Portuguese ISP shows us what our non-neutral internet will look like | Hacker News Reader

Portuguese ISP shows us what our non-neutral internet will look like

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182 pointsjoeyespo132 comments

Whilst I completely think net neutrality should be enshrined in law, I do wonder whether "the market" will ensure it is always available.

If you have a choice of two ISPs and one of them is net neutral, the other is not, which one are you going to choose? If you are not able to choose your provider, you have a monopoly issue - the way to deal with that might be net neutrality for now, but you really need to break the monopoly irrespective of that.

Some consumers may be ill-informed. I think if plans are explicit, that's actually going to cause pause for thought and consumers will educate themselves: there is some evidence of this younger consumers at least and the choices they're making (e.g. Facebook is dying off with < 30 year olds).

For me the really scary option is when your ISP is preferring traffic for a major incumbent and limiting traffic to a new competitor and not making that explicitly clear to you. At that point you don't get to make an informed choice of ISP, you don't get consumer education calling out there are options, and you don't get shifts in the market. That's the really dangerous one we need to be wary of, IMHO.

I agree that net neutrality becomes much less important if there's real competition between ISPs. But for most of the US, there isn't. Monopolies and non-competitive duopolies are common. Yes, this should be fixed, but it's really, really hard, far harder than regulating neutrality.

No such thing in Portugal as well

Getting blanket downvotes for going against the hivemind so nevermind.

In other words: They have not used it for anything more than trying to kill their competition? Well, nothing to worry about then!

What? Where did I say something about killing competition?

What else is zero-rating possibly intended to do? Zero-rating is obviously selling below cost, and businesses sell below cost to kill competition.

> What else is zero-rating possibly intended to do? Zero-rating is obviously selling below cost, and businesses sell below cost to kill competition.

That's not the only scenario for zero-rating.

Not too long ago, getting international backhaul in Australia was absurdly expensive. So various smaller ISPs joined IXs, and then offered customers plans which had a certain amount of quota for your usual traffic, but traffic which was routed via an IX was zero-rated. This included game servers, FTP mirrors, usenet, and various internet radio services.

This is technically against net neutrality, but I don't see this as being a bad thing for anyone involved.

Well, what I meant was zero-rating of services, which is what this discussion is about (rather than based on actual operational costs).

And actually, arguably, that is not necessarily against net neutrality.

Net neutrality ultimately is about whether anyone can send traffic to the ISP's customers under the same, non-monopolistic, conditions. As such, making a geographic distinction isn't really that much of a problem, if it is not used to also implement other distinctions. The question is: Could anyone who would have wanted to send traffic to those customers bought transit on the open market at market rates in order to deliver traffic to within the reach of the zero rating?

It's a problem if you can buy special interconnects from the ISP in order to have your traffic zero-rated. It's not really a problem if the ISP says "any traffic delivered to this exchange (that is well-connected to many competing transit providers) is zero-rated".

What's complex about it? ISPs should be dumb pipes. They shouldn't care what you use them for any more than the electric company does. Seems pretty black-and-white to me.

And I disagree, because the average consumer would not want to pay for what it would cost if the ISPs priced that into their fees.

There’s no need for an ISP to throttle, they could just charge consumers the exact cost to build out as much capacity as they need. But that cost would raise rates to one that consumers don’t want to pay.

To me this is about idealism meaning the real world. In a perfect would I’d love for ISPs to be dumb pipes, but even in your example, Electricity companies don’t charge you like a dumb pipe and offer time of use pricing, pricing based on zones, discounts or rebates based on energy efficiency. Likewise different sites generate enormously different costs on the ISPs side, and consumers are benefiting from ISPs balancing being a dumb pipe, with not charging the consumers the price of a pipe that can carry every type of load at every time at perfect speeds.

Most ISPs are currently dumb pipes. The net neutrality fight is to keep them that way. The average consumer is paying for what it would cost, given that ISPs generally turn a profit.

I don’t know any ISP that doesn’t have some degree of throttling, and zero rating is becoming more and more common

Throttling has nothing to do with net neutrality, unless it's targeted at specific services.

And it is... video services specifically

Well, that happens and is a net neutrality violation. But it's a net neutrality violation because it distinguishes between services, not because of the throttling. There are plenty of perfectly "net neutral" plans that throttle your connection after a certain amount of traffic in a month.

I know that, I know what net neutrality is, I don’t want to discuss this anymore I got downvotes enough for one day.

Some ISPs do indeed throttle some video services, and that’s a violation. It wouldn’t vastly increase prices for them to stop doing that, though. They’re doing it to push their own video services, not to save money.

At this point, everything should be encrypted and ISPs shouldn’t even have the ability to discern what kind of traffic is going through their pipes. We’re a bit behind schedule on that...

But these services have no incentive to do that - they want to be detected, so that they can be zero-rated (or receive any other advantage). How would you prevent them from opting out of your encryption system?

I think you don't understand what net neutrality is?

Yes, electricity companies do charge you like a dumb pipe, exactly as ISPs should (and most are).

A dumb pipe does not mean that the ISP cannot count your traffic and bill you for it, possibly even at varying rates throughout the day. It only means that the ISP doesn't get to look at the contents of your traffic, just as the electricity company doesn't get too look at what you use your electricity for.

A non-neutral electricity company would be one that didn't charge you according to load on their network and generation facilities, but based on the application you use electricity for. Now, they usually do offer various plans intended for different types of uses--but mind you that that does not mean that you only get to use them for those uses, the contract is about load profiles and energy prices.

For example, you might have a plan for storage heaters. But there is absolutely nothing that forces or requires you to use the electricity for storage heaters. The contracts is simply about different prices per kWh during different times of the day. If you run a startup that produces gadgets at night using cheap electricity from that plan, that is perfectly fine.

Fetching email from gmail's IMAP server produces exactly the same load on an ISP's network as fetching email from some local email provider's IMAP server. Net neutrality is about not distinguishing between those. There is nothing wrong with offering a "1 GB/month, 1 Mb/s" plan that is well-suited for only receiving and sending emails. The problem is when they want to prevent me from using IRC instead, or they only allow specific email providers.

I do understand net neutrality, my example might have been poor though.

Electricity companies can’t (reliably) tell what you’re using the power for so in a sense they do act as dumb pipes (except they do care if you use it for commercial vs residential), but they don’t strive to be dumb pipes. To put it in terms of your space heater analogy, they can’t give you electricity that only works with your space heater, so they’ll give you rebates for using a specific space heater.

The goal is the same, the implementation just takes the limitations of granularity in metering electricity usage.

I know what net neutrality is, and I have no problem with a non-neutral internet. It’s not the same as a lawless unregulated internet. Right now zero-rating is what ISPs have taken advantage of it for. People argue zero rating means base prices must be encompassing the cost of the “free” service, but it’s coming with strings attached like reduced bandwidth or as a way to attract new users. While I do feel certain companies might be able to use zero-rating to reinforce monopolies, I don’t feel zero-rating inherently creates an environment where companies can’t compete.

If ISPs do take further moves to absurd it, those moves can still be regulated/blocked, but my experience in many other countries has been that it doesn’t progress further than that, certainly not to the 2 mock images shown in the article (the one real one has a subtle, but important difference, access isn’t blocked if you don’t choose one of those packages, you just pay the normal base rate)

That being said, I’ll refrain from talking about net neutrality on HN. This is the crowd that would have the most reasons to support it. After all, zero rating on Netflix doesn’t help a unicorn become the next Netflix, and there are plenty of people here who feel like all of this goes against the very spirit of the internet.

But it’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion when everything you say is immediately downvoted to ghost status. I mean I made that were barely more than a single fact got downvoted until they couldn’t easily be read anymore, and people are still mass downvoting my statements hours later.

> Electricity companies can’t (reliably) tell what you’re using the power for so in a sense they do act as dumb pipes (except they do care if you use it for commercial vs residential),

No, actually, they don't. That is what the plans are labeled as, but they really don't care about whether you are commercial or residential, that is the point that I was trying to make. What they care about is your load profile. Residential vs. commercial users on average have a very distinct load profiles (throughout the day and throughout the week), and that leads to different costs, which is why they want to bill you according to your load profile. Ultimately, if you happen to run a business that has the load profile of a typical residential user, they would often rather want to have you as a residential customer because that matches their costs. It's just that billing using load-dependent prices throughout the day has traditionally not been technically feasible, which is why the simplified distinction of residential vs. commercial plans was developed, because that matches reality well enough in most cases.

> People argue zero rating means base prices must be encompassing the cost of the “free” service, but it’s coming with strings attached like reduced bandwidth or as a way to attract new users.

How is that a contradiction? Yes, it comes with reduced bandwidth ... which still is being paid for with the income from the base prices, isn't it? And yes, it is being used as a way to attract new users ... while also hurting the existing customers, the new users, and their competition!? I really don't see how this in any way reduces the negative impact of it all, and thus why you even bring it up?!

> While I do feel certain companies might be able to use zero-rating to reinforce monopolies, I don’t feel zero-rating inherently creates an environment where companies can’t compete.

Well, what do you mean by "can't compete"? Do you mean "are unavoidably destined for failure", or "have an increased risk of failure"?

The former probably isn't the case, but also is not a useful standard. Almost nothing that is generally agreed to be bad directly guarantees total failure. Does putting carcinogens into food mean that everyone will die of cancer? No, it doesn't. Do we still consider putting carcinogens into food a bad thing? Yes, we do. Why? Because it increases the risk of dying of cancer.

Now, if you do agree that increased risk of failure is a good enough reason to consider something bad ... isn't it obvious that having higher costs than your competition increases the risk of failure for a business?

> (the one real one has a subtle, but important difference, access isn’t blocked if you don’t choose one of those packages, you just pay the normal base rate)

What practical difference does it make whether access is blocked or prohibitively expensive?

Suppose we introduced a new law that requires you to pay a million bucks, not refundable, in order to leave the country (for travel or otherwise), except if you purchased the travel package for 100 bucks that allows unlimited travel to Australia? Would you also say that it's a subtle but important difference that traveling abroad was not forbidden and relations to other countries would not suffer, you would just have to pay the base rate?

> After all, zero rating on Netflix doesn’t help a unicorn become the next Netflix, and there are plenty of people here who feel like all of this goes against the very spirit of the internet.

I guess there are. But isn't that much more importantly against the spirit of a competetive market economy, and thus in particular against the interests of the customers?

> But it’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion when everything you say is immediately downvoted to ghost status. I mean I made that were barely more than a single fact got downvoted until they couldn’t easily be read anymore, and people are still mass downvoting my statements hours later.

Really, looking through which of your comments got downvoted, my impression is that's mostly for glaringly obvious errors in logic, primarily a failure to consider solutions to problems that are possible without a violation of network neutrality. The mere fact that there is a problem and an ISP that is not bound by network neutrality can solve that problem by violating network neutrality just doesn't say anything about whether net neutrality is a good idea, if you don't ever consider how the same problem might be solved with network neutrality.

That's what Comcast did in Canada. I think they have net neutrality now, though.

No, "markets would work it out" argument doesn't work here. ISPs are monopolized businesses in USA. There are only so many cables you can lay out and only so many players who have capital to invest all that money. When one player succeeds in this game they buy off appropriate amount of politicians to close doors for others. All the ISP "choices" in USA you see is just an illusion where some re-sellers re-brands exact same bandwidth under their fancy names and ads.

> When one player succeeds in this game they buy off appropriate amount of politicians to close doors for others.

Then what you're talking about is not a market at all. You're directly saying several times over that the problem is the lack of any semblance of a market, that the government is the specific problem.

Besides that, reasonably speaking, there are not only so many cables you can lay in the ground. That infrastructure non-problem has had an extraordinarily simple fix for decades:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/natio...

This is accurate. Net neutrality is a band-aid on an open wound. This is not to say that net neutrality should be done away with - stopping a bad thing from getting worse is, after all, what band-aids are for. The problem is the wound itself. There is no where in the US where Comcast and Charter are competing. In fact, when you filter down to functional internet providers (10Mbps+) very few places have any choice at all. This is an effective monopolization, made possible through explicit cartelization. And where there is no open wound, the market does work, and net neutrality isn't really an issue. Australia, for example, legislates that any owner of the infrastructure must lend it to other providers at a set price. Where a lack of net neutrality is kept in check there by the market, a similar lack of would only be used in the US to achieve greater price granularity/discrimination at the expense of the consumer.

> If you have a choice of two ISPs and one of them is net neutral, the other is not, which one are you going to choose?

I strongly favor net neutrality, but personally my decision depends on price and other factors too. For example, I always can pay for a $400/month for a net-neutral private T1 line with 1.4 Mbps, but probably I won't.

As for others: Few end users understand the technical basics required to grasp net neutrality, few are aware of the net neutrality issue, and fewer still understand the principle of freedom-as-in-speech and can grasp its impact. I've had many people ask me for advice on ISPs; not one ever asked about net neutrality. To function, the market relies on educated consumers with access to information; that's not the case here, just like consumers can't choose between airline safety measures.

Regardless, few ISP markets have more than 2 vendors and no vendor offers this sort of thing - can you name one ISP of any size that offers net neutrality? The barrier to entry is too high for a newcomer to break in and sell it, even if there was demand.

It is absolutely conceivable that even in a non-monopolized market, net-neutral options would die or go on life support. Because people value price above all else, ISPs can reduce their prices well below their competitors by asking for payment from large incumbents (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) to prioritize their traffic and slow down their competitors. When the choice is between 20$ a month with high-speed access to most of the brands you already know, and 200$ a month for high-speed access to all websites, which one do you think will win.

Gym business is not exactly a monopoly. Yet almost all gyms have opted to make their patrons sign long-term membership contracts with auto-renewal that are almost impossible to cancel. Getting out of gym membership is only marginally easier than renouncing Scientology (OK, I am exaggerating a bit). Gyms are designed to discourage working out and necessitate payment [1]. Why don't we have ethical upfront gyms? There are some, but they are way more expensive and most people are not close enough to one to justify a membership. The market has spoken and it has spoken wrong. Same with Walmart's destruction of local businesses and the ever-shrinking legroom in airlines.

Market values price above all else. Unless net-neutral ISPs can manage to be cheaper than Facebook-subsidized ISPs, they will die rather soon.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/12/17/371463435/episo...

"Whilst I completely think net neutrality should be enshrined in law"

Oh it was. Then the European court over ruled it thanks to powerful lobbying.

“I don’t need anything more than the free Facebook plan. If a new startup creates something FB will just copy it and I’ll soon have it for free anyway” -future internet user logic

If a user can get FB services for free and can't afford internet otherwise is it better for them to have no internet at all?

Yes -- otherwise they are squandering their long term Internet freedom for short term access to addicting garbage (Facebook).

jesus that's judgemental.

It's also a fact (Facebook is literally addictive).

like almost everything (including HN, trust me, i ve been there)

Here is some information:

* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/12161461/Facebook-addiction-...

* http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/04/05/the-tru...

* https://www.wired.com/story/our-minds-have-been-hijacked-by-...

* https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609104/smartphones-are-we...

* https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-technology-hijacks-peop...

* https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-bin...

* https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/25/facebook-...

More things are happening in real life, email/telephone, newspapers, magazines, and in books than on Facebook. I think that Facebook is bad for the human mind and bad for society.

I 'm not disputing that facebook is an addiction (like many things in life). But there is a big chunk of users who learned to use the internet SOLELY for facebook, they remain there solely for that and would stop using it if it wasn't for facebook. Having the freedom to research any topic, while sounding noble as a thing, is just not something that a lot of people want to do.

You're missing the point. Why should we regress? The system, as it exists, freely allows these fabled old people of yours to access Facebook. But in letting net neutrality evaporate, the rest of us get screwed for no benefit.

Jesus, net neutrality makes my blood boil. Fuck Ajit Pai, that /r/punchablefaces wanker extraordinaire.

> But there is a big chunk of users who learned to use the internet SOLELY for facebook, they remain there solely for that and would stop using it if it wasn't for facebook.

I'd argue that it would be better in most cases not to use the Internet if Facebook were the only option. Accepting Facebook as your "Internet" means that the next generations probably will not have a Free, open Internet.

I grew up before the Internet was widely used. Many aspects of life were better without the Internet. If you aren't doing something critical to your life with the Internet (and Facebook is not one of those critical things in most cases), then the Internet is not a necessity.

(The Internet is a necessity for many people these days, but Facebook is not a genuine necessity.)

What kind of thinking is that? TV was equally bad in our times (if not far worse). You realize how horribly authoritarian is what you propose?

It isn't authoritarian at all to say that Facebook is not a necessity.

TV is mostly-garbage, but it isn't as bad as Facebook.

so what you are saying is that you, or the government, should be a censor and have the right to determine what information other people are allowed to consume?

that seems like a difficult ideology to defend.

That is not what I'm arguing. :)

Are you arguing against Net Neutrality?

Governments do have a duty to protect people from predatory companies. When private companies inhibit the freedom of a population, would you argue that governments shouldn't intervene to protect the freedom of the people?

So, if FB wants to subsidize an internet plan that is exclusively for FB services, would you say that the government should allow that or prevent it?

There's the rub. If the government made a neutral internet a human right, or increased competition by breaking up monopolies, the idiots who think they can get away with offering just Facebook would get royally shafted because consumers would realise that they can get a lot more for the same price by moving to the competition. This would lead to a glorious future where internet would be used properly for what it was intended to do: let anyone share anything with anyone else.

To add, how about Wikipedia doing the same?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero

It seems like a bad idea from a first glance. It looks like there are also Twitter Zero, Google Free Zone, and possibly others.

Other countries have the right to develop their Internet with the same freedom that we currently have. (I'm in the US.)

People who are concerned with "freedom" should be looking at the long-term effects of those policies on consumers and smaller entrepreneurs too -- not just the effects on larger companies.

Wikipedia Zero isn't about making the internet exclusively for Wikipedia. It's about putting the site into the ISP's no data charge area. Yes, it does mean that you end up with a two-tier pricing scheme ('free' and 'not free'), but to classify it as 'subsidising an internet plan to make it exclusive for wikipedia' is a gross mischaracterisation.

You didn't answer my question. :)

Good question, how about if FB was a library, and free access was granted, but the selection of books was controlled by one person.

If someone can get access to walmart parking lot for free and can't afford streets otherwise is it better for them to have no streets at all?

I find it is really strange to call facebook access "internet access". A walmart parking lot is not a street network and facebook is not internet.

You're completely ignoring the power this gives Facebook.

This completely eliminates any opportunity for competition to enter the market. How likely is it that any future competitor will be able to get this same deal? How much money is Facebook paying to subsidize this internet? How about any links to information Facebook does not directly host?

This attitude is a surefire way to ensure our future is controlled by a select few. The solution IMO should be cheaper, lower bandwidth, options. No data caps, just less speed. Like ELP plans in the US.

The internet sure was good while it lasted.

Facebook free doesn't even give you images, at least, not on my provider.

People need to stop spreading this without even knowing what's going on, this is the kind of behavior that gets Trumps elected and creates mass histeria.

What that Portuguese ISP is selling has nothing to do with net neutrality per se. It's just a promotion, a marketing campaign, and a very common one around the world. I'm not saying it's okay or that it does not hurt competition, user choice and neutrality to some extent: but get your facts together before spreading half truths.

So for the facts: these are add-on packages to an otherwise common 10gb/mo mobile data plan. You don't get to buy them individually and they won't otherwise affect your plan. What they do is to make the access to the particular services in the list unlimited.

So you get your 10gb for everything, but maybe you watch a lot of Netflix and are willing to pay a few extra bucks to have it not counting a giants your data plan. That's all this is.

Again, I'm not saying this is fair, ideal or neutral, but it's also not what the article is saying it is. It's also more tailored to get such services users into the carrier business than the other way around. It's more like a "join us to use Netflix for free" than "we allow you to use Netflix only" kind of thing.

It is concerning to some extent, but it isn't new, exclusive to Portugal, or hurting the core concept of Net Neutrality at all, at least not directly. One might be right in argue that making some services cheaper is essentially the same as making other services more expensive - this being a clear violation of the neutrality concept - but it does not block, censure or otherwise limit access to any particular service or domain.

Call it an ethical loophole if you will, but please don't spread mass hysteria with images you can't read.

Nope, you're totally wrong and it seems it's you that can't read. The 10GB/month is for these apps only, not for general-purpose use (you can still buy 10GB/mo of general internet, of course, but that sets you back 25€, if I'm not mistaken). And anyway, the point is that yes, this is a net neutrality violation. Giving dirt cheap data for use in the established giants' services only cements their rule and stifles innovation, by putting any newcomers on very unequal ground. Who the hell would watch a Netflix competitor if that means paying 5x more for data? That's what this is all about.

So much superiority, so much tut-tutting, such a telling off, but it seems you got the "facts" wrong after all. And god knows what you mean by "this is what got Trump elected" (unless you mean lying through your teeth, then maybe you got that right).

A lot of words for "it's a violation of net neutrality that hurts competition and makes using non-mainstream services excessively expensive"!

and I am not sure if it doesn't violate eu law

Our Silicon Valley congressman points out that this offers "a huge advantage for entrenched companies, but it totally ices out startups trying to get in front of people, which stifles innovation."

https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/92370196295609139211111

You have a few extra 1s at the end :) https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/923701962956091392

I work for an indie ISP, so I really hope the big incumbent ISPs in the U.S. start doing this.

Customers will flood to my company instead, since we would never package like this. And I'll be rich!

The reality is this isn't going to happen, because the incumbent ISPs know it will destroy them.

The real problem is that there is far too little competition in this market. When consumers only have 2 options, or even just 1, that's a problem.

Only where companies like you exist. Everywhere else will get limited.

This was just like Google Fiber. Suddenly, ISP speeds shot through the roof wherever Google Fiber threatened. Everywhere else, they didn't budge.

I support your feelings but I don't think it will be so easy.

First of all, can you offer service in every state, every county? But even servicing a local area could be good for your business.

However don't you fear you're going to pay higher fees for peering? I expect that if the big companies are going to pay for a fast lane then they'll want to make sure ISPs like yours can't help people to bypass those lanes.

This is horrendous. The only way to combat it is for the companies in these plans to block ISPs that do this.

Another way is to legislate net neutrality.

You know what I'd like to see a net neutrality exception for? Adverts should be zero-rated. If ISPs are gonna shove bullshit down my throat they sure as hell deserve to accommodate the cost of getting that to me.

This is the norm in Philippine mobile data ISP for Smart or Globe.

Just in time for Halloween. This is chilling.

Nah, Meo has been doing this crap for a while. Plans by other operators (like Vodafone) also have zero-rating, although with a fixed set of apps.

So what does the ISP get out of doing this?

Product segmentation. Currently this is normally just done by speed or data limits. This gives another option to screw people out of money.

This whole thing reminds of something happened (happens) in the consumer product world.

In India, long time ago, there was 300 ml Coca Cola for Rs. 10. For years, they tried to find a way to penetrate the rural market. You see, people were poor and normally couldn't afford the Rs. 10 worth of coke. Coca Cola came up with a brilliant plan. They started selling 200ml for Rs.5 . This achieved two things -

a. opened up the market for people who "couldn't otherwise afford" coke

b. Make the soda "considerably cheaper". Now 400 ml could be have for Rs. 10

Over time things have changed, 300 ml is no longer readily available. The 200 ml variant rules the market at the price of, you guessed it, Rs. 10.

So they dropped the prices, how is that a problem? If it's because it now costs more, if it was so long ago, are you sure that's not just inflation?

It is due to both inflation and clever marketing. I was trying to make a point about the latter.

It started out about being about "affordability" and choice but it no longer was about that.

Same goes for people talking about this net neutrality being about affordability and access. That is not true. It is a simple marketing tactic which will cause the internet prices to go above and beyond inflation.

The concept of net neutrality seems very short sighted. Cell provided is starting to compete with cable. There's also satellite and copper wire from the phone companies. As a consumer, I feel like the trend is in the right direction. Why would I want to setup a regulatory environment that would likely deliver higher rates and poorer service?

I am in SF and the only provider or gigabit fiber in my building is comcast.

A true competitive market does not exist (not unless you consider 15mbps DSL as an alternative to 1000mbps fiber) and therefore the reality of “competition” in the ISP market is abusive monopolies or oligopolies, just like how the reality of communist regimes are abusive authoritarianism.

Sounds like you have a healthy amount of competition in SF. I bet you could write down at least six providers if you include cellular internet. That sounds like a very healthy market to me, what's the claim? That you only have one gigabit option? I remember feeling the same way when I only had 33.6k with AOL 20 years ago. The advancement has been really incredible.

Regarding the abusiveness of authoritarian regimes, I'd suggest the book(s), "The Gulag Archipelago."

Nope, T-Mobile specifically caps mobile LTE usage to prevent people from using unlimited LTE as a replacement for home internet. And even that is about 20-40 mbps.

Restricting tiered site access will deliver higher rates and cause poorer service?

Today the internet is bundled-ish (net neutrality w/o regulation). My claim is that unbundling will allow rates to come down thus broadening access.

Why? There's almost no competition in the US from the complaints often posted here. Further, the rates seem to be insanely high (comparing to various countries in Europe).

Why would a company that has no competition lower the rates?

(First of all, satellite in no-way can compete with copper. That's lunacy, and not even remotely comparable.)

But to answer your question, the regulatory environment helps ensure the desired outcome.

I mean, why have building codes? If enough buildings go up in flames or crumble down killing everyone inside, then maybe we could look into regulating the building industry.

Why have food safety standards? Nobody really dies that much these days from food-related illness, so shouldn't we get rid of all that pesky regulation?

But more to the point, just because they seem to be going where you want today, what has that got to do with where they will go tomorrow?

From my view wealth is the primary mechanism these really great changes are delivered.

I used to work in electricity regulation on the side of consumers. I watched the utilities use the regulatory process to bilk customers. The regulatory process sets the stage for rent seeking. The companies out match the state over and over.

> Why would I want to setup a regulatory environment that would likely deliver higher rates and poorer service?

Naturally, this contrasts with an unregulated environment that would almost certainly deliver higher rates and poorer service.

Also - which cell providers are you referring to - AT&T and Verizon aren't exactly competing.

I’m so tired of seeing this example being brought up.

The packages are for making those services cheaper not more expensive. This is essentially partial zero-rating.

Zero-rating has its own effect on competition, but people are acting like an ISP is blocking access based on subscriptions which is an doomsday of a non-neutral internet I’ve seen trumpeted that’s I don’t believe will happen, and hasn’t happen in other countries.

Well I guess net neutrality is another one of those topics I’d better know to not go against the guard on.

You do realize that there is no difference in the result whether you start with high prices and then selectively make some services cheaper or you start with low prices and then selectively make everything else more expensive, right?

Where have the prices been shown to rise? US carriers didn’t raise prices when they introduced their “soft” zero rating on video traffic.

My point is everyone is jumping to the worst conclusions instead of objectively considering the situation around what ISPs are doing without net neutrality laws.

Not supporting blanket pro net neutrality talk != supporting an unregulated lawless Wild West of ISPs but everyone acts like it is (see how quickly my comment was buried before anyone even responded)

> Where have the prices been shown to rise?

You do realize that the result is the same, whether you first reduce your prices as costs decrease and then raise them again, or just don't bother reducing them in the first place, right?

> US carriers didn’t raise prices when they introduced their “soft” zero rating on video traffic.

So, are you saying that moving around the video traffic doesn't cost them anything? Or how else are they paying for that, if not by keeping the price for other traffic artificially high?

It cost them less, you get downgraded to lower res streams and in exchange they don’t limit how much you can view.

And the idea is they have a choice, raise base prices, or add packages. It’s not add packages or don’t.

Nothing wrong with packages. Just everything wrong with packages for particular services. The solution is really simple: Offer packages of traffic. If people need 10 GB/month for low-res video streaming, then sell 10 GB/month for 5 EUR.

Reading the articles it seems this ISP is forcing you to buy a package of services to get any internet access at all; this is terrifying. Optional zero-rating is bad but not much worse than internet with a stupidly low data-cap already is, even if the net result may be the same.

That’s not true, this image has made at rounds already, multiple first hand users confirmed this is a set of options to save on top of a base package.

That depends on the base package, if you get a pre-paid plan you don't get any included Internet service. You can still access the regular Internet, but it debits 2€ for any day you use it, and only gives you 60MB for that day. To use more you must purchase some extra package.

I’d think that still stifles competition.

If netflix and youtube don’t count towards your data cap (which seems to be how this particular example works), surely that’s going to influence how you view other streaming services? “I could use amazon prime, but my data cap will be blown after two movies”, etc.

It’s not really competition if the ISP picks the winners.

It does stifle competition, but it benefits the consumer, which is why I feel like it should be regulated on a case by case basis.

The same way a company can take multiple steps that stifle innovation, that individually to end completion, but cumulatively put it in a position where it can’t be competed with.

> but it benefits the consumer

In the short run, until there is no competition. This is a classic tactic of monopolists; serve consumers at below cost, wait until competition dies, and then raise prices to higher than pre competition levels.

That’s what the second paragraph addresses. To me the focus should be on those monopolies, not this singular “tool” in their arsenal that itself, isn’t a huge factor in a formation of a monopoly

Why not both?

Even just having one service such as Netflix not count against a data quota is terrible and completely undermines competition.

I don't think there is any major difference between that, and any other version of a non-neutral internet. Its barely a slippery slope.

I 'll be that guy. What's so bad about consumers having more choice? E.g i dont use facebook or netflix, would enjoy the (cheaper rates|larger speeds).

What makes the choice to pay extra for Facebook superior to having it included?

makes it cheaper for everyone else

How?

Because it is not included. You would purchase a base package for say $20 a month, then start adding the apps you want for another $5 a month each. $$profit$$

Nothing is bad about consumers having more choice, what made you think that? And what does that have to do with net neutrality?

how is it not related? It's literally in the title of an article talking about a company offering more options to its users.

What larger speeds? Yours, and overall bandwidth remains the same regardless of what you access.

cheaper rates, so i could afford larger speeds. come on, you 're better than that. (i' m seriously looking for counterarguments i haven't heard)

How would subsidising services that you don't use possibly reduce prices for the stuff that you do use?!

who is subsidising what?

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