F.C.C. Chairman Ponders Net Neutrality
nytimes.com
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Almost every argument I've heard against Net Neutrality that isn't based on "this is the way Peering agreements have always worked" and "its my network, Ill do what I want" have been disproven, or have been shown to be straw-men. Are there any new discussion points that haven't been debated to death?
The FCC Chairman himself has been involved with a company that was shutdown due to lack of open access.
And it's a completely valid argument. If we had real competition then we wouldn't need network neutrality.
But we don't have real competition. So the only sensible thing to do is to have network neutrality until and unless that changes.
I also don't think that ISPs would ever do some of the things that people are spreading fud about. I have serious doubts they would ever block certain sites for business reasons. We already have laws against that. I doubt they'd ever turn sites into a package you need a monthly access fee for either. People don't like paying more for less. They'd never so blatantly piss off their entire customer base like that when they really only stand to lose money. It's much more in their favor to keep things working the way they are now, except to allow some sites that need a lot of bandwidth the speeds they need.
Comcast and other ISPs have blocked (by massively reducing the data rate) entire PROTOCOLS, in this case BitTorrent. Irrespective if you downloaded a Linux ISO or the latest fetish porn movie.
>>> I have serious doubts they would ever block certain sites for business reasons.
Someone replied:
>> Comcast and other ISPs have blocked (by massively reducing the data rate) entire PROTOCOLS, in this case BitTorrent. Irrespective if you downloaded a Linux ISO or the latest fetish porn movie.
So then you reply:
> Well, it's actually well within their right to do that as a business.
What I see here is a contradiction. First you say "I doubt they'd ever do that!" and then when provided with an example of them doing very nearly (if not precisely) that, you then say "Well they're within their rights!"
I agree with you that fixing the monopoly problem is the real solution. I personally think that muni-run last mile networks are the way to do that and to write new laws that authorize, encourage and otherwise enable neighborhoods to run co-ops be they fiber, copper, wifi, etc.
But until such a time as there is robust competition (meaning any one person has say 10 broadband options) I am in favor of net neutrality as patchwork and evolutionary as it is. At least then the "best practices" that ISPs generally lived by for some years would be codified and allow people to sue, thus providing SOME recourse against abusive monopolies. I realize that regulatory capture is a real risk so I'm not overwhelmingly in favor of, it's by a slim margin.
The reason I picked a number like 10 instead of say 3 or 5 is basically "look at the cell phone market" It's pretty terrible and I think some of that can be attributed to the big four (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) and not much else at least in the way of good coverage national carriers.
No, what you see here is a troll.
There is no question about it, they setup their network specifically to reduce completion between Netflix and their own video services. Perhaps if we had completion that might not happen, and perhaps in that same magical la la land if I could see the future I would win the lottery.
Shooting your self in the face on principle might make you feel better. But, please don't pretend it's a reasonable response to the situation at hand.
PS: Yada, Yada. If you really want to troll people on this man up and use your actual account.
How so?
> Shooting your self in the face on principle...
Please don't be so hyperbolic. We're talking about equal access to information here (entertainment in this case). Not exactly a basic necessity like what people actually do shoot faces off for.
Look, I hate huge corporations that don't have to compete because of government protections, but calling a non-expansion of bandwidth to a third-party "blocking" is abusing the term. The goal should be to break up these monopolies while respecting property rights. That is critical for would-be ISPs and other innovation.
Nobody is calling for anything that would fail to be "respecting property rights". Verizon is not fulfilling their obligations to their own customers; that needs to be corrected. Changing the regulatory landscape to remove the perverse incentives that have led to Verizon's misbehavior is a bigger and separate project.
I even understand if I am able to get 50mbps out of the 85mbps. But we're talking about 2mbps streams that are suffering.
I even understand if it's outside their control. I'm not unreasonable. But it's in their control, and caused by them, so yes, this situation is unique.
I very sincerely believe that the most rabid proponents for net neutrality are overlooking the root cause of the issue, which is that the government has created this system in which competition isn't really a viable option for the immediate future.
As a libertarian, I agree with you 100%.
As a pragmatist, I (begrudgingly) acknowledge that because the system is rigged, net neutrality is likely our only option to prevent the existing telecoms from completely screwing over their customers (whichever end of the pipe they happen to be on).
This was not a view I came to on my own, and it was an argument within the HN community that enlightened me, but while I freely agree with your assertion that a truly free market would certainly force the telecoms into being more honest and forthright, I also, and regrettably agree with your assertion that such a free market does not exist in this realm, as it has never been free of the shackles that made it.
It is true, of course, that government regulations can reduce R and therefore make a monopoly more likely (or indeed by making some dumb exclusive deal). But there is absolutely no reason that government must be the cause. In fact, since R<M there is always some C for which a monopoly is inevitable, and we see this in the ISP market: in areas of low density population, C is higher, and there is more likely to be a telco monopoly. Hence, neutrality laws are likely to be needed anyway.
I completely agree on this point. We need net neutrality for now. But what I'm worried about is people losing steam after this. We've seen more energy put into rallying people around net neutrality than anything else like it. Now, if and when we get it, people will think the fight's won.
T-mobile does this[1] as well as Virgin[2]. Scroll down to see packages like:
* "Unlimited Instagram — Monthly $5.00"
* "Unlimited Pinterest — Monthly $5.00"
* "Unlimited Social — Monthly $15.00"
If you are a web or app startup, it's gonna be might hard to get people to use your product when they can use Facebook or other preferred apps for free.
Sure, the above plans are made for low income demographics but it is a looking glass of what the ISP/telecom companies view as the future of the internet.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/18/5822996/t-mobile-music-fre...
The whole net neutrality debate grew out of things that ISPs started doing that violated expectations people had of the way the internet worked, that were the subject of case-by-case actions by the FCC. So, while some of the specific things people are worrying about may be somewhat speculative, the general pattern that the regulations are designed to address has been evident in reality, it is not a speculative threat.
I see no reason why we shouldn't take a wait and see approach.
I could see paid prioritization having some benefits. The average internet service provider customer is cheap as fuck. They buy the cheapest service and bitch about rising costs.
Though if isps going crazy we can always just pass net neutrality.
Incorrect, the Internet in the United States has been under de-facto net neutrality rules through a patchwork of agreements, policy statements, and regulations.
The current debate is just about formalizing the legal method & the scope of any rules to maintain a "Open Internet". (That is the term that the FCC uses for the various net neutrality issues.)
The ISPs generally obeyed it before, but they generally obey it now. I'm not seeing the dire need for formal regulations.
The reason why the formalizing the rules is now an issue is because a federal court has thrown out the legal method the FCC had been using to wave at ISPs to be neutral.
So now there is no ruling, and the ISPs wouldn't have spent all that time & money on lawyers to preserve what they just took down.
So right now, the FCC is going to release new rules on the Open Internet. The question is, will it be under a new interpretation of the old method that was thrown out of court (Section 702), or by calling ISPs common carriers and then forbearing most of the sections in Title II (as the court alluded is possible).
Before around 2005 there was competition. Regardless of who your phone company was you could get internet access from AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, Earthlink or any number of local hole in the wall ISPs with a couple of T1s and a bank of modems. Those companies had every intention of leasing DSL and cable lines in the same way they traditionally leased phone lines.
This is what changed in 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_%26_Telecommunic...
The FCC decided that broadband ISPs didn't have to lease their lines to competitors, which essentially killed all of the competitors.
We can have a competitive market with little regulation. We can have a monopoly with strong regulation. What we absolutely cannot allow is a monopoly with little regulation.
Seriously though, it this just blatant corporate chronyism or what? It's getting to the point where the corporate douchebags running this country aren't even trying to hide the fact anymore. At least before we could pretend we had democratic process. Now we get trampled on day in day out and we don't even get warm fuzzy feelings about it like we used to.
And is it just me, or is just about everyone "too busy" to even give a fuck where the country is going?
If you have had a terrible experience with Comcast another operator lately, especially if they're denying you service, file a complaint with the FCC.
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/headlines/2014...
This is the organization that considers a nipple slip unlawful television content.
Didn't we spend the 90s worrying about exactly this? What one hand giveth...
So why hasn't a decision been reached? Quite simply Tom Wheeler is letting his name shine in the public spotlight to build political clout.