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FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

washingtonpost.com

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Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#141

Post by StillBored »

pneill wrote: post #32

Maybe I'm lone dissenter, but I don't understand the push back on this. People who read hacker news should be among the elite technologist, do we really all believe that every packet should be treated the same? Should an E911 call or tele-surgery packets really be treated the same as Netflix? Net neutrality forces the ISP to do that and that seems like madness to me.

This sounds like a fundamental misunderstanding of most of the IP stack. The way TCP works is that bandwidth over consumption is signaled by dropping packets. Back in the mid 2000s "deep packet inspection" was the buzzword of the day, but frankly was mostly BS because you can't inspect encrypted traffic. So what happens, is that the traffic shaping is chosen by endpoint/route. Which means that the ISP might prioritize VOIP calls which terminate in their VOIP service, but they likely won't be able to detect my tunneled VOIP packets utilizing a small no name service that charges $2 a month (my ISP wants to charge/bundle the voice service for an additional $15-25/month depending on which "deal" you get).

The problems here come from ISP's that won't upgrade their infrastructure to support the demand, because they are trying to maximize profits, and see advantages to being able to charge/extort fees from actors they think can afford it (netflix for example) or they feel are competing with their own offerings.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#142

Post by philipov »

ProAm wrote: post #27
philipov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is not political about using public policy to control who gets to make money?

I meant the discussion on HN wont be. This is absolutely a political maneuver bought by lobbyist. People on HN will be upset that it will be more difficult to 'disrupt' and 'hack' on the established.

Being upset on the internet is itself a political maneuver that seeks to build support for your cause by spreading outrage. Deciding which links get shared and discussed is likewise a political act.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#143

Post by so33 »

pneill wrote: post #109
CodeCube wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't be up to the individual and profit-seeking ISPs to decide that E911 and tele-surgery packets get priority. If there's a QoS concern for something, and it's deemed important enough, this is a perfectly rational place for regulation to step in and mandate it from every ISP equally.

How would you propose that packets be prioritized? I don't like the idea of the government telling me what packets should be prioritized. And saying that they all need to be treated the same is equally as bad. But the real issue here is that the need for net neutrality is a symptom and not the root disease. The disease that needs to be solved is a complete lack of competition in the ISP market. Service providers coul…

>You wouldn't need a net neutrality law if you had competition

I don’t buy this argument because you not only need competition, you need a market with perfect information. Net neutrality buzzes on in the sidelines. I would wager that the majority of customers would not care if their ISP limited certain types of packets and would not attempt to switch ISPs (that is, if they even can switch).

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#144

Post by Spivak »

dzdt wrote: post #80
ams6110 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model? If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.

How about if Comcast charges Netflix more to be able to access you? [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/comcastlevel3/

This dispute is way more nuanced than you're presenting. The article you posted picks a winner pretty early on bit actually presents the situation pretty well.

Any company Netflix buys transit from ends up using up all the goodwill of settlement-free peering agreements, doesn't want to actually pay for the traffic, tries to route around problem, and then gets frustrated when Comcast doesn't let them.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#145

Post by tpolischuk »

dinoleif wrote: post #88
ajmurmann wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.

In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…

A huge portion of the country does not have access to multiple ISPs or has access to only 2. Capitalism doesn't work without competition. It's also naive to assume everyone can just afford hiring lawyers.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#147

Post by falcolas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #48
falcolas wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To just equal Comcast's estimated lobbying budget of $20 million, it would require somewhere north of 300,000 people all contributing $5 a month. Given you'd also be fighting against Verizon, Google, Netflix, and any number of other companies, you'd probably need a member count close to a million to make anything resembling headway. A million members making reoccurring contributions is beyond what is realistic, IMO.

Google and Netflix are both pro-neutrality, not anti-; you'd be lobbying with rather than against them on this issue.

I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point. In fact, IIRC, they were explicitly questioned by some news outlets with the recent kerfluffel and their responses boiled down to "it will all be OK".

Frankly, given their market positions, Google and Netflix only stand to win with anti-NN.

Google's Public Policy blog [0] seems to back up the no comment stance - their last comment is from 2010, dating back to the orignal implementations. Wired's research [1] appears to back this up as well.

And here's a Verge article on Netflix' opinion [2] that boils down to "it won't matter to us".

Verbatum: Even if the formal framework gets weakened, we don’t see a big risk actualizing, because consumers know they’re entitled to getting all of the web services.

[0] https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutr... [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neut...

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#148

Post by 52-6F-62 »

everyone wrote: post #35
tashmat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when they don't, a lukewarm middle-of-the-road comment will inevitably rise to the top, contributing nothing to the discussion other than perhaps a milquetoast industry anecdote.

Has the word 'milquetoast' recently increased in usage by several orders of magnitude? I seem to be seeing it a lot. I suppose words go viral like any other meme.

I've noted a few trends in namely in article headlines, and subsequently in commenters: foment being the most notable. It was like the word of the summer, replacing every instance where a more a familiar and easily parsable word would do. Now it's dissipated.

That's just a weak observation, though. It might be interesting to seek data points for the subject.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#149

Post by ams6110 »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #130
ams6110 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. Then I can decide if I want to pay that price for Netflix or not. I also have Amazon Prime video, and Youtube, and etc. so I have several competing choices.

Not if all of those services are lumped into a bundle that you pay a blanket price for each month, separate from the rest of your online services.

Yes but I'm saying I would not accept that as a customer.

People are not going to happily accept the old "bundling" cable TV model that they hate, having experienced the much more open internet model where you really only decide how much bandwidth you want to pay for.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#150

Post by raarts »

ams6110 wrote: post #95
sharemywin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you won't see it. they will force netflix to pay them more. And the charge will be passed on to all subscribers.

That's fine. Then I can decide if I want to pay that price for Netflix or not. I also have Amazon Prime video, and Youtube, and etc. so I have several competing choices.

But your ISP owns you. They will charge YouTube and Amazon as well. You'll end up paying $120/Mo for your connection again.
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