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Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

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Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#421

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

PeterisP wrote: post #405
drawnwren wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used AOL and Compuserve, but after they had both expanded to allowing access to everything. What drove the expansion? It seems like the market worked as expected in this case...

The existence of the open internet made it beneficial to interoperate; lack of it would mean that the expected market interest would require them to not interoperate. For many markets, the natural consequence of unregulated free market conditions is to aggregate towards a monopolistic or oligopolistic market, which isn't a free market any more. The idealized economic free market isn't a stable equilibrium - it's a go…

And what created the existence of the open internet? Voluntary interaction.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#422

Post by BenjiWiebe »

freehunter wrote: post #153
1_2__3 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the POTS system is fiber and has been for some time. The "sorry copper POTS network" enabled the future through any number of amazing technologies up to and including SS7 and lots of modern tech. If you're saying NN gets us something as long-lasting, ubiquitous and powerful as the POTS system, sign me up.

Not to mention POTS goes everywhere and provides basically the same service to everyone at roughly the same price nationwide. And it works even if the power is out. If broadband stood still at the speed it's at right now (my not-impressive suburban area is 40-60mbps) but matched the consistency and affordability of POTS nationwide, we would be in a far better place than we are now.

It puts a smile on my face every time someone refers to 60Mbps as not impressive... I live in a rural area, that is true, but it isn't that under populated or that far from a city. And we can get 6Mbps tops, unless we go to Verizon and pay per gig. Oh wait, actually Verizon service is pretty terrible here too.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#423

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

Title II "Net Neutrality" is a dangerous power grab -- a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist, with the potential to become an engine of censorship (requiring ISPs to non-preferentially deliver "legal content" invites the FCC and other regulatory and legislative bodies to define some content as "illegal").

Title II "Net Neutrality" is also an instance of regulatory capture through which large consumers of bandwidth (such as Google and Netflix) hope to externalize the costs of network expansions to accommodate their ever-growing bandwidth demands. To put it differently, instead of building those costs into the prices their customers pay, they want to force Internet users who AREN'T their customers to subsidize their bandwidth demands.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#424

Post by intended »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #421
PeterisP wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of the open internet made it beneficial to interoperate; lack of it would mean that the expected market interest would require them to not interoperate. For many markets, the natural consequence of unregulated free market conditions is to aggregate towards a monopolistic or oligopolistic market, which isn't a free market any more. The idealized economic free market isn't a stable equilibrium - it's a go…

And what created the existence of the open internet? Voluntary interaction.

Wrong - benign neglect.

The fact that the consumer was more nimble and capable of exploring and creating value in this space allowed them the chance to beat the entrenched players.

Today those entrenched players have finally turned around and are using their legacy power, connections and money, to make it an unfair playing field.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#425

Post by Crye »

zzzcpan wrote: post #377
curun1r wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I understand you just through out a number but you're at least an order of magnitude off. This is an article which is about 7 years old. I can guarantee you the prices have not lowered since then.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/fiber-its-not-al...

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#426

Post by wfo »

massysett wrote: post #415
jhardcastle wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably OP is referring to the walled garden of CompuServe, Prodigy, and others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their proprietary message boards. If you wanted to talk with someone else, it was impossible (until later) because the systems didn't interoperate. CompuServe controlled the message boards, and could control which ones were created (or not created) and thus controlled the messa…

"others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their proprietary message boards." In other words, Facebook and Twitter.

No. More like if you are on Comcast, you can't access Twitter. If you're on AT&T, you can't access Facebook. When you sign up for your ISP, you get to choose between Amazon and Netflix, and you can't change your mind without paying someone to come out and lay new line if you're even one of the tiny few lucky enough to have more than one ISP that serves your home.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#427

Post by skrebbel »

Chaebixi wrote: post #34
pbhowmic wrote: post #11

I 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?

> Is it because the public is denied access or just capacity problems?

There's no difference. It's like understaffing voting booths in areas where the majority is anti-current-government.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#428

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

inyorgroove wrote: post #413
bhauer wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the problems with ISPs are more practical: they overcharge, provide shitty service, have no incentive to upgrade their infrastructure, and clearly collude with one another. Therefore they need to be regulated. Agreed. Though I would prefer that we do whatever we can to identify and implement mechanisms to increase competition. I want new ISP options, and several of them, rather than just marginally better b…

How about forcing ISPs to lease the last mile to help bolster competition, they did something similar in the UK [1]. Not quite sure how that worked out for them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling#United_K...

This was a requirement of EU law, and is presumably a reason why there are more ISPs in the EU than in the US (apart from the density issue, of course).

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#429

Post by shawnee_ »

self-diversity wrote: post #345
shawnee_ wrote: post #65

Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net neutrality has been called the “First Amendment of the Internet.” Not just harder. Infinitely more dangerous. Probably the scariest implications for NN being gutted are those around loss of anonymity through the Internet. ISPs who are allowed to sell users' browsing hi…

Your edit makes me wonder if you realize consciously that your rant is completely orthogonal to net neutrality even with your epplanation, and you're just doubling down on deliberate unawareness as a strategy to avoid feeling foolish.

No, not really... have a look through my (quite infrequent) posting history and comments to follow the logic.

The current GOP-controlled administration is implementing a cunning strategy to undermine the safety and freedom of all Americans. These are deliberate actions being taken, with specific goals to suppress what it is calling "fake" news/media, but what most people call facts. The most astonishing thing is that they've twisted and mangled the definition of "freedom" into something that doesn't resemble freedom at all; and yet there are many people who are stupid enough to believe they're actually being helped by these ludicrous decisions.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#430

Post by mcv »

massysett wrote: post #415
jhardcastle wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably OP is referring to the walled garden of CompuServe, Prodigy, and others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their proprietary message boards. If you wanted to talk with someone else, it was impossible (until later) because the systems didn't interoperate. CompuServe controlled the message boards, and could control which ones were created (or not created) and thus controlled the messa…

"others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their proprietary message boards." In other words, Facebook and Twitter.

If Facebook and Twitter were also ISPs and you could only intereact with them and not with any other social networks.
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