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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

#281

Post by fulafel »

nostromo wrote: post #246
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'd agree with this comment if it was 2010. But today the US has good internet speeds -- in general much better than Europe despite it's bigger geographic size and less-dense population. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/internet-...

Despite the category mismatch (continent vs country) .. Europe and USA have very similar population densities (~35 p/km2) [0] [1] [2] [3]

Also, many sparsely populated European countries have relatively good internet speeds (eg Iceland, Sweden).

[0] https://database.earth/population/europe/density

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/europe-popula...

[2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-po...

[3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=U...

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#283

Post by godelski »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #258
godelski wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People generally like their elected representative This is definitely part of it but not all of it. There's more. I hear people complaining about the exact people they vote for. I think another part of the problem is simply parties. We vote along lines rather than actual beliefs. I actually believe we'd be better off without them. Or at least affiliations on ballots. Like how we do judges. Hand out a booklet, let p…

That most often happens in one-party districts because the incumbent doesn't have to please the voters when the district would never go for the other party. The two party system itself is caused by first-past-the-post voting. In that system if there are more than two parties, the two most similar parties split the vote and both lose, giving them the incentive to merge together instead of running against each other, u…

It's not __caused__ by FPTP, but yeah that certainly doesn't help. But I am glad that my excessive campaigning on this site for Approval/Star/cardinal systems has had some effect :) (Very happy to see ordinal systems not being suggested)

There's much more complexity to it all, but yeah, voting systems are important. The cardinal systems are just about better embedding preference while minimizing the capacity to hack. But they still assume rational voters. These cardinal systems may make strategic voting less effective, but they don't prevent them. A major benefit to be though is transparency, since it is easier to understand the tallying. Especially when it is (parallel) column sum and argmax. Much easier to understand than multi-round elections. (Could you imagine the Arizona recount with RCV...)

But again, you can build more representation and transparency into the system but it doesn't remove the human component. Where name recognition is a major predictor in winner. Where people are not investing time to vote. This takes a much larger cultural shift to have things like giving people time to research their candidates. But a single extra day off is probably just going to be used to catch up on all the more immediate issues we have. We're all constantly playing catch-up and truth of the matter is that politics is much more abstract than these things and so it gets de-prioritized. Voting systems won't fix that (obviously I still actively advocate for cardinal systems though. I'm a firm believer in addressing problems from the bottom up)

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#284

Post by wkat4242 »

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's not hurting consumers. These companies are not coming up with these plans because they're cheaper for the consumers. They're doing it to entrench them into their service and then extract money in other ways.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#285

Post by remram »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #250
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…

T-mobile offers it in the US still: https://www.t-mobile.com/tv-streaming/binge-on In this mode, video streams will be limited to 480p but will not count against your bandwidth cap.

And by "video" we mean "Netflix". There goes neutrality and fair competition.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#286

Post by scarface_74 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #255
scarface_74 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason utilities are regulated are because they are natural monopoly. It doesn’t make sense to have more than one utility company with right of way to dig up streets to create the needed infrastructure. To an extent, cellular is a natural oligopoly. Each carrier needs enough spectrum to have decent service. But it isn’t a monopoly.

> To an extent, cellular is a natural oligopoly. Each carrier needs enough spectrum to have decent service. But it isn’t a monopoly. It's a natural monopoly in exactly the same way any other utility is. "It doesn't make sense to have more than one utility build towers everywhere to create the needed infrastructure." In theory if only one company did it you would only need one set of towers and costs would be lower. B…

Do you realize how complicated that would make both the phones and leaving an area? Besides, even today some phones only operate over certain parts of the spectrum and some parts of the spectrum aren’t even conducive to transmitting through walls - the issue T-Mobile had for years.

And what problem are you trying to solve again?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#287

Post by gosub100 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #180
gosub100 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 7 years, but any day now we'll wake up to broken online video, random timeouts, paltry data caps, and skyrocketing costs.

This is like the folks who compare the covid death rate with treatment, mitigations, and vaccination to prove we could have let it run its course in 2020. Public sentiment was pretty high and we actually had network neutrality for the first 40 years of the Internet not to mention the over 100M people who live in states that adopted laws. https://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/net-neutra...

This is like the folks who think the rapture is coming, any day now. just be ready, its coming.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#288

Post by JoBrad »

gruez wrote: post #167
peddling-brink wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Your link has a definition of Net Neutrality in the first paragraph. If you recall, one of the big points that groups like Comcast kept trying to make was that they weren’t just a dumb pipe for the internet, and instead had enough value-add for consumers that people would choose them over a competitor with the same internet service. And NN would prevent them from offering these competitive services.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#289

Post by randomdata »

mardifoufs wrote: post #252
randomdata wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are completely irrelevant in 95% of Canada. But quite relevant as they provide a proven, working model that can be used anywhere in Canada. That's the beauty of public/cooperative ownership – all people have to do is do it. > here in Quebec it's either Videotron or bell What about CoopTel, Sogetel, and Téléphone de Courcelles?

Well I'm not saying they are irrelevant in the sense that they don't provide a good model for what an ISP should be, but more so that they are irrelevant because they don't provide services to the vast majority of people. Also a part from sogetel, those are either very small or regional. Even sogetel is regional and doesn't really provide services outside small villages and cities. That's not bad, but it's not enough…

> more so that they are irrelevant because they don't provide services to the vast majority of people.

The vast majority of people can do the same. What do you think public/cooperate ownership is, exactly? It isn't something that magically comes down from space by aliens or sent to us by god. They are by the people. All the people have to do is do it!

> Also a part from sogetel, those are either very small or regional.

So? They still exist in Quebec. The question was really trying to ask why you didn't mention them?

If you like their model, and want to see them grow, then you'd think you'd be preaching their existence to high heaven. The only way small businesses can grow to cover the nation is to have people talk about them. No business has ever swept the nation in secrecy. Yet here we are, even after we started talking about them, being told that they shouldn't be talked about because they are too "insignificant".

Why is it that the people who complain about the "Big 3" most are the ones who seem most happy to keep on using their service?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#290

Post by cyberax »

eru wrote: post #275
cyberax wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most economists? BS. Most economists understand that ISPs in the US are a natural monopoly, you simply can not have more than 1 or 2 choices in most locations. And when there is no possibility of competition, regulation becomes necessary.

Huh, ISPs are far from a natural monopoly. What makes you think they are? Especially if you take mobile broadband, paid 'public' wifi and satellite internet into account. (Regulations that make market entry harder push things into the monopoly direction, but that's far from 'natural'. See some of the recent troubles SpaceX has been having.) See also https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/net-neu... or h…

> Huh, ISPs are far from a natural monopoly.

Black is white. War is peace. Yeah, we know that.

> What makes you think they are? Especially if you take mobile broadband, paid 'public' wifi and satellite internet into account.

Neither mobile nor satellite (even Starlink) can compete for the main Internet connection for the majority of people. Around 50-70% of the US population has exactly ONE choice of a wired broadband ISP, and maaaaybe 2 if you count ADSL as broadband.

Less than 10% of the population has access to 3 or more wired broadband ISPs.

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