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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

#161

Post by godelski »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #140
godelski wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). Why do these have to be in contention? Regulations are a critical factor in ensuring competition in markets. Without regulations monopolies quickly come to power because your power and influence is not linearly (or sublinearly) correlated to your size (even excluding lobbying…

A free market is not a lawless market but instead free within regulations. However, the amount of regulation should not make it impossible for competitors to join the market either. With the amount of subsidies in the US for ISPs, I think the services they render might be event called a public service, more than a utility.

We don't disagree. I just thought it was obvious enough that an over regulated market isn't free that it need not be stated explicitly. Especially since this is the general belief.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#162

Post by holmesworcester »

peddling-brink wrote: post #132
gruez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like your position is one where no empirical evidence could convince you otherwise, because even if the apocalypse did not come to pass you would use the "gun pointed at me but they didn't pull the trigger" excuse.

Huh? > "Mobile carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon that have been degrading video quality for mobile users will have to stop." This is literally what the article is about. It's happening now, it's been happening, it will continue to happen unless the laws get restored.

Mobile ISPs like T-Mobile are quite open about wanting to offer plans that privilege certain services over others.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#163

Post by lxgr »

apitman wrote: post #155

My experience with 5G is that it's strictly worse than LTE. At this point, if I see the 5G symbol on my phone I'm conditioned to expect the internet to barely work. Requests frequently seem to just hang.

Then something is definitely up with either your device or your local network base station(s).

I used to have major problems with one network one particular street corner where data throughput would reliably drop to zero on 5G, but calls still went through somehow (even though they're also data on 5G, albeit with a different QoS). Signal strength was always shown as full. A phone restart would sometimes, but not always, fix it – without moving anywhere!

Never happened again since switching away. 5G is a standard/protocol; it doesn't somehow inherently prevent bad network management.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#164

Post by marcinzm »

godelski wrote: post #110
marcinzm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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). Why do these have to be in contention? Regulations are a critical factor in ensuring competition in markets. Without regulations monopolies quickly come to power because your power and influence is not linearly (or sublinearly) correlated to your size (even excluding lobbying…

> Why do these have to be in contention?

I never claimed. I simply pointed out that claiming something illegal is not being done by corporations due to increased competition is inherently a BS argument. It's not being done because it's illegal irrespective of the competitive landscape.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#165

Post by freedomben »

peddling-brink wrote: post #132
gruez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like your position is one where no empirical evidence could convince you otherwise, because even if the apocalypse did not come to pass you would use the "gun pointed at me but they didn't pull the trigger" excuse.

Huh? > "Mobile carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon that have been degrading video quality for mobile users will have to stop." This is literally what the article is about. It's happening now, it's been happening, it will continue to happen unless the laws get restored.

> I know there’s a gun pointed at my head, but listen, nobody has pulled the trigger yet, it’s fine.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#166

Post by alephnerd »

Hot take from rest of HN: I don't think lack of competition is the cause for the slow uptake in the US.

Reliance Jio+Bharti Airtel, China Mobile+Telecom+Unicom, and NTT+KDDI are basically duo/triopolies yet were able to roll our 5G nationwide in just 2-4 years in India, China, and Japan while keeping competitive pricing, and make the US market look free in comparison.

The issue seems to be the relative lethargy of the FCC and regulators, along with issues around deprecating older infra.

This doesn't mean we should go all Reagan, but if this is streamlined at the executive level, it would really simplify everything.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#167

Post by gruez »

peddling-brink wrote: post #132
gruez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like your position is one where no empirical evidence could convince you otherwise, because even if the apocalypse did not come to pass you would use the "gun pointed at me but they didn't pull the trigger" excuse.

Huh? > "Mobile carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon that have been degrading video quality for mobile users will have to stop." This is literally what the article is about. It's happening now, it's been happening, it will continue to happen unless the laws get restored.

1. If your claim was that the net neutrality doomsayers from 2017 were correct, then your original comment of "[...] nobody has pulled the trigger yet, it’s fine" does a terrible way of conveying that. Any reasonable person reading that comment would interpret that as you conceding that the the doomsayers' predictions have failed to pass, but nonetheless refuse to admit the predictions were incorrect because it was only a matter of time before the predictions would become true.

2. "Net neutrality" is a term that doesn't have a precise meaning, and I'd rather not get into a fight about what it really means. That said, in the context of this discussion about the net neutrality fight in 2017, and whether the doomsayers' prediction came to pass, I think it's fair to compare to the pre-2017 net neutrality regime. In that context it's not clear whether "degrading video quality for mobile users" would be illegal. For instance "network management" was explicitly allowed, and only "pay for priority" would be banned[1]. Moreover there was a court case a few years before where FCC fought to prevent bittorrent being throttled, and lost the case on appeal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#168

Post by holmesworcester »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #103
ethbr1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the potential of a future FCC reinstating it precluded ISPs' baser instincts? Their goal was to avoid excess, so maybe they could argue that net neutrality wasn't a good idea anyway, so they could gradually introduce new revenue streams from apps/platforms.

That repeal lasted five years, with virtually none of the visible effects people predicted. By contrast, when the Trump administration started tearing down environmental regulations, mining companies jumped on the occasion within months. If ISPs are playing the long game, they're being incredibly patient about it.

> If ISPs are playing the long game, they're being incredibly patient about it.

They actually are, and this is how politics and lobbying work. In 2017 it made no sense for US ISPs to run ragged over net neutrality when the 2020 election was looming and far from predictable. Even less once Biden gets elected.

Plus there was the credible threat of state-level laws, which are even worse from the ISPs standpoint since each might go farther than the FCC rules in certain ways.

The California law passed and was a really big deal.

If you're looking for a controlled experiment of what the world looks like without net neutrality rules, just look to countries where there was never any such movement or credible threat of them.

Across Africa, for example, 1GB of mobile data can cost 10x more if you're accessing the normal Internet, vs. a mainstream service like WhatsApp or Youtube.

ISPs use net neutrality violations for price discrimination to extract more from white collar workers who need access to the Internet beyond WhatsApp-- which is fine until you think about the effects on any new WhatsApp competitor.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#169

Post by wreckdropibex »

apitman wrote: post #155

My experience with 5G is that it's strictly worse than LTE. At this point, if I see the 5G symbol on my phone I'm conditioned to expect the internet to barely work. Requests frequently seem to just hang.

My experience with 5G is that it's strictly better than LTE. At this point, if I see the 5G symbol, I'm conditioned to expect there to be 10-100x more bandwidth available than with LTE and latencies to be at levels at par with wired connections.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#170

Post by freedomben »

ericfr11 wrote: post #125
seabird wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay $50/month for 300/30 in the middle of nowhere. Symmetric gigabit is available for $80ish/month in small cities around me. Unlimited phone data is widely available and fairly priced. It's not impossible for things to be acceptable for the vast majority of use cases just because some predicted apocalyptic event which was hyped up by certain large players (and not out of the goodness of their hearts) didn't come t…

Wow, that is very expensive

I'm afraid to tell you what I pay for starlink for speeds much lower than that. Still very grateful as without starlink is have 20 M down and still pay $75 per month for it
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