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Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

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Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#371

Post by nocman »

marknutter wrote: post #348
nocman wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, I was neither arguing for nor against net neutrality. I was responding to "With the wide availability of cellular service that provides broadband speeds pretty much everyone in the country has multiple choices of ISP." From a practical standpoint, this is not true for many users. Secondly, I was in no way referring to "insanely fast broadband speeds and data download limits". I was talking about practical…

But you base where you live on the infrastructure available. If high internet speeds are important to you, then moving to a city with better options makes sense. If you want to lie in the boondocks, then that's more important to you than internet.

It is true that I accept more limited choices of certain things by living in a rural location. There are many benefits that I enjoy from being rural that I weigh against technological needs -- it isn't a simple "pick one or the other" situation.

However, the point I was trying to make is that your statement "With the wide availability of cellular service that provides broadband speeds pretty much everyone in the country has multiple choices of ISP." which was in response to the statement "ISPs and utility companies are natural monopolies. When you move to a new location, you're stuck with the ISPs that service that location; often just 1 ISP." is actually not true from a practical standpoint for many people in the US.

I don't just use the internet for entertainment. I use it for my work. And because of the limitations of where I live, that means basically one ISP can provide me with the service I need. The "broadband" service provided in my area by mobile companies, is first of all, not really "broadband" at all, and secondly, even if it was, it would not be practical given the high cost that said companies would charge for it.

I think that many people who live in cities underestimate the number of people who are in this situation (and no, I have not lived in a rural location for my entire career). It is certainly not true from a practical standpoint that "pretty much everyone" in the US has access to "broadband speeds" from multiple ISPs.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#372

Post by feld »

sctb wrote: post #342
feld wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are choosing to not use AT&T over holes in the walls of your dwelling required for installation. The free market is working as intended in this case. Most people really don't have a choice. You're just being a prick.

You can always safely leave out the personal jeers, like the guidelines ask. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It wasn't a personal jeer. I was commenting on his behavior/attitude, not calling him names. There's a big difference.

alternately:

    > You're just being (a prick | stubborn | bullheaded | rigid | perverse | unreasonable)

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#373

Post by twsted »

It's sad that this article stayed at the first positions for so little time. And we are on HN.

But is this HN folks fault?

At the time of my writing "Kubernetes clusters for the hobbyist" - who thinks it is as important as this one? - with 470 points less, almost 300 comments less, both posted 6/7 hours ago is six positions above.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#374

Post by eggnet »

weberc2 wrote: post #132
eggnet wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition is not the solution to all problems. That's like suggesting that we don't need laws against fraud in functional healthy markets. Removing monopolies would not fix the privacy issue either. However, it would probably eliminate the need for net neutrality. In the meantime, we need it. And we need to keep privacy laws in place until such time that technology makes it impossible for ISPs to discover any detai…

> Competition is not the solution to all problems. Of course not. I didn't say or even imply as much. > However, it would probably eliminate the need for net neutrality. In the meantime, we need it. Maybe, but I think the importance people place on this is exaggerated. If you want it as a stopgap, fine. But let's not pretend that NN is going to seriously impact any of the issues discussed in this article.

The problem with your argument is that a significant number of HN readers, I among them, work in the Internet interconnect industry.

Network Neutrality didn't go far enough. Most major eyeball networks in the US charge a high fee (should be zero) for interconnecting with content providers. And even after fees have been agreed to, drag their feet on installing the ports or limit port availability.

We should be looking for ways to give NN more teeth, not get rid of it. Without NN, ISPs can expand the war currently being fought via port availability and pricing, to specific content within a port... as well as placing traffic shaping and QoS back on the table (legally).

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#375

Post by sctb »

feld wrote: post #372
sctb wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always safely leave out the personal jeers, like the guidelines ask. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It wasn't a personal jeer. I was commenting on his behavior/attitude, not calling him names. There's a big difference. alternately: > You're just being (a prick | stubborn | bullheaded | rigid | perverse | unreasonable)

If there's a difference, it's one that doesn't bring the comment within the guidelines. They don't just ask us not to call people names, they ask us not to call names at all:

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#376

Post by bmelton »

guelo wrote: post #344
bmelton wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, that's applicable to every instance except where being provided to the government (section h), and . It's somewhat circular in that regard. Combined with disclosure restrictions, specifically 2(c)(ii), the net result is that only aggregate disclosure is allowed unless specifically permitted by the end users.

My reading of it is that anonymized individual non-PII data, such as browsing history, is allowed to be sold.

You may be correct, now that I re-read it again. There may be something in a subsequent act that prevents non-aggregate data, but until/unless I find that, I'm working under the assumption that you are right and I am wrong, regarding aggregation.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#377

Post by zzzcpan »

curun1r wrote: post #365
bkeroack wrote: post #72

I've written it before and I'll write it again (despite the massive downvotes from those who want to silence dissent): Title II regulation of the Internet is not the net neutrality panacea that many people think it is. That is the same kind of heavy-handed regulation that gave us the sorry copper POTS network we are stuck with today. The free market is the solution, and must be defended against those who want Europea…

The free market is also not the panacea that many people think it is. Broadband is an industry where there is a natural monopoly, which is never good for consumers. Last mile infrastructure just costs too much and you can't have umpteen different companies digging holes in the street and stringing wires. I've said for a while that we could rely on a free market solution to the broadband market with one very large cha…

"Last mile infrastructure just costs too much and you can't have umpteen different companies digging holes in the street and stringing wires."

If you remove all the regulatory overhead last mile is cheap, something on an order of $100 per customer in urban areas.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#378

Post by drspacemonkey »

marknutter wrote: post #349
Jtsummers wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remove net neutrality or any semblance of it. ISPs now control who has access to their customers. Big businesses (Netflix, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft) can afford these costs. DuckDuckGo cannot. Wikipedia cannot. Startup #9 cannot. Yeah, sure, the data maybe still gets through. But now it's getting through at a reduced rate and (potentially) lower quality of service. This prevents new businesses from being able…

So why wasn't this a problem for the 30+ years we had no NN rules in place?

Because until recently, we had defacto NN via gentlemen's agreement. ISPs no longer want to adhere to that agreement.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#379

Post by Jtsummers »

drspacemonkey wrote: post #378
marknutter wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why wasn't this a problem for the 30+ years we had no NN rules in place?

Because until recently, we had defacto NN via gentlemen's agreement. ISPs no longer want to adhere to that agreement.

It's not just that they don't want to. Many of them probably never wanted to. It's the scale.

Previously, you had a lot more ISPs, even more operating in the same physical area when we had dial-up. They needed to cooperate. Their customers' desired data wasn't on their network, and they were barely more than an interlink (services offered: dial-up, email, custom home page at isp.net/~user). If they didn't abide by peering arrangements businesses and customers would have been unable to communicate, making the ISPs unable to fulfill their purchases.

There are now far fewer ISPs and they have far more services and customers. They're in a position, due to the number of customers they have to bargain with, to demand quite a bit from other ISPs and content/service providers. Failing to peer with Comcast could mean losing half of all US broadband customers. So when they demand $$, you're in a bind and almost have to pay, or suffer lower QoS as a result.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#380

Post by cnnsucks »

marknutter wrote: post #348
nocman wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, I was neither arguing for nor against net neutrality. I was responding to "With the wide availability of cellular service that provides broadband speeds pretty much everyone in the country has multiple choices of ISP." From a practical standpoint, this is not true for many users. Secondly, I was in no way referring to "insanely fast broadband speeds and data download limits". I was talking about practical…

But you base where you live on the infrastructure available. If high internet speeds are important to you, then moving to a city with better options makes sense. If you want to lie in the boondocks, then that's more important to you than internet.

Ok, so you're past claiming that "pretty much everyone in the country" has the benefit of "wide availability of cellular service that provides broadband speeds."

Well, that's progress anyhow.

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