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Comment by SilasX | Hacker News Reader

I don't like to admit it, but I'm in the same boat as you. I've heard NN used, depending on the context, to refer to prohibition of:

1) Throttling sites the ISP doesn't like.

2) Any kind of penalty for heavier users.

3) Charging for access to special pipes that are faster, when both sides want to pay a premium for speed and reliability.

Unless I ask directly I have a hard time discerning what someone means by NN, and even then I don't know how well it maps to what new regulations will actually do.

Edit: Another attempt at clarifying first sentence.

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All of those things are possible consequences of repealing net neutrality.

Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination.

Repealing net neutrality would allow ISPs to more interesting traffic shaping based on the contents of the packets, e.g. allow unlimited data caps if the user pays for the ISP for unlimited netflix.

The pros for net neutrality are that the ISPs have historically done all of the practices that you mention. And actively practice them in countries like Portugal which have no net neutrality.

The con is that some sites are much heavier bandwidth than others, and do represent a much higher cost to the ISPs. For instance I've read that netflix takes more than 50% of North American bandwidth during peak hours. Repealing net neutrality would allow ISPs to have more flexible pricing models that in theory could allow the consumer cheaper broadband by choosing different traffic shaping options. In my opinion, this is unrealistic because ISPs are a natural monopoly in most places and thus the incentive is to skew pricing for what costs their routing infrastructure the least rather than be competitive with other ISPs.

> Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination.

That doesn't make sense. ISPs have long blocked "dangerous" or "premium" ports, like 445 (SMB) or 25 (SMTP). Those are parts of the contents of your internet packets and yet even the net neutrality regulation didn't prohibit doing that. And you can't argue those are "headers" rather than "contents" because then throttling packets based on IP addresses would not require looking at packet contents. So I think your definition is incorrect?

What people do and what is legislated are two different things. The point is that with a law on the books you can fight about your SMTP connection being closed, but without the law then there is no framework to even complain.

> What people do and what is legislated are two different things. The point is that with a law on the books you can fight about your SMTP connection being closed, but without the law then there is no framework to even complain.

That seems orthogonal to my comment. I was responding to the parent comment on what net neutrality even is, not trying to debate its merits.

Ports are destinations really, not contents.

They can block mail from everyone, or they can allow it for everyone, but they cannot block or throttle a single provider.

>Simply net neutrality is your ISP ignoring the contents of your packets and simply routing them to their intended destination.

So then, concretely: say I have an expensive, faster link in my network. I don't look inside the packets, but I allow them to specify some flag in the header that indicates they want to use the fast link (and I keep track of which peer is requesting it to compare to how many such usages they've paid for).

Is that a NN violation? Is that harmful to the internet? Do current or proposed regulations allow it?

Yes, because it means treating packets different based on their contents. In this case, the contents are some header flag.

Is it harmful to the internet? Yes, because it promotes winners and losers. Not just from the consumer perspective. Maybe corporations can pay to have faster downlink to your customers using the same technology.

Current regulations do not allow it. Or, at the minimum, it's a grey area.

You might have seen your argument branded as an "internet fast lane," which I'd suspect would be so much of a fast lane as a slow lane for everyone else.

How is that any different from allowing someone to pay more to use more of a plane (e.g. first class seats)? Is this just a general argument that everyone should pay the same and get the same?

The analogy of the planes is not very helpful, because each flight is paid for individually. The idea is that traffic to certain peers (not the ISP customers, but whoever they are communicating with) should not be discriminated against. So you can pay for faster service, but all packets coming from or to you would get flagged, not just those going to certain servers.

If the ISP customer is able to specify which link to use and be charged accordingly, that's not necessarily a violation of the spirit of net neutrality. If a bad ISP implemented this and made the slow path absurdly slow, well then you just always use the fast link and it's the equivalent of the ISP just charging you more. It's not harmful to the Internet, and I believe current regulations allow it.

If the server the customer is connecting to is able to specify which link to use and the server pays the bill for that usage, that's a different matter. If a bad ISP implemented this and made the slow path absurdly slow, servers would be forced to use the fast link in order to access the ISPs' customers, and now the ISP is forcing Netflix et. al. to fork over money just to be able to access their customers. That will hurt the Internet, and current regulations do not allow it.

I'm actually not sure I buy this now.

Lets say I'm an ISP and I build out 2 networks. 1 is 10 times faster than the other. Both end up at the same place and then go out to users.

If I offer companies the option of paying more for the faster network, why is that a problem?

In your scenario it certainly seems reasonable that I should be able to just switch off the slower network, and keep the new prices under the argument that I put in significant amounts of money to upgrade.

> Lets say I'm an ISP and I build out 2 networks. 1 is 10 times faster than the other. Both end up at the same place and then go out to users.

> If I offer companies the option of paying more for the faster network, why is that a problem?

If the company in question is a customer of the ISP, there is no problem. The problem I mentioned was when you, as a company, have to pay money not just to your own ISP, but to your customer's ISP, just to give them their data.

I was right with you until you brought up Netflix. I'm unclear on why Netflix being a big source of traffic is a problem. It's not like people are having trouble accessing Netflix now. And Netflix makes extensive use of CDNs and co-locates caching servers in the ISPs' own data centers, so it's not like the fact that everyone's using Netflix is really burdening the ISP.

Do you want your ISP to charge you extra for the "privilege" of being able to get access to Netflix ("Streaming media package!"), or Twitch ("Esports!"), __in addition__ to any subscriptions you would already pay to Netflix?

You're misunderstanding me. My point is that a common anti-NN argument is "but Netflix generates so much traffic..." and I'm saying that argument is without merit.

The argument that video streaming results in tremendously one way traffic, making peering agreements unfair, seems worth considering.

I don't understand how traffic directionality affects peering. The path of routers between the client and the server handle all packets. The fact that the source is mostly from one size doesn't affect the load on the routers, they're still handling the same number of packets whether the traffic is symmetric or not.

Unfair to Netflix.

They could send back a whole bunch of zero bytes to make the traffic symmetrical. They save everyone's resources by not doing that, yet somehow that means they should be charged...

The direction of the traffic is meaningless. What matters is the endpoint of the connection. ISPs should be happy to peer with anyone for traffic that has their users as an endpoint.

The ISP's feel like, burden or not, since Netflix represents more of the traffic they should pay more of the infrastructure cost. Many people fear that if Net Neutrality is repealed, the ISP's will have a giant lever (in the form of levying fees on customers for accessing Netflix) to squeeze Netflix to get them to cough up more cash.

It's an old & interesting debate about how data service ought to be billed. If 26 customers pay for 50MB/s service, most use 2MB/s, one uses 50MB/s, and the uplink is sparsely provisioned at 100MB/s, what is fair? One customer is using half the capacity of the link but only paying 1/26th of the costs, while the others are using 1/50th of the capacity and paying 1/26th the cost. Many might argue the one customer should be paying more.

That's an argument for billing customers based on bytes of traffic (as opposed to a flat monthly rate) which does not violate Net Neutrality.

Yes, although bytes-based billing runs counter to the provider-side convention of peering.

Portugal has NN...

None of those are net neutrality, but all of those are things that are prevented by the presence of net neutrality.

Net neutrality is currently enforced because ISPs are regulated as "common carriers", meaning they can't intentionally prefer some traffic over other traffic. The vote on Thursday is to reverse this regulation.

If ISPs could prefer some traffic over others, they could do any of the things that you suggest, enabling censorship.

Sorry, I edited it to indicate that those were things that may or may not constitute an NN violation.

>all of those are things that are prevented by the presence of net neutrality.

How is 2)? If you're penalized by total usage [A], irrespective of source or type, that seems pretty neutral. Whether it's a good policy in general is debatable, of course.

(That's another problem with the debate: that "NN violation" is casually equated with "imprudent policy". If an ISP throttles everyone to 1 KB/s, then, yeah, that's a jerk move, but it's definitely content- and source-neutral.)

>If ISPs could prefer some traffic over others, they could let do any of the things that you suggest, enabling censorship.

That doesn't follow. Let's say they lay down some new expensive pipe for some link in their network, on top of what they already have, and then allow anyone to pay for access to the faster pipe. Data continues to get through at the pre-existing speed if you don't pay. How is anyone being censored?

ANd if you find that objectionable, how is that any worse than toll roads or even e.g. convenience stores, where you pay more in order to have a shorter checkout time.

[A] In this context, I have in mind something like "charging more for users who download more than X bytes, weighted by time of usage" or "slightly reallocating the pipe in favor of lighter users at times of peak usage".

It absolutely follows.

> 1) Throttling sites the ISP doesn't like

Is the definition of censorship. ISPs could just choose to not let anybody access their competitors' websites, for example.

You're correct that data caps don't fall under this, however.

>> 1) Throttling sites the ISP doesn't like

>Is the definition of censorship. ISPs could just choose to not let anybody access their competitors' websites, for example.

You're changing the example -- the scenario was allowing transmitters to opt to pay for the faster link. Packets would still get through at the same speed as e.g. today. It's not blocking them wholesale. At most, it's favoritism, and downloaders still get the data at a reasonable speed as under the pre-upgrade terms.

And the example involved a simple "did you pay?" structure, which is otherwise neutral. It would be a different story if favored sites got the fast pipe without paying, or if only some favored sites were allowed to buy the fast hop at all. But this example doesn't have that.

Prudent policy or not, I don't see how that comes close to censorship.

Do you say it's "censorship" when an activist wants to drive to other activists' houses to plan subversive activities, since it takes longer when you don't use the toll roads?

I can't be changing the example if I'm quoting you.

I am not discussing the presence of fast lanes right now, which have their own problems. I'm talking about the literal prevention of accessing specific data because your ISP decides you aren't allowed to access it.

Without net neutrality, if my ISP sees I'm trying to access a political site that they don't like, they could just make half of all those requests fail. If they like a particular political candidate for office in my area, then they can prevent me from accessing all the other candidate's sites or reading a news story about a positive thing the other candidate did.

This is absolutely enabling censorship and yes we are discussing different examples but I do not need to demonstrate how your example is censorship when another example (that you said was a possibility!) does, if I am trying to demonstrate how this enables censorship. This is not a case of (All things prevented by net neutrality) but (There exists a thing prevented by net neutrality) that enables censorship.

I'm sorry -- this no longer feels like a productive discussion. I described two scenarios: a) one where the ISP deliberately throttles sites with views it dislikes, and b) another where everyone gets the normal speed but some may pay more for faster.

You claimed that any non-neutrality would permit a). I disagreed and gave an example of someone violating neutrality by doing b), where all views are still transmitted, but some have the option to pay for faster transmission.

In every reply, you changed the example back to a) and insisted you were quoting me. That is not responsive, and I cannot justify further engagement unless your replies can more narrowly address the scenario that I was actually talking about.

a) is the only example anyone is seriously worried about. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks that Comcast or Verizon will make special pipes that are faster than what we have today and keep the "slow" pipes to match the speed we have today. Obviously they will instead call what we have today the "fast" pipes and will throttle (or block) everything else. I would bet my life on it.

That's because NN is a proxy for what most people really want, which is competition among ISPs. If we had a choice of several good broadband providers, we wouldn't need regulation, we would expect competition among them to protect consumers' needs.

Since we don't, we need some kind of regulation to keep ISPs from abusing their monopoly status. In general, "pro net neutrality" means you think the regulations should be abundant and strict (like they are with water and power utilities) and "anti net neutrality" means you think they should be light and weak (like they are with, say, cable TV). Disagreement within those camps on specifics does not mean that there are not, broadly, two camps.

From my #2 link: "Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet,” Pai said

A favorite pet theory of mine: "That government is best which governs least."

Is it really so bad for the government to be more hands off?

Discuss. (Preferably people more informed than I am will share their insights.)

Less government regulation makes sense in places that don't endanger people (e.g. food quality) and in fields with a lot of competition. A large number of people in the united states only have access to one ISP, or one fast ISP[1].

Your single ISP available to you could decide that you don't get to access your favorite site(s) without charging an additional fee to access them. They could refuse to offer any unknown sites, and just offer facebook, youtube, etc, each costing some number of dollars to use.

Net neutrality prevents this.

1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...

If competition is working effectively, then government management usually does more harm than good. The question is, is competition working effectively in telecommunications? In much of the country, I suspect that the answer is no.

Thank you. That's very succinct and a good framing of the issue.

And the reason for the lack of competition is, again, the government with its enforcement of ISP monopolies. Why don't they stop micromanaging the markets there as well?

Even without the government's involvement, infrastructure (internet (cables, dishes), transportation (e.g. roads, rails), cell service, sewage, electricity) all has such a massive initial investment that competition just won't naturally happen.

A company has to lay so much fiber or wire to service even a reasonable number of households that the barrier to entry is huge.

The biggest argument for maintaining net neutrality is so that ISPs don't provide worse service to websites competing with their own products. The most obvious case there being Netflix vs your cable company's streaming service. If you get high latency and frequent video stutter when using Netflix but not for your ISP's version, you'll use that. Even if the cause of that stutter is your ISP.

Your quote is a great example of Pai strategically shining Net Neutrality in a negative light. In the current day and age there is plenty of concern around and overreaching government so hey, lets make the argument that this vote is about giving the government less control of the internet!

Except that's not what this vote is about. The government currently says that ISP's must treat internet traffic equally. This is a good thing and is hardly micromanaging. Without it, an ISP is able to kill their competition and extort other companies.

Examples: In 2005 the FCC ordered an ISP to stop blocking VOIP calls on their network. The ISP had their own phone service, so they started to block VOIP services on their network in order to force customers to use their phone product. Without NN, this is okay.

In 2005 the AT&T CEO claimed that "Anybody who expects to use our pipes for free is nuts!". ISP's want to demand a cut from every website just to reach their customers. Without NN, this is okay.

In 2012 AT&T decides to block FaceTime on its mobile networks for subscribers unless they enter into a “Mobile Share” plan. Without NN, this is okay.

There are more examples available, these all came from http://whatisnetneutrality.org/timeline.

The internet should really be nothing more than a dumb pipe. Your ISP should be doing nothing more than connecting you to the internet. They should not have a say in what websites you go toor what services you can use. They should not be able to force websites to pay for access to their customer base. The ISP should provide you X Mbps for Y GB of bandwidth and that's it.

I'll share a case against the current NN framework, even if I don't wholly buy it.

First of all, this vote is factually about giving the government less regulatory power by reclassifying ISPs under Title 1. The legal basis for Net Neutrality under Title II allows the government to dictate prices and essentially regulate ISPs like they do water or electric utilities. Obviously ISPs would prefer to not have this axe swinging over their heads.

> The government currently says that ISP's must treat internet traffic equally. This is a good thing and is hardly micromanaging.

It's a matter of opinion whether this is a good thing. One counter-argument is that it limits the size of the menu that ISPs can offer. My parents, for example, want fast home Internet access but do not watch streaming video. However home ISPs cannot offer downgraded video, so my parents must pay more.

Zero-rated ("free streaming") music - blatantly non-NN - is another argument. Obviously people like streaming music for free. NN proponents think this makes it hard for startups to compete with deep-pocketed established players. But this does not seem to be happening: lots and lots of services, both big and small, are now zero-rated on popular plans.

> The internet should really be nothing more than a dumb pipe.

Well, maybe it shouldn't. Applications have different needs: twitch games want low latency, streaming services want high bandwidth, overnight downloads can have low priority, etc. If you had a knob that controlled your Internet latency, wouldn't you use it?

But even if you believe it should be dumb, is it proper to declare that ISPs are natural monopolies and therefore ought to be regulated aggressively under Title II? Or is it better to apply a light touch and find ways to encourage competition, under the premise that competitive markets are more consumer-friendly? The recent upheavals in the mobile telecom market (led by T-Mobile) show that established players can be more vulnerable than they look.

I think basically we don't know. The most compelling arguments for NN are all hypothetical, because we have been living under a NN regime so far.

> If you had a knob that controlled your Internet latency, wouldn't you use it?

Generally, people would prefer that they have this control, not that the ISP has this control for them and does what the ISP wants.

It is, when the industry in question has repeatedly shown themselves to act in a bad manner.

Further, "governing least" is a terrible idea, because that also implies that they're going to fail to govern in situations where they should.

To my mind, governing least means judiciously intervening when it actually requires it, but no more. If this is a situation where intervention makes sense, I am fine with that. I am just trying to comprehend if it is or not.

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