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One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

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161–170 of 223 posts

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the country and have this right now. 100mb for $50 or 1000mb for $100.

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.…

Austin TX?

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a time I lived in Wilson, NC which was like this. Time Warner did hate that city, eventually sponsoring legislation (via donations to legislators) to bar municipal broadband. The jackasses had the gall to do this, when the primary reason the municipal broadband was established was because Time Warner refused to build out their network in Wilson. I suppose they thought there was no business for them there, until t…

Sounds like your legislators hated the city. And the voters who put them in hated themselves.

It's North Carolina, the rural dominated legislature punishes the urban areas continuously by passing rules that eliminate urban/municipal choices made democratically by imposing statewide majority rule when urban policies offend rural voters. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/north-c... The same thing happened in Texas after Houston attempted and failed to pass an equal rights policy (so the state keeps trying to pass bathroom bills) and Austin forced Uber and Lyft to stop operating (so the state legislature overrode local jurisdiction).

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#163
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

First, bandwidth is limited. It's whatever download and upload you sign for. Second, there is no such thin as "full speed access to Netflix" or whatever. It's limited by your own bandwidth at least. Third, when you pay for an internet access, you pay for a public IP and associated bandwidth, so you can send and receive as much IP packet as your bandwidth will allow you, no matter the provenance or destination . In pr…

Although sometimes the money you pay is actually for a caching proxy space within the ISP's control for a set of services.

Very rarely a low latency link. (like VoIP/real time specialized services)

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#165
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, vote for the mesh network.

How does a mesh network cross oceans?

You end up with bottlenecks. Packets on a mesh will try for the best route - if there's only one big cable across the ocean, everything that needs to cross takes it. Same situation we've got now, for oceans.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#166
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

"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." I'm sorry, but when the same poor arguments are used time and again, it stops being productive.

> when the same poor arguments are used time and again, it stops being productive.

That's true, but the same can be said about most comments in favor of keeping net neutrality (unless they bring something new to the conversation). I wanted to seek out discussion from those who do not share my opinion, rather than simple affirmation of my opinion. Then again, maybe there really is nothing for them to say.

That being said, I probably shouldn't have mentioned downvotes in the first place. I suppose this (from the hackernews guidelines) should apply to others' downvotes too:

> Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

EDIT: I just noticed my ambiguous usage of "read". I meant it in past tense, not present. Therefore, that sentence was in referral to the parent comment being downvoted, not my own comment. I hope that is clear now.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#167
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, vote for the mesh network.

How does a mesh network cross oceans?

In stationwagons....

More seriously, back in the old days:

... the Usenet link to Australia was a daily batch of tapes flown by 747. High bandwidth, but long ping times.

One of the first publicly-accessible network links between the US and Europe ... was a 9600 BAUD line.

I'd cite both of these in more detail, but the book is buried somewhere in archives presently. A late 1980s / early 1990s (just prior to the dawn of the public Internet) item.

More generally, though, to address your question, oceans aren't the problem. We've got ocean links.

It's the last mile, between you and the local on-ramp. That's where Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and TWC have their monopolies, which need breaking up.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#168
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." I'm sorry, but when the same poor arguments are used time and again, it stops being productive.

> when the same poor arguments are used time and again, it stops being productive. That's true, but the same can be said about most comments in favor of keeping net neutrality (unless they bring something new to the conversation). I wanted to seek out discussion from those who do not share my opinion, rather than simple affirmation of my opinion. Then again, maybe there really is nothing for them to say. That being s…

So long as the arguments in favour are themselves sensible, there's no hazard to repeating the truth.

As for downvoting: I generally don't comment on how my own comments get moderated, but if I feel that the Hive Mind is responding poorly to something specific, I may well mention it. Not often, but where it seems particularly pointed.

Generally not, however, preemptively. That's a bit too close to baiting.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#169
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately no. The FCC Chairman is appointed by the President. Ajit Pai was appointed by Trump.

The chairman has to be approved by the Senate after being nominated by the President. But the Senate can't remove the chairman afterward, while the President can. Edit: the commissioners including the chairman have five-year terms and have to be re-approved by the Senate for each term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...

The Congress (specifically the Senate) has the power of impeachment against all civil officers of the U.S. Government. That would be any official not of the armed services.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing...

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/civil+officer

This would include, for the sake of discussion, any hypothetical commissioner of the FCC.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#170
post #51
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, vote for the mesh network.

The lag time, and probably bandwidth, on a mesh, especially a wifi one, makes it unacceptable for many uses.

Yep, but its all we are going to be left with.

Of course, at first it will suck, and it will be limited to neighborhood meshes.. from there perhaps it can start to branch out and connect to other neighborhoods, then city to city, until we finally have a decent internet.

Its going to be up to the web development community in its entirety- front and back end- to make the push, by showing neighborhoods that mesh nets are worth the investment.

Perhaps though, this is what we need to get a true internet. I'm curious as to how Berners-Lee and company would have redone it, perhaps they will have their chance.

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