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We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

wired.com

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Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#191

Post by SkyMarshal »

pvnick wrote: post #20

I consider everybody here very smart. In many cases smarter than myself. Therefore, could somebody please explain why we would give the government, which has shown itself to be terribly incompetent with technology issues, the ability to enforce net neutrality? Seriously, I can't get over the dissonance here. If it's such a shitty idea, let consumers decide. Google Fiber et al will just eat the major telecoms' lunch s…

Net Neutrality is how the internet has operated since its beginning. It's not "giving" the government or anyone else anything new, just preserving a very successful status quo. It's the telco's and the anti-NN crowd that want to change that, not the other way around, despite their dissembling. If you want the internet to remain a level playing field for everyone, as it has been since day 1, from bootstrapped startups to giants like Google and Microsoft, support Net Neutrality.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#192

Post by Artistry121 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #181
nickff wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The utility market used to be competitive, then municipalities began "licensing" them, which eventually led to the current state of affairs.[1] Even lighthouses, which have large externalities, can be built and operated without government intervention, as they did for a very long time.[2] [1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/ElectricityandItsRegulati... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_in_Economics

The utility market moved towards a regulated model in the very early days of electric and gas transmission. There were lots of really good reasons for this around safety, universal service and public good. Most states today have a model where delivery is tightly regulated, but electricity generation is a competitive marketplace. At the end of the day the government exists to serve the public interest.

Government exists to organize society. Feudalism served its lords, monarchy served its kings and nobles, empire its emperors, and democracy, occasionally, its people.

Government has served a variety of masters in the past - but rarely purely the public interest.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#193

Post by excellence24 »

The best way we can get the attention of the companies is by causing them to lose profits. This is best done by an organized boycott of their goods and services. It will get their attention very quickly. But currently we don't have a central website to browse and search boycotts and other forms of protest.

In addition to protesting, we should also consider building a free open source network thats protected and run by the community. (It could be run by the government, but until the government is 'for and by the people', we'll crowdsource the maintainance and seek to rapidly automate the work that nobody would volunteer for) We can give ourselves the best, but lets start with free gigabit internet wired and wireless for all of America! What would this 'cost' in terms of money? millions or billions? But the resources are here; just being hoarded until money is traded. Would AT&T build a free network for us? Not if it meant losing money to Verizon. But what if it wasnt about money? The value in having a fully connected country is priceless.

Thankfully we have the government to protect us against trusts and monopoly's. But what if the trust or monopoly was a community one? If AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile colluded to give free gigabit internet to America, they could combine their separately walled gardens and use those resources to further the human race. But this would have to be a guaranttee so that once everyone put all their time and resources into this, some CEO cant just flip a switch and start charging. Once free, always free. So if they did this it would probably mean giving up their pride and names. I mean, would this free network be called Verizon? Why do they get their name on it? So we could crowdsource a new name for our free network so no one can boast. US Telecom, US Net, Free Net, the name can be anything, something we would all be proud to get behind. the most important part is the 'us' and 'US'. All of us in the US have the resources to take care of all of US(just focusing on America now, but eventually we could help the world). These telecom companies will either become part of the solution or they will precipitate out.

Again though, this would be a huge project and there's currently no website we can go to in order to find and take part in these country and perhaps global initiatives. Imagine a mix of Kickstarter and Change.org. First a project or idea is petitioned to the community and if enough people like it and think it would be the best solution, then its opened up to a crowdsourcing page to collect funds and not just money but people can also donate the final resources that are ultimately needed, which is what the money would eventually be traded for anyways....more to come, working on this website...

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#194

Post by AnthonyMouse »

declan wrote: post #172

Marvin, the author of the Wired.com opinion piece, is a smart fellow. But what he ignores is that Congress never handed the FCC the authority to impose Net neutrality regulations on the Internet. Such legislation actually came up for a vote in Congress, and it came close to passage: it was reported favorably out of a Senate committee but was defeated in a House floor vote in 2006: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1028_3-608…

> Even if you adore the principle of Net neutrality, it's reasonable to demand that federal regulatory agencies stick to what Congress authorized them to do.

Congress has already authorized it, the FCC is just trying to have its cake and eat it too. The FCC decides whether to classify last mile internet service as a "telecommunications service" that they have significant statutory authority over or an "information service" that they don't, and they picked the second one but are trying to impose regulations anyway, which is why they keep getting slapped down.

Choosing that classification was so controversial at the time that they got sued over it, and the Supreme Court ultimately said that the FCC was allowed to make that classification, not that they were required to. Now that everything that was once classified as a "telecommunications service" is being offered instead over the top using "internet service" it seems reasonable for them to revisit the classification.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#195

Post by thatthatis »

jimbokun wrote: post #189
blhack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the telcos are currently enjoying a "natural monopoly". The cost of entry to become a telco is so high, that normal competitive forces do not apply. In situations like this, one role of government is to regulate these natural monopolies to protect citizens. One such regulation, for instance, is that the power company cannot shut off your power in the middle of winter in Minnesota without fulfilling some prett…

If by "natural monopoly" you are implying a monopoly arising without government intervention, I'm pretty sure you are completely wrong on that point. Telecommunication companies need permission to rip up streets and run wires, or run wires on poles, or exclusive rights over parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, or put satellites into the right geosynchronous orbits to broadcast signals to consumers. (I'm curious to…

A natural monopoly is a well defined term in economics. A natural monopoly occurres when there are massive fixed costs but insignificant variable costs in delivering a service.

The economics of the industry naturally lead to one firm providing the service, a monopoly.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#196

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jimbokun wrote: post #189
blhack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the telcos are currently enjoying a "natural monopoly". The cost of entry to become a telco is so high, that normal competitive forces do not apply. In situations like this, one role of government is to regulate these natural monopolies to protect citizens. One such regulation, for instance, is that the power company cannot shut off your power in the middle of winter in Minnesota without fulfilling some prett…

If by "natural monopoly" you are implying a monopoly arising without government intervention, I'm pretty sure you are completely wrong on that point. Telecommunication companies need permission to rip up streets and run wires, or run wires on poles, or exclusive rights over parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, or put satellites into the right geosynchronous orbits to broadcast signals to consumers. (I'm curious to…

> If by "natural monopoly" you are implying a monopoly arising without government intervention, I'm pretty sure you are completely wrong on that point.

The reason telecommunications service is a natural monopoly is that the fixed costs are extraordinarily high and the variable costs are trivial. In consequence it is not profitable to build a competing network once one already exists, because all you accomplish is to lay out an enormous capital expenditure in order to enter into an aggressive price war with the incumbent, since making $10/month from a customer that costs you less than that to service once the network is already built is still more profitable than losing that customer to the competitor and making $0. So the result will always be the same: Either there will be a monopoly (or equivalently a cartel), or there will be a price war until every competing provider either goes out of business or joins the cartel and it reverts to a lack of competition. And prospective market entrants understand this dynamic ahead of time and choose not to participate. The only reason we even have the duopoly that exists today instead of a straight monopoly is that the two networks were originally built to provide different non-competing types of service, so now they effectively act as a cartel with the knowledge that no one else is likely to enter the market.

It is certainly true that government intervention has been involved in the creation of that infrastructure -- it's plausible to say that it wouldn't have been cost effective without it. But that only means that in the alternative "free market" for telecommunications service, the infrastructure cost would have been even higher because the provider would have had no subsidies and would have to buy all the land without eminent domain and pay off holdouts etc.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#197

Post by dkuntz2 »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #160
dkuntz2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if cheap actively hinders them from doing something they want to do ?

You don't think YouTube & Facebook & iTunes would pony up?

I don't think they'd always be given the choice to. Especially something like Netflix, which directly competes with cable companies and their online offerings.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#198

Post by dotori »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #129

This might not be very popular, but I'm going to say I'm in favour of the law being struck down. I'm totally on board with ISPs not throttling / extorting money out of web 2.0 companies, however, I'm not sure that trying to enforce a swiss-cheese law is the right way to do it. That and I'm kind of biased, because I founded a company which is trying to level the playing field and make net neutrality de facto for inter…

>make net neutrality de facto

how so?

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#199

Post by waterlesscloud »

morgante wrote: post #170
pnut wrote: post #9

The toothpaste is out of the tube already, people know what freedom online tastes like. Bad news for old money - the Internet has an appetite for rentier blood. This will not be tolerated long term.

Likely nobody would even realize. It's not like the telcos would block sites. Instead, suddenly Netflix loads a lot slower than Comcast. Blame Netflix and move on.

That lasts right up until Netflix puts a big banner on their page for Comcast customers that explains the situation.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#200

Post by morgante »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #199
morgante wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely nobody would even realize. It's not like the telcos would block sites. Instead, suddenly Netflix loads a lot slower than Comcast. Blame Netflix and move on.

That lasts right up until Netflix puts a big banner on their page for Comcast customers that explains the situation.

Netflix might have the clout to do so, but a small startup which nobody has heard of never would.

Ultimately, the consumer mindset is never to blame their provider. They blame the website. If you come to my site and it's throttled, there's a high chance you'll click away and never come back.

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