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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

#201

Post by AnthonyMouse »

godelski wrote: post #117
spullara wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best internet in the country is offered by a monopoly in Chattanooga. Up to 25 Gbit up/down.

Monopoly? That's a bit bold of a claim. The provider you're talking about is the utility company. You might not know why the utility company provides the internet either. It's because before that they couldn't get the other companies (AT&T, Comcast, Hughe, Verizon) to offer good speeds and reasonable rates. The utility also doesn't take a profit. Mind you, those other companies still operate and no one is holding the…

It's weird that we keep seeing this happen and work but then it isn't more popular. Government services are typically inefficient, but so are private monopolies for almost exactly the same reasons. If you put them into competition with each other then they both have more competition and have to do better.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#202

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #92
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 FCC did that with DSL. The incumbent telcos retaliated by not maintaining their copper plant and killing their own line of business as an ISP.

The mistake there was in leaving the private monopoly intact whatsoever.

If you want to have ISP-level competition, one of the better ways to do it is to have the government install cable trenches along the roads which the government then owns and provides cheap access for anyone to lay cable. Once the trenches exist, wiring a neighborhood with fiber is then far less expensive and makes it feasible to have multiple competitors.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#203

Post by deanishe »

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 worst part is, imo, US taxpayers paid for all that infrastructure.

These ISPs absolutely should be forced to open their infrastructure to other providers, like in Europe, and for the same reasons.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#204

Post by deanishe »

papichulo2023 wrote: post #198
wkat4242 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's also in breach of EU net neutrality laws. A Dutch ISP lost a lawsuit over this for providing free Spotify traffic. I don't remember which one, I think it was T Mobile (now called Odildo or something lol)

Kinda funny how neutrality is hurting consumers. I dont think many of us thought about this potential benefit.

It was always going to hurt consumers short-term. I don't know why anyone is surprised.

Maybe it's just because I'm old and remember the clusterfuck when the EU decided one TV company couldn't hold the rights to all the football matches.

(They divvy the rights up in such a way that you can't see a single competition on just one service, let alone just one team's matches.)

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#205

Post by ethbr1 »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #129
ethbr1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If ISPs want to QoS traffic into different lanes... fine. But those lanes should: - Be general categories of use - Only be created by regulation - Be freely accessible to any app - Not involve any app-ISP payment

Or, or, hear me out. The companies that need such high speed networks, should pay the infrastructure companies and get their own communication lines built, instead of buying QoS access on publicly funded projects.

I don't think any company should be able to buy QoS access.

They should simply qualify for it on the basis of their use case.

E.g. "video streaming" or "real-time telecom"

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#206

Post by dave4420 »

ryandrake wrote: post #84
dave4420 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You force the infrastructure operator to allow competitors to use their infrastructure on a fair basis. It’s what happens in Europe (including the UK). It works.

OR, (and I know this is near heresy) you force the infrastructure operator to allow competitors to use their infrastructure regardless of whether it is fair to that operator . This isn't a schoolyard playground. We don't have to play fair and treat these megacorporation with kid gloves. When the shoe is on the other foot, corporations don't play fair with us. "Fair" doesn't even come into the picture when they are in…

“Fair” as in “on the same terms that their own retail unit gets”, without any terms that would be anticompetitive.

And no cross subsidisation.

(I meant “fair to competitors”, but I think you thought I meant “fair to the infrastructure owner”.)

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#207

Post by nashashmi »

Why do I get the feeling that this is overly dramatic? A network operator works to install exceptionally fast internet for limited applications and the data transfer. But this exceptionally fast internet is seen as biased. And instead it is better if the network operator didn’t install any such service.

What kinds of limited applications will be given priority? The network operators’ own information systems; their own services; and their partners.

This is a threat to companies who are operating in industries that network operators could compete with. “Network neutrality” is meant to protect them from competition from network providers. And this is not right.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#208

Post by palata »

deanishe wrote: post #203
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 worst part is, imo, US taxpayers paid for all that infrastructure. These ISPs absolutely should be forced to open their infrastructure to other providers, like in Europe, and for the same reasons.

> The worst part is, imo, US taxpayers paid for all that infrastructure.

Isn't that exactly how it always worked? Whatever public service works well is privatised (for some reason I don't get), and whatever is a source of cost stays public. Such that the taxpayer keeps paying, and some people get rich by screwing them.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#209

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #87
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is limited room for competition in many of these categories. For example, the infrastructure costs for telecoms make it very difficult for new competition (like a startup) to enter the market. The existing ones benefited from past funding and a lack of competition, but have captured market share. In some cases, there are other practical limitations, for example, splitting up wireless spectrum. Apart fro…

I live in sweden and can pick from roughly 30 different ISPs where I live. I don't live in some big city, but in a smaller village. There is tons of room for competition if the laws are set up to push for it.

Do you know how they are set up? What elements of their networks they share?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#210

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

Aurornis wrote: post #43
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #5

We need neutrality up and down the stack elsewhere too. I would consider hosting (including DNS, cloud infrastructure), financial services (banks, PayPal, stripe), and others as needing their version of net neutrality laws, where they cannot refuse customers or treat them differently or pick winners/losers or charge differently for different use cases. These are all utilities that are necessary to survive in today’s…

> where they cannot refuse customers Having seen the degree to which spammers, scammers, and malicious hackers will abuse services to no end (often while carefully avoiding explicit violations of the law) I can assure you that you do not want this. Forcing every company to host everyone only sounds good in theory.

We force power utilities and such to support all users. These companies can solve the problem and pay the costs. But if the laws for scammers aren’t adequate that’s a separate issue that should be solved on its own.
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