Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 343 posts

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#181

Post by mr_spothawk »

ColinDabritz wrote: post #20

"And he promised a series of measures to ensure the new paid prioritization practices are done fairly and don't harm consumers." I have a measure in mind that won't harm consumers. Don't allow ISPs to discriminate against users regarding their already paid for internet traffic based on what they request. (Gee that sounds a lot like net neutrality.) Anything less is open for abuse. Perhaps "Discrimination" is a good w…

> discrimination against users based on their tastes, preferences, and possibly socioeconomic status.

This is the line I repeat when discussing the issue with folks who are just learning about the issue.

[edit format]

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#182

Post by davorak »

twoodfin wrote: post #126
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly Then maybe they should advertise a different bandwidth?

What difference does it make what they advertise? The existing advertising doesn't guarantee streaming 20Mbit from any host on the internet 24/7. If their advertising were scrupulously accurate, but they delivered the same service, why should you be happier?

twoodin: >The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly.

dec0dedab0de: >Then maybe they should advertise a different bandwidth?

twoodin: >What difference does it make what they advertise?

If Comcast is having a hard time delivering on what they advertise, as dec0dedab0de said, they should perhaps advertise differently. Offering different plans other then trying to sell a bandwidth that they can not deliver on with it being, as you say, "absurdly expensive."

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#183

Post by relampago »

sinak wrote: post #81

The title and post are both quite misleading. The commissioners didn't approve Tom Wheeler's plan (to regulate the Internet under Section 706), but voted to go ahead with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and commenting period. Tom Wheeler stated multiple times that Title II classification is still on the table. There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from companies and the public, and then 6…

Is anyone here opposed to net neutrality? Haven't heard a good argument for this action yet.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#184

Post by wpietri »

wielebny wrote: post #129

If that would pass - wouldn't be this a great opportunity for european hosting companies to seize the hosting market?

Probably not. Installing last-mile infrastructure is expensive. I understand that it's also often political; early cable TV installations were often local monopolies granted by local governments.

Even if they tried, the incumbent ISPs can afford to underprice their services to make it uneconomical for competitors. E.g., they might lower prices drastically in competitive areas, and raise them in uncompetitive ones.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#185

Post by zacinbusiness »

I don't understand the ISP's point of view on this issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems that ISPs are saying "Hey, we offer this great service. But bandwidth hungry applications like Netflix are just using too much data. And we need to throttle their data usage, or they need to pay us more money."

The ISPs, then, are claiming to be victims. When in reality they simply promise services that they can't cost-effectively deliver.

If I make contracts to give all of you a new pair of shoes every month. And you pay in advance. And then I run out of shoes before I can deliver on my promise...doesn't that mean that I don't know how to effectively run my business? Isn't that my fault for promising a service that I can't provide? Why would anyone feel sorry for me?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#186

Post by pit »

roc wrote: post #130
sliverstorm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's also discrimination against users based on ... socioeconomic status. That's a pretty shakey one. Are people who can't afford Porsches being discriminated against based on their socioeconomic status?

This is more like conditionally charging people more to drive on the roads that already exist, based on destination, rather than vehicle. And it's pretty easy to see where that could lead to discrimination.

This is exactly how toll roads work. You get on, and then pay when you get off based on how many miles travelled.

So, if you were starting in New York City, it would cost a lot more to travel to Buffalo than it would to White Plains.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#187

Post by mortenjorck »

sinak wrote: post #81

The title and post are both quite misleading. The commissioners didn't approve Tom Wheeler's plan (to regulate the Internet under Section 706), but voted to go ahead with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and commenting period. Tom Wheeler stated multiple times that Title II classification is still on the table. There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from companies and the public, and then 6…

Ok. That's 120 days to make Title II a household word.

Broadband's current classification as an information service, as if it's some sort of MovieFone for the 21st century, is so far removed from reality that the public should be in an uproar about it. Verizon itself has sought to classify its fiber buildouts under Title II so it can get fixed-rate access to existing right-of-way infrastructure, [1] on the technicality that its VOIP service running across those lines is regulated under Title II. Yet the main reason for building it is, of course, broadband, which dodged Title II on the even flimsier grounds of those ISP email and start pages you never use.

People should be holding signs outside the FCC building with "Title II" on them. The chair of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Michael Powell, has ominously said attempts to reclassify broadband as Title II would be "World War III"[2] – but if he wants a fight, the FCC really should oblige him, and consumers should be beating the drums.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716802/game-of-phones-how...

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/15/5311948/net-neutrality-and...

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#188

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

grandalf wrote: post #45
hpaavola wrote: post #22

I don't get this whole net neautrality discussion that is going on in US (and maybe somewhere else, just haven't paid attention). Consumers pay based on speed of their connection. If ISP feels like the consumers are not paying enough, raise the prices. Service providers (not ISPs, but the ones who run servers that consumers connect to) pay based on speed of their connection. If the ISP feels like service providers ar…

> Why in the earth there is a need for slow/fast lanes and data caps? It's just an alternate way of pricing the service. You could ask similar questions about a lot of industries: - Why does Github charge the way it does and not just price the service per megabyte of data stored or per commit, etc? - Why do fast food restaurants offer free soft drink refills for $0.99 but not offer a single fill for $0.50? - Why do r…

You do understand that in all of your weak counterpoints, the difference is choice. I can choose to not use Github, I can choose different restaraunts. However, broadband providers are rarely if ever competitive.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#189

Post by jberryman »

hpaavola wrote: post #22

I don't get this whole net neautrality discussion that is going on in US (and maybe somewhere else, just haven't paid attention). Consumers pay based on speed of their connection. If ISP feels like the consumers are not paying enough, raise the prices. Service providers (not ISPs, but the ones who run servers that consumers connect to) pay based on speed of their connection. If the ISP feels like service providers ar…

> Why in the earth there is a need for slow/fast lanes and data caps?

Well, supporters of net neutrality say there is not a need, and that this is just ISPs being greedy.

My pet theory on why they've have been able to argue their case effectively: internet traffic (or at least some notion of "website popularity") follows a distribution with a long tail, meaning a small number of sites will always be responsible for a large % of traffic; this makes it easy and attractive for ISPs to target a few players for "protection", because it's easy for them to make the fallacious claim "hey, look Netflix is taking up X% of our bandwidth; that's not fair!" when this doesn't have much to do with Netflix per se, and when that scenario is actually much cheaper (because of caching, etc) to handle than a hypothetical one in which the same traffic is distributed more evenly.

Post reply on HN