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Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

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

#91

Post by [deleted] »

Karunamon wrote: post #31
bkeroack wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#92

Post by forgotmysn »

dang wrote: post #82

Net neutrality is an important topic, but some politicians sponsoring a bill generally doesn't count as a substantive story. The vast majority of proposed bills go nowhere.

You raise an important point, and if this event took place in isolation, I might even agree with your sentiment. However, this, in combination with FCC Chairman Pai's recent actions demonstrate an organized, concerted effort to deregulate Internet Service Provision. And with the GOP in control of both houses and the Executive branch, combined with their desperate need for political wins, makes me concerned that they will aim for the low-hanging, and highly profitable, fruit.

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

#93

Post by anigbrowl »

rayiner wrote: post #48
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…

> How much money does Google make off of your info? Alphabet's net income in 2016 was $19.5 billion, as much as Comcast and Verizon put together. Alphabet's return on invested capital and operating margins were significantly higher than either. There are various reasons to regulate ISPs, but "they make too much money" isn't a particularly good one: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corp... (tele…

Google has a near-monopoly because it grew out of a natural monopoly; their product was so much more innovative that people flocked to use it and they have managed to maintain their technological lead by constant reinvestment.

An enormous difference, and one of which you are definitely aware, is the existence of legal monopolies for many network infrastructure providers, as well as lobbying of state governments to limit or prevent the building of publicly-owned network infrastructure in many jurisdictions.

I'm not locked in to using Google in any way other than by consumer preference. I use Bing as well but frankly I find it an inferior product.

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

#94

Post by derekp7 »

mikehollinger wrote: post #79

It's hard for me to empathize (in the literal sense of the word) with someone who dislikes net neutrality. What're the reasons / justifications for why the current laws and rules are wrong or insufficient?

From what I understand, there is the concern that potential new technologies wouldn't be allowed under a strict interpretation of net neutrality. For a hypothetical example: go back in time when voice over IP first came on the scene. At that time there wasn't enough excess bandwidth to guarantee voice packets would arrive on time. Now you could prioritize voice traffic, but you'd have to either charge a fee, or find a way to positively identify voice data (otherwise everyone would turn on the voice QOS flag in all their apps even if they didn't need it). This would then not be net neutral.

Of course, today there is enough excessive bandwidth that voice traffic doesn't need to be prioritized. But what about an application where an expert doctor is controlling a robotic surgical instrument from cross country? Would a special service class for those packets be allowed under net neutrality laws?

But the real reason, is that as soon as there is additional bandwidth available, technology finds a way to consume all of it and then some. So the ISPs want to be able to de-prioritize some heavy bandwidth users (such as bittorrent), and/or give higher priority to traffic with paying users like Netflix (for a toll fee, of course), or their own video services.

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

#95

Post by cdrark »

tn135 wrote: post #75
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…

> The ISPs are rolling in cash. Common myth. - Comcast made merely $2B in profits last year.[verified] - ATT made around $5B from wireline data last year. [unverified] A lot of people think these are monopolies with the help of government without realising that a lot of companies including Google tried to bring disruption and have failed. Part of the reason why not many people are wasting their capital on wireline is…

How much did they spend on acquiring movie studios, television stations, etc. etc. unrelated from the core utility business? My internet connection fees shouldn't be subsidizing media conglomeration.

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

#96

Post by anigbrowl »

rayiner wrote: post #61
epistasis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google isn't one of the major internet providers here, whether Google's business has proper competition or not is not my point. My point is that we pay ISPs as much as we pay for the rest of the computing infrastructure, that they are a major player, with tons of money and high profits, and terrible service. That they aren't acting like the big boys, even though they have the cash to. ISPs are currently entrenched wi…

The point is that they're not particularly profitable in comparison to Google, even though in theory Google plays in competitive markets while ISPs are "entrenched without competition."

So what? That doesn't obviate the possibility that their profits are maintained through corruption.

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

#97

Post by jdminhbg »

forgotmysn wrote: post #85
tn135 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ISPs are rolling in cash. Common myth. - Comcast made merely $2B in profits last year.[verified] - ATT made around $5B from wireline data last year. [unverified] A lot of people think these are monopolies with the help of government without realising that a lot of companies including Google tried to bring disruption and have failed. Part of the reason why not many people are wasting their capital on wireline is…

> merely $2B in profits last year I've never seen billions of dollars in profits dismissed so casually. >ISPs have terrible customer service because most of their efforts are going into keeping those wires and fibres intact. ISP's in other countries, even ones of similar scale to the US, don't have to chose between quality customer service and quality internet service. To call your argument facile would be overly gen…

> I've never seen billions of dollars in profits dismissed so casually.

Comcast has around 25 million customers [0], so that's around $65/year/customer. So if you cut that profit to $0, you can return $5/month on combined TV and internet to each customer. When people say "cable and internet are so expensive," they don't generally mean "if I got a $5 price cut I would be happy."

[0]: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/comcast-statistics/

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

#98

Post by jimktrains2 »

pvnick wrote: post #56

Good. The less federal regulation over ISPs the better.

Do you also feel that regulation of water quality is a bad thing?

Do you also feel that I should pay extra for the electricity used by my Air Conditioning unit or computer than I do for lights?

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

#99

Post by rayiner »

anigbrowl wrote: post #87
deelowe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most things, what really happened is complicated. Here's a good hn thread on the matter. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556 If you have more interest in understanding the issue, there's plenty of good assessments. Everything from the explosion of wireless, to hdtv, to local municipalities, to mergers, and technological limitations are to blame.

I really wish that we as a society would spend less time sitting around figuring out who to blame for shit and actually invest in the things we claim to care about. I am sick to the back teeth of bullshit free market ideologies that have an extremely poor track record in reality. That does not mean I am opposed to or deny the value of markets.

The issue in the U.S. is (and has historically been) that neither side wants to invest in telecom infrastructure--both want private companies to foot the bill. When you start from that premise, all your options are limited by the overriding need to ensure adequate incentives to invest.

As a matter of personal ideology, I'd say: let's build a nationwide public system with a federal/state partnership, and import regulators from Scandinavia to run it. But that's not one of the choices.

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

#100

Post by anigbrowl »

snickerbockers wrote: post #50
alphabettsy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough with this crap, many places have one provider to choose from. This is especially true in cities where many live in apartments or condos, and also in rural areas where the cost of build-out is very high.

That's because government regulations create artificial entry barriers that preclude a free and open market. It's foolhardy to believe that adding more regulations will solve anything.

Your claim is bullshit. There's a whole thread here with discussions in varying levels of detail about the market for internet services, and HN is a community with a lot of technical expertise, experience, and economic knowledge.

When you make cliche ideological claims with zero supporting evidence that ignore all that pre-existing context, then I'm going to call bullshit every single time I see them. I do not think you're arguing in good faith here.

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