Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority • Hacker News Board

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#31

Post by Karunamon » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:19 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #15

djsumdog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if he's just misinformed or if he's being intentionally deceptive. He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. I've know Comcast line who, back in the early 2000s, would tell me they'd take parts to their shop where people would resolder and reconstruct equipment that no one in the world manufactur…

> He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. Even in the 1990s it was obvious that the copper network was obsolete and any additional money put into it would be a wasted investment. > Comcast sued the Electric Power Board in TN a few years later to keep them from offering Fibre to the home Chairman Pai specifi…

How specifically is Title II "heavy-handed"? What are the legislative requirements that are so burdensome?

I'd be all for the "free and open" solution if we take it to its logical conclusion - that means franchise agreements, single-provider-multi-dwelling building agreements, and so on all become null and void at the same time.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#32

Post by AlexandrB » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:20 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #15

djsumdog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if he's just misinformed or if he's being intentionally deceptive. He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. I've know Comcast line who, back in the early 2000s, would tell me they'd take parts to their shop where people would resolder and reconstruct equipment that no one in the world manufactur…

> He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. Even in the 1990s it was obvious that the copper network was obsolete and any additional money put into it would be a wasted investment. > Comcast sued the Electric Power Board in TN a few years later to keep them from offering Fibre to the home Chairman Pai specifi…

> It's a heavy-handed and unnecessary imposition of federal regulation on a market that needs to be as free and open as possible due to the speed of innovation in the tech space.

This is nonsense. Because of the capital investment involved there are few "startups" in the ISP space. If there's technological innovation happening it's not filtering down to the consumer in the form of lower prices.

Here in Canada the effective price of LTE access per GB has continuously gone up in the face of "innovation" on how to structure billing for optimal revenue generation. Meanwhile Canadian ISPs fight any regulation that would help foreign entrants into the space with tooth and nail.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#33

Post by folz » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:20 PM UTC

snickerbockers wrote: post #25

Then don't do business with terrible companies that invade your privacy.

In many parts of the country, consumers don't have the luxury of choice between ISPs. Heck, I live in the Bay Area and my two options are between Comcast Xfinity and Comcast for Business. (I went for the latter because they have slightly stronger promises around my personal information.) I have to do business with Comcast because I need internet service, and I have no other reasonable source for it.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#34

Post by zerocrates » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #15

djsumdog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if he's just misinformed or if he's being intentionally deceptive. He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. I've know Comcast line who, back in the early 2000s, would tell me they'd take parts to their shop where people would resolder and reconstruct equipment that no one in the world manufactur…

> He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. Even in the 1990s it was obvious that the copper network was obsolete and any additional money put into it would be a wasted investment. > Comcast sued the Electric Power Board in TN a few years later to keep them from offering Fibre to the home Chairman Pai specifi…

What's this great innovation in the wireline broadband space being stifled by overeager regulators? Presumably there's some concrete example of what our friends the competitive ISPs want to do and are unable to because of the regulations. Or even, what they _used_ to be able to do: Title II reclassification is obviously very recent and the prior "Open Internet" or net neutrality orders weren't long before that. I suspect that the "innovation" they're looking to provide won't be of the kind most people are interested in fostering.

I'm generally amenable to the argument that robust competition is the best solution and that we should be aiming to reduce those barriers but... unbundling was very unpopular with the ISPs and didn't really work and is dead, and as you said the big last-mile problems are local.

Knowing that the FCC isn't actually successfully creating the robust competitive local broadband markets they say they'd prefer, doesn't it make sense for them to do what they _are_ able to do and keep the existing (already "light touch") regulations?

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#35

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #9

bkeroack wrote: post #3

As a counterpoint to some of the outrage/hysteria over the new net neutrality policy, check out this interview with the new FCC chairman Ajit Pai: https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-s... He makes some really good points and generally comes across as well-informed and well-intentioned. In this climate of crazy media hype it's good to keep an open mind and listen to the actual people working on…

I don't know if he's just misinformed or if he's being intentionally deceptive. He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. I've know Comcast line who, back in the early 2000s, would tell me they'd take parts to their shop where people would resolder and reconstruct equipment that no one in the world manufactur…

One can never know other people's motivations, but one can certainly guess, and pretty much everyone agrees that Pai is smart enough to know better.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#36

Post by drdaeman » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #2

This is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They…

I don't know about the US, but it surely can't be like even greediest ISPs are not having any expenses and just hoarding cash enjoying their monopolies. Even though customers sometimes feel that way.

I believe the following must be true for every ISP on the planet. Hardware crashes and/or dies - power surges, thunderstorms, vandalism, firmware bugs, old age, human errors - all sorts of stuff happen almost daily. It also has to be updated to match with ever-growing bandwidth and latency requirements. The same goes about the software parts as well, although when designed right and working solid it normally doesn't need updates - except for new features - for quite a while. Either way, all that stuff normally requires a reasonably big number of engineers and technicians, always busy either fixing things or building new stuff without introducing any actual innovation (just connecting new customers).

I'm not justifying $50/mo tag (honestly, I have no idea how overpriced it is, although I guess with a proper competition it would be significantly less), just saying that maintaining the real-world (=a world where all sort of stuff that shouldn't be happens on a regular basis) network must cost significant amount.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#37

Post by declan » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:24 PM UTC

Current headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority"

More accurate headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” preserves 2015-era FCC Internet regulation status quo"

Another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” temporarily prevents FCC from enacting 3-2 partisan Internet regulations, unless a future Congress changes things"

Yet another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” shifts authority for Internet regulation from unelected bureaucrats, who may not even have the power to regulate here, to elected officials in Congress, who do"

Keep in mind that "Net neutrality" has become a partisan issue. The current 2015 rules were passed by a 3-2 party line vote when the Democrats controlled the FCC. (They're currently being litigated, with U.S. Supreme Court review likely.)

Now that the Republicans control the FCC, the 2015 rules are probably going to be repealed by a 3-2 party line vote. Even if Congress does nothing.

Whatever you think of the reasoning behind "Net neutrality" regulations, it makes little sense for hundreds of pages of regulations to be enacted when the Ds win and repealed when the Rs win. It means regulations applying to a multi-billion dollar industry bounce back and forth every 4 or 8 years. It makes more sense for Congress to come up with a lasting solution that isn't subject to regulatory bounce-back, and this is what the bill being described in the article seems to do.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#38

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:25 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #15

djsumdog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if he's just misinformed or if he's being intentionally deceptive. He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. I've know Comcast line who, back in the early 2000s, would tell me they'd take parts to their shop where people would resolder and reconstruct equipment that no one in the world manufactur…

> He talks about the "light touch" framework of the Bill Clinton era, which saw telecos profit immensely and never feed any money back into their system. Even in the 1990s it was obvious that the copper network was obsolete and any additional money put into it would be a wasted investment. > Comcast sued the Electric Power Board in TN a few years later to keep them from offering Fibre to the home Chairman Pai specifi…

That's amusing considering that some state governments have been passing laws to prevent cities within their borders from offering any kind of public internet or building their own telecoms infrastructure.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#39

Post by monocasa » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:26 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #8

epistasis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is kind of BS. Let's contrast what Pai says: >Net neutrality, if it means a free and open internet, is something that everybody agrees upon, Meanwhile, in the Ars article, we have a sponsoring Senator who hates Obamacare saying: >In the announcement, Cruz repeated his charge that net neutrality is "Obamacare for the Internet." So not sure what you're trying to do other than misinform us.

I'm not sure it's inaccurate to describe Title II regulation as heavy-handed and unnecessary when the most rapid and beneficial growth of the Internet occurred in the 90s when there was little/no regulation.

The last mile infrastructure in the 90s was heavily regulated, and in fact it was those increases in regulation that had a huge part in democratizing the Internet.

Up until the mid 80s, telcos would only allow devices that they had approved to be connected to their networks. That's why you had acoustic coupler modems until then. The device that made an actual, electrical connection to the phone company's network had to be one of their approved phones. They maxed out at 1200 baud (most of the time much lower ~100baud).

Then with the breakup of the bells, and subsequent regulation forcing them to open their networks and allow unapproved devices as long as they didn't have a demonstrated adverse effect on the network.

So yeah, the FCC wasn't regulating AOL in the 90s, they were regulating the last mile: the Bells, GTE, etc. That's where the value in government regulation is, and that's where we want it now as well.

My ideal situation, IMHO, would be nationalized last mile, with a host of choices of companies handling the peering from the local office to the internet. You then pay the peering company, and they pay rent to the gov for the last mile. By reducing the barrier to entry (by making it so that any company can easily attach to last mile fiber) you increase competition. That's unlikely to in the current political climate however (to say the least).

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#40

Post by tdb7893 » Tue, May 02, 2017, 6:27 PM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #36

epistasis wrote: post #2

This is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They…

I don't know about the US, but it surely can't be like even greediest ISPs are not having any expenses and just hoarding cash enjoying their monopolies. Even though customers sometimes feel that way. I believe the following must be true for every ISP on the planet. Hardware crashes and/or dies - power surges, thunderstorms, vandalism, firmware bugs, old age, human errors - all sorts of stuff happen almost daily. It a…

Looks at the profits for comcast and time-warner. Last time I checked (admittedly a few years ago) they were really high, especially considering how much people generally hate them