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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

#261

Post by lovehashbrowns »

_justinfunk wrote: post #172
so33 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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).

If a majority of customers wouldn't even care if this happened, then why is it the internet doomsday? Seems like you can't have both sides of the argument. Unless I'm missing your point.

This isn't something as basic as "the right to bear arms." There's a lot of information and this is a fairly dull subject, so the ISPs rely on that to gain support for this.

So you can have net neutrality be removed, and nobody care that it was removed, but still be in a much worse position than before.

Similarly, the PATRIOT act was passed, and "nobody" cared. That doesn't mean that nothing changed.

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

#262

Post by dragonwriter »

dinoleif wrote: post #40

"Net neutrality" is one of the most Orwellian terms in modern usage. It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst. Who was being harmed in the first 20 years of the internet without these regulations? Whose lives have been made better? Compared to what? Net neutrality advocates are utterly unable to give conv…

> "Net neutrality" is one of the most Orwellian terms in modern usage.

> It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies

It was coined in academia in 2003; the concern was raised (without the term) at least as early as 1994, well before most of the “large tech companies” embracing it existed.

> to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst.

No, while it was largely an abstract concern when the issue was raised in the 90s, and even perhaps when the term was coined in 2003; by the time in 2004 that the FCC defined it's “Network Freedom” principles concrete threats were visible, and for years before the first effort to adopt regulation (starting shortly after the Network Freedom principles) the FCC responded to numerous concrete problems with case-by-case actions, which provided the direct experience with real, existing problems on which the regulatory efforts of the two Open Internet orders was based. The idea that the regulation efforts were preemptive ignores the well-documented history f the issue.

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

#263

Post by rhino369 »

vast_majority wrote: post #202
rhino369 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority have some choice. The average household can choose between their telecom or their cable company. In some areas one or both of those companies don't provide broadband, but in the bulk of locations they do. And while 4g service isn't a true replacement, it provides enough competition to prevent the AOL-ization of the internet. At a certain point, people would choose more expensive wireless over absurd…

"The vast majority have some choice" I challenge this assertion -> please document it.

60% of the country has three providers of 10mpbs+

90% has two providers of 10mpbs+. One of those is satellite, which sort of sucks, I'll grant you that.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...

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

#264

Post by cortesoft »

e1ven wrote: post #59
jjoonathan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To where? Or are you one of those lucky few who have a choice of ISP?

It's not there yet, but mobile broadband is becoming increasingly viable. It's far from ideal, but 4 (soon 3) competitors are better than the 1 choice I have for wired broadband.

It is unusable for gaming.

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

#265

Post by username223 »

Fnoord wrote: post #190
username223 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really like your idea, but it has legal implications (accountability) because your neighbours would end up doing things on the internet on your account or vice versa. I would suggest to do this in combination with a VPN but 1) even with OpenVPN those are often insecure 2) they cost additional money 3) with these new FCC rules their bandwidth might get limited.

If your ISP cracks down, you can always go to the local Starbucks or library to torrent movies. And since the few people who share the WAP all know each other, they can talk things out.

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

#266

Post by jfaucett »

couchand wrote: post #176
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…

You are fooling yourself if you think that this won't affect you just because you don't live in the US.

> You are fooling yourself if you think that this won't affect you just because you don't live in the US.

You're right of course. Economies are chaotic dynamical systems. Precisely, what I meant was "there is a high probability that I will suffer less from immediate externalities associated with this policy than those living in the US.". Thus, my risk in the near term is lower, and my assumption is that if it doesn't work that in the long term my country won't copy the mistake. I could be completely wrong here as well, but anyway my main point was about policy methodology.

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

#267

Post by bratsche »

rubicon33 wrote: post #166
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…

> "If you like your cable company" I've never once, in my entire life, heard anyone say they like Comcast.

I think that's the point. That quote is not from Chairman Pai, it's from former FCC chairman Wheeler.

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

#268

Post by 1001101 »

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.

> People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model?

Because it's a monopolistic monoculture, and they can do whatever they want and get away with it. In this age, having corporate controlled information choke points is a feature that those who want to control what the citizenry think and say are no doubt in love with.

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

#269

Post by notyourday »

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.

We have already seen this:

VZ was refusing to increase capacity to allow uncongested access to NetFlix (Netflix was willing to pay for the PNIs and the cost of the line cards to terminate those PNIs at VZ in addition to paying for their own gear). NetFlix started putting pre-roll into content sent to VZ customers to explain to them that it was VZ that was unwilling to do it. VZ threatened to sue. Netflix backed off and started paying for a better access to VZ subscribers by buying transit from VZ to use it strictly to access VZ. From that point on NetFlix' position on NN kind of "evolved" - it only kind of supports it.

All of this was with so call Net Neutrality on the books.

I said it before and I say it again:

Consumers do not give a flying f!ck about this fight - it is a fight between Comcasts/ATT/Verizons and Google/Facebook/NetFlix of the world about who gets to fleece consumers more wrapped in the talk about "fairness" and "freedom of to access information".

Just a few days ago we had someone working for small mom and pop NSP/ISP breathlessly tell us that it is NN that is preventing his ISP from offering grannies in a nursing home cheaper email only plans!

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

#270

Post by SkyMarshal »

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…

>I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom".

It's an accurate characterization, it gives ISPs lots of freedom!

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