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Ajit Pai is right

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Re: Ajit Pai is right

#141

Post by CodeWriter23 »

eksu wrote: post #121
zbruhnke wrote: post #6

This person misses the entire point of the argument for Net Neutrality - Yes it can be convenient if you know ALL of the apps and or services you'd like to use, however the entire internet being visible means putting small companies you have not yet heard of on nearly equal footing - giving them the chance to compete against the giants of commerce and sometimes (yes, sometimes it happens) WIN! The beauty of the inter…

I feel like there isn’t much ‘clash’ (debate term) between what you’re saying and Ben Thompson’s article. Ben isn’t attacking the concept of Net Neutrality, he’s instead attacking Title II classification. Ben puts forward a few arguments. First, he starts off with an offensive piece of matter, that regulatory burden from the 2015 Title II classification has a cost, and that cost is felt innovators who want to enter t…

We’ll just ignore the fact that every data communications expert refers to data services from the telco as “telecommunications”...When cable companies sell phone service over coax, there is no twisting of facts that can define that as anything but “Telecommuncations”, and they are therefore subject to Title II, and incumbents need to lease their last mile to competitors, just like the phone company. Period.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#142

Post by Chardok »

Honestly I would have no issues with this if we actually had competition. My state forbids local municipalities from forming internet companies, so I am left with a single speed from cable company or a single speed, half of the cable companies, from ATT with data caps.

I can guarantee the cable company will all of a sudden charge more, for the same service, by tacking on tiered plans, while doing nothing to upgrade reliability, bandwidth, or really anything. Why would they? Where can one go, when ATT will do the exact same thing.

Ajit is wrong, based on the assumption that the free market will correct this issue.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#143

Post by cookiecaper »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #108

What worries me is that this is the easy to notice stuff that is brought up (AT&T blocking Skype, etc.) what is really pernicious are things like network "optimization" where there is a huge potential for abuse. Want to influence the next election? Delay requests for a particular party's website by 10s each. Want to promote your new streaming service? Make competing ones timeout on every 10th request. Concerned about…

With you all the way until your last sentence, which seems to contradict the rest. When there is an immense concentration of power and concern about shady figures subtly influencing and corrupting things, the emphasis should be on diffusing that power out over a variety of diverse vessels instead of centralizing and condensing it further. Governmental apparatuses are just as, if not more, susceptible to corruption and influence than commercial ones, and I suspect the symbiotic relationship of regulatory capture and "government oversight" plays a major role in the interest in maintaining the status quo.

The best answer to our telco issues is to use government influence to make sure that the power is evenly dispersed among the people.

Babysitting the 5-6 major entrenched players is a stopgap at best and probably just a waste of time. Have to change the market circumstances so that the natural fluid, self-healing, and self-monitoring rhythm of the free market is in full swing.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#144

Post by snappyTertle »

zaksoup wrote: post #71
zbruhnke wrote: post #6

This person misses the entire point of the argument for Net Neutrality - Yes it can be convenient if you know ALL of the apps and or services you'd like to use, however the entire internet being visible means putting small companies you have not yet heard of on nearly equal footing - giving them the chance to compete against the giants of commerce and sometimes (yes, sometimes it happens) WIN! The beauty of the inter…

I’m a weekly listener of Ben Thompson’s (the author) podcast, exponent, and it’s bizarre that he’s making this argument. Many of the last few episodes have made the point that over-burdensome regulation on Facebook would have the affect of harming small businesses’ abilities to advertise themselves along side large incumbents. It’s strange to see him make what appears to be the opposite argument here. Your point is w…

His arguments are the same. Regulation causes burdens. Government regulating enforcing their version of net neutrality is a burden on the market.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#145

Post by timthelion »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #79
burkaman wrote: post #20

The only argument here is "it might not be necessary, so it's not worth the costs." Can anyone think of any actual costs? Unfortunately there is no substance in the "THE COST OF REGULATION" section.

New ISPs will have to, from day one and on top of all other laws and regulations they need to follow, comply, and be able to demonstrate compliance, with net neutrality. People with more of a network background will please chip in whether this is easy? Also, more speculatory: Free-you're-the-product services are dominant in large swaths of the internet. Free-and-you-don't-pay-for-the-bits-you're-still-the-product cou…

Obviously complying with net neutrality, unless the law is stupidly written, is trivial. Compliance simply means blindly passing on tcp/ip packets without looking at to whom and where they are going. The only way to fail to comply is if you actively stop a packet and say "hey there, pay a toll to go through". There is negative cost to compliance, failure to comply requires an extra layer of technology.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#146

Post by masklinn »

pbreit wrote: post #123
zbruhnke wrote: post #6

This person misses the entire point of the argument for Net Neutrality - Yes it can be convenient if you know ALL of the apps and or services you'd like to use, however the entire internet being visible means putting small companies you have not yet heard of on nearly equal footing - giving them the chance to compete against the giants of commerce and sometimes (yes, sometimes it happens) WIN! The beauty of the inter…

Isn't Pai just advocating going back to the pre-2015 regulatory structure? Was the internet really so bad prior to 2015?

He's very specifically advocating going back to the structure between 2005 and 2015. And there were lots of issues despite likely way less emboldened ISPs: https://np.reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_u...

The 2015 move was actually because the FCC had been repeatedly challenged by bolder and bolder ISPs over its rules, and the courts ultimately stated that the FCC didn't have the authority to stop ISP shenanigans and enforce its Neutrality rules under Title I in 2014, hence the reclassification under Title II.

So yes, the internet was quickly getting worse prior to 2015, and it was not a "steady state" as it had started from much more stringent regulations (than the 2015 regime) back in 2005, things had progressively gotten worse over a decade before coming to a head.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#147

Post by dd36 »

eksu wrote: post #121
zbruhnke wrote: post #6

This person misses the entire point of the argument for Net Neutrality - Yes it can be convenient if you know ALL of the apps and or services you'd like to use, however the entire internet being visible means putting small companies you have not yet heard of on nearly equal footing - giving them the chance to compete against the giants of commerce and sometimes (yes, sometimes it happens) WIN! The beauty of the inter…

I feel like there isn’t much ‘clash’ (debate term) between what you’re saying and Ben Thompson’s article. Ben isn’t attacking the concept of Net Neutrality, he’s instead attacking Title II classification. Ben puts forward a few arguments. First, he starts off with an offensive piece of matter, that regulatory burden from the 2015 Title II classification has a cost, and that cost is felt innovators who want to enter t…

Pre-2015 rules were overturned by the courts in 2014. That’s why reclassification happened...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._...

Apologies to those that have seen my comments 10x in this thread. It’s amazing how uninformed some people are about how this all came about.

The FCC didn’t want to use Title II. It had a much lighter touch NN schema but Verizon destroyed it. The courts said the only way to do it is under Title II. If you hate heavy handed regulation, blame Verizon not the FCC. The funny thing is that all these additional rules the FCC has exempted ISPs from, it probably isn’t allowed to. But who is going to sue over that? Is Verizon going to shoot itself in the foot again?

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#148

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

kodablah wrote: post #23

Arg. I feel like articles like this are calling me stupid with some statements. Like this doozy: "T-Mobile treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money" I guess I'm too stupid to understand what "same" means. Or: "Zero-rating [...] Customers loved it" That's not enough. The argument is about small providers conforming to T-Mobile. What customers think is irrelevant I'm afraid. Then the author goes on t…

> "Zero-rating [...] Customers loved it"

Which is also disingeneous because it's obviously a rhetorical trick to get uninformed customers to form an opinion.

If customers correctly compared the zero-rating offer with a hypothetical package at the same price with ten times the traffic included, but not limited to a bunch of selected services, I very much doubt that many people would still prefer the zero rating.

The suggestion that the ISP is giving you traffic for free is simply a lie to get people on their side.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#149

Post by chasing »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #108

What worries me is that this is the easy to notice stuff that is brought up (AT&T blocking Skype, etc.) what is really pernicious are things like network "optimization" where there is a huge potential for abuse. Want to influence the next election? Delay requests for a particular party's website by 10s each. Want to promote your new streaming service? Make competing ones timeout on every 10th request. Concerned about…

You wouldn't even have to be sneaky:

Get control of Comcast (for example) and simply block everything you don't want people to see. And block places where people would complain about it.

"The New York Times doesn't load for you? Too bad."

A handful of companies have a chokehold on the media environment. Net neutrality helps prevent them from exploiting it. And, right, maybe most wouldn't. But one of these companies deciding it wants to be a propaganda machine would create an enormous problem for the concept of an American democracy based upon an informed public. (Something we're already having troubles with...)

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