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Net neutrality

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Net neutrality

#41

Post by warfangle »

twoodfin wrote: post #26
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 i…

>utility-grade results

Hopefully not gas-delivery grade results. 5-10% of methane delivered via mains in the UK is lost to atmosphere. Similar leakage rates are found in the US, sometimes much worse. The main (heh, no pun intended) source of these leaks are cast iron pipes that are over 100 years old.

And unlike the Internet, when those things fail, things literally explode.

Re: Net neutrality

#43

Post by chimeracoder »

twoodfin wrote: post #26
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 i…

> If everyone here (as I do) hopes they'll have gigabit speeds to their homes in a few years,

Unless you already live in a very densely populated area[0], I don't think there's any reasonable chance of that happening for most people, whether we go the Title II route or not.

Title II is better than the alternative, but having gigabit speeds for most households is quite a ways off no matter how we do it.

[0] And even then - I live in Manhattan and several buildings on my block have FiOS, but mine does not (thanks to TWC's exclusive agreement with the building owner).

Re: Net neutrality

#44

Post by rhino369 »

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.…

You can use the local loop, if it exists. It's just not cheap than ADSL, which is already cheap as fuck.

Though AT&T and Verizon are ripping out the connections if they bring fiber to your house, and you can't share that line.

Re: Net neutrality

#45

Post by lukeschlather »

danielweber wrote: post #25
asadotzler wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

The electricity and water systems don't benefit from their component costs being cut in half every few years. This isn't some situation where people just unreasonably expect better service for no reason, the technology gets better and cheaper.

Furthermore, Internet bandwidth is not a commodity like electricity or water. There's no supply to diminish. What the telecoms want to do is more like if suburban streets were toll roads, Amazon owned the toll roads, and Amazon wanted to add a "congestion" charge for trucks carrying non-Amazon packages.

Re: Net neutrality

#46

Post by bowlofpetunias »

Forced leasing of the last mile nor any kind of actual competition doesn't solve the problem, and the US wireless market is far from healthy.

Half of this article is still free-market wishful thinking.

The Netherlands, where there are plenty of ISP's to choose from, made Net Neutrality law exactly because the mobile providers "magically" nearly simultaneously announced plans for breaking net neutrality. (And after net neutrality became law, they all decided to raise their data prices.)

In a market with a limited number of players (and there will always be a limited number of players, regardless of regulation), it's way too easy to form informal cartels. A free market doesn't mean we magically don't need consumer protection or civil rights.

Also "wireless Internet is good"? All mobile services in the US are overpriced, suck balls and generally exploit the lack of regulation in a way that would see consumers in most other countries revolt.

Re: Net neutrality

#47

Post by jonahx »

zoba wrote: post #42

Folks: If you go here: http://www.fcc.gov/comments and click 14-28 ("Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet"), it will take you to a form where you can submit your comments.

In order to post comments, you have to make your name and address available on the site publicly? Am I understanding that correctly?

Re: Net neutrality

#48

Post by danielweber »

warfangle wrote: post #41
twoodfin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

>utility-grade results Hopefully not gas-delivery grade results. 5-10% of methane delivered via mains in the UK is lost to atmosphere. Similar leakage rates are found in the US, sometimes much worse. The main (heh, no pun intended) source of these leaks are cast iron pipes that are over 100 years old. And unlike the Internet, when those things fail, things literally explode.

Methane is a much worse GHG than CO2. This seems like a very significant problem.

Re: Net neutrality

#49

Post by orblivion »

I'll try not to be an overbearing libertarian here talking about how this is all the government's fault. It's not 100% clear to me and somebody else has that covered. But I do want to put one concept out there as food for thought. The FCC's mission statement (amended in 1996) is the following:

"make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."

Net Neutrality seems to fit within the spirit of this mission statement. And yet the FCC is also in the business of censoring nipples. Do you want to risk the FCC to be in the business of censoring nipples on the Internet? I can already anticipate what people will say when that day comes. "Look, the government isn't perfect, we don't have to dismantle it, We the People just have to vote somebody into office who will speak for us and implement reasonable standards.". Ok, so when was the last time that happened to your satisfaction? Do you really want to risk having this kind of future on the prospect that reasonable people will be voted into office?

This is one reasons libertarians and certain conservatives fight tooth and nail against every increase in the scope of government, no matter how reasonable it may seem. I'm more interested in the future of mesh networking, or any number of things we haven't even thought of, to work around this sort of thing.

Re: Net neutrality

#50

Post by toast0 »

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.…

It's a little bit complex now. The incumbent carrier (ILEC) is still required to lease lines at the Central Office, but they used to be required to lease access to DSL delivered from remote terminals as well. AT&T still provides leased access to DSL delivered from remote terminals, but does not provide leased access to U-Verse, so companies leasing access can put their own DSLAMs in the central office and compete on speeds for users near the central office, but not in areas that are primarily served by remote terminals after AT&T rolls out U-Verse's ADSL2 and VDSL based DSLAMs; the leased access for users behind remote terminals is limited to 6mbps ADSL1.

In cities which have been dense for a long time, like San Francisco, there are lots of central offices, and competition using leased access is feasible, but in cities where density is more recent, such as San Jose, there may only be one central office, and there's only a small area with feasible competition with leased access.

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