Hacker News Reader

Comment by justizin | Hacker News Reader

"If Wheeler does propose to reclassify ISPs and regulate them under Title II of the Communications Act, that would be a stinging defeat for ISPs"

I feel this adversarial perspective is unnecessary. Title II is good for anyone who wants to build a good Internet Service Provider.

If you're an ISP, and you don't want to build a good ISP, that's bad for your business with or without Title II. Title II just provides a foundation for protecting customers of such idiots while they are in the process of going out of business.

View on HN

It would be a stinging defeat for the main major actually existing ISPs, all of whom have been actively fighting any net neutrality regulation and have especially opposed the idea of Title II reclassification.

The adversarial perspective may slightly imprecise in identifying the one side ("ISPs" as opposed to "the major ISPs now in existence"), but is otherwise an accurate description of the facts.

It would be a stinging defeat for their expensive lobbyists, who will be fired.

Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon won't change much.

A lot of people forget that AT&T, Verizon, and Google put forth Net Neutrality legislation that was perfectly good, but limited temporarily to "wireline" services, because they wanted time to regulate wireless.

That was like three or four years ago, so the argument at the time that we couldn't wait for wireless regulation is completely insolvent, since we also still don't have wireless regulation, and Title II is unlikely to cover wireless services, at least in this round - though I could be proven wrong.

Look, I'm an anti-capitalist, anti-corporate activist, but most people, fellow engineers included, have no idea what they're talking about with Net Neutrality. Most people are protecting the interests of Netflix, who is a major corporation with a massive technology budget dwarfed only by its' massive budget for paying the MPAA.

But please, keep regurgitating Netflix's talking points about how noone will be able to start a company in their basement ever again - an odd complaint, since before Comcast throttled Netflix to something like 70% of the total Comcast network, Netflix themselves may have been causing problems for people trying to launch companies from basements or garages, or just check their e-mail.

Title II is a victory for the internet, it should be a utility, I've been saying this for the entire 20 years of my career since I was involved in Time Warner's beta test of Roadrunner and noticed that as an entertainment service, it wasn't regulated like my ISDN line.

But the way this is all going down, it's clear to me that something is happening behind the scenes, and I think it looks like Netflix pouring water into a bucket with a few drops of Net Neutrality.

What do you mean about netflix pouring water?

I'm implying that they are "watering down" the legislation. If you aren't a native english speaker, this may not have come across clearly.

My implication is that Netflix is trying to accomplish something in their interest which will be "flavored" as "Net Neutrality" (let's call it 'regulated internet', since I don't think purely neutral, unconfigured networks will yield our goals), and that they are using sympathetic arguments with little connection to the actual legislation or substantial issues at question to distract us all, as an act of misdirection, like a magician.

The unfortunate result may be that we have something that looks and smells like Net Neutrality, but is empty, serves corporate interests, does not address the things on the protest signs everyone is posting on Facebook, and we will have paid for it with our own misguided moral outrage.

In that case, someone should read through the legislation that Netflix is actually proposing, and explain how it isn't really about Net Neutrality... then we can blame Netflix for misdirecting us and propose some real, useful legislation.

> someone should read through the legislation that Netflix is actually proposing

Has Netflix proposed legislation? AFAICT, they've not proposed specific legislation or regulation, but filed formal comment [0] on the last FCC proposal opposing its approach and advocating regulation under Title II authority (but without specifically advocating details of what the regulations should be adopted under Title II authority.)

[0] http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7521491186

> A lot of people forget that AT&T, Verizon, and Google put forth Net Neutrality legislation that was perfectly good, but limited temporarily to "wireline" services, because they wanted time to regulate wireless.

> That was like three or four years ago

People probably "forget" that because that didn't actually happen -- even ignoring the subject "perfectly good" description, AT&T, Verizon, and Google did not propose net neutrality legislation 3-4 years ago; in fact, four-and-a-half years ago Google was supporting and AT&T opposing an alternative discussed at the FCC to use Title II. [0]

[0] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/07/few-neutrals-in-d...

Just because YOU don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen. In the ensuing time since four and a half years ago, other things than the singular event you linked have happened.

Those three companies definitely put forth a proposal with language designed to address 'fast lane' type of concerns, though that tired metaphor is very difficult to accurately apply, since internet traffic is more like water than cars.

Look, I'm not here to say, "Hey the market will take care of this and AT&T and Verizon and Google are Good Actors(tm)", I am simply stating that they came forth with a proposal whose only shortcoming was being restricted temporarily to wireline services. That happened, and at the time, everyone was up in arms about it only being wireline.

After that juncture, rarely was Net Neutrality discussed, esp in non-technical circles, until the Netflix debacle.

Never heard of this, do you have a link to a source?

> Just because YOU don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Well, no, the fact that what you describe didn't happen means it didn't happen. I've found the details of something that did happen on the same general subject, and involving some of the same actors, at about the time you describe [0][1], but it differs from your description:

> AT&T, Verizon, and Google

Just Verizon and Google.

> put forth Net Neutrality legislation

They actually put forth a set of "key elements" that they argued should be included in net neutrality legislation. [0]

> that was perfectly good, but limited temporarily to "wireline" services, because they wanted time to regulate wireless.

It was limited to wireline services (but for the transparency provision), and, in addition, allowed any provider that provided wireline services complying with the neutrality provision unlimited permission to offer any non-neutral services so long as they were distinguished in "scope and function" from the neutral service. [0; "Additional Online Services"] So, it didn't so much require wireline broadband neutrality as require wireline providers to offer a neutral service at some price point as a precondition for offering non-neutral services.

It also explicitly denied the FCC rulemaking authority, limiting the FCC to case-by-case enforcement and issuing reports to Congress. [0; "Case-by-Case Enforcement"]

Also, the temporary part is not entirely accurate. The stated reason for not including wireless services was conditions at the time, but there was nothing temporary about the exclusion (that is, the "key elements" proposed did not include any conditions for imposing wireless neutrality.) [0; "Wireless Broadband"]

> I am simply stating that they came forth with a proposal whose only shortcoming was being restricted temporarily to wireline services.

The things for which the proposal was criticized at the time for included:

1) Moving from the then-existing FCC rules "fixed" vs. "mobile" distinction where stronger neutrality rules existed for fixed and some, but weaker, neutrality rules existed for mobile to a "wireline" vs. "wireless" distinction where no neutrality rules applied to wireless. (Many neutrality proponents were also criticizing the existing FCC rules for the weaker mobile rules, but this was seen as even worse.)

2) Explicitly including a "key element" permitting wireline operators to offer any non-neutral services so long as they also provided a service meeting the neutrality rules, and expressly limiting the FCC's authority to deal with such additional services to issuing reports. [2]

3) Imposing all the rules and loopholes through statute and including a "key element" expressly limiting the FCC rule to case-by-case enforcement and excluding rulemaking. And proposing encouragement of non-governmental dispute resolution in the framework. [3; "Meaningful harm"]

[0] http://www.scribd.com/doc/35599242/Verizon-Google-Legislativ...

[1] http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-policy-...

[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/08/google-verizon-un...

[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/08/googleverizon-we-...

> "But please, keep regurgitating Netflix's talking points about how noone will be able to start a company in their basement ever again - an odd complaint, since before Comcast throttled Netflix to something like 70% of the total Comcast network, Netflix themselves may have been causing problems for people trying to launch companies from basements or garages, or just check their e-mail."

If Comcast's networks are configured sanely, then no amount of Netflix streaming would be able to interfere with email or any other sparse flows, because the packets being dropped at congestion points would belong mainly to the heaviest bandwidth users - the Netflix streams themselves. Netflix cannot possibly do anything to interfere with non-Netflix traffic on Comcast's network in a way that is not primarily Comcast's fault, just like it's not Bittorrent's fault that it revealed a bunch of network problems.

Yes, we could go far down that road, I just think Netflix makes for a poor example case. They have stirred up a lot of this discussion, which is not about them at all.

Furthermore, "configured sanely" would not be neutral, IMO. I'm in favor of regulating, but you just described why neutral networks are bad. ;)

You're presenting a horrible false dichotomy here. There are options other than racketeering or having all your equipment limited to large dumb FIFO queues. Active queue management strategies can ensure that flows with different traffic patterns cannot starve each other, without explicitly classifying them based on protocol or customer; all ports and IPs get the same rules applied to them.

VoIP and streaming video and email and everything else can coexist automatically just like interactive and batch processes get handled implicitly without starvation by CPU schedulers. Furthermore, good AQM/SQM usually results in better performance for everyone - even the Netflix users - by eliminating unnecessary retransmissions and other harmful side-effects of poorly managed congestion.

Nobody is advocating for a definition of "neutral" that would exclude such techniques except for people who are trying to make neutrality sound bad.

interactive and batch processes get handled implicitly without starvation by CPU schedulers? ;)

Look, I'm just saying that the non-technical language being used to advocate for net neutrality poorly matches the technical language, and that will cause problems when properly writing or understanding the language of such law is viewed by non-technical people as providing an opportunity for the industry to self-regulate. I don't entirely disagree, but it's irrelevant if I do, because such human concerns are likely to be raised and it would be possible to write better regulation, IMO, if we avoided the word 'neutral'.

I think, for instance, that a lot of people outside the industry conflate paid prioritization with paying for dedicated bandwidth capacity via high commits. Furthermore, some of the most popular arguments have been provided by Netflix and don't entirely hold water when applied to all parties - if I have bytes and enough people want them, should my provider be required to come to my place and constantly upgrade the link until it cannot be saturated?

[ I know that over time, Netflix refined their argument, but that was more or less how they started the conversation ]

I just think there's a disconnect, I am particularly concerned at how many people are like, "I am for Net Neutrality because I want the government's hands off my Internet!".

[ tilts head ] I'm not sure that's the conversation I want to be having. ;)

The EU net neutrality rules include that a neutral network can use throttling tools in order to handle temporary network congestion.

The key word here is "temporary", which mean a ISP can't oversell their capacity and then use throttling in order to continue selling once the capacity is full 24/7. You turn throttling from being a tool to generate profits, into a technical tool for handling congestion and establish reliability of the network. A term that technicians has in their tool belt, rather than business executives.

FCC decision is about policy. Deciding whom and why throttling is used is in my view the core issue being described with NN rules, and is 100% political in nature rather than technical.

> Title II is good for anyone who wants to build a good Internet Service Provider.

So that'd mean it's good for, at most, anyone who isn't in the set { Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, ... }.

No, not really. It would likely commoditize the service of providing Internet addressable IP routing and set it on a path for cutting all of the margin out of the business for the ISP, while likely doing nothing to cut the overall cost of the combined service to the consumer. The companies that own the lines would still take the lion's share of the profit under a title II scenario - they'd just take it in different ways than they do today. Line sharing rules weren't effective for DSL, and I don't see how the same dance played out 15 years later would have any different results.

We need to do something, I just don't think title II is the right way to go.

Define "good internet service provider"? ISP's are businesses. Businesses exist to make money. Regulations like net neutrality push in the direction of turning ISP's into "dumb pipes" and there's no money in building "dumb" anything, and certainly not enough to justify the tens of billions of dollars ISPs invest every year into their networks.[1]

Differentiation and bundling is something you see in many areas of the tech sector. Facebook doesn't open up their platform and infrastructure for anyone to access however they want. They carefully control the points of entries onto their service, and affiliations with other services, etc.

At the end of the day, users are willing to pay, e.g., $15/month for Netflix, and don't care about who gets what part of that money. Fights over net neutrality and copyright are about how this $15 gets split up between: content creators, infrastructure providers, and user-facing websites.

[1] If you look into the actual finances of cable and fiber, you'll find, for example, that both Verizon FiOS and Charter would be losing tons of money if they didn't bundle video services along with internet access.

Sonic.net is, for my money (and they get my money, rather than Comcast or someone else who would sell me a fatter, but less capable or otherwise somehow restricted, pipe for less money), a perfect example of a "good ISP".

What makes them good? They act like a dumb pipe. They don't block things. They don't log things. They don't throttle things. They don't care what I use my service for. They fix things when things break. They stay out of my way.

And, somehow, they manage to bring in enough money that they're deploying FTTP trials in multiple cities.

> there's no money in building "dumb" anything

Historically, there have been many successful utility providers that earned a lot of money producing simple products. Telephone companies, power companies, and oil refineries, neither won a stronghold by producing "smart" products. Most however did produce illegal monopolies.

1) Utility providers have historicaly been legal monopolies. I.e. in return for rate regulation, they get protection from competition.

2) The telephone network was a marvel of engineering at the time. Same for the power grid, power plants, oil refineries, etc. That infrastructure is the product of huge amounts of "hard engineering."

1) ISPs are also essentially monopolies. 2) It is also incredibly expensive to build ISP infrastructure.

1) Not really. Most developed areas have at least two ISP providers, the local cable co and the local telephone company.

30% of Americans have 1 or fewer wireline broadband connections. Satellite and 4g cover a lot of them and provide at least some competition.

That 30% is mostly rural or small urban pockets that are just outside of DSL's effective range.

Does 4G really offer much pure competition when the two biggest (by number of subscribers) wireless companies, Verizon and AT&T, also do business in FTTP/DSL services in many of those very same markets?

Verizon: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/about-provider/verizon-communica...

AT&T: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/about-provider/at&t-inc/nationwi...

Satellite, 4G and microwave connections are poor substitutes for a wired connection. The sheer amount of latency and packet loss makes them not even an option for my connection. I would hardly call them competitive. For a wired connection, I have precisely one option: Comcast.

Even if latency and packet loss weren't an issue for my use, there are additional restrictions that come in to play. For instance, my HOA doesn't allow any satellite dishes or microwave antennae to be mounted in the neighborhood. While petitioning my HOA for change would be much easier than trying to petition for national legislation, why should those companies be allowed to divvy service areas like gangs agreeing to stay out of each others' "turf"?

A duopoly is no better than a monopoly for all intents and purposes. It creates the illusion of choice. ISP A sucks at this, this and this, whereas ISP B sucks at that, that and that. There's a voting analogy to be made there, but let's try to stick to the topic at hand....

Point-to-point microwave latency should be the same as fiber latency at the same distance.

Multipoint systems used by most WISPs are TDMA-based and should have a fixed latency well below 10ms depending on how many active users are on a cell.

HOAs aren't allowed to prohibit antennas under 1 meter in diameter per OTARD [ http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule] You should educate your board and contact the FCC if they balk.

> Point-to-point microwave latency should be the same as fiber latency at the same distance.

Actually, it's often less because the microwave travels in a straight line while the fiber has to follow the utility poles or trenches (which often aren't in a straight line due to right of way issues). High frequency traders performing latency arbitrage use microwave dishes instead of fiber because it's a fraction of a second faster than using fiber connections on a cross-country connection.

Microwave dish systems are, however, a nightmare to support because transmission can be affected by the weather, birds, and a whole lot of other things. They also aren't very high bandwidth, and if you have a lot of dishes that means a lot of interference. I'd say they're perfectly fine for things like extending your LAN to your cabin up on a mountaintop, but not great tech to run an ISP off of (though people still try).

I'd be psyched to get a broadbrand provider that works like my electric company. The rates are reasonable, the power sufficient, the reliability is very high.

The electric utility in Chicago just decommissioned a pair of century-old coal plants that were costing the city tens of millions of dollars a year in negative externalities. Yeah, the electric utilities are exactly who I want investing in infrastructure that has becomes obsolete in 5-10 years.

Well my utility is a distribution company, not generation, so their infrastructure is mostly wires and substations. The equivalent for broadband would be fiber cables and switching offices, which seem like they actually could last for a very long time.

Once fiber is run to every house, I can't imagine why it would ever need to be replaced. I think it's actually physically impossible to have a faster data transport medium.

Didn't we just go through the BPON -> GPON upgrade? If you're just talking about the fiber, you're not even talking about the last mile. It's the last 100 feet. What about all the equipment cabinets in every neighborhood?

What about them? Once they're sited and hooked into the lines, replacing the gear inside is not difficult.

The question is whether a regulated monopoly could provide good broadband connectivity at a good price. Equipment upgrade scheduling is an implementation detail.

And it's a detail that is already priced into the service. It should be possible for such a monopoly to provide the same level of connectivity as Verizon or Comcast at lower prices, because for their current prices Verizon and Comcast already provide that level of connectivity plus content and software and marketing.

Big ISPs do everything necessary for connectivity, but they also develop and sell products that run on that connectivity. For example Comcast's on-demand and DVR everywhere solutions compete directly with services like Netflix, HBO Go, NBC.com, ESPN 3, etc. Developing, maintaining, and marketing that costs Comcast a lot of money--money that a connectivity-only monopoly would not need to spend.

It would be like if your electric company owned the lines, owned the power station, and sold you appliances like TVs and washing machines. Instead, electric companies just sell electricity, and everyone else sells you things that use electricity. I can't think of a reason that a similar architecture would not work for the Internet.

Wont decoupling stuff help? Make the last mile maintainer a separate entity.

We need last mile liberation and we need to prevent ISP into entering content business.

When it comes to oil producers and Telephone companies, both has been fined heavily for doing illegal monopolies. If there have been legal monopolies in trade for regulation, those companies would had not been found guilty in both US and EU courts.

As for your second point, my comment is only about dum products, not competition in production of said products. The cheaper you can produce a product, the more reliable the product chain is, the better a given company will do in profits.

>At the end of the day, users are willing to pay, e.g., $15/month for Netflix, and don't care about who gets what part of that money. Fights over net neutrality and copyright are about how this $15 gets split up between: content creators, infrastructure providers, and user-facing websites.

This is incorrect, the actual fight is about killing Netflix as a business. The idea is to gradually force Netflix to raise their prices to a point where it no longer seems to be a cheap alternative to cable/satellite television.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com