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The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

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Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#61

Post by throwaway35777 »

seattle_spring wrote: post #37
throwaway35777 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like $50/mo for 200/50 I think. Why, what are yours?

The GP is comparing the US to the rest of the world, and they're correct: the US (including yours) lags behind other modern countries. Singapore, for reference, offers 500/500 symmetric connections for approximately the same price as you're paying. 2gbps symmetric is less than $200/mo. You're saying your Internet is fast enough for you, and that's fine and probably correct, but you're still getting slower speeds for…

> but you're still getting slower speeds for higher prices than you should

And what is your solution to that?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#62

Post by terse-broccoli »

marcinzm wrote: post #20
KaiserPro wrote: post #2

The thing that is actually missing from this entire essay is competition. The biggest single reason why the USA's (and to a lesser extent Canada's) internet is shite is because of the monopolies that exist. In the EU there are similar offers for "enhanced" access, but its not speeding up/slowing down apps, but giving "free" access, as in not counting to your data cap. Instead of making the FCC stop fast lanes, the FC…

Yes I'm sure it's all due to competition and not the EU's 2015 law that explicitly requires net neutrality (Net Neutrality Regulation 2015). > In the EU there are similar offers for "enhanced" access, but its not speeding up/slowing down apps, but giving "free" access, as in not counting to your data cap. They do that because speeding up/slowing down apps is illegal and they are using loopholes in the law to get arou…

Yeah, but the loophole is also illegal. (so it’s not a loophole?)

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#63

Post by School-Cotton »

seattle_spring wrote: post #37
throwaway35777 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like $50/mo for 200/50 I think. Why, what are yours?

The GP is comparing the US to the rest of the world, and they're correct: the US (including yours) lags behind other modern countries. Singapore, for reference, offers 500/500 symmetric connections for approximately the same price as you're paying. 2gbps symmetric is less than $200/mo. You're saying your Internet is fast enough for you, and that's fine and probably correct, but you're still getting slower speeds for…

If by "the rest of the world" you mean a cherry-picked selection of the most advanced countries, then yes, the US is behind on internet access (and everything else).

It never makes sense to me when people say how the US ranks last among developed countries on a bunch of metrics. Of course, that just means the US is indeed... less developed than those countries. If it's not fair to compare the US to Somalia, it's not fair to compare it to Sweden either. It just is what it is, somewhere between the two development extremes.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#64

Post by [deleted] »

seattle_spring wrote: post #21
throwaway35777 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest single reason why the USA's (and to a lesser extent Canada's) internet is shite... Speak for yourself, but I live on the west coast and my Internet connection is great. Edit: downvoters, what are the problems with U.S. internet?

What's your Internet speed up and down, provider, and monthly cost? Actual monthly cost, not temporary promotions.

[deleted]

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#65

Post by randomdata »

jszymborski wrote: post #27
KaiserPro wrote: post #2

The thing that is actually missing from this entire essay is competition. The biggest single reason why the USA's (and to a lesser extent Canada's) internet is shite is because of the monopolies that exist. In the EU there are similar offers for "enhanced" access, but its not speeding up/slowing down apps, but giving "free" access, as in not counting to your data cap. Instead of making the FCC stop fast lanes, the FC…

> and to a lesser extent Canada's Not to turn this into a pissing contest, but Canada's internet is far more shite and far more captured by an oligopoly. Independent ISPs are harder to find than competition up here in the North.

Canada isn't so bad off when it comes to wired service. Several ISPs are owned by the government: Sasktel, Bruce Telecom, Tbaytel, CityWest. And many more are co-operatives owned by the customers.

The mobile space is more challenging. A number of those co-ops and government ISPs were running mobile service back in the mid 2000s, but they never found the customer base and most of them eventually shut it down, Tbaytel and Sasktel being the exceptions.

That said, many of those ISPs have more recently turned to reselling Big 3 service, so you can still at least minimize how much the Big 3 take, giving the small guy at least some of the cut. Maybe some day they can take that small cut and build out their own network again? But, you get what you choose to become a customer of, I suppose.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#66

Post by xiphias2 »

room500 wrote: post #39
dbuder wrote: post #17

How many times do we need to fight the same battle? Where I live Netflix has a fast lane and from 6:30pm to 10:30pm every night my internet is unusable.

I don’t think Netflix has a fast lane anywhere. Netflix does offer to give servers to ISPs to put in their datacenters. So if your ISP is seeing congestion on the IX links, it is entirely possible that Netflix still works fine (because the traffic doesn’t leave the ISP and is therefore not hitting the congestion). But that is not a “fast lane”

At that point Netflix should just provide its own VPN / internet access for paying users

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#67

Post by PoignardAzur »

EPWN3D wrote: post #44
KaiserPro wrote: post #2

The thing that is actually missing from this entire essay is competition. The biggest single reason why the USA's (and to a lesser extent Canada's) internet is shite is because of the monopolies that exist. In the EU there are similar offers for "enhanced" access, but its not speeding up/slowing down apps, but giving "free" access, as in not counting to your data cap. Instead of making the FCC stop fast lanes, the FC…

I was definitely someone who wrote the FCC (futilely) in support of net neutrality in 2017, and I figured the inevitable outcome of the FCC decision back then would be skyrocketing broadband costs, fast lanes, etc. Except none of it happened. It turns out there's actually kind of okay competition in this space. Maybe not as much as there should be, but prices have stayed reasonable, broadband access is expanding, and…

Yeah, the discourse around the Net Neutrality thing was intense. I was one the few people who argued it wouldn't change much, and I remember being struck by the state of near-internet-apocalypse people were predicting at the time.

Helps that I was seeing the whole thing from the outside as a non-US-resident.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#68

Post by ricardobeat »

EPWN3D wrote: post #44
KaiserPro wrote: post #2

The thing that is actually missing from this entire essay is competition. The biggest single reason why the USA's (and to a lesser extent Canada's) internet is shite is because of the monopolies that exist. In the EU there are similar offers for "enhanced" access, but its not speeding up/slowing down apps, but giving "free" access, as in not counting to your data cap. Instead of making the FCC stop fast lanes, the FC…

I was definitely someone who wrote the FCC (futilely) in support of net neutrality in 2017, and I figured the inevitable outcome of the FCC decision back then would be skyrocketing broadband costs, fast lanes, etc. Except none of it happened. It turns out there's actually kind of okay competition in this space. Maybe not as much as there should be, but prices have stayed reasonable, broadband access is expanding, and…

That's because the internet went to shit and actually very little happens outside of major platforms anyway. This type of traffic shaping would just cement it as-is, making it almost impossible for a new platform to come up.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#69

Post by cycomanic »

burnte wrote: post #4

ISPs are desperate to be part of the monetary exchange of services over their infrastructure, they've been trying to become more than "dumb pipes" for decades and virtually no one wants that. Imagine if the water company could charge you more for a glass of water than a toilet flush.

I find it interesting how nobody blinks an eyelid at the massive profits raked in by companies like Google, Facebook etc. but as soon as the ISPs that create the infrastructure that makes all this happen (and innovate massively in the process) want some piece of the cake everyone cries foul.

Now I actually strongly support net neutrality and maybe ISPs don't really need a piece of the cake, but it is still interesting how the online companies have captured most of the profits, but are also considered the good guys in his scenario.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#70

Post by lukan »

throwaway918274 wrote: post #38

i spend way too much time around friends that indulge in conspiracy theories, my first reading of the headline was NOT AT ALL what it is lol

Yeah, I am tempted to post it into certain channels, where it will probably relinked a couple of times, before anyone reads it, (and understand enough) to get confused.
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