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Comment by silverreads | Hacker News Reader

.org is getting sold, all data plans have transfer caps, google is not even showing urls to mobile users anymore, yes things are going to hell.

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I'm all for net neutrality, but 2 of the 3 things you listed were never going to be "protected" by net neutrality laws.

Which highlights the problem with what Net Neutrality morphed into - it became something that meant everything and anything - not just "dumb pipes" like it originated as.

Ask 3 different people what Net Neutrality means and you'll get 3 different answers. How do you legislate that and make everyone happy?

I'm not positive that this is an example, but it seems like it must be. Watching Netflix through Comcast's Xfinity box does not count against your data cap. Watching the same Netflix on the same TV over the same pipe using a computer instead, does.

Data exemptions are absolutely an example of a net neutrality violation. Similar things, like exempting partnered streaming music services from mobile data plans, have been shot down in Canada.

Yes, It is definitely a Net Neutrality violation, This type of zero rated discriminatory plans are illegal in some countries like in India.

I don’t think any of those things have anything to do with net neutrality.

Exactly.

This highlights the foolishness of "net neutrality", which is really just code for "my team should regulate the internet".

It always seemed somewhat opposite to me - that opposition to net neutrality consists of a non-negligible percent of people acting only against something perceived to be liberal.

The .org sale was attempted but has been stalled: https://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2020/02/19/dot_org_sale_is...

Mostly correct, essentially all new plans have transfer caps. I still have a vintage Verizon data plan that's bonafide unlimited. Data overage is gotcha-capitalism robbery.

Are you talking about a mobile phone data plan, or a hardwired ISP-ish data plan? I'm about 99% sure that the specific classification this fight was over only applied to the latter, not the former -- there was never any "neutrality" in this sense for mobile data.

Both, to varying degrees. And of course carriers are going to tailor their cell gear to their benefit in ways unknowable to customers without enterprising investigators conducting some seriously-dedicated SDR packet capturing and N carrier x M handsets x P locations x Q time-of-day testing.

0. Even assuming lossless/infinite backhaul capacity, it gets messy when guessing about what's deployed in terms of packet prioritization of tower -> handset.

1. Once deployed and maintained, the marginal cost of data is much closer to zero than what customers are being overcharged. Even if it's going from a cell tower to cheap dark fiber or trenched in, it's still nearly the same amortized cost. Also, there is plenty of spectrum channel capacity.. the "bottleneck" is the backend of the towers or their backend upstream in the region.

2. Xfinity (optical, fixed-premises "cable") has a 1 TB limit for certain US states but not others, where they have unlimited data allowances. So it's not about infrastructure or data transit costs, it's about making money from relatively richer people.

It would be a good requirement for internet-providing carriers to be required to publish their effective channel capacity oversubscription ratio (for upload & download) for each internet-connecting plan that is offered in each ZIP code.

What I never properly understood is whether these caps appear anywhere on your contracts, if they don't then net neutrality should[1] not be necessary and if they do then it should not apply.

[0] I guess I am wrong in believing this should is respected

Contracts with ISPs are whatever the ISP wants them to be at any time, because the US court system allows one-sided non-negotiable contracts that include "we can change this contract at any time" clauses. Also, if you want to sue over the changes in the contract... you can't, because the US court system allows those one-sided non-negotiable contracts to include "you can never sue us for anything and instead are required to go to arbitration with an arbitrator of our choosing" clauses.

The fundamental problem here isn't how contracts work in the US — it's that in many places there is effectively zero competition for wired broadband services. If there were meaningful competition, then consumers would have somewhere to turn. It doesn't matter what the contract says if you don't have any meaningful alternatives for service.

> It doesn't matter what the contract says if you don't have any meaningful alternatives for service.

This is conditional on resources or on the possibility of a class action. In practice I agree that this condition is almost never satisfied.

Class actions are also impossible, because of those mandatory arbitration clauses.

But then the thing I am relatively unsure about the stance of net-neutrality proponents would be whether it is legal for Comcast to sell "shitty internet." That is something that always get throttled first, that blocks certain websites, or that prioritize promoted services.

I mean a VPN could legally do that, and in the case of a ISP my personal idea of net-neutrality would be that a neutral service needs to be available and that non-neutral offerings needs to be clearly marketed as such.

I honestly see this as a possible drive to competition, as ISP would be forced to disclose how shitty or not the service is.

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