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Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

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Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#331
post #325

I browse voat because I want to see what conservative/trump supporters think and I came upon this thread here: https://voat.co/v/technology/2253983 I was wondering if you guys could address these guys concerns. We need everyone on the same side. We all want a free internet. Appreciate the help.

good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6txA3pI0xJI short answer: These rules are 2 years old and did nothing good for the internet. the solution is to dissolve municipal monopolies. they do this all the time - everytime they corruptly assign a monopoly to provide a service like electricity, water, etc. The problem is too much government and the left just wants to pile on the beaurocracy and centralize the decisi…

> good video

VERY bad video. Let me explain:

The video says shipping companies charge different fees with different speeds. And that net neutrality is like having all lines of the highway at the same speed.

That is NOT what net neutrality is about. It's about not distinguishing the content of the packages, or car passengers. No NN is like I try to send a package and deny it or charge me a fee because it contains nudes or because the receiver is black.

> If ISPs can route traffic based on protocol and provider then they can possibly save significant amount of money and improve performance for their customers. They can shuttle latency sensitive protocols over expensive links and allow bulk transfers to use massive amounts of cheap bandwidth to reduce their own and their customer's costs.

That's already done (except the provider part), it's called QoS. And it can easily be done without looking where do the packets go or what they contain.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#332
This is simply a disagreement between content publishers and content distributors. When a big satellite TV provider acted unfavorably toward a few major television networks during contract (re)-negotiation, those select few decided not to renew their license with the satellite TV company, causing viewers to ask why they can't get their favorite channel that their neighbor still gets.

The internet works similarly in that an electronic contract is formed when an ISP attempts to access content on web server. The client/ISP "requests" the content, and the publisher agrees and serves it up. But there's nothing stopping a collective "big few" from denying access to the content based on the host name of the ISP requesting it.

Ergo, if Verizon doesn't want to play "fair" with regards to content distribution, Facebook/Google/Twitter/Netflix/Reddit and whomever else could deny access to Verizon subscribers with an ol fashioned HTTP 403 or 401.

Yes, traffic drops, people realize quickly that they can't access any of their favorite sites, things must be broken, and switch companies.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#333

I browse voat because I want to see what conservative/trump supporters think and I came upon this thread here: https://voat.co/v/technology/2253983 I was wondering if you guys could address these guys concerns. We need everyone on the same side. We all want a free internet. Appreciate the help.

I don't even know where to start with that thread. It is filled with instances of complete misinformation.

I really don't understand how users there can support something that will probably result in them paying more for Internet access and limiting what they can access.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big ISPs (in the US) haven't earned the benefit of the doubt.

That's fair but you also have to ask what's in it for them to screw their users in this way. Why would an ISP want to prevent some small, unrelated startup from gaining exposure?

Telecos across the board are parts of massive conglomerates with fingers in every pie. There are virtually no "unrelated" startups.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#335
post #315
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand how this became a bi-partisan issue. Everyone I know, republican and democrat, are for NN. The only people that are against NN are convinced it was introduced by Obama in order to "socialize the internet"

Do you know many economists? See http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii

I’m ripping my hair out wanting to scream about monopolies to all of these people.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#336
post #325

I browse voat because I want to see what conservative/trump supporters think and I came upon this thread here: https://voat.co/v/technology/2253983 I was wondering if you guys could address these guys concerns. We need everyone on the same side. We all want a free internet. Appreciate the help.

good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6txA3pI0xJI short answer: These rules are 2 years old and did nothing good for the internet. the solution is to dissolve municipal monopolies. they do this all the time - everytime they corruptly assign a monopoly to provide a service like electricity, water, etc. The problem is too much government and the left just wants to pile on the beaurocracy and centralize the decisi…

You're seeing this as a technical issue when it is in fact a legal one. In Canada the telecommunications legislation states the principle well:

(2) No Canadian carrier shall, in relation to the provision of a telecommunications service or the charging of a rate for it, unjustly discriminate or give an undue or unreasonable preference toward any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage.

You can still manage networks and employ CDN. But you can't arbitrarily block content.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#337
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know many economists? See http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii

I’m ripping my hair out wanting to scream about monopolies to all of these people.

Someone should probably tell the Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler about monopolies, he could use some education

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so if they do this, then the government should act. Preemptive regulation has all the downsides of regulation (eg lower investment) but potentially none of the benefits. This isn’t the kind of thing that will cause immediate, long-lasting, harm if a few ISPs explore this route before being shut down by the FCC or Congress.

The lower investment argument seems totally backwards to me. If we kill net neutrality, that gives ISPs a path to further monetize their existing infrastructure without any additional investment via paid preferential fast lanes and such. However, with net neutrality in place, the only means by which they have to compete is overall service quality, which means they have to invest in their networks. It seems obvious th…

the current setup is not exactly working either - https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/11/22/the-mo...

there needs to be some action - not removing net neutrality rules per se, but the utility/monopoly status has to go so that local provider can compete without being tied in billionaire lawsuits for the control of every municipality

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any more clear way to state that this regulation isn't new . But I don't think it matters, because I get the vibe that you're super into one of those ideologies that provides a handy, concise, internally consistent answer to any question with which you might find yourself confronted, and it's just a shame that reality so often disagrees. Enjoy your ancap or Randianism or whatever you happen to call it. I…

>this regulation isn't new. Well, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States this rule Pai wants to repeal only took effect in 2015: "On 26 February 2015, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in favor of net neutrality by reclassifying broadband access as a telecommunications service and thus applying Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 as well as…

This ignores decades of history.

A core design principle of the Internet since the beginning has been the "end-to-end principle", which was that the job of the network was to distribute the bits between end points. FCC rules concerning network data go back to the 1960s.

The FCC began rule-making on network neutrality in the mid-2000s, in direct response to various ISPs blocking traffic.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's all just bits" except sometimes it's 100 megabytes of video a second and sometimes it's a 100kb HN post and delivering those things satisfactorily does not take the same levels of resources. Don't strawman. "It's all just bits" is talking about the resources needed per bit .

It's not a strawman, the amount of resources X required to deliver at least Y bits per second is not a linear relationship.

Doesn't the non-linearity work against the argument for zero-rating? The big fat video costs significantly less per bit to deliver.

Besides, net neutrality is 100% compatible with charging different prices for different connection speeds. Just make a free 1mbps tier and don't discriminate between HN posts and low-end video.

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