FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks • Hacker News Board

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#261

Post by amazon_not » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 6:35 AM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #260

amazon_not wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because many customers don't actually want a dumb pipe. Yes, they do. That's exactly what they want. A dumb pipe that transports their bits and nothing more. I'm omitting your list about dumb pipes, as nothing you write has anything to do with dumb pipes and is all completely wrong. > Personally, I'd like a dumb pipe only as far as the nearest major datacenter, and then quite a lot of smarts in that datacenter. I d…

I think we have a serious problem of definitions (which goes back to what I said about this being not trivial to define): we're both saying the phrase "dumb pipe" and apparently meaning quite different things by it. Defining terms differently does not invalidate arguments, it just means we're talking past each other. > Do you want local loop unbundling, bitstream access or only resale? In an ideal world? A form of lo…

> I think we have a serious problem of definitions (which goes back to what I said about this being not trivial to define): we're both saying the phrase "dumb pipe" and apparently meaning quite different things by it.

Really? How many definitions are there?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe http://www.hyperorg.com/misc/stupidnet.html

> In an ideal world? A form of local loop unbundling, with a not-for-profit entity running/maintaining the local fiber, and umpteen ISPs readily available to handle termination and routing at the other end.

That's nice. Now you've either locked out small/unsophisticated ISPs/network users who can't or can't afford to light the fiber or increased cost and/or complexity by requiring an additional service provider on top of the dark fiber provider to provide bitstream, retail and other transport services. Also excellent choice for finger pointing when these two actors donit get along.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#262

Post by amazon_not » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 6:35 AM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #205

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thin…

> Neither do rack servers. End customers don't buy the dumb pipe directly. Of course; they buy it from ISPs, and now you have the same problem again. > The same fiber can transfer the same amount of traffic. It doesn't matter how much your fiber can transfer if the arrangements at the meet-me room can't get you that much content for a price you want to pay. > Cost more than paying monopoly prices for services? For th…

> Of course; they buy it from ISPs, and now you have the same problem again.

What problem?

> It doesn't matter how much your fiber can transfer if the arrangements at the meet-me room can't get you that much content for a price you want to pay.

So free isn't enough for you?

You can pretty much get as much content as you want, if you have the customer demand for it.

Join an IX and you'll get as much content as you want for free for the cost of the port. If you got serious content demand, do a private interconnect and get the content for the price of a crossconnect. There are facilities with no recurring costs for crossconnects. Need a shitload of content? The content providers will send you a CDN node to you, for free.

In summary, your your statement is provably false.

> Raw bandwidth costs more than a plan from an ISP offering that much bandwidth.

You obviously never bought wholesale bandwidth. Wholesale IP transit is 20 cents or less per Mbps. IX peering is cheaper than that. Private interconnects, again cheaper.

I don't see ISPs offering 100M connections for $20 or less.

Again, your statement is provably false.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#263

Post by pyrophane » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 6:36 AM UTC

intended wrote: post #233

tomelders wrote: post #222

Undersandly, the conversation in here revolves around the technicalities and semantics of net neutrality. But this isn't an issue of technology. It's a political issue, or worse, an ideological issue. It's not about the empirical truths of net neutrality, or the collective intent of those who created, and those who continue to develop the technology that has woven itself into the fabric of humanity. It's about idealo…

I think the tech industry and HN crowd are waking up too late, and this might be because of the previous HN cultural wave. Initially HN was like the slashdot crows, in that it was geeky and making money of being entrepreneurial was an ideal, and not a way of life. Eventually that changed as the culture shifted to enabling and succeeding in startups. A lot of the meta culture and crowd is now many steps away from the…

im ignorant here. What was HN like initially? I assumed since it was the discussion board of a startup accelerator that it was always pretty focused on that.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#264

Post by chris_va » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 6:54 AM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #252

chris_va wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hypothetical company wants to drop packets from lower tier customers first, when congested, and oversubscribe their fiber to reduce costs.

That still doesn't sound like it would violate net neutrality. NN is about not discriminating based on content. In this case all content is still treated the same. Now, if they throttled everything except a few 'vital' resources, then you'd have an issue.

Continuing the hypothetical :)

Let's say we need to drop packets from my lower tier. We'd prefer to keep a good experience for those customers if possible, so it would arguably be preferable to drop lower utility packets rather than grind everyone in that tier to a halt.

If 90% of the packets were coming from streaming video, the ISP could drop them all without affecting that tier's ability to access their bank accounts.

That is really the crux of the issue, because it is very close to reality.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#265

Post by michaelmrose » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 6:57 AM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #226

chris_va wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, your "arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing extortion" already sounds a bit "ultra biased". What if someone wants to start an ISP, and charge less for a lower QoS band? Is that legalized extortion? (Not to say it would be a good idea, I agree that it is a slippery slope)

What do you mean "charge less for a lower QoS band"? Net neutrality has nothing to say about an ISP that wants to offer both 10Mbps and 100Mbps plans, or business-class plans that offer an SLA for a higher price than ordinary residential plans.

This is not a violation of network neutrality. You are allowed both to treat different types of traffic and different groups of customers differently.

What you aren't allowed to do is treat traffic of the same variety differently depending on whether the endpoint paid you money.

The people being extorted aren't even your customers they are people who want to do business with your customers.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#266

Post by wtallis » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 7:02 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #258

wtallis wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "unfettered market" would still leave incumbents with the massive advantages conferred by their natural monopoly; it just lessens the artificial barriers to competition on top of that. Your "unfettered market" would not be a healthy competitive market. Government intervention akin to local loop unbundling would be necessary to create a freely competitive market where one will not naturally develop.

Google Fiber gave up on silicon valley because of the regulatory burden of convincing local governments to let them install fiber. Let that sink in. Google, who has enough cash to pay for nearly half of the entire Comcast company, was not able to rollout fiber to the area because of government regulations. Why do you think they started in Kansas City of all places? It wasn't because they thought that was the stronges…

> While this would make it even cheaper to get into the market, there is no proof that a market wouldn't develop if the government wasn't already intervening to make it so difficult to build networks.

Local governments aren't completely undemocratic. If the local government is hesitant to let corporations start digging up the streets and yards, it's likely that the residents are similarly hesitant to invite that sort of disruption. How many people are actually eager to have a second gigabit-capable cable buried through their yard? Whether or not the federal government intervenes, there will always be barriers to an upstart ISP. Yes, with all local restrictions usurped, a company as large as Google can certainly deploy new infrastructure to select markets where there's sufficient demand for a more reasonable alternative to the incumbent ISP. But that's still a far cry from a functioning competitive market. Who would fund construction of a third set of cables, or the sixth? Even with local restrictions removed, how much capital does it take to build a competitive ISP from scratch (keeping in mind that Google wasn't quite starting from scratch)?

In the most pedantic sense, there's obviously no proof that a functioning competitive marketplace would develop, but we are talking about a real natural monopoly, and that means something. Building last-mile infrastructure is very expensive. Each new competitor faces much worse prospects for recouping their initial investment, much more resentment from their prospective customers, and the incumbent(s) can always undercut you at the drop of a hat. Given the choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling solution—it doesn't have the high costs of building redundant infrastructure, it doesn't make a mess of the town, and it leads to the same end result of diverse choices for services.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#267

Post by michaelmrose » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 7:04 AM UTC

jerkstate wrote: post #16

Does 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…

If you aren't shaping based on which endpoints paid a bribe we don't have much of an issue do we.

Google network neutrality then come back.

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#268

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 7:07 AM UTC

redler wrote: post #167

grandalf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just start dropping packets where there's congestion Aside from being normal, do you think this is preferable because it is fair? I think of QoS as a way of allowing more types of SLA to exist. Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure. Isn't any backbone…

Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure. Another possibility: as a major ISP nears network capacity, they can implicitly (or explicitly, depending on law) solicit revenue streams from Youtube and many others for "priority access" to their somewhat- or com…

[deleted]

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#269

Post by freyr » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 7:21 AM UTC

deno wrote: post #148

Retric wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The person you’re referring to has three comments in total, and of their submissions only ONE has anything to do with FCC. You’re attacking person, not argument, and rather ineffectively. EDIT: Okay, you meant someone else. Still, calling someone with almost 10 year active account a shill requires more evidence than this. Stick to the facts.

Huh? The guy with the 10 year post history called Subverter a shill. Subverter has a 43 day post history, three anti-net neutrality comments, and two anti-net neutrality submissions. You can't see one, because it was flagged:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565023

Re: FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks

#270

Post by Natsu » Sat, Feb 25, 2017, 7:25 AM UTC

tomelders wrote: post #222

Undersandly, the conversation in here revolves around the technicalities and semantics of net neutrality. But this isn't an issue of technology. It's a political issue, or worse, an ideological issue. It's not about the empirical truths of net neutrality, or the collective intent of those who created, and those who continue to develop the technology that has woven itself into the fabric of humanity. It's about idealo…

It's funny that we're so divided on what to do about this, because when the plan by big ISPs to start discriminating based on site popularity was announced, basically everybody from right and left was outraged by those plans.

Then it became some kind of political football and people were divided up on how to respond to it.