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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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).

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.

> 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.

> 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.

> 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.

"Minority of people"? Most people are in a duopoly - the local telco, the local cableco. Not much in the way of competition.

> 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...

> 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-...

Plan fails to meet the existing standards? Just redefine the standards to fit your plan! It's so simple!

> 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.

> 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.

> 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.

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