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One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

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201–210 of 223 posts

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#201
From the perspective of non-tech people, the internet has actually grown by shedding its neutrality. Huge numbers came to the net because of the "e" of IE, the "s" of skype or the "f" of facebook. As we watch people spend all of their time online locked in a closed platform (or spend all their money in hardware they don't control), we can't be surprised that net neutrality doesn't resonate with them. We can't just fight the occasional battle and then wonder why we're losing the war. If there's more money to be made in crushing net neutrality than in leveraging it, it will get crushed (specially in America).

A basic problem is that technological literacy is not growing fast enough. In fact, ignorance is celebrated. Both Apple and Microsoft are lowering the bar for their operating systems every year. The lack of monetization solutions has made it necessary to sell the user, and their ignorance or just lack of interest facilitates this tremendously. If you want to be able to choose freedom over convenience, you need to care for how things work.

Meanwhile, modern corporations are perfectly aware of how net neutrality got them to the top, of how relinquishing it allows them to stay on top and of how suppressing it keeps other companies from doing to them what they did to the older corporations that used to rule the world.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#202
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I'm thinking solar powered (with batteries) WAP/repeater polls. That's definitely a capital outlay, still. But it might be more serviceable/financeable at a local level.

Quite honestly, cable (solid 19th century proven tech), or satellites (low-orbiting swarms) would be far less problematic.

You might be able to cross the Baring Strait with a LOS microwave relay -- there's a somewhat fanciful video which explores the possibility of driving from Tierra del Fuego to London. It's only really hard in a few areas, one of the more problematic being Guatemal.

Conceptually, tunnelling or bridging (my option would be the former) the Straight is within reason (51 km, compare the Gotthard Base tunnel at 35.5 km). It's creating all-season driveable roads (or trainable tracks) across Alaska and Siberia which are the more formidable challenges.

But for the Atlantic? Cable. Seriously.

And the Lima - Sydney tunnel is going to take a while to dig.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Seeing if I can't find the citation at least. Not sure if it's turned up, though several contemporary accounts are interesting in retrospect.

I'm wondering if Egypt has reconsidered its actions...

http://www.worldcat.org/title/introducing-internet-to-egypt-...

It might be John McConnell's Internetworking computer systems : interconnecting networks and systems (1988):

http://www.worldcat.org/title/internetworking-computer-syste...

Prentice Hall seems right for the publisher, though I'm not positive on the title. Date seems a year or three early.

Possibly John Quartman's The Matrix, 1990, which sounds closer to the right date:

https://www.amazon.com/Matrix-Computer-Networks-Conferencing...

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#204
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…

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…

I realized that it's pretty fruitless to discuss these things on HN, but since you responded I will give you a response.

This isn't something that is generally happening, at least not outside mobile connectivity where certain services are sometimes included. It's not really about what you, or other 'heavy' Internet users wants, but about consumers. People who want net neutrality have to have a response to normal people why it's relevant to them.

More and more people are getting access to broadband, yet it's still quite expensive. The idea, which you will have to defend against if you ultimately want net neutrality, is that companies could pay for the bandwidth. So you as a consumer would pay for connectivity, say 10 mbit. But instead of you just having access to 10 mbit, other companies would be able to pay to deliver to you at full speed. So when you pay for Netflix part of that money might go back to the ISP. This is to some extent already happening, but through various transit and peering agreements.

> 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.

You do (usually) pay for installation, it's just that it's "baked in" to contract time and fees of your connection. That's why you usually can't get a really cheap connection on a wired installation. A 1 mbit connection would still usually cost you a fair bit, if it's even available. With something like electricity you do also pay for installation, but since that is largely universal it's really part of the overall cost. Point being that a lot of people lack broadband because they can't afford the installation cost and that is a big different between Internet access and other utilities which are much more universal.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#205
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…

What you're describing is how net neutrality works, not how the Internet works.

> First, bandwidth is limited. It's whatever download and upload you sign for.

I said that I don't encourage bandwidth limits, not that it wasn't limited. The point is you usually sign a flat fee, you don't have universal access and then pay for traffic, more like in a country like Andorra.

> Second, there is no such thin as "full speed access to Netflix" or whatever. It's limited by your own bandwidth at least.

It's only limited because the ISP has limited it, it's entirely possible to give someone with a slower overall internet connection a higher speed to certain services. > They don't have to update their infrastructure every time a new web site comes up. As such, access to Netflix, Youtube, or http://loup-vaillant.fr are not separate services.

I don't see you point. ISP do peer directly with services, but I never said they had to. You just have to have a separate exchange for full speed services.

> ISPs that treat access to particular web sites as separate services are just plain lying. The real "separate service", for which they actually spend money, is the throttling/filtering/censoring infrastructure they have to put in place to charge different web sites differently. Text book malicious features, not unlike DRM.

I don't agree with throttling, but "throttling" (or congestion) does occur naturally on the Internet.

I think you really don't get my point, so I'll try and explain in another way.

Today you pay a higher amount for something like a 100 mbit or 1 gigabit connection. That's for all the infrastructure and bandwidth for giving you that access (or at least hopefull something close to it). How this works differs, but generally your ISP would pay to access bigger networks.

Now imagine instead if your ISP only guaranteed you a certain amount of normal Internet traffic, either as bandwidth or data. And then it would be up to the services to pay for the infrastructure and bandwidth to deliver their content at a higher rate. It would really just be a formalization of what's already happening with transit vs. peering. If you want to see it from a technical perspective, how it is today, imagine having 10 mbit to the open internet and 1 gigabit to all the services that your ISP peers with (even in the extended network). Then imagine possibly your ISP getting paid by those services instead.

I'm not saying that it's a great idea, I'm saying that it is a winning one. Because consumers would pay less, ISPs would require less infrastructure or pay for less bandwidth (as you said these things are related) and it's actually creates incentive for people to roll out Internet access. And if you want net neutrality it's an argument like this you would have to be able to argue against.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection, and there's absolutely no reason, at all, to get rid of it until we either have a viable marketplace or we don't need ISPs.. On the other hand, we likely won't ever get either until it becomes sufficiently inconvenient for a huge swath of the first world. Necessity being the mother of invention and whatnot. Personally, I would…

> I can live with hypothetically throttled Netflix Sure, Netflix, boohoo. But what about when Comcast blocks savenetneutrality.org? This throttling argument comes up a lot, but it's just the first small step in a logical progression that allows big corporations to censor anything they don't like. Think, the private version of the Great Firewall of China. But it's ok, because the free market did it, right? I see your…

I'm fine with NN legislation, but it seems like so much of the pro-NN rhetoric even among intelligent people on HN is fear mongering and slippery slope. ISPs have been unregulated for decades and the tales of censorship are scant; certainly not deserving of such apocalyptic rhetoric. In fact, the only censorship I can imagine would be the least controversial--censorship of far-right sites like Stormfront.

> But it's ok, because the free market did it, right?

Is anyone making this argument? Why is this particular straw man invoked so often? I don't pretend that ISPs are beholden to the market in the same way as other services, but neither can they go around censoring with market impunity.

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#207
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection, and there's absolutely no reason, at all, to get rid of it until we either have a viable marketplace or we don't need ISPs.. On the other hand, we likely won't ever get either until it becomes sufficiently inconvenient for a huge swath of the first world. Necessity being the mother of invention and whatnot. Personally, I would…

And I absolutely can not live with ISPs having control over content and it's speed.

How did you survive before 2015?

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that all tech originate from the U.S, I even referenced a Swedish company in my comment. I never said the U.S was the greatest country in the world or even implied that. You are projecting. You also seem to have a quite a chip on your shoulder. You have no idea what my nationality is. That being said please tell me the country that has produced more successful tech companies than the US? Or what country…

Let me ask a counter question. How much innovation in other countries was stifled because of the way the US companies operate? And to get back to Google and Facebook, these two companies are building walled gardens not unlike the way ISPs in the US operate. They either force the competition out or buy them. They do everything in their power to keep you inside their bubble. In a few years down the road, we may just en…

You didn't answer the question, who produces the most successful/influential tech companies if not the US?

>"How much innovation in other countries was stifled because of the way the US companies operate?"

So the reason the US leads in tech is because they have stifled other countries tech development? Can you provide some concrete examples of that?

Maybe you aren't aware but foreign talent is a corner stone of U.S tech. More than a third of top US tech companies(Tesla, Qualcomm, Google, FB to name a few) have founders born born outside the US[1].

This has been discussed many times on HN. So why did those people go to the US and start tech companies? Were they prevented from leaving the U.S and starting companies in their native countries?

In terms of companies building walled-gardens and consolidating market share that is called capitalism and it wasn't invented in the U.S. Additionally nobody is forcing anybody to use any of those platforms. You yourself said you don't use them.

I get it, you are anti-American and your entitled to that. But your statements are really naive and seemed to be informed solely by anger. I find your sense of victimization quite sad.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-founded-by...

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#209

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…

There is absolutely a reason to get rid of it. Net "neutrality", as currently implemented, attacks the peering arrangements that were put into the spotlight by Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings. He famously said that ISP's were holding his members "hostage" until they paid up. Then the net neutrality rules changed that. But if you look at what Hastings wants you'll see why it's a bunch of crap. Peering agreements exist for larger entities to trade bandwidth without having to keep paying each other for it and then have that count as income. It's much easier, for example, to have entity A send X TB of data to entity B and have entity B send X+Y TB to entity A and instead of each of them charging the other for the total bandwidth, they instead agree to just have B pay for Y and A pays nothing. Or if Y is small enough, they just consider it a wash because in the next month/cycle A might send more.

What Netflix does is 99.99% all one way traffic. And he wants to send it for free. Currently he's getting away with that explicitly because of net neutrality rules. Otherwise, Netflix was facing huge transmission fees - and rightfully so. It is estimated that during peak hours Netflix consumes more than 1/3 of all internet bandwidth during peak hours, which is insane.

Hastings wants this for free. And currently, he's getting it. So if the ISP's aren't getting paid for all that extra usage, who's paying for it? The ISP are increasing the cost of their plans to account for this since Netflix isn't paying them. This means that non-Netflix customers are subsidizing the cost of the service for all Netflix streaming users!

Re: One Step Closer to a Closed Internet

#210
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What you're describing is how net neutrality works, not how the Internet works. > First, bandwidth is limited. It's whatever download and upload you sign for. I said that I don't encourage bandwidth limits, not that it wasn't limited. The point is you usually sign a flat fee, you don't have universal access and then pay for traffic, more like in a country like Andorra. > Second, there is no such thin as "full speed a…

OK, I think see your point. Your scheme could be compatible with net neutrality with a few tweaks. The ISP could offer a separate channel for its special YouTube access the same way it offers separate channels for TV right now. Net neutrality is saved as long as the actual internet connection doesn't discriminate —being universally slow is perfectly allowed.

But here's the thing: it's not transparent. The customer has to explicitly subscribe to those high speed channels, just like they do TV right now.

Back to your scheme, the customer would not pay less. Costs have to be recouped somehow. If YouTube pays for the privilege of using the ISP's fast channels, they're likely to multiply ads, or even ask users to pay to use YouTube at all. Either way, the customer will pay eventually.

Generalise this, and you get nearly free internet access that's now useless, and various paid subscriptions to a number of walled gardens (think porn networks). The walled gardens will then pay the various ISPs back for the privilege of accessing their users.

One won't simply set up a web site. It will need to be part of a network, which may charge for the privilege, or police the content to protect their reputation (just like YouTube). One won't simply host a server of any kind at home: it will get crappy communication, if at all (with everything moved to the walled gardens, there is little point in supporting anything else).

I don't like that one bit.

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