FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/21/the-fcc-has-unveiled-its-plan-to-rollback-its-net-neutrality-rules/?utm_term=.dd07b903b6a7
673 comments
This Net Neutrality issue sounds similar to the issue America faced in the late 1800s with the railroads.
Some shippers (Standard Oil) wanted to monopolize the rails or at least they wanted rebates for shipping their freight. Others argued that the rails should offer the same rates to all shippers since they were using eminent domain in some cases to obtain property and they should exist as a shared resource.
Some shippers (Standard Oil) wanted to monopolize the rails or at least they wanted rebates for shipping their freight. Others argued that the rails should offer the same rates to all shippers since they were using eminent domain in some cases to obtain property and they should exist as a shared resource.
AT&T is rapidly becoming what it once was, especially if the TW merger goes through.
We’d be renting Wi-Fi cards, access and with additional fees by the second and byte if they had their way.
We’d be renting Wi-Fi cards, access and with additional fees by the second and byte if they had their way.
AT&T is rapidly becoming what it once was...
I'm more and more convinced that this was always the plan. The primary effect of the Telecom Act of 1996 has been to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from investors. All of the CLECs and other competitive types of telcos that sprouted in the spring of that law's optimism have gradually been wound back into the monopoly. Ma Bell (still for the moment two "Daughters Bell") has paid pennies on the dollar for equipment, marketing, vendor agreements, customers, etc. as these erstwhile competitors have gradually succumbed to the monopoly's failure to substantially abide by (and regulators' failure to enforce!) any of the pro-competitive measures in that law.
In retrospect, it was inevitable. Therefore, it was planned from the beginning. Telco executives and bankers have personally extracted billions from all the mergers. Generations of citizens have swallowed the fiction that we ever tried telco competition in USA. Strictly regulated POTS has been replaced with totally unregulated "information services". Perennially-unprofitable operations like FairPoint and Hawaiian Telcom have been unloaded to fools like Carlyle. The inconvenient wall between local and long-distance is gone. The expensive nerds at Bell Labs got sold, so the world can look elsewhere for subsidized progress in basic technology. All in all, a pretty good deal for Ma Bell! Since it happened over the course of decades and Americans have short memories (and since the media that could remind us doesn't want to cross her), we didn't even notice it.
I'm more and more convinced that this was always the plan. The primary effect of the Telecom Act of 1996 has been to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from investors. All of the CLECs and other competitive types of telcos that sprouted in the spring of that law's optimism have gradually been wound back into the monopoly. Ma Bell (still for the moment two "Daughters Bell") has paid pennies on the dollar for equipment, marketing, vendor agreements, customers, etc. as these erstwhile competitors have gradually succumbed to the monopoly's failure to substantially abide by (and regulators' failure to enforce!) any of the pro-competitive measures in that law.
In retrospect, it was inevitable. Therefore, it was planned from the beginning. Telco executives and bankers have personally extracted billions from all the mergers. Generations of citizens have swallowed the fiction that we ever tried telco competition in USA. Strictly regulated POTS has been replaced with totally unregulated "information services". Perennially-unprofitable operations like FairPoint and Hawaiian Telcom have been unloaded to fools like Carlyle. The inconvenient wall between local and long-distance is gone. The expensive nerds at Bell Labs got sold, so the world can look elsewhere for subsidized progress in basic technology. All in all, a pretty good deal for Ma Bell! Since it happened over the course of decades and Americans have short memories (and since the media that could remind us doesn't want to cross her), we didn't even notice it.
The problem with the current net neutrality debate is that it seems to stop at layer 3 of the ISO stack. There's no reason why we should have dozens of incompatible video calling apps, why media streaming only works with a particular vendor's application.
Not to mention that many of the big players in silicon valley like to jump back and forth over the line of "is a provider" / "is not a provider". Twitter and Google and Facebook like to police the content on their systems, which is their right, but at the same time they like to hold up the DMCA safe harbor provision anytime someone finds copyrighted material on their networks. They have no problem banning unpopular parties from their networks while simultaneously profiting from clear copyright violations.
We should insist that net neutrality extend all the way to layer 7.
Not to mention that many of the big players in silicon valley like to jump back and forth over the line of "is a provider" / "is not a provider". Twitter and Google and Facebook like to police the content on their systems, which is their right, but at the same time they like to hold up the DMCA safe harbor provision anytime someone finds copyrighted material on their networks. They have no problem banning unpopular parties from their networks while simultaneously profiting from clear copyright violations.
We should insist that net neutrality extend all the way to layer 7.
Focusing on even getting it to that point is important, though. I'd suggest let's focus our efforts on getting some bit of Net Neutrality written into law (not just a guideline by the FCC) to at least protect certain things, then move to improve that law over time.
Let's not sacrifice the good for the perfect.
Let's not sacrifice the good for the perfect.
I remember having to explain to my younger sibling that "yes, you can send an email to a Yahoo address from your Gmail account. No, seriously, try it, I am not kidding." They are much younger than I am and they grew up in a world of walled gardens. To them, that's just the way things are and have always been. It's a shame.
When I was a kid, compuserve, aol, even msn later were all walled gardens. It was shocking when compuserve opened up gateways to the fledging web.
The open network existed as "normal" for maybe a decade.
The open network existed as "normal" for maybe a decade.
i've had similar instances, but it was solely because many kids nowadays have no idea that there is a such a thing as email that is not "Gmail." Google has done such a sneaky job of spreading into education that kids know nothing that isn't Google. They know Google Drive, YouTube, Gmail, Chrome, and are confused when something else is in front of them.
Google has become the walled garden that they pretend they aren't.
Google has become the walled garden that they pretend they aren't.
TBF, it's called network-neutrality, not data-and-application-neutrality.
The latter isn't something traditional we're about to lose, but a novel goal for the future which is qualitatively and quantitatively different.
The latter isn't something traditional we're about to lose, but a novel goal for the future which is qualitatively and quantitatively different.
Maybe, but it would be absolute folly to allow neutrality at layer 3 to be lost just to prove a point.
Wait, what? You think government regulation should dictate how I let competitors access my L7 application servers to host their own content in the name of "neutrality"?
I think I must be misunderstanding what you mean. How could a "neutrality" argument possibly apply to my proprietary application stack?
I think I must be misunderstanding what you mean. How could a "neutrality" argument possibly apply to my proprietary application stack?
That's fine if you want to operate a proprietary platform, however you should be held liable for what your users do with it.
Facebook etc want the control of a private operator but the protection of a common service, which seems wrong.
Facebook etc want the control of a private operator but the protection of a common service, which seems wrong.
It sounds like you are suggesting we make forum moderation illegal.
That's like the difference between saying who's allowed on the sidewalk vs. saying who's allowed in the bar.
EDIT: In case it's not clear, this comment is pro-net neutrality. I am pointing out the absurdity of disallowing site owners from curating their own content.
That's like the difference between saying who's allowed on the sidewalk vs. saying who's allowed in the bar.
EDIT: In case it's not clear, this comment is pro-net neutrality. I am pointing out the absurdity of disallowing site owners from curating their own content.
And our mistake here is not finding a way to explain it that doesn't require reading a book.
John Oliver found a good way to explain it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak
The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition. They aren't elected officials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak
The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition. They aren't elected officials.
> The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition
But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all.
This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea.
Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well.
No American ISP for the ~20yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement. Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Plenty of American ISPs have said they have zero intention of doing it either.
This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, the technical hurdles, and obvious lack of business sense, etc has always been an adequate counter-balance to this idea.
So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old FTC regulation.
But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all.
This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea.
Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well.
No American ISP for the ~20yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement. Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Plenty of American ISPs have said they have zero intention of doing it either.
This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, the technical hurdles, and obvious lack of business sense, etc has always been an adequate counter-balance to this idea.
So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old FTC regulation.
You're assuming that most people have access to more than one ISP (they don't), or that statements by ISPs about what they intend to do or not do are truthful (they aren't). Specifically statements promising they would never do anything that would break net neutrality rules, while arguing against the imposition of net neutrality rules, would not make sense. Why oppose something you have no intention of doing?
Very true. Rural folks have it worst: monopoly or no access at all. If a company like Sinclair also owned the broadband, only payola TV would work, YouTube access and bandwidth could a tiered add-on, they’d block whichever company didn’t pay the extortion protection money with no means of recourse.
Also, for everyone, billing would become more complexified, obscured to extract more money from consumers and thwart cost calculation and comparing with (the few remaining, if any) competitors.
Also, for everyone, billing would become more complexified, obscured to extract more money from consumers and thwart cost calculation and comparing with (the few remaining, if any) competitors.
Don't people have access to 4G? I live in a tiny village (1000 people) and have 40/6 home Internet via 4G that I pay less than $10/mo with a 200 GB data cap that you can prepay $5 for 100 gb more if you spend it. I'm not from the U.S. though.
I live just outside a town of 3000 (in the US). My wired (cable) connection costs $44.95/month ($54.95 without cable TV) for 10/1 with a 500GB cap.
Edit: I meant to imply that 4G would be more expensive. After checking briefly, the best offer I'm finding starts at $30/month for 5GB.
Edit: I meant to imply that 4G would be more expensive. After checking briefly, the best offer I'm finding starts at $30/month for 5GB.
No. I have fast cellular internet but pay $10/GB, and I consider that a pretty good deal (total for me + wife is $45/mo, including cellular and data; in Portland, OR). Your 4G internet is cheaper than most people's wired internet here in the US.
That sounds nice. I pay $75 a month for 10/1. LTE is higher speed, but significantly more expensive because of data caps.
I'm from the US and would love to get that service.
Fellow Americans, does it exist?
Fellow Americans, does it exist?
What magical country are you from? I'm going to guess at somewhere in Northern Europe?
It's Eastern Europe, Serbia to be precise. You can get unlimited high speed 4G for $30/mo without a contract. Vip mobile.
Nice.
90% have at least two providers of 10Mbps+ speed, but only 20% have at least two providers of 25Mbps+ speed.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
That could change though as more providers are rolling out fiber. (AT&T just rolled out Fiber to the Home in my neighborhood, and Comcast says they will do the same soon.)
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
That could change though as more providers are rolling out fiber. (AT&T just rolled out Fiber to the Home in my neighborhood, and Comcast says they will do the same soon.)
Directly from the article you linked:
> Even these numbers overstate the amount of competition, because an ISP might offer service to only part of a census block. The percentage of households with choice is thus even lower.
This is especially true with DSL @10mb - it’s common for DSL providers to have lower speeds for some customers due to distance limitations. Also, is 2 providers at 10mb really enough ‘choice’ to force the market to do the right thing here? Especially considering that those 2 providers are likely one of only 3 or 4 national ISPs...
I am a huge proponent of market freedom and market choices, but the system we have now has embedded natural and regulatory monopolies and duopolies - that’s the opposite of a free market.
> Even these numbers overstate the amount of competition, because an ISP might offer service to only part of a census block. The percentage of households with choice is thus even lower.
This is especially true with DSL @10mb - it’s common for DSL providers to have lower speeds for some customers due to distance limitations. Also, is 2 providers at 10mb really enough ‘choice’ to force the market to do the right thing here? Especially considering that those 2 providers are likely one of only 3 or 4 national ISPs...
I am a huge proponent of market freedom and market choices, but the system we have now has embedded natural and regulatory monopolies and duopolies - that’s the opposite of a free market.
It should be noted that that's 90% of census blocks. IIUC, if one household has access to one provider, another household has access to a different provider, and no one else has any access, that's part of that 90%. If people aren't making their housing decisions based significantly on their choice of internet provider, that's not really competition.
How much of America is like this? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/republica...
> That could change though as more providers are rolling out fiber.
And Google's competition heavily incentivized that rolling out fiber. Imagine what the threat of a new entrant offering unthrottled internet would do to these hypothetical plans?
And Google's competition heavily incentivized that rolling out fiber. Imagine what the threat of a new entrant offering unthrottled internet would do to these hypothetical plans?
Google was a huge company that lost a lot of money trying to improve internet access through competition. Last I heard they decided to stop expanding, and access to anything comparable to Google Fiber is extremely limited.
Why on earth should whether you get those plans or not depend on whether Google Jesus has decided to show his face upon you?
My counter point does not depend entirely on competition. That is merely one counter-balance available to much of the country who have more than one ISP available, of the many I mentioned (technical, marketing, business model).
Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?
Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?
Have you forgotten the whole controversy about Verizon throttling Netflix back in July? This is a real scenario that has actually happened.
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-netflix-youtube-throt...
Your other points hold up equally poorly: there are no unsolved technical hurdles in throttling or blocking specific sites or services -- as evidenced by the fact that they can and have already done so. As for "marketing" and "business model" and it being an "unpopular idea", these again fall back to the issue of consumer choice: in an effective monopoly, it doesn't matter a whit whether the populace dislikes the idea. It's not like Comcast is winning any popularity contests as it is.
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-netflix-youtube-throt...
Your other points hold up equally poorly: there are no unsolved technical hurdles in throttling or blocking specific sites or services -- as evidenced by the fact that they can and have already done so. As for "marketing" and "business model" and it being an "unpopular idea", these again fall back to the issue of consumer choice: in an effective monopoly, it doesn't matter a whit whether the populace dislikes the idea. It's not like Comcast is winning any popularity contests as it is.
That is different from the type of satellite-tv style packages ("Social media package, Facebook/Twitter, for only $9.99!") type of thing that people are talking about with net neutrality.
And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to?
And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to?
> That is different from the type of satellite-tv style packages ("Social media package, Facebook/Twitter, for only $9.99!") type of thing that people are talking about with net neutrality.
It's the flip side of the same coin. Without net neutrality, ISPs will be able to charge content providers like Netflix a toll to not be throttled out of viablity -- who will then presumably pass the costs on to end consumers -- or the ISPs can directly charge end consumers an extra toll for access to the full internet. (Of course they'll do both, after some experimentation to find the best profit::outrage ratio.)
> And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to?
...they kinda did? In that Verizon had to back off and wait for net neutrality to be repealed before they could try again?
(I assume you meant FCC, not FTC, in all of this. The FTC, of course, doesn't have any authority here until after the common carrier regulations are lifted. So, roughly a month from now.)
It's the flip side of the same coin. Without net neutrality, ISPs will be able to charge content providers like Netflix a toll to not be throttled out of viablity -- who will then presumably pass the costs on to end consumers -- or the ISPs can directly charge end consumers an extra toll for access to the full internet. (Of course they'll do both, after some experimentation to find the best profit::outrage ratio.)
> And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to?
...they kinda did? In that Verizon had to back off and wait for net neutrality to be repealed before they could try again?
(I assume you meant FCC, not FTC, in all of this. The FTC, of course, doesn't have any authority here until after the common carrier regulations are lifted. So, roughly a month from now.)
> Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?
The FCC adopted NN principles in 2004 and did reactive, case-by-case enforcement of the principles without general regulation up until the federal courts stopped that approach in 2010. The two regulatory packages in 2010 and 2015 were largely based on the actual things that had been observed in the 2004-2010 period. That is, while they did consider and seek to preempt some new violations of the same principles, they were very much reactions to real scenarios that happened.
The FCC adopted NN principles in 2004 and did reactive, case-by-case enforcement of the principles without general regulation up until the federal courts stopped that approach in 2010. The two regulatory packages in 2010 and 2015 were largely based on the actual things that had been observed in the 2004-2010 period. That is, while they did consider and seek to preempt some new violations of the same principles, they were very much reactions to real scenarios that happened.
>real scenarios
Comcast didn't count movies streamed through there service against the monthly cap. They did count movies streamed through netflix.
Comcast didn't count movies streamed through there service against the monthly cap. They did count movies streamed through netflix.
If we don't want those things to happen, why allow them at all? Why wait, when we can just say up front, "Those things are not allowed to happen."
> This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea.
Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. It's basically monopoly / oligopoly situation, with collusion and market division to boot. So increasing competition is a good goal, but it shouldn't block preventing monopolistic abuse with legal means.
Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition. Such as local state laws that ban municipal networks which could solve this very problem.
Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. It's basically monopoly / oligopoly situation, with collusion and market division to boot. So increasing competition is a good goal, but it shouldn't block preventing monopolistic abuse with legal means.
Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition. Such as local state laws that ban municipal networks which could solve this very problem.
> Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places.
Places with a lot of people? People who have been harmed by what NN is intending to fix?
> Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition.
Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?
Places with a lot of people? People who have been harmed by what NN is intending to fix?
> Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition.
Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?
> Places with a lot of people? People who have been harmed by what NN is intending to fix?
Yes and yes. I've lived all over southern California, but never anywhere that had two broadband providers available at the same address. Parts in cities; I'm not talking about little desert communities, or something. I have however been inconvenienced by various ISPs' content-based packet filtering policies.
> Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?
Part of it is that you're talking about every individual local government, with lobbying from the incumbent ISPs. A lot of those governments have contracts with those incumbents, giving them franchise rights in the city. They can't just declare those contracts void.
Beyond the local level, a lot of states have laws that make setting up a new ISP difficult or impossible (especially municipally-operated internet access).
Yes and yes. I've lived all over southern California, but never anywhere that had two broadband providers available at the same address. Parts in cities; I'm not talking about little desert communities, or something. I have however been inconvenienced by various ISPs' content-based packet filtering policies.
> Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?
Part of it is that you're talking about every individual local government, with lobbying from the incumbent ISPs. A lot of those governments have contracts with those incumbents, giving them franchise rights in the city. They can't just declare those contracts void.
Beyond the local level, a lot of states have laws that make setting up a new ISP difficult or impossible (especially municipally-operated internet access).
> Places with a lot of people?
It doesn't depend on numbers. Depends mostly whether there is some other ISPs besides the coax provider (which are the most widespread).
It doesn't depend on numbers. Depends mostly whether there is some other ISPs besides the coax provider (which are the most widespread).
So we should have a one-size-fits-all law? You're not that unimaginative, are you?
Anti-trust laws are pretty much universal and we already have them. A lot of NN related abuse could be prevented if our legal system would have actually applied them, but it often doesn't.
What specifically is wrong with one-size-fits-all?
I live in Orange County, CA. I have access to literally one provider.
What city? Provider of what?
I've lived in 3, and in all of them, there was exactly one cable/internet provider.
When was that? Seems to be not much of a problem anymore if this is correct: https://broadbandnow.com/California/Orange
It's now. And that site is extremely misleading, because while all those companies are in the county, they don't serve the same areas. And as long as 1 person in the census block has access to the service, it's counted as serving the entire block.
I see your profile says "data scientist in training"
I would love for you to use some of your training to supply your post with actual data or sources. Everything I see reported disagrees with so many of your assumptions.
Like your unstated assumption of some sort of fair and competitive market where they will lose money if they don't treat their customers right. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
The internet is so vital to our modern world that it has become a human right in several countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access#Ensur...
I would love for you to use some of your training to supply your post with actual data or sources. Everything I see reported disagrees with so many of your assumptions.
Like your unstated assumption of some sort of fair and competitive market where they will lose money if they don't treat their customers right. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
The internet is so vital to our modern world that it has become a human right in several countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access#Ensur...
Wait but I thought the free market operated in good faith and not by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment?
irl_zebra(1)
Here's some data for you: no home/business ISP in any country in the last two decades has offered anything like what is being proposed in in the headline (TV style throttled internet packages based on the website).
The only time this has ever been done is in countries like Portugal to offer cheaper internet on limited mobile phone connections to people only who want Facebook/Twitter/etc for $5/m instead of a full internet connection for $20-30/m (typically also far cheaper than the US). It has never been tried to limit primary ISP internet connections.
Data requires actual numbers. I've repeatedly said in my comments I believe we should regulate things companies have done that are provably bad. Not hand wavy hypothetical things that sound like a terrible idea for any company to try.
The only time this has ever been done is in countries like Portugal to offer cheaper internet on limited mobile phone connections to people only who want Facebook/Twitter/etc for $5/m instead of a full internet connection for $20-30/m (typically also far cheaper than the US). It has never been tried to limit primary ISP internet connections.
Data requires actual numbers. I've repeatedly said in my comments I believe we should regulate things companies have done that are provably bad. Not hand wavy hypothetical things that sound like a terrible idea for any company to try.
> This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea.
Where I'm at, it's Comcast or nothing. Most of the US does not have any ISP competition. It's usually 1 ISP to choose from, or if you're lucky, 1 ISP with expected speeds and 1 ISP over DSL.
I really wish I lived somewhere with multiple options, because if anything like this website bundle scenario did play out, I wouldn't have any choice in avoiding it.
Where I'm at, it's Comcast or nothing. Most of the US does not have any ISP competition. It's usually 1 ISP to choose from, or if you're lucky, 1 ISP with expected speeds and 1 ISP over DSL.
I really wish I lived somewhere with multiple options, because if anything like this website bundle scenario did play out, I wouldn't have any choice in avoiding it.
sad that they point at HughesNet or something equally awful as "competition" too. :/
What's different now is that we're seeing huge mergers between telecom companies and media companies.
The internet is more vital to everyone now than compared to 15 years ago. Every year more and more people are choosing to eschew traditional cable for Netflix et al.
With NN being repealed, it opens up ways for ISP's to promote their own content and shut out others like nothing that's happened before. This whole repeal smacks of anti-consumerism and pro corporate nonsense.
The internet is more vital to everyone now than compared to 15 years ago. Every year more and more people are choosing to eschew traditional cable for Netflix et al.
With NN being repealed, it opens up ways for ISP's to promote their own content and shut out others like nothing that's happened before. This whole repeal smacks of anti-consumerism and pro corporate nonsense.
But what if your only choice for ISP is Comcast? 50 million Americans only have access to one ISP. You can't just switch providers when you only have one provider to choose from. Comcast could do this very easily and millions of Americans would be stuck paying more money for worse service.
Netflix was throttled, mostly
By Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, which all have businesses competing with Netflix outside the internet.
The majority of Americans can't choose their broadband internet service provider. I live in NYC and have access to exactly one broadband provider. You don't think they'll come up with any reason they can to make up new service levels and add-ons to pad my bill?
You have no 4G in NY?
You could get Verizon's connected home 4G service. It's $60 for 10GB. That would let you watch 3 movies on Netflix.
I assume your building owner doesn't want you to install a new fibre? saying will sell you a 1gbit service for $1600pcm in midtown. How much are you willing to pay and for what?
Why exactly are ISPs opposing net neutrality if it's their intention anyway?
Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either.
Facebook. India. So-called free basics.
Facebook. India. So-called free basics.
You know what was different 15 years ago? It was before consumer broadband access was consolidated down to the point where a consumer 0 or 1 other choices other than their current provider.
>>But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all.
Charge internet companies for access to subscribers. Charge subscribers to access certain websites. It's a simple model.
>>No ISP for the ~15yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement.
Again, not true. https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541916/netflix-deal-with... https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-...
>>Plenty of ISPs have repeatedly said they have zero intention of doing it either (including a few this year). Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either.
Why would you ever trust an ISP? If they were not going to take advantage of this new opportunity, then they should be fine with having the regulation stay in place. Also, wireless carriers which are in many ways analogous to ISPs already have started preying on consumers using this model https://imgur.com/yYobj7x
>>This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea.
Market research and public opinion don't matter when you have no competition and have numerous state laws written for protection.
>>This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well.
Again, there is little to no competition in most markets.
>>So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old regulation.
It's not hypothetical at all, see above links. It's a big deal because it will ultimately be a huge wealth transfer away from consumers. You're not by chance Ajit Pai, are you?
Charge internet companies for access to subscribers. Charge subscribers to access certain websites. It's a simple model.
>>No ISP for the ~15yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement.
Again, not true. https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541916/netflix-deal-with... https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-...
>>Plenty of ISPs have repeatedly said they have zero intention of doing it either (including a few this year). Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either.
Why would you ever trust an ISP? If they were not going to take advantage of this new opportunity, then they should be fine with having the regulation stay in place. Also, wireless carriers which are in many ways analogous to ISPs already have started preying on consumers using this model https://imgur.com/yYobj7x
>>This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea.
Market research and public opinion don't matter when you have no competition and have numerous state laws written for protection.
>>This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well.
Again, there is little to no competition in most markets.
>>So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old regulation.
It's not hypothetical at all, see above links. It's a big deal because it will ultimately be a huge wealth transfer away from consumers. You're not by chance Ajit Pai, are you?
The ISPs definitely did do this up until the point they were classified as regulated. They just did it in subtle ways, seeing how far they could push it without causing a backlash. Like limiting Netflix and BitTorrent. Despite being careful, they got classified.
Now, they explicitly are going to be unclassified, and we, the consumers, will be unprotected.
Now, they explicitly are going to be unclassified, and we, the consumers, will be unprotected.
ghrifter(3)
Tell them the story of Almon Brown Strowger, the 19th-century undertaker whose business mysteriously took a nosedive when the local telephone company hired an operator who was related to a rival funeral director.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger
I've always loved that (admittedly apocryphal) story. It's one of the vanishingly-rare cases where someone successfully solved a social problem through purely technical means. Even if there's not a word of truth to it, it's a completely realistic description of what consumers can expect in a world without net neutrality. It can be considered a modern-day Aesop fable.
Once you've related the Strowger story, then you can speculate on how it might have unfolded if Ma Bell herself had owned the competing funeral home. That's basically where the Comcasts and Verizons of the world want to be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger
I've always loved that (admittedly apocryphal) story. It's one of the vanishingly-rare cases where someone successfully solved a social problem through purely technical means. Even if there's not a word of truth to it, it's a completely realistic description of what consumers can expect in a world without net neutrality. It can be considered a modern-day Aesop fable.
Once you've related the Strowger story, then you can speculate on how it might have unfolded if Ma Bell herself had owned the competing funeral home. That's basically where the Comcasts and Verizons of the world want to be.
Would it be any different than YC promoting its companies here.
No, because YC doesn't take government subsidies to act as a dumb pipe. They also aren't a de-facto monopoly in any way, shape, or form.
All of the incumbent ISPs are charged with stewardship of public resources to one extent or another, if only because they require right-of-way access. The fact that many Americans have a grand total of one decent broadband provider to choose from is another factor that has to be considered, but often isn't.
Basically, net neutrality isn't a gift to the public, it's half of a longstanding bargain. The Trump administration proposes to unilaterally alter that bargain on behalf of corporate lobbyists who do not have consumers' interests in mind.
All of the incumbent ISPs are charged with stewardship of public resources to one extent or another, if only because they require right-of-way access. The fact that many Americans have a grand total of one decent broadband provider to choose from is another factor that has to be considered, but often isn't.
Basically, net neutrality isn't a gift to the public, it's half of a longstanding bargain. The Trump administration proposes to unilaterally alter that bargain on behalf of corporate lobbyists who do not have consumers' interests in mind.
If wires are public resources the government should buy it outright instead of giving subsidies. Public resources should be publically owned.
Perhaps. That's not what's being debated, though.
And it's not so much the wires, as the land the wires have to traverse. These areas are largely public rights-of-way already.
And it's not so much the wires, as the land the wires have to traverse. These areas are largely public rights-of-way already.
Explaining isn't the crucial part. Everyone who hears it understands "ISPs get to decide which websites you can see with the basic package and more cost upgrades".
The hard part is giving people something useful and worthwhile to do about it.
The hard part is giving people something useful and worthwhile to do about it.
Andre Staltz has a pretty good article[0] about how that collapse is already happening with the likes of Facebook, Google, and Amazon taking over every other site.
[0]: https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.htm...
[0]: https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.htm...
Imagine having to fork over extra cash to your ISP in order to access your Bitcoin wallet. So much for radical decentralization.
How would people react to the inaccessibility of porn sites? It is, after all, a huge part of many people's internet experience. And due to its taboo nature, it probably won't be publicly offered on the ISP plans.
Porn is listed on most TV services list
There is a strongly contrasting view of the history of radio in the United States [1].
[1] https://mises.org/library/spectrum-should-be-private-propert...
[1] https://mises.org/library/spectrum-should-be-private-propert...
Though this strongly contrasting view is not mainstream by any measure.
I think the Austrian school is considered legitimate school of economics though, right? It's not like these are amateur economists or anything.
I didn't say it's not a legitimate school of economics. I have 'The Road to Serfdom' sitting on my bookshelf among other works by members of the school.
However I did claim that the thought that EM spectrum should be privatized is not a mainstream one.
I imagine the more general idea that all public spaces and goods should be private is even less mainstream in the US, given the popularity of public roads, schools, parks etc.
However I did claim that the thought that EM spectrum should be privatized is not a mainstream one.
I imagine the more general idea that all public spaces and goods should be private is even less mainstream in the US, given the popularity of public roads, schools, parks etc.
@wavefunction I can't comment on your last message (I guess to prevent flamewars?), hopefully this doesn't get too confusing to follow.
My understanding of the argument is that EM frequencies in a geography are a limited resource and therefore are best treated as property with "homesteading" giving the initial claim to that property. (Which re-reading what you wrote, I think you understand)
The first time I heard that argument, I found it quite interesting. And in fact, I shared it because it appears not to be mainstream but well worth a look IMO.
I do disagree with your characterization of the general discussion. I think parks and radio frequencies on the whole are treated differently by the govt. There are govt owned frequencies of radio which would be like a public park but I believe this discussion is more about the regulation of the private radio frequencies. There are lots of private frequencies, they are just distributed and regulated by the FCC.
The question as I see it is would it have been better to let "homesteading" distribute the initial ownership or the FCC?
My understanding of the argument is that EM frequencies in a geography are a limited resource and therefore are best treated as property with "homesteading" giving the initial claim to that property. (Which re-reading what you wrote, I think you understand)
The first time I heard that argument, I found it quite interesting. And in fact, I shared it because it appears not to be mainstream but well worth a look IMO.
I do disagree with your characterization of the general discussion. I think parks and radio frequencies on the whole are treated differently by the govt. There are govt owned frequencies of radio which would be like a public park but I believe this discussion is more about the regulation of the private radio frequencies. There are lots of private frequencies, they are just distributed and regulated by the FCC.
The question as I see it is would it have been better to let "homesteading" distribute the initial ownership or the FCC?
I certainly encourage you to post anything thoughtful or personally resonant, especially as it is not my place nor my intent to police what ideas folks enjoy or discuss here or elsewhere. One could easily bring up some communist or even anarchist arguments for treatment of the EM band but they're definitely not mainstream either.
I don't personally subscribe to the homesteading concept due to the frequent historical problems with real-world examples of 'homesteading' resources.
On the one hand, I can recognize that the freedom to stake a claim on 'public' resources drove a huge amount of innovation and productivity in the American West. With it though came plenty of degradation, destruction and misuse as well. And one might even argue that it was only there to be homesteaded because the original inhabitants and their traditional cultures had been suppressed with force.
And the US Federal government has privatized public lands for things like military bases and Land Grant Universities just as it has with bands of the EM spectrum for emergency responders or other governmental uses. For the closest analog to public parks I'd look at the shortwave bands or ham radio operators. Even there, as in public parks, there are regulations on behavior.
It's an interesting discussion and in a more egalitarian world I might be more amenable to the view expressed by the original article. But today I look with deep suspicion on folks advancing the view that public goods should be privatized, due to what I consider a very irrational minority of people whose interests are purely selfish despite their claims to the contrary. Some folks wrap themselves in an ideology but really only seek to serve themselves.
I don't personally subscribe to the homesteading concept due to the frequent historical problems with real-world examples of 'homesteading' resources.
On the one hand, I can recognize that the freedom to stake a claim on 'public' resources drove a huge amount of innovation and productivity in the American West. With it though came plenty of degradation, destruction and misuse as well. And one might even argue that it was only there to be homesteaded because the original inhabitants and their traditional cultures had been suppressed with force.
And the US Federal government has privatized public lands for things like military bases and Land Grant Universities just as it has with bands of the EM spectrum for emergency responders or other governmental uses. For the closest analog to public parks I'd look at the shortwave bands or ham radio operators. Even there, as in public parks, there are regulations on behavior.
It's an interesting discussion and in a more egalitarian world I might be more amenable to the view expressed by the original article. But today I look with deep suspicion on folks advancing the view that public goods should be privatized, due to what I consider a very irrational minority of people whose interests are purely selfish despite their claims to the contrary. Some folks wrap themselves in an ideology but really only seek to serve themselves.
Repealing net neutrality would only make sense if the layer underneath (the PHY consisting of fiber/copper/coax/wireless/whatever infrastucture including last-mile connections between every node) were subject to net neutrality instead [1], such that "anyone" could start an ISP that offers differentiated services on top of the same infra. Of course, today the last-mile infra and the ISP on top are tightly coupled, and many states have enacted laws and regulations that restrict or forbid municipalities' efforts to build out a neutral infra [2].
I find it absurd that some politicians support both the repeal of net neutrality and the restricting of willing communities to build out their own infra at the same time. I could intellectually entertain either option but never both simultaneously. For a political cohort whose brand has long included local self-determination and rural self-reliance, it's bizarre to me to see them take positions that don't even appear to be logically consistent. It's difficult to accept that they truly have the best interest of their constituents in mind.
[1] https://muninetworks.org/content/competition [2]. https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
I find it absurd that some politicians support both the repeal of net neutrality and the restricting of willing communities to build out their own infra at the same time. I could intellectually entertain either option but never both simultaneously. For a political cohort whose brand has long included local self-determination and rural self-reliance, it's bizarre to me to see them take positions that don't even appear to be logically consistent. It's difficult to accept that they truly have the best interest of their constituents in mind.
[1] https://muninetworks.org/content/competition [2]. https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
That's what we ended up with in New Zealand, the underlying infrastructure is owned by companies that lease it to the ISPs, so anyone with enough cash can rent some cabinet space and start an ISP.
Before the unbundling, Telecom NZ basically had a monopoly on ADSL connections, connections cost a lot of money and had comically small caps (like 10 GB, which even in 2006 was not a lot). Now, in straight dollar terms, plans are cheaper, and uncapped plans are standard.
Before the unbundling, Telecom NZ basically had a monopoly on ADSL connections, connections cost a lot of money and had comically small caps (like 10 GB, which even in 2006 was not a lot). Now, in straight dollar terms, plans are cheaper, and uncapped plans are standard.
True. Access (services) vs. censorship, you want to avoid the monopolies from restricting new access providers, but also don't want access providers from censoring the access.
The right wants isp/telcos to be able to bundle and offer more speeds/services. Assuming it won't censor.
The left assumes isp/telcos will offer services/bundles (tiers) but will censor its services/bundles. (Like it did with netflix.)
As most places have a monopolistic type access (or worse, no access) thats the primary cause for concern. Nobody loves their cableco. If we had a plethora of choices for internet access, that would be the cure for censorship.
But we don't. We are stuck at fighting censorship due to lack of access.
The right wants isp/telcos to be able to bundle and offer more speeds/services. Assuming it won't censor.
The left assumes isp/telcos will offer services/bundles (tiers) but will censor its services/bundles. (Like it did with netflix.)
As most places have a monopolistic type access (or worse, no access) thats the primary cause for concern. Nobody loves their cableco. If we had a plethora of choices for internet access, that would be the cure for censorship.
But we don't. We are stuck at fighting censorship due to lack of access.
In Canada, the CRTC requires the big internet providers to resell their broadband to smaller ISPs. Even then it took a decade for big ISPs like Rogers to give up on onerous bandwidth caps (which would be about 100GB a month, and, usually, worse).
Even with some competition and access, it can take a while for unfavorable conditions to resolve, partially because consumers don’t really care about things like censorship, lack of access, (or in my example) bandwidth limits.
Markets are eventually consistent, but in terms of net neutrality I really don’t think we can afford to wait.
Even with some competition and access, it can take a while for unfavorable conditions to resolve, partially because consumers don’t really care about things like censorship, lack of access, (or in my example) bandwidth limits.
Markets are eventually consistent, but in terms of net neutrality I really don’t think we can afford to wait.
It's not that customers don't care, but rather the transaction costs of switching (breaking contracts, dealing with CSRs, taking the time to shop around) slow the market response to competition.
> It's difficult to accept that they truly have the best interest of their constituents in mind.
Then ... don't. If someone's actions contradict their words, don't believe their words.
Then ... don't. If someone's actions contradict their words, don't believe their words.
To expand on this a little bit, they have their own interests in mind. Which go getting re-elected > getting rich. They'll take the bribe money as long as they think they can get re-elected. Sometimes because they can't get re-elected without it.
Call your reps and let them know how you feel. If they think they won't get re-elected all the bribe money in the world doesn't really matter.
Call your reps and let them know how you feel. If they think they won't get re-elected all the bribe money in the world doesn't really matter.
You're right, but you're wrong. In the system you describe, "good" candidates who give a hoot about their constituents' wishes will always lose elections to other candidates who are happy to fund their campaigns with bribes. This system will not fix itself. The improvements we seek will not come from voting.
>it's bizarre to me to see them take positions that don't even appear to be logically consistent.
Ever consider that maybe they are more beholden to those who give them money than those who give them votes?
Ever consider that maybe they are more beholden to those who give them money than those who give them votes?
I frankly don't see the point in allowing the creation of companies who's sole purpose it is to break net neutrality.
It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality.
But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete.
Imagine I start a new streaming service. In order for my service to reach people, ISP's will charge me a higher price than Netflix, probably a _significantly_ higher rate. This will make it extremely difficult for my new service to reach enough people to make it an ongoing concern.
This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in.
It will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so. There are still anti-competitive laws on the books, but are any of them even being enforced anymore. We allowed the banks to become monopolies, we've allowed the AT&T fox back in the hen house.
If we don't fight back, we're going to become slaves to the digital age.
But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete.
Imagine I start a new streaming service. In order for my service to reach people, ISP's will charge me a higher price than Netflix, probably a _significantly_ higher rate. This will make it extremely difficult for my new service to reach enough people to make it an ongoing concern.
This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in.
It will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so. There are still anti-competitive laws on the books, but are any of them even being enforced anymore. We allowed the banks to become monopolies, we've allowed the AT&T fox back in the hen house.
If we don't fight back, we're going to become slaves to the digital age.
> It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality.
Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted.
1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz...
2. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...
Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted.
1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz...
2. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...
Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore - Reed Hastings claims they are now big and popular enough for it not to matter for them:
https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastin...
https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastin...
The point was to reply to a contention that "popular services will not be affected" with a counter example. Popular services certainly could have been squeezed by ISP, and in fact they were in the past, very notably.
So sure: Netflix maybe might not due to size and popularity. The next great thing will be, for sure.
So sure: Netflix maybe might not due to size and popularity. The next great thing will be, for sure.
> Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore
Yes, they do:
https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136
Yes, they do:
https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136
That's just a tweet.
On the other hand they partnered with Telekom (most popular ISP in Germany) for a service called "StreamOn". With that you can stream Netflix (and other partnered streaming sites) without affecting your monthly data cap.
On the other hand they partnered with Telekom (most popular ISP in Germany) for a service called "StreamOn". With that you can stream Netflix (and other partnered streaming sites) without affecting your monthly data cap.
So? Desires about what the legal context should be and business was strategy given what the legal context is are separate issues.
German government regulation agency (Bundesnetzargentur) and the EU have their doubts that StreamOn is legal even in the current context. So by participating they are setting a statement.
It's like a vegetarian eating meat from factory farming every day.
It's like a vegetarian eating meat from factory farming every day.
Or he's subtly pointing out that Netflix wouldn't have been started if it wasn't for net neutrality.
> It's an issue that would have been more important to "the Netflix of 10 years ago," he said.
> It's an issue that would have been more important to "the Netflix of 10 years ago," he said.
What is the actual reason they shouldn't?
This is a highly politicized topic but it's hard to find rational discussion.
If I built a network I would expect to be able to charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted in exchange for the use of my network.
Is the answer that taxpayers helped fund the network so now feel they deserve not to pay twice? How much of the current internet infrastructure is paid for by taxpayers vs private corporations?
Any good sources you'd suggest reading on the pros and cons of each side of the argument?
This is a highly politicized topic but it's hard to find rational discussion.
If I built a network I would expect to be able to charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted in exchange for the use of my network.
Is the answer that taxpayers helped fund the network so now feel they deserve not to pay twice? How much of the current internet infrastructure is paid for by taxpayers vs private corporations?
Any good sources you'd suggest reading on the pros and cons of each side of the argument?
In the US the internet has become a utility. You can possibly live without it in the same way that you could possibly live without running water, but to be a functional and normal member of society you need access to it. It is used for everything from communication to shopping. Giving cable companies control over what people can/cannot see on the internet or how much websites cost to view allows them to extort any one that uses the internet to conduct or attract business.
Furthermore, the internet has now become a public meeting place. Many people communicate with each other solely through the internet and voice their opinions there. Giving cable companies the ability to legally prevent two IPs from communicating is akin to preventing mail between them.
Basically, because of the ways that the internet has come to be used and the basic expectation of privacy that people have when it comes to similar things such as mail, many people would consider it wrong to remove any semblance of privacy or fairness from the internet, which is what repealing net neutrality does.
Furthermore, the internet has now become a public meeting place. Many people communicate with each other solely through the internet and voice their opinions there. Giving cable companies the ability to legally prevent two IPs from communicating is akin to preventing mail between them.
Basically, because of the ways that the internet has come to be used and the basic expectation of privacy that people have when it comes to similar things such as mail, many people would consider it wrong to remove any semblance of privacy or fairness from the internet, which is what repealing net neutrality does.
These ISP companies use legal shenanigans, coupled with the unavoidably large startup costs of creating a new/competing ISP, to effectively run regional monopolies. Google kind of gave up their master plan for Fiber after they were litigated in multiple jurisdictions essentially over bullshit that they were legally within their right to do, such as use shared lines - and that was Google, which had a ton of cash to throw at the problem.
These monopolies aren't so bad by themselves; we have similar monopolies with power and water. But those are regulated so that their monopolies can't be blatantly abused. ISPs are trying to roll back regulations that, in the minds of pro-NN people, will allow them to abuse consumers using their monopolies.
The problem with what these network providers are doing is that they own both the lines and the content. For example, if your ISP is a shareholder in Hulu, they're going to charge way more for Netflix to stream than Hulu, so they can essentially use this new ruling in an anti-competitive manner.
I'm not sure what most of the anti-net neutrality side's supporting arguments are aside from the fact that the regulations are unfairly limiting ISP's abilities to make money. They will mention that these regulations are affecting the free market, but in my opinion other existing regulations are much worse about limiting the effects of the free market, except those would make it easier for ISPs to be competed against, not harder.
These monopolies aren't so bad by themselves; we have similar monopolies with power and water. But those are regulated so that their monopolies can't be blatantly abused. ISPs are trying to roll back regulations that, in the minds of pro-NN people, will allow them to abuse consumers using their monopolies.
The problem with what these network providers are doing is that they own both the lines and the content. For example, if your ISP is a shareholder in Hulu, they're going to charge way more for Netflix to stream than Hulu, so they can essentially use this new ruling in an anti-competitive manner.
I'm not sure what most of the anti-net neutrality side's supporting arguments are aside from the fact that the regulations are unfairly limiting ISP's abilities to make money. They will mention that these regulations are affecting the free market, but in my opinion other existing regulations are much worse about limiting the effects of the free market, except those would make it easier for ISPs to be competed against, not harder.
> I'm not sure what most of the anti-net neutrality side's supporting arguments are
My friend was a lawyer for an ISP and now works for the FCC (I promise she's a good person otherwise).
The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from those services, they could afford to offer it to the few that want to pay extra for it.
The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.
They're both decent arguments, and would totally make sense in a world where multiple ISPs could reach everyone's home.
My friend was a lawyer for an ISP and now works for the FCC (I promise she's a good person otherwise).
The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from those services, they could afford to offer it to the few that want to pay extra for it.
The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.
They're both decent arguments, and would totally make sense in a world where multiple ISPs could reach everyone's home.
> The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from those services, they could afford to offer it to the few that want to pay extra for it.
Hypotheticals can be checked by referring to other countries with different market structures.
Australia has a broader mix of ISPs and Telcos than the US, despite until the 90s being under the control of a single public system (Telecom), with a plurality of the current infrastructure owned by its privatised successor (Telstra).
They seem to do fine with net neutrality. Regular competition.
> The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.
Charging by bandwidth and usage is well settled.
The point is that the ISPs don't want to segment the consumer market. Too hard: there's competition, which as we know is unamerican because it makes business haaaard.
Instead they want to segment the provider market. Far fewer of them to negotiate and there's zero competition. You, the ISP, have at any point in time monopoly control over the consumer who is using your infrastructure. Providers have no other way to route traffic over the last mile.
Nobody mounts this kind of lobbying effort from the goodness of their hearts. They see a gigabuck in it.
Hypotheticals can be checked by referring to other countries with different market structures.
Australia has a broader mix of ISPs and Telcos than the US, despite until the 90s being under the control of a single public system (Telecom), with a plurality of the current infrastructure owned by its privatised successor (Telstra).
They seem to do fine with net neutrality. Regular competition.
> The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.
Charging by bandwidth and usage is well settled.
The point is that the ISPs don't want to segment the consumer market. Too hard: there's competition, which as we know is unamerican because it makes business haaaard.
Instead they want to segment the provider market. Far fewer of them to negotiate and there's zero competition. You, the ISP, have at any point in time monopoly control over the consumer who is using your infrastructure. Providers have no other way to route traffic over the last mile.
Nobody mounts this kind of lobbying effort from the goodness of their hearts. They see a gigabuck in it.
>The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from those services, they could afford to offer it to the few that want to pay extra for it.
What? This logic is like saying, hey the only business model that should exist is one where we should only cater to those that pay the most (whether through ignorance or lack of options, etc).
>The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.
It's not fair that grandma is going to be even more duped by the limited offerings of news and media that these companies will tighten their grip on through this move. Also the pipe is just sitting there. It's not like Comcast is manufacturing electrons and packets that get consumed by users.
Ask your friend to study other countries internet situations.
What? This logic is like saying, hey the only business model that should exist is one where we should only cater to those that pay the most (whether through ignorance or lack of options, etc).
>The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.
It's not fair that grandma is going to be even more duped by the limited offerings of news and media that these companies will tighten their grip on through this move. Also the pipe is just sitting there. It's not like Comcast is manufacturing electrons and packets that get consumed by users.
Ask your friend to study other countries internet situations.
I wouldn't call either of these "decent arguments" for forsaking net neutrality. They can both be solved by offering tiered pricing and data caps. For instance, grandma pays $10 a month for a Gb of data, Netflix Youtube kid pays $100 for unlimited. Same goes for small startup ISP.
> The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from those services, they could afford to offer it to the few that want to pay extra for it.
I find it hard to believe that the electrical grid, water, sewer, and natural gas systems all are able to make due but the poor ISPs rolling in cash can't.
Meanwhile, these same ISPs are working to make competition illegal or impossible.
This isn't an issue of providing better service. This is an issue of making more money by squeezing the customer every way they can while making recourse impossible.
I find it hard to believe that the electrical grid, water, sewer, and natural gas systems all are able to make due but the poor ISPs rolling in cash can't.
Meanwhile, these same ISPs are working to make competition illegal or impossible.
This isn't an issue of providing better service. This is an issue of making more money by squeezing the customer every way they can while making recourse impossible.
'We cannot build a big enough network for Netflix' is nowhere near a top reason people cannot start an ISP.
Data caps and plans with different bandwidth is a working answer to the second problem.
Are you sure your friend is a good person? She sounds like a typical sellout hypocrite if that's her arguments.
Thanks for the detailed reply.
It seems like a lot of the disagreement hinges on the fact that ISPs have a monopoly and many people cannot easily "vote with their wallet" if the ISP does something they don't like. I wonder if focusing on making it easier for competitive ISPs to start up would do more towards bridging the gap between the two sides.
I think a lot of the anti-NN crowd is based on a more philosophical argument, that if the ISP built the infrastructure then they own it and they should be able to charge $1 million per day for access if they want (they would obviously not do that because nobody would pay it)
I wonder what is the biggest impediment to setting up a legitimately competitive ISP? Presumably the (ostensibly wasteful) cost of duplicating the last-mile infrastructure?
As an aside, do you have more info on the legal challenges to google fiber?
It seems like a lot of the disagreement hinges on the fact that ISPs have a monopoly and many people cannot easily "vote with their wallet" if the ISP does something they don't like. I wonder if focusing on making it easier for competitive ISPs to start up would do more towards bridging the gap between the two sides.
I think a lot of the anti-NN crowd is based on a more philosophical argument, that if the ISP built the infrastructure then they own it and they should be able to charge $1 million per day for access if they want (they would obviously not do that because nobody would pay it)
I wonder what is the biggest impediment to setting up a legitimately competitive ISP? Presumably the (ostensibly wasteful) cost of duplicating the last-mile infrastructure?
As an aside, do you have more info on the legal challenges to google fiber?
Another obstacle is rights of way. You cannot just tear up streets and bury cables. And in practice, you also cannot build a cable network through private property either, because you inevitably will encounter some owners of real estate who don't care about your network and thus have no incentive you allow you to build through their property unless you pay them as much as you can, because that is what they are going to be asking for.
So, in practice, networks are built on public ground, or potentially using eminent domain. Neither of those should result in exclusive ownership of the market thus obtained.
So, in practice, networks are built on public ground, or potentially using eminent domain. Neither of those should result in exclusive ownership of the market thus obtained.
> I wonder if focusing on making it easier for competitive ISPs to start up would do more towards bridging the gap between the two sides.
Fighting against properties of a service that make it a natural monopoly is usually not going to work as well as limiting the ability of the resulting monopoly to be leveraged. Either, of course, takes active regulation, and tends to be unpopular with both laissez-faire ideologues and the people holding the monopoly.
Fighting against properties of a service that make it a natural monopoly is usually not going to work as well as limiting the ability of the resulting monopoly to be leveraged. Either, of course, takes active regulation, and tends to be unpopular with both laissez-faire ideologues and the people holding the monopoly.
I would think either strategy would be unpopular with the monopoly-holders.
Why do you say it's more difficult? It seems like it would be more sustainable in the long run even if it's more difficult up front.
Why do you say it's more difficult? It seems like it would be more sustainable in the long run even if it's more difficult up front.
Because it is a natural monopoly, essentially due to the massive cost of building and maintaining a second last-mile network which would necessarily be underutilised. The costs of maintaining a last-mile network are essentially independent of the number of users (unless you let unused parts of the network go out of date/fall into disrepair, in which case you effectively don't have a second network anymore).
As such, it is always better to try and win over one more customer to increase revenue, even if that customer pays less than the cost of keeping their line in working order, both because the costs are mostly there anyway, and because it reduces the revenue of the competition, thus increasing the likelyhood that they will fail and thus make you have a monopoly again.
That's actually exactly the behaviour you see over and over when some smaller business (or larger business, for that matter, see Google Fiber) tries to build a network where the monopolistic incumbent so far didn't care to provide useful service. The moment that project is announced, you get really good and cheap connectivity from the incumbent. Given that they before didn't consider it to be a good investment, you can guess that they are doing it only to destroy the competition.
Also, the network operator that has the less-utilized network necessarily has to charge higher prices per user to cover their costs, which leads to a positive feedback of even less customers, leading to even higher prices, ...
Having two parallel last mile networks is effectively unstable. There is a reason why there aren't multiple water pipes and multiple electricity cables and multiple natural gas pipes in your house.
As such, it is always better to try and win over one more customer to increase revenue, even if that customer pays less than the cost of keeping their line in working order, both because the costs are mostly there anyway, and because it reduces the revenue of the competition, thus increasing the likelyhood that they will fail and thus make you have a monopoly again.
That's actually exactly the behaviour you see over and over when some smaller business (or larger business, for that matter, see Google Fiber) tries to build a network where the monopolistic incumbent so far didn't care to provide useful service. The moment that project is announced, you get really good and cheap connectivity from the incumbent. Given that they before didn't consider it to be a good investment, you can guess that they are doing it only to destroy the competition.
Also, the network operator that has the less-utilized network necessarily has to charge higher prices per user to cover their costs, which leads to a positive feedback of even less customers, leading to even higher prices, ...
Having two parallel last mile networks is effectively unstable. There is a reason why there aren't multiple water pipes and multiple electricity cables and multiple natural gas pipes in your house.
Many of those ISPs took government funds to pay for those networks.
> What is the actual reason they shouldn't?
Imagine there's no Netflix yet. People are using the web, and ISPs are selling tiny-bandwidth plans. Along comes a streaming movie service and people love it.
All of a sudden, ISP customers are saying "I want more bandwidth and I'll pay more for it."
Can the ISP say, with a straight face, that Netflix is costing them money?
Imagine there's no Netflix yet. People are using the web, and ISPs are selling tiny-bandwidth plans. Along comes a streaming movie service and people love it.
All of a sudden, ISP customers are saying "I want more bandwidth and I'll pay more for it."
Can the ISP say, with a straight face, that Netflix is costing them money?
> What is the actual reason they shouldn't?
In many areas of the United States, there is only one ISP available. Part of this is due to the high cost of entry, but the ISPs also have a past filled with rather shady activity. Verizon was given federal money to expand their network, did a fraction of the work, and then used their influence to pocket the rest. Comcast will throw lawsuits at new ISPs in order to bankrupt them.
Because of this the ISPs already use their monopoly position to take as much money as possible via data caps and bandwidth. I believe Comcast is on record as saying data caps aren't needed, but no one can stop them. The reality is ISPs are some of the most greedy, unethical companies around that exploit their monopoly position for their bottom line. Either regulation needs to be in place or the government needs to incentivize and protect new ISPs.
In many areas of the United States, there is only one ISP available. Part of this is due to the high cost of entry, but the ISPs also have a past filled with rather shady activity. Verizon was given federal money to expand their network, did a fraction of the work, and then used their influence to pocket the rest. Comcast will throw lawsuits at new ISPs in order to bankrupt them.
Because of this the ISPs already use their monopoly position to take as much money as possible via data caps and bandwidth. I believe Comcast is on record as saying data caps aren't needed, but no one can stop them. The reality is ISPs are some of the most greedy, unethical companies around that exploit their monopoly position for their bottom line. Either regulation needs to be in place or the government needs to incentivize and protect new ISPs.
No, no, no! This is not the problem with net neutrality. This is some generic argument for the regulation of monopolies, and as such, it is fine.
But net neutrality is devious beyond the abuse of a local monopoly. It doesn't matter if there are ten ISPs available to any given consumer.
The problem is that creates a new monopoly: that of access to an ISPs subscriber. See my aunt-comment (to this) for the full argument.
But net neutrality is devious beyond the abuse of a local monopoly. It doesn't matter if there are ten ISPs available to any given consumer.
The problem is that creates a new monopoly: that of access to an ISPs subscriber. See my aunt-comment (to this) for the full argument.
They can do both with NN gone. Force the consumers to pay for different packages and lanes, and then force the services to pay for access to the subscribers.
I think maybe this (barriers to entry) is the crux of the issue. Can you help me find more info on verizon and comcast doing these things?
Here's a map of the major players carving up territory like cartels; https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/01/16998/us-internet...
Notice how almost none of the service areas intersect? Internet competitiveness in the US is measured by census zones, and they know that. So they carve up territory block by block, allowing them to be engage in "competition" without competing. (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/isps-dont-want-t...)
And here's one of the many, many court cases and lobbying efforts they've engaged in to keep rivals from getting a toe hold in their territory; https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...
Notice how almost none of the service areas intersect? Internet competitiveness in the US is measured by census zones, and they know that. So they carve up territory block by block, allowing them to be engage in "competition" without competing. (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/isps-dont-want-t...)
And here's one of the many, many court cases and lobbying efforts they've engaged in to keep rivals from getting a toe hold in their territory; https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...
1) Do you think it would be okay for a hardware store to price a shovel differently depending on what the customer wanted to dig?
2) The telcos never seem to reflect on the fact that the only reason people want broadband at all is because there are services that they want to access. So just by existing they're already getting their cut. It would be just as reasonable for Amazon and Netflix to ask Comcast for a cut of their revenue, since they're providing these attractive services that Comcast isn't paying a dime to provide.
2) The telcos never seem to reflect on the fact that the only reason people want broadband at all is because there are services that they want to access. So just by existing they're already getting their cut. It would be just as reasonable for Amazon and Netflix to ask Comcast for a cut of their revenue, since they're providing these attractive services that Comcast isn't paying a dime to provide.
I think hardware stores are maybe not the best comparison because if a hardware store was doing that then it would be pretty easy for a competitor to open a hardware store across the street and undercut the first on shovels and steal all the business.
I think this might be a better solution than a law that specifically mandates the price at which a hardware store can sell shovels, since I think that law would only address a very specific problem caused by a larger underlying issue.
I think the shovel case at least, when the market can sort something out then it's "better" to let it do so.
For Amazon/Netflix, at least on the surface, I would say that the ISP and the content provider can ask for whatever they want and whether or not they get it will be a function of how much each one needs the other. Perhaps ironically a very similar system to how internet peering currently works (the little guy pays the bigger guy for transit).
I think this might be a better solution than a law that specifically mandates the price at which a hardware store can sell shovels, since I think that law would only address a very specific problem caused by a larger underlying issue.
I think the shovel case at least, when the market can sort something out then it's "better" to let it do so.
For Amazon/Netflix, at least on the surface, I would say that the ISP and the content provider can ask for whatever they want and whether or not they get it will be a function of how much each one needs the other. Perhaps ironically a very similar system to how internet peering currently works (the little guy pays the bigger guy for transit).
To agree with your initial point: hardware stores do sell different kinds of shovels, for different digging tasks.
They do. But that's not the question being asked. It is, should a hardware store be able to charge different prices for the same kind of shovel?
Building a network requires laying cables on other people’s private property.
Without the government giving them the right to do this they would never be able to negotiate with each individual land owner and networks would not be possible.
Wireless has the same problem: use of the airwaves, a public good no one can own. We issue licenses for them otherwise it would be a tragedy of the commons situation where no one would be able to successfully use them.
The internet (and most of its popular protocols) was invented and established due to public funding and released to the world for free.
So quite literally ISPs would not have a business whatsoever without free public assistance. As a result they owe us a lot more than the average business.
Without the government giving them the right to do this they would never be able to negotiate with each individual land owner and networks would not be possible.
Wireless has the same problem: use of the airwaves, a public good no one can own. We issue licenses for them otherwise it would be a tragedy of the commons situation where no one would be able to successfully use them.
The internet (and most of its popular protocols) was invented and established due to public funding and released to the world for free.
So quite literally ISPs would not have a business whatsoever without free public assistance. As a result they owe us a lot more than the average business.
Something that seems to be forgotten in this day and age is that corporations exist at the pleasure of the citizens (aka taxpayers) because said corporations offer them things that are deemed to be net public goods. Why should you be allowed to build your network in our country in the first place? (Especially when we could do it ourselves at cost and not give you a percentage off the top?)
I think you're conflating a legal term with actual people, who do the existing, offering, and building. These people (who work under a legal entity with rights, protections, and regulations) pay taxes while they exchange their product or service for our dollars. The service can be anything people want or need. Grocery, clothing, book stores, bars, cafes, airlines... Ignore the "percentage off the top". Why is that a concern of yours? Do you not tip at restaurants or give to charity? Part of your gain can be someone else's. It's all voluntary in the free market.
Not only are you free to not to give money to these corporations, you are free to start your own non-profit service, with a similar legal structure. You have to appeal to investors' altruism rather than their self-interest. A big challenge, but not outside the realm of possibility depending on the market you 'd like to cater to.
Not only are you free to not to give money to these corporations, you are free to start your own non-profit service, with a similar legal structure. You have to appeal to investors' altruism rather than their self-interest. A big challenge, but not outside the realm of possibility depending on the market you 'd like to cater to.
Looking past the financing question, all (major) telecommunications networks are built via eminent domain, and as such must necessarily serve the public good.
Your argument would be valid if it were possible for alternate internet providers to pop up. However there isn't anything comparable to cable right now that you could call an alternative.
The problem is that the price you (as the ISP) choose to charge some new startup is not subject to competition.
That's because you're not charging your customers. You're selling them to that startup. The startup has no choice but to pay if they want to have a chance of reaching these potential customers.
That means ISPs will have to ability to milk every cent of value generated out of startups, limited only by their ability to measure it.
The normal mechanisms of a market don't kick in, because the customers will be unaware of what's happening. They're not going to change providers only because that provider is shaking down some startup they've never heard of.
That's because you're not charging your customers. You're selling them to that startup. The startup has no choice but to pay if they want to have a chance of reaching these potential customers.
That means ISPs will have to ability to milk every cent of value generated out of startups, limited only by their ability to measure it.
The normal mechanisms of a market don't kick in, because the customers will be unaware of what's happening. They're not going to change providers only because that provider is shaking down some startup they've never heard of.
It's because you're already charging the end-user the rights to access all of the Internet. It's paid for by the user, not the taxpayer.
Limiting websites they can access is a violation of that agreement with the end user.
Limiting websites they can access is a violation of that agreement with the end user.
[deleted]
Why should you get paid more because your users were streaming Netflix as opposed to doing anything else with the traffic?
You, as a network provider, are already peering with other network providers, and so you're getting paid for (and paying for) the bandwidth that's getting used. What you're after is an extra slice of the pie from Netflix.
You, as a network provider, are already peering with other network providers, and so you're getting paid for (and paying for) the bandwidth that's getting used. What you're after is an extra slice of the pie from Netflix.
In theory that makes sense but if you build a network and actively fight to prevent any one else from also running lines, thats where we have a problem.
the big companies will happily pay. for their money they are getting a promise that any potential competitor will have to climb over a wall before entering the ring.
the big companies just don't want to be the _only_ ones paying.
the big companies just don't want to be the _only_ ones paying.
Don't forget about the cloud oligopolies...
"Amazon EC2 and S3 now include prioritized traffic to the network edge through Amazon's deals with over a hundred local and regional ISPs. Just add traffic priority to any elastic IP or S3 bucket and for only $0.04/gb outgoing your traffic will take the fast lane to your customers!"
How will Digital Ocean, Vultr, ARP Networks, Linode, etc. compete with that?
What we're seeing here is the closing of the digital frontier.
That being said my personal preference is not for net neutrality but for changes to state and local regulation to allow for a lot more ISP competition. But due to the patchwork nature of state and local regs that's a brutal slog in the trenches. So we need net neutrality in lieu of more ISP competition. Either that or we need to somehow overrule state and local regs at the Federal level to allow municipal and small startup broadband. That's tough given the fact that the Fed doesn't necessarily have any authority there. They'd have to argue it's interstate commerce.
"Amazon EC2 and S3 now include prioritized traffic to the network edge through Amazon's deals with over a hundred local and regional ISPs. Just add traffic priority to any elastic IP or S3 bucket and for only $0.04/gb outgoing your traffic will take the fast lane to your customers!"
How will Digital Ocean, Vultr, ARP Networks, Linode, etc. compete with that?
What we're seeing here is the closing of the digital frontier.
That being said my personal preference is not for net neutrality but for changes to state and local regulation to allow for a lot more ISP competition. But due to the patchwork nature of state and local regs that's a brutal slog in the trenches. So we need net neutrality in lieu of more ISP competition. Either that or we need to somehow overrule state and local regs at the Federal level to allow municipal and small startup broadband. That's tough given the fact that the Fed doesn't necessarily have any authority there. They'd have to argue it's interstate commerce.
We had a glimpse of the future with Telekom. They looked at startups and offered them faster cheaper access in return for equity.
Now imagine that model with the threat of throttling that startup if they dont comply.
Now imagine that model with the threat of throttling that startup if they dont comply.
It doesn't really make sense to go after small fry start ups. They don't have money and it would be an administrative nightmare.
But Netflix is already getting a better deal than start ups at many ISPs. Netflix gets free rackspace for their CDN servers. No start up gets that.
There is already a "fast lane" in many ISPs and Netflix gets it for free.
But Netflix is already getting a better deal than start ups at many ISPs. Netflix gets free rackspace for their CDN servers. No start up gets that.
There is already a "fast lane" in many ISPs and Netflix gets it for free.
> This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in.
Or rather, that we're being sealed into, since this can hardly be called democracy.
Or rather, that we're being sealed into, since this can hardly be called democracy.
This administration was voluntarily voted in.
> But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete.
That's the sad part: the new services that fail will fail quietly and we'll never know what we lost.
That's the sad part: the new services that fail will fail quietly and we'll never know what we lost.
> it will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so.
Content is controlled and blocked by advertisers in the application layer already. E.g. youtube
Content is controlled and blocked by advertisers in the application layer already. E.g. youtube
Tweet in article:
>On December 14, the FCC will vote on Chairman Pai's plan to repeal President Obama's heavy-handed Internet regulations and restore Internet freedom.
I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom". Just like the "Patriot Act", it is reasonable to assume anything with these sort of labels will likely be an encroachment on your freedoms.
Also
>"The job of the FCC is to represent the consumer," he said in an interview. "If you like your cable company, you'll love what this does for the Internet, because it gives Internet service providers the same kind of control over content and price as cable operators have today."
I am confident there is not a single person who "likes their cable company". Who in their right mind would want their internet controlled like their cable is controlled? This image[0] is exactly what we get to look forward to.
I have called my reps, sent emails, faxes, and just feel so helpless about all of this.
[0]: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4252153/wh...
edit: It appears the article altered the above quote, and the second half is no longer the same.
>On December 14, the FCC will vote on Chairman Pai's plan to repeal President Obama's heavy-handed Internet regulations and restore Internet freedom.
I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom". Just like the "Patriot Act", it is reasonable to assume anything with these sort of labels will likely be an encroachment on your freedoms.
Also
>"The job of the FCC is to represent the consumer," he said in an interview. "If you like your cable company, you'll love what this does for the Internet, because it gives Internet service providers the same kind of control over content and price as cable operators have today."
I am confident there is not a single person who "likes their cable company". Who in their right mind would want their internet controlled like their cable is controlled? This image[0] is exactly what we get to look forward to.
I have called my reps, sent emails, faxes, and just feel so helpless about all of this.
[0]: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4252153/wh...
edit: It appears the article altered the above quote, and the second half is no longer the same.
> "If you like your cable company"
I've never once, in my entire life, heard anyone say they like Comcast.
I've never once, in my entire life, heard anyone say they like Comcast.
As a petty exercise in malicious revenge, I would call Comcast support on my morning commute, every day, for about a month. It started out because I had a legitimate issue with speed and I decided to just call until my speeds were what I was paying for (not that I ever expected to get them). It turns out my region was always routed to the same office somewhere in India. So I guess I became kind of a known entity there (I'm always polite on the phone) and towards the end they would just route me to this same guy who was a newbie and I guess they wanted to help him get his call count up / get practice on the phone?
Long story short there's one person I like at Comcast, his name is Dev, hope you're doing well Dev, you made my commutes fun.
Long story short there's one person I like at Comcast, his name is Dev, hope you're doing well Dev, you made my commutes fun.
I think that's the point. That quote is not from Chairman Pai, it's from former FCC chairman Wheeler.
I hate Comcast. Not reliable and no accountability for down time in the Bay Area. If their internet service goes down, good luck on getting an ETA on when it comes back or any actual credit to your account for lost service.
I don't know about that, I was getting pretty bad packet loss recently and the instant I described the issue the guy (after mentioning it was part of a larger outage) instantly offered me a credit.
They can do good, they're just misguided.
They can do good, they're just misguided.
They can do good, but since they're a monopoly it doesn't actually make them any money to do so. They're much less likely to do good things for customers than any firm in a competitive industry would be.
There's many things I don't like about comcast (like customer service and that you have to call them back every year to avoid huge price hikes), but the internet service itself is very reliable (at least for me).
Yeah, I have to admit it quite reluctantly. They are competing well in my area. They can't match the fiber 1G networks being laid now but their 100Mbps connection has been quite reliable and 4k UHD streams flawlessly. May be 1 outage in a year which was also fixed within a couple of hours.
[deleted]
For a few years I paid extra for a DSL connection simply to not use Comcast. I truly hate them.
I read Wheeler's statement as sarcasm. He said the decision was "tragic" right before that line. It seems like he is implying that nobody likes cable companies, and now they're going to hate the similarities in internet service providers if this bill passes.
Wheeler, despite being a former industry man, definitely pushed for the consumer agenda despite industry pressure.
Wheeler, despite being a former industry man, definitely pushed for the consumer agenda despite industry pressure.
Wheeler did end up helping consumers, but not from the start. His first year or two in office he was against net neutrality and very supportive of telecom/cable companies - although nowhere near as bad as Pai. It wasn't until Obama's Administration whipped him in line that he actually started championing pro-consumer policies.
It's not sarcasm, it's an honest conditional statement.
People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?
If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.
If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.
How about if Comcast charges Netflix more to be able to access you?
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/comcastlevel3/
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/comcastlevel3/
The argument that Netflix needs to pay Comcast is absurd.
Why are people buying high-bandwidth plans from ISPs? Because they want to use services like Netflix. Netflix is not costing ISPs money, it's giving them something to sell.
Imagine that taxi drivers want to charge the airport for overwhelming them with passengers and you'll see the absurdity.
Why are people buying high-bandwidth plans from ISPs? Because they want to use services like Netflix. Netflix is not costing ISPs money, it's giving them something to sell.
Imagine that taxi drivers want to charge the airport for overwhelming them with passengers and you'll see the absurdity.
> The argument that Netflix needs to pay Comcast is absurd.
Absurd for you, not for the carriers. And, unfortunately, they are the ones dealing the cards now.
Outrageous, for sure, but according to Chairman Pai's plan, carriers will be able to charge both consumers and content providers.
Absurd for you, not for the carriers. And, unfortunately, they are the ones dealing the cards now.
Outrageous, for sure, but according to Chairman Pai's plan, carriers will be able to charge both consumers and content providers.
> Absurd for you, not for the carriers.
Yup, and only because those same carriers are making competition impossible, if not illegal.
Yup, and only because those same carriers are making competition impossible, if not illegal.
That's fine. If the charges are onerous enough, then the content providers may choose to build new carriers of their own.
> the content providers may choose to build new carriers of their own
Oh sure. Suppose I'm about to found yaymoviesyay.com to compete with Netflix. I learn that if I don't pay Comcast, its subscribers can't use my site. Same deal for AT&T and Charter.
Before this rule change, my cost to do business was "hosting costs."
Now it's either:
Oh sure. Suppose I'm about to found yaymoviesyay.com to compete with Netflix. I learn that if I don't pay Comcast, its subscribers can't use my site. Same deal for AT&T and Charter.
Before this rule change, my cost to do business was "hosting costs."
Now it's either:
A) hosting costs + payola to ISPs
B) hosting costs + cost of building my own last-mile network
A) Super incredibly unlikely
B) Ridiculously unlikely
C) Extremely, ludicrously unlikelyThat's fine?! Consider the fixed costs of building a new carrier! Today's carriers will price it below where it makes sense to "build your own carrier", these costs will be distributed among consumers and we'll all be paying more for the same access we have today. The only difference is today's carriers have higher profits and a stranglehold on our access to the internet.
I'd rather not hope and pray that they're able to do this. Plus, I know that in many parts of the country, they won't be interested.
It's completely absurd. Yet, it is the one high impact case that actually happened in real life and led to the FCC imposing neutrality onto the ISPs.
Comcast is like the road, not taxis; the last mile is where all the expense is in consumer internet. And congestion charging is a legitimate thing.
Why should Granny have to pay more on her internet connection to subsidize your Netflix addiction? Because equal pay for equal access is that: a subsidy from light users to heavy users.
Why should Granny have to pay more on her internet connection to subsidize your Netflix addiction? Because equal pay for equal access is that: a subsidy from light users to heavy users.
I don't get what you're saying. How am I making Granny pay more? There are bandwidth caps and data usage caps, I pay for what I use. If I'm paying less than the cost of the resources I'm using, charge me more. Why does Granny or Netflix have to pay comcast for what I do on the internet?
My electricity provider does not charge differently for setting up and maintaining the connection based on what I do with the electricity, they just charge me for what I use. Why should an ISP be treated differently?
My electricity provider does not charge differently for setting up and maintaining the connection based on what I do with the electricity, they just charge me for what I use. Why should an ISP be treated differently?
> There are bandwidth caps and data usage caps,
Actually, commercial ISPs don't really do bandwidth caps and datacaps are simply laughable as a means of controlling congestion. (Honestly, they're literally not a means of controlling congestion.)
I really just want my ISP to be like my datacenter: 95%ile bandwidth billing. Nothing else. No services. No filtering. No "speed boosts." Just a connection to other networks.
> I pay for what I use.
Unless you have a metered services, you are not paying for what you use in that sense. You pay for access, sure, but not for what you use.
> My electricity provider does not charge differently for setting up and maintaining the connection based on what I do with the electricity, they just charge me for what I use. Why should an ISP be treated differently?
The issue is not metered billing. I think most people would be OK with it; it'll suck for some but an honest effort to keep the 95% of usage at normal would go a long way, I thinks.
The issue is when you're being billed differently for what you consume, not how much. Would you be OK with electricity used by an LED bulb from company X was metered at 2 times that of company Y which is 2 times that of an incandescent? _That's_ the issue, not metered billing.
I really just want my ISP to be like my datacenter: 95%ile bandwidth billing. Nothing else. No services. No filtering. No "speed boosts." Just a connection to other networks.
> I pay for what I use.
Unless you have a metered services, you are not paying for what you use in that sense. You pay for access, sure, but not for what you use.
> My electricity provider does not charge differently for setting up and maintaining the connection based on what I do with the electricity, they just charge me for what I use. Why should an ISP be treated differently?
The issue is not metered billing. I think most people would be OK with it; it'll suck for some but an honest effort to keep the 95% of usage at normal would go a long way, I thinks.
The issue is when you're being billed differently for what you consume, not how much. Would you be OK with electricity used by an LED bulb from company X was metered at 2 times that of company Y which is 2 times that of an incandescent? _That's_ the issue, not metered billing.
I get what you're saying and that is my point.
> Why should Granny have to pay more on her internet connection to subsidize your Netflix addiction?
You've got it backwards. Granny and can I both pay per byte. We can even pay surge pricing based on congestion.
The question is this: why should I have to pay more for bytes from Netflix than Granny pays for bytes from Ravelry?
You've got it backwards. Granny and can I both pay per byte. We can even pay surge pricing based on congestion.
The question is this: why should I have to pay more for bytes from Netflix than Granny pays for bytes from Ravelry?
That's like saying UPS should be able to charge Amazon more per-package because they ship a lot of packages rather than, say, changing their per-package or bulk discount rates.
Nobody is saying that ISPs cannot charge for usage, only that they shouldn't be allowed to do so in a discriminatory manner: if, say, they wanted to set a cap or QoS shares they should be able to do that as long as it's applied to everyone rather than just the companies which don't / can't pay the danegeld.
Nobody is saying that ISPs cannot charge for usage, only that they shouldn't be allowed to do so in a discriminatory manner: if, say, they wanted to set a cap or QoS shares they should be able to do that as long as it's applied to everyone rather than just the companies which don't / can't pay the danegeld.
Assume that this is the case… then just do the same as they already do in Australia, and put caps on how much you can download. I assume that you are totally cool with that, and indeed they already do this with a lot of mobile plans. Then Granny, who obviously doesn't watch Netflix, can get a cheap very limited plan.
The issue here is that what comcast really want, is to sell Granny a cheap plan, and sell Netflix a plan, and google, and Apple (that app store and updates you know). Oh but wait, Netflix you are already paying a bunch to throw data on the net by the bucket? That doesn't matter… you have your last mile, and you also need to pay for everyone else's last mile as well. Oh, and Google, you also need to pay for everyone's last mile as well. It's just like a Winfrey episode: You can pay! you can pay! You can all pay!!
The issue here is that what comcast really want, is to sell Granny a cheap plan, and sell Netflix a plan, and google, and Apple (that app store and updates you know). Oh but wait, Netflix you are already paying a bunch to throw data on the net by the bucket? That doesn't matter… you have your last mile, and you also need to pay for everyone else's last mile as well. Oh, and Google, you also need to pay for everyone's last mile as well. It's just like a Winfrey episode: You can pay! you can pay! You can all pay!!
so you're arguing that the ISPs are unable to price their packages at a reasonable value, essentially selling it at cost to consumers, and netflix has to pick up the tab?
thats just silly, come on!
if that were the truth, and it isn't, then they'd need to increase the price for the monthly package or decrease bandwidth for consumer packages.
/Edit: going with your example: amazon doesn't have to pay to keep the streets in service, despite causing lots of (heavy) traffic through their deliveries. they pay their delivery provider. just like netflix pays for its bandwidth to their ISP
thats just silly, come on!
if that were the truth, and it isn't, then they'd need to increase the price for the monthly package or decrease bandwidth for consumer packages.
/Edit: going with your example: amazon doesn't have to pay to keep the streets in service, despite causing lots of (heavy) traffic through their deliveries. they pay their delivery provider. just like netflix pays for its bandwidth to their ISP
Connection fee + metered internet is fairest of all, and aligns incentives nicely. Of course, users don't like "pay for what you use" and want "all you can eat" plans which leads to... this stuff.
I allready pay for bandwidth.
It's pretty much the opposite you have to be afraid of. Netflix is a big player and can force anyone to play ball with them. The problem is that anyone not named Netflix will have a much bigger hurdle to reach you.
Imagine you're a startup trying to compete with Netflix, and on top of having to create your business and media content, your customers have to pay their ISP a fee to access your website (or have better bandwidth, or have it not counted in your allocated data plan). No one would be able to compete with them. Now replace Netflix with any <Google, Facebook, Uber, any incumbent really>... and yeah you get the idea.
Imagine you're a startup trying to compete with Netflix, and on top of having to create your business and media content, your customers have to pay their ISP a fee to access your website (or have better bandwidth, or have it not counted in your allocated data plan). No one would be able to compete with them. Now replace Netflix with any <Google, Facebook, Uber, any incumbent really>... and yeah you get the idea.
This dispute is way more nuanced than you're presenting. The article you posted picks a winner pretty early on bit actually presents the situation pretty well.
Any company Netflix buys transit from ends up using up all the goodwill of settlement-free peering agreements, doesn't want to actually pay for the traffic, tries to route around problem, and then gets frustrated when Comcast doesn't let them.
Any company Netflix buys transit from ends up using up all the goodwill of settlement-free peering agreements, doesn't want to actually pay for the traffic, tries to route around problem, and then gets frustrated when Comcast doesn't let them.
We have already seen this:
VZ was refusing to increase capacity to allow uncongested access to NetFlix (Netflix was willing to pay for the PNIs and the cost of the line cards to terminate those PNIs at VZ in addition to paying for their own gear). NetFlix started putting pre-roll into content sent to VZ customers to explain to them that it was VZ that was unwilling to do it. VZ threatened to sue. Netflix backed off and started paying for a better access to VZ subscribers by buying transit from VZ to use it strictly to access VZ. From that point on NetFlix' position on NN kind of "evolved" - it only kind of supports it.
All of this was with so call Net Neutrality on the books.
I said it before and I say it again:
Consumers do not give a flying f!ck about this fight - it is a fight between Comcasts/ATT/Verizons and Google/Facebook/NetFlix of the world about who gets to fleece consumers more wrapped in the talk about "fairness" and "freedom of to access information".
Just a few days ago we had someone working for small mom and pop NSP/ISP breathlessly tell us that it is NN that is preventing his ISP from offering grannies in a nursing home cheaper email only plans!
VZ was refusing to increase capacity to allow uncongested access to NetFlix (Netflix was willing to pay for the PNIs and the cost of the line cards to terminate those PNIs at VZ in addition to paying for their own gear). NetFlix started putting pre-roll into content sent to VZ customers to explain to them that it was VZ that was unwilling to do it. VZ threatened to sue. Netflix backed off and started paying for a better access to VZ subscribers by buying transit from VZ to use it strictly to access VZ. From that point on NetFlix' position on NN kind of "evolved" - it only kind of supports it.
All of this was with so call Net Neutrality on the books.
I said it before and I say it again:
Consumers do not give a flying f!ck about this fight - it is a fight between Comcasts/ATT/Verizons and Google/Facebook/NetFlix of the world about who gets to fleece consumers more wrapped in the talk about "fairness" and "freedom of to access information".
Just a few days ago we had someone working for small mom and pop NSP/ISP breathlessly tell us that it is NN that is preventing his ISP from offering grannies in a nursing home cheaper email only plans!
> Consumers do not give a flying f!ck about this fight
I couldn't disagree more. Sure, I don't care whether Netflix or Verizon wins, but I care deeply that there isn't a situation that raises the cost of competing against Netflix/Prime/Hulu to the point where it's impossible to enter the market. Netflix should be hard to compete against because they have better content, not because they have better access to internet subscribers.
I couldn't disagree more. Sure, I don't care whether Netflix or Verizon wins, but I care deeply that there isn't a situation that raises the cost of competing against Netflix/Prime/Hulu to the point where it's impossible to enter the market. Netflix should be hard to compete against because they have better content, not because they have better access to internet subscribers.
Your disagreement is worth the price of NetFlix subscription that you canceled when NetFlix caved. Oh wait, you have not canceled it. So your disagreement is worth zero, which means that you do not, actually, care.
As a consumer Im paying Comcast for quality access to all of the internet. Its their job to deliver on that. If they allow their peering points with T1 providers to clog up, they are not delivering on the service I purchased.
Also, Comcast isn't a transit provider. They're an eyeball network and should expect heavy inbound traffic levels. Also look here: https://www.peeringdb.com/net/822 Their locations are all in the states. Most settlement free agreements require diverse meeting points around the world. Right now the big providers are hauling Comcast traffic across the oceans. So their large market share in the US is already getting them preferential treatment from the other providers.
Also, Comcast isn't a transit provider. They're an eyeball network and should expect heavy inbound traffic levels. Also look here: https://www.peeringdb.com/net/822 Their locations are all in the states. Most settlement free agreements require diverse meeting points around the world. Right now the big providers are hauling Comcast traffic across the oceans. So their large market share in the US is already getting them preferential treatment from the other providers.
> If they allow their peering points with T1 providers to clog up, they are not delivering on the service I purchased.
IIRC, the proposed net neutrality regulations would not change this scenario at all. The issue is the absolute leverage that would need to be granted in these agreements for this to be true.
In this hypothetically net neutral universe, what should happen when those peering points clog up? Comcast absolutely has to upgrade those links, regardless of price? Would not upgrading these links be throttling? Would they be obligated to renegotiate their peering agreements or risk fines?
If so, I've got a killer startup idea. I'll get a modest peering agreement with comcast, then turn around and sell bandwidth to Netflix and Google for pennies on the dollar, and then turn around again and tell comcast that they have to renegotiate with me, at whatever price I want, or I'll get the FCC to bring them down. Then what? They're the ones in violation of the law, not me.
In practice, the proposed net neutrality regulations loosely say that the FCC can come in and act as a mediator in pricing agreements, when one party is (paraphrasing) "acting unfairly", which is a whole 'nother can of worms. For starters, it's completely out of whack with the intended scope of the FCC.
edit:
> As a consumer Im paying Comcast for quality access to all of the internet. Its their job to deliver on that.
No, you're not, and you never were, and it's bordering on dishonesty to make this claim. At best, you're paying comcast for the same quality access to anything that can reach their network at that same quality. Even that is arguable.
IIRC, the proposed net neutrality regulations would not change this scenario at all. The issue is the absolute leverage that would need to be granted in these agreements for this to be true.
In this hypothetically net neutral universe, what should happen when those peering points clog up? Comcast absolutely has to upgrade those links, regardless of price? Would not upgrading these links be throttling? Would they be obligated to renegotiate their peering agreements or risk fines?
If so, I've got a killer startup idea. I'll get a modest peering agreement with comcast, then turn around and sell bandwidth to Netflix and Google for pennies on the dollar, and then turn around again and tell comcast that they have to renegotiate with me, at whatever price I want, or I'll get the FCC to bring them down. Then what? They're the ones in violation of the law, not me.
In practice, the proposed net neutrality regulations loosely say that the FCC can come in and act as a mediator in pricing agreements, when one party is (paraphrasing) "acting unfairly", which is a whole 'nother can of worms. For starters, it's completely out of whack with the intended scope of the FCC.
edit:
> As a consumer Im paying Comcast for quality access to all of the internet. Its their job to deliver on that.
No, you're not, and you never were, and it's bordering on dishonesty to make this claim. At best, you're paying comcast for the same quality access to anything that can reach their network at that same quality. Even that is arguable.
The problem with a hands off approach is the lack of competition. I cant jump to another provider when the quality of my internet service does not live up to my expectations.
Since most ISPs have an effective monopoly there are no economic pressures for them to deliver quality service. So we need government to step in and treat them like the utilities they are.
Also, pretty sure Google doesnt pay for transit. They have a giant network footprint and push a ton of the internet's traffic. They are likely to be settlement free with everyone.
Since most ISPs have an effective monopoly there are no economic pressures for them to deliver quality service. So we need government to step in and treat them like the utilities they are.
Also, pretty sure Google doesnt pay for transit. They have a giant network footprint and push a ton of the internet's traffic. They are likely to be settlement free with everyone.
> Also, pretty sure Google doesnt pay for transit. They have a giant network footprint and push a ton of the internet's traffic. They are likely to be settlement free with everyone.
Almost certainly. Bad example, but the point still stands.
> The problem with a hands off approach is the lack of competition. I cant jump to another provider when the quality of my internet service does not live up to my expectations.
> Since most ISPs have an effective monopoly there are no economic pressures for them to deliver quality service. So we need government to step in and treat them like the utilities they are.
I don't know if I agree with that. Even in the most rural parts of the US you probably have a handful of ISPs available, just maybe not the type of ISP that caters to power users on reddit and HN. Between LTE wireless providers, satellite, DSL, cable, I think most people have a greater degree of choice than we realize. A lot of these options are not going to cut it if you like Netflix and/or torrenting, but for casual facebook, wikipedia, and emailing-- arguably the usage patterns of the majority of US internet users, any of these providers will work out just fine.
If what you're saying is true, why do we see such a dramatic difference in the quality of service across the board in the past decade? We went from terrible GSM to incredibly fast LTE. You can now buy 25 Mbit satellite internet without a data cap. You used to be lucky to get 16m/2m cable internet, now I see the lowest tier of plans with speeds of anywhere from 60Mbit to 100Mbit. If there's no competition, why do we see this progress? Why would they put money into increasing their speeds if the market didn't force their hand?
Almost certainly. Bad example, but the point still stands.
> The problem with a hands off approach is the lack of competition. I cant jump to another provider when the quality of my internet service does not live up to my expectations.
> Since most ISPs have an effective monopoly there are no economic pressures for them to deliver quality service. So we need government to step in and treat them like the utilities they are.
I don't know if I agree with that. Even in the most rural parts of the US you probably have a handful of ISPs available, just maybe not the type of ISP that caters to power users on reddit and HN. Between LTE wireless providers, satellite, DSL, cable, I think most people have a greater degree of choice than we realize. A lot of these options are not going to cut it if you like Netflix and/or torrenting, but for casual facebook, wikipedia, and emailing-- arguably the usage patterns of the majority of US internet users, any of these providers will work out just fine.
If what you're saying is true, why do we see such a dramatic difference in the quality of service across the board in the past decade? We went from terrible GSM to incredibly fast LTE. You can now buy 25 Mbit satellite internet without a data cap. You used to be lucky to get 16m/2m cable internet, now I see the lowest tier of plans with speeds of anywhere from 60Mbit to 100Mbit. If there's no competition, why do we see this progress? Why would they put money into increasing their speeds if the market didn't force their hand?
I think an important distinction would be the rate of investment in customer facing bandwidth vs the rate of investment into Tier 1 facing bandwidth. If they are spending more at the customer edge so they can sellmore ~100mbps plans to consumers, without the same rate of spending on the connections to T1 providers something is amiss. However if they are matching investment and continually adding bandwitdth to providers then I have no basis.
I just dont think they are. I think they are allowing the oversubscription rate to bloom while the avg per user usage continues to grow. And have heard it first hand from one of the biggest Tier 1 telcos about the pain they go through when trying to upgrade bandwidth to Comcast.
As a provider on the net I dont have many options to ensure you quality access to my content. I can't route around Comcast if theyre your last hop. I can pay Comcast for the privilege to send you content but I only get around 50 million subscribers and at 10x the price of a Tier 1. The Tier 1 will get me access to the entire internet.
Also with all transit pricing, the more you buy the cheaper it is. So the bigger players have an unfair advantage in economy of scale when dealing with the likes of Comcast.
As a provider on the net I dont have many options to ensure you quality access to my content. I can't route around Comcast if theyre your last hop. I can pay Comcast for the privilege to send you content but I only get around 50 million subscribers and at 10x the price of a Tier 1. The Tier 1 will get me access to the entire internet.
Also with all transit pricing, the more you buy the cheaper it is. So the bigger players have an unfair advantage in economy of scale when dealing with the likes of Comcast.
>No, you're not, and you never were, and it's bordering on dishonesty to make this claim. At best, you're paying comcast for the same quality access to anything that can reach their network at that same quality. Even that is arguable
I'd like to see where in the marketing literature it says this. Right on the pricing page it says Internet Access plans.
It doesnt say Comcast network access plan.
Also, I dont make Comcast oversubscribe their network. Thats a business decision on their side.
I'd like to see where in the marketing literature it says this. Right on the pricing page it says Internet Access plans.
It doesnt say Comcast network access plan.
Also, I dont make Comcast oversubscribe their network. Thats a business decision on their side.
The issue typically is not that Comcast is oversubscribing their network, its that there is more traffic trying to enter their network from a specific peer than is provisioned. This is what was at the core of Cogent/Comcast dispute. If your position is that an ISP should be required to provide as much capacity to any peer who wants it than that is at least an intellectually honest argument to make. You could further extend that argument that it should be required to peer with anyone who demands it. If you and I started a transit provider tomorrow should, won a deal with a video provider should Comcast be required to peer with us?
This is really what should be at the heart of these discussions, not abstract claims about who is throttling who.
This is really what should be at the heart of these discussions, not abstract claims about who is throttling who.
Its not like the traffic is coming from no where. The traffic is being requested by Comcast's customers. So yes, they should be able to support the traffic their customers are requesting. If its not legitimate traffic, feel free to drop the peer.
My arguement is that ISPs should deliver the product they sell to consumers. If the consumers demand for Netflix goes up, the ISP should adapt to ensure proper bandwidth at peak. The internet on the whole and interconnection between companies is hardly static. Its constantly growing bandwidth wise and its really very simple to increase bandwidth to other providers. Technically its fairly easy without all the legal bits that get added in to peering agreements.
My arguement is that ISPs should deliver the product they sell to consumers. If the consumers demand for Netflix goes up, the ISP should adapt to ensure proper bandwidth at peak. The internet on the whole and interconnection between companies is hardly static. Its constantly growing bandwidth wise and its really very simple to increase bandwidth to other providers. Technically its fairly easy without all the legal bits that get added in to peering agreements.
Comcast wasn't negotiating the Netflix, it was negotiating with Cogent for how much bandwidth Cogent wanted. Netflix just happens to be a large driver of Cogent's interconnect needs but not the only one. Looking from the other direction Netflix could have used additional transit providers but elected not to for whatever reasons. I would humbly suggest that very few people understand the complexity of the product that an ISP delivers.
Isn't it the same though? Netflix (and other sites) will be more or less forced to pass those charges on to the consumers.
Yes, which is immediately a problem when Netflix is competing with the cable company or one of its subsidiaries (which is the case) that don't have to pay those costs (or as much).
It allows the cable company to effectively tax the competition.
It allows the cable company to effectively tax the competition.
This is one of the biggest issues I have with it.
>Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?
It's profitable and with their lobbying, they can protect themselves from competition. If cable companies had the opportunity to cut streaming services at the knees 10 years ago (and the foresight to understand how it would affect their market) you bet they would have.
This is as anti-consumer as you can get.
It's profitable and with their lobbying, they can protect themselves from competition. If cable companies had the opportunity to cut streaming services at the knees 10 years ago (and the foresight to understand how it would affect their market) you bet they would have.
This is as anti-consumer as you can get.
My apartment complex has a contract with AT&T. I either have ATT or I don't have anyone. I can't be "gone". I just have to suck it up and pay unless I want to go to the library for basic internet then.
Talk to your neighbors and offer to split the internet bill. This doesn't solve the long-term problem, but at least it hurts the local internet monopoly.
From what I gather in the brief comment, the apartment complex only allowed AT&T to install cabling to the building, so those apartment buildings are only serviced by AT&T. The apartment complex will not allow another ISP to dig up their property to install internet service for tenants, leading to an exclusive AT&T monopoly. I've had friends in similar apartment buildings. Calling other ISPs operating across the street led nowhere, as those ISPs would just say "we do not service that address."
FCC instituted rules in 2008 abolishing the payola-style deals that stifle ISP competition in apartment buildings [0], but in the biggest surprise ever, the apartment owners and would-be-monopolist ISPs have been avoiding compliance by hiding the exclusivity part of their contracts. The apartment owner simply leaves open the prospect that another ISP could install access, but never actually allows them to do so. Or they make the now-legally-unenforceable exclusivity clauses of their contracts severable, but those enforcing the entire contract never actually know which of the clauses in it are invalid. So the clauses continue to be enforced in practice, by people who do not know they should be ignored.
If you can't get competing services in your apartment complex, get a lawyer and sue the owner.
[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280908A1.p...
If you can't get competing services in your apartment complex, get a lawyer and sue the owner.
[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280908A1.p...
Getting a lawyer and suing the owner is not a reasonable thing to ask of people living in apartments.
No, it isn't, but nor is it reasonable for an apartment owner to establish service monopolies on their property at the expense of their renters.
What alternative would you suggest?
What alternative would you suggest?
I think what he was suggesting was sharing one AT&T contract with his neighbors
But what if someone in your neighbor's house likes to download torrent or visit sites that gets you into trouble. Wouldn't that be a huge responsibility?
"Sorry, someone cracked my password." Then kick the idiot off your wifi, just like you would deal with a bad house guest.
I really like your idea, but it has legal implications (accountability) because your neighbours would end up doing things on the internet on your account or vice versa.
I would suggest to do this in combination with a VPN but 1) even with OpenVPN those are often insecure 2) they cost additional money 3) with these new FCC rules their bandwidth might get limited.
I would suggest to do this in combination with a VPN but 1) even with OpenVPN those are often insecure 2) they cost additional money 3) with these new FCC rules their bandwidth might get limited.
If your ISP cracks down, you can always go to the local Starbucks or library to torrent movies. And since the few people who share the WAP all know each other, they can talk things out.
WAP, Now that's a term I've not heard in a long time, a long time [1].
I don't know about Starbucks or the USA but many places here with open WiFi have, well, open WiFi (no encryption on connection) and they have abysmal speed. I mean we are talking about multiple customers, on 2,4 GHz WiFi, in the neighborhood (city) with dense 2,4 GHz coverage. What could possibly go wrong?
Plus, indeed here that type of business is just on cable or DSL themselves. Who'd be under the scrutiny of the same QoS shenanigans. Then again, we got net neutrality. For the time being. I really hope the USA keeps net neutrality. The feeling that such a civilized, rich, advanced country would lose such an important right fills my eyes with tears.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol
I don't know about Starbucks or the USA but many places here with open WiFi have, well, open WiFi (no encryption on connection) and they have abysmal speed. I mean we are talking about multiple customers, on 2,4 GHz WiFi, in the neighborhood (city) with dense 2,4 GHz coverage. What could possibly go wrong?
Plus, indeed here that type of business is just on cable or DSL themselves. Who'd be under the scrutiny of the same QoS shenanigans. Then again, we got net neutrality. For the time being. I really hope the USA keeps net neutrality. The feeling that such a civilized, rich, advanced country would lose such an important right fills my eyes with tears.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol
WAP = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_access_point
If you visit the US, you will find that most internet access sucks, but that public libraries are surprisingly decent. You won't be playing "Call of Duty: Kill Nazis 2017" on it, but it's perfectly decent for most uses.
If you visit the US, you will find that most internet access sucks, but that public libraries are surprisingly decent. You won't be playing "Call of Duty: Kill Nazis 2017" on it, but it's perfectly decent for most uses.
Oh, that. I always just call that AP. I'm glad you guys & gals got quality libraries on the other side of the pond. I can't speak for EU but here in NL they're dwindling both in quality as well as in size and amount. I find that problematic, as there are two big interest groups who benefit from public libraries: the poor, and the elder.
The US has a long history of supporting public libraries, e.g. the Carnegie libraries, which are often wonderful historic (by US standards) buildings[1]. Rather than holding stacks of physical books, modern libraries are a key source of information via the internet for many people today. In tiny rural towns, they are key parts of the community, and often surprisingly well-cared-for.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
Not if the library or Starbucks have an ISP with similarly restrictive policies.
They generally don't. Try it.
People also have the option of the cellular network via their phones, though that's not a true substitute for a wired ISP.
DSL (with VDSL pretty much FTTC), cable (also pretty much FTTC), LTE (if 50 ms latency and relatively low bandwidth cap is OK), and FTTH (if you're lucky and live in such an area) are the 4 options. It is going to be different everywhere in the USA (and world) but FTTH isn't available everywhere, and its not uncommon that either DSL or cable is unreliable.
> People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?
Because it's a monopolistic monoculture, and they can do whatever they want and get away with it. In this age, having corporate controlled information choke points is a feature that those who want to control what the citizenry think and say are no doubt in love with.
Because it's a monopolistic monoculture, and they can do whatever they want and get away with it. In this age, having corporate controlled information choke points is a feature that those who want to control what the citizenry think and say are no doubt in love with.
> People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?
Because the cable companies are the ISPs, and without ISPs acting differently, there's less impetus for people to ditch their cable companies as cable companies.
Especially when the phone/cable/ISP firms can block or tax into submission services that compete with their phone and video offerings by virtue of their control of internet access.
Because the cable companies are the ISPs, and without ISPs acting differently, there's less impetus for people to ditch their cable companies as cable companies.
Especially when the phone/cable/ISP firms can block or tax into submission services that compete with their phone and video offerings by virtue of their control of internet access.
I don't know anyone who has a land-line phone anymore. I know many people who have dropped cable. It won't be that easy to force people back to those things now that they have experienced the alternative.
But it sure will be a heck of a lot easier if the FCC's got your back with regulation that supports anticompetitive behavior.
> Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?
When you control what people see, you control what people think. Dismiss that as tinfoil malarky if you will.
When you control what people see, you control what people think. Dismiss that as tinfoil malarky if you will.
I don’t think it as as ‘tinfoil’ as people may suggest. Moves like this combined with the lift on local news station ownership restrictions make plans to ‘control what people see’ more and more plausible.
As long as my guys (Republicans) are winning and our ideas (conservatism) are pushed through, I'm happy and I don't give a hoot about what twisted ways they use to win politically. I'll also criticize Democrats for doing the exact thing, or deflect any bad-doing by my guys to point to Democrats as my go-to defense.
Poe's Law applies here (at least for me).
It is so sad we live at a time when one doesn't know if this is sarcasm or a genuine sentiment.
It is so sad we live at a time when one doesn't know if this is sarcasm or a genuine sentiment.
> If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.
This is what I don't understand. All of these businesses seem to be missing that point. Or, I am over-valuing it. Or something else that I don't understand or see. But, I have the exact same perspective and stance as you.
If I have to pay more to watch streaming video or play video games with my friends or download my Steam library or my Kindle titles, well, I'm very likely to just opt out of all of that. I am 36 years old and I have never once paid for a cable television subscription in the last 18 years that I've been on my own for _exactly_ this same reason. I am not going to pay for 3 separate and/or premium packages just to get access to the one piece of content that I actually want (sports programming).
This is what I don't understand. All of these businesses seem to be missing that point. Or, I am over-valuing it. Or something else that I don't understand or see. But, I have the exact same perspective and stance as you.
If I have to pay more to watch streaming video or play video games with my friends or download my Steam library or my Kindle titles, well, I'm very likely to just opt out of all of that. I am 36 years old and I have never once paid for a cable television subscription in the last 18 years that I've been on my own for _exactly_ this same reason. I am not going to pay for 3 separate and/or premium packages just to get access to the one piece of content that I actually want (sports programming).
You have choice. I live in this little place that the Internet hardly knows called Berkeley, CA, home of one of the original 4 IMPs of the very first networked connection -- and my only choice above 20mbps is Comcast.
you won't see it. they will force netflix to pay them more. And the charge will be passed on to all subscribers.
Why on Earth would Netflix have to pay for content served from inside their network. Netflix literally has red cache boxes inside all the ISP networks. If people stop streaming they won't go back to cable. The ISPs will all just move to metered internet.
That's fine. Then I can decide if I want to pay that price for Netflix or not. I also have Amazon Prime video, and Youtube, and etc. so I have several competing choices.
Then you don't get Netflix, Prime, etc, because AT&T marked up the price, or you do get it, but you get less of something else because AT&T is extorting you.
Would you be "fine" if someone stood in front of your house and intercepted all your Amazon packages and added a $5 delivery fee to each?
Would you be "fine" if someone stood in front of your house and intercepted all your Amazon packages and added a $5 delivery fee to each?
But your ISP owns you. They will charge YouTube and Amazon as well. You'll end up paying $120/Mo for your connection again.
And new competition will become less possible as ISPs barrier to entry becomes enournous.
I won't, because it's not worth that to me. I pay nearly $100/mo now and the value is already borderline at that price. I guess others might feel it's worth more or that they have no choice.
So the policy change is a good idea because it won't affect you personally. In which case, why are you wasting our time since it doesn't affect you personally?
Right, but you're not seeing that everything else will most likely get higher charges. So you'll stop paying for Netflix and whatever else and they may or may not survive with others making that decision. Amazon will because it has all of these other revenue streams, but its AWS offerings will probably rise in price.
Free alternatives, like being able to stream Youtube, could be in danger of fees too. Google might have some sort of bargain with the government to keep it charge-free (like selling more data on its users). But any other video provider without Google's deep pockets will be in trouble, like Vimeo, Twitch, VHX, or some other company that hasn't even started up yet but might not be able to afford the double-dip.
Free alternatives, like being able to stream Youtube, could be in danger of fees too. Google might have some sort of bargain with the government to keep it charge-free (like selling more data on its users). But any other video provider without Google's deep pockets will be in trouble, like Vimeo, Twitch, VHX, or some other company that hasn't even started up yet but might not be able to afford the double-dip.
It would be more interesting if Netflix passed it on to subscribers specifically from the ISP that charges them. Then you can as a consumer make a better decision factoring in the increased price of goods with one ISP over another.
The crux here is that consumers typically have choice between Comcast and Comcast or Spectrum and Spectrum.
That's why we need NN.
I actually think (and this should be done in addition to NN, not instead) is to encourage local city government to provide Internet access and even allowing smaller companies to lease the infrastructure to them. This would bring back competition again, and the money from leasing would cover cost of maintaining the network and maybe even bring income to the city.
That's why we need NN.
I actually think (and this should be done in addition to NN, not instead) is to encourage local city government to provide Internet access and even allowing smaller companies to lease the infrastructure to them. This would bring back competition again, and the money from leasing would cover cost of maintaining the network and maybe even bring income to the city.
As someone who lives in an apartment that has been monopolized by AT&T and forced to used 60$/month 60mbit internet, I totally agree.
I made a mistake by assuming an apartment complex built within the last 3 years would have fiber, boy was I wrong. I'll never make that mistake again.
I made a mistake by assuming an apartment complex built within the last 3 years would have fiber, boy was I wrong. I'll never make that mistake again.
Because people would have to move to change ISPs, there isn't any incentive for them to compete with each other. Network infrastructure is a natural monopoly, afterall. The best you ever get is a duopoly between fiber and cable, if you're lucky.
Don't kid yourself the cable companies will act like a cartel.
Not if all of those services are lumped into a bundle that you pay a blanket price for each month, separate from the rest of your online services.
Yes but I'm saying I would not accept that as a customer.
People are not going to happily accept the old "bundling" cable TV model that they hate, having experienced the much more open internet model where you really only decide how much bandwidth you want to pay for.
People are not going to happily accept the old "bundling" cable TV model that they hate, having experienced the much more open internet model where you really only decide how much bandwidth you want to pay for.
There's a difference this time around: once online streaming became a viable option, people started more actively restricting or resigning their cable tv service. Until that point, there were few viable alternatives. There won't be anywhere to retreat this time. And it's not just your tv shows and movies, it's your online banking, a large part of your social life, your homework research tool, your livelihood in some cases, and so on.
I'm using a general "you" here. It's far more a pervasive presence in peoples' lives than cable tv was.
And I've commented as such already, it likely won't be restrictive and demanding all at once. It will be a progression likely starting with something like:
"Now that we are no longer bound by restrictive government regulations we can offer you new value-added-services that benefit you!
With [company]'s new Speed Boost(TM) packages, you can access your favourite web sites at a higher speed than your current base package allows starting at the low monthly fee of $5! (on a 2 year contract, $10/mo month over month)"
Once the customer base is accustomed, the language changes and becomes:
"Now with [company]'s new Choose What You Use(TM) bundles, we've retired our base packages and now it's up to you what you want to pay for of the internet! Another way we're saving you money!"
And so on. Marketing teams wouldn't let it look like: "Well, you're ours now, bitch." At least not that straight-forward.
I'm using a general "you" here. It's far more a pervasive presence in peoples' lives than cable tv was.
And I've commented as such already, it likely won't be restrictive and demanding all at once. It will be a progression likely starting with something like:
"Now that we are no longer bound by restrictive government regulations we can offer you new value-added-services that benefit you!
With [company]'s new Speed Boost(TM) packages, you can access your favourite web sites at a higher speed than your current base package allows starting at the low monthly fee of $5! (on a 2 year contract, $10/mo month over month)"
Once the customer base is accustomed, the language changes and becomes:
"Now with [company]'s new Choose What You Use(TM) bundles, we've retired our base packages and now it's up to you what you want to pay for of the internet! Another way we're saving you money!"
And so on. Marketing teams wouldn't let it look like: "Well, you're ours now, bitch." At least not that straight-forward.
Then what the hell are you going to do? The vast majority of Americans have one option for an ISP. So they're not going to have an alternative.
They will all go up in price until your cable companies monopoly price strategy is maximized.
Which all are going to have the same fees on them.
To where?
Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?
Because there is a lot of money in that model if you can make it so there is no where else to go. (But you knew that- you were speaking rhetorically. I am the voice in your head.)
Because there is a lot of money in that model if you can make it so there is no where else to go. (But you knew that- you were speaking rhetorically. I am the voice in your head.)
[deleted]
>>>If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.
If you have competitors to choose from, sure. If you don't? Or if all the competitors do the same thing?
If you have competitors to choose from, sure. If you don't? Or if all the competitors do the same thing?
To where? Or are you one of those lucky few who have a choice of ISP?
It's not there yet, but mobile broadband is becoming increasingly viable.
It's far from ideal, but 4 (soon 3) competitors are better than the 1 choice I have for wired broadband.
It's far from ideal, but 4 (soon 3) competitors are better than the 1 choice I have for wired broadband.
Mobile broadband also has an oligopoly (with some of the same players, hi AT&T), and all the provider power issues that apply to fixed broadband;the neutrality rules being repealed applied to them, too (but even they allowed mobile operators more non-neutral action.)
I don't know why you think mobile broadband is in any way going to be better in the non-neutral net.
I don't know why you think mobile broadband is in any way going to be better in the non-neutral net.
Sure, with tiny data caps and even more artificial restrictions on speeds and content.
[deleted]
It is unusable for gaming.
The vast majority have some choice. The average household can choose between their telecom or their cable company. In some areas one or both of those companies don't provide broadband, but in the bulk of locations they do.
And while 4g service isn't a true replacement, it provides enough competition to prevent the AOL-ization of the internet. At a certain point, people would choose more expensive wireless over absurdly locked down wireline.
So while Comcast does have a monopoly in some areas, people would switch to Fios or Uverse or local DSL in the areas without monopoly if they tried anything too bad. Hypothetically comcast could try to monetize only in monopoly areas, but that would be a hard sell and it would be very transparent.
And while 4g service isn't a true replacement, it provides enough competition to prevent the AOL-ization of the internet. At a certain point, people would choose more expensive wireless over absurdly locked down wireline.
So while Comcast does have a monopoly in some areas, people would switch to Fios or Uverse or local DSL in the areas without monopoly if they tried anything too bad. Hypothetically comcast could try to monetize only in monopoly areas, but that would be a hard sell and it would be very transparent.
Only a little over 50% of households have at least 2 high-speed internet choices[0]. I wouldn't call that the "vast majority".
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
25mbps is an arbitrary limit that leaves out ATT and Century links ADSL2+ service, which is fine for most uses.
You will have a hard time streaming Netflix/Hulu/VOD on anything < 25mbps.
Should get you to 720p.
I tried that. It really doesn't, especially when there's congestion. I've had to go down to 240p on Youtube before, especially if I was trying to do something else in the background, e.g. watch Youtube while doing homework, watch Youtube while browsing Reddit/news/any other website with giant JS/CSS/media files/ads.
I was primarily a student then, and trying to skip around in Youtube/online video lectures was an insanely frustrating experience.
I was primarily a student then, and trying to skip around in Youtube/online video lectures was an insanely frustrating experience.
In a day and age where most of the TVs and monitors sold right now are 1080p and up, 720p is not an acceptable maximum resolution for streaming anymore.
Well, now add a family to the equation and those 25 mbps are anything but enough.
"The vast majority have some choice"
I challenge this assertion -> please document it.
I challenge this assertion -> please document it.
60% of the country has three providers of 10mpbs+
90% has two providers of 10mpbs+. One of those is satellite, which sort of sucks, I'll grant you that.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
90% has two providers of 10mpbs+. One of those is satellite, which sort of sucks, I'll grant you that.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
Thanks. I've lived in the north east since before there was IPSs and have never had a choice having lived in several town. Only people in one or two cities near me do.
I'd agree satellite isn't a great choice and I am not really counting that (or dialup if it still exists). But is choosing between a telco like Verizon and Comcast/Charter really much of a choice either? So I think those numbers are miss leading. There doesn't feel like any choice to me.
10mbps isn't really useful nowadays. That's 10000kbps not including overhead. That's an absolute max of 1.25MiB per second, realistically if you get 1MiB you're doing well. Back that down a little bit to account for the inability to always reach peak bandwidth, say to 896kiB, and you start to see how you're very limited for common usage. Even web browsing is quite heavy nowadays.
60% of the country's CENSUS DISTRICTS. Not 60% of the US. If one person in that district has access to the provider, it counts as the whole district, even though that's likely not true.
I live in a fairly tech heavy area in the PNW and still only have the choice between fiber or super slow dsl. Not really much of a choice if you ask me.
If your ISP decides to do the same thing, where are you gonna go? The vast majority of Americans do not have significant choice when it comes to service providers.
Because ISPs are cable companies, and are the ones who are practicing that failing model, and are working very hard to prop it up and extend it.
The way you've written this is implying that Pai said that line but it was actually a sarcastic Former Chairman Wheeler and the quote has since been edited out. The Chicago Tribune still has it though.
I hope the Democrats are keeping a running list of everything this administration is doing. They should undo everything as soon as they get majority.
I'll die a happy man if they name at least one law/regulation after Obama.
I live in NYC. I have one cable company with no other options. I have one broadband internet provider (my cable company) with no other options. No one I know likes their cable company.
>I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom".
It's an accurate characterization, it gives ISPs lots of freedom!
It's an accurate characterization, it gives ISPs lots of freedom!
Who likes their cable company? Come on now.
>"If you like your cable company, you'll love what this does for the Internet, because it gives Internet service providers the same kind of control over content and price as cable operators have today."
Except it's not, even. In the world of cable TV, the base cost is set by the content providers - the Disneys and such. With this, I guarantee you are going to see ISPs taking action on their own to tier websites and apps, pocketing the extra money, without input from nor payment to the sites which they intend to profit directly from.
Except it's not, even. In the world of cable TV, the base cost is set by the content providers - the Disneys and such. With this, I guarantee you are going to see ISPs taking action on their own to tier websites and apps, pocketing the extra money, without input from nor payment to the sites which they intend to profit directly from.
As programmer in his mid 20s, NN was the first political issue I developed a position on when I was a child. The fight for the open Internet has been going on for a long time and I really reciprocate that feeling of helplessness in the face of these patently corrupt regulators. Im calling reps and filling comments with the FCC and telling everyone I know about this, but I still feel like these people are gonna shove it down our throats. This whole process is so anti-democratic it's depressing.
[deleted]
> "If you like your cable company, you'll love what this does for the Internet"
HAHAHHAHAA, wow they're not even trying
HAHAHHAHAA, wow they're not even trying
That quote was from Tom Wheeler, ex-chairman of the FCC who opposes ending net neutrality. He was being sarcastic.
I'd like to have a quick shout out to Tom Wheeler. I was very worried when he was first appointed, but it was great to see someone who used their experience lobbying to stand up for consumers instead of continuing to act in corporate interests.
To hear him tell it, when he first started as a lobbyist he was advocating for organizations that weren't getting their interests adequately represented in government (at the time cable and wireless companies). As FCC chairman he continued lobbying for those whose interests were not adequately defended - the consumers.
It'd be nice if Pai came around all of a sudden too..
Pai is just a hatchet-man. He was never meant to seriously lead the FCC.
Pai is fulfilling exactly what he was appointed to do, which is make the wealthy even wealthier.
Trump's administration is built to enrich 3 groups. 1. Himself 2. His family 3. Other Very Wealthy People
Trump's administration is built to enrich 3 groups. 1. Himself 2. His family 3. Other Very Wealthy People
Woah they actually altered the quote in the article. The version I posted above is no longer the same.
Oh good.
I'm curious for your take on the wsj article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-i...
I don't think it's paywalled.
I don't think it's paywalled.
The one written by Ajit Pai? It's paywalled, just like the every page on the internet once this guy is done screwing it up.
I was able to read it and I don't subscribe to any newspaper. Maybe it was an A/B type thing... dunno.
Hyperbole anyone?
[deleted]
[deleted](1)
Where I live, I like spectrum-formerly-timewarner-formerly-roadrunner cable Internet just fine. There are a lot of alternatives to using it for home Internet around here, and I'm pretty sure the two are related.
If you want better internet access, instead of begging the FCC for scraps get on repealing legislated monopoly rights for kinds of wires and/or unbundling last mile from ISP.
Then ask yourself why internet reform is focused on NN instead of provider competition.
If you want better internet access, instead of begging the FCC for scraps get on repealing legislated monopoly rights for kinds of wires and/or unbundling last mile from ISP.
Then ask yourself why internet reform is focused on NN instead of provider competition.
Because high fixed costs make it very expensive for competitors to enter the market. It's like asking why someone doesn't just open up a competing water company in a place like Flint.
More to the point, can you imagine how fast the knives would come out if the FCC announced this deregulation and also a federal universal broadband plan where they use taxpayer money to deliver fiber to the home of everybody in the country in order to insure healthy competition?
On a side note, what do you think the odds are that this plan will remove uncompetitive restrictions on ISP (especially municipal ISP) development at the same time? I mean it's all about competition right? If I didn't know better I'd say that the talk of "competition" was just a smoke screen to hide the fact that this is the "allow ISPs to hold your service hostage with no repercussions" bill.
More to the point, can you imagine how fast the knives would come out if the FCC announced this deregulation and also a federal universal broadband plan where they use taxpayer money to deliver fiber to the home of everybody in the country in order to insure healthy competition?
On a side note, what do you think the odds are that this plan will remove uncompetitive restrictions on ISP (especially municipal ISP) development at the same time? I mean it's all about competition right? If I didn't know better I'd say that the talk of "competition" was just a smoke screen to hide the fact that this is the "allow ISPs to hold your service hostage with no repercussions" bill.
High fixed costs aren't what's keeping competitors out of the market; legally mandated monopolies are. City/Neighborhood/small scale ISPs work just fine where they're allowed to exist. There's no natural reason people should be married to one ISP based on their address without any alternatives, the overwhelming majority of services do not work this way for good reason. It'd be like banning FedEx anywhere UPS owns one truck.
If you're really worried about the coax network then push for what I suggested: unbundling the last mile. It worked great for the phone network.
I'm not arguing that the proposed plan actually helps anything (although the smaller scale and unconventional ISPs that should be encouraged are harder hit by neutrality requirements and compliance obligations in general)
I'm arguing that tilting at the network neutrality windmill doesn't actually deliver much to end users. There's about a million ways an ISP can suck and network neutrality, if you can even get it to happen, kinda-sorta fixes one of them.
There's a real problem (shitty monopoly internet providers) that has a real solution (the entirely proven strategy of eliminating monopolies).
PS: People in areas where the indoor plumbing water isn't safe to drink use competing water companies, mostly those bring-your-own-container 25c water vending machines you see in front of stores in low-income areas. If they waited for regulation to solve their problems they'd all be dead.
If you're really worried about the coax network then push for what I suggested: unbundling the last mile. It worked great for the phone network.
I'm not arguing that the proposed plan actually helps anything (although the smaller scale and unconventional ISPs that should be encouraged are harder hit by neutrality requirements and compliance obligations in general)
I'm arguing that tilting at the network neutrality windmill doesn't actually deliver much to end users. There's about a million ways an ISP can suck and network neutrality, if you can even get it to happen, kinda-sorta fixes one of them.
There's a real problem (shitty monopoly internet providers) that has a real solution (the entirely proven strategy of eliminating monopolies).
PS: People in areas where the indoor plumbing water isn't safe to drink use competing water companies, mostly those bring-your-own-container 25c water vending machines you see in front of stores in low-income areas. If they waited for regulation to solve their problems they'd all be dead.
> More to the point, can you imagine how fast the knives would come out if the FCC announced this deregulation and also a federal universal broadband plan where they use taxpayer money to deliver fiber to the home of everybody in the country in order to insure healthy competition?
I think people would be more confused than anything, since this FCC just voted to drastically restrict choice under the existing universal service find.
I think people would be more confused than anything, since this FCC just voted to drastically restrict choice under the existing universal service find.
> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/one-b...
Because a market solution with ISP is a pipe dream spouted by "conservatives" trying to win over people to vote against their own interests. If you start an ISP, there's a good chance the incumbent is going to fight you tooth and nail.
Why not both?
Not to mention, there are areas of the country which absolutely could not support more than one provider. Why should they have to suffer non-neutral net?
Not to mention, there are areas of the country which absolutely could not support more than one provider. Why should they have to suffer non-neutral net?
Why not both: because debundling and/or demonopolizing cable involves moving against entrenched interests, and the pro-NN forces have just demonstrated they don't have the political strength to get neutrality alone, let alone "neutrality and".
Competitive, non-neutral networks is something that much of the country already has, so it's a smaller, more regional fight you might actually win. You can try for neutrality after that if it means that much to you (but at that point nobody will care because NN is a non-issue in areas with a competitive provider landscape)
Network neutrality is irrelevant to areas that can't support more than one provider, weird rural providers and satellite internet are already exempt from neutrality rules (iirc because they aren't "broadband" in the FCC sense). Those places will continue to have sucky internet until someone wires them out of charity.
Competitive, non-neutral networks is something that much of the country already has, so it's a smaller, more regional fight you might actually win. You can try for neutrality after that if it means that much to you (but at that point nobody will care because NN is a non-issue in areas with a competitive provider landscape)
Network neutrality is irrelevant to areas that can't support more than one provider, weird rural providers and satellite internet are already exempt from neutrality rules (iirc because they aren't "broadband" in the FCC sense). Those places will continue to have sucky internet until someone wires them out of charity.
I agree with most what you're saying, but I don't think NN necessarily goes against it.
While competition is by all means good, I also DON'T WANT ISP controlling what I can access and how. I want ISP simply just provide the service, and Title II does just that.
While competition is by all means good, I also DON'T WANT ISP controlling what I can access and how. I want ISP simply just provide the service, and Title II does just that.
I don't understand how you claim that these actions are exclusive. More alternatives for the consumer are good. Regulations preventing unnecessary charges for the consumer, directly or indirectly are also good. If you are happy with your Internet service under the current system, then why do you want to change anything?
More to the point, the people writing the regulations need to consider everyone in the U.S. not just the happiest Internet users. There already is a fairly large divide between people who can and can not access decent Internet service and this policy will only make that worse.
More to the point, the people writing the regulations need to consider everyone in the U.S. not just the happiest Internet users. There already is a fairly large divide between people who can and can not access decent Internet service and this policy will only make that worse.
[deleted]
Why can't we have both?
Picture this: The "Google Search" package with Comcast is $8/month. Or, you can get "Comcast Search" for free! Comcast search is shitty and conveniently doesn't "find" results that conflict with Comcast's business or political interests.
But hey! The free market and invisible hand will sort everything out! /s
But hey! The free market and invisible hand will sort everything out! /s
This is an extremely ironic example. Google controls what content you see more than any ISP ever will, with or without net neutrality.
If anything, this FCC change will cement Google's dominance. They'll pay some rent to ISPs to maintain their priority lane, something an incumbent won't be able to do.
If anything, this FCC change will cement Google's dominance. They'll pay some rent to ISPs to maintain their priority lane, something an incumbent won't be able to do.
webXL(1)
What I don't fully understand is why isn't larger tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. making a big fuss about this on their sites to warn their users and help fight against it? Are they not as worried about this? Does it actual benefit them in some ways cause they can box out smaller competition since they can afford to pay ISP's or something?
For example, if Facebook saw this as a real threat, even a basic banner at the top of their site could help warn and give action to those people who don't understand this or are not sure how to help?
I just don't fully understand why I'm only seeing people post about this on social media, but the companies used in majority of the examples of what it will effect are so quiet about it? Can anyone explain this further on why they are not making a big deal and informing their users to help fight this?
For example, if Facebook saw this as a real threat, even a basic banner at the top of their site could help warn and give action to those people who don't understand this or are not sure how to help?
I just don't fully understand why I'm only seeing people post about this on social media, but the companies used in majority of the examples of what it will effect are so quiet about it? Can anyone explain this further on why they are not making a big deal and informing their users to help fight this?
Iirc the netflix CEO himself said in the beginning of this that net neutrality is good for small to medium upstarts and bad for incumbents. Netflix now is an incumbent with enough bargaining power to get a good price for that access and fastlane. Netflix future competitor won't have that bargaining power and will be forced to offer their product more expensively.
Same with all the big e-businesses
Same with all the big e-businesses
So are you implying that the tech giants used in all the examples of why we should be saving this are the ones that don't actually even care, because this would help them stay giants and hurt new competition from rising to compete with them? ...If that's the case, I feel like the media should change their prospective in promoting awareness to fight for the companies that this is ACTUALLY going to effect more so then the ones it won't (the tech giants most have used in their examples).
Those companies don't exist yet. What sounds better "If you don't save net neutrality, you will pay extra for Facebook!"
or
"Without net neutrality you might have to pay for a service that doesnt exist yet!"
or
"Without net neutrality you might have to pay for a service that doesnt exist yet!"
How about something along the lines of “Without net neutrality the next Netflix, Google or Facebook won’t happen.”
the media owned by whom again?
Probably because they've made the realization that while it will cost them more money to operate, they actually can afford to pay off the ISPs while any fledgling competition that bubbles up doesn't stand a chance of doing so.
Its called Regulatory Capture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
Those companies got big enough that net neutrality now works against their interests.
It's because potentially the ISPs could try and force both the tech companies and the consumer to pay more or have their service downgraded. They already tried that with Netflix before these regulations were added in the first place.
And Facebook (to use an example) is already under alot of heat for the stuff the Russians pulled in the last election. They gotta deal with the current administration for at least the next few years regardless of what happens with the FCC. So they can be vocal about this in some ways, but not in others.
And Facebook (to use an example) is already under alot of heat for the stuff the Russians pulled in the last election. They gotta deal with the current administration for at least the next few years regardless of what happens with the FCC. So they can be vocal about this in some ways, but not in others.
They already control the internet. The end of ISP net neutrality isn't about displacing the incumbents, it's about charging the incumbents rent to help maintain their position. This, along with anything else that they can afford that startups can't, helps them massively.
I think it's clear as water those companies you refer to stand to gain from "free and open internet" (for getting ransacked by businesses) because they're incumbents.
Its taking away title 2, not enforcing draconian content policing like PIPA and SOPA
I feel like the making the examples about Netflix/Google misses the point. This is way more dangerous than that - without Net Neutrality rules there's nothing to legally stop an ISP from "prioritizing" and "deprioritizing" any number of political and social sites.
Digital fundraising for politicians is a very real and active thing. Would they be upset with if their side was suddenly hit with a 30s / page load penalty? DNS blackholed?
The deeply cynical part of me thinks that's exactly what they want.
Digital fundraising for politicians is a very real and active thing. Would they be upset with if their side was suddenly hit with a 30s / page load penalty? DNS blackholed?
The deeply cynical part of me thinks that's exactly what they want.
A good way to get the right wingers might be to ask them what happens when their ISP blocks "hate speech" (as they or someone else defines it) or political speech that falls far outside well established political views.
This is actually pretty likely to happen.
Of course I suppose it'll be kind of funny to see God Emperor Trump usher in policies that make things like Gab and Voat unreachable. Top Kek!
This is actually pretty likely to happen.
Of course I suppose it'll be kind of funny to see God Emperor Trump usher in policies that make things like Gab and Voat unreachable. Top Kek!
Problem is the blocking of politically unpopular speech is already happening, just by the major gatekeepers of social media, Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. instead of ISP's. In fact many of the same people advocating for NN are also cheering on major tech companies censorship policies (while the tech companies still insist that they are Common Carriers and thus not liable for user posted content).
So why would right wingers or anyone else with politically unpopular opinions want to train their ire at ISP's who have no history of political censorship, when censorship is happening right now, under everyone's nose. Where are all the articles demanding Google et al become neutral carriers of information or lose their Common Carrier status? In fact, we are getting the exact opposite, with article after article posted here and elsewhere basically demanding that big tech companies censor Fake News, i.e. propaganda you don't agree with.
So why would right wingers or anyone else with politically unpopular opinions want to train their ire at ISP's who have no history of political censorship, when censorship is happening right now, under everyone's nose. Where are all the articles demanding Google et al become neutral carriers of information or lose their Common Carrier status? In fact, we are getting the exact opposite, with article after article posted here and elsewhere basically demanding that big tech companies censor Fake News, i.e. propaganda you don't agree with.
The right sees an unregulated approach and naive of the censorship aspects.
But Net Neutrality doesn't fix the censorship of companies refusing services to people it doesn't like. In fact many people praise such censorship.
The proposed Net Neutrality argument is just consumer access to the net, not the person wanting to be a host on the Net. That aspect, it doesn't go far enough to provide an unregulated and uncensored free speech.
But Net Neutrality doesn't fix the censorship of companies refusing services to people it doesn't like. In fact many people praise such censorship.
The proposed Net Neutrality argument is just consumer access to the net, not the person wanting to be a host on the Net. That aspect, it doesn't go far enough to provide an unregulated and uncensored free speech.
Or charging extra, per-page-view if the ISP felt like it, to visit FoxNews.com or NPR.org since they're not the ISP's preferred news networks.
THAT is the reality we're about to enter with this FCC change. Who gives a shit about Netflix being slower? Using that example to fight for Net Neutrality is a guaranteed way to lose.
THAT is the reality we're about to enter with this FCC change. Who gives a shit about Netflix being slower? Using that example to fight for Net Neutrality is a guaranteed way to lose.
Or the ISPs will pressure companies like FB and Youtube and Twitter into changing their speech policies to unblock hate speech or face throttling. Those tech companies already 'throttle' users who do not meet their orwellian standards.
The Orwellian standards of not censoring? I am not a fan of hate speech - but I'm also not a fan of corporate oligarchs deciding how it is defined.
The question is which group of oligarchs would you allow this unchecked power? Personally, I'm not a fan of either, but I'd rather see competition in this area rather than government-sanctioned neutrality.
That competition should not be decided by who has the most money, it should be based on the weight of public representation, hence democracy.
this isn't a right-v-left issue, it's a top-v-bottom issue.
the clipper chip was a clinton thing, the obama administration was for a long time on the fence, etc.
i will credit that the current administration is 'right', whatever that actually means these days..
the clipper chip was a clinton thing, the obama administration was for a long time on the fence, etc.
i will credit that the current administration is 'right', whatever that actually means these days..
It's not hard to imagine 15 years ago Google is a new player on the scene but has a lot of trouble getting traction because their links are being constantly saturated and they have no money to pay the ISP ransoms to provide decent service.
We could still be using Altavista today.
We could still be using Altavista today.
You mean 15 years ago when NN didn't exist? Or 10 years ago? Or 5 years ago? Or 3 years ago? How did Google/Facebook/Netflix even make it when ISPs had all the way up to 2015 to ransom them?
Fifteen years ago Net Neutrality was the de facto policy. Nobody would dare block a site or have paid prioritization because it would topple numerous peering agreement Apple carts, and consumers had actually competitive choices between access providers.
It didn’t become necessary to “make it official” until the consumer access industry was consolidated, giving rise to the idea of “hey, we know our consumers are paying for the entire operation and netting us a healthy profit already, so where can we get even more profit?”
It didn’t become necessary to “make it official” until the consumer access industry was consolidated, giving rise to the idea of “hey, we know our consumers are paying for the entire operation and netting us a healthy profit already, so where can we get even more profit?”
> Fifteen years ago Net Neutrality was the de facto policy. Nobody would dare block a site
The first neutrality enforcement action was almost that long ago (12 years ago) over an ISP blocking access to Vonage (the telephone-over-internet service.)
The first FCC neutrality principles enforced by case-by-case actions were adopted in 2004. While the current Open Internet order is only a few years old, active, official FCC action in this area is not.
The first neutrality enforcement action was almost that long ago (12 years ago) over an ISP blocking access to Vonage (the telephone-over-internet service.)
The first FCC neutrality principles enforced by case-by-case actions were adopted in 2004. While the current Open Internet order is only a few years old, active, official FCC action in this area is not.
Don't you see that Google does this already with zero government/user oversight?
This deeply cynical view has already come true.
This deeply cynical view has already come true.
Just because Google has huge power doesn't mean we should also allow this and change from really hard to impossible to replace Google.
Lack of NN will allow ISPs to essentially implement censorship in addition to what we have.
Lack of NN will allow ISPs to essentially implement censorship in addition to what we have.
Used to work for a local ISP (ILEC). "Deregulation" isn't a real thing until they remove the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) and competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) regional monopolies enforced by law.
Until that happens, all this does is screw consumers. Honestly, internet service needs to be declared a public utility.
Until that happens, all this does is screw consumers. Honestly, internet service needs to be declared a public utility.
This is where the battle should be. Net neutrality is little more than a gateway for further regulation of the internet by the federal government. Remove barriers to competition and innovation on a local scale and see the need for ISP regulation diminish drastically.
Then the big companies bought up all the smaller isp's, then the telcos refused access to smaller companies.
Thats why internet service kept dropping in costs, more choices as more providers. Now you are lucky if you got more than 1 provider (or many in the USA, none)
Thats why internet service kept dropping in costs, more choices as more providers. Now you are lucky if you got more than 1 provider (or many in the USA, none)
Why? The biggest ISPs in most markets aren't ILECs or CLECs right?
Untrue. In any US market, for each class of service (copper, coax and now fiber) there's rarely ever more than one of each because the big ISPs do not compete with each other in such fashion.
Muni service is a huge threat to them for this reason.
Muni service is a huge threat to them for this reason.
The Coax providers (i.e., cable company) aren't ILECs though.
But the coax providers still make deals between each other where they effectively follow the same rules leaving almost every market having one incumbent provider and one other competitor.
There are tiny competitors that work in this space (cough RCN, Charter) but they are functionally irrelevant (except for a few big markets for Charter) and most of them have gone out of business and consolidated to larger providers anyway.
There are tiny competitors that work in this space (cough RCN, Charter) but they are functionally irrelevant (except for a few big markets for Charter) and most of them have gone out of business and consolidated to larger providers anyway.
Is it time to go full decentralized peer-to-peer wireless mesh yet? I know it would be slow, but that's par for the course in most of the US anyway.
Routing would be painful, but something like IPFS would encourage peers to cache content in order to ensure faster access to the content they want.
It could be done if only the barrier to entry for normal folks was lower. I'm thinking a dedicated piece of hardware in a form-factor like the Google Home where the setup would be as simple as plugging it in to the wall.
Servers would still be in datacenters, but the ISPs don't get to play price and speed games with their connections.
Routing would be painful, but something like IPFS would encourage peers to cache content in order to ensure faster access to the content they want.
It could be done if only the barrier to entry for normal folks was lower. I'm thinking a dedicated piece of hardware in a form-factor like the Google Home where the setup would be as simple as plugging it in to the wall.
Servers would still be in datacenters, but the ISPs don't get to play price and speed games with their connections.
There's a step in between Comcast's stranglehold and full mesh nets: municipal broadband/fiber.
The more towns get municipal fiber, the more Comcast's grip loosens, until they're forced to compete at a local level with local ISPs run by people you know and trust who support Net Neutrality.
If a local ISP doesn't support Net Neutrality, drop their ass and use one of the 20 other ISPs that rent the infrastructure from the city.
This is the real shift we need. Net Neutrality regulation will be ping-ponging in various parts of the government for the rest of time...which is a symptom of a much larger problem: the public currently doesn't own the infrastructure, and we need to.
The more towns get municipal fiber, the more Comcast's grip loosens, until they're forced to compete at a local level with local ISPs run by people you know and trust who support Net Neutrality.
If a local ISP doesn't support Net Neutrality, drop their ass and use one of the 20 other ISPs that rent the infrastructure from the city.
This is the real shift we need. Net Neutrality regulation will be ping-ponging in various parts of the government for the rest of time...which is a symptom of a much larger problem: the public currently doesn't own the infrastructure, and we need to.
I am a fan of muni broadband as a competitive alternative to the incumbents. But wouldn’t that enable a demagogue mayor to issue censorship directives via Executive Order?
They could theoretically but there's a big difference because that's in the public sphere and subject to much higher scrutiny. A major making that decision would have to answer about their legal authority to do so; public records laws would apply to anything used in that process; the local council and prosecutors, etc. would have an easier time getting information and acting on it, and the local citizens would be able to vote them out in the next election.
That's not to say that this works perfectly everywhere but the framework is setup to be a lot more open than the workings of a private company.
That's not to say that this works perfectly everywhere but the framework is setup to be a lot more open than the workings of a private company.
If said mayor never wants to see another term, I guess it's within the realm of possibility. Also, at that point, the situation is the same as now (with one organization calling all the shots) but at least it's contained to one town.
this. 100% this.
Someone posted an Ask HN the other day asking "What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?"
Mesh networking was mine. I really really wish this would happen.
Mesh networking was mine. I really really wish this would happen.
I have hopes this will happen with machine-to-machine payment systems. Add fog computing and you might get decent speeds with no centralized backbone.
Oh, you want to use IPFS? That's gonna be an extra $25/month. For the first 5 GB.
I think that would be too slow for it to be doable.
Caching would only work for a subset of content, and anything large that is not cached would take exponentially longer to retrieve.
Caching would only work for a subset of content, and anything large that is not cached would take exponentially longer to retrieve.
Or just fix the policies.
The problem is not the policies, those could be changed easily if those in charge wanted them changed. The problem is that the Internet is centralized and this allows the US government to control it. Remove the centralization and it no longer can be controlled.
This is a design flaw in the Internet and most conventional network designs. There is an inherent level of trust given to network members and this works just fine for a research network between CS departments at Universities, but when my traffic must pass through 12 routers each potentially malicious to reach the edge of Google's network I have to trust each of those 12 routers.
Protocols like the ones that underly Bitcoin and IPFS place no trust in nodes. The IPFS whitepaper outlines a very abuse-resistant protocol whose concepts could be used to build another more resilient network layer.
This is a design flaw in the Internet and most conventional network designs. There is an inherent level of trust given to network members and this works just fine for a research network between CS departments at Universities, but when my traffic must pass through 12 routers each potentially malicious to reach the edge of Google's network I have to trust each of those 12 routers.
Protocols like the ones that underly Bitcoin and IPFS place no trust in nodes. The IPFS whitepaper outlines a very abuse-resistant protocol whose concepts could be used to build another more resilient network layer.
Just so they can change again with the next administration?
My half glass full nature tells me that we will be alright. The internet was born and thrived w/o explicit net neutrality laws for a long time (~20+ years). We have seen major technology players come out in support of net neutrality, and I believe that if any funny buisness is uncovered we will see a huge backlash vs. the companies that are playing favorites.
All and all it says one major thing to me. We cannot rely on executive orders and pseudo-legislation to drive change. The reason why Trump has been able to roll back so many of Obama's legacy is that so much of it was executed via E.O; the one thing he cannot seem to roll back is Obamacare which was delivered via Congress. If we want net neutrality to become law we have to push for Congress to deliver it.
All and all it says one major thing to me. We cannot rely on executive orders and pseudo-legislation to drive change. The reason why Trump has been able to roll back so many of Obama's legacy is that so much of it was executed via E.O; the one thing he cannot seem to roll back is Obamacare which was delivered via Congress. If we want net neutrality to become law we have to push for Congress to deliver it.
> The internet was born and thrived w/o explicit net neutrality laws for a long time (~20+ years).
On the other hand, while the internet is approaching its 50th birthday for most of that time there was far less money involved and fewer players with monopoly status over it.
In the 90s, we had dialup and DSL from hundreds of service providers because DSL was subject to a similar neutrality provision which meant that the phone company had to resell access to copper at cost. That's a pretty huge difference: had, say, PacBell tried to steer pets.com traffic to a partner, every single one of their customers had the option to switch ISPs immediately without any loss of service quality.
Unfortunately that wasn't preserved for fiber and there has been massive consolidation in the industry, so most people have a choice between — if they're lucky — a massive cable company and a massive phone company. Many people live in buildings with exclusive contracts for only one company. In that environment, your choices are basically falling back to DSL if it's still available (increasingly not) or going without an increasingly vital utility.
I would be very hesitant to say our past experience is a good source of prediction for the modern market.
On the other hand, while the internet is approaching its 50th birthday for most of that time there was far less money involved and fewer players with monopoly status over it.
In the 90s, we had dialup and DSL from hundreds of service providers because DSL was subject to a similar neutrality provision which meant that the phone company had to resell access to copper at cost. That's a pretty huge difference: had, say, PacBell tried to steer pets.com traffic to a partner, every single one of their customers had the option to switch ISPs immediately without any loss of service quality.
Unfortunately that wasn't preserved for fiber and there has been massive consolidation in the industry, so most people have a choice between — if they're lucky — a massive cable company and a massive phone company. Many people live in buildings with exclusive contracts for only one company. In that environment, your choices are basically falling back to DSL if it's still available (increasingly not) or going without an increasingly vital utility.
I would be very hesitant to say our past experience is a good source of prediction for the modern market.
We didn't need net neutrality as long as non-neutrality was too complicated to implement.
The other day I was sitting at home with my family. My parents, two siblings and my grandma, who moved from Germany after WW2.
My parents and siblings are sitting around talking about how Trump is going to save America. My brother mentions how a guy in town (also a Trump supporter) said he's a fascist. I'm sitting on the other side of the table and my grandma is looking down at her plate not saying anything. She's about 80 years old at this point.
I can't help but think she knows we're about to go through it all over again.
Edit: I don't think Trump is Hitler but I do think we are losing freedoms. I'm also not trying to even argue that it's Trumps fault. This was just an observation about my surroundings. I felt it relevant due to the seeming zealotry of my family and their lack of questioning certain decisions and outcomes coupled with the fact that today it looks like we lost more freedom due to that mindset.
My parents and siblings are sitting around talking about how Trump is going to save America. My brother mentions how a guy in town (also a Trump supporter) said he's a fascist. I'm sitting on the other side of the table and my grandma is looking down at her plate not saying anything. She's about 80 years old at this point.
I can't help but think she knows we're about to go through it all over again.
Edit: I don't think Trump is Hitler but I do think we are losing freedoms. I'm also not trying to even argue that it's Trumps fault. This was just an observation about my surroundings. I felt it relevant due to the seeming zealotry of my family and their lack of questioning certain decisions and outcomes coupled with the fact that today it looks like we lost more freedom due to that mindset.
So a lad knows a guy who says he is a fascist and also a Trump supporter, which means Trump is a fascist.
But what does that have to do with the FCC saying they will not use their authority on Internet service providers?
But what does that have to do with the FCC saying they will not use their authority on Internet service providers?
To give you my own anecdote, both my grandparents lived under fascism and both happily voted for Trump. It was the first time my grandfather voted in 40 years. I'd never seen him so excited to go to the voting booth before.
This tends to happen with striking regularity in societies when wealth begins to consolidate in the hands of a few and the middle class' buying power declines year after year.
Like a fever, it's a sign that our country is sick. If we let the fever take over it will kill us. If we treat the underlying problem we can survive. We MUST solve the problem of wealth disparity or mark my words - it will be our undoing.
Like a fever, it's a sign that our country is sick. If we let the fever take over it will kill us. If we treat the underlying problem we can survive. We MUST solve the problem of wealth disparity or mark my words - it will be our undoing.
I guess you should ask her if she thinks we are about to go through the 40s or the 60s again.
"not if anything to say about it, I do" - Yoda
While everybody is busy yelling and flailing about how Trump has small hands and is literally Hitler, those policies, that will have an actual day to day impact on everybody, go through unchallenged.
Note that there is a discussion about how to fight this plan here:
“Ask HN: How can we stop the plan to end net neutrality?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745057
“Ask HN: How can we stop the plan to end net neutrality?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745057
I'm going to sound like a broken record in these comments, but the most permanent way to save Net Neutrality is if the public owns the infrastructure, not the telecoms.
We need grassroots municipal fiber campaigns across the country until Comcast et al are forced to compete with local ISPs on public infrastructure.
Then Net Neutrality won't be an issue anymore: the market actually will solve it. No need to regulate. You'll have 20 local ISPs to choose from, and chances are they will all support Net Neutrality because it'd be suicide not to.
This isn't an issue in places with real market competition. The best path to that is publicly-owned infrastructure.
We need grassroots municipal fiber campaigns across the country until Comcast et al are forced to compete with local ISPs on public infrastructure.
Then Net Neutrality won't be an issue anymore: the market actually will solve it. No need to regulate. You'll have 20 local ISPs to choose from, and chances are they will all support Net Neutrality because it'd be suicide not to.
This isn't an issue in places with real market competition. The best path to that is publicly-owned infrastructure.
It seems the fight has already been lost.
Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon should just start charging ISPs a per user fee to similar to how cable channels work. If ISPs don't pay, they should display ISP's phone number and ask the customer to call their local ISP and demand access. Content is king even in you have a monopoly on distribution .
In practice, it's not, primarily, these companies (with the possible exception of Netflix) who are going to be hurt by this. They're too important; if ISPs try to traffic-shape Facebook noticeably their users will revolt. It'll be smaller companies and startups.
Small companies and startups will not be big enough to have any impact. It will be more expensive to keep track of them than they are worth. And most startups are cloud-based now. They will just pay Amazon or Google for whatever bandwidth they need.
Netflix already went to battle with Comcast and lost. Both parties were saying one should pay the other, in the end Netflix paid Comcast.
Wow. If my cable company (who I use only for internet access) decides to change pricing and it ends up costing me more to watch netflix (this includes if netflix increases its prices due to the cable company pushing back and charging netflix) then I will cancel both. I'll save more money and be free from the internet at home. I suppose that really is truly "Internet Freedom"!
> then I will cancel both.
Which is exactly why it won't happen even if they were given the option... Everyone would flock to the ISPs who didn't do this. Or to technology options such as encryption and VPNs to circumvent it, while still using the cheaper packages.
Selective internet packages has been an incredibly unpopular idea among the public and has been for over a decade.
I'm not sure why people think the only thing that has held ISPs back from doing this is a 3yr old FTC regulation. Not to mention no ISP in any other country has tried it either in the ~2+ decades broadband has been available.
Which is exactly why it won't happen even if they were given the option... Everyone would flock to the ISPs who didn't do this. Or to technology options such as encryption and VPNs to circumvent it, while still using the cheaper packages.
Selective internet packages has been an incredibly unpopular idea among the public and has been for over a decade.
I'm not sure why people think the only thing that has held ISPs back from doing this is a 3yr old FTC regulation. Not to mention no ISP in any other country has tried it either in the ~2+ decades broadband has been available.
> I'm not sure why people think the only that has held ISPs back from doing this is a 3yr old FTC regulation
The FCC has been enforcing neutrality principles since 2004, through case-by-case actions through 2010, and through regulatory orders in 2010 and 2015. Even in the brief window between case-by-case enforcement being struck down in 2010 and the 2010 Open Internet Order and the longer window between the 2010 Order being struck down and the 2015 Order, there was a clear regulatory direction which gave non-neutral activity a high-risk of being unsustainable and thus not worth investing in. There is very little competition in ISPs in most areas and very high barriers to entry; it isn't competition that has been controlling non-neutral behavior.
The FCC has been enforcing neutrality principles since 2004, through case-by-case actions through 2010, and through regulatory orders in 2010 and 2015. Even in the brief window between case-by-case enforcement being struck down in 2010 and the 2010 Open Internet Order and the longer window between the 2010 Order being struck down and the 2015 Order, there was a clear regulatory direction which gave non-neutral activity a high-risk of being unsustainable and thus not worth investing in. There is very little competition in ISPs in most areas and very high barriers to entry; it isn't competition that has been controlling non-neutral behavior.
Google or Amazon, or the rest of the tech industry, wouldn't be able to find the capital to build fast/unthrottled internet to eat Comcast's lunch? Alienating an entire industry and customer based like this would be a huge incentive for many parties, the market forces here are very much being downplayed.
Not to mention the technical hurdles (encryption, VPNs) outside of the risk involved of convincing an executive board to engage in a PR disaster and expose themselves to the risk of Google competing with them.
Besides has any company have tried to push TV-style packages, where they throttle websites depending on your package... and the FCC regulations stopped them? This is the scenario I keep reading about as what will happen if these regulations didn't exist. But I've yet to hear of an actual ISP trying this...
Typically with regulations you have the industry pushing back against them because they want to do certain things. But I'm not seeing that here, multiple ISP have already claimed they have no interest in engaging in this type of throttling and I personally don't see how this would ever fly even if they did.
Yes, cable companies have taken advantage of their political pull and monopoly positions to do some shady stuff but I'm very skeptical they could ever pull anything like that off in the internet. That's a whole different ball game than the tightly corporate controlled finite-content TV market and the tech industry and the public have clearly stated they won't sit idly by, regardless of regulations.
Not to mention the technical hurdles (encryption, VPNs) outside of the risk involved of convincing an executive board to engage in a PR disaster and expose themselves to the risk of Google competing with them.
Besides has any company have tried to push TV-style packages, where they throttle websites depending on your package... and the FCC regulations stopped them? This is the scenario I keep reading about as what will happen if these regulations didn't exist. But I've yet to hear of an actual ISP trying this...
Typically with regulations you have the industry pushing back against them because they want to do certain things. But I'm not seeing that here, multiple ISP have already claimed they have no interest in engaging in this type of throttling and I personally don't see how this would ever fly even if they did.
Yes, cable companies have taken advantage of their political pull and monopoly positions to do some shady stuff but I'm very skeptical they could ever pull anything like that off in the internet. That's a whole different ball game than the tightly corporate controlled finite-content TV market and the tech industry and the public have clearly stated they won't sit idly by, regardless of regulations.
> Google or Amazon, or the rest of the tech industry, wouldn't be able to find the capital to build fast/unthrottled internet to eat Comcast's lunch?
Not while paying a Comcast (and other ISPs) tax to reach existing users, which then funds Comcast (et al.) staying ahead of them.
Not while paying a Comcast (and other ISPs) tax to reach existing users, which then funds Comcast (et al.) staying ahead of them.
That's a perfect example of the ridiculous lengths this idea would have to go to sound feasible. Hence why I believe it's so detached from reality.
ISPs have already selectively blocked particular firms (until agreeing to stop in response TO FCC enforcement action), so why (freed from the threat of enforcement) wouldn't they do that but also offer the firm a way to buy their way out of it?
You're changing the subject, that's not what you said above... you're taking a minor specific throttling and applying it to a large public company crippling the ISP competition of another large ISP company.
Yes, some monopolistic ISPs have engaged in specific minor throttling. What they haven't done is alienated their entire customer base by throttling the entire internet into packages. Which is an entirely different beast... and what we're talking about.
Yes, some monopolistic ISPs have engaged in specific minor throttling. What they haven't done is alienated their entire customer base by throttling the entire internet into packages. Which is an entirely different beast... and what we're talking about.
In many areas, there are only 1 (maybe 2) ISPs, so there is no viable alternative choice.
It is also quite easy to detect whether someone is using a VPN, so I don't see why they wouldn't also dictate which protocols are permissible for each "package".
This would be in-line with the packages offered which require the users to install MITM certs and/or use provider-based DNS servers in order to ensure tracking of all online traffic (in exchange for a "discount", of course).
It is also quite easy to detect whether someone is using a VPN, so I don't see why they wouldn't also dictate which protocols are permissible for each "package".
This would be in-line with the packages offered which require the users to install MITM certs and/or use provider-based DNS servers in order to ensure tracking of all online traffic (in exchange for a "discount", of course).
You have a choice of ISPs?
I have one choice. I guess that's a choice.
You have two choices. Use the one ISP or not. /PaiLogic
I only have Comcast (coax) or Century Link (dsl). Basically there's no choice for me.
Yes, and if you are in the minority of people who don't this will incentivize every nerd in your area to create an ISP to offer unfiltered internet. But more importantly this doesn't depend on competition to make ISPs realize it's a bad idea either.
The technical hurdles and push back from the tech companies, media, and public are being extremely underrated. This whole scenario is far more complicated than the ISPs making a greedy choice one day.
Regardless I'd rather we regulate actual threats rather than hand-wavy hypothetical ones.
The technical hurdles and push back from the tech companies, media, and public are being extremely underrated. This whole scenario is far more complicated than the ISPs making a greedy choice one day.
Regardless I'd rather we regulate actual threats rather than hand-wavy hypothetical ones.
> this will incentivize every nerd in your area to create an ISP to offer unfiltered internet
Uh, how do you think these "nerds" are going to provide broadband? It's highly capital intensive to lay cabling so you're either going to piggyback off of someone like Comcast (who is going to charge you a lot) or you're going to piggyback off of someone's wireless which is also very expensive.
Uh, how do you think these "nerds" are going to provide broadband? It's highly capital intensive to lay cabling so you're either going to piggyback off of someone like Comcast (who is going to charge you a lot) or you're going to piggyback off of someone's wireless which is also very expensive.
> you're either going to piggyback off of someone like Comcast
That was the solution in Canada to generate competition, as the laying of cables was subsidized already, it was never a free market, as I'm sure the telecom industry in the US was hardly a free market... not sure why it's such a crazy idea.
Why not focus on creating the basis for competition instead of centrally managing the intricacies of business... which has historically further limited competition.
And if two companies engage in monopolistic practices, such as colluding to offer the same packages, that should be the domain of antitrust courts.
That was the solution in Canada to generate competition, as the laying of cables was subsidized already, it was never a free market, as I'm sure the telecom industry in the US was hardly a free market... not sure why it's such a crazy idea.
Why not focus on creating the basis for competition instead of centrally managing the intricacies of business... which has historically further limited competition.
And if two companies engage in monopolistic practices, such as colluding to offer the same packages, that should be the domain of antitrust courts.
> not sure why it's such a crazy idea.
It's not a _crazy_ idea (many have proposed such an idea) it's just not _possible_ in the United States in most areas.
It's not a _crazy_ idea (many have proposed such an idea) it's just not _possible_ in the United States in most areas.
> At the FCC's 25Mbps download/3Mbps upload broadband standard, there are no ISPs at all in 30 percent of developed census blocks and only one offering service that fast in 48 percent of the blocks. About 55 percent of census blocks have no 100Mbps/10Mbps providers, and only about 10 percent have multiple options at that speed. ... these numbers overstate the amount of competition, because an ISP might offer service to only part of a census block. The percentage of households with choice is thus even lower[1]
I guess technically 48% is a minority. Sure is an awful lot of people, though.
(Yes, if you drop all the way down to DSL speeds then most people do have more than one choice of provider. Ever tried to stream video at DSL speeds? Or shudder satellite?)
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
I guess technically 48% is a minority. Sure is an awful lot of people, though.
(Yes, if you drop all the way down to DSL speeds then most people do have more than one choice of provider. Ever tried to stream video at DSL speeds? Or shudder satellite?)
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
> But with the FCC now chaired by Republican Ajit Pai, the commission suggested in its annual broadband inquiry last month that Americans might not need a fast home Internet connection. Instead, mobile Internet via a smartphone, with speeds of just 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream, might be all people need, the FCC now suggests.
but given a new definition of "broadband", competition will increase significantly. Now you can not only choose between Comcast and DSL, but AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile/Sprint. See? Lots of competition!
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-...
but given a new definition of "broadband", competition will increase significantly. Now you can not only choose between Comcast and DSL, but AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile/Sprint. See? Lots of competition!
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/ajit-...
Plan fails to meet the existing standards? Just redefine the standards to fit your plan! It's so simple!
"Minority of people"? Most people are in a duopoly - the local telco, the local cableco. Not much in the way of competition.
> Everyone would flock to the ISPs who didn't do this.
I wish I had your optimism. I live in the damn Bay Area and I have two choices for ISPs:
1. Comcast Cable
2. Dial-up....if I get my phone provided by Comcast
Every placed I've lived at so far on the East and West coast, even in populated areas, I have usually just Comcast and, occasionally, a terrible DSL provider. That's it. It's quite common across the USA to have little or no choice in ISPs.
I wish I had your optimism. I live in the damn Bay Area and I have two choices for ISPs:
1. Comcast Cable
2. Dial-up....if I get my phone provided by Comcast
Every placed I've lived at so far on the East and West coast, even in populated areas, I have usually just Comcast and, occasionally, a terrible DSL provider. That's it. It's quite common across the USA to have little or no choice in ISPs.
> Everyone would flock to the ISPs who didn't do this
Alternative scenario is that the major ISPs for a given area would conveniently move to this pricing model around the same time. The best example of this happening in real life, in a similar industry, is how Verizon and AT&T cell carrier offerings often move in sync in term of pricing and features, and not always to the benefit of the consumer.
Alternative scenario is that the major ISPs for a given area would conveniently move to this pricing model around the same time. The best example of this happening in real life, in a similar industry, is how Verizon and AT&T cell carrier offerings often move in sync in term of pricing and features, and not always to the benefit of the consumer.
> a given area would conveniently move to this pricing model around the same time.
ISPs do this too. So does McDonalds and Burger King. And most other industries with oligopolies.
Just because pricing shifts in sync doesn't mean they will all take a major risk in changing towards TV-style packages (Social media package to get Facebook/Twitter or Streaming package to get Netflix/Amazon Go!) also in sync.
And it would have to be in sync. The only way it could work is if one takes a risk and customers don't immediately flock to the other one before they do it too. It's going to be incredibly unpopular and I highly doubt it will be synchronized without some illegal antitrust laws being violated before they realize it's not a good business decision.
Besides I'm not against the idea of having regulation if they do try it. I'm just not convinced anyone will, successfully.
ISPs do this too. So does McDonalds and Burger King. And most other industries with oligopolies.
Just because pricing shifts in sync doesn't mean they will all take a major risk in changing towards TV-style packages (Social media package to get Facebook/Twitter or Streaming package to get Netflix/Amazon Go!) also in sync.
And it would have to be in sync. The only way it could work is if one takes a risk and customers don't immediately flock to the other one before they do it too. It's going to be incredibly unpopular and I highly doubt it will be synchronized without some illegal antitrust laws being violated before they realize it's not a good business decision.
Besides I'm not against the idea of having regulation if they do try it. I'm just not convinced anyone will, successfully.
They will not change the end-user prices you pay. But they will charge the next netflix, or google, or github that comes around to get their website to you. That startup will never have a choice but to pay up, if they're interested in reaching their customers. They will be charged exactly what their per-customer profit is, minus one cent.
it isn't Netflix or Facebook or Google you should be worried about. it's the startup company trying to launch a competing service.
imagine having to pay your ISP extra money for the privilege of using a privacy-oriented search tool like Duck Duck Go over Google... and none of the money you pay goes towards Duck Duck Go.
imagine having to pay your ISP extra money for the privilege of using a privacy-oriented search tool like Duck Duck Go over Google... and none of the money you pay goes towards Duck Duck Go.
i'd be annoyed if i had to pay more for specific things, but i'll be livid if they can accomplish a form of censorship with the same
There was an article on techdirt which outlined the aftermath of killing NN in Portugal. The ISP started splitting net into several packages.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNGlrABUIAAr9RO.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNGlrABUIAAr9RO.jpg:large
In Europe it’s pretty common for phone providers to offer a package that includes access to a popular service that won’t count towards your data limit. Here’s another example from O2 UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/how-phones-changed-the...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/how-phones-changed-the...
That guy is getting too worked up over a small misattribution. Does he think the world works in a vacuum and other companies aren't taking note? Doesn't matter if it's phone or residential service, the fact that it's been enacted is absolutely egregious.
It's a pretty big misattribution. Throttling traffic makes a lot more sense on a cellular network.
What's the endgame to this? If we assume that corporate lobbyists eventually manage to buy enough entertainment industry democrats and cult of free market republicans to end net neutrality, then we'll switch from public internet highways to toll roads.
Except we’re already using toll roads. Instead of having free-ish municipal wifi, we’re already paying upwards of $100 per month to one of the cable/DSL duopolies in each city.
The question we should be asking ourselves is, does it have to be this way? What are the alternatives? I see two possible futures:
1) Work towards keeping the internet free and open through civil discourse, working at city, state and national levels to keep our elected officials honest in how they represent our interests.
2) Roll out the darknet - use onion routing, mesh nets, blockchains and other p2p technologies to effectively circumvent the internet, under the assumption that it’s been compromised.
There is a third option, which I think is the least likely but is all anyone seems to talk about. That’s the status quo option - the loss of net neutrality leading to a doubling or tripling of prices every decade or so, poorer a la carte service like with cable TV, maintaining the illusion of second class netizens as only consumers, and so on. But I think it’s not going to happen because technology doesn’t stand still. Look at what smartphones do today compared to even a decade ago. Technology will always.. find a way as they say.
So I don’t know about you, but I am deeply concerned that the loss of net neutrality will lead to option 2. I don’t think that corporations have the foresight to know the lengths that technology will go to to give people what they want. And I think we in the tech community only barely graze the surface of how far the intelligence community will go to track everyone as more and more people go dark. So what we are really talking about here is dystopia.
Maybe we need a new phrase for net neutrality. Net freedom? Net survival? I don’t know.
Except we’re already using toll roads. Instead of having free-ish municipal wifi, we’re already paying upwards of $100 per month to one of the cable/DSL duopolies in each city.
The question we should be asking ourselves is, does it have to be this way? What are the alternatives? I see two possible futures:
1) Work towards keeping the internet free and open through civil discourse, working at city, state and national levels to keep our elected officials honest in how they represent our interests.
2) Roll out the darknet - use onion routing, mesh nets, blockchains and other p2p technologies to effectively circumvent the internet, under the assumption that it’s been compromised.
There is a third option, which I think is the least likely but is all anyone seems to talk about. That’s the status quo option - the loss of net neutrality leading to a doubling or tripling of prices every decade or so, poorer a la carte service like with cable TV, maintaining the illusion of second class netizens as only consumers, and so on. But I think it’s not going to happen because technology doesn’t stand still. Look at what smartphones do today compared to even a decade ago. Technology will always.. find a way as they say.
So I don’t know about you, but I am deeply concerned that the loss of net neutrality will lead to option 2. I don’t think that corporations have the foresight to know the lengths that technology will go to to give people what they want. And I think we in the tech community only barely graze the surface of how far the intelligence community will go to track everyone as more and more people go dark. So what we are really talking about here is dystopia.
Maybe we need a new phrase for net neutrality. Net freedom? Net survival? I don’t know.
One of the positives I see here is that if the doomsday scenarios come to pass, it might actually enable competition to emerge.
There's certainly lots of artificial barriers to entry to competition, but Google managed to overcome these in a number of regions. Yet somehow Google Fiber was ultimately a failure. It's already been downsizing and put all further expansion plans on hold. So what happened? You could write a novel there, but the most basic point is that not enough people signed up. After 5 years of operation Google managed a whopping 68,715 television subscribers and 453,000 broadband subscribers. They found that in poorer neighborhoods people would, inexplicably, not even sign up for the free option! That factoid alone, which is really hard to even conceive of, I think emphasizes how much of a bubble we all, including Google, live in. They responded by sending out grants to digital literacy groups.
Nobody seems to really like Comcast/Time Warner, yet people apparently are not sufficiently incentivized to swap carriers when the possibility arises. If the doomsday scenarios do come to pass, this could hopefully change. Ultimately the power is with the people, but most are not yet willing to speak with their wallet. The time when things will finally change is when this happens, or when a new competitor (perhaps satellite/balloon internet) enters the picture.
There's certainly lots of artificial barriers to entry to competition, but Google managed to overcome these in a number of regions. Yet somehow Google Fiber was ultimately a failure. It's already been downsizing and put all further expansion plans on hold. So what happened? You could write a novel there, but the most basic point is that not enough people signed up. After 5 years of operation Google managed a whopping 68,715 television subscribers and 453,000 broadband subscribers. They found that in poorer neighborhoods people would, inexplicably, not even sign up for the free option! That factoid alone, which is really hard to even conceive of, I think emphasizes how much of a bubble we all, including Google, live in. They responded by sending out grants to digital literacy groups.
Nobody seems to really like Comcast/Time Warner, yet people apparently are not sufficiently incentivized to swap carriers when the possibility arises. If the doomsday scenarios do come to pass, this could hopefully change. Ultimately the power is with the people, but most are not yet willing to speak with their wallet. The time when things will finally change is when this happens, or when a new competitor (perhaps satellite/balloon internet) enters the picture.
As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this, I'm interested to see what will happen. We know the catastrophe hypothesis - ISPs will throttle content, customers will lose badly, innovation will plummet, etc. We also know people outside the tech field disagree with that and some seem to think the opposite could happen [1].
Honestly, I wish our societies would do way more experimental policy i.e. do away with policy like Net Neutrality on a smaller scale for instance, for some cities, counties or states and analyze, evaluate, and iterate. Test it, have the states and/or cities cooperate. Why not? Its like taking a step in gradient descent you're trying to find a local minimum and you have to try things to know what direction to move in.
Why does it seem almost all major policy in the US (and the world for that matter) is either let's force it down on everyone from a federal level or just let states decide but have no strategic plan for evaluation, test, and iteration going forward?
[1]. https://www.forbes.com/sites/washingtonbytes/2017/07/12/brin...
Honestly, I wish our societies would do way more experimental policy i.e. do away with policy like Net Neutrality on a smaller scale for instance, for some cities, counties or states and analyze, evaluate, and iterate. Test it, have the states and/or cities cooperate. Why not? Its like taking a step in gradient descent you're trying to find a local minimum and you have to try things to know what direction to move in.
Why does it seem almost all major policy in the US (and the world for that matter) is either let's force it down on everyone from a federal level or just let states decide but have no strategic plan for evaluation, test, and iteration going forward?
[1]. https://www.forbes.com/sites/washingtonbytes/2017/07/12/brin...
You are fooling yourself if you think that this won't affect you just because you don't live in the US.
> You are fooling yourself if you think that this won't affect you just because you don't live in the US.
You're right of course. Economies are chaotic dynamical systems. Precisely, what I meant was "there is a high probability that I will suffer less from immediate externalities associated with this policy than those living in the US.". Thus, my risk in the near term is lower, and my assumption is that if it doesn't work that in the long term my country won't copy the mistake. I could be completely wrong here as well, but anyway my main point was about policy methodology.
You're right of course. Economies are chaotic dynamical systems. Precisely, what I meant was "there is a high probability that I will suffer less from immediate externalities associated with this policy than those living in the US.". Thus, my risk in the near term is lower, and my assumption is that if it doesn't work that in the long term my country won't copy the mistake. I could be completely wrong here as well, but anyway my main point was about policy methodology.
>will not suffer any negative consequences of this
Sure, you won't initially have to pay higher prices for un-throttled traffic, but don't think for a second that there won't be knock-on effects on innovation and consumer choice that affect everyone on the internet.
Sure, you won't initially have to pay higher prices for un-throttled traffic, but don't think for a second that there won't be knock-on effects on innovation and consumer choice that affect everyone on the internet.
> As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this
I think you've under-considered the political aspect of centralized control of online media by incumbent players of a similar political bent in the US and the effect that has beyond the US, as well as the degree to which the money to be made in the US—and thus US market conditions—effect globally-available internet services.
I think you've under-considered the political aspect of centralized control of online media by incumbent players of a similar political bent in the US and the effect that has beyond the US, as well as the degree to which the money to be made in the US—and thus US market conditions—effect globally-available internet services.
are you a paid troll? what good comes from selective throttling?
Just as an example, not getting shit internet speeds around 7:30 when everyone turns on Netflix.
I remember my former large apartment building’s internet slowing to a crawl everyday around this time.
We need batteries for internet traffic the same way we need batteries for renewable energy...
Please don’t call people shills on HN. That’s very rude.
Selective throttling has worked great to make my t-mobile mobile data usage seamlessly switch between email, websites, and video on an “unlimited” plan. They even doe sample my videos to 480p to save bandwidth unless I vpn.
So there’s one non-trolly example of innovation that has made my life better that net neutrality would prevent.
I do not buy the doomsday scenarios. We started with AOL internet and moved to a freer internet over time, all without net neutrality.
Selective throttling has worked great to make my t-mobile mobile data usage seamlessly switch between email, websites, and video on an “unlimited” plan. They even doe sample my videos to 480p to save bandwidth unless I vpn.
So there’s one non-trolly example of innovation that has made my life better that net neutrality would prevent.
I do not buy the doomsday scenarios. We started with AOL internet and moved to a freer internet over time, all without net neutrality.
It seems that most folks are objecting on the lines of, “imagine you being charged more to access Netflix/FB/Steam”. But that is not how it is going to play out.
ISPs will start charging content providers to be on the fast lane. Now if you are a big co this both good and bad. Bad because you have an additional fee to reach your users. Good because it is a small fee to block out the small guys still in garages who could completely take you out.
This is not about increase in monthly internet bill. It is about kissing goodbye to the kind of innovations we have seen with neutral internet.
ISPs will start charging content providers to be on the fast lane. Now if you are a big co this both good and bad. Bad because you have an additional fee to reach your users. Good because it is a small fee to block out the small guys still in garages who could completely take you out.
This is not about increase in monthly internet bill. It is about kissing goodbye to the kind of innovations we have seen with neutral internet.
> ISPs will start charging content providers to be on the fast lane. Now if you are a big co this both good and bad. Bad because you have an additional fee to reach your users. Good because it is a small fee to block out the small guys still in garages who could completely take you out.
But also bad because the ISPs are also your competitors, and not only will you need to pass the additional costs on to your customers (making your service less competitive), but they'll also.b able to use the money to subsidize their competing service.
It does Google no good if startups that might compete against YouTube have a harder time, but Google is forced to subsidize competing ISP-operated streaming video services that already exist.
But also bad because the ISPs are also your competitors, and not only will you need to pass the additional costs on to your customers (making your service less competitive), but they'll also.b able to use the money to subsidize their competing service.
It does Google no good if startups that might compete against YouTube have a harder time, but Google is forced to subsidize competing ISP-operated streaming video services that already exist.
Question for HN...
As a non-american, what can I do to help you?
I'm from the UK, and I'm fairly worried that if this happens in the US, we'll be next.
I obviously don't have a US representative to call. Is there anything I can do to support the net neutrality fight?
(Will donate to EFF if I can think of nothing better)
As a non-american, what can I do to help you?
I'm from the UK, and I'm fairly worried that if this happens in the US, we'll be next.
I obviously don't have a US representative to call. Is there anything I can do to support the net neutrality fight?
(Will donate to EFF if I can think of nothing better)
Net Neutrality being repealed is a symptom of the telecoms owning all the infrastructure.
I'm not sure how things work in the UK, but if you guys have publicly-owned/municipal internet infrastructure, then I wouldn't worry about Net Neutrality.
If your infrastructure is owned by a few big companies like in the US, then my recommendation would be to start fighting for public control.
As far as helping people in the US...Net Neutrality is a loaded term now. We need to stop convincing people why Net Neutrality is a good idea and start convincing them why municipal broadband is a good idea. Maybe approach it from that angle.
I'm not sure how things work in the UK, but if you guys have publicly-owned/municipal internet infrastructure, then I wouldn't worry about Net Neutrality.
If your infrastructure is owned by a few big companies like in the US, then my recommendation would be to start fighting for public control.
As far as helping people in the US...Net Neutrality is a loaded term now. We need to stop convincing people why Net Neutrality is a good idea and start convincing them why municipal broadband is a good idea. Maybe approach it from that angle.
It's not publicly owned but the market is way less dysfunctional than in the US - aside from the few fiber & cable ISPs, a single phone line allows you to choose from a reasonably broad selection of ISPs.
the business culture also doesn't treat 'society itself' as some form of economic externality to be factored out of any potential equation..
> As a non-american, what can I do to help you?
Well the EU seem to have a decent (if slow moving) record on consumer protection (PSD, PSD2, roaming, data protection, etc.) so maybe lobby your MEP
> I'm from the UK
No, wait ...
Well the EU seem to have a decent (if slow moving) record on consumer protection (PSD, PSD2, roaming, data protection, etc.) so maybe lobby your MEP
> I'm from the UK
No, wait ...
Become famous and start shouting at people.
Ajit Pai and his cronies are an affront to humanity.
Disclaimer: Resistbot engineer
For the past 7 months a group of volunteers has been building and scaling out Resistbot. Almost 5 million faxes and 1 million e-mails have been sent on behalf more than 1.4 million citizens. Super easy and low friction to have your voice heard - simply text RESIST to 50409, or Resistbot on Messenger, Viber, Telegram, we will find your officials, and help you craft your letter. It's important to note that the more personalized your letter the more effective it'll become, so avoid using templatized letters.
For the past 7 months a group of volunteers has been building and scaling out Resistbot. Almost 5 million faxes and 1 million e-mails have been sent on behalf more than 1.4 million citizens. Super easy and low friction to have your voice heard - simply text RESIST to 50409, or Resistbot on Messenger, Viber, Telegram, we will find your officials, and help you craft your letter. It's important to note that the more personalized your letter the more effective it'll become, so avoid using templatized letters.
I think at this point that isn't enough though. We need people writing handwritten letters. People actually showing up to their representative's offices and talking to them directly. People showing up to where their representatives are and protesting against those who are for this.
Then, more importantly, actually voting people out of office who support this.
Then, more importantly, actually voting people out of office who support this.
You're absolutely not wrong. Resistbot has a team of volunteers who will write out, and deliver your letters. Of course, this is hard for us to scale to all of our almost 1.5 million users, but as we speak volunteers are targeting states and districts producing thousands of handwritten letters.
We're actively trying to drive for better engagement through targetted alerts regarding town halls in your area or helping you with voting ( https://resistbot.news/find-your-polling-place-620d1ea5faf7 ). Resistbot is more about helping get people engaged through low friction than be the alternative to showing up and having a face to face conversation with your officials.
We're actively trying to drive for better engagement through targetted alerts regarding town halls in your area or helping you with voting ( https://resistbot.news/find-your-polling-place-620d1ea5faf7 ). Resistbot is more about helping get people engaged through low friction than be the alternative to showing up and having a face to face conversation with your officials.
The ISPs are promising to honor net neutrality anyway. Yeah, right.
While this is disappointing news and I think it will take years before it gets better. My prediction is that this won't last.
When the mobile internet was first getting it's roots most of the American mobile providers offered unlimited bandwidth. Once the network become constrained and consumers started overloading the networks with streaming content the industry moved to tiered bandwidth plans. Years later a few companies (possibly t-mobile leading the charge?) saw this as an opportunity to win customers and started offering all you could eat again. In order to compete it seems most if not all of the providers have an unlimited plan now.
I think the same thing will happen with internet providers. At first you might think that it won't be possible because there are locations with zero provider competition. But I don't think competition is all that far away. Mobile internet is starting to get fast enough for many use cases and there's all kinds of innovation in internet delivery (balloons, planes, sat, etc.) Eventually someone is going to use unfiltered access as a competitive advantage and an opportunity to win customers. The industry will have to follow to compete.
Sadly this is going to get much worse before it gets better. But here's hoping!
When the mobile internet was first getting it's roots most of the American mobile providers offered unlimited bandwidth. Once the network become constrained and consumers started overloading the networks with streaming content the industry moved to tiered bandwidth plans. Years later a few companies (possibly t-mobile leading the charge?) saw this as an opportunity to win customers and started offering all you could eat again. In order to compete it seems most if not all of the providers have an unlimited plan now.
I think the same thing will happen with internet providers. At first you might think that it won't be possible because there are locations with zero provider competition. But I don't think competition is all that far away. Mobile internet is starting to get fast enough for many use cases and there's all kinds of innovation in internet delivery (balloons, planes, sat, etc.) Eventually someone is going to use unfiltered access as a competitive advantage and an opportunity to win customers. The industry will have to follow to compete.
Sadly this is going to get much worse before it gets better. But here's hoping!
I can change my cellphone provider, but there is only one ISP in my area. Competition doesn’t bring down prices when there is none.
What I was trying to say was that I believe competition will come as it won't be required to run expensive wire everywhere. Wireless, long distance wifi, satellites, balloons, etc. could bring competition to areas that traditionally haven't had it. That may or may not affect price, but it could affect internet filtering and throttling.
So you need to work on removing local and possibly state regulations/codes to make it cheaper for startup ISPs to build infrastructure.
You are assuming that regulations exist that have a noticeable impact on infrastructure cost, and that, if these regulations exist, removing them would actually be a good thing.
Hypothetically speaking, there is a "regulation" that prevents me from killing my neighbor and taking their home/land. And removing that regulation would technically make it cheaper for me to purchase said land. But I doubt many people would be on board with those sorts of changes to solve a cost problem.
Hypothetically speaking, there is a "regulation" that prevents me from killing my neighbor and taking their home/land. And removing that regulation would technically make it cheaper for me to purchase said land. But I doubt many people would be on board with those sorts of changes to solve a cost problem.
Note that there is a discussion about how to fight this plan here:
“Ask HN: How can we stop the plan to end net neutrality?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745057
“Ask HN: How can we stop the plan to end net neutrality?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745057
I feel so helpless as a Canadian. Is there anything I can do to help? As a web developer, this type of thing scares me to no end. We run a few SAAS products, have a site that makes pretty decent ad revenue, and host sites for customers. A large number of the website visitors for all services are from the USA. If that traffic disappears...
Is there anything meaningful a non-american can do to help?
Is there anything meaningful a non-american can do to help?
They will probably water it down to fast-lane/slow-lane where SaaS providers -- ie: you -- have the option to buy into the fast-lane.
As for affecting policy, that is a more interesting challenge.
As for affecting policy, that is a more interesting challenge.
I don't know, the Internet got on fine without those rules for a lot longer than we've had those rules, I feel like the gloom-and-doom over this is highly overstated.
The rules (both the current ones and the prior effort that was struck down) were adopted in responses to changes of behavior by ISPs from their historical, basically neutral, behavior which the FCC first tried and failed to address by lighter-touch, case-by-case action. The Comcast BitTorrent-blocking case is perhaps the best known of the early cases.
It's like saying why do we need Environment protection laws, the world survived for 13 billion years. Well, duh, 'things' have changed.
It's not overrated. Comcast and Verizon were already caught drastically slowing down Netflix and Youtube the last time around, before the net neutrality rules passed, until those companies "paid up".
Netflix and Youtube are probably safe from such actions now, but what about the much smaller services that try to compete with Youtube or Netflix, or podcast platforms, and so on?
Also this recently happened in Portugal, where technically there are some net neutrality rules now, but the current Commission canceled the previous Commission/Neelie Kroes' proposal to ban zero-rating. And since that meant they were allowed to do this sort of stuff, they went right ahead and did it:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNGlrABUIAAr9RO.jpg:large
This is way more likely to happen in the U.S., where internet companies have local monopolies.
Netflix and Youtube are probably safe from such actions now, but what about the much smaller services that try to compete with Youtube or Netflix, or podcast platforms, and so on?
Also this recently happened in Portugal, where technically there are some net neutrality rules now, but the current Commission canceled the previous Commission/Neelie Kroes' proposal to ban zero-rating. And since that meant they were allowed to do this sort of stuff, they went right ahead and did it:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNGlrABUIAAr9RO.jpg:large
This is way more likely to happen in the U.S., where internet companies have local monopolies.
>Comcast and Verizon were already caught drastically slowing down Netflix and Youtube
Actually no, all three incidents you mentioned (Netflix being slow on Comcast, Netflix being slow on Verizon, Youtube being slow on Comcast) were caused by peering issues. These are not net neutrality issues, contrary to Netflix's massive PR campaign to convince you otherwise.
The actual issue was Netflix opted not to peer with Comcast/Verizon, and instead funneled all their traffic through Cogent and Level 3.
Actually no, all three incidents you mentioned (Netflix being slow on Comcast, Netflix being slow on Verizon, Youtube being slow on Comcast) were caused by peering issues. These are not net neutrality issues, contrary to Netflix's massive PR campaign to convince you otherwise.
The actual issue was Netflix opted not to peer with Comcast/Verizon, and instead funneled all their traffic through Cogent and Level 3.
And Netflix refused to do peering the way everyone else has done peering on the Internet because they wanted to pressure ISPs into installing and maintaining OpenConnect boxes on their own dime. Netflix has been an incredibly poor actor in this whole saga.
That image is from a cell data provider, for paying a monthly fee for zero-rating those specific services. Not quite the same.
There wasn't money to be made for most of that time. Once there was and utilities discovered they wouldn't get much of it and started to mess about, rules were introduced.
No money to be made in say, 2005-2015?
The FCC adopted the “Network Freedoms” principles and initiated it's first case-by-case action regarding neutrality (the Madison River case over blocking access to Vonage which was settled with a agreement to stop doing that and pay a fine) in 2004-2005. It continued case-by-case enforcement of the principles until the 2010 D.C. Circuit decision in Comcast v. FCC stopped that.
The 2010 and 2015 Open Internet orders were a replacement for case-by-case enforcement.
The 2010 and 2015 Open Internet orders were a replacement for case-by-case enforcement.
Partially because ISPs were afraid that pushing their luck too much would result in rules like this coming in. Removing the rules gives a blessing for bad ISP behaviour in a way that mere absence of the rules did not.
And it's been continuing just fine with them now, right?
the times were extremely different, and the rules can't hurt
The times were three years ago.
The internet got on fine because there was a somewhat unspoken (but generally followed) rule that ISPs are neutral carriers. In the last 5 years or so, ISPs have started overstepping these bounds to attempt to squeeze profit out of their customers.
Net Neutrality is a response to that overstepping. If the ISPs had just continued making ridiculous amounts of profit without upsetting the balance this never would have happened.
Net Neutrality is a response to that overstepping. If the ISPs had just continued making ridiculous amounts of profit without upsetting the balance this never would have happened.
This may be an unpopular opinion around here, but...
When do we get to the point where we recognize that the internet is officially holding up massive portions of industry, commerce, education, and communication. And that it should maybe not be in the hands of a few conglomerates?
When do we get to the point where we recognize that the internet is officially holding up massive portions of industry, commerce, education, and communication. And that it should maybe not be in the hands of a few conglomerates?
Fuck Ajit Pai. Internet access (and healthcare) is like universal education, a basic human right. I hope a news organization finds some resignation- or imprisonment-worthy dirt on him... bribery, corruption or other such revolving-door impropriety.
The worst part of this is that the major ISPs are also cable companies, and every cable company is anti cord-cutting. With this, they can now shape your bandwidth to degrade netflix and hulu and slingbox to the point that cord cutting is impossible.
Or more likely they charge Netflix, Hulu etc exorbitant rates to peer with them or even carry their traffic.
This means Netflix has less money for content investment which helps their competition i.e. the same ISPs.
This means Netflix has less money for content investment which helps their competition i.e. the same ISPs.
Would it be possible to counteract net neutrality opposition by writing requirements into software licenses? For example "this program is only licensed to be used on neutral network providers as designated by the EFF"?
And this is how the American tech boom dies.
I blame the tech giants: Google, Apple, Amazon, Neflix, they should have done more to prevent this.
Looks like they don't care about it anymore now that they are the winners.
I blame the tech giants: Google, Apple, Amazon, Neflix, they should have done more to prevent this.
Looks like they don't care about it anymore now that they are the winners.
The way I see it if you edit some of the content passing though your service you're responsible for all of it.
If companies want to do away with net neutrality they also have to lose the legal protections that being a common carrier give you .... just wait until the family of someone who died in a terrorist act sues you because the terrorists used your ISP .... because you're responsible for ALL the content on your wires
If companies want to do away with net neutrality they also have to lose the legal protections that being a common carrier give you .... just wait until the family of someone who died in a terrorist act sues you because the terrorists used your ISP .... because you're responsible for ALL the content on your wires
This is an interesting point. I hope the EFF et al are on standby to start filing lawsuits once this starts happening to see if it's actually legally sound.
Where is the same uproar that happened in 2013 and stopped this B.S.?
Is it because net neutrality is now a good thing for the big tech encumbents? I mean this stifles innovation aka the little guys who’d they have to buy or compete with. Though overall it stifles innovation period!
Stupid Trump.. the worst..a baby ..an egomaniac ..an embarrassment.. I could go on and on...
Is it because net neutrality is now a good thing for the big tech encumbents? I mean this stifles innovation aka the little guys who’d they have to buy or compete with. Though overall it stifles innovation period!
Stupid Trump.. the worst..a baby ..an egomaniac ..an embarrassment.. I could go on and on...
> Where is the same uproar that happened in 2013 and stopped this B.S.?
The 2013 uproar was with a pro-neutrality majority on the FCC, and was a reaction to what critics perceived as a too-weak implementation of neutrality. While certain people (John Oliver, notably) acted like the FCC majority was anti-neutrality, this was basically a disagreement between the loud public critics and the FCC over methods where the goals were shared.
The scenario is very different now.
The 2013 uproar was with a pro-neutrality majority on the FCC, and was a reaction to what critics perceived as a too-weak implementation of neutrality. While certain people (John Oliver, notably) acted like the FCC majority was anti-neutrality, this was basically a disagreement between the loud public critics and the FCC over methods where the goals were shared.
The scenario is very different now.
This whole "net neutrality" thing is overblown and sadly the future of the Internet, a technical endeavor, has been swept up in the idiotic partisanship of the existing two party system. A system that instead of calm reasoning and logic employs slanted and selective "points" to further agendas.
The rules that are being repealed actually enshrined into case law a loophole that allows ISPs to edit which sites are visible as long as they inform customers they are doing so. This case law is now forever on the books even though the rules were temporary. [0]
This is really a battle between tech giants and telecommunication giants. Neither care about you.
[0]: http://reason.com/archives/2017/07/18/net-neutrality-support...
The rules that are being repealed actually enshrined into case law a loophole that allows ISPs to edit which sites are visible as long as they inform customers they are doing so. This case law is now forever on the books even though the rules were temporary. [0]
This is really a battle between tech giants and telecommunication giants. Neither care about you.
[0]: http://reason.com/archives/2017/07/18/net-neutrality-support...
Yes, but what the FCC declines to regulate the FTC might decide to regulate. Indeed, it sometimes has appeared that this division, reallocation, reassignment, of regulation has been a goal of the administration. That is, FTC type stuff belongs in the FTC, not the FCC. Maybe that will happen in this case.
The FTC has signaled pretty clearly that they will not enforce net neutrality; their statement on the FCC proposal[1] focuses almost exclusively on data privacy and security. Their mention of antitrust authority is maybe the one glimmer of hope:
> The staff comment noted that the FCC’s proceeding also would restore the FTC’s antitrust enforcement authority related to broadband providers. The FTC has worked to prevent unfair methods of competition since its inception more than a century ago, and the agency’s activities in Internet-related markets demonstrate its ability to preserve competition and promote innovation for the benefit of consumers.[2]
FTC Commissioner McSweeny, in a comment opposing that endorsed by the chairman, points out that the FTC may lack the authority to enforce net neutrality at all:
>...ISPs are free to change their terms of service regarding nondiscrimination on their networks without violating the FTC Act’s ban on deception so long as they provide clear notice of changes. If these disclosures are truthful, there is no deception for the FTC to police. [3]
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/advocacy_document... [2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/07/ftc-s... [3] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements...
> The staff comment noted that the FCC’s proceeding also would restore the FTC’s antitrust enforcement authority related to broadband providers. The FTC has worked to prevent unfair methods of competition since its inception more than a century ago, and the agency’s activities in Internet-related markets demonstrate its ability to preserve competition and promote innovation for the benefit of consumers.[2]
FTC Commissioner McSweeny, in a comment opposing that endorsed by the chairman, points out that the FTC may lack the authority to enforce net neutrality at all:
>...ISPs are free to change their terms of service regarding nondiscrimination on their networks without violating the FTC Act’s ban on deception so long as they provide clear notice of changes. If these disclosures are truthful, there is no deception for the FTC to police. [3]
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/advocacy_document... [2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/07/ftc-s... [3] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements...
I absolutely keep advocating for this, but that headline doesn't get as many clicks as "Trump is destroying the internet" unfortunately.
The FTC can regulate all areas business, the FCC can only regulate communication. If people stop turning this into a red vs blue issue we could actually get somewhere.
The FTC can regulate all areas business, the FCC can only regulate communication. If people stop turning this into a red vs blue issue we could actually get somewhere.
[deleted]
The scary thing will be when internet providers use the same tactics as free to play click games where they will ramp up your speed to a certain site if you pay extra for a temporary speed boost. These sort of pay per view tactics and extortion over something that we all take for granted now is what I'm afraid of. If not outright blocking of traffic for certain protocols such as bit-torrent or VPN access. Not that this is simple from a network management standpoint but with no restrictions in place one can only imagine the sort of devious tactics ISPs will use to extract extra revenue from their vassals.
Given the freedom to do so, some ISP is almost certain to try something along these lines. This gutting of regulations will open up a vast world of new monetization strategies, from selling speed packs, to "earning" speed by watching certain TV channels or even shows, to DNS monkey business, to "shoshkeles", to video pre-rolls, to "quick start" that throttles after a few minutes of high speed for a service like Netflix or MLB -- then prompts for an upgrade...each approach to be precisely wrought in the forge of the outrage marketplace (such outrage itself often mitigated by these same measures, and by coordinated control of national and local broadcast news and newspapers). An actual market response to customer-hostile strategies is of lesser concern since churn is not a risk in many areas.
I wrote the following comment on a net neutrality thread here about nine months ago, and some of the feedback was that it's unlikely, dystopian, a little hyperbolic:
"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!"
This is going to happen.
I wrote the following comment on a net neutrality thread here about nine months ago, and some of the feedback was that it's unlikely, dystopian, a little hyperbolic:
"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!"
This is going to happen.
So um... where is the link to the actual plan?
The FCC is waiting to release it Wednesday or Friday of this week, when a majority of Americans are busy on Holidays or shopping.
Correct, because as everyone knows, when Americans aren't busy shopping or on holiday, they are busy reading new FCC proposals.
I beleive it's part of the NPRM [0] issued in May.
[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-344614A1.p...
[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-344614A1.p...
I can't decide if titling it "Restoring Internet Freedom" is a perverse sense of humour or just blatant effrontery.
Certainly not humor. I've met with my republican legislators (well, met with staffers at one, called others) - their official position really is that Net Neutrality is BigGovernment(tm) and they need to get rid of it to protect the little guy.
The problem is that it is working. It drives me up a wall to try to explain this to nontechnical conservatives. They actually think that this is a good thing that will increase the amount of liberty they have in their lives.
The problem is that it is working. It drives me up a wall to try to explain this to nontechnical conservatives. They actually think that this is a good thing that will increase the amount of liberty they have in their lives.
I love how political posts (particularly about this corrupt, incompetent administration) get flagged on HN because they're not "on topic"
Well here you go, turns out politics affects real life, and even the tech industry.
Well here you go, turns out politics affects real life, and even the tech industry.
Many such comments get flagged not because they're political, but because they're inflammatory and lacking insight. Civil and substantive comments, which have at least a chance at inviting thoughtful discussion, are what we're after.
I've struggled with this, too, and disagree strongly with the flagging of political posts. As if the intersection of technology and politics is an annoying childish distraction beneath more clever and neutral discussions about Rust releases or (on today's first page and not for the first time) Getting Things Done.
I feel there's an INCREASE in the intersection between tech and politics, because tech has become more accessible both to the masses but also to the courts and politicians who write our destinies.
To wildly flag posts as political or (StackOverflow-style 'off-topic') is, arguably, morally wrong. I saw an introduction-type post by a new HN moderator a few months back who described his reasoning for reduction of political posts. Alas, the mission is in vain.
I feel there's an INCREASE in the intersection between tech and politics, because tech has become more accessible both to the masses but also to the courts and politicians who write our destinies.
To wildly flag posts as political or (StackOverflow-style 'off-topic') is, arguably, morally wrong. I saw an introduction-type post by a new HN moderator a few months back who described his reasoning for reduction of political posts. Alas, the mission is in vain.
And when they don't, a lukewarm middle-of-the-road comment will inevitably rise to the top, contributing nothing to the discussion other than perhaps a milquetoast industry anecdote.
Has the word 'milquetoast' recently increased in usage by several orders of magnitude? I seem to be seeing it a lot. I suppose words go viral like any other meme.
I've noted a few trends in namely in article headlines, and subsequently in commenters: foment being the most notable. It was like the word of the summer, replacing every instance where a more a familiar and easily parsable word would do. Now it's dissipated.
That's just a weak observation, though. It might be interesting to seek data points for the subject.
That's just a weak observation, though. It might be interesting to seek data points for the subject.
People learn new words and then begin to use them any time they can in an attempt to appear "more smarter".
Life in society and politics cannot be dissociated.
And often times "not on topic" is just an excuse to silence unpopular opinions. Many people consider the things they disagree with to be "political" while the things they agree with are just common sense.
In the end, especially on HN, it comes down to a discussion regarding money and who is allowed to make it and who is not. You'll find startups opposed because it hinders their opportunity to disrupt an established business, and you'll find entrenched business opposed to not making money as they see fit. There is nothing political about this discussion, it's just about money and which side of the coin you are trying to make it on.
What is not political about using public policy to control who gets to make money?
I meant the discussion on HN wont be. This is absolutely a political maneuver bought by lobbyist. People on HN will be upset that it will be more difficult to 'disrupt' and 'hack' on the established.
Being upset on the internet is itself a political maneuver that seeks to build support for your cause by spreading outrage. Deciding which links get shared and discussed is likewise a political act.
Except in this case all of the entrenched, large internet businesses (Google, Facebook, etc) are against ending net neutrality. You would think that since they have the deep pockets to pay ISPs, they would be the beneficiaries. So are they protesting this action simply out of principal? Or is there some other benefit they get from net neutrality that I'm not seeing?
They would have to pay the ISPs? It may well benefit them in the long run by increasing the size of their moats, but it will immediately affect their bottom lines.
> So are they protesting this action simply out of principal?
No they are protesting to protect their wallet as well. If suddenly ISP's feel you should have to pay extra to use Google, that will have an immediately and direct affect on Google's revenue. That is why they are protesting.
No they are protesting to protect their wallet as well. If suddenly ISP's feel you should have to pay extra to use Google, that will have an immediately and direct affect on Google's revenue. That is why they are protesting.
Imagine you were selling your rent controlled apartment on Airbnb and all the sudden the landlord wanted a fat cut. You'd be pissed...
See also: partisans complaining that they're "sick of politics" when presented with opposing opinions.
[deleted]
Here's a free tool to make it easier to contact your reps about this, made by the EFF I think:
https://democracy.io/#!/
https://democracy.io/#!/
[deleted]
I find it funny how they have completely shed the notion that the Internet is an "information superhighway". What they wish to do is akin to having a middleman that charges you a different toll to use the same piece of road depending on your destination. Going to Walmart? That'll be $5. Going to the bar? That'll be $50. Going to the strip bar? That'll be $500.
...going to that political rally? I'm afraid you can't pass sir.
I'd like to read your opinions on what this means for the evolution of the internet outside the US. Will the US internet become somehow separate from the world wide web ? Will it be harder or easier for international companies to have access to the US market ? and conversely will it be harder or easier for US based companies to have access to international customers?
Thank you for your insights.
Thank you for your insights.
If a service's servers are run in the US, "ISPs" could charge more to that service to pipe that data out of the country using their lines.
It would only affect international people if a company's servers only existed inside of the US, which exempts all large startups that have co-located servers.
It would affect all traffic of people in the US though since the ISP can charge services to pipe in to their lines and charge consumers to pipe out of their lines.
It would only affect international people if a company's servers only existed inside of the US, which exempts all large startups that have co-located servers.
It would affect all traffic of people in the US though since the ISP can charge services to pipe in to their lines and charge consumers to pipe out of their lines.
page 29 - https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-60A1_Rc...
85. Need for the No Paid Prioritization Rule. The Commission concluded in the Title II Order that “fast lanes” or “paid prioritization” practices “harm consumers, competition, and innovation, as well as create disincentives to promote broadband deployment.”189 The Commission adopted this ex ante flat ban on individual negotiations to address an apparently nonexistent problem. The ban on paid prioritization did not exist prior to the Title II Order and even then the record evidence confirmed that no such rule was needed since several large Internet service providers made it clear that that they did not engage in paid prioritization190 and had no plans to do so.191 We seek comment on the continued need for such a rule and our authority to retain it.
ex ante: based on forecasts rather than actual results.
85. Need for the No Paid Prioritization Rule. The Commission concluded in the Title II Order that “fast lanes” or “paid prioritization” practices “harm consumers, competition, and innovation, as well as create disincentives to promote broadband deployment.”189 The Commission adopted this ex ante flat ban on individual negotiations to address an apparently nonexistent problem. The ban on paid prioritization did not exist prior to the Title II Order and even then the record evidence confirmed that no such rule was needed since several large Internet service providers made it clear that that they did not engage in paid prioritization190 and had no plans to do so.191 We seek comment on the continued need for such a rule and our authority to retain it.
ex ante: based on forecasts rather than actual results.
Sadly, the bad effect of this won't be obvious to your average person. They'll still be able to access google, facebook etc...
My T-Mobile LTE connection has twice the bandwidth of Comcast, and decent ping. I can add uncapped tethering for $25. I’m honestly tempted to do just that.
And that’s just LTE, 5g will increase the speeds and capacity another order of magnitude. I think the whole cable monopoly will come to an end rather quickly.
And that’s just LTE, 5g will increase the speeds and capacity another order of magnitude. I think the whole cable monopoly will come to an end rather quickly.
I'm poking around the web about the feasibility of local wireless networks.
mesh networks or any kind of connectivity, enough to have basic web (mail, chat, irc, hn class websites).
anybody with knowledge is welcomed
ps: some articles recently popped up about Detroit hackerspaces doing just that. So far 3 small areas were built.
mesh networks or any kind of connectivity, enough to have basic web (mail, chat, irc, hn class websites).
anybody with knowledge is welcomed
ps: some articles recently popped up about Detroit hackerspaces doing just that. So far 3 small areas were built.
There would be no discussion about this if there were enough providers in the market, that would provide neutral access and market it as competitive advantage.
If net neutrality rules are thrown out, there should be more stimulus for small local ISPs - private or non-profit / municipal.
If net neutrality rules are thrown out, there should be more stimulus for small local ISPs - private or non-profit / municipal.
> If net neutrality rules are thrown out, there should be more stimulus for small local ISPs - private or non-profit / municipal.
If government bends to the telco desire on this, it's not going turn around and go against them by sponsoring competition for them.
If government bends to the telco desire on this, it's not going turn around and go against them by sponsoring competition for them.
News like this makes me think back to this[0] statement by jwz from the Netscape/Mozilla documentary "Code Rush"
[0]:https://youtu.be/4Q7FTjhvZ7Y?t=53m35s
[0]:https://youtu.be/4Q7FTjhvZ7Y?t=53m35s
If the ISPs go that route, they are creating a massive amount of regulatory debt in the same sense as programmers create technical debt. When a different party takes over the Whitehouse, they will be scrambling to manage all this regulatory debt.
Is there a link to the plan ?
https://www.battleforthenet.com/
This is a simple tool that calls you and puts you through to your legislators, one after another.
This is a simple tool that calls you and puts you through to your legislators, one after another.
[deleted]
Can someone educate me why someone is proposing such laws in the first place? What's the motive? What are they going to gain by bringing the proposed changes?
Because they have been bought and paid for by the existing ISP monopolies, who stand to gain enormously from the loss of net neutrality, at little to no extra effort on their part.
I see lot of downsides to that like for example in long run ISPs might end up offering their connection for free as Google/FB etc. are already providing their own ISP services (may be they started so because of this law!) => every large corporation move into ISP business offering their service for free instead of paying someone else!
I know Google/Facebook/etc would never do it, but it would be great if just for a day or two the big 3 would null route any traffic coming from D.C. in protest.
[deleted]
US voters need to have the option of calling a snap no-confidence referendum on all elected and appointed officials, such as Ajit Pai, Trump, William Jefferson, etc.
I wonder how many shares of Verizon Pai is sitting on.
Suppose the majority of ISPs was to move to a direction were some significant portion of internet services was "shaped" or throttled in some way that was imposing real disadvantages or inconveniences for the user: wouldn't that open a seizable opportunity for a new player to offer "real" unrestricted connectivity?
I believe it if someone walks us through the incentive structure here step by step, or explains the natural-monopoly nature of this market or something. But just by implying it or pretending this to obvious I'm not convinced.
I believe it if someone walks us through the incentive structure here step by step, or explains the natural-monopoly nature of this market or something. But just by implying it or pretending this to obvious I'm not convinced.
In the US at least, the ISP owns the infrastructure. Many ISPs also have monopolies over "last mile" copper and fiber connections because regulations were originally written assuming that different modes (off the air radio, cellular, etc) would be enough to allow competition.
i've been calling senators' offices from republican states left and right. the office worker for the senator in kansas informed me that repealing net neutrality "levels the playing field." i didn't understand his argument well enough to counter it, unfortunately...it just didn't make sense and I thought perhaps I was missing something.
You're not missing anything. It literally doesn't make any sense.
Its a talking point the ISPs have been using for the last few years, that they're "Pro-Net Neutrality, but want it enforced differently, legally." Its a propaganda tactic in that it is both factually incorrect, misleading, and is a response created to make the public lose interest in what sounds like a nuanced debate. ISPs arguments against net neutrality have all, repeatedly, fallen apart every time this has come to the political forefront; they simply do not have a leg to stand on in the US.
The only reason we're going through this again, is because Trump and the Republican Party put a stooge in charge of the FCC. This has, incredibly, somehow become a partisan issue with each political party taking explicit stances for or against NN.
Its a talking point the ISPs have been using for the last few years, that they're "Pro-Net Neutrality, but want it enforced differently, legally." Its a propaganda tactic in that it is both factually incorrect, misleading, and is a response created to make the public lose interest in what sounds like a nuanced debate. ISPs arguments against net neutrality have all, repeatedly, fallen apart every time this has come to the political forefront; they simply do not have a leg to stand on in the US.
The only reason we're going through this again, is because Trump and the Republican Party put a stooge in charge of the FCC. This has, incredibly, somehow become a partisan issue with each political party taking explicit stances for or against NN.
Wasn't this the reason we started the net neutrality bill in the first place, I thought this was pretty old news.
[deleted]
Doesn’t matter. The age of the internet boom is over anyways. It’s all about AI and robotics.
somehow I doubt that..it did not happen in these years...1991,1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996...notice that there is in fact a pattern...what will happen is that high speed bandwidth content might find other routes to our consumption
Well, maybe it will give more meaning to p2p techs.
This fight will not end until we enact legislation codifying net neutrality into law. This issue is to important for a notice to simply be overlooked in the federal register before a ruling is made.
I'm not American, so I don't know how this works, but would it not be a good idea to fight lobbying with lobbying?
Create a lobbying group, funded by a mix of regular people and businesses that push towards the ultimate aim of net neutrality being a part of national and international law.
I think a lot of people are sick of having to contact their representatives, or don't do it because it's a burden. I imagine many more people would happily throw a few dollars for someone to do that on their behalf, even if it was a recurring thing ($5 a month).
Create a lobbying group, funded by a mix of regular people and businesses that push towards the ultimate aim of net neutrality being a part of national and international law.
I think a lot of people are sick of having to contact their representatives, or don't do it because it's a burden. I imagine many more people would happily throw a few dollars for someone to do that on their behalf, even if it was a recurring thing ($5 a month).
To just equal Comcast's estimated lobbying budget of $20 million, it would require somewhere north of 300,000 people all contributing $5 a month. Given you'd also be fighting against Verizon, Google, Netflix, and any number of other companies, you'd probably need a member count close to a million to make anything resembling headway.
A million members making reoccurring contributions is beyond what is realistic, IMO.
A million members making reoccurring contributions is beyond what is realistic, IMO.
Google and Netflix are both pro-neutrality, not anti-; you'd be lobbying with rather than against them on this issue.
They are currently, but there's an argument that incumbent giants would actually benefit from the end of net neutrality, as it would disproportionately disadvantage startups. So in the long term, don't bet on them staying on the same side.
Neutrality advantages incumbents compared to startups on the content side, but not as much as it advantages ISPs over incumbent non-ISP content providers.
There is not much that has driven Google over the past decade as much as preventing market power at other levels of the stack squeezing them out (it's why they've invested heavily in preventing anyone else from controlling either mobile OS or desktop browser market, and even taken on Windows in the consumer space with ChromeOS.)
There is not much that has driven Google over the past decade as much as preventing market power at other levels of the stack squeezing them out (it's why they've invested heavily in preventing anyone else from controlling either mobile OS or desktop browser market, and even taken on Windows in the consumer space with ChromeOS.)
I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point. In fact, IIRC, they were explicitly questioned by some news outlets with the recent kerfluffel and their responses boiled down to "it will all be OK".
Frankly, given their market positions, Google and Netflix only stand to win with anti-NN.
Google's Public Policy blog [0] seems to back up the no comment stance - their last comment is from 2010, dating back to the orignal implementations. Wired's research [1] appears to back this up as well.
And here's a Verge article on Netflix' opinion [2] that boils down to "it won't matter to us".
Verbatum: Even if the formal framework gets weakened, we don’t see a big risk actualizing, because consumers know they’re entitled to getting all of the web services.
[0] https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutr... [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neut...
Frankly, given their market positions, Google and Netflix only stand to win with anti-NN.
Google's Public Policy blog [0] seems to back up the no comment stance - their last comment is from 2010, dating back to the orignal implementations. Wired's research [1] appears to back this up as well.
And here's a Verge article on Netflix' opinion [2] that boils down to "it won't matter to us".
Verbatum: Even if the formal framework gets weakened, we don’t see a big risk actualizing, because consumers know they’re entitled to getting all of the web services.
[0] https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutr... [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neut...
> I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point
More recent coverage than your March article on Netflix: http://fortune.com/2017/06/15/netflix-net-neutrality-fcc/
And Google's current (and thus, more recent than your 2015 article) action page on neutrality:
https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.h...
More recent coverage than your March article on Netflix: http://fortune.com/2017/06/15/netflix-net-neutrality-fcc/
And Google's current (and thus, more recent than your 2015 article) action page on neutrality:
https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.h...
Note the lack of two companies on the "day of action" site Netflix supposedly supported?
https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/
Still, good to see they're making statements in favor of NN. Action would be better.
https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/
Still, good to see they're making statements in favor of NN. Action would be better.
They are, until it benefits them not to be.
It'll never benefit the consumer to go this way. Google and Netflix are allies of convenience at best.
It'll never benefit the consumer to go this way. Google and Netflix are allies of convenience at best.
> I think a lot of people are sick of having to contact their representatives, or don't do it because it's a burden.
Contacting representatives is not what the lobbyists are selling. Neither is taking them to dinner and buying them a filet mignon. What they're selling over those dinners is future donations to their election campaign and future cushy jobs after they leave the bureaucracy and go into industry. A private PAC can't offer that.
Some of these groups (like the NRA or AARP) can't offer as much in donations or future jobs, but they can offer a large group of voters, which has similar value to a donation to a campaign.
The belief that what's needed is a person to talk to your representatives is naive.
Contacting representatives is not what the lobbyists are selling. Neither is taking them to dinner and buying them a filet mignon. What they're selling over those dinners is future donations to their election campaign and future cushy jobs after they leave the bureaucracy and go into industry. A private PAC can't offer that.
Some of these groups (like the NRA or AARP) can't offer as much in donations or future jobs, but they can offer a large group of voters, which has similar value to a donation to a campaign.
The belief that what's needed is a person to talk to your representatives is naive.
This is why I suggested donating to a "lobbying group" that is pro net neutrality, and is run by figure-heads that would always side with net neutrality.
If Reddit is anything to go by, a lot of people are being asked to contact their representatives. For a number of people, it won't be their first time contacting a rep on this very issue, so it's clearly going to be an ongoing battle.
If sponsorship is possible, not just from big companies but smaller ones that ultimately rely on a free internet, I think $20m is just about doable.
If Reddit is anything to go by, a lot of people are being asked to contact their representatives. For a number of people, it won't be their first time contacting a rep on this very issue, so it's clearly going to be an ongoing battle.
If sponsorship is possible, not just from big companies but smaller ones that ultimately rely on a free internet, I think $20m is just about doable.
The problem with lobbying is that the people who can directly make money off their proposals have much bigger incentives to spend money on it than people who don't. So the telecoms will always have more money for it than consumers. Same for the medical system. Pharmaceutical have a lot more incentive to spend than people who want to save money.
Are there any benefits to ending net neutrality?
Thanks for giving a push to alternate networks.
I hope those of you against this are also against Google and Apple being allowed to ban apps like Gab from their store.
I'd love to know what the Trump supporters on Reddit and 4Chan think of this move under the Trump administration?
So long Free Speech.
We screwed up by not making this a campaign issue.
That would imply that we had a choice in what would be campaign issues. I'd like to think that we do, but my cynicism grows stronger everyday.
We did. And we lost it. It was obvious this would come under attack but we didn't mobilize when it mattered.
Yes, you could argue that one candidate didn't know how to use email and the other couldn't operate her printer, but it was us who failed to make it an issue.
Yes, you could argue that one candidate didn't know how to use email and the other couldn't operate her printer, but it was us who failed to make it an issue.
But does it though? I don't recall this being a common occurrence before NN. In reality this sounds more like FUD. It's literally a hypothetical.
"Internet providers will be able to do X!"
Okay, so who can already choose what sites you see? Well there's your browser, Google could (and does) block sites, so could (and does) Microsoft. How do you find out about content on the internet? ISPs? No you probably find a link on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or by searching. Well those are all censored, they can literally decide what you do and don't see. Google's own CEO has even been quoted in video saying they're fine doing that.
What about at the infrastructure level? There are in reality two vectors to getting software on the most popular devices on the planet: phones. You've got to deal with Apple's store or Google's store. There're plenty of examples of apps being blocked for political reasons from both of these. They can literally choose what you're allowed to see, what software you're allowed to install ON A COMPUTER THAT YOU OWN. Google just killed a website, The Daily Stormer, by seizing the DNS, and any registrar can do this. Whatever you think about that website, we do have a fundamental freedom of speech in the US, where this site and Google operates, but that doesn't stop Google from just arbitrarily killing a site they disagree with. How about payment processors? There aren't many, they're mostly big companies, and they forbid you from using their systems to do certain things, most of which aren't criminal. They literally decide what you can and can't do at a business level, which indirectly impacts customers.
I could go with hundreds more examples just like this.
These things exist, they're abused, these aren't FUD, and the tech media turns a blind eye to much of it. Every single day.
This regulation is absurdly dubious in its value. The most common FUD are "but your ISP will be able to block what you see!" Maybe I want them to. Some person gets infected with malware, maybe I want that person's access to be restricted. Maybe I don't want to even be able to visit a machine known to be compromised. Google already does this in Chrome, to the benefit of most users.
How about "but they can shut down a competing service." No, no they can't. The citations where this has happened can mostly be explained by QoS, which is necessary to keep a network functioning properly, and is effectively illegal by NN. We have laws against anti-competitive behavior like this. Why do we need yet another? Those laws work. And if they are insufficient, maybe Congress should do something about it, and while they're at it deal with all those other examples of companies doing much worse.
At the end of the day, I'm so unconvinced that this is actually a concern, that I've started totally ignoring discussions about Net Neutrality. Is HN really so devoid of people who have ever operated a large network or dealt with issues of scale? I would expect that not to be the case, but requiring ISPs to overprovision and to bear the burden of infrastructural growth at whatever demand their customers make seems unreasonable at the very best. Don't cite AT&T and Comcast at me, fuck them, I don't care if they are shady shitty companies. What about new ISPs? What about the hundreds of small ISPs destroyed by NN, the ones you don't hear non-stop complaining about? What about the ISPs that can't exist because without hundreds of millions of dollars they can't afford to achieve a level of quality customers expect from hundred billion dollar ISP monopolies.
I want competition. I don't want my world to be ruled forever by Google, Apple, Comcast, and AT&T. I sure as hell don't want shitty rules in place that effectively ensure these largely unethical borderline sociopathic companies remain in their positions. I really don't want Net Neutrality, because it doesn't do what it says and fundamentally harms the internet in a way only hypothetically compared to the real evils these companies impart on us EVERY SINGLE DAY.
When you end all the abusive bullshit already happening on the internet, end the censorship, and break up these monopolies, when you put your effort into fixing problems we actually have rather than fighting fictional dragons, then and only then will I be again open to discussions about this topic.
"Internet providers will be able to do X!"
Okay, so who can already choose what sites you see? Well there's your browser, Google could (and does) block sites, so could (and does) Microsoft. How do you find out about content on the internet? ISPs? No you probably find a link on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or by searching. Well those are all censored, they can literally decide what you do and don't see. Google's own CEO has even been quoted in video saying they're fine doing that.
What about at the infrastructure level? There are in reality two vectors to getting software on the most popular devices on the planet: phones. You've got to deal with Apple's store or Google's store. There're plenty of examples of apps being blocked for political reasons from both of these. They can literally choose what you're allowed to see, what software you're allowed to install ON A COMPUTER THAT YOU OWN. Google just killed a website, The Daily Stormer, by seizing the DNS, and any registrar can do this. Whatever you think about that website, we do have a fundamental freedom of speech in the US, where this site and Google operates, but that doesn't stop Google from just arbitrarily killing a site they disagree with. How about payment processors? There aren't many, they're mostly big companies, and they forbid you from using their systems to do certain things, most of which aren't criminal. They literally decide what you can and can't do at a business level, which indirectly impacts customers.
I could go with hundreds more examples just like this.
These things exist, they're abused, these aren't FUD, and the tech media turns a blind eye to much of it. Every single day.
This regulation is absurdly dubious in its value. The most common FUD are "but your ISP will be able to block what you see!" Maybe I want them to. Some person gets infected with malware, maybe I want that person's access to be restricted. Maybe I don't want to even be able to visit a machine known to be compromised. Google already does this in Chrome, to the benefit of most users.
How about "but they can shut down a competing service." No, no they can't. The citations where this has happened can mostly be explained by QoS, which is necessary to keep a network functioning properly, and is effectively illegal by NN. We have laws against anti-competitive behavior like this. Why do we need yet another? Those laws work. And if they are insufficient, maybe Congress should do something about it, and while they're at it deal with all those other examples of companies doing much worse.
At the end of the day, I'm so unconvinced that this is actually a concern, that I've started totally ignoring discussions about Net Neutrality. Is HN really so devoid of people who have ever operated a large network or dealt with issues of scale? I would expect that not to be the case, but requiring ISPs to overprovision and to bear the burden of infrastructural growth at whatever demand their customers make seems unreasonable at the very best. Don't cite AT&T and Comcast at me, fuck them, I don't care if they are shady shitty companies. What about new ISPs? What about the hundreds of small ISPs destroyed by NN, the ones you don't hear non-stop complaining about? What about the ISPs that can't exist because without hundreds of millions of dollars they can't afford to achieve a level of quality customers expect from hundred billion dollar ISP monopolies.
I want competition. I don't want my world to be ruled forever by Google, Apple, Comcast, and AT&T. I sure as hell don't want shitty rules in place that effectively ensure these largely unethical borderline sociopathic companies remain in their positions. I really don't want Net Neutrality, because it doesn't do what it says and fundamentally harms the internet in a way only hypothetically compared to the real evils these companies impart on us EVERY SINGLE DAY.
When you end all the abusive bullshit already happening on the internet, end the censorship, and break up these monopolies, when you put your effort into fixing problems we actually have rather than fighting fictional dragons, then and only then will I be again open to discussions about this topic.
"Net neutrality" is one of the most Orwellian terms in modern usage.
It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst.
Who was being harmed in the first 20 years of the internet without these regulations? Whose lives have been made better? Compared to what?
Net neutrality advocates are utterly unable to give convincing answers to these questions.
It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst.
Who was being harmed in the first 20 years of the internet without these regulations? Whose lives have been made better? Compared to what?
Net neutrality advocates are utterly unable to give convincing answers to these questions.
Net neutrality means that ISPs are required to be neutral to Internet-based services. You might disagree with if this regulation is required, but the term itself is not "Orwellian."
People who will be harmed is anyone who doesn't want their media coming from sources controlled by large corporations such as TimeWarner, Facebook, News Corp., etc. Such conglomerates will get special deals that make it harder for more "alternate" media sources to compete.
People who will be harmed is anyone who doesn't want their media coming from sources controlled by large corporations such as TimeWarner, Facebook, News Corp., etc. Such conglomerates will get special deals that make it harder for more "alternate" media sources to compete.
OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.
In what way are customers "held hostage"?
If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them.
If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different?
This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to another internet provider.
The appeal to paternalistic regulatory bodies to restrict the choices of other consumers (who may want to purchase cheaper, more restricted internet plans) is creepy.
If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them.
If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different?
This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to another internet provider.
The appeal to paternalistic regulatory bodies to restrict the choices of other consumers (who may want to purchase cheaper, more restricted internet plans) is creepy.
> Switch to another internet provider.
That's not an option for most Americans, and part of the reason why net neutrality is necessary.
That's not an option for most Americans, and part of the reason why net neutrality is necessary.
This is plainly false.
Most households have multiple internet providers.
Most households have multiple internet providers.
In Ontario, there are three major internet providers: Rogers, Bell, and Telus. For the longest time, their plans (all of them) had bandwidth caps, something that would be unheard of in the United States. They used to be extremely ungenerous, about 100 GB a month or worse. (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/04/how-internet-use...)
The other internet providers, Bell and Telus, had an opportunity to distinguish themselves here.
But they didn’t. They had bandwidth caps too. There was a smaller ISP (TekSavvy) which offered 300GB bandwidth caps (still ridiculous by US standards), which they could offer as a result of a law requiring Canadian ISPs to resell infrastructure to smaller providers (meaning TekSavvy has access to all of Rogers’ customer base). Around 2015, Rogers started introducing plans with higher bandwidth caps, and bandwidth restrictions have relaxed (but they still exist).
It took pretty much a decade for innovation-stifling bandwidth restrictions to stop being a thing in Ontario, and arguably only because of a law (i.e. government interference) letting smaller ISPs use big ISP infrastructure.
The other internet providers, Bell and Telus, had an opportunity to distinguish themselves here.
But they didn’t. They had bandwidth caps too. There was a smaller ISP (TekSavvy) which offered 300GB bandwidth caps (still ridiculous by US standards), which they could offer as a result of a law requiring Canadian ISPs to resell infrastructure to smaller providers (meaning TekSavvy has access to all of Rogers’ customer base). Around 2015, Rogers started introducing plans with higher bandwidth caps, and bandwidth restrictions have relaxed (but they still exist).
It took pretty much a decade for innovation-stifling bandwidth restrictions to stop being a thing in Ontario, and arguably only because of a law (i.e. government interference) letting smaller ISPs use big ISP infrastructure.
100 GB/month doesn't tell us much if you don't include a date for context (the Ars article is from 2011).
I think that if you are in a market with caps, and you go offer a subscription without a cap, you end up with a bunch of subscribers who will saturate their line. So it makes more sense to slowly compete on increasing the caps, quite like we see in the mobile industry as well. Plus, network capacity goes up (hence I said date context matters).
Personally, I got nothing against caps, as long they're clear and the subscriber is informed about it beforehand. A FUP has a cap as well. If you download 24/7/365.25 on broadband then many ISPs will complain. Not all, but many will. Although nowadays less than say in the 90s or 00s.
I think that if you are in a market with caps, and you go offer a subscription without a cap, you end up with a bunch of subscribers who will saturate their line. So it makes more sense to slowly compete on increasing the caps, quite like we see in the mobile industry as well. Plus, network capacity goes up (hence I said date context matters).
Personally, I got nothing against caps, as long they're clear and the subscriber is informed about it beforehand. A FUP has a cap as well. If you download 24/7/365.25 on broadband then many ISPs will complain. Not all, but many will. Although nowadays less than say in the 90s or 00s.
Phew! That's so true. Before Google Fiber came to my apartment complex, I only had Time Warner if I wanted broadband internet. The option aside from that was 56k or satellite. So many options.
In Chicago, I had Comcast and AT&T DSL. Neither was very fast, and Comcast was really expensive (something like $90+ if I wanted decent speeds). Again, very fortunate of me. I chose to go with AT&T because I was a poor college student. Trying to watch Youtube on that was a complete nightmare. I was also very unlucky if one of my online courses required watching an instructional video or a lecture.
So many options! Expensive and slow internet vs. cheap and really crappy internet. Both with data caps, awful customer service, constant connection issues, expensive+aging equipment--gee wiz we're so lucky.
In Chicago, I had Comcast and AT&T DSL. Neither was very fast, and Comcast was really expensive (something like $90+ if I wanted decent speeds). Again, very fortunate of me. I chose to go with AT&T because I was a poor college student. Trying to watch Youtube on that was a complete nightmare. I was also very unlucky if one of my online courses required watching an instructional video or a lecture.
So many options! Expensive and slow internet vs. cheap and really crappy internet. Both with data caps, awful customer service, constant connection issues, expensive+aging equipment--gee wiz we're so lucky.
I'm wondering where you are getting your information from. Particularly, when I search my own zip on ISP search sites, I get anywhere from 4-6 providers even though I only have 2 options. There's possibly a discrepancy between what's reported and what customers actually have.
From the ISP lobbyist she works for?
Let me guess, you live in some mecca of ISP options like the Valley? Because the rest of us don't. I live in a major tech city of 1mil+ pop, to the point that a quarter of the city has Google Fiber, and the only ISP options my neighborhood has (12 miles from downtown and in a vastly tech area) is 1 Cable provider, 1 DSL provider, and Directv.
That means my speed options are 300mbps, 3, or 1.5 with 400ms latency.
Such great "options" if my cable provider decides to upcharge me now.
That means my speed options are 300mbps, 3, or 1.5 with 400ms latency.
Such great "options" if my cable provider decides to upcharge me now.
> live in some mecca of ISP options like the Valley
Oh man, I wish. I live in the heart of SF and the only option I have is Comcast. I suppose I could try Monkeybrains, but I'd have to get landlord approval and that may be an issue.
The point is, in the US, even in the tech capital of the world, we are still encumbered by private ownership of internet infrastructure.
It's fucking pathetic.
To be clear, I'm a supporter of Net Neutrality, but more so a more built-out municipal fiber system across the US.
Oh man, I wish. I live in the heart of SF and the only option I have is Comcast. I suppose I could try Monkeybrains, but I'd have to get landlord approval and that may be an issue.
The point is, in the US, even in the tech capital of the world, we are still encumbered by private ownership of internet infrastructure.
It's fucking pathetic.
To be clear, I'm a supporter of Net Neutrality, but more so a more built-out municipal fiber system across the US.
Yeah. It's an absolute slap in the face to be told "Just pick another provider, you have 2 alternatives!" when those alternatives are 10x slower and my main source is already below the fastest in the city (gig). It's like telling me to turn in my cell phone for a rotary land line or to just suck it up.
Internet should've been made a utility a decade ago.
Internet should've been made a utility a decade ago.
I highly doubt any Internet plan will list all the websites they won't throttle and it's unreasonable to expect them to do so.
Would you be happy if your electricity provider was free to block access to, I don't know, refrigerators?
Would you be happy if your electricity provider was free to block access to, I don't know, refrigerators?
There IS no other provider. At least not for me. And pretty much everyone I know.
We wouldn't need net neutrality if the ISPs didn't have a monopoly.
We wouldn't need net neutrality if the ISPs didn't have a monopoly.
[deleted]
Customers are “held hostage” because often there is only one choice of ISP. They may not offer throttling.
How can you sue your ISP if there is a clause that you must go through binding arbitration instead?
How can you switch to another internet provider if AT&T is the only game in town?
How can you sue your ISP if there is a clause that you must go through binding arbitration instead?
How can you switch to another internet provider if AT&T is the only game in town?
[deleted]
A huge portion of the country does not have access to multiple ISPs or has access to only 2. Capitalism doesn't work without competition. It's also naive to assume everyone can just afford hiring lawyers.
I live in New York City on the island of Manhattan. I have 1 (one) ISP choice. Would you suggest I switch to cellular?
> Who was being harmed in the first 20 years of the internet without these regulations?
It's not that these regulations didn't exist, it's that they hadn't been formalized as regulations. Net neutrality is how the Internet has worked for over 30 years, and is what made it such a success.
It's not that these regulations didn't exist, it's that they hadn't been formalized as regulations. Net neutrality is how the Internet has worked for over 30 years, and is what made it such a success.
Does your ISP have the ability to censor the internet for you?
Do you watch Netflix? If you don't, that's ok, because most consumers do use it or a competing service. Internet Companies absolutely did try to charge Netflix extra, and in some cases throttled them. This was well documented.
I don't know if you're a corporate shill or just genuinely lack the ability to comprehend how bad this is. Spectrum, Verizon and their ilk have absolutely shown zero regard for consumers and there is no reason to believe that pattern of behavior is going to change anytime soon. If they can screw over their consumers for a dollar, they will, just like they have continually done so in the past.
Do you watch Netflix? If you don't, that's ok, because most consumers do use it or a competing service. Internet Companies absolutely did try to charge Netflix extra, and in some cases throttled them. This was well documented.
I don't know if you're a corporate shill or just genuinely lack the ability to comprehend how bad this is. Spectrum, Verizon and their ilk have absolutely shown zero regard for consumers and there is no reason to believe that pattern of behavior is going to change anytime soon. If they can screw over their consumers for a dollar, they will, just like they have continually done so in the past.
Netflix is a special case, because it was generating some unbelievable fraction of the total internet traffic in the US for a few hours each evening. The internet was not designed for such large amounts of traffic in such a short time all coming from one source. Almost all cases of Netflix throttling or blocking turned out to be due to legitimate traffic management of overloaded links.
I believe most of the cases where Netflix ended up paying were also to deal with the effect of the large traffic on peering arrangements. You have networks that have a peering arrangement where neither charges the other for transit for the other's traffic, relying on the fact that each is sending on average about the same amount through the other, so it all balances out. Netflix traffic greatly upset that balance.
I'm not sure that even now the Internet can really handle a Netflix-like service well. Netflix at least partly addressed the problem by putting their content in a CDN, often making arrangements to host their machines right in ISP data centers, so that the Netflix load would be coming from all over instead of just a small region.
That can work for Netflix, and the next few things that get big, but how far can that go? We can't have everyone that gets big putting machines in ISP data centers, can we?
I believe most of the cases where Netflix ended up paying were also to deal with the effect of the large traffic on peering arrangements. You have networks that have a peering arrangement where neither charges the other for transit for the other's traffic, relying on the fact that each is sending on average about the same amount through the other, so it all balances out. Netflix traffic greatly upset that balance.
I'm not sure that even now the Internet can really handle a Netflix-like service well. Netflix at least partly addressed the problem by putting their content in a CDN, often making arrangements to host their machines right in ISP data centers, so that the Netflix load would be coming from all over instead of just a small region.
That can work for Netflix, and the next few things that get big, but how far can that go? We can't have everyone that gets big putting machines in ISP data centers, can we?
That is perhaps the single greatest amount of bullshit in one paragraph that I have ever read in my entire life.
Are you referring to the topic in this 2014 article refuting your claim about "internet companies" trying to charge Netflix extra? When in fact Netflix's own ISP, who Netflix rightly pays, was actually doing critically important network management.
I am attentive to Net Neutrality arguments because I care about an open internet, but I have yet to hear one that doesn't betray a total lack of understanding of how the internet actually works; i.e., peering. Perhaps counterintuitively, the FCC is right on the money about rolling back Obama's populist regulations.
I am attentive to Net Neutrality arguments because I care about an open internet, but I have yet to hear one that doesn't betray a total lack of understanding of how the internet actually works; i.e., peering. Perhaps counterintuitively, the FCC is right on the money about rolling back Obama's populist regulations.
Forgot to actually post the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2014/11/25/how-netf...
It cuts both ways. What's to stop Google, Amazon, Netflix and Facebook from blocking all traffic from AT&T entirely? How long would Comcast or AT&T survive without access to the top 50 sites?
Bingo. More competition, more possibilities.
> first 20 years of the internet without these regulations
Those regulations existed for most of that time because ISPs then were dial-up over phone-lines, and the phone-lines were under Title II, so de-facto all internet was.
Those regulations existed for most of that time because ISPs then were dial-up over phone-lines, and the phone-lines were under Title II, so de-facto all internet was.
> "Net neutrality" is one of the most Orwellian terms in modern usage.
> It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies
It was coined in academia in 2003; the concern was raised (without the term) at least as early as 1994, well before most of the “large tech companies” embracing it existed.
> to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst.
No, while it was largely an abstract concern when the issue was raised in the 90s, and even perhaps when the term was coined in 2003; by the time in 2004 that the FCC defined it's “Network Freedom” principles concrete threats were visible, and for years before the first effort to adopt regulation (starting shortly after the Network Freedom principles) the FCC responded to numerous concrete problems with case-by-case actions, which provided the direct experience with real, existing problems on which the regulatory efforts of the two Open Internet orders was based. The idea that the regulation efforts were preemptive ignores the well-documented history f the issue.
> It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies
It was coined in academia in 2003; the concern was raised (without the term) at least as early as 1994, well before most of the “large tech companies” embracing it existed.
> to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst.
No, while it was largely an abstract concern when the issue was raised in the 90s, and even perhaps when the term was coined in 2003; by the time in 2004 that the FCC defined it's “Network Freedom” principles concrete threats were visible, and for years before the first effort to adopt regulation (starting shortly after the Network Freedom principles) the FCC responded to numerous concrete problems with case-by-case actions, which provided the direct experience with real, existing problems on which the regulatory efforts of the two Open Internet orders was based. The idea that the regulation efforts were preemptive ignores the well-documented history f the issue.
Both Verizon and AT&T executives publicly stated that they wanted to charge sites like Google and Yahoo in order for the ISPs customers to be allowed to access those sites.
Stopping them from doing that was one of the reasons that first Congress and then the FCC took up the net neutrality issue about 10 years ago.
Stopping them from doing that was one of the reasons that first Congress and then the FCC took up the net neutrality issue about 10 years ago.
I don't watch TV, cable or NFLX. I read newspapers, nerd papers, old Project Gutenberg philosophy books and watch YouTube lectures or instrumental music. Amazon is great for my never shopping habit. Hobbyist sites are better than magazines used to be for user product reviews.
But I never enjoyed speaking with people who watch TV. That's why I found the Ultrix and the Net in the 1980's back at Harvard. I live in DC and like cities for policed walkable streets (I don't drive), live jazz, museums, book clubs and small ethnic restaurant venues.
But our consumer Net has been been a waste of time just like roadside American life has always been.
This is like the film "China Town" with cable utilities filling in for water utilities. I know I'm an old man, but nothing has changed much despite our SFX propaganda fictions.
But I never enjoyed speaking with people who watch TV. That's why I found the Ultrix and the Net in the 1980's back at Harvard. I live in DC and like cities for policed walkable streets (I don't drive), live jazz, museums, book clubs and small ethnic restaurant venues.
But our consumer Net has been been a waste of time just like roadside American life has always been.
This is like the film "China Town" with cable utilities filling in for water utilities. I know I'm an old man, but nothing has changed much despite our SFX propaganda fictions.
Why did you type this?
I typed this to let younger folks know that plenty of older Netizens do not care one little bit about any consumers or programmers making money off consumers. I wrote the late 80's Harvard Ultrix manual and worked with Steve Crocker, Brad Cox, Mark Pincus (pre-Zynga) and many others. None of us let our kids near the consumer Web (or TV's). The faster our consumer Net dies on the vine the better. Wield code to automate solutions or feed better decision support. Folks coding to sell pizza, porn and distractions need better careers and motivations.
While I respect your opinion, it seems to me that your use of the internet is just as vulnerable to the net-neutrality doomsday scenario as everyone else's.
Your basic internet is only $50/mo, but you'll need to purchase the "hacker" package for an additional $25/mo to get access to the Ultrix forums.
Your basic internet is only $50/mo, but you'll need to purchase the "hacker" package for an additional $25/mo to get access to the Ultrix forums.
Maybe I'm lone dissenter, but I don't understand the push back on this. People who read hacker news should be among the elite technologist, do we really all believe that every packet should be treated the same?
Should an E911 call or tele-surgery packets really be treated the same as Netflix? Net neutrality forces the ISP to do that and that seems like madness to me.
Should an E911 call or tele-surgery packets really be treated the same as Netflix? Net neutrality forces the ISP to do that and that seems like madness to me.
It shouldn't be up to the individual and profit-seeking ISPs to decide that E911 and tele-surgery packets get priority. If there's a QoS concern for something, and it's deemed important enough, this is a perfectly rational place for regulation to step in and mandate it from every ISP equally.
How would you propose that packets be prioritized? I don't like the idea of the government telling me what packets should be prioritized. And saying that they all need to be treated the same is equally as bad.
But the real issue here is that the need for net neutrality is a symptom and not the root disease.
The disease that needs to be solved is a complete lack of competition in the ISP market. Service providers could differentiate themselves by QoS.
You wouldn't need a net neutrality law if you had competition.
But the real issue here is that the need for net neutrality is a symptom and not the root disease.
The disease that needs to be solved is a complete lack of competition in the ISP market. Service providers could differentiate themselves by QoS.
You wouldn't need a net neutrality law if you had competition.
>You wouldn't need a net neutrality law if you had competition
I don’t buy this argument because you not only need competition, you need a market with perfect information. Net neutrality buzzes on in the sidelines. I would wager that the majority of customers would not care if their ISP limited certain types of packets and would not attempt to switch ISPs (that is, if they even can switch).
I don’t buy this argument because you not only need competition, you need a market with perfect information. Net neutrality buzzes on in the sidelines. I would wager that the majority of customers would not care if their ISP limited certain types of packets and would not attempt to switch ISPs (that is, if they even can switch).
If a majority of customers wouldn't even care if this happened, then why is it the internet doomsday? Seems like you can't have both sides of the argument. Unless I'm missing your point.
This isn't something as basic as "the right to bear arms." There's a lot of information and this is a fairly dull subject, so the ISPs rely on that to gain support for this.
So you can have net neutrality be removed, and nobody care that it was removed, but still be in a much worse position than before.
Similarly, the PATRIOT act was passed, and "nobody" cared. That doesn't mean that nothing changed.
So you can have net neutrality be removed, and nobody care that it was removed, but still be in a much worse position than before.
Similarly, the PATRIOT act was passed, and "nobody" cared. That doesn't mean that nothing changed.
Oh, no! The point here is that regulating the internet is dangerous – Net Neutrality un-regulates it.
We don't want every administration for the next 100 years to treat the internet as a victim of regulatory abuse, pushing it and pulling it towards their vision of "beautiful".
We don't want every administration for the next 100 years to treat the internet as a victim of regulatory abuse, pushing it and pulling it towards their vision of "beautiful".
<This comment is unavailable, as kbhn's internet plan does not include forum discussion participation>
thats a good way to put it.
No, they shouldn't all be treated equally. But the packet's source or destination should also not matter. NN fully supports traffic QOS by packet purpose (i.e. VOIP over gaming over web over bittorrent), just not by origin or destination.
And it's origin/destination that ISPs demonstrably want to prioritize by.
And it's origin/destination that ISPs demonstrably want to prioritize by.
>But the packet's source or destination should also not matter
Why not? It costs my ISP more to deliver certain packets than others. Sending a packet from San Francisco to San Jose is far cheaper than sending one from San Francisco to Sydney. Internet traffic costs are not the same across the world. Transit pricing in Australia is probably the most expensive in the world - it's roughly 20x higher than in the US. Why should ISPs be forced to pretend all traffic costs the same, when in reality it doesn't?
Why not? It costs my ISP more to deliver certain packets than others. Sending a packet from San Francisco to San Jose is far cheaper than sending one from San Francisco to Sydney. Internet traffic costs are not the same across the world. Transit pricing in Australia is probably the most expensive in the world - it's roughly 20x higher than in the US. Why should ISPs be forced to pretend all traffic costs the same, when in reality it doesn't?
The ISP isn't directly paying that transit price. Level3 or other Tier 1 network providers are. And they set their prices according to their costs (and based on their own competition). Their prices are passed on to the ISPs, who pass it on to their customers.
So, yeah, that transit cost is already accounted for in your monthly internet bill.
Also, it's not productive to try and pretend that the prices levied by ISPs have anything to do with their costs; like all capitalism-born companies their prices are based on what the market will bear. Municipal broadband providers have proven that cost is nothing but a red herring used to justify prices and a lack of innovation.
So, yeah, that transit cost is already accounted for in your monthly internet bill.
Also, it's not productive to try and pretend that the prices levied by ISPs have anything to do with their costs; like all capitalism-born companies their prices are based on what the market will bear. Municipal broadband providers have proven that cost is nothing but a red herring used to justify prices and a lack of innovation.
>The ISP isn't directly paying that transit price
Technically yes, but in many cases the ISPs are essentially the same company as the network provider. Xfinity is the ISP and Comcast is the network provider. Uverse is the ISP and AT&T is the network provider. Same with Fios and Verizon. Network providers do not want to be ISPs for legal benefits.
>That transit cost is already accounted for in your monthly internet bill.
While true, this doesn't address the issue I have with the current pricing model. The current internet pricing model is similar to an all-you-can-eat buffet, with a limit to the rate at which you can grab food, and how many pounds of food you can take per month. The issue is, a person who takes 5 pounds of pasta pays the same price as someone who takes 5 pounds of lobster. Under net neutrality, ISPs can't price based off food cost, and can only price based off weight. This leads to unfair pricing situations, as exampled above.
It is possible to come up with more nonsensical examples with even larger cost discrepancies. Under your idea, should sending a packet across the street cost the same price as sending a packet to Mars? The first relies on $X0,000 of infrastructure costs, while the second relies on billions.
The idea that 'pricing based off a packet's source or destination should not matter' makes sense in a world where all packets (or food in this example) are free, however, in the real world all packets have a cost associated with them.
Technically yes, but in many cases the ISPs are essentially the same company as the network provider. Xfinity is the ISP and Comcast is the network provider. Uverse is the ISP and AT&T is the network provider. Same with Fios and Verizon. Network providers do not want to be ISPs for legal benefits.
>That transit cost is already accounted for in your monthly internet bill.
While true, this doesn't address the issue I have with the current pricing model. The current internet pricing model is similar to an all-you-can-eat buffet, with a limit to the rate at which you can grab food, and how many pounds of food you can take per month. The issue is, a person who takes 5 pounds of pasta pays the same price as someone who takes 5 pounds of lobster. Under net neutrality, ISPs can't price based off food cost, and can only price based off weight. This leads to unfair pricing situations, as exampled above.
It is possible to come up with more nonsensical examples with even larger cost discrepancies. Under your idea, should sending a packet across the street cost the same price as sending a packet to Mars? The first relies on $X0,000 of infrastructure costs, while the second relies on billions.
The idea that 'pricing based off a packet's source or destination should not matter' makes sense in a world where all packets (or food in this example) are free, however, in the real world all packets have a cost associated with them.
Instead of a single source of censorship, against which the people can fight, there will be multiple sources of censorship, and fighting one won't solve the problem.
And in your E911 example, there are already ways for this to be solved without requiring censorship or throttling of data on the public networks. You can already buy life-/safety-critical bandwidth that is "off-Internet bands", if you need it - the point is, this isn't lumped with the 'general public Internet'.
And in your E911 example, there are already ways for this to be solved without requiring censorship or throttling of data on the public networks. You can already buy life-/safety-critical bandwidth that is "off-Internet bands", if you need it - the point is, this isn't lumped with the 'general public Internet'.
"...'selfish routing' approach has a price of anarchy that’s a mere 4/3. That is, a free-for-all is only 33% worse than perfect top-down coordination." - Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
So in effect these messages would only arrive 33% faster. Not to mention the cost of having to monitor traffic and the additional charge to do so on the consumer in comparison to the "anarchic" TCP model we have now.
The last time we bad this conversation when Verizon first sued for the rules to be dropped. Level 3 showed that the apparent need to create these fast lanes were due to an artificial bottleneck created by isps to throttle Netflix. When the new rules passed, the version that went in still allowed for these fast lanes to be created, but only through the supervision of the chairman. Whichb was a win for isms, despite the internet community cheering.
Also included I the original title 2 is that you would not have a data cap and yo u would be charged for the internet you use versus a bulk sum every month. Articles around this time showed that after subsidies and tax credits to build infrastructure. It took TWC only a $1.24 to supply a custoomer internet access in which they charged $49.99. This included all operating costs.
So in effect these messages would only arrive 33% faster. Not to mention the cost of having to monitor traffic and the additional charge to do so on the consumer in comparison to the "anarchic" TCP model we have now.
The last time we bad this conversation when Verizon first sued for the rules to be dropped. Level 3 showed that the apparent need to create these fast lanes were due to an artificial bottleneck created by isps to throttle Netflix. When the new rules passed, the version that went in still allowed for these fast lanes to be created, but only through the supervision of the chairman. Whichb was a win for isms, despite the internet community cheering.
Also included I the original title 2 is that you would not have a data cap and yo u would be charged for the internet you use versus a bulk sum every month. Articles around this time showed that after subsidies and tax credits to build infrastructure. It took TWC only a $1.24 to supply a custoomer internet access in which they charged $49.99. This included all operating costs.
>So in effect these messages would only arrive 33% faster
On average, yes, but in the event where a malicious attacker completely DoSes the network with packets, the prioritized packets would be more than 33% faster than average.
On average, yes, but in the event where a malicious attacker completely DoSes the network with packets, the prioritized packets would be more than 33% faster than average.
Quality-of-Service controls for different classes of traffic are already an important part of how the internet works, but is entirely separate from Net Neutrality.
An operator like Verizon, for example, that runs phone service (including emergency calls) over the same lines as their standard internet service pretty much has to prioritize packet types differently. This is expected and understood by all parties.
The Net Neutrality that people are up in arms about is related to limiting traffic of the same class based on which endpoints are involved. For example, Verizon cannot throttle (or worse, outright block) HTTP traffic to Netflix/Hulu/Youtube to 1KB/s to drive users to their own competing service.
An operator like Verizon, for example, that runs phone service (including emergency calls) over the same lines as their standard internet service pretty much has to prioritize packet types differently. This is expected and understood by all parties.
The Net Neutrality that people are up in arms about is related to limiting traffic of the same class based on which endpoints are involved. For example, Verizon cannot throttle (or worse, outright block) HTTP traffic to Netflix/Hulu/Youtube to 1KB/s to drive users to their own competing service.
Good point, but if there was real competition in the ISP market, you could switch providers that do this. Don't fight for net neutrality. Fight for ISP marketplace
Should I also fight for the road and sewage pipe market places while I'm at it? There are some pieces of infrastructure that only make sense as natural monopolies.
I recently moved to Texas and was surprised and rather impressed at their two-layered electrical market. There is one "power distribution company" for an entire region, regulated (I assume) by the state/county. I never do business with them, but they hook my building up to the grid and maintain the lines. Then I choose a power generating company from a wealth of plans and providers, based on whatever criteria I care about.
Doing something similar for internet service would be fantastic, but still requires neutrality from the last-mile infrastructure. Apparently in the UK they've managed something like this through something called local-loop unbundling, which I assume is part of why we don't hear so much about NN from over there.
I would love to see something like that in the US; ISPs will fight tooth and nail to prevent it.
I recently moved to Texas and was surprised and rather impressed at their two-layered electrical market. There is one "power distribution company" for an entire region, regulated (I assume) by the state/county. I never do business with them, but they hook my building up to the grid and maintain the lines. Then I choose a power generating company from a wealth of plans and providers, based on whatever criteria I care about.
Doing something similar for internet service would be fantastic, but still requires neutrality from the last-mile infrastructure. Apparently in the UK they've managed something like this through something called local-loop unbundling, which I assume is part of why we don't hear so much about NN from over there.
I would love to see something like that in the US; ISPs will fight tooth and nail to prevent it.
Yes Comcast is spending a ton of money lobbying this because they want to prioritize E911 traffic.
If you're doing telesurgery over the public internet, then this is way down your list of problems.
This sounds like a fundamental misunderstanding of most of the IP stack. The way TCP works is that bandwidth over consumption is signaled by dropping packets. Back in the mid 2000s "deep packet inspection" was the buzzword of the day, but frankly was mostly BS because you can't inspect encrypted traffic. So what happens, is that the traffic shaping is chosen by endpoint/route. Which means that the ISP might prioritize VOIP calls which terminate in their VOIP service, but they likely won't be able to detect my tunneled VOIP packets utilizing a small no name service that charges $2 a month (my ISP wants to charge/bundle the voice service for an additional $15-25/month depending on which "deal" you get).
The problems here come from ISP's that won't upgrade their infrastructure to support the demand, because they are trying to maximize profits, and see advantages to being able to charge/extort fees from actors they think can afford it (netflix for example) or they feel are competing with their own offerings.
The problems here come from ISP's that won't upgrade their infrastructure to support the demand, because they are trying to maximize profits, and see advantages to being able to charge/extort fees from actors they think can afford it (netflix for example) or they feel are competing with their own offerings.
So, why does the hospital next to my house deserve cleaner water? Isn't this the same argument?
so the issue you bring up is good because there is difference between origin neutrality and content neutrality. unfortunately (IMO) its rather naive to think that comcast has your best interests and will do the 'right thing' when they have power to distort the traffic and make so much money while they are at it. This action effectively allows them to double dip into any internet startups profits and worse yet pick out winners and losers based on their whim.
Oh well .. that's the america we live in now.
Oh well .. that's the america we live in now.
In the US ISPs have local monopolies / duopolies. They can litterally throttle what every they want without worrying about their customers.
You need regulation in markets like.
You need regulation in markets like.
Parallels are then drawn to the Internet, where if we're not paying attention to what is happening now, then the free and open nature of the Internet today will slowly vanish and be replaced by only the big sites who can afford to be on the Internet.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/02/master-switch-... (book review, you can find the actual book on Amazon or wherever)