I'm curious: to what extent could a US ruling on this affect the rest of the world?
Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
31–40 of 452 posts
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#32Net Neutrality is a meme started by Google (the Halliburton of advertising) as propaganda intended to help harm its competitors.
Why shouldn't a local ISP make a deal with Bing Video to stream 5K unlimited in exchange for interruption ads, while limiting youtube traffic to 1080p?
Why should Google strong-arm those ISPs (via net neutrality) into providing support for the most expensive leg of data transit between customers and youtube without offering some kind of subsidy? Why are we all crossing our fingers hoping Google offers last mile in our area rather than aspiring to start a far better last-mile ISP using cutting edge tech?
Our highways do not have "neutrality". Only certified cars and trucks capable of certain speeds who have paid registration fees and taxes are allowed on the scarce resource.
With "highway neutrality" we'd have people walking, someone on a unicycle, various antique vehicles, a bus emitting smoke, and hordes of go-carts. All this traffic would require highways to be significantly larger than they are today, possibly 20-30 lanes wide.
With highways, we know there is demand to transit between cities, so we prioritize that traffic. The traffic pays a toll to the builder of the infrastructure.
For internet, we handle it differently. We grant a monopoly to the last mile providers and then force them to charge no tolls. So they create services that allow for the most cost-savings at the expense of overall quality... This means high latency, since batching upstream is one way they save money.
A low latency internet is not compatible with net neutrality, unless a latency requirement is built into the regulation as it is with POTS.
Since most content demanded (in bytes) is video, the network characteristics to optimize video will dominate ISP buildout, and all other protocols will suffer.
If ISPs build to meet demand, and massive services like YouTube are heavily demanded, then net neutrality offers competitive protection for YouTube/Google (the Halliburton of advertising), blocking local ISPs from doing deals that would challenge YouTube's dominance.
But why would an ISP build to meet demand for other services/protocols when the bar is simply set at providing adequate YouTube streaming? There is no incentive to push for better/faster protocols and more granular, tiered pricing.
Proponents of Net Neutrality need to detail exactly what QoS settings they are calling for, so that we can all evaluate specifically how our desired use-cases will be impacted.
Low latency, rather than burst bandwidth, is by far the most important characteristic of the last mile internet, and so we should be wary of any policies that de-emphasize latency.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#33How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
It costs a lot of money for ISPs to expand their areas of service. As such, they explicitly avoid expanding into areas where a competitor already exists (riskier rate of return). To counter this, government at all levels have provided tax subsidies or outright payment to ISPs to expand into their localities. And regularly, the ISPs simply take the money and do nothing, relying on the fact that they are large enough t…
Don't forget the lobbying efforts that result in local legislation that make it illegal for other companies to move in, see google fiber or any of the municipal attempts.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#34I tried commenting on the proceeding at the FCC site but I keep getting service unavailable errors. The FCC site itself is up but conveniently we the public cannot comment on the issue.
Is it because the public is denied access or just capacity problems?
Where can I find this proceeding to lodge a comment?
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#35How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
I live in a major tech hub in a neighborhood full of Amazon and Microsoft engineers, and the only available ISP is Comcast.
If I had literally any other choice, I would never give Comcast another dime. Given the prohibitive cost of last mile infrastructure, I can't see how I'll ever have another option in a deregulated market.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#36How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
For the same reason the "free market" doesn't afford you competitive choice in power or gas delivery, sewer service, trash pickup, road paving outside your driveway... Physical residential networks are, like all other civil infrastructure, natural monopolies. They don't work in a "free market" and never have. The insistence on the part of glibertarians that somehow this "regulation-free" mode will work for data when…
You can get 540mbps wifi gear for like $50 now. Radio internet is not a natural monopoly.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#37If the internet is fundamental to free speech, maybe it's not a good idea to give it's freedom over to state control, and in particular to an agency who historically has gone beyond it's original mandate and censored content.
When you hand over control to the government, don't ask yourself what it would look like if you were creating the laws, ask yourself what it'll look like when self-interested politicians create them.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#38November 8th was critical to the Internet's future, not today. People made their bed when they refused to get behind Clinton. Now you must accept the consequences.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#39http://gofccyourself.com (redirect)
Edit: If it stays blank after redirect it's because it (FCC's site) can't handle the load, or [conspiracy theory].
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#40Does anyone else find the internet market odd? Up until now net neutrality and other policies have given us the following: 1. Massive monopolies which essentially control 95% of all tech (google, facebook, amazon, microsoft, apple, etc) 2. An internet where every consumer assumes everything should be free. 3. An internet where there's only enough room for a handfull of players in each market globally i.e. if you have…
1) happens naturally in most markets. Without net-neutrality I believe that it would be harder for these companies to be dethroned if something better came along.
2) I think will only continue to be true for a short period of time. With products like Netflix and amazon, and with traditional television channels like HBO and ESPN starting to charge for streaming online, I think consumer attitude will shift as they realize that it's worth paying for content on the internet.
3) I'm skeptical is actually true and I'm skeptical that it's bad if true.
4) for most internet products the barrier of entry is smaller. You're only looking at one company. Compare to a company like Boeing, where it would take hundereds of millions to compete.