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Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

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Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#101

Post by linkregister »

19guid wrote: post #85
caburlingame wrote: post #6

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

I've posted this comment before in another thread: I oppose net neutrality regulation. In principle, I don't think there's anything wrong with an ISP prioritizing certain kinds of traffic over others, so long as it does not have an anti-competitive effect. For example, I don't see how Netflix paying Comcast to zero-rate Netflix traffic is fundamentally different from Amazon contracting with mail carriers to subsidize…

The reason why I and some other HN commenters (and L3 Communications) find this argument bizarre is because of the concept of transit traffic charges being applied to the last mile, which previously was not an industry practice.

Comcast's customers are requesting the data; if Comcast were a second tier backbone, or an AS between two others, then it would make sense to charge for traffic, as it doesn't benefit. But the traffic going to Comcast is there to benefit its subscribers, without which, Comcast doesn't make enough money. The most bizarre thing is that if the customers were to upload the same amount of data back to the sites, then they wouldn't be charged, as the data was symmetrical!

Why would an ISP be able to charge other AS's for sending traffic to its own customers? If there were even a single competitor in that region, this dynamic would change completely.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#102

Post by phaus »

neuterlize wrote: post #94
propman wrote: post #87

This is all very confusing for me. Obviously I understand the NN arguments and I accept the Ajit Pai arguments though I think it's very naive to think that investments in infrastructure would be made without other significant incentives, all which seem unlikely to occur. My question is about 2015. Did we have NN before 2015? What changed then and how would it differ from before? I was always under the assumption we h…

Yes, we had NN before 2015. It was the default state and how the Internet was originally built. We used to have competition for Internet services (dialup and DSL), now we don't (most people access the Internet through cable which is a monopoly). The reason why we are losing NN now is because it's become feasible from a technical and business perspective to violate NN. Pai's arguments are pure unadulterated bullshit.…

>We used to have competition for Internet services (dialup and DSL), now we don't (most people access the Internet through cable which is a monopoly).

Calling Dial-Up and DSL "competition" is downplaying how shitty things were even in 2015. They are technically competition, but effectively and practically they aren't because the modern web doesn't even work with dial-up and in the many places stuck with the low-end of DSL it is next to worthless too.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#103

Post by colordrops »

narrator wrote: post #95

China does not have net neutrality. Almost everything coming into the country from outside is utterly filtered to hell and back. They do have a vibrant tech economy though. So they have their own Google (Baidu). They have their own Twitter (Weibo), WhatsApp(WeChat), Amazon(Tao Bao). So in the future of no net-neutrality, we'll see ISPs being value-added resellers of their own regionally partitioned versions of these…

They have their own services in China, but it's not only about foreign traffic. Put up a site and you'l find that it doesn't work too well in other regions of the nation, with ISPs throttling each other's traffic.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#105

Post by grahamburger »

komali2 wrote: post #63
dllu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, and Facebook believe that their services are more important than others. As such, they consider themselves deserving of cheaper, free, or the "fast lane" internet, especially in less developed areas without sufficient infrastructure to serve all websites. The rationale is that providing a limited set of websites for free is better than if those areas have n…

I want to understand this better, but I can't grasp the concept of a "fast lane" in anything but an artificial sense - how can an ISP create a "fast lane" for a website - can't they only create "slow lanes" for everything BUT "fast laned" websites?

Kind of. Say an ISP cuts a deal with Google to make all Google's traffic higher priority than other traffic. When customers are using less than the network's full capacity nothing changes - all traffic goes through at full line speed. But as soon as any buffer starts to fill up on any device on the ISP network (because of network congestion) the network devices will pull Google's packets from the buffer more often than other traffic until the buffer is empty. Then it's back to line speed for everything.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#107

Post by BoorishBears »

memeCrasher wrote: post #100
BoorishBears wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I should exploit that to the point that maximizes profitability. And not take overly egregious actions that would force a government intervention which would probably lead to actions that damage my monopoly and harm profitability.

Or just bribe people in the government and have them appoint one of your lawyers to the governing body meant to regulate you. Why care how egregious your actions are when the government listens to you and your bags of money, and not the people you're fucking over?

This is pretty much circular at this point. I’d say the risk/reward (no matter how much money can divert risk) is not great enough or we’d have already seen this happen pre-Open Internet

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#108

Post by 19guid »

linkregister wrote: post #101
19guid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posted this comment before in another thread: I oppose net neutrality regulation. In principle, I don't think there's anything wrong with an ISP prioritizing certain kinds of traffic over others, so long as it does not have an anti-competitive effect. For example, I don't see how Netflix paying Comcast to zero-rate Netflix traffic is fundamentally different from Amazon contracting with mail carriers to subsidize…

The reason why I and some other HN commenters (and L3 Communications) find this argument bizarre is because of the concept of transit traffic charges being applied to the last mile, which previously was not an industry practice. Comcast's customers are requesting the data; if Comcast were a second tier backbone, or an AS between two others, then it would make sense to charge for traffic, as it doesn't benefit. But th…

I think it makes sense because retail ISPs operate in a two-sided market. Comcast provides access to Internet services, which customers want and are willing to pay for. Similarly, Comcast provides access to customers, which the Internet companies who provide those services (and associated CDNs and transit providers) want and are willing to pay for.

I don't think there's anything especially wrong with this business model. It's similar to how a newspaper charges both readers and advertisers for access. The disadvantage is that you have to keep both parties happy.

Incidentally, if customers uploaded the same amount of data as the Internet services, Comcast wouldn't get transit fees but it would get additional revenue from the customers, so I think things would balance out.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#109

Post by djellybeans »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #42
caburlingame wrote: post #6

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

There really isn't a sound argument against net neutrality. Many do argue that the FCC shouldn't have the authority to regulate the internet, and often argue that idea to subtly change the subject. If someone argues to abolish something, they should either argue in favor of a replacement, or argue that that thing should not exist at all. Unfortunately, I haven't heard even a flawed version of either argument. Another…

The problem is most libertarians can't actually focus on winnable issues like the ones you describe because the fringe of the party spends its time yelling about how taxes are theft, stripping on stage, and promoting secession.

The fringe refuses to see the massive risk of not supporting net neutrality by government.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#110

Post by oever »

dllu wrote: post #50
caburlingame wrote: post #6

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

Some organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, and Facebook believe that their services are more important than others. As such, they consider themselves deserving of cheaper, free, or the "fast lane" internet, especially in less developed areas without sufficient infrastructure to serve all websites. The rationale is that providing a limited set of websites for free is better than if those areas have n…

[1] has this quote "Net neutrality serves all Internet users – rich as poor – by providing equal access to diverse content online. We support net neutrality, and believe it is crucial for a healthy, free, and open Internet." and "The Wikimedia Foundation believes that the principle of net neutrality is critical to the future of the open Internet."

But the offering of Wikipedia Zero clashes with the idea of net neutrality.

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