Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#201

Post by jaredklewis » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

spruciefic399 wrote: post #56

Another strategy to this (not exclusive of other strategies) is to encourage municipal ISPs, or even go further and roll out federal ISP infrastructure ala the federal highway system. I've always thought that this would be well within the rubric of the USPS. The constitutional mandate for a postal service was drafted at a time when the internet could not have been conceived of. I would argue that the intent of the co…

> I would argue that the intent of the constitutional mandate was to establish communications and not necessarily paper mail per se.

A minor point, but if the federal government wanted to run an ISP (inside or outside of the USPS), they don't need anything new in the constitution to do it.

If the Interstate Commerce Clause can be used as justification to create the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health/Human Services, Housing/Urban Development, Labor, and Transportation [1] as well as the FBI and just about everything else, I can see no reason why it couldn't be used to create a national ISP.

As to whether it would be a good idea, I don't have a strong opinion.

1. Some might argue the Department of Transporation is justified under article I, section 8, paragraph 7 (not paragraph 3), though I don't think either theory has ever been tested

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#202

Post by jimjimjim » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #182

citilife wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way electricity works is by allowing the electrical company to charge everyone (across their whole network) such that they make a max of 10% (depends on state) above their current amortized expenditure. The idea being, if an electric company wants to make more money, it has to spend more money. And it's fixed how much money they can charge (it's based on total network cost). Think of it as a semi-non-profit, whic…

There's decades of precedent on how to do utility regulation, and that is one of the models. (It's called the rate-of-return model.) It was used for telecom for a long time, but has lots of problems. On one hand, it can encourage gold plating (spending money on infrastructure that isn't helpful because there is a guaranteed return on capital investment). On the other hand, political pressure can drive the return rate…

that's why you can't leave some things up to people. people will not act in their best interest if distracted by short term thinking.

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#203

Post by 0xffff2 » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #185

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a tiny ballpark: > During a roundtable, VP of network support Mike Haberman, some other Verizon folks, and the assembled journalists agreed that an average data cap in the vicinity of 180GB/month would satisfy the average consumer. > "That shouldn't be a problem with 5G. What does 4K video use? Think about how many 4K TVs you can put on a service that's a true 1 gigabit to your house," Haberman said. I don't s…

The average Netflix user watches 40-50 hours per month, and its going down: https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/11/netflix-users-collectively... . Netflix says 7GB/hour for 4K (~350 gigabytes), but HEVC will halve that number. That's under 180GB, and that's assuming all streaming is 4K, which is far from the case.

That's also just for one person on Netflix. Now add a roommate, Youtube, Twitch, general overhead (email, web browsing, app updates, etc).

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#204

Post by 0xffff2 » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #108

0xffff2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these providers actually going to compete with landline ISP's? My landline ISPs over the last couple of years have had monthly data caps ranging from 256gb to 1tb. My cell plan currently throttles me after I exceed 6gb... That's two orders of magnitude that my wireless provider would have to increase the cap in order to compete with the landline ISP.

T-Mobile soft cap at 50gb, that’s on LTE. With 5g speed going up 10x I wouldn’t be surprised caps going 10 x as well. We’re nearly there.

Hmmm. I'm on T-Mobile, but I share the plan with my brother and he's the one who actually cares about this stuff. Maybe I don't get throttled at 6gb, but I just lose a discount. Either way, I'm definitely incentivized to stay under 6gb on T-Mobile.

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#205

Post by wpietri » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #189

wpietri wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I think markets are amazing when you have the right conditions such that you get plenty of sellers, plenty of buyers, and switching vendors is easy. But the US market mostly doesn't have plenty of sellers. You really want at least 3 to get good competition, and that's very rare: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi... My first choice is strong competition, and I live in one of the few US…

The question is not what is best, but how much competition do you need to beat a government-run service? Here in D.C., with Uber/Lyft versus Metro, that number is just two. Indeed, even a giant national monopoly is probably better than your typical government service. Even Windows 95 was better than most of the public services in D.C.

Depends on the government, I suppose. And your criteria for comparison.

Broadband in particular is very infrastructure-ish. It's much more like a water utility or traffic lights than a service business like on-demand personal drivers. Many governments run infrastructure quite well.

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#206

Post by twothamendment » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #91

bradleybuda wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than half of US households have multiple wired broadband providers: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi... This does not include wireless broadband options. Could the competitive situation be better? Absolutely. But it is, in fact, the "norm" to have a choice.

That means nearly half have a single (or no) option. Further, for many who have two choices, the decision is between not-actually-very-Fast DSL or a single cable provider. In Mountain View I had only shitty DSL or shitty cable. Both sucked and cable was very expensive. (This may be different now. My experience was 8 or so years ago.) I happen to be lucky to have actual high speed Comcast now, with an option for FTTH…

My two choices are my rural-telepohone co-op - or satellite. I'm not complaining b/c my ISP seems fine, but there isn't anyone else to run to if I'm unhappy. I don't consider satellite an option.

If we count satellite, doesn't everyone in the US have "access" to broadband?

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#207

Post by mundo » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

dsabanin wrote: post #38

pascalxus wrote: post #5

This the end of innovation in online videos: "When companies like Netflix, which today closed with a market cap of almost $158 billion, can’t necessarily get enough negotiating power to ensure that consumers have direct access to them, no startup can ever hope to compete. America may believe in its entrepreneurs, but its competition laws have done nothing to keep the terrain open for them. Those implications are just…

I just fail to see how Comcast or Verizon are going to be selling you their internet connection if you won't be able to connect to the things you want to connect to (like Netflix, iTunes, YouTube) through them. Especially on higher plans, people buy a lot of bandwidth so that they can stream videos, that's how ISPs up-sell to them. If they start throttling, they'll be selling an empty bucket, and it's not going to be…

I don't want gigabit access to youtube and netflix. I want gigabit access to the services that don't exist yet because you can't build them until lots of people have gigabit access. If the only ISPs in America are the ones who only offer gigabit access to youtube and netflix, then I better start learning Korean[0], because those hypothetical services will not be built in America.

0: "It is important to note that 100 Mbit/s services are the average standard in urban South Korean homes and the country is rapidly rolling out 1Gbit/s connections or 1,000 Mbit/s, at $20 per month" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_South_Korea

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#208

Post by twothamendment » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

ab071c41 wrote: post #16

kec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how 5G changes anything. Wireless providers were exempt from net neutrality even when it was in force and have a long history of tiered usage and throttling.

I think the idea is better fixed WISP options which could potentially replace cable internet. If Verizon/T-Mobile suddenly have a home internet option based on 5G, then Comcast gets competition.

That is tough to do. I lived in a city where there wasn't any cable and the DSL sucked. A few WISPs were the only real game in town. They weren't bad - until evening when everyone started to stream. They upgraded several times over the years, but it is still a rough business to try to broadcast out so many streams at once. I had it pretty good because my WISP had a tower on my roof and I was hard wired to their backhaul. For everyone else in the neighborhood it was slower.

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#209

Post by mmt » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #176

jtbayly wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would the government do it without "forcing the places that do have it to subsidize the places that don't have it?" Taxes are how the government funds those sorts of things, and taxes are collected from everybody. So the subsidization still happens.

All taxing and subsidization is distortionary; but some methods are less distortionary than others. Imposing a tax on "everybody" and using it to pay for a public service dampens economic activity, but at least doesn't distort one industry relative to another. Imposing special, industry-specific taxes, however, dampens demand and investment in that industry relative to the rest of the economy. Take tobacco taxes, for…

> you could simply direct hospitals to treat poor people for free. Nobody does that

Actually, I believe that's exactly what happens in the US with emergency departments. Although it supports your point about such a practice being distortionary, it also draws attention to the fact of the sheer complexity of all this.

That's mostly what bothers me about seemingly-simple statement or analogies about economics (or, really, economic theorizing in general), that the reality is far more complex and interconnected.

Re: Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

#210

Post by RIMR » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #85

bjornsing wrote: post #81

I wonder if a bunch of Internet companies (Netflix, Alphabet, etc) could gang up and collectively block an ISP...? Could give them quite interesting leverage in negotiations.

It would be more effective to just buy the house senate and presidency, they collectively have the budget.

I don't know, if suddenly all Google services completely disappeared for all Comcast users, I have a feeling that Comcast would bend over backwards to make them stop.

Nothing about that would be against net neutrality rules. I can already start a website and make it accessible only to specific ISPs by whitelisting only the subnets I want.