Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does a mesh network cross oceans?
Via long hops, just like the rest of the Internet. Either fibre, satellite or old radio relay.
how do you decentralise fibre, satellite or radio relay?
One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
171–180 of 223 posts
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
but how does that decentralise the system?
a central body will need to maintain those lines and would be critical to the mesh
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 a…
(1) I know that but it doesn't matter to me
(2) I wasn't talking about "local municipalities running infrastructure" I was talking about them being used to prevent competition as you specifically gave an example of.
(3) I know, but the application of that regulation is at the discretion of the FCC, which, as we've seen, can be easily swayed the opposite way. That's why its better to have legislation.
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#174Earlier 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.…
Great to see that these projects are popping up all over --- I'm also in a town in the US with municipal fiber. I get bidirectional gigabit for $50/month (early adopter --- the normal rate is $100/month). Our ISP is also vocally pro-net neutrality.
I almost started planning a move based on internet service availability. I was considering only cities with Google fiber
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 no…
> Thank you for at least trying to enter the discussion.
Thanks you for being rational and kind and not blindly discounting me.
> 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.
The idea is not that those regulations in particular are bad. In fact, I think starting where Pai started with the removal of those regulations was a bad move, since they're already there.
However, regulations are what they are, and any rule that a company must comply with is a relatively fixed legal expense and therefore a barrier to entry. This leads to any amount of regulation being a larger burden on startup firms than on large firms where these legal expenses are less relevant among their total expenses.
> I'm fine with that, but I haven't seen or heard of any bill designed to accomplish that. Have you?
No, I haven't. And that was one of the main issues I had with all of these Democrats who championed the previous FCC actions. People warned them that this was at most a temporary measure but instead of cementing it in legislation, they left it up to the president. I wish there was legislation, but it seems like the legislators think this issue should remain within the FCC.
> 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.
Can you expand on why you think federal-level regulation is necessary, particularly when compared with only state regulation?
> I do not see it as a reason to abandon the regulation.
I agree.
> What regulations are piling up?
It's not just regulations that pile up, but also past policy decisions. Starting with making AT&T a monopoly in the first place, continuing through the Clinton era regulations, on through now applying decades-old regulations to the internet. Then you have the capture of local municipalities by large ISPs which allows them to control when new companies can access infrastructure, get permits, etc. Google Fiber had the largest problems with this last part, which is where I think people should start if they want to increase competition.
> I don't see privacy protections, or net neutrality as unnecessary, or even detrimental.
Right, neither do I. I agree that privacy protections and net neutrality are necessary for an open internet, but I also believe that those will be provided to consumers naturally through a competitive ISP market. That's why I don't support removing them first, and I also don't support adding them in the first place.
> I have been honestly searching for an argument (any argument!) against net neutrality, but I have not found one.
There is no argument against net neutrality. In my point of view, nobody is arguing over whether net neutrality is good. People are arguing over which way to best get it. (of course there are exceptions to the rule, like some ISP shills and very ignorant people)
> Ajit Pai really is a corporate shill
I, of course, have no idea what Pai's true motivations are, but it seems to me that he could support removing these regulations without being a corporate shill. I think he's just following his principles. There's a ReasonTV interview[1] with him that's actually pretty informative on what his true positions are, I suggest you watch it. I'd like to know your opinion about it.
> 6 big ISPs really do have way more legal clout than they should
I think they do have too much power over governments at every level which is why I'm automatically skeptical of any policy effort.
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree, but I think the problem is that in America, a monopoly or duopoly is considered a viable market. What we need are anti trust laws and prosecutions. I guess that doesn't bring as much money in as letting everyone get ripped off. But hey, "let the market decide," said no one with a brain.
No, you need a physical and legal infrastructure that will make a viable market. Basically, have the state own the cable, and rent those to ISPs by the bandwidth. No bulk order, and no minimum area or minimum bandwidth, so players of any size (including 10 nerds who want to be their own ISP) can enter the market. Then you can "let the market decide". It will decide very differently from what it is currently deciding.
I've got a cousin in California who started a wireless ISP. They've been growing like crazy. Offering only 10Mbps. (No I don't know how this fits into the discussion either)
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#177It's probably a nitpick, but to me Mozilla has always been an organisation with a global mission. They make it seem like these decisions have a global impact, whereas in reality, if I'm not mistaken, this is about national policy for a single country. A country which is not mentioned by name at all in the entire article.
I wish authors would step away from the "USA == world" idea a bit more often. I'd like to get an idea of whether this impacts the rest of the world at all. My impression is "no" but most articles on the subject are too busy screaming "fire!" to clarify much about this.
The title of this article is "one step closer to a closed internet". That really does make it seem like this can have internet-wide impact though, but I don't see it. Anyone?
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#178Earlier 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…
> Thank you for at least trying to enter the discussion. Thanks you for being rational and kind and not blindly discounting me. > 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. The idea is not that those regulations in particular are bad. In fact, I think starting where…
> a relatively fixed legal expense and therefore a barrier to entry.
No startup with any sense will actually do anything against these rules, so it is clearly not an expense or a barrier to entry. That is something that is relatively unique about net neutrality (and the former privacy protections) as a regulation in general. An ISP that does nothing to abuse its users will never have a burden here. It's a pothole in a road to nowhere.
> Can you expand on why you think federal-level regulation is necessary, particularly when compared with only state regulation?
An ISP's network is very unlikely to be constrained to one state. If a state enacted net-neutrality, the ISP would still be able to have preferred traffic in other states. To make matters worse, the customer's traffic is not the only end that must be protected, since the server needs the same amount of bandwidth. In order for a state's net-neutrality law to be effective, it would need to apply in every state where a server is running that the (in-state) customer wants to connect to. Naturally, a state cannot do that.
> but I also believe that those will be provided to consumers naturally through a competitive ISP market.
The sad fact is that there is no competitive market. The other sad fact is that most customers do not understand or care enough to push free market actors to provide these protections.
> there's a ReasonTV interview[1] with him that's actually pretty informative on what his true positions are
I've heard it. It takes a very minimal amount of thought to debunk his claims.
From the interview:
> My hope is that in a more free market light-touch environment, we can figure out what the right regulatory framework is to preserve those core protections of a free and open internet.
It is abundantly clear that the rules that are in place are exactly that.
> "What would an ISP be able to do that they cannot do with net-neutrality?" Pai: "Nothing."
That is simply not true. There is abundant evidence that before Title II regulations were in place, ISPs were beginning to offer services with preferred traffic, etc.
> These were all phantoms conjured up by people who wanted [net-neutrality] for political reasons.
Like what? Clearly the real "phantoms" being "conjured up" are your own, Pai.
I didn't bother to comment on the rest of the interview.
Suffice it to say: Interviews like this are an opportunity for Ajit Pai to avoid any actual argument with net-neutrality, and even redefine arguments against net-neutrality in order to make them easier to defeat. It might be insightful to hear Ajit Pai actually discuss this topic with a net-neutrality advocate, so that real discussion is not tossed aside, but that almost certainly will not happen.
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#179The dynamic IPs were the beginning of the end. Even the IPv6 connection of my ISP does not allow incoming connections. Sad :(
Surprisingly enough, my (tunneled) IPv6 address from CenturyLink has no ports filtered that I can tell, and is regularly higher bandwidth and lower latency than the IPv4 portion of our link.
Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet
#180I 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…
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.
We've progressed a bit since the days of the state telephone monopoly, eh? My mom in Stockholm has symmetric 100 Mb/s included in her rent. ~$12/month extra for 1 Gb/s (both ways!). In France I currently pay ~$40/month for 1 Gb/s down, 200 Mb/s up; a bit expensive, but it's getting better. Competition is cool.