If Trump also continues with his plan to deregulate as well, I'm of the opinion that this is great news. This could make Google Fiber and other similar undertakings much more viable. It always gives me the hibby-jeebies when government takes strong control over an industry. This is especially true in the case of the FCC where their original mandate went from regulating airwaves, to regulating the content of said airwaves.
FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
191–200 of 322 posts
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a difference between shaping traffic to better fit the capacity available, and constricting traffic since you're incentivized to push alternate traffic from a business partner. The latter is what NN advocates are trying to discourage, and it does arguably mess with the 'level playing field' notion.
I don't think this distinction is as trivial as you think. Especially in a legal sense. Unless you want judges adjudicating in the Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it" sense, which can get scary.
The legal system is built on intent and purpose, so from a legal sense, such distinction is not trivial but its quite normal. What we as a society might want to avoid is ISP that calls a company and say "Would it not be terrible if you lost access to a third of the population in this country. Pay us now, or we will redirect those users to a competitor."
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#193If Trump also continues with his plan to deregulate as well, I'm of the opinion that this is great news. This could make Google Fiber and other similar undertakings much more viable. It always gives me the hibby-jeebies when government takes strong control over an industry. This is especially true in the case of the FCC where their original mandate went from regulating airwaves, to regulating the content of said airw…
I'm not sure how federal deregulations would help cities install more fiber, are there any federal regulations that would impede them? I always thought the issue was more around infrastructure monopolies in each city. Its not like new fiber companies can just lay their own lines down, they need to work through the city to get permission to put new lines in or share existing lines.
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're quite right. Normally I'm pretty good about that. (At least, I remembered today: https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/24/fcc-prepares-to-pull-broad... ) This article went through several revisions as I did research so the original opening couple paragraphs and links got lost in the shuffle. I've added the link back in.
Wow, thank you for this response. An author responding to a comment on their article seems rare in my eyes. Do you think this kind of commentary should happen on the TC website instead of a third party site? Do you think Facebook comments are conducive to constructive commentary on your articles?
Personally I see no sense in trying to contain discussion on-site rather than here, on Facebook, or reddit etc. People want to discuss things in the community of their choosing. Better to intelligently collate and sort those conversations. I wrote about it here if you're curious:
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#195Does anyone with a strong understanding of internetworking, peering and transit contract negotiation actually believe that "net neutrality" is possible? traffic shaping of saturated links seems like a necessary outcome to not undermine the smaller users (i.e. low bandwidth communications) that are impacted by heavy users (i.e. video streaming) if two peering parties can't come to terms on cost sharing for link upgrad…
AFAIK Level3 a few years back offered AT&T to pay and do the upgrade of the links on the AT&Ts side, which they refused. At this point its blatant monopolistic anti-consumerism.
I think it was Verizon, not AT&T. Some peering point in the LA area was overloaded, primarily due to Netflix traffic.
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So in short I see no problem here to solve and I do not think government should get involved. That's patently absurd. You can't just add a natural monopoly to a public good and come up with a competitive market. The most basic of economic analysis -- really, first semester stuff -- would tell you that these are the precise situations where external regulation is needed to even approach something that looks like an…
The market for internet access is not just wires running in the street; it's also wireless. Railroads seemed a natural monopoly too, until trucks came along. Thus the Staggers Act, so the "natural monopoly" rail rates are not regulated. Now it's the reverse. In the dawn of a new technological age, people want to shackle the old technology rather than deregulate it. My economic philosophy is no religion; the governmen…
I understand your argument about how wireless Internet providers will compete with wired providers which would presumably mean NN becomes irrelevant - but that assumes the wireless providers are in competition with wired providers in the same way truck haulage companies compete with the railroad system.
The problem is: they don't.
There are 4 main wireless providers in the US (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint), the vast majority (if not all) of the other carriers are MVNOs that run on top of the Big 4's infrastructure. The problem is AT&T is also a major wired provider (U-Verse), as is Verizon. Only T-Mobile and Sprint have no horizontal-business interests in wired networks - but incidentally note that T-Mobile and Sprint also have the smallest service coverage areas compared to AT&T and Verizon - in some parts of the country AT&T is your only real option for wireless service, and AT&T has no compunction with simultaneously selling you a $100/mo wireless plan with a low data limit, a $65/mo DirecTV plan, and $70/mo U-verse wired home Internet plan - where they would gladly throttle Netflix to entice you to watch your DirecTV service instead. The invisible-hand-of-the-market cannot solve this problem because of the sheer start-up costs of physical infrastructure needed to set-up a competing wired (or even wireless!) Internet service - and as we've seen with Google Fiber and municipal Internet services the incumbents quickly drop their prices to prevent these newly competing services from becoming established, if not being completely obstructionist as we see with Comcast holding coax poles ransom. This is why we need to classify last-mile Internet access as a regulated public utility, not as a captive market for rent-seeking companies.
So in your example, at least, I don't see how competition from the wireless industry will budge wired services in consumers' interests, but instead corral us all into a much worse position.
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you imagine the deregulation in this article will help competition? Specifically, that is.
By allowing upstart MVNO's to avoid arduous regulation processes. I am involved with 2 MVNO's that have been trying to merge for over a year, they don't have that many customers, and no one opposes it. Yet the FCC dragged their feet with no updates and no reason for the delay. This has real world, multi-million dollar consequences. The process is moving forward now since Ajit got hired. Armchair technologists read an…
>By allowing upstart MVNO's to avoid arduous regulation processes.
This doesn't seem that arduous to me. The article estimates regulatory compliance will only take 6.8 hours.
>I say, let the free market decide.
Is that not the point of this regulation? It provides more information to consumers so they are better able to decide. Free markets only work when there is transparency about what is being bought and sold.
>I am involved with 2 MVNO's that have been trying to merge for over a year...
This has nothing to do with the regulatory rollback in the article.
>Armchair technologists...
We can discuss without getting bent out of shape.
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#198If Trump also continues with his plan to deregulate as well, I'm of the opinion that this is great news. This could make Google Fiber and other similar undertakings much more viable. It always gives me the hibby-jeebies when government takes strong control over an industry. This is especially true in the case of the FCC where their original mandate went from regulating airwaves, to regulating the content of said airw…
I'm not sure how federal deregulations would help cities install more fiber, are there any federal regulations that would impede them? I always thought the issue was more around infrastructure monopolies in each city. Its not like new fiber companies can just lay their own lines down, they need to work through the city to get permission to put new lines in or share existing lines.
Hmm, that's a good question. It's not clear to me at what level of government the most stifling regulations are. I had also read that they wanted to offer phone services for free, but they dropped those due to the incredibly high regulations in that field as well.
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-government-let-us-build-...
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "this is complicated and needs to be handled with care, not with a trivial attempted fix like 'dumb pipes only' the way people often seem to think" Why do you think turning ISPs into dumb pipes only would not fix most, if not all, problems? The reason we have all these problems is that the ISPs do not want to be dumb pipes only.
Because many customers don't actually want a dumb pipe. Dumb pipes don't come with email addresses. Dumb pipes serve YouTube more slowly, and might not have the capacity for HD/4K video. (Look at what server the video comes from; if you're on a major ISP, the server name likely has your ISP's name in it.) Dumb pipes serve Netflix more slowly. Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers. Dumb pipes might not get as many c…
> Dumb pipes don't come with email addresses.
Neither do rack servers. End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly.
> Dumb pipes can't hold as many customers.
The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic.
> Dumb pipes cost more.
Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services?
> I'd be in favor of separating out the "dumb pipe" as a utility, and then having ISPs operate independently from that. I think that would solve the majority of the problems.
Sure it would. But it has to be one or the other. Would Comcast rather have network neutrality or divest its ISP/TV business?
Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
People agree with someone you disagree, so it must be a conspiracy. Also I think you underestimate the intelligence of the average commentor.
Look at the comment and submission history of the account he responded to. It's a well maintained shill used for propaganda and likely one of many. This is then kind of thing you see in authoritarian states and rather chilling.
Ummm... I looked at the account, and it doesn't look like a shill account in the slightest.
In this case, I personally came to the comments to say exactly what the top comment said: This is raising the subscriber compliance limit from 100k to 250k. Nothing to see here. No "threat" to net neutrality at all, except if you're trying to sensationalize it.
I'm more worried about net neutrality when it's giant companies like Verizon or Comcast. Not so much about the compliance of smaller companies, who:
1. Aren't big enough fish to cause the kinds of problems with product adoption that most of the net neutrality worst-case scenarios depict.
2. Aren't big enough to cut the deals with larger content suppliers that net neutrality is trying to prevent.
3. Frequently are barely able to survive at those scales, so the extra regulatory burden isn't actually worth cutting into their meager profits.