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

FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 302 posts

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#161

Post by rsingel »

brightball wrote: post #42
JohnTHaller wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited P…

Mobile providers are a different beast because there’s a limit on radio spectrum. Throttling is necessary.

No, it's not. Cutting back each user's allotment temporarily during times of congestion is necessary, but otherwise there's no technical reason to throttle, let alone choose one particular kind of app.

If radio spectrum is so scarce, how are Mobile and Verizon selling unlimited 5g home internet service?

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#162

Post by mattnewton »

dragonwriter wrote: post #149
wredue wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. This thread is getting to me. Okay. Net neutrality died and ISPs didn’t immediately turn the internet in to subscriptions to different cloud providers. The fact is that they CAN, and to be so deliriously ignorant as to believe that “it didn’t happen yet, so it will never happen” is just… what is happening here? Is this thread just ChatGPT bots? Regardless of if Microsoft, google, Amazon and ISPs have not yet ma…

> Okay. Net neutrality died and ISPs didn’t immediately turn the internet in to subscriptions to different cloud providers. It didn't die, it temporarily stopped being the federal rule with the clear likelihood that it would be restored with the next Democratic administration and with a number of states adopting NN regulations.

And, it has been state law in several places https://mashable.com/article/california-net-neutrality-can-b...

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#163

Post by rsingel »

vxNsr wrote: post #137
JohnTHaller wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited P…

My understanding of the previous NN rules was the exempted mobile anyway bec they called it necessary network management to ensure a smooth experience for everyone. So unless they also change that (which is unlikely) these rules won’t really fix or change anything, except possibly introduce regulations that will either a) push some polical agenda, or b) create a higher regulatory burden for small players and prevent…

The 2015 federal protections and the California law apply both to fixed and mobile.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#164

Post by snickerbockers »

llm_nerd wrote: post #89
dahfizz wrote: post #38

If you believed the scare tactics at the time, losing net neutrality literally threatened the end of the internet as we know it. But my internet has worked the same before, during, and after net neutrality. I really don't get what all the fuss is about. However, if you really do believe this is a civilization defining piece of regulation, Why leave it to the FCC? It seems like people on both sides are happy to leave…

Why did the mega providers so desperately want net neutrality to die? Why did so many lobbyists work to kill it? "I really don't get what all the fuss is about." This is a bit like the Y2K bug. There was a huge amount of noise and fear-mongering, and millions of developers spent an enormous amount of time fixing code and preparing systems. Y2K came and suddenly everyone is sure it was all just drama for nothing. What…

>Why did the mega providers so desperately want net neutrality to die? Why did so many lobbyists work to kill it?

because they want more leverage in their negotiations with netflix, amazon, google, spotify etc. That's all it boils down to, how much one major corporation has to pay another major corporation.

There's a reason why they're only pushing for neutrality on the ISPs, if they were actually concerned about large corporations abusing their control over critical online infrastructure they'd be pushing to regulate other classes of "service providers" like google, amazon, cloudflare, etc.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#165

Post by rsingel »

0xy wrote: post #9
JohnTHaller wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited P…

How is that remotely the same thing? The infographic above and others clearly claim that ISPs will be blocking services then requiring you to pay for them separately. Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, and for example has been regular practice all across Europe (which has "net neutrality"). Isn't it just shifting the goal posts after the original claims of NN campaigners were discredited…

Zero rating has been banned in the EU because two court rulings found that zero rating's economic discrimination was just as bad as technical discrimination.

You can't find or subscribe to a zero rating plan in the EU any more.

Except in Portugal where the equivalent of the FCC has so little power the telecoms do what they want without any fear.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#166

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #6
cddotdotslash wrote: post #4

One of the biggest arguments I remember being made back when net neutrality was a hot topic was that ISPs would bundle and sell specific websites as tiered plans. Infographics like this one [1] were shared widely. Has this happened in the US? I’ve definitely seen ISPs start to apply data caps and throttling, but haven’t seen the aforementioned packaging (at least with the major ISPs). I ask because this is one of the…

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited P…

>We have gotten it, but with services not websites.

Misinformation.

Under all previously proposed NN rules, throttling is always allowed for network congestion and mobile actually does have a legitimate network congestion issue.

I personally would rather T-Mobile make a promise about the speeds for the first 25GB rather than say "UNLIMITED*" and make that asterisk any time they feel like it.

Likewise, they could always make allow-lists in throttling, they just couldn't make block-lists.

Nothing in your example would be better under NN rules as actually defined.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#167

Post by trinsic2 »

I work closely with an ISP in my field. It seems to me that the biggest threat to customer choice is independent ISP's being able to provide service through the building out of the cable infrastructure, at least in northern California. Most municipalities have a grandfathered in cable network from ATT and Comcast, because of this they have been recently dictating how and when ISP can deploy their service.

Because of the democrat to republican administration change in the past, the rules have changed regarding line sharing and infrastructure build out. In many cases, the big players, who were previously prevented from interfering with other ISP's build-out, are now able to actively make it more difficult (costly) for independent ISP's from expanding their network.

If this continues, its going to put smaller ISP's out of business. So IMHO, this is more important that forcing the big players to play by the net neutrality rules in regards to throttling services, Id go so far as to say they are using that as red herring to distract people from the real problem. If there is no competition, you don't have anywhere to go when an ISP suddenly decides to do something that is anti-competitive.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#168

Post by monocasa »

snickerbockers wrote: post #39
jerkstate wrote: post #34

interesting that nobody is talking about how net neutrality is needed to prevent censorship anymore

Now the main thread of discussion seems to be that NN is really convenient for Netflix's business model as if i should care.

It's probably not now that they've had to deal with it. Instead the web of business relationships they've had to build and the constant capital they have to spend creates a moat around incumbent players in the video space like Netflix.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#169

Post by rsingel »

dragonwriter wrote: post #129
0xy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that remotely the same thing? The infographic above and others clearly claim that ISPs will be blocking services then requiring you to pay for them separately. Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, and for example has been regular practice all across Europe (which has "net neutrality"). Isn't it just shifting the goal posts after the original claims of NN campaigners were discredited…

> The infographic above and others clearly claim that ISPs will be blocking services then requiring you to pay for them separately. Exempting your own and partner services from a data cap that effectively limits use of other services is functionally the same thing, but with only one package available that is mandatory for purchase. > Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, IIRC, it would have…

This is correct and zero rating is now banned in the EU as a form of economic discrimination.

It's also largely outlawed in Canada, the EU, and California.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#170

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

ejstronge wrote: post #5
cddotdotslash wrote: post #4

One of the biggest arguments I remember being made back when net neutrality was a hot topic was that ISPs would bundle and sell specific websites as tiered plans. Infographics like this one [1] were shared widely. Has this happened in the US? I’ve definitely seen ISPs start to apply data caps and throttling, but haven’t seen the aforementioned packaging (at least with the major ISPs). I ask because this is one of the…

ISPs are offering 'Netflix-included' or discounted Disney+ plans. I don't know how they account for downloads from these services but the bundling is definitely happening.

They are grouping the service payments.

Unless you can show examples of these servcices avoiding datacaps? And even then, in this case it's very likely that allow-lists were OK under NN, just not block-lists.

Post reply on HN