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FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

washingtonpost.com

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Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#201

Post by dragonwriter »

Shivetya wrote: post #171
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…

What gets me is this was a party line vote. So is it good the three voted for this or was it good the other two voted against? Whose on whose side here?

As has always been the case for quite some time, the 3 Democratic commissioners are in favor of adopting regulations enforcing net neutrality principles (though they often differ with each other and some members of the pro-neutrality community over details of the best way to do so within the constraints of existing law, which the FCC can't change), and the two Republican commissioners think that the FCC should not regulate at all to enforce those principles.

There's more confusion because much of the media coverage is ignoring the fact that the FCC's old order was struck down by the courts as exceeding the FCC's authority, so that the current status quo is that there is no regulation in this area (except the transparency rule from the old order, which the court let stand), so even if the attempt to work within the court order makes the non-discrimination provision of a new order weaker than the old order, it's not a weakening of existing non-discrimination rules, because there are no existing non-discrimination or non-blocking rules.

> Whose on whose side here?

The pro-neutrality side on the FCC is the side that is proposing rules aimed at acheiving neutrality as far as possible under the court-imposed limits and seeking input from the public about how to make those rules most effective. The anti-neutrality side is the side that is opposed to the idea of any kind of rules on this issue.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#202

Post by jgh »

spacefight wrote: post #80
jgh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a reference to the DRM thing from yesterday. Honestly it was more of Mozilla capitulating to the DRM gods, it's not like they're out there pounding the pavement for DRM.

" Honestly it was more of Mozilla capitulating to the DRM gods, it's not like they're out there pounding the pavement for DRM." What's the difference?

Most people just want the damn thing to work. Studios, whether the EFF and others like it or not, are not going to be changing their stance on DRM any time soon. It seems that more and more media is being consumed on a subscription basis than is being downloaded (see Spotify, Pandora, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu)... People are caring less about owning the content than having access to it.

Currently with DRM there are a variety of plugins to support it in the browser. You have to download Widevine's plugin, or PlayReady's plugin, or whatever. It's just a better user experience if we really do need DRM to have some standardized DRM that the browsers can implement to make it seamless for the user.

Note that I don't support DRM, I think it's a total waste of time because the movies aren't released to the wild by your average Joe who is downloading movies from Amazon. It just serves to hurt the average user. However I think that if we must have DRM, it should at least be something that is easier and works better for the average user.

To answer your question: the difference is that Mozilla is not going out and promoting DRM. They are being pragmatic and reasonable in the less than ideal situation.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#203

Post by LeafyGreenbriar »

Shivetya wrote: post #171
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…

What gets me is this was a party line vote. So is it good the three voted for this or was it good the other two voted against? Whose on whose side here?

Well, the Republicans voted against it because they believe that ANY regulation of broadband is unnecessary and beyond the FCC's power anyway.

The Democrats believe that the federal government, acting through the FCC, should regulate broadband.

Both sides seem to accept the idea of an "internet fast-lane," they just disagree about how to get there. None of them are on our side.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#204

Post by couchand »

seanieb wrote: post #174
carsonreinke wrote: post #161

Maybe I am missing something, but what is the argument ISPs have for this?

They are a very large contributor to Democratic politicians.

To be clear, the Democrat appointees are the ones pushing for a return to net neutrality.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#205

Post by couchand »

"If a network operator slowed the speed of service below that which the consumer bought, it would be commercially unreasonable and therefore prohibited," Wheeler said.

I find this quote very interesting. Currently the trend seems to be that the sticker speed on a connection bears little resemblance to the actual speed. I wonder if he has a plan to change that or if this was just an offhand remark.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#206

Post by dragonwriter »

jon_black wrote: post #195

Assuming the plan were to be approved, and given that the FCC is an American government organisation, are there any implications for those in other countries? Also, how can an American government organisation consider paid priority on The (global) Internet? Isn't it better to say that "FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet for those who connect to it via a US telecoms provider"?

> Assuming the plan were to be approved, and given that the FCC is an American government organisation, are there any implications for those in other countries?

If its approved, then there would be limits -- which do not currently exist -- on what USP based ISPs could do to discriminate between content sources in providing access to consumers. This includes, among others, content sources in foreign countries. So it certainly has implications for foreign content providers, but probably less for foreign consumers.

> Also, how can an American government organisation consider paid priority on The (global) Internet?

Its not. Its considering limiting what US broadband providers can do.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#207

Post by opendais »

rayiner wrote: post #79
opendais wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people at the FCC are saying the opposite of what they mean. Yes, we are in the same boat with Netflix having to pay for bandwidth as before. However, by the FCC officially sanctioning something that would have been technically illegal before the Federal ruling, they've basically reversed course and declared open season on content providers the ISPs don't like.

> The people at the FCC are saying the opposite of what they mean. No, net-neutrality proponents are saying the opposite of what they mean. They couch this in terms of "protecting the open internet." Except there never was an "open internet." Before the short-lived net neutrality regulations, cable companies were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their network. And that's true now that the regulations have been…

If the government blocks fair competition in a market [through controlling who can provide last mile connections by right of way], they need to provide regulation to enforce fairness on the other end [those that provide last mile connections can't pick and choose whose packets they carry and at what QoS].

There used to be counterweights involved [e.g. Comcast had to play ball fairly] which effectively forced neutrality. Netflix, for instance, wasn't a 'problem' back in 2007 for the ISPs. We didn't have the ISPs pulling QoS BS like this in the 90s because people could and would switch providers. They can't now unless they want to go back to using dialup.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#208

Post by winslow »

probably_wrong wrote: post #169
winslow wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. Mozilla fought the DRM implementation more than any other browser. They were at the point where they unfortunately had to implement it, otherwise their user base wouldn't be able to access services like netflix etc. At that point it's better to keep your user base instead of them switching to another browser and having no voice.

You raise a good point. I'm not smart enough to give a good reply to the issue on my own, so instead I'm going to quote the relevant part of the FSFs statement[1] from a different discussion[2]: > We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points out[3] that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made any effort to study the situation. More importantly, popularity is not…

I'd argue you are smart enough to give a good reply. You've given your reference material as well (which I should have done previously). You are reading and engaging in Hacker News topics, this means you are way above the "average" person. You are smart enough to give a good reply :)

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#209

Post by dragonwriter »

LeafyGreenbriar wrote: post #203
Shivetya wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is this was a party line vote. So is it good the three voted for this or was it good the other two voted against? Whose on whose side here?

Well, the Republicans voted against it because they believe that ANY regulation of broadband is unnecessary and beyond the FCC's power anyway. The Democrats believe that the federal government, acting through the FCC, should regulate broadband. Both sides seem to accept the idea of an "internet fast-lane," they just disagree about how to get there. None of them are on our side.

>Both sides seem to accept the idea of an "internet fast-lane"

I don't see how you get that from the actual facts here, where the FCC (on a 3-2 party-line vote) first adopted regulations with non-discrimination provisions that were struck down by the D.C. Circuit, and then put together (on the same 3-2 vote) a proposal designed to revive those same provisions to the extent consistent with the limits on the FCCs authority laid out in the decision striking the old order down, and specifically calling for public comment on how best to structure the rules within the limits imposed by the Court to prevent discrimination.

Its clear that one side has no problem with the idea of a "fast lane", but I don't see where you get that for the other side.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#210

Post by joelcollinsdc »

adamio wrote: post #54
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…

Comcast: Video streaming services must pay 40x the base cost, or suffer from a data cap. Amazon: OK, we'll sign a 4 year contract for 30x the base cost. Comcast: Great Year 5 comes around, Amazon wants a discount. Comcast refuses. Comcast then blocks all Amazon IP Address traffic until they reach a deal. Comcast: Customers, you cannot access Amazon video on our service, but here's a $5 coupon to our own video on dema…

"After weeks of public outcry over the proposal, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency would not allow for unfair, or "commercially unreasonable," business practices. He wouldn't accept, for instance, practices that leave a consumer with slower downloads of some Web sites than what the consumer paid for from their Internet service provider."

From what I understand, your example would not be permissable. I know there are downsides to this, but a lot of the negative sentiment I see about this seems like an exaggeration which may not work in our favor.

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