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FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

theregister.co.uk

51–60 of 169 posts

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#51
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for net neutrality, but 2 of the 3 things you listed were never going to be "protected" by net neutrality laws. Which highlights the problem with what Net Neutrality morphed into - it became something that meant everything and anything - not just "dumb pipes" like it originated as. Ask 3 different people what Net Neutrality means and you'll get 3 different answers. How do you legislate that and make everyone…

I'm not positive that this is an example, but it seems like it must be. Watching Netflix through Comcast's Xfinity box does not count against your data cap. Watching the same Netflix on the same TV over the same pipe using a computer instead, does.

Data exemptions are absolutely an example of a net neutrality violation. Similar things, like exempting partnered streaming music services from mobile data plans, have been shot down in Canada.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know that that Net Neutrality ABSOLUTELY allowed for throttling for the reason of network congestion? All TMobile needs to say is we're under heavily load and are allowed to slow everyone down equally. Also network caps were allowed under NN, they're allow to create tiers on bandwidth but not priority. Are you claiming that T-mobile slowing specific sites or people? Do you have a source for that?

NN didn't allow slowing particular apps or particular users relative to others unless there was a major problem. The wireless carriers wanted to do these things, but it's unclear whether they implemented targeting specific individuals/apps or not after the repeal (I doubt they would announce something so unpopular), or just said "apps X, Y, Z don't count against data plan R." I think there's enough technical people w…

>NN didn't allow slowing particular apps or particular users relative to others unless there was a major problem.

I agree. But that wasn't my take on the claim above, so I asked for the source that this was happening selectively to specific sites, apps, or users. I guess I'll keep waiting.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#53

It’s been over two years since Net Neutrality was repealed. I remember at the time there was a lot of talk about how the internet was going to be ruined by throttling, paid “fast lanes”, etc. Have any of these things happened? Or did that turn out to mostly be fear-mongering?

Fast lanes benefit established players at the expense of start ups. Consequently, if there has been detrimental effects, I doubt you would notice them. When you think to yourself, why do I put up with youtube, why isn't there an alternative... that's the 'thing happening'.

Where are these fast lanes? I believe you of course, but how do I know these exist like you say?

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#54

It’s been over two years since Net Neutrality was repealed. I remember at the time there was a lot of talk about how the internet was going to be ruined by throttling, paid “fast lanes”, etc. Have any of these things happened? Or did that turn out to mostly be fear-mongering?

Counterargument: if ISPs were never going to do any of those things anyway, why did they want net neutrality repealed?

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#55
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-mobile has been throttling and creating paid fast lanes pretty heavily and I now pay as much in data overage fees to comcast per month as half my total bill.

Haven't mobile operators always been free to throttle speeds and create special data classes? I thought net neutrality was only for traditional fixed ISP connections.

Correct. The US only had net neutrality on the books for traditional ISPs. However, they were playing relatively nicely to avoid such regulation happening. The mobile arena was fought over data caps and exemptions rather than throttling.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#56
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If you're hosting something, might be worth upgrading to a business connection, which doesn't have data caps and comes with static ip's and a SLA. As an aside - I'm personally OK with data caps so long as they don't impact most users (80/20, 90/10 or something li…

$10 per 10GB threshold over 1 TB on a 80/10 connection that's $95 month including the now $14 modem rental fee. Sometimes $50 in fees. I refuse to monitor my data usage or change my behavior. I am a single person but I host my personal non-business website from home and participate in as many peer to peer distributed and federated protocols as I can. I also do watch a bit of video media. My usage isn't only bursty, i…

It's expensive because it's dedicated bandwidth, not shared, has a SLA, which your residential connection doesn't, and comes with static IP's.

They also put your house on a difference circuit from everyone else in your neighborhood, which has a cost - which explains the ETF if you move away.

In your case, perhaps it's cheaper to get a $2.50/month VPS from Vultr instead of paying all these fees? You get a static IP to, and don't have to play DynamicDNS games.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#57
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph Fair enough - but also in fairness, your electric utility provides about as much (which is also frustrating when you're trying to figure out why your bill went up 25% one month). I personally run a mikrotik router which tracks my usage too, so I have a reference to double check against and could wage a g…

> could wage a good argument with evidence that I didn't use the data they claim Let us know how that works out for you. My guess? "We can waive this month as a courtesy, but we can't use your router as evidence".

> We can waive this month as a courtesy

That would be the goal.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#58
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10 per 10GB threshold over 1 TB on a 80/10 connection that's $95 month including the now $14 modem rental fee. Sometimes $50 in fees. I refuse to monitor my data usage or change my behavior. I am a single person but I host my personal non-business website from home and participate in as many peer to peer distributed and federated protocols as I can. I also do watch a bit of video media. My usage isn't only bursty, i…

It's expensive because it's dedicated bandwidth, not shared, has a SLA, which your residential connection doesn't, and comes with static IP's. They also put your house on a difference circuit from everyone else in your neighborhood, which has a cost - which explains the ETF if you move away. In your case, perhaps it's cheaper to get a $2.50/month VPS from Vultr instead of paying all these fees? You get a static IP to…

Are you sure about that? It doesn't fit what I understand and I've talked to a friend who works for Comcast and he says the only difference is the customer support.

The rep I talked to and the price I gave $156/mo does not include a static IP. That was something like $10/mo more.

Sure, the firmware they tftp to my modem will be different but it's not giving me dedicated RF bandwidth on the exact same RF hardware path that existed before I got the firmware. It's the same uplink channels. This can be confirmed by using a splitter, attenuator, and looking at the RF signals directly in the frequency domain over time with an with a software defined radio (see: http://superkuh.com/pictures/docsis3_cable_ziggo_2017-10-08-...).

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.org is getting sold, all data plans have transfer caps, google is not even showing urls to mobile users anymore, yes things are going to hell.

Mostly correct, essentially all new plans have transfer caps. I still have a vintage Verizon data plan that's bonafide unlimited. Data overage is gotcha-capitalism robbery.

Are you talking about a mobile phone data plan, or a hardwired ISP-ish data plan? I'm about 99% sure that the specific classification this fight was over only applied to the latter, not the former -- there was never any "neutrality" in this sense for mobile data.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#60
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's expensive because it's dedicated bandwidth, not shared, has a SLA, which your residential connection doesn't, and comes with static IP's. They also put your house on a difference circuit from everyone else in your neighborhood, which has a cost - which explains the ETF if you move away. In your case, perhaps it's cheaper to get a $2.50/month VPS from Vultr instead of paying all these fees? You get a static IP to…

Are you sure about that? It doesn't fit what I understand and I've talked to a friend who works for Comcast and he says the only difference is the customer support. The rep I talked to and the price I gave $156/mo does not include a static IP. That was something like $10/mo more. Sure, the firmware they tftp to my modem will be different but it's not giving me dedicated RF bandwidth on the exact same RF hardware path…

It's definitely different circuits, and you definitely get dedicated bandwidth. You won't burst anymore either (a thing you get with shared lines), but you'll get 100% of your allocated bandwidth all the time, even if you peg it out 24/7.

You can do a traceroute and see the reverse-dns names of the hops you go through too.

Also remember, TCP has 8Mb of overhead per 100Mb, so you'll get maximum theoretical speed of 92Mbps on a 100Mbps line.

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