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Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

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Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#161
post #155
post #36

One of the problems with Net Neutrality is that techies (us) and the media have both had a hard time explaining it clearly. Meanwhile those opposed have been able to come up with analogies that while false and misleading, are easily understood. What is the best way to explain the concept that can be quickly understood by those that are non-technical?

> What is the best way to explain the concept that can be quickly understood by those that are non-technical? "What if your mail carrier had sole power to decide how quickly (or if at all) you got your mail?" It's probably not a particularly accessible analogy for most of us here, but it's easily relatable across generations without getting bogged down in technical details.

There are discounts for different types of mail already, though. (bulk mail, for example.)

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a lot of concerns when Mr Wheeler took over and he greatly surprised everyone. Let's be patient and see what happens next.

> There were a lot of concerns when Mr Wheeler took over and he greatly surprised everyone. Let's be patient and see what happens next. When Wheeler was nominated, there were some concerns that he wouldn't even want to live up to the promises that Obama made. That's a very different situation from being worried that the next chairman will live up to the promises that Trump has made.

What FCC-related promises has Trump made? I know he's said a lot of unsettling things, but nothing springs to mind regarding net neutrality or the like.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bad analogy. I'm in support of net neutrality but your analogy just made me want to support different pricing for water. Water is a finite, possibly scarce resource, and there are shortages in places in the US. If I lived in one of those places, I would sure as hell want some asshole filling his pool during a shortage to pay more than the rest of us pay for basic drinking water. Similarly, I would wa…

Perhaps electricity might be a better analogy?

Nope, it's also a scarce resource. And similarly to water, excessive use is (usually still) bad for the planet.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#164
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the best way to explain the concept that can be quickly understood by those that are non-technical? "What if your mail carrier had sole power to decide how quickly (or if at all) you got your mail?" It's probably not a particularly accessible analogy for most of us here, but it's easily relatable across generations without getting bogged down in technical details.

There are discounts for different types of mail already, though. (bulk mail, for example.)

Currently you get to choose which type of mail you're sending, you get to choose your discount. It's not about the discounts. It's about the carrier making the decision which one you get, and taking that choice away from you.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Imagine if your electricity company could decide that you pay more for some appliances than others."

This actually happens in Ireland for electric "Storage Heaters", which charge up overnight when electricity is cheap and plentiful, but it's not charged at the usual night rate... (This may actually no longer be a thing, storage heaters aren't used all that often anymore..)

At least in the mainland UK, I think those kind of plans were replaced by Economy 7/10 tariffs that offer the same rate for all off-peak electricity usage regardless of what it's used for a long time ago.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#166
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the best way to explain the concept that can be quickly understood by those that are non-technical? "What if your mail carrier had sole power to decide how quickly (or if at all) you got your mail?" It's probably not a particularly accessible analogy for most of us here, but it's easily relatable across generations without getting bogged down in technical details.

There are discounts for different types of mail already, though. (bulk mail, for example.)

Yeah, "types of mail", not "sources of mail". The difference here is that PF Chang's and my local Chinese place are equally as capable of sending me bulk mail.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#167
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a water company analogy. If you use the water for irrigation, you pay $X. If you use it for showering or dishes you pay $Y. If it's for drinking or cooking you pay $Z. Different applications for the same commodity that makes no difference to the provider outside of volume, which you already pay per unit. Should you pay more per unit if you water your lawn, if you have a pool? This is what the data providers are…

I think that's a bad analogy. I'm in support of net neutrality but your analogy just made me want to support different pricing for water. Water is a finite, possibly scarce resource, and there are shortages in places in the US. If I lived in one of those places, I would sure as hell want some asshole filling his pool during a shortage to pay more than the rest of us pay for basic drinking water. Similarly, I would wa…

Bandwidth is also limited.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were a lot of concerns when Mr Wheeler took over and he greatly surprised everyone. Let's be patient and see what happens next. When Wheeler was nominated, there were some concerns that he wouldn't even want to live up to the promises that Obama made. That's a very different situation from being worried that the next chairman will live up to the promises that Trump has made.

What FCC-related promises has Trump made? I know he's said a lot of unsettling things, but nothing springs to mind regarding net neutrality or the like.

https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+net+neutrality

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#169
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of thing has been said for years. I placed a long bet with a friend 7 years ago when he said "in 5 years" we'll have what was described above. Hasn't happened. Won't happen.

Only because they figured out that it's more profitable to charge the other side, and that has happened, for example, Comcast getting Netflix to pay them to not throttle their traffic.

Despite Netflix's attempt to glom on to the net neutrality movement, peering agreements are something entirely different and are not going away anytime soon.

The early Internet functioned on a gentleman's handshake - you send traffic onto my network, I send traffic onto your network, over time the balance will mostly net out. The system operated on the presumption that everyone's traffic increased more or less in parallel over time and so everybody's infrastructure would be upgraded in parallel.

The problem is that Netflix now makes up a 37% share of all internet traffic. The traditional way you do that is a CDN, and Netflix used to do that. But in 2012 Netflix decided to save money by shifting away from CDNs into their own datacenters and purchase up all the transit capacity they could. Basically, become their own ISP that took advantage of the gentleman's agreement (because nobody wants to send any significant volume of traffic to Netflix, they have almost no infrastructure costs of their own, so the inherent detente of traffic volume falls apart).

http://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to...

The solution for Netflix was always clear, you either pay peering fees, you pay for a CDN who pays peering fees, or you pay to colocate servers with Comcast so there's no peering involved. The problem is that Netflix doesn't want to pay for their infrastructure. The rules on infrastructure costs for residential players are never, never the same as the rules for industrial users. The fact that you paid for a driveway doesn't mean that you will never have to pay a toll, and heavy users will actually have to pay to remediate the damage to local roads/etc caused by their heavy traffic (used in some states/localities where trucks carrying fracking fluid beat up the roads). Analogously - if you make up 1/3 of all internet traffic and are still growing rapidly, you are going to have to expect to pay for some extra infrastructure along the path your data take, even if it's technically outside the boundary of your datacenter.

An analogous real-world "gentleman's agreement" is the postal delivery system (actually it's formalized in the Universal Postal Union treaty). When you mail a package to Germany, the German post office gets paid almost nothing, they essentially deliver that package at a loss. And the same applies when a German mails a package to the US. The assumption is that this roughly nets out. Then you get someone like China who comes along and subsidizes postage as an easy way to boost exports and help their economy, and suddenly things no longer net out. The US government, as the "last mile" provider here, eventually had to file a WTO suit to get them to stop dumping.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-halts-export-subsidy-progr...

So no, nothing to see here, what Netflix is doing is not part of Net Neutrality, it's a cheap attempt to glom onto the movement to subsidize their infrastructure costs. The same predatory tactics are roundly rebuffed when they're done with other "neutral networks" like the post, and it's been rightly rebuffed with Netflix too. Comcast never shaped any traffic or refused to allow any customers access - they just didn't upgrade their infrastructure to the level Netflix wanted them to until Netflix paid for it, and those links were congested.

I hate having to defend Comcast because they are a shit company with shit customer service, but if you are dropping mass volumes of data onto the network to the extent that infrastructure upgrades are necessary (again: 37% of all internet traffic is Netflix) then yeah, you get to pay for them. Otherwise it's just pushing your Netflix bill onto my internet bill.

Re: Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps electricity might be a better analogy?

Nope, it's also a scarce resource. And similarly to water, excessive use is (usually still) bad for the planet.

But internet connectivity is somehow inherently limitless and deliverable for free?
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