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One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

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Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#121

Post by arcticbull »

pitaj wrote: post #111
orthecreedence wrote: post #4

I want to say this first: I love net neutrality and I support it 100%. That said, I think this battle will go on forever until either - We have a decentralized network anybody can plug into without ISPs (mesh net) or - Cities build their own fiber infrastructure (or 4G towers for rural areas) and rent it out to companies. Cable/DSL become a thing of the past, and you connect via radio/public wifi/direct fiber. This b…

> The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market. Oh, trust me, we understand that very well. What we want to do is expand competition by making it easier to compete. This largest barrier to competition at this time is local municipalities, which is a good place for the FCC to step in and tell them to back off and let the ISPs install their fiber. I support the FCC regulating government…

(1) The FCC exists (almost?) solely to regulate private and not public entities.

(2) There's no evidence that local municipalities running infrastructure and allowing telecoms to compete on services instead will reduce competition. It will likely increase it by lowering barrier to entry, as you can see all over Europe. Can you cite evidence of municipalities refusing to allow fiber installs? I did a lot of research and found nothing. I've only found the inverse, private companies lobbying to prevent municipalities from running fiber. [1]

(3) This kind of regulation is exactly the purview of the FCC. That's why they have a Title I and Title II. They already impose this exact kind of regulation on landline phone companies.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/03...

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#122

Post by arcticbull »

wvenable wrote: post #110
jbob2000 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three of those companies survive off acquisitions. They rely on small independent companies taking a risk and doing the hard work, and when they find the diamond-in-the-rough, they get snapped up and brought under the corporate umbrella. This legislation dries up the well. No small companies to buy = no progress.

In this environment, they wouldn't need acquisitions. Progress isn't necessary for profit.

Ah yes, that little loophole.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#123

Post by cmurf »

orthecreedence wrote: post #4

I want to say this first: I love net neutrality and I support it 100%. That said, I think this battle will go on forever until either - We have a decentralized network anybody can plug into without ISPs (mesh net) or - Cities build their own fiber infrastructure (or 4G towers for rural areas) and rent it out to companies. Cable/DSL become a thing of the past, and you connect via radio/public wifi/direct fiber. This b…

>Cities build their own fiber infrastructure

Republicans support government intervention at both the federal and state level to disallow cities from doing this.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#124

Post by cmurf »

VLM wrote: post #96
durandal1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Stockholm apartment had multiple ISPs competing for service over fiber laid down by a state-owned company. In 2007 this meant symmetric 100mbit for about $30/month.

The same political and market forces have an equally interesting effect on your cost of medical care and lifespan.

Yes, per OESD, Sweden pays less per capita for healthcare than the U.S. with a longer lifespan.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#125

Post by curun1r »

Jtsummers wrote: post #104
woah wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality advocates are worried precisely about isps being able to discriminate by source or destination. Additionally, most traffic is already e2e encrypted. You just used the system you were proposing to post that comment.

I agree. But source/destination isn't the only way that ISPs discriminate. They can also discriminate based on the type/protocol of content (when revealed). See the way they used traffic shaping with bittorrent, what was that 8 years ago now? That was communication between peers, potentially within the same ISP. e2e encryption mitigates the impact ISPs can have when looking at the protocol/contents. But there is stil…

Begging your pardon, but net neutrality isn't and has never been about traffic discrimination by type. That kind of traffic shaping is not only acceptable, it's desirable. Services with real-time requirements (VOIP, streaming, etc) can and should have priority over non-real-time services. I'm sick of people polluting the net neutrality debate with this misunderstanding and discussion on a site as knowledgeable as HN should be better. Net neutrality only covers discrimination based on source/destination and we need to push back against upset torrenters muddying the waters.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#126

Post by apatters »

I support the principle of net neutrality in some philosophical abstract, but increasingly it seems like we're being asked to choose between:

A) A cabal of Comcast-centric billionaires who control key infrastructure on the Internet

B) A cabal of Sam Altman type VC billionaires who control key infrastructure on the Internet

What are ANY of these guys other than profiteers who seek to pervert the open protocols of the Internet for the sake of their own profits? I think they are all aspiring emperors with no clothes. I dare any of these profiteers to respond.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#127

Post by barrkel »

rayiner wrote: post #100
VLM wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same political and market forces have an equally interesting effect on your cost of medical care and lifespan.

To the extent you're implying that the public/private distinction is relevant, I'm not sure I agree. Our infrastructure (trains, subways, roads) is also generally inferior even though its mostly publicly owned and operated. It costs our public entities five times as much to build a mile of subway as it costs Spain's public entities. We're just bad at doing things.

I think it's in large part because of American's low expectations, which feeds into the quality of people, and it becomes self fulfilling.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#128

Post by mirimir »

lilei wrote: post #109
nulagrithom wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I'm at in the US, we have a Public Utility District that's "owned" by the city (top position is an elected position too). They've run fiber everywhere and leased it to local ISPs. I can get gigabit for under $90/mo. Lowest tier is 100x10 for under $50. One of our local ISPs even built a real nice wireless mesh network with a fiber "backbone". You can get low-latency 35x2 service way up in the hills of nowhere.…

> It's amazing what happens when Internet is treated like a utility. It's not really like a utility though. A utility usually has a low fee and charge per use. Not that I encourage data or bandwidth limits, but there's a difference. Consider you could either get gigabit for $90 or you could get a fixed speed or data (say 10 mbit or 100gb) for $30 but full speed access to Netflix, YouTube, Windows Update etc. is inclu…

OK, so I get an unmetered symmetric 100 Mbps uplink for less than $50 per month. It happens to be through a private ISP, so I'm insulated from this bullshit, unless backbone ISPs play dirty. But anyway, I want Internet connectivity for many reasons, and they're constantly changing. The idea of getting hobbled general access plus full-speed access to some restricted set of services is insane. I mean, would you expect me to order access specifically for whatever I wanted? There's also the fact that I hit just about everything through VPNs, so ISPs wouldn't even know what I'm accessing.

I don't get your question about "why consumers are paying for both installation, the bandwidth itself and the services they access". I don't pay for "installation", but rather for access, by month. I only pay for a few services, and never see ads. For the most part, I only pay for the unmetered 100 Mbps uplink.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#129

Post by thomastjeffery »

pitaj wrote: post #111
orthecreedence wrote: post #4

I want to say this first: I love net neutrality and I support it 100%. That said, I think this battle will go on forever until either - We have a decentralized network anybody can plug into without ISPs (mesh net) or - Cities build their own fiber infrastructure (or 4G towers for rural areas) and rent it out to companies. Cable/DSL become a thing of the past, and you connect via radio/public wifi/direct fiber. This b…

> The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market. Oh, trust me, we understand that very well. What we want to do is expand competition by making it easier to compete. This largest barrier to competition at this time is local municipalities, which is a good place for the FCC to step in and tell them to back off and let the ISPs install their fiber. I support the FCC regulating government…

Thank you for at least trying to enter the discussion.

I hope those who read this don't downvote because they, like me, disagree with you. Voting on comments is about pushing productive conversation to the top. I, for one, would like to open the doors in this echo chamber.

With that in mind, let me politely explain why you are wrong.

> What we want to do is expand competition by making it easier to compete.

I have not heard a single argument of how dismantling privacy protections (via S. J. Res 34) or net neutrality (Title II Communications Act 1934) can in any way accomplish, or even assist in this.

Have you? I would love to hear it, even if I disagree with it. I want discussion, not rhetoric.

> I support the FCC regulating governmental entities, not so much private ones.

The FCC was put in place to regulate private entities. Whether you agree with what those regulations are, it's important to understand that distinction. If you want to totally dismantle the FCC, I would love to have a discussion about that, but here we are discussing net neutrality, since it appears the FCC is here to stay.

> Net neutrality should, if enforced by government, be legislated, not initiated by a regulatory agency.

I'm fine with that, but I haven't seen or heard of any bill designed to accomplish that. Have you? It's also worth mentioning that, where possible, I prefer state-level legislation, but that federal-level regulation is inherently needed to enforce net-neutrality.

> because they thought such a large change was unfit for unelected bureaucrats to decide.

That is a reasonable point, but let us not forget that those unelected bureaucrats did decide it, with input from millions of Americans. While that is a clear reason to not implement this regulation, I do not see it as a reason to abandon the regulation.

> Guess what, that tax never went away. It's the same thing with regulations. They just keep piling up.

That sounds plausible. What regulations are piling up? Maybe we should get rid of some that we think are unnecessary. I don't see privacy protections, or net neutrality as unnecessary, or even detrimental.

Darn. I got to the end of your comment, but I didn't find much to talk about. I'm still wondering: do you want net neutrality dismantled? Why? I have been honestly searching for an argument (any argument!) against net neutrality, but I have not found one. That's not very common. Usually there is something to consider. I haven't heard it, and I am beginning to fear that I never will, and that's just depressing. That would mean that Ajit Pai really is a corporate shill, and that those 6 big ISPs really do have way more legal clout than they should. So sad.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#130

Post by thomastjeffery »

apatters wrote: post #126

I support the principle of net neutrality in some philosophical abstract, but increasingly it seems like we're being asked to choose between: A) A cabal of Comcast-centric billionaires who control key infrastructure on the Internet B) A cabal of Sam Altman type VC billionaires who control key infrastructure on the Internet What are ANY of these guys other than profiteers who seek to pervert the open protocols of the…

I'm not sure what that has to do with net neutrality. Care to elaborate?
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