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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

#301

Post by lsllc »

Waterluvian wrote: post #236
lsllc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they sort of do already — typically you pay less for water for irrigation (usually because sewerage is metered by water usage and obv if it goes on the lawn it’s not going down the drain). In places like Florida however irrigation water is reclaimed and not treated the same was as drinking water and has totally separate plumbing and metering (and pricing).

So you’re not using the sewer then? Isn’t that completely logical not to pay for it?

Exactly, but they have no easy way of direct metering domestic sewerage usage, so they do it indirectly via your household water usage (usually something like 75% goes down the drains). There needs to be a second meter to "subtract" the irrigation usage from the household usage so you don't get billed for that (and if it's a separate reclaimed water supply, then there's no subtraction, it's just a separate line item).

If you don't have the 2nd meter and your irrigation is running from your domestic water supply, then yes you're absolutely paying for sewerage you're not using.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#302

Post by int_19h »

scarface_74 wrote: post #232
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say the exact opposite. It’s clear the majority of customers here cannot make an informed decision either by way of incompetence about the technical aspects that would enable them to detect bad faith behavior on the part of ISPs, or lack of transparency, or outright lack of competition in their market. Competition does not work to increase quality if the customer cannot judge it. The entire benefits of markets an…

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.

The only reason why anything is regulated is because society decided that the consequences of not regulating it produce undesirable outcomes for too many people in said society.

This is decidedly the case with ISPs today, so arguments over the pedantic definition of monopolies and whether it applies here are rather irrelevant.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#303

Post by int_19h »

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.

Do you think that laws that make buying electoral votes illegal (where they exist) should be repealed on the basis that they are harming people who'd prefer to take that cash?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#304

Post by scarface_74 »

int_19h wrote: post #302
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.

The only reason why anything is regulated is because society decided that the consequences of not regulating it produce undesirable outcomes for too many people in said society. This is decidedly the case with ISPs today, so arguments over the pedantic definition of monopolies and whether it applies here are rather irrelevant.

We are talking about mobilr providers. Are you really saying there is no competition?

What do you hope to gain by regulation?

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#305

Post by oceanplexian »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #297
oceanplexian wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s clear the majority of customers here cannot make an informed decision either by way of incompetence about the technical aspects that would enable them to detect bad faith behavior on the part of ISPs Unfortunately, if consumers can’t make an informed decision, then there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the government, which is full of technically incompetent bureaucrats, is going to somehow make the rig…

> Unfortunately, if consumers can’t make an informed decision, then there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the government, which is full of technically incompetent bureaucrats, is going to somehow make the right decision for them. This is such utterly brain-dead individualist defeatist nonsense that I struggle to respect it as an actual position. Do you believe either the common consumers or the politicians und…

> Do not give them the fucking option to throttle any website. If you pay for your Internet service

The problem with that statement is, like anything else imagined by bureaucrats, is divorced from reality. Hence my point that I wouldn’t trust the government to regulate the Internet.

Internet providers peer with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other networks. They do so in some cases by paying money, but in most cases through something called settlement free peering, which came out of mutually beneficial agreements to connect at perking exchanges. In all cases providers have avoided passing the costs down to consumers, even though the economics are incredibly complex.

IMHO Leave it to the experts. No one is paying a special fee to access 4chan or Netflix. It’s a big fat, widely disproven lie that proponents of net neutrality made up and have been arguing for nearly 15 years now, one that never came to pass.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#306

Post by int_19h »

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…

Looking at the rising prices of streaming services and their increased enshittification via ads even in paid subscriptions, I find it hard to take the "prices have stayed reasonable" claim at face value. It's not just about the price of the internet access itself, but also about the price of the services that actually make said access useful and valuable.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#307

Post by oceanplexian »

CrazyCatDog wrote: post #273
oceanplexian wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except I live in one of the places that has widespread competition (Utah) and can pick from one of dozens of Fiber Internet providers, including some that can provide 10Gbps service, a cable company, and even technically Starlink. How many of them are throttling content to prevent competition in this hypothetical anti-net neutrality scenario? Exactly zero. Which is evidence to me that Net Neutrality is a sham, what m…

How competative was the isp market in Utah before Google fiber subsidized the massive build-out? Google threw in the towel on wiring more new cities about mid-way through the SLC build, which makes need think perhaps the biggest obstacle to your thesis bearing fruit, is upfront infrastructure investments…

Google all but abandoned Utah, as soon as we got municipal fiber in most cities (Utopia). Utopia was built out by government issued bonds and shares 0 physical infrastructure with Google. Google refused to participate in the program, because they didn’t like the idea of dark fiber where anyone could “choose a provider”.

Google wanted a monopoly.

The nice thing is that they can properly screw off, because now we have dozens of better options where I’m supporting the little guy instead of Silicon Valley Big Tech.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#308

Post by int_19h »

godelski wrote: post #257
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or simply voting in a new politician when everyone hates the current one. Oh, we already know how this one works. People generally like their elected representative, because that's how they won in that district. The district has e.g. a large employer, and the representative makes sure those jobs for the people in the district aren't lost. Even though that's the very thing people in other districts are complaining a…

> 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…

Parties are a naturally emerging phenomenon in representative democracies, though. Simply put, if you can band together to pool votes somehow (e.g. by agreeing to disagree on some matters to some extent), you consistently win over those who do not. So it's inevitable that someone will do just that, and then others will respond in kind.

Fundamentally, this is a problem with representative democracy in general. There's simply no way a single person in the House can meaningfully represent 750k diverse people (especially with crude grouping by location) in the first place. In US, the original design of the system explicitly recognized that: "the number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand". The problem, of course, is that this wasn't sustainable as population grew, which is why it eventually became a fixed number of seats instead. Either way, even with 30k per representative, there's just no way one can well and truly vote on their actual beliefs in a consistent way. You have to compromise some of them for the sake of others, and then justify those compromises to yourself somehow. And the easiest way for our monkey brain to do that is to do the us-vs-them thing, and then justify the compromise by asserting that it is for the sake of "us".

I think that if we want actual democracy of beliefs, we need to seriously start looking into either more direct democracy (seems more viable with the state of instant communication these days), or else multi-level federated systems such as council democracy.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#309

Post by int_19h »

rom1v wrote: post #52
seattle_spring wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In France, I pay monthly 27.48€ (~$29) for 1Gbps down and 500Mbps up (in theory, in practice, it's more like 500~600Mbps down, 250~300Mbps up). This includes a TV option for 2€ (without it, it's 25.48€). My provider is SFR (the only one giving access to optical fiber in the small village where I live). EDIT: I'm talking about home internet. For mobile internet, I pay 19.99€/month for unlimited access (5G), but I have…

For comparison, I live in Washington State 50km away from Seattle, and I get 1200 Mbps down and 200 Mbps up (in practice more like 900/100) for $115/month. This is just pure Internet, no TV or anything else.

The ISP that I currently use - Comcast Xfinity - is also the only cable provider in this area. I can get some mobile and satellite options, but they are all more expensive for lower speed and higher latency.

Re: The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes

#310

Post by int_19h »

throwaway35777 wrote: post #61
seattle_spring wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Aggressive regulation of large businesses, and local government-run non-profit ISPs to provide a sensible baseline that can be relied upon without being at the whims of private companies.
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