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F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

nytimes.com

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Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#751

Post by xbkingx »

zjaffee wrote: post #698
juris wrote: post #135

This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…

5G networks could very well change that. Right now people rely on LAN, however it's very possible that with the growth of 5G people will just use over the air internet rather than having their own setups everywhere they go.

Not being sarcastic, but is this honestly better? There are only a few major cell providers that can roll out 5G, so it seems to me that instead of Comcast-TW-Cox we would have ATT-Verizon-Tmo.

I guess it would be easier to set up municipal ISPs, since minimal wiring would be needed. But the lack of real competition in the cell market seems to indicate that the problems are pretty similar for small startups.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#752

Post by topspin »

maxsilver wrote: post #457
komali2 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking this over for the past couple months, because I was pretty sure this would be the outcome - that we would lose our net neutrality protection. So let's play out the worse case - Comcast, AT&T etc wait out the shitstorm and then start throttling traffic and packaging the internet, releasing cable-esque "plans." Is it feasible to just start running our own fiber to hubs? I want to learn more about the…

> As a private citizen, can I (snip) just lay a super long fiber cable straight to (the internet). Yes. I worked on a startup ISP for a few years, which attempted to do this. It's actually really easy to do : 1) Pick a point where you can get connection to the internet. (Backhaul). This is usually a phone companies central office, but it can also be at a data centre or other point of presence. 2) Run fiber cable from…

"In Michigan"

People in Michigan are getting fed up with this situation. Lyndon Township passed a 20 year millage to fund a municipal fiber network. The vote passed 2-1 with almost 50% turnout in a non-general election year. The tax will cost every $200K household about $300/year; $6000 total. That's on top of the monthly fees they intend to pay for the service.

People want good fixed broadband Internet. They are willing to pay for it. The telcos and cable operators don't care; they're happy with the customer base they have and their horizon is measured in quarters, not decades, so they're entirely uninterested in the effort and investment needed to build out such systems. They want the low hanging low effort fruit.

This NN outcome won't change any of that; whatever ambition these companies have is now focused on the windfalls they'll make from the peering agreements they're going to negotiate with Netflix et al. and none of that money will find its way to build outs.

http://www.mbcoop.org/lyndon-township/

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#753

Post by nightski »

tptacek wrote: post #127

The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican la…

You realize that Ajit Pai was appointed to the commission by Obama right?

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#754

Post by fosco »

tptacek wrote: post #127

The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican la…

this seems like whataboutism to me.

I completely agree the tax bill is also terrible. but this conversation started around the FCC NN rules and due to _lack_ of competition anything we have is better than this form of deregulation. I'm happy to entertain a _separate_ conversation about the tax bill but I feel like you are saying because that is so much worse that NN does not matter... I believe that way of communicating is very dangerous because it can be applied to anything and everything. for example ISPs being able to store/mine and sell data on their users which was another law passed this year and caused me to donate to the eff.

my point is, I do not think you comment contributes to NN fairly by correlating the tax law as more important, I believe they are both very important.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#755

Post by cmurf »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #534
Gargoyle wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans won the house popular vote 63.1 million to 61.8 million.

239 r's 193 d's. the point is that house is gerrymandered to hell and favors r's.

Gill v. Whitford will be heard in the current term of the U.S. Supreme Court to look at this issue again. It has the potential to make an explosive difference in 2018.

Look at the recent Alabama election. A Democrat won most of the votes in the state, and also won most of the votes in every single urban area. And yet applying that state wide vote to the House of Represenatives district map in Alabama, would have still sent one Democrat and six Republicans to House of Representatives in Congress (had it been an election for HoR rather than Senate). Even in the case were Democrats made double digit gains in most counties from the 2016 election, it still would not affect the representation in the House. This is a massive case of voter disenfranchisement.

And while both parties gerrymander, only one party engages in the most obvious and egregiously unfair form of it while benefiting overwhelmingly and disproportionately, hence the lawsuit before the Court. And in the Alabama case, it is blatantly racist as well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ862zWUIAAxWfa.jpg

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#756

Post by orblivion »

komali2 wrote: post #300
juris wrote: post #135

This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…

I've been thinking this over for the past couple months, because I was pretty sure this would be the outcome - that we would lose our net neutrality protection. So let's play out the worse case - Comcast, AT&T etc wait out the shitstorm and then start throttling traffic and packaging the internet, releasing cable-esque "plans." Is it feasible to just start running our own fiber to hubs? I want to learn more about the…

A relevant story many will recognize: https://www.thelocal.de/20140601/german-villagers-build-own-...

As best I can tell they are not even municipal. Merely a cooperative owned by a big chunk of the town. At least last I heard.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#758

Post by omegaworks »

tptacek wrote: post #127

The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican la…

> The voters elected a Republican government.

FALSE. The voters were sidelined by both old (electoral college) and new (mechanically-assisted gerrymandering) methods. Just look at Texas:

"The redistricting had a revolutionary effect. Today, the Texas delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives includes twenty-five Republicans and eleven Democrats—a far more conservative profile than the political demography of the state. The Austin metropolitan area, the heart of the Texas left, was divvied up into six congressional districts, with city residents a minority in each. All but one of these districts are now held by Republicans. I’m currently represented by Roger Williams, a conservative automobile dealer from Weatherford, two hundred miles north of Austin."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/americas-futur...

Republicans have used these tools to cook up an unprecedented constitutional challenge to our republic. MULTIPLE suits are presently being heard by the Supreme Court regarding their shenanigans.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#759

Post by bcoates »

quasse wrote: post #390
tcheard wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So an open-access network ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network ). This is done quite successfully in other countries around the world, like New Zealand where we mainly have one infrastructure provider (selected and monitored by the Government), who must offer fair and standard pricing to any ISP who wants to add value to the network. As a result, we have many ISP options throughout the country and comp…

What value do the ISPs actually add to the market? It seems like a government granted middleman position to me, where I'd rather just purchase service from the government or the government's selected infrastructure manager. Presumably there's already some base price for service that this infrastructure provider is charging everyone (a controller monopolist), what are you gaining on top of that by having a second midd…

packet transit, installation, maintenance, customer service. Also most less technical ISP customers get a lot of value out of ISP managed equipment rental and don't want to buy and maintain a router-AP themselves.

Local loop unbundling for phone and DSL service was extremely successful in the US, there's not a lot of reason to think a government bid process would have done better than CLECs did.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#760

Post by renaudg »

justsomedood wrote: post #392
Someone1234 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "last mile" is a utility, and by its very nature will always result in monopolistic control. It is impractical and irrational to wire up a home to multiple ISPs with their own fiber channels. Each channel could cost tens of thousands to install. Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repa…

That has been tried in a few places, and I'm not sure that it has succeeded anywhere. Municipal fiber was laid where I used to live in Provo, UT and it had huge funding problems. ISPs could compete, but all the value is in the last mile not in the gateway. Eventually Google bought it out, but the city had to increase taxes to help pay for the current bond, and was looking at more bonds to pay for it before Google ste…

This is how it has worked for 15-20 years in France, the UK, and probably most of Europe.
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