Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 156 posts

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#51

Post by dahart »

wanderingbort wrote: post #32
coldcode wrote: post #2

If it allows paid fast lanes, then clearly it allows degradation.

That is objectively false. Degrading the "slow" lanes is only one way to produce a fast lane. Direct peering arrangements and co-location of services are two ways to create "fast" lanes without having to degrade anything. They are also not free, so it makes sense that business-to-business deals would be made to establish them (aka paid fast lanes). The effective bandwidth of the internet looks like an hour glass. As…

You've missed the point. The very existence of fast lanes means that whatever's left is a degradation. This has been the point NN proponents have been making all along. Proposing to ban slow lanes but allow fast lanes effectively does nothing for NN proponents.

It doesn't have to be "actively" slowing down traffic to be degraded. If ISPs can go faster, and they choose not to unless you pay more, that is a form of degradation. One of many forms the degradation could come in is ISPs failing to build out faster networks until people are paying higher prices. Service can be allowed to degrade over time by simply not doing anything unless you pay more money.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#52

Post by croon »

Y_Y wrote: post #43
e40 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. It shows the GOP doesn't really stand for anything. They just say what they need to say, in the moment, to get what they want. If Clinton were POTUS and Russian ties like had been found to the Trump administration, she would have been impeached already. But it's their man, so let's look the other way. Same with State's rights.

I hope you aren't implying that the Democratic party is any different.

I hope you aren't implying equivalence.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#53

Post by oreo81 »

paulmd wrote: post #24
djschnei wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes... don't explain, just downvote.

Explanation: you have not even done a bare minimum of attention or research on a pivotal internet-freedom issue that has been slow-boiling over the past 3 months and you are still weighing in as if your opinion is informed (let alone intellectually significant) in any respect whatsoever. It's not like it's a real deep and multi-faceted issue or anything here, you just didn't bother to do even a bare minimum of resear…

This is r/Iamverysmart material. Wow.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#54

Post by Brockenstein »

djschnei wrote: post #16

Can someone explain to me how it's evil for them to charge more money for a "bigger pipe"? Their networks can only service so much traffic; not sure why supply and demand are seen as evil in this case.

As a customer you're already paying the ISP to access the Internet. The websites you're paying your ISP to access already pay for bandwidth and whatnot from their providers. But now they need to also pay your ISP to ensure you get optimal performance.

So you've got 30mbps internet? Sorry, Netflix is in the 256k lane so your speed doesn't matter. And this is Netflix's fault because they haven't paid us. Also Netflix costs $19.99 a month to cover the costs of paying your ISP. And now maybe your ISP wants to also charge you a premium on to of your normal bill to view Netflix.

It won't be a bigger pipe, this won't create a fast lane. It's just going to create a slow lane.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#55

Post by stult »

Buttons840 wrote: post #38
Spivak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't very charitable. You should be happy that the GOP doesn't rotely apply their 'principles' even when it's idiotic to do so. Federal laws that create 'maximums' like this always come with preemption. Otherwise a different states are going to enact different versions of NN to score political points accomplishing one of two things: a rule that tries to simplify the regulatory environment will actually make it…

I don't think the FCC did, nor can they, create a new "federal law" though, right? The FCC removed a regulation. Do states not have the right to regulate in the absence of any federal regulation?

>I don't think the FCC did, nor can they, create a new "federal law" though, right?

That's a tricky question. At a high school civics class level, no they cannot create new law because only Congress can. But the reality of the modern regulatory state is that Congress has delegated much of its law making powers to specialized experts in executive branch agencies, including independent agencies like the FCC. So they can adopt regulations that have the force of law but are not statutory, though only to the extent that Congress has authorized them to do so.

Those regulations are for all intents and purposes laws. However, a federal agency's regulations cannot preempt state law on their own; they can only preempt to the same extent that Congress preempted state law in the statute delegating authority to the agency.

And yes, states can regulate where their laws don't conflict with federal laws or regulations. But there's a limit. Congress can enact laws which implicitly preempt state regulation because the federal regulatory scheme is so complete that it "fully occupies the field" leaving no room for supplemental state regulation. In which case, states cannot regulate.

I would be surprised if a court held that the feds have field preempted internet regulation, given how much it ties into areas of traditional state primacy such as property law. But who knows these days.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#56

Post by snarfy »

gravy wrote: post #11

How is this different from me paying for more for faster internet?

It hurts entrepreneurs a lot more than the end user. With tiered internet comes tiered pricing and tiered access. 'Basic' internet will get you google.com, facebook, etc. If you get the 'sports' package then you get espn.com. If you get the 'DIY' package you get some howto sites, craftsy, maybe thingiverse.

But what if you come up with a brand new DIY site that you wish to host ads, have logins and accounts with monthly fees, etc. How will anybody ever see your site with tiered internet? Your new site is not be in any of the predetermined packages. You would have to go to the ISP and beg/pay them to get your site added to the 'DIY' package just to even get any traffic at all, let alone users. It totally destroys innovation and tilts the playing field towards the existing incumbents.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#57

Post by djschnei »

paulmd wrote: post #34
djschnei wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I don't hold your opinion so I am uninformed. Asked for your POV, but I'm too dumb to even attempt to explain it to. Must revert to personal slights and putdowns. Ahhhh, politics in 2017.

Joke's on me, you were only pretending to be an idiot! You were actually just a sealioning libertarian all along!

Dude, I am trying to understand your POV. F&$%# me right? People paying more for something that costs more to provide seems completely logical to me. The anti-competitive nature of the regional monopolies isn't fair and turns all the normal rules on their heads, I understand that. I wish we would fix that rather than regulating the monopolies.

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#58

Post by notyourday »

djschnei wrote: post #46
notyourday wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also not correct. If you, as the site owner, are still talking about ISPs or cloud hosting you are someone who is riding a bicycle on a shoulder of I-95 next to semis doing 80mph in 65 zones. You are, frankly, irrelevant. Also you do want to make sure that those semis use -bypass instead of clogging your highway. The real issue is that we allow those ISPs to determine which semis are allowed to use a bypass. P…

So, I guess, my question still stands, right? I'm assuming this bypass costs money for the ISPs to provide. Why is it evil for them to charge people to use it?

I was responding to my parent, not your comment.

To address your point, I do not see an issue for ISPs charging for PNIs as long as those charges are uniform. If I, JoesFlix, have 100Gbit/sec traffic to Comcast and Comcast says "In order to access EP-Bypass, traffic has to come from AS that has more than 90Gbit/sec traffic to us" then Comcast should not be allowed to prevent me from accessing EP-Bypass. Congestion is bad for business. Sane PNI rules are easy:

0. there's some access fee ( typically it is actually - you must show up in X places - how you get there is your cost )

1. we get even number of PNIs.

2. i order and pay for half

3. you order and pay for half

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#59

Post by djschnei »

oreo81 wrote: post #53
paulmd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explanation: you have not even done a bare minimum of attention or research on a pivotal internet-freedom issue that has been slow-boiling over the past 3 months and you are still weighing in as if your opinion is informed (let alone intellectually significant) in any respect whatsoever. It's not like it's a real deep and multi-faceted issue or anything here, you just didn't bother to do even a bare minimum of resear…

This is r/Iamverysmart material. Wow.

Seriously! haha

Re: GOP net neutrality bill would allow paid fast lanes and preempt state laws

#60

Post by notyourday »

dahart wrote: post #51
wanderingbort wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is objectively false. Degrading the "slow" lanes is only one way to produce a fast lane. Direct peering arrangements and co-location of services are two ways to create "fast" lanes without having to degrade anything. They are also not free, so it makes sense that business-to-business deals would be made to establish them (aka paid fast lanes). The effective bandwidth of the internet looks like an hour glass. As…

You've missed the point. The very existence of fast lanes means that whatever's left is a degradation. This has been the point NN proponents have been making all along. Proposing to ban slow lanes but allow fast lanes effectively does nothing for NN proponents. It doesn't have to be "actively" slowing down traffic to be degraded. If ISPs can go faster, and they choose not to unless you pay more, that is a form of deg…

It is not.

If Netflix did not have PNIs to Comcast, Comcast internet would have been unusable for everyone.

[Edit: Post more downvotes]

Guess what happens to the Netflix traffic when the best route to Netflix is over Comcast transit?

Post reply on HN