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The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

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Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#191

Post by joezydeco »

eli wrote: post #177
joezydeco wrote: post #89

Wouldn't it be fun if Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and a few other streamers all decided to throttle the Washington DC area down to, say, 10% of normal outbound bandwidth for a long weekend? Maybe it wouldn't touch Pai, but if it pissed off a huge block of his neighbors maybe he'd start to understand the idea.

Hah! The federal government doesn't care whatsoever about DC residents. We don't even have a Senator to complain to. What exactly do you expect his pissed off neighbors to do?

Okay, then wherever most of these public officials stay overnight and weekends. Alexandria? McLean?

Congressmen would be tougher, since they're always flying around. The idea is to bring the pain to people that surround Pai on a daily basis.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#192

Post by ficho »

rayiner wrote: post #84
ficho wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's irrelevant, if anything in your example you should compare growth in productivity for bits and for water independently and see if they manage to meet their demands Also water is a much more finite supply. The point of my example was that as you leave government out of the tap water market and instead of getting more of it, you get less, more expensive and of lesser quality. Economics teach that in some industr…

The difference in demand is highly relevant: U.S. water utilities can't even attract enough investment to replace century-old lead pipes and sewers; similarly tepid investment in internet infrastructure would have left us all with dial-up still. The U.K. and France have both privatized their water systems and it has worked fine. Conversely, U.S. water systems, which are mostly still publicly owned, are a total disast…

Regarding the example of France the trend you're pointing out is out of date. After years of water privatization which drove costs up for municipalities and quality down, there's a reversal towards public management of the water supply. Privatization and deregulation pushed the market to an oligopoly of three main actors, Veolia, Suez and SAUR which eliminated competition and pushed costs up for consumers for a worse quality of water. That trend that was before celebrated (and embraced in the US, with Veolia and Suez heavily active there), is now being full on reversed, with measurable benefits for consumers and municipalities.

The US is still lagging behind on that realization and it's a common mistake to think that privatizing water supplies holds benefits for towns and consumers. Most often in these cases, deregulation brings benefits in the short term as private actors compete heavily to win public markets, but not in the long term when the market tends to an oligopoly / monopoly and private actors don't have any more incentive to push on innovation or investments.

The issue of lack of investment isn't a problem of too much regulation, on the contrary. These are markets with very high costs of entry where you need a strong regulatory framework to mandate a couple actors to a large enough market for those investments to be viable. You quote the example of communications, in France by law France Telecom had to expand its network to reach any citizen, whether 10km away from the grid or 10m at no cost for the consumer. This led to a great coverage of the territory and very high access to broadband for most of the population.

Take the example of the US, where internet access costs easily $100 a month, has just a couple actors sharing the market in each city, in a proper position of cartel, and where government regulation is nearly non-existent; and oppose this to most european countries where a 100mb symmetrical connection will cost you 30 EUR.... On the counter, what really disrupted the French Telecom market was the arrival of Free, which offered costs so low Telecoms had to find ways to match their prices.

It's a fallacy to think that these markets don't need regulation, but it's another one to think government can do everything ;)

Sources: http://in.reuters.com/article/water-utilities-paris-idINL6N0... http://thewip.net/2009/01/28/local-water-renaissance-in-fran...

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#193

Post by cmdrfred »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #188
cmdrfred wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customer isn't paying the "vig" it's the distributor, If Netflix isn't profitable on Comcast's network Netflix will simply stop offering service to Comcast customers. They will have no other option, thus might opt out entirely as they go from moderate or heavy streaming users to not streaming at all. Also keep in mind they would still be subject to anti-trust regulation, they really can only take it so far before…

> If Netflix isn't profitable on Comcast's network Netflix will simply stop offering service to Comcast customers. So... just to make sure I'm following, this is the outcome you're arguing in favor of?

I'm arguing against the "sky is falling" hysteria that many seem to have about this. If you'll review the rest of the context of that quote you'll see why it's in Comcast's best interest to allow Netflix to do business with it's customers.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#194

Post by throwanem »

cmdrfred wrote: post #186
throwanem wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under a lot of data plans, it'd still be cheaper for a moderate to heavy streaming video user to pay Comcast the vig it wants, than to pay wireless data rates for the same bandwidth. I guarantee you Comcast has made the same calculation, too, down to the fractional cent. Whatever vig they charge, if they do, will be scaled accordingly.

The customer isn't paying the "vig" it's the distributor, If Netflix isn't profitable on Comcast's network Netflix will simply stop offering service to Comcast customers. They will have no other option, thus might opt out entirely as they go from moderate or heavy streaming users to not streaming at all. Also keep in mind they would still be subject to anti-trust regulation, they really can only take it so far before…

And Netflix raises subscription rates to make up for the added cost. The customer still pays the vig.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#195

Post by rayiner »

ficho wrote: post #192
rayiner wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in demand is highly relevant: U.S. water utilities can't even attract enough investment to replace century-old lead pipes and sewers; similarly tepid investment in internet infrastructure would have left us all with dial-up still. The U.K. and France have both privatized their water systems and it has worked fine. Conversely, U.S. water systems, which are mostly still publicly owned, are a total disast…

Regarding the example of France the trend you're pointing out is out of date. After years of water privatization which drove costs up for municipalities and quality down, there's a reversal towards public management of the water supply. Privatization and deregulation pushed the market to an oligopoly of three main actors, Veolia, Suez and SAUR which eliminated competition and pushed costs up for consumers for a worse…

For context, the recent move in Paris ends over a century of water privatization. The city seems to have managed fine during that time frame. The focus on consumer prices is emblematic of the problem with public water management. Water/sewer services shouldn't be cheap. Prices should be high enough to adequately maintain infrastructure. Water rates in the U.S. are less than half of what they are in France,[1] and as a result, our water infrastructure is in terrible shape.[2]

> You quote the example of communications, in France by law France Telecom had to expand its network to reach any citizen, whether 10km away from the grid or 10m at no cost for the consumer. This led to a great coverage of the territory and very high access to broadband for most of the population.

There is no free lunch. More money spent covering more people means less money invested in improving infrastructure in urban areas.

France is not a great counterpoint to the U.S. model of regulating ISPs. According to 2016 OECD data, France does have higher overall broadband deployment (40 per 100 inhabitants versus ~33 per 100 in the US).[3] But the vast majority of it is DSL rather than much faster cable. According to Akamai's latest broadband speed report,[4] France ranks 52nd in the world in average speed (page 32). The U.S. ranks 14th (page 24). The U.S. has 42% of connections above 15mbps, versus just 16% in France (pages 25, 34).

https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-t....

> Take the example of the US, where internet access costs easily $100 a month, has just a couple actors sharing the market in each city, in a proper position of cartel, and where government regulation is nearly non-existent; and oppose this to most european countries where a 100mb symmetrical connection will cost you 30 EUR

The fact that you can get 100mb symmetrical connections cheaply in some places doesn't reflect "most of Europe." Fiber is available in almost every U.S. city I've ever lived or worked in (Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Washington, Annapolis--all except Baltimore and Wilmington, but even those have fiber in the surrounding suburbs). But that's not necessarily representative of the U.S.--you need to look at aggregate, not anecdotal data.

Almost 2/3 of the EU lives in: Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, or Spain. According to Akamai's data, those countries all have slower average internet speeds than the U.S. That is consistent with the OECD data, which shows that three of the five lag the U.S. in fiber deployment (counting the U.K.'s FTTN as fiber rather than DSL) and rely predominantly on slower DSL rather than faster cable technologies.

[1] http://everylittledrop.com.au/knowledge-center/the-cost-of-w...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-water-safety_us_56bcf....

[3] http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1_2-OECD-WiredWirelessBB-2...

[4] https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-t...

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#196

Post by throwanem »

cmdrfred wrote: post #193
outsidetheparty wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Netflix isn't profitable on Comcast's network Netflix will simply stop offering service to Comcast customers. So... just to make sure I'm following, this is the outcome you're arguing in favor of?

I'm arguing against the "sky is falling" hysteria that many seem to have about this. If you'll review the rest of the context of that quote you'll see why it's in Comcast's best interest to allow Netflix to do business with it's customers.

I don't believe I am expressing any kind of "sky is falling" hysteria. It's not as though the concept of monopoly, or the reasons why it's something to discourage, should be tremendously controversial in this day and age.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#197

Post by cmdrfred »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #189
cmdrfred wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like obfsproxy[0] or a straight up http proxy wrapped in SSL and a VPN service that acquires and rotates new IP addresses regularly would prevent this. It would be an expensive game of wack a mole for the ISPs at least, personally I'd just set up a digital ocean droplet for my traffic. Less technical users can employ Streisand[1]. [0] https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/TrafficObfuscatio... [1] https…

For that reason, the algorithm wouldn't be "throttle specific services", it'd be "throttle everything except for the specific services that we own or that have paid us the toll."

So essentially throttle 99% of the internet? Comcast already doesn't throttle it's cable or phone service and doesn't include it in your bandwidth. Why would anyone buy a larger bandwidth package than the throttle rate? So they can pay their bill faster?

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#198

Post by ficho »

rayiner wrote: post #195
ficho wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the example of France the trend you're pointing out is out of date. After years of water privatization which drove costs up for municipalities and quality down, there's a reversal towards public management of the water supply. Privatization and deregulation pushed the market to an oligopoly of three main actors, Veolia, Suez and SAUR which eliminated competition and pushed costs up for consumers for a worse…

For context, the recent move in Paris ends over a century of water privatization. The city seems to have managed fine during that time frame. The focus on consumer prices is emblematic of the problem with public water management. Water/sewer services shouldn't be cheap. Prices should be high enough to adequately maintain infrastructure. Water rates in the U.S. are less than half of what they are in France,[1] and as…

> For context, the recent move in Paris ends over a century of water privatization. The city seems to have managed fine during that time frame. The focus on consumer prices is emblematic of the problem with public water management. Water/sewer services shouldn't be cheap. Prices should be high enough to adequately maintain infrastructure. Water rates in the U.S. are less than half of what they are in France,[1] and as a result, our water infrastructure is in terrible shape.[2]

No, that happened in 1984. (https://research.ncl.ac.uk/media/sites/researchwebsites/goba... slide 11 or http://www.eaudeparis.fr/lespace-culture/patrimoine/).

> You quote the example of communications, in France by law France Telecom had to expand its network to reach any citizen, whether 10km away from the grid or 10m at no cost for the consumer. This led to a great coverage of the territory and very high access to broadband for most of the population.

>> There is no free lunch. More money spent covering more people means less money invested in improving infrastructure in urban areas.

The point here is that the regulatory authority creates a legal framework which favors investement in the grid, resolving one of the inefficiencies of the market (no interest in paying 2MM euros to connect a person who's distant in the country side), makes investments happen which would never take place under a fully deregulated environment. This addresses issues of digital inequalities which would push actors on investing only on people or products which can yield the higher profits. At term it hurts society.

I'll take your points on the OCED and Akamai rankings, and yes I provided anecdotal evidence, not a lot of time for research :) But my sense is that if you compare speeds delivered to prices paid, consumers are still much better off in Europe. The other point which might be hard to quantify is the little choice US consumers have when choosing their ISP. It's often one or two actors who offer the same speed, price points and whose situation of oligopoly allows them to forgo proper consumer support alltogether (TWC). That is the result of no regulation and I don't see how more of that will benefit consumers.

More sources on water remunicipalisation: https://www.tni.org/en/article/180-cities-take-back-public-c...

https://www.tni.org/en/publication/here-to-stay-water-remuni...

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#199

Post by Corrado »

"Pai argued that rolling back the rules will encourage ISPs to spend more on their broadband networks, speeding the spread of high-speed Internet across the country. He also claimed it would create new jobs and help protect Internet users' privacy by returning some authority to the Federal Trade Commission to sue companies that violate their own privacy policies."

So, "create new jobs" is the new "think of the children" in politics. If you want to get anything done in the current political climate you just have to utter that magical phrase and everything is OK. Based on this, I'm going to view any policy that claims to create jobs with the same sceptical eye as I used with the children fear mongers.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#200

Post by cmdrfred »

throwanem wrote: post #194
cmdrfred wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customer isn't paying the "vig" it's the distributor, If Netflix isn't profitable on Comcast's network Netflix will simply stop offering service to Comcast customers. They will have no other option, thus might opt out entirely as they go from moderate or heavy streaming users to not streaming at all. Also keep in mind they would still be subject to anti-trust regulation, they really can only take it so far before…

And Netflix raises subscription rates to make up for the added cost. The customer still pays the vig.

To: AllComcastCustomers

From: NetflixSupport@Netflix.com

Subject: Comcast is increasing the monthly cost of Nextflix

"Dear Valued Customer,

Here at Netflix we endeavor to offer the highest value for your entertainment dollar, it is with that in mind we regret to inform you that due to sweeping and punitive fee increases brought on at the sole discretion of Comcast we will be forced to raise our prices 425% next billing cycle. Customers of other ISP's will enjoy the same low price that we have always offered, in fact we are offering our service at our cost to Comcast customers at this new rate. Please contact Comcast customer service at 1-800-Comcast if you would like this issue resolved as it is out of our hands.

Have a great day"

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