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Net neutrality

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Net neutrality

#21

Post by rhino369 »

asadotzler wrote: post #12
Touche wrote: post #8

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. Devil's advocate, why would any company want to be the infrastructure-owning company then? Aren't they in the worst spot?

Why would any company want to sell electricity or water? This is not a new problem. Let's stop pretending it is.

It's not a new problem, but the history of telecoms show exactly why it's a bad solution. Do you really want to go back to the days of AT&T controlling everything?

Do you want a local PUC deciding how fast your internet should and how much it should cost? Do you want them deciding that 5 dollars more a month isn't worth tripling the speed?

It works for power and water because the infrastructure doesn't turn over very fast.

If you had your way in the late 1900's we'd all be on ASDL right now.

Re: Net neutrality

#22

Post by nitrogen »

bmelton wrote: post #7

I've been fairly on the fence regarding net neutrality, and this article turned me around on the issue. Previously, it was nearly impossible for me to reconcile a valid reason for regulating the telcos. It's their pipes, they should be able to route it however they want. And aside from that, we've never had net neutrality -- there's no ISP I've ever used that allows unfettered upstream access to port 80 from my home,…

there's no ISP I've ever used that allows unfettered upstream access to port 80 from my home, for example.

Back in the day, I used to subscribe to Sprint's wireless cable equivalent. It had a range of 30 miles from the base station, and provided cable-equivalent speeds (for the day; the upstream was very slow by today's standards). Notably, they also provided a static IP address and unfettered access to ports 25 and 80, so I ran my own personal web and mail servers.

As you realize in your last two lines, if we had more competition, ISPs might still block ports by default for consumer safety, but provide a no-cost, no-hassle option to unblock them.

Re: Net neutrality

#23

Post by alex_duf »

njs12345 wrote: post #19

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. [2] This is pretty much how it works in the UK; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach It does seem to work pretty well.. there are a wide variety of operators and prices are very low. If I ha…

That's also how it works in France.

Re: Net neutrality

#24

Post by danielweber »

njs12345 wrote: post #19

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. [2] This is pretty much how it works in the UK; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach It does seem to work pretty well.. there are a wide variety of operators and prices are very low. If I ha…

I've been led to believe (by conversations here on HN as well as elsewhere) that DSL in the US is operating under that regime -- the phone companies are required to lease them out, so you can have 5 different providers all selling you DSL over the same wires. But DSL bandwidths strongly lag behind cable modem bandwidths because the people laying the wire have no desire to upgrade for the benefit of their competitors.

How much truth is there to this?

Re: Net neutrality

#25

Post by danielweber »

asadotzler wrote: post #12
Touche wrote: post #8

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. Devil's advocate, why would any company want to be the infrastructure-owning company then? Aren't they in the worst spot?

Why would any company want to sell electricity or water? This is not a new problem. Let's stop pretending it is.

The electricity and water systems, while definitely needing upkeep, don't need to prepare for a doubling of usage every few years.

Edit Plus, the electric company definitely does some kind of demand shaping: shutting off AC compressors on a rolling, as-needed basis. In water emergencies the water company will declare which days I can water the lawn or wash my car. "Utility" isn't synonymous with "totally dumb pipe."

Re: Net neutrality

#26

Post by twoodfin »

njs12345 wrote: post #19

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. [2] This is pretty much how it works in the UK; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach It does seem to work pretty well.. there are a wide variety of operators and prices are very low. If I ha…

If I had to pick out common criticisms, Openreach can take their time if you have to deal with them directly (getting a line installed in a new office or apartment can take a few weeks), and there seems to be very limited innovation in the last mile - even in London it's hard to get more than 20mbps, and many people in rural areas are stuck with a crappy DSL line at 2mbps or so.

That's exactly what I'd expect. Make infrastructure a low margin utility and a true monopoly and you'll get utility-grade results.

If everyone here (as I do) hopes they'll have gigabit speeds to their homes in a few years, you have to plausibly explain how those upgrades happen in a utility infrastructure regulatory world.

Re: Net neutrality

#27

Post by exelius »

njs12345 wrote: post #19

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. [2] This is pretty much how it works in the UK; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach It does seem to work pretty well.. there are a wide variety of operators and prices are very low. If I ha…

> and there seems to be very limited innovation in the last mile - even in London it's hard to get more than 20mbps, and many people in rural areas are stuck with a crappy DSL line at 2mbps or so.

This is the entirety of the problem with the DSL-style line sharing. If the companies operating the infrastructure get paid on a per-customer basis, they have no incentive to make the service better by improving service for individual customers. The incentive is to provide service to as many customers as possible regardless of the quality / speed of that service.

If you want DSL-style line sharing to work in the US, the line owners will need to charge the ISPs on a per-gigabyte basis. This pretty much requires the ISPs to charge on a metered basis as well. This would be an overwhelmingly bad thing for companies doing business over the Internet.

I've been banging this drum for a while: companies will act in their own best interest, so you have to align the economic incentives with the desired behavior. If you try to regulate to enforce the behavior you want without the proper incentives, the investment dollars will just move somewhere else because it becomes too hard to make a profit.

Re: Net neutrality

#28

Post by jusben1369 »

the_watcher wrote: post #14

The wireless v. home internet is a great thing to point out. It's the exact same companies, but operating with less of a monopoly.

I now get about 30down/20 up at my house with LTE from ATT and pay for and get 15/5 with ATT U-Verse. 6 months ago we paid maybe $160 per month for two phones and 2 GB per month download. Now it's $160 per month for 4 phones and 10GB. So it seems to me that, when I factor in the cost savings of $50 per month of shutting down cable internet, won't I be happy to soon spend $200 to $250 per month with ATT LTE to get 30/20 and say 100GB per month?

Re: Net neutrality

#29

Post by exelius »

danielweber wrote: post #24
njs12345 wrote: post #19

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. [2] This is pretty much how it works in the UK; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach It does seem to work pretty well.. there are a wide variety of operators and prices are very low. If I ha…

I've been led to believe (by conversations here on HN as well as elsewhere) that DSL in the US is operating under that regime -- the phone companies are required to lease them out, so you can have 5 different providers all selling you DSL over the same wires. But DSL bandwidths strongly lag behind cable modem bandwidths because the people laying the wire have no desire to upgrade for the benefit of their competitors.…

DSL in the US used to operate that way until it failed spectacularly due to the reasons you mention and the FCC reclassified DSL as an information service.

Re: Net neutrality

#30

Post by walterbell »

njs12345 wrote: post #19

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem. [2] This is pretty much how it works in the UK; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach It does seem to work pretty well.. there are a wide variety of operators and prices are very low. If I ha…

Didn't 1996 telecom deregulation mandate sharing of last mile copper, creating short-lived (~5 years) DSL CLECs funded by about $20B of public IPOs? Various tactics were employed by incumbent telcos to slow down the CLECs, while nominally complying with the requirement to share the last mile.
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