suspect this number will only continue to rise.
The only way for that ARPU to drop considerably is if a new player enters the market that can significantly undercut the existing players, because none of the existing players are willing to see that number drop by half or more. I don't believe such a new entrant will materialize anytime soon due to the high barriers to entry. I suspect the cost of building and operating a wireless network in the US is too high to support a carrier operating on a fraction of the ARPU.
The only way for that ARPU to drop considerably is if a new player enters the market that can significantly undercut the existing players, because none of the existing players are willing to see that number drop by half or more. I don't believe such a new entrant will materialize anytime soon due to the high barriers to entry. I suspect the cost of building and operating a wireless network in the US is too high to support a carrier operating on a fraction of the ARPU.
> As wireless proliferates, it will become increasingly important, and competition in wireless is alive and well.
Ignoring the laws of physics tends to make for bad public policy.
Wireless will never be able to compete against wired services. This disparity will only grow over time, not shrink. There are only two ways for wireless providers to substantially increase the speed of their offerings: by acquiring more spectrum, or by increasing spectrum re-use by shrinking cell size. Since all the good spectrum is in use, acquiring more means using spectrum that is inherently more limited in coverage. Thus, both strategies boil down to deploying more wired infrastructure.
Ignoring the laws of physics tends to make for bad public policy.
Wireless will never be able to compete against wired services. This disparity will only grow over time, not shrink. There are only two ways for wireless providers to substantially increase the speed of their offerings: by acquiring more spectrum, or by increasing spectrum re-use by shrinking cell size. Since all the good spectrum is in use, acquiring more means using spectrum that is inherently more limited in coverage. Thus, both strategies boil down to deploying more wired infrastructure.
You assume that high-speed wideband that is always getting faster and wider is of paramount importance. I doubt this is the case. Furthermore, more spectrum is not necessarily needed to improve bandwidth as technology improves.
The assumption isn't perfect, but it's close enough. Techniques like MIMO offer diminishing returns for their cost to handset complexity and battery life. There are no big leaps to be had in wireless that are comparable to eg. switching from DSL to fiber. And it is very clear that demand for bandwidth is growing with no sign of stopping. Users want 4k streaming and cloud backups/storage, and display resolutions are still growing.
4G networks average around 12 Mbps, a little faster than Comcast's lowest tier. The new "unlimited" data plans have throttling thresholds between 20 and 30 GB with even lower limits for tethering.
Governments did intervene against Microsoft, so I'm not sure the market gets all the credit for the fix.
Governments did intervene against Microsoft, so I'm not sure the market gets all the credit for the fix.
> I am struck by the arrogance of the belief that the government knows best how to regulate this market.
No worse than the belief that companies, in natural monopoly, will act in the best interests of consumers either. There are many places in the world where the government does work well and in the best interests of their populations - I'm disappointed the "government is inherently bad" meme is so well-entrenched in the USA.
No worse than the belief that companies, in natural monopoly, will act in the best interests of consumers either. There are many places in the world where the government does work well and in the best interests of their populations - I'm disappointed the "government is inherently bad" meme is so well-entrenched in the USA.
Not for nothing, but most people of that mindset don't believe that the government is inherently bad, but that government powers should be closely and judiciously kept to a minimum to prevent it being used for bad.
There's a difference there, but like most arguments on the internet, the nuance tends to get lost in the retelling.
Regarding net neutrality, if memory serves correctly, it was but a few short weeks after the passage of NN that somebody was wanting to leverage the FCC's new powers to censor ISIS off of the internet. Wheeler, being a good guy, connoted that they didn't have that authority, and that even if it could be construed that they did, he was disinclined to exert it and give credence to the argument that they did have that power.
All of that was done basically in "the right way", but given the wild swings in administration changes, who's to say that some other head of the FCC wouldn't have been inclined to leverage the power that they might now have for exactly that reason? Are we sure that the courts would agree that NN doesn't give the FCC the right to censor individual websites? Are we sure that the courts of tomorrow won't?
Yes, I know that this is a slippery slope argument, and I understand the inherent pitfalls therein, but that doesn't change the fact that power can be used maliciously, and for some of us, the question of whether or not the problem is worth potentially sacrificing much larger swaths of the first amendment falls differently than for others. I personally don't fault any individual for whichever way they've decided, as there are possible curtilages of free speech on either side of the coin, but I'd like us to agree that being suspicious of vesting power unto an agency otherwise wholly unaccountable to the public is perhaps not the dumbest thing that Americans do.
There's a difference there, but like most arguments on the internet, the nuance tends to get lost in the retelling.
Regarding net neutrality, if memory serves correctly, it was but a few short weeks after the passage of NN that somebody was wanting to leverage the FCC's new powers to censor ISIS off of the internet. Wheeler, being a good guy, connoted that they didn't have that authority, and that even if it could be construed that they did, he was disinclined to exert it and give credence to the argument that they did have that power.
All of that was done basically in "the right way", but given the wild swings in administration changes, who's to say that some other head of the FCC wouldn't have been inclined to leverage the power that they might now have for exactly that reason? Are we sure that the courts would agree that NN doesn't give the FCC the right to censor individual websites? Are we sure that the courts of tomorrow won't?
Yes, I know that this is a slippery slope argument, and I understand the inherent pitfalls therein, but that doesn't change the fact that power can be used maliciously, and for some of us, the question of whether or not the problem is worth potentially sacrificing much larger swaths of the first amendment falls differently than for others. I personally don't fault any individual for whichever way they've decided, as there are possible curtilages of free speech on either side of the coin, but I'd like us to agree that being suspicious of vesting power unto an agency otherwise wholly unaccountable to the public is perhaps not the dumbest thing that Americans do.
Could you explain who this was, and how ISIS and NN intersected? This seems like an...odd argument. NN is protecting business as usual, so using NN to censor isis is kinda novel.
I originally heard it while watching CSPAN, but I'm glad to be able to find a source that at least confirms the high points:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/17...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/17...
> So in short I see no problem here to solve and I do not think government should get involved.
That's patently absurd. You can't just add a natural monopoly to a public good and come up with a competitive market. The most basic of economic analysis -- really, first semester stuff -- would tell you that these are the precise situations where external regulation is needed to even approach something that looks like an efficient distribution of resources.
I would describe your economic philosophy as something closer to a religion, but even most religions aren't provably incorrect.
That's patently absurd. You can't just add a natural monopoly to a public good and come up with a competitive market. The most basic of economic analysis -- really, first semester stuff -- would tell you that these are the precise situations where external regulation is needed to even approach something that looks like an efficient distribution of resources.
I would describe your economic philosophy as something closer to a religion, but even most religions aren't provably incorrect.
The market for internet access is not just wires running in the street; it's also wireless. Railroads seemed a natural monopoly too, until trucks came along. Thus the Staggers Act, so the "natural monopoly" rail rates are not regulated.
Now it's the reverse. In the dawn of a new technological age, people want to shackle the old technology rather than deregulate it.
My economic philosophy is no religion; the government regulates the distribution of wireless spectrum and I have no objection to that, nor do I object to the regulation of wireline operators in exchange for their use of public rights-of-way. But this regulation should be measured and the minimum amount necessary. Net neutrality regulations are far beyond minimal.
So please continue on with demonstrating where what I have said is provably incorrect?
Now it's the reverse. In the dawn of a new technological age, people want to shackle the old technology rather than deregulate it.
My economic philosophy is no religion; the government regulates the distribution of wireless spectrum and I have no objection to that, nor do I object to the regulation of wireline operators in exchange for their use of public rights-of-way. But this regulation should be measured and the minimum amount necessary. Net neutrality regulations are far beyond minimal.
So please continue on with demonstrating where what I have said is provably incorrect?
I understand your argument about how wireless Internet providers will compete with wired providers which would presumably mean NN becomes irrelevant - but that assumes the wireless providers are in competition with wired providers in the same way truck haulage companies compete with the railroad system.
The problem is: they don't.
There are 4 main wireless providers in the US (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint), the vast majority (if not all) of the other carriers are MVNOs that run on top of the Big 4's infrastructure. The problem is AT&T is also a major wired provider (U-Verse), as is Verizon. Only T-Mobile and Sprint have no horizontal-business interests in wired networks - but incidentally note that T-Mobile and Sprint also have the smallest service coverage areas compared to AT&T and Verizon - in some parts of the country AT&T is your only real option for wireless service, and AT&T has no compunction with simultaneously selling you a $100/mo wireless plan with a low data limit, a $65/mo DirecTV plan, and $70/mo U-verse wired home Internet plan - where they would gladly throttle Netflix to entice you to watch your DirecTV service instead. The invisible-hand-of-the-market cannot solve this problem because of the sheer start-up costs of physical infrastructure needed to set-up a competing wired (or even wireless!) Internet service - and as we've seen with Google Fiber and municipal Internet services the incumbents quickly drop their prices to prevent these newly competing services from becoming established, if not being completely obstructionist as we see with Comcast holding coax poles ransom. This is why we need to classify last-mile Internet access as a regulated public utility, not as a captive market for rent-seeking companies.
So in your example, at least, I don't see how competition from the wireless industry will budge wired services in consumers' interests, but instead corral us all into a much worse position.
The problem is: they don't.
There are 4 main wireless providers in the US (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint), the vast majority (if not all) of the other carriers are MVNOs that run on top of the Big 4's infrastructure. The problem is AT&T is also a major wired provider (U-Verse), as is Verizon. Only T-Mobile and Sprint have no horizontal-business interests in wired networks - but incidentally note that T-Mobile and Sprint also have the smallest service coverage areas compared to AT&T and Verizon - in some parts of the country AT&T is your only real option for wireless service, and AT&T has no compunction with simultaneously selling you a $100/mo wireless plan with a low data limit, a $65/mo DirecTV plan, and $70/mo U-verse wired home Internet plan - where they would gladly throttle Netflix to entice you to watch your DirecTV service instead. The invisible-hand-of-the-market cannot solve this problem because of the sheer start-up costs of physical infrastructure needed to set-up a competing wired (or even wireless!) Internet service - and as we've seen with Google Fiber and municipal Internet services the incumbents quickly drop their prices to prevent these newly competing services from becoming established, if not being completely obstructionist as we see with Comcast holding coax poles ransom. This is why we need to classify last-mile Internet access as a regulated public utility, not as a captive market for rent-seeking companies.
So in your example, at least, I don't see how competition from the wireless industry will budge wired services in consumers' interests, but instead corral us all into a much worse position.
Say you have an area with two ISPs -- Provider A with 400k subscribers and B with 50k. Both have a soft data cap of like 50 gigs/month.
Netflix could approach Provider B and say, "Hey, how about we pay you to remove the data cap on Netflix traffic?". All of a sudden Provider B can advertise that their customers can watch all the Netflix they want with no buffering! People will jump ship and leave Provider A for Provider B, thus "creating competition".
Disclaimer: I personally think the internet should be treated as a public utility, but the above scenario is (probably) what anti-net neutrality proponents believe.
Netflix could approach Provider B and say, "Hey, how about we pay you to remove the data cap on Netflix traffic?". All of a sudden Provider B can advertise that their customers can watch all the Netflix they want with no buffering! People will jump ship and leave Provider A for Provider B, thus "creating competition".
Disclaimer: I personally think the internet should be treated as a public utility, but the above scenario is (probably) what anti-net neutrality proponents believe.
Agreed, and given there isn't a convincing answer, this 'solution' is more of a ways to insert deregulation into law on a small level for later expansion (probably when comcast complains that it is anti-competitive).
Just to take a stab at answering it:
What if a company wanted to offer 2 networks for customers: 1 in which they tell you they'll shape the network traffic to ensure consistent performance for all non-video traffic and another in which they tell it's completely unshaped?
It would be interesting to see the two side by side as actual consumer choices. If I'm buying for an office, for example, I'd take the shaped-kill-the-video plan all dang day. If I'm at home...not so much.
What if a company wanted to offer 2 networks for customers: 1 in which they tell you they'll shape the network traffic to ensure consistent performance for all non-video traffic and another in which they tell it's completely unshaped?
It would be interesting to see the two side by side as actual consumer choices. If I'm buying for an office, for example, I'd take the shaped-kill-the-video plan all dang day. If I'm at home...not so much.
Any such ISP would be lying to their customers with a false dichotomy. The smart way of shaping network traffic to ensure consistent performance for all non-video traffic would have the side effect of ensuring consistent performance for all video traffic, up to the limit of the ISP having oversubscribed their lines—and that limit obviously still exists for non-video uses too.
Video is not the problem. Congestion is, whether or not video is part of the traffic contributing to the congestion. Congestion can be managed reasonably without discriminating against video, and even if an ISP wants to discriminate against video (eg. due to having a conflict of interest in the form of a separate video delivery service) the ISP should still want robust congestion management in place to handle growing volumes of non-video traffic.
Video is not the problem. Congestion is, whether or not video is part of the traffic contributing to the congestion. Congestion can be managed reasonably without discriminating against video, and even if an ISP wants to discriminate against video (eg. due to having a conflict of interest in the form of a separate video delivery service) the ISP should still want robust congestion management in place to handle growing volumes of non-video traffic.
I think it's because it removes an entire vector that these companies can compete on. They can compete on price, support, coverage, etc. – but service-wise, they all have to be the same. They can't differentiate themselves, which is important to entice entrepreneurs to get into the business.
They wouldn't be able to compete without offering a service that differentiates them from the competition in a way that appeals to consumers. "Secret network caps and slowdowns" doesn't sound very appealing, so why assume they'd all take that route?
I think it's more realistic to assume they'd differentiate through better service, faster speeds, higher/no caps, etc. That's what we want and are willing to pay for.
I think it's more realistic to assume they'd differentiate through better service, faster speeds, higher/no caps, etc. That's what we want and are willing to pay for.
How does this rule, or any other NN provision prevent them from doing that? The answer is that it doesn't.
Those 6.8 hours are spent making information public which is important to consumer choice. This move doesn't help competition, it harms it.
I think you're making an assumption that shouldn't be assumed: that these smaller providers won't voluntarily be transparent and open. If I were competing against the likes of AT&T and Comcast, I'd use that as a competitive advantage! They're trying to differentiate themselves from the incumbents, not be exactly the same.
But even if they weren't open and transparent, wouldn't technologists like ourselves push to find the limits and publish them online? We can hold them accountable just as well without piling on more regulation.
But even if they weren't open and transparent, wouldn't technologists like ourselves push to find the limits and publish them online? We can hold them accountable just as well without piling on more regulation.
AT&T and Comcast are required to report this information because they are large. So providing the data would not differentiate small from large companies. Furthermore, if small providers will voluntarily provide information, what is the point of getting rid of the regulation? Beyond that, maybe you can find me some examples of companies which are under the previous 100,000 threshhold which do provide this information? That would be a great boon to your point.
>But even if they weren't open and transparent, wouldn't technologists like ourselves push to find the limits and publish them online? We can hold them accountable just as well without piling on more regulation.
Or we could just make the company itself spend time equivalent to less than 1 work day of 1 individual and get all the data... "Piling on regulation" makes it sound as if this is incredibly burdensome which it's not. It's basically zero work from the perspective of the company.
I'd like to say that I'm basically always in support of forcing companies to publish more consumer-relevant information. Remember that the perfectly-competitive model requires that consumers have perfect information. More information means more informed choices means more quality competition.
>But even if they weren't open and transparent, wouldn't technologists like ourselves push to find the limits and publish them online? We can hold them accountable just as well without piling on more regulation.
Or we could just make the company itself spend time equivalent to less than 1 work day of 1 individual and get all the data... "Piling on regulation" makes it sound as if this is incredibly burdensome which it's not. It's basically zero work from the perspective of the company.
I'd like to say that I'm basically always in support of forcing companies to publish more consumer-relevant information. Remember that the perfectly-competitive model requires that consumers have perfect information. More information means more informed choices means more quality competition.
What's a provider ? Can't you arbitrarily break a provider into smaller ones to avoid triggering this rule ?
Don't paid peering deals (i.e. Netflix paying Comcast) only reinforce the competitive advantage that these horrible behemoths have?
Pretty much. Everybody else pays for their bandwidth. Only Comcast has the market power to demand payment for access to their customers.
I don't buy that argument for a second. Especially with this rule.
Why should who I choose to do business with effect my rights?
Why should who I choose to do business with effect my rights?
A lot of the "smaller guys" who benefit from this regulations are subsidiaries of the behemoths like AT&T and Comcast.
>Isn't more competition among providers what we want?
If that was the case no one would support net neutrality. We got it in Brazil and smaller ISPs are all shutting down (e.g. Viavale, Telenorte, etc). And poor people do not benefit from free data plans anymore (like free WhatsApp/Twitter, etc - WhatsApp is a major form of communication in Brazil, both socially and professionaly; personally I use Telegram but most people use Whats).
If that was the case no one would support net neutrality. We got it in Brazil and smaller ISPs are all shutting down (e.g. Viavale, Telenorte, etc). And poor people do not benefit from free data plans anymore (like free WhatsApp/Twitter, etc - WhatsApp is a major form of communication in Brazil, both socially and professionaly; personally I use Telegram but most people use Whats).
I asked this in another thread a few days ago, but why are edge servers and CDNs not a violation of "net neutrality"? If you've got an edge server on an ISP, and are paying extra for a leased line from your main data center to that server, you are effectively paying the ISP an additional fee for priority over other traffic on their hardware.
To the end customer it's not priority, consider the two cases:
customer:
GET www.site.com/images/rounded_corner.gif
first hop to ISP, then n hops to www.site.com
vs
GET cdn001.site.com/images/rounded_corner.gif
first hop to ISP, then second hop to cdn001
The overhead takes place in the routing mechanism, not in the prioritization mechanism. In both cases, it costs the ISP the same amount to send the data back to the customer. The data is not prioritized, it just happens to be available in fewer hops, which is often (but is not necessarily) faster. A CDN could exist that imposed greater latency in exchange for an improvement elsewhere, such as reliability.
customer:
GET www.site.com/images/rounded_corner.gif
first hop to ISP, then n hops to www.site.com
vs
GET cdn001.site.com/images/rounded_corner.gif
first hop to ISP, then second hop to cdn001
The overhead takes place in the routing mechanism, not in the prioritization mechanism. In both cases, it costs the ISP the same amount to send the data back to the customer. The data is not prioritized, it just happens to be available in fewer hops, which is often (but is not necessarily) faster. A CDN could exist that imposed greater latency in exchange for an improvement elsewhere, such as reliability.
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Let me put my hat in the ring here.
Deregulation of access to consumers will result in cheaper internet and most likely faster internet speeds. However, it will concentrate power to those who already have it. Large ISPs will charge heavy bandwidth companies and only the largest heavy bandwidth companies will be able to afford the fees.
Those heavy bandwidth companies paying the fees will recoup the money through advertising. Remember newspapers and large TV media companies make the majority of their money through advertising. When companies rely on advertising, the users are no longer the customers. They are the product.
Further protecting the companies which rely on advertising will allow those companies to focus less on the customers and more on the advertisers. Companies relying on the allegiance of advertising will naturally shape their political standing to views of the advertisers. Remember also that advertisers are not paying for just eyeballs, but they are all paying for control. If a company starts moving away from their advertisers' political ideology they will lose revenue. Net Neutrality will ultimately give more control to companies that already hold power.
Just my two cents...
Deregulation of access to consumers will result in cheaper internet and most likely faster internet speeds. However, it will concentrate power to those who already have it. Large ISPs will charge heavy bandwidth companies and only the largest heavy bandwidth companies will be able to afford the fees.
Those heavy bandwidth companies paying the fees will recoup the money through advertising. Remember newspapers and large TV media companies make the majority of their money through advertising. When companies rely on advertising, the users are no longer the customers. They are the product.
Further protecting the companies which rely on advertising will allow those companies to focus less on the customers and more on the advertisers. Companies relying on the allegiance of advertising will naturally shape their political standing to views of the advertisers. Remember also that advertisers are not paying for just eyeballs, but they are all paying for control. If a company starts moving away from their advertisers' political ideology they will lose revenue. Net Neutrality will ultimately give more control to companies that already hold power.
Just my two cents...
I would amend that to say it may result in the illusion of cheaper internet. Your internet bill will go down, but services on the internet you use will either get more expensive, or degrade (as with adding advertisements).
Google Fiber got to a couple of nearby communities before they put the brakes on.
I'm left hoping that's close enough to branch out wireless service in short order.
Otherwise, I'm left screwed, between an AT&T that refuses to upgrade its local network (and it's a dense, accessible, suburban neighborhood -- hardly the boonies), and a Comcast that has doubled its rates for basically the same service. Both with caps that will quickly look increasingly ridiculous in the face of the wider world of data transfer.
We'll be back to them insisting on big bucks for assymmetric streaming of big-brand content, with increasing pressure to make that their content (a la data-cap exemptions, etc.)
I'm left hoping that's close enough to branch out wireless service in short order.
Otherwise, I'm left screwed, between an AT&T that refuses to upgrade its local network (and it's a dense, accessible, suburban neighborhood -- hardly the boonies), and a Comcast that has doubled its rates for basically the same service. Both with caps that will quickly look increasingly ridiculous in the face of the wider world of data transfer.
We'll be back to them insisting on big bucks for assymmetric streaming of big-brand content, with increasing pressure to make that their content (a la data-cap exemptions, etc.)
Why is the FCC against net neutrality?
Republicans have control of Presidency and Congress.
[deleted]
The Republican Party is against net neutrality and now controls a majority of seats on the FCC, hence, the FCC now opposes net neutrality. Since the issue really became a big deal, the FCC has been split on party lines over it.
Then why are Republicans against net neutrality? I suspect the answer is "money" and that the wrong people are greasing the right palms to get this done. If that really is the truth then why aren't companies in tech doing more of the same to protect their interests? How the hell is it that companies like Comcast have the upper hand here?
Comcast is/should be willing to spend the net present value of their future revenue streams to defend their monopoly. Ditto AT&T, Verizon, etc. The combined market cap of these companies is a pretty big lobbying bill to pay even for Apple, let alone Netflix. Google tried just building a competitive network but apparently they didn't have the stomach to combine network construction with lobbying at the necessary scale.
Yeah, Google realized just how entrenched the established telecom companies are with local municipalities. To the pint where the muni says, "only AT&T" can use OR put a pole in this area. Straight up block everyone else because AT&T pays the city to do that. How do you govern and take that on at a national scale. Not only the money, but the ridiculously massive amount of lobbying.
I think wireless point to point is the answer, and what Google is working on now after buying WebPass. You only have to connect a neighborhood and have one pool with a p2p receiver that services the whole neighborhood. A mini ISP if you will.
Then we can tell the corrupt city/local council people to F OFF and stop F'ing over your citizens by taking bribe deals from the large ISPs. It's pretty bad, see AT&T in Dallas, where they are head quartered. The corruption in the city that AT&T buys is crazy. Even another large competitor such as Spectrum wanting to put fiber down is blocked by the city because AT&T has exclusive rights. So what speed is offered in that area by AT&T? 3-6 fucking mbps. And they make you a great deal and only charge $30/m for it. Seriously, F them and the city.
I now have a direct p2p internet access point on the roof of my house that gets about 80mbps up and down for less than $30/month. My only other option in a well developed, dense area is 3mbps from AT&T. A block away, Spectrum installed fiber and they get 1 gig speeds. I fought it for months, the corruption goes deep. Fuck AT&T.
I think wireless point to point is the answer, and what Google is working on now after buying WebPass. You only have to connect a neighborhood and have one pool with a p2p receiver that services the whole neighborhood. A mini ISP if you will.
Then we can tell the corrupt city/local council people to F OFF and stop F'ing over your citizens by taking bribe deals from the large ISPs. It's pretty bad, see AT&T in Dallas, where they are head quartered. The corruption in the city that AT&T buys is crazy. Even another large competitor such as Spectrum wanting to put fiber down is blocked by the city because AT&T has exclusive rights. So what speed is offered in that area by AT&T? 3-6 fucking mbps. And they make you a great deal and only charge $30/m for it. Seriously, F them and the city.
I now have a direct p2p internet access point on the roof of my house that gets about 80mbps up and down for less than $30/month. My only other option in a well developed, dense area is 3mbps from AT&T. A block away, Spectrum installed fiber and they get 1 gig speeds. I fought it for months, the corruption goes deep. Fuck AT&T.
> Then why are Republicans against net neutrality? I suspect the answer is "money"
Yes, that's part of it. Then there's ideological posturing. "Freedom" and other empty slogans.
Yes, that's part of it. Then there's ideological posturing. "Freedom" and other empty slogans.
[deleted]
Corruption. Monopolists hate net neutrality, since it aims to curtail their abusive practices. So they pay politicians to be against it.
This is the end. If we think this guy's gonna listen to the people, we're completely wrong.
Oh, it might just well happen. The engineers that actually make this stuff work generally know whats up, and if things start to turn too sour, just watch them bring the whole damn net to a screeching halt. It'll make the SOPA blackout of 2012 look like daylight.
This is why getting laws passed, instead of relying on executive orders and the whims of bureaucrats in power at the time, is so crucial.
That's not going to happen as long as there are at least 40 Republicans in the senate. They used a filibuster to block a moderate Supreme Court nominee, you think they'll even consider allowing an internet reform bill to come to a vote?
> They used a filibuster to block a moderate Supreme Court nominee
If you are talking about Garland then no they didn't. They just didn't vote for months. They just refused to do their jobs.
If you are talking about Garland then no they didn't. They just didn't vote for months. They just refused to do their jobs.
How ever did things get made into law in the past?
Compromise. Something that neither of the two major parties seem interested in anymore. It is that, not the allocation of seats to a party in Congress, which is why things haven't gotten done.
Compromise. Something that neither of the two major parties seem interested in anymore. It is that, not the allocation of seats to a party in Congress, which is why things haven't gotten done.
The Republicans are not interested in compromise. They've pulled the Dems so far right, they're practically center now.
Indeed, the Democrats have been right of center for some time. Obamacare is essentially identical to plans previously proposed by Republicans.
and then paint them all as crazy left wing idiots who want to censor everything.
Then they whine that democrats are jerks when dems call them anything.
Then they whine that democrats are jerks when dems call them anything.
Calling names is fine. It's the violent riots that are getting annoying.
going to be more and more of them until the people demand this president is gone.
Compromise works when there is a good faith effort towards it. That's not what happened during the Obama years.
The same faction that opposes net neutrality in the FCC also controls both Houses of Congress plus the White House, in fact, the change in the latter that completes that control is why they control the FCC, not an unrelated independent event.
So laws would be no less vulnerable than FCC regulations.
So laws would be no less vulnerable than FCC regulations.
They have 'control' but can't get past a filibuster without risking having all their changes revoked the next time they lose control.
[deleted]
But eight years ago, the opposing faction had even more control. They could have enshrined net neutrality in law then.
And then it could be repealed now. For the same reason the the FCC approach will be.
[deleted]
Yes, that might be good, but it's a pipe dream at the moment. Further, having congress deal with such issues is open to far more political manipulation.
Having people who are competent at their job in regulatory positions seems just as important as having Congress do their job for them.
Having people who are competent at their job in regulatory positions seems just as important as having Congress do their job for them.
It's not the end. Things are just degrading, boringly, as they have been.
I wish we had a slow, but high bandwith alternative to the web in public hands. The problem is the infrastructure.. if there was a way to create a gnu add-hoc wifi network between every home hotspot - at least within a city, the web neutrality could be restored.
I'd like to add the only optimistic response I can think of. The only benefit of deregulation is the opportunity for disruption of monopolies. Especially so in a landscape of tech.
If provider A starts providing terrible bandwidth, incredibly high prices, and terrible service, it means that that provider X has a lucrative opportunity to provide better bandwidth, better prices, and great service.
I hope these rules aren't used to help entrenched monopolies, but provide an ripe opportunity for the space to innovate.
I hope these rules will be on the wrong side of history, but there is little stopping anyone from using the free market to their advantage.
If provider A starts providing terrible bandwidth, incredibly high prices, and terrible service, it means that that provider X has a lucrative opportunity to provide better bandwidth, better prices, and great service.
I hope these rules aren't used to help entrenched monopolies, but provide an ripe opportunity for the space to innovate.
I hope these rules will be on the wrong side of history, but there is little stopping anyone from using the free market to their advantage.
Is not net-neutrality better handled by IANA ? If you are going to call your router "internet", you must treat all IP packets equally. Seems like reasonable terms to me. Afterall this is the property that made Internet what it is today.
IANA has no enforcement authority. I also wouldn't be surprised to see ISPs respond by simply removing the word "Internet" from their advertising.
I suppose one way to enforce net neutrality might be to route all traffic through TOR.. that might mess up the caching for a service like Netflix though. (Could someone who knows more than I do comment on that?)
Tor does not help against net neutrality violations. Tor only helps if you want some anonymity for your traffic.
How long until access to the open internet costs extra?
If you want a publicly accessible IP address without an ISP-imposed firewall blocking incoming connections on at least some ports, then it already costs extra, and has for a long time. For the most part, we're already getting just WWW (client not server) access plus a handful of other approved services. What we're facing in the future is difficulty even getting unrestrained access to the whole WWW.
Never; ISPs are much cleverer than that. As long as neutrality advocates are fighting the last battle ISPs will run circles around them.
5 years. Everything is always 5 years away.
The FCC won't let me be
Internet is plenty fast. Companies need to disclose what they are doing to customers, but government shouldn't regulate it
Can't we just create our own local Intranets using Ethernet cables running around cul-de-sacs?
Mine connects to yours which connects to his which connects to hers. Eventually we'll have formed a network.
Mine connects to yours which connects to his which connects to hers. Eventually we'll have formed a network.
That's how a lot of ISPs in eastern europe started - string cable along dense neighbourhoods by just letting it hang off any nearby pole, trees, or along steel cables strung between two close buildings with no poles or trees around. I imagine building regulation codes are more strictly enforced in USA and will stop that kind of thing.
Yes. Then eventually someone will come along and say, "i'll do it for you for a fee" and they'll get a bunch of customers and they'll own the cables and then rename themselves Comcast.
How about we make it a rule that if anyone wants access to the network they are not allowed to charge for it. It must be done only to help grow the network for its own sake.
Someone will sue and then laws will be made. Whoever has the most money/best lawyers will win.
This issue could well turn out to be Trump's Achilles heal. If they go too far, the engineers that actually make the Internet work can easily bring the whole shebang down in protest -- and the world is so addicted to the Internet at this point the outrage would be deafening. And if Trump is too proud to back down...
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nicnash08(3)
Leave it alone. Stop demonizing the companies that give Internet.
If Trump also continues with his plan to deregulate as well, I'm of the opinion that this is great news. This could make Google Fiber and other similar undertakings much more viable. It always gives me the hibby-jeebies when government takes strong control over an industry. This is especially true in the case of the FCC where their original mandate went from regulating airwaves, to regulating the content of said airwaves.
I'm not sure how federal deregulations would help cities install more fiber, are there any federal regulations that would impede them? I always thought the issue was more around infrastructure monopolies in each city. Its not like new fiber companies can just lay their own lines down, they need to work through the city to get permission to put new lines in or share existing lines.
Hmm, that's a good question. It's not clear to me at what level of government the most stifling regulations are. I had also read that they wanted to offer phone services for free, but they dropped those due to the incredibly high regulations in that field as well.
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-government-let-us-build-...
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-government-let-us-build-...
That article shows Google wanting new regulations imposed in some areas (forcing local governments and utilities to accommodate Google), but not wanting relief from net neutrality regulations.
> That article shows Google wanting new regulations imposed in some areas
Where did you get that? Kevin Lo from Google is quoted as saying "Regulations tied to physical infrastructure sometimes defer the investment altogether". Are you saying that in reference to something else?
Where did you get that? Kevin Lo from Google is quoted as saying "Regulations tied to physical infrastructure sometimes defer the investment altogether". Are you saying that in reference to something else?
Google's wanting federal regulations enacted to cut the local red tape, some of which is from local governments and some is from incumbent utilities.
The actual statements are available here https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-addresses-unnecessary-accou...