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The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#31

Post by JustSomeNobody »

twoodfin wrote: post #24
outsidetheparty wrote: post #8

> Pai argued that rolling back the rules will encourage ISPs to spend more on their broadband networks How? How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? It's just so frustrating that these guys no longer even bother to pretend that their arguments make any logical sense at all. "We'll protect user privacy by eliminating these rules that pr…

Why is that confusing? During the Title II debate many on HN thought broadband should be regulated as a utility, or at least forced to be sold only as a "dumb pipe". Utilities and dumb pipes have terrible profit margins. Businesses want to invest capital in things that have larger profit margins (today, for example, wireless). Verizon's vision for Fios was to sell a bunch of value-add services like video calling and…

> Verizon's vision for Fios was to sell a bunch of value-add services like video calling and on-demand movies. When plain-old-internet services started providing those capabilities without having to pay Verizon directly, Fios deployments slowed to a crawl.

Let's say this succeeded and people jumped to Verizon for their internet and their media. What would happen to Amazon Video and Netflix?

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#32

Post by spott »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #30
splintercell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? The fundamental idea is that the amount of investment done in a venture is directly proportional to the profitability of that venture. If govt makes a regulation saying that Google can provide Hangouts service, but it cannot charge more for Enterprise Hangouts features, then Google has no addi…

Eliminating net neutrality incentivizes ISPs to build auxiliary services that they can artificially support by throttling the bandwidth of competing products. It incentivizes them to seek profit by favoring some net traffic over other net traffic. It does not in any way incentivize them to build larger or better networks. It does not incentivize them to invest in their infrastructure. All it does is let them make mor…

To play devil's advocate:

If they don't have overhead in their networks, they cannot offer faster service to some net traffic over other net traffic. The ability to sell faster connections to some services incentivises them to have overhead in their networks to sell, which means investment into their infrastructure.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#33

Post by [deleted] »

splintercell wrote: post #28
outsidetheparty wrote: post #8

> Pai argued that rolling back the rules will encourage ISPs to spend more on their broadband networks How? How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? It's just so frustrating that these guys no longer even bother to pretend that their arguments make any logical sense at all. "We'll protect user privacy by eliminating these rules that pr…

> How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? The fundamental idea is that the amount of investment done in a venture is directly proportional to the profitability of that venture. If govt makes a regulation saying that Google can provide Hangouts service, but it cannot charge more for Enterprise Hangouts features, then Google has no addi…

[deleted]

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#34

Post by leereeves »

splintercell wrote: post #28
outsidetheparty wrote: post #8

> Pai argued that rolling back the rules will encourage ISPs to spend more on their broadband networks How? How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? It's just so frustrating that these guys no longer even bother to pretend that their arguments make any logical sense at all. "We'll protect user privacy by eliminating these rules that pr…

> How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? The fundamental idea is that the amount of investment done in a venture is directly proportional to the profitability of that venture. If govt makes a regulation saying that Google can provide Hangouts service, but it cannot charge more for Enterprise Hangouts features, then Google has no addi…

Incentives to encourage competition do little good when regulations prevent competition.

Even if there's a lot of money to be made providing better service than Comcast, who will receive approval to dig up the ground and place new cables?

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#35

Post by Goronmon »

spott wrote: post #32
outsidetheparty wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating net neutrality incentivizes ISPs to build auxiliary services that they can artificially support by throttling the bandwidth of competing products. It incentivizes them to seek profit by favoring some net traffic over other net traffic. It does not in any way incentivize them to build larger or better networks. It does not incentivize them to invest in their infrastructure. All it does is let them make mor…

To play devil's advocate: If they don't have overhead in their networks, they cannot offer faster service to some net traffic over other net traffic. The ability to sell faster connections to some services incentivises them to have overhead in their networks to sell, which means investment into their infrastructure.

You're making the assumption that they won't just slowdown the connections for people who aren't paying for the "fastlane".

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#36

Post by leereeves »

tw04 wrote: post #14
IAmGarrett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole battle has felt like the consumers versus the ISP's. Is there economic advantages to consumers if Net Neutrality is eliminated?

Sure - you'll get video streaming from content providers who are able to pay large sums of money without hitting against the artificial caps currently in place. Of course, that also means it'll kill any competitors not willing or able to pay the same extortion, so in the end you'll have less choice, but at least you'll have saved money. Except you won't really save money because once the current administration allows…

Cable TV 2.0, now available via Comcast.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#37

Post by splintercell »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #30
splintercell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? The fundamental idea is that the amount of investment done in a venture is directly proportional to the profitability of that venture. If govt makes a regulation saying that Google can provide Hangouts service, but it cannot charge more for Enterprise Hangouts features, then Google has no addi…

Eliminating net neutrality incentivizes ISPs to build auxiliary services that they can artificially support by throttling the bandwidth of competing products. It incentivizes them to seek profit by favoring some net traffic over other net traffic. It does not in any way incentivize them to build larger or better networks. It does not incentivize them to invest in their infrastructure. All it does is let them make mor…

Business Model 1:

Build your own services and throttle everyone else's services unless they pay a premium (in which case your own services would be cheaper, but the profit they get from their own services must be higher than the profit they get from NOT selling the bandwidth their premium service uses, to third parties).

Let's put it this way, if a hotel builds a Jacuzzi, you're argument is that the hotel owner will only let their own family and friends use the Jacuzzi whereas they will charge anyone else more money to use it. But the time their buddies are using the Jacuzzi could be sold for a fee to the third party, so in order for them to rationally do this, they must gain enough favors that it justifies them to NOT make the extra profit.

In case of the ISP scenario, the Verizon Music better offer them higher profitability than letting it be used by actual Spotify and charging them. If they charge Spotify's $5 per month per user, then Verizon Music better bring them same or higher revenue or else running Verizon Music isn't worth it.

Business Model 2:

Invest in infrastructure and try to take over bigger market.

You're claiming "There is no way they will go for business model 2, they will go for business model 1". But you have no presented any reason why they would do that? We have reasons to believe that even when companies are very good at doing something internally, the parent company sells them off because it's a more profitable model.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#38

Post by glitcher »

sinak wrote: post #5

Here is the "fact sheet" that Ajit Pai distributed at the event at the Newseum today: https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/85728851922775655... Also of note, YC, TechStars and Engine Advocacy released their "Startups for Net Neutrality" letter to Pai this morning: http://www.engine.is/startups-for-net-neutrality

The bullet points under the section "A New Approach" of that fact sheet seem like pure political rhetoric. Where is the evidence to support the legitimacy of any of those claims???

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

tzs wrote: post #25

> Pai's proposal is set for a vote at the FCC's May 18 open meeting. If it is approved, Pai will begin seeking public feedback on the plan, which calls for regulating ISPs more lightly and asks Americans for ways to preserve the core principles of net neutrality, such as the idea that blocking or slowing traffic should be off-limits. Well, the obvious way to "preserve the core principles of net neutrality, such as th…

> Well, the obvious way to "preserve the core principles of net neutrality, such as the idea that blocking or slowing traffic should be off-limits" is to not get rid of the regulation that prohibits blocking or slowing traffic.

Yeah, and hopefully as much energy (and more) as was mobilized against the previous FCC for not being as vigorous as some wanted in the last round of Open Internet rulemaking will be directed into the public comments for the FCC actually reversing direction. But I don't expect it will matter as much; with Wheeler's FCC, the goals were clearly for neutrality and the debate was over the means; with Pai's FCC, despite lip service to the principles of neutrality, the real overwhelming goal seems to be to free ISPs to do what they want, so I'm not sure any contrary comment will have much weight.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#40

Post by glitcher »

cakeface wrote: post #21

The sneakiest thing just happened to me on that Washington Post site. There was an overlay ad, no big deal, with an X to close it in the upper right of the screen. I moved my mouse up there to click the X and the site shifted slightly so what I actually clicked was "Subscribe"!

In chrome dev tools, delete the first 2 div's under the tag, then highlight and in the css pane disable the element style for overflow-y: hidden;

YMMV depending on platform :)

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