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

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

#191

Post by Brotkrumen »

bluetidepro wrote: post #159

What I don't fully understand is why isn't larger tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. making a big fuss about this on their sites to warn their users and help fight against it? Are they not as worried about this? Does it actual benefit them in some ways cause they can box out smaller competition since they can afford to pay ISP's or something? For example, if Facebook saw this as a re…

Iirc the netflix CEO himself said in the beginning of this that net neutrality is good for small to medium upstarts and bad for incumbents. Netflix now is an incumbent with enough bargaining power to get a good price for that access and fastlane. Netflix future competitor won't have that bargaining power and will be forced to offer their product more expensively.

Same with all the big e-businesses

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

#192

Post by tastythrowaway »

obmelvin wrote: post #67
Lukeas14 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote was from Tom Wheeler, ex-chairman of the FCC who opposes ending net neutrality. He was being sarcastic.

I'd like to have a quick shout out to Tom Wheeler. I was very worried when he was first appointed, but it was great to see someone who used their experience lobbying to stand up for consumers instead of continuing to act in corporate interests.

To hear him tell it, when he first started as a lobbyist he was advocating for organizations that weren't getting their interests adequately represented in government (at the time cable and wireless companies). As FCC chairman he continued lobbying for those whose interests were not adequately defended - the consumers.

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

#193

Post by dragonwriter »

jfaucett wrote: post #152

As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this, I'm interested to see what will happen. We know the catastrophe hypothesis - ISPs will throttle content, customers will lose badly, innovation will plummet, etc. We also know people outside the tech field disagree with that and some seem to think the opposite could happen [1]. Honestly, I wish our societies would do way more experi…

> As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this

I think you've under-considered the political aspect of centralized control of online media by incumbent players of a similar political bent in the US and the effect that has beyond the US, as well as the degree to which the money to be made in the US—and thus US market conditions—effect globally-available internet services.

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

#194

Post by madamelic »

jfoucher wrote: post #165

I'd like to read your opinions on what this means for the evolution of the internet outside the US. Will the US internet become somehow separate from the world wide web ? Will it be harder or easier for international companies to have access to the US market ? and conversely will it be harder or easier for US based companies to have access to international customers? Thank you for your insights.

If a service's servers are run in the US, "ISPs" could charge more to that service to pipe that data out of the country using their lines.

It would only affect international people if a company's servers only existed inside of the US, which exempts all large startups that have co-located servers.

It would affect all traffic of people in the US though since the ISP can charge services to pipe in to their lines and charge consumers to pipe out of their lines.

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

#195

Post by rglover »

ams6110 wrote: post #34
fokinsean wrote: post #18

Tweet in article: >On December 14, the FCC will vote on Chairman Pai's plan to repeal President Obama's heavy-handed Internet regulations and restore Internet freedom. I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom". Just like the "Patriot Act", it is reasonable to assume anything with these sort of labels will likely be an encroachment on your freedoms. Also >"The job of the FCC i…

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.

> Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?

When you control what people see, you control what people think. Dismiss that as tinfoil malarky if you will.

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

#196

Post by acetheface »

Spivak wrote: post #144
dzdt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a consumer Im paying Comcast for quality access to all of the internet. Its their job to deliver on that. If they allow their peering points with T1 providers to clog up, they are not delivering on the service I purchased.

Also, Comcast isn't a transit provider. They're an eyeball network and should expect heavy inbound traffic levels. Also look here: https://www.peeringdb.com/net/822 Their locations are all in the states. Most settlement free agreements require diverse meeting points around the world. Right now the big providers are hauling Comcast traffic across the oceans. So their large market share in the US is already getting them preferential treatment from the other providers.

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

#197

Post by vel0city »

username223 wrote: post #75
yobrien wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apartment complex has a contract with AT&T. I either have ATT or I don't have anyone. I can't be "gone". I just have to suck it up and pay unless I want to go to the library for basic internet then.

Talk to your neighbors and offer to split the internet bill. This doesn't solve the long-term problem, but at least it hurts the local internet monopoly.

From what I gather in the brief comment, the apartment complex only allowed AT&T to install cabling to the building, so those apartment buildings are only serviced by AT&T. The apartment complex will not allow another ISP to dig up their property to install internet service for tenants, leading to an exclusive AT&T monopoly. I've had friends in similar apartment buildings. Calling other ISPs operating across the street led nowhere, as those ISPs would just say "we do not service that address."

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

#198

Post by charonn0 »

dinoleif wrote: post #164
charonn0 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you count sub-broadband connections, sure.

"not an option for most Americans" OK.

Even the FCC, back when it was at least nominally run for the benefit of the American people, didn't consider sub-broadband good enough to qualify as competition.

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

#199

Post by jandrese »

bcoates wrote: post #74
fokinsean wrote: post #18

Tweet in article: >On December 14, the FCC will vote on Chairman Pai's plan to repeal President Obama's heavy-handed Internet regulations and restore Internet freedom. I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom". Just like the "Patriot Act", it is reasonable to assume anything with these sort of labels will likely be an encroachment on your freedoms. Also >"The job of the FCC i…

Where I live, I like spectrum-formerly-timewarner-formerly-roadrunner cable Internet just fine. There are a lot of alternatives to using it for home Internet around here, and I'm pretty sure the two are related. If you want better internet access, instead of begging the FCC for scraps get on repealing legislated monopoly rights for kinds of wires and/or unbundling last mile from ISP. Then ask yourself why internet re…

Because high fixed costs make it very expensive for competitors to enter the market. It's like asking why someone doesn't just open up a competing water company in a place like Flint.

More to the point, can you imagine how fast the knives would come out if the FCC announced this deregulation and also a federal universal broadband plan where they use taxpayer money to deliver fiber to the home of everybody in the country in order to insure healthy competition?

On a side note, what do you think the odds are that this plan will remove uncompetitive restrictions on ISP (especially municipal ISP) development at the same time? I mean it's all about competition right? If I didn't know better I'd say that the talk of "competition" was just a smoke screen to hide the fact that this is the "allow ISPs to hold your service hostage with no repercussions" bill.

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

#200

Post by sbov »

imglorp wrote: post #101
ChicagoDave wrote: post #69

It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete. Imagine I start a new streaming service. In order for my service to reach people, ISP's will charge me a higher price than Netflix, probably a _significantly_ higher rate. This will make it extremely difficult for my new service to reach enough…

> It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted. 1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz... 2. https://consumeris…

Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore - Reed Hastings claims they are now big and popular enough for it not to matter for them:

https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastin...

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