Comment by SomeStupidPoint | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SomeStupidPoint | Hacker News Reader

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SomeStupidPoint

I mean, the real problem is that we have a private utility.

I think things like net neutrality can have market solutions if we divorce the last mile operators (to become a utility) from customer ISPs, who merely operate a contract with various backbone networks to connect their clients to servers they want.

With last mile paid by taxes, ISPs are only dealing with the cost of backbone transit rates, where there is vibrant competition (and the market seems healthy). This competition to make a good transit deal (to get a cut from clients) is healthy as well, and is how much of the world operates. I think that switching off the US rent-seeking model to something like that would be a long-term solution to issues like net neutrality.

Change the incentives to change the behavior.

The real explanation is we should use the free market to solve our problems, and government for the portion where a market cant properly operate (ie, the last-mile netwotk).

In New Zealand, our broadband market is structurally separated.

The the access provider for both the copper and fibre network (right to the customer premises) is a regulated wholesale only provider, which is required to provide open access to its network on a non-discriminatory basis between all access seekers (retail telecommunications companies).[0]

This almost entirely resolves the net neutrality debate in New Zealand.

[0] This is a slight simplification: Chorus is the network owner for the copper network, and about 70% of the fibre network. The other 30% of fibre network is also built, owned and operated by wholesale only providers on a comparable basis.

How well do you feel that this has worked? I was under the impression that telecom prices in New Zealand were pretty painfully expensive?

It's a little island in the middle of the pacific everything except maybe sheep is going to be expensive

Two islands, actually. More than 30 if you count all the outlying ones.

NZ used to have expensive and slow internet (we don't have much TV cable here, so it was all ADSL), but it's gotten a lot better in the last few years. Currently I have 1000mbit down / 500mbit up fiber with unlimited data for $130nz/month (90usd).

The model does work pretty well.

I have 1000/500 UFB to my house for ~$100USD/month. Unlimited data :)

Electric service works that way in Texas.

The US has basically that model for many other natural monopolies, and it works alright.

I think we could do with a bit more government investment in infrastructure, because government is really the only entity that can drop a trillion dollars, then wait 40-50 years for its returns. (Well, them and pension funds, but neither has exactly shown great financial prudence lately.)

I just... Have a hard time articulating why infrastructure is important, because it's just so glaringly obvious from my perspective that it is. I mean, we see infrastructure everywhere in nature -- from the layout of bacteria mats to ant colonies. The idea that our society can be vibrant without having to perform those basic functions is absurd.

So it makes sense that the lives which depend on the services should control the final delivery network when it's not possible to deploy more than one or two -- eg, FTTH should be utility, cellphones should be a market; roads should be (largely) public, etc.

If the US's power is its people, then infrastructure is what allows us to maintain and focus that power.

Net Neutrality legislation to me is definitely attacking the symptoms, not the problems. In my experience, in places where there is competition, net neutrality is not something you need to worry about.

Private doesn't even have to be a problem if competition is maintained. In Sweden there's a mix of public, privatized-minority-government-owned, co-op and private providers and competition is quite healthy.

Only on the wired side, wireless carriers in Sweden are moving closer to US standard than their neighboring countries. Finland having unlimited cap options, and Norway and Denmark at least twice the cap per price compared to Sweden. Telia just got served for going against net neutrality principles on exempting some services from their caps.

But that's because Sweden has open carrier fiber network, while the wireless network is carrier specific.

But couldn't a lot of that be addressed by requiring a certain number of different spectrum owners?

Im not against regulation -- competition is what brings out the best in us, but games are only interesting if the rules are reasonable.

> but games are only interesting if the rules are reasonable

I completely agree with this.

> But couldn't a lot of that be addressed by requiring a certain number of different spectrum owners?

I suppose it could, but is that not the case in the US? I believe it only works if you can expect that cartels won't exist, which unfortunately is not a safe assumption. It's also an expensive barrier to entry for new actors.

Community owned last-mile utility is what has worked on electricity, phones, and forementioned fiber in Sweden. Anything else has proven to somehow fail to be competative. I feel comfortable in drawing an assumption off that. I wish more people agreed or that I was proven wrong.

Likewise games stop being fun if the rules can't enforce a reasonable playing ground.

The difference between phones and FTTH is that I don't think we have enough spectrum to assign a little share to everyone, whereas we do have space to route fibers to everyone.

The question then is how to best regulate the allocation of spectrum. Because cell networks are relatively easy to deploy (on top of an existing fiber network, and relative to the work of the fiber buildout), it seems to make more sense to break regions (city or county) up in to 10 or so spectrum slices, and lease them out to carriers. Regions are free to choose to have some or all of that operate as a utility, I suppose, but I think a regular co-op or corporation likely performs as well, as long as you require that fundamental carrier diversity.

Then just a bit of regulation about unlocked phones (when you pay in full!).

> But that's because Sweden has open carrier fiber network

The last mile isn't some nationwide open carrier network like Australia's planned NBN. In some places there are municipal open access networks, in some places it's co-ops of homeowners, but in many places it's all private networks (in every apartment I lived in in Malmö, it was all private fiber - either Telia, Tele2, Ownit, etc). But even though it was private it was better than what you can get in most US cities.

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