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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

#141

Post by friend_and_foe »

How is this different from the last "net neutrality" mess? I remember shortly after commercial activity on the internet came under the purview of the FCC, all these mobile carriers started offering deals, T-Mobile in particular offered "YouTube doesn't count against your data cap" and basically we got the opposite of what we were sold with the pitch "net neutrality".

Then, when online commerce was restored to being under the purview of the FTC, all those special deals stopped. No ISP gave special fast lane access to any content service provider. Perhaps "net neutrality" is a lie, like "patriot act"? What we hear when we hear the term is not what lawmakers mean. We hear "ISPs must treat all traffic the same" (except for content with a DMCA takedown notice, of course) but what they mean is "move regulatory authority over commercial activity online from the FTC to the FCC." I'm curious why this, the crux of the matter, is never addressed in these articles. In any case, it seems to me like we get more net neutrality when the FTC is in charge of the commerce.

Commerce online seems to be much more neutral when the FTC is in charge, to me at least. I don't think it's a stretch to say that big multinational corporations like Alphabet want the FCC to regulate the internet for selfish reasons, and if I have to guess, I'd guess that it's because they don't want to fall under the FTCs regulations pertaining to anticompetitive behavior.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#142

Post by spacebanana7 »

cycomanic wrote: post #69
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 interestin…

What innovations to ISPs make? I thought they largely just installed equipment from the same group of vendors.

I’m genuinely curious if anyone knows of any.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#143

Post by School-Cotton »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #137
School-Cotton wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US is significantly behind developed countries in practically every category, why do you consider it a developed country? What does “developed” mean? > other countries roughly in the same range as the US. The same range of what variable? How do you measure/define this?

There are several definitions for what makes a country “developed” and the US is solidly in all of them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country I’m not sure how you can possibly argue that the US is not “developed”. > The same range of what variable? How do you measure/define this? Feel free to take any of those lists and compare the US to countries around them in those lists. The countries might differ sl…

> I’m not sure how you can possibly argue that the US is not “developed”.

The U.S. is considered developed only because it’s extremely rich. However, the general state of its infrastructure, education, governance, media, etc. is more typical of a developing country in many ways.

That’s my point: all these lists of things the U.S. is worse at than every developed country are collectively what it means to be developed, more so in my mind than just being rich.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#144

Post by spxneo »

passwordoops wrote: post #95
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…

The biggest single reason why the USA's (and to a lesser extent Canada's) { insert industry } is shite is because of the monopolies that exist.

ppls comments on this thread towards Canada really struck a nerve with their cluelessness about Canada. People from other countries always act like it's some shining example of the Western world, but that's not the real deal at all.

Canada is basically just three big resource companies propped up by a massive housing bubble that traps newcomers in debt slavery in a form of reverse colonialism where they trick immigrants to become serfs paying rent so people who bought homes in the 80s (after working for like 6 months) can keep flipping it to the next wave of immigrants and blame them with the media owned by the very oligarchs that are supposed to regulate the real estate industry (lol!).

They don't even bother using or valuing the skills and experience these immigrants bring - you've got surgeons from the UK working as cashiers, immigrants without income so all they can do is start businesses or become traders, all to line the pockets of the ultra-rich oligarchs who get everything for cheap and flip at insane markups. They have every Prime Minister wrapped around their little finger, letting them monopolize everything and then screwing over everyone that comes to this miserable piece of land.

Take this one famous billionaire in Vancouver - I'm not gonna name names, but this dude practically owns all the salmon in BC, along with Aboriginal monopolies that were handed out just because of what has been described in anthropology textbooks as "white guilt". Then there's another billionaire from Ottawa who has a monopoly on the legal drug market - guy ended up getting choked out with a wire, and the RCMP just called it an "accident." Oh, and let's not forget the billionaire who somehow scored the exclusive rights to run the only online casino in BC. The list goes on and on.

There's no such thing as a free market in Canada - it's just a banana republic country club for the rich old Canadians at the top. Actually, I'm not even sure if the casino guy was born in Canada, but he definitely looks like he could be.

So yeah, to a lesser extent makes no sense here as somebody that has decades of experience with that country. At least America still recognizes the value of some free market and competition with or without a housing bubble.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#145

Post by wkat4242 »

plugin-baby wrote: post #101
wkat4242 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually Odido but everyone I know calls it Odildo :P it was really a stupid name choice

Spanish: jodido

Haha yes that means fucked (as in "you're fucked"). I speak Spanish and I didn't actually think of that.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#146

Post by drewg123 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #66
room500 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're missing the point. Netflix is fast in these situations because your client can access the server in the ISP's data center and video traffic remains local to the ISP and doesn't traverse the congested link to the IX.

Other companies embed servers with ISPs as well.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#147

Post by ninkendo »

cycomanic wrote: post #69
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 interestin…

> 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

I pay my ISP well over $100 a month for their service. Far more than I pay outright to Google or Meta or Apple. Why should they try to skim even more off the top?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#148

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

holmesworcester wrote: post #139
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…

Actually, the empirical record on this shows that we see more net neutrality violations by ISPs in marketplaces with high competition.[1] This is counter-intuitive but here's how it works: In a competitive marketplace ISPs have tighter margins and look for every opportunity for cost savings, so if throttling a high-bandwidth application only affects a small percentage of customers, and only a tiny tech-savvy minority…

Why doesn't the monopoly employ the same cost-saving measures for even bigger margins?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#149

Post by holmesworcester »

free_bip wrote: post #112
EPWN3D wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AFAIK the actual reason most of these things did not appear is because of many states passing their own net neutrality laws, such that it would be a regulatory nightmare to offer services in violation of net neutrality without coming under fire.

The California law is particularly strong and had a huge impact.

The other big factor is the threat of new FCC rules, state laws, or federal law. As long as net neutrality advocates can pose a credible threat of passing rules that, from the ISP's point of view, are more restrictive than the status quo, ISPs have to think twice before engaging in what John Oliver famously called "cable company f*ckery".

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