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FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

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Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#271

Post by danielweber »

politician wrote: post #242
rayiner wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Investors and shareholders are not in favor of pouring billions of dollars a year into infrastructure either. Comcast spent $5.4 billion on capital expenditures in 2013: http://www.cmcsa.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821438 . TWC spent $3.2 billion: http://ir.timewarnercable.com/investor-relations/investor-ne... . Verizon and AT&T regularly top the list of companies with the highest U.S. capital expenditures, and…

> Comcast spent... Absolute dollars isn't as interesting as a trend. According to the National Cable Telecommunications Association, expenditure on broadband infrastructure has declined over the past 5 years. http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-broadban... > We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia. According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds. http://…

> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia.

According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds.

You know you didn't disagree with him at all, right? Your source shows the US beating out Canada comfortably, and Australia overwhelmingly.

The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and Singapore, ever, because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with weak democratic red tape.

I can't say this with 100% (I may have missed one comparing lists from different sources), but it looks like there's no country within an order of magnitude of America's land area that has higher download speeds on Ookla's list.

EDIT Yep, confirmed. It looks like the biggest country that is faster than the US is France, which is 547,000 sqkm, while the lower US's land-only area is over 7.6 million sqkm.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#272

Post by sinak »

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…

The full text of the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was just put online here:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-61A...

This was just released - I imagine there'll be a surge in articles once journalists have had time to digest the full document.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#273

Post by rayiner »

opendais wrote: post #267
rayiner wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You concede that higher levels of regulation increase regulatory costs. But you assume that as long as you make all regulation equally burdensome, the market will somehow fix things. But you're ignoring the fact that capital is fluid, and will flow out of regulated industries like telecom into less regulated industries. You can't invoke the market then ignore basic aspects of how the market works. Places in Europe ar…

Please explain how all other utilities and common carriers are effective in the US and able to receive sufficient capital investment to provide reliable service? Having a near-monopoly reduces risk significantly. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/13/366988/over-half... We subsidize Utilities & Telecommunications roughly equally via tax breaks. Oh, and they get subsidies like Sweden too: https://www.ncta.com/ne…

> http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/13/366988/over-half.... We subsidize Utilities & Telecommunications roughly equally via tax breaks.

Uh, please read the methodology of the linked article. Those aren't direct tax subsidies. It's a made-up number based on effective tax rates below 35%. By your logic, the government is heavily subsidizing Apple & Google, which pay much less than the 35% rate.

> Please explain how all other utilities and common carriers are effective in the US and able to receive sufficient capital investment to provide reliable service?

They're not. Utility infrastructure in the U.S. barely gets enough investment to keep it operation, much less keep up with technological development: http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2011/12/asce-report-o....

> https://www.ncta.com/news-and-events/media-room/article/2338

The one-time ARRA money is for jobs programs. The money is distributed to municipalities, and may or may not be used to actually build broadband anywhere.

> Sweden didn't even put 1 billion in.

Sweden putting in $900 million is like the U.S. putting in $27 billion.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#274

Post by danielweber »

j2kun wrote: post #223
joelcollinsdc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 the…

Comcast has regularly ignored rules set by the FCC in favor of long court battles (that they eventually won). In the mean time, consumers have to deal with it.

If the worry is that Comcast won't follow the FCC rules, then why bother with anything?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#275

Post by shkkmo »

rayiner wrote: post #219
mortenjorck wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 technicali…

You really do not want broadband classified under Title II. You will get the war you want, but it will be a war everyone loses. Why do you think DSL is such a ghetto? It's because it's subject to a higher level of regulations, and nobody wants to invest money in such a highly-regulated industry: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-Veriz... . Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitel…

Except that the amount of money those companies are pouring into infrastructure is dropping already.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140514/06500227230/cable-...

Maybe if their margins drop, they will stop opposing community broadband:

http://www.consumereagle.com/2014/03/13/cable-companies-figh...

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#276

Post by pdonis »

rayiner wrote: post #258
pdonis wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Market forces have been undeniably screwing us for the better part of a decade. Excuse me? What's been screwing us in broadband is precisely that market forces are not operating, because local governments have been giving sweetheart deals to particular providers.

I suggest you read some of these agreements, they're usually online. Here's the one for my town: http://www.wilmingtonde.gov/docs/1320/3716Rev1.pdf . These aren't sweetheart deals. Generally, they extract millions of dollars for tangentially-related municipal programs, and then have build-out requirements forcing you to serve areas above a certain density even if you can't sign up enough customers to make it profitab…

> the terms are unattractive enough such that only the big de-facto monopolies are willing to take the deal.

Which means that these are effectively sweetheart deals for the big de facto monopolies, since without them there would certainly be an incentive for smaller competitors to enter the market. That may not have been the intent of the municipal governments, so "sweetheart deal" may not be the best descriptive term, but that's what ends up happening. It certainly isn't a free market with these kinds of requirements in place.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#277

Post by sjaaktrekhaak »

briandear wrote: post #247
rayiner wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time to nationalize then. I hate even thinking that, but I'd rather have tax dollars wasted than see our money funnelled to Wall Street. When capital investment into broadband is set by vote, do you think you'll be happy with the resulting level of investment?

Nationalizing anything nearly always leads to lower quality. Compare the toll roads in France to the "free" autobahns in Germany. The French toll routes are far better maintained. Another case is health care, compare an NHS experience with a hip replacement in the UK with a hip replacement in France (or the US.) In the UK, the waiting list is measured in 6+ months, while in the US or France, it is almost immediate. F…

Your argument doesn't add up. The autoroutes of France belong to the government and their semi-private companies[1].

As a counter example, all roads in the Netherlands are owned by the government - and the Dutch roads are considered to be of outstanding quality. Major roads are taken care of on a province level, smaller roads on a municipality level - however all of them have to ensure the roads are safe to travel and will not cause damage to your vehicle, nor are unsafe to drive.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoroutes_of_France#Administra...

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#278

Post by rcraft »

mortenjorck wrote: post #187
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 technicali…

Thoughts on what effect title II designation would have on innovative ISPs such as Google fiber and webpass?

Would Google still be inclined to invest money in Fiber?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#279

Post by jsz0 »

carsonreinke wrote: post #161

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

Residential Internet access is almost universally sold as a 'best effort' class of service. There is no guarantee of availably or speeds outside of the provider's network.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#280

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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