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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

#211

Post by johndevor »

raverbashing wrote: post #38
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…

How's the 'invisible hand' working for healthcare again? I'm very against government regulation, but something it's necessary.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Look at "US Unfunded Liabilities" towards the bottom. The US is drowning in debt, due to promises made... Or promises soon to be broken. It's laughable to suggest the free market is at work in the medical industry.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#214

Post by Sambdala »

rhizome wrote: post #156
smithzvk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's such a shitty idea, let consumers decide. If you leave it up to the prisoners, they will both rat each other out resulting in the worst possible outcome ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma ). Assuming that consumers will decide what is best for the whole of society is simply incorrect. "Internet innovation" is very much one of those big picture goals where I think some community planning (e…

You might also look at Braess' Paradox[1], which while often applied to traffic planning, tells us that a network of nodes that choose their options selfishly will not result in improved performance when expanding that network (increase in number of possible choices). 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox

Braess' Paradox "states that adding extra capacity to a network when the moving entities selfishly choose their route, can in some cases reduce overall performance. This is because the Nash equilibrium of such a system is not necessarily optimal."

Also, isn't the internet itself more or less a "a network [where] the moving entities selfishly choose their route"?

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#215

Post by markgraydk »

argumentum wrote: post #117
Retric wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, the only way you would have access to there infrastructure is with heavy regulation so no there is no access to any of it. Suggesting otherwise is seriously ignoring the question. PS: 1 billion in capital no regulation no access to any existing infrastructure no magic wand and the only way you can dig is to convince the local government or individuals that there is so reason to let you dig aka spend money. Which…

Clearly a local government is going to be less receptive to more digging if high speed service is in place, but it's not a "natural" monopoly if a deal with the government must be made as a prerequisite to provide services. You are also assuming that the "digger" is necessarily the service provider. In my view, local governments are basically seduced by telcos subsidizing or eliminating the up front costs of building…

A natural monopoly is an economic concept about how high fixed costs makes a single company the most efficient. Regulation of a natural monopoly is secondary to that. A telco might then be a both natural monopoly, due to how the business works, but also have a government-granted monopoly due to licenes etc.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#216

Post by Houshalter »

bandushrew wrote: post #206
Houshalter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that necessarily a bad thing in all cases? I think it would be great if a company offered, say, really cheap or free access to wikipedia and other basic websites, but charged for actual service. Letting poor people access it or making it available to host cheaper free wifi. I think what people are afraid of is them throttling competitors, or charging more for normal service, but it doesn't have to be that way.

why do that instead of just making it so that really poor people got internet access, and then allowing them to decide how they use it? as much as possible, we should avoid making decisions people can make for themselves.

If they want normal internet access they can pay for it. The point is to allow for a cheaper option if people want or need it.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#217

Post by markgraydk »

jjoonathan wrote: post #88
argumentum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all "natural". The cost is so high partially due to special agreements between these corporations and governments, from local agreements to lay down fiber, to national agreements regarding the use of the electromagnetic spectrum.

US Telcos = Natural Monopoly + Regulatory Capture > The cost is so high partially due to special agreements This is true, but it doesn't contradict the fact that telcos are also natural monopolies. Let's play a game: pretend that all of these special agreements have suddenly become invalid and the market has become deregulated. Assume you have (or can acquire) the technical expertise to challenge them. What's your bu…

Considering the economic defintion of a natural monopoly, deregulation would be the wrong path to go down. Instead, we should see more regulation like that of "last mile" and caps on or forced wholesale pricing.

I was working on creating an MVNO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator) at one point but after crunching the numbers we decided (among other reasons) not to pursue it further. We were looking at handing over about 80% of turnover, even with fairly good laws in place (EU). On top of that, the contracts we were looking at where all based on bundling of services (i.e. XX amount of data, minutes and texts) which would have made our business more of a game of demand estimation. We could perhaps have gotten a small margin if we could estimate what our users would use of services better than what we paid for them wholesale. This has also led to the unfortunate business strategy of most MVNOs around here where they look for a quick exit by being bought out by the infrastructure owner when they have gotten enough customers. Few make it into into black numbers before that.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#218

Post by andybak »

nickff wrote: post #169
jjoonathan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Competition is the "active ingredient" in the free market, and "freedom" from regulation does not always suffice to guarantee competition. Utilities are the textbook example.

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

That Wikipedia link seems to support the claim that lighthouses actually failed to operate well without government intervention:

"Eventually, all these rights were withdrawn or bought up by the authorities because the total light dues that had to be paid by ships were too high as a result of rent-seeking activities of these so-called private providers of lighthouses. Barnett and Block (2007) qualify these critiques by showing that private lighthouses are possible, but do not show up in the historical record."

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#219

Post by markgraydk »

cheald wrote: post #46
raverbashing wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the 'invisible hand' working for healthcare again? I'm very against government regulation, but something it's necessary.

That's a rather poor example - healthcare is an exceptionally heavily-regulated industry. There's an argument to be made that many of the ills in the industry are a result of over-regulation.

Over-regulation is a bad term when it is rather a problem of bad regulation. What is needed is re-regulation not deregulation.

Re: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

#220

Post by amarv1n »

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…

There's a lot I disagree with in Declan's comment.

We disagree on what Congress gave the FCC authority to do. The 1996 Telecom Act clearly classified DSL and dial-up as something called a "telecommunications service" which was subject to a host of rules including nondiscrimination rules. On the other hand, things like Yahoo.com would be "information services," not subject to all those rules.

The FCC, adhering to a deregulatory philosophy, decided not to regulate cable modem service by claiming it was an "information service" through some pretty silly technical analysis. After this decision, the FCC decided that DSL and wireless Internet were also "information services" not automatically subject to the rules set out by Congress. (This is sort of like a financial regulator deciding that mortgage-backed securities are not insurance, even though they look like insurance, just to make sure all the laws applicable to insurance don't apply.)

But... the FCC claimed it could impose net neutrality rules on ISPs even though they were "information services" like Yahoo (or Hacker New or Facebook). A court struck down that attempt and the FCC is on try number 2, and before the same court.

The FCC can properly classify ISP service as a "telecommunications service."

The argument about Congress failing to pass a new statute authorizing net neutrality in 2006 is flawed because courts draw no inference from failed legislation. That's well-known statutory interpretation. Any member could introduce any law and it likely won't get passed; that 1 member's view doesn't have a legal impact.

Finally, the argument that Ed Markey can act whenever there's a NN violation misses the point that the FCC is the enforcement agency that should act. By adopting a law, they are simply setting up that enforcement process for people to file complaints, and the FCC can act. Markey on his own can't enforce anything; he can call hearings, but that's not enforcing an order.

(Also, the commenter is Declan McCulloch of CNET, or his biggest fan, since he links to Declan's articles and is named Declan... I'm Marvin, the author of the Wired.com opinion article. Declan is also quite a "smart fellow" and we get along swell, even if we disagree sometimes and are on opposite coasts.)

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