Live data from Hacker News

Net neutrality

blog.samaltman.com

51–60 of 270 posts

Re: Net neutrality

#51
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.

Conversely, I wouldn't say there has been much innovation at all in water or electricity infrastructure over the last 50 years. The utilities in place are perfectly happy to collect their modest, but government-guaranteed profit.

Perhaps it still makes sense to turn the last mile into a utility, but best to go in with our eyes open about the looming downside. There's not a free lunch to be had here.

Re: Net neutrality

#52
post #47
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?

In general submitting comments on a government action is completely visible to everyone.

As a favor to a colleague I once did some data-analysis for public comments. She just shipped me everyone's data. I asked if that was legal and was told that she was required to give it to anyone who asks.

This feels weird for a web-comment BBS, but it's totally normal for the government requesting comments on policy.

Re: Net neutrality

#53
post #47
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?

Yeah, looks that way. Putting my name on protecting the internet is something I'm proud to do. Putting my address down is a bit obnoxious though - I doubt they're going to do any verification on these.

Re: Net neutrality

#54
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,…

"It's their traffic, they should be able to route it however they want" It's their pipes , not their traffic . A minor distinction, but an important one. :)

You are 100% correct. I'll edit.

Re: Net neutrality

#55
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.

[deleted]

Re: Net neutrality

#57

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, colo…

To play devil's advocate, Apple also censors nipples. Both can change their stance on nipples. Like private companies, representative governments do respond to popular opinion, the avenues of applying pressure are just different.

Government and corporations each have certain advantages and faults by design. I'd prefer a public road and a private car, to a private road and a public car.

Re: Net neutrality

#58
post #5

"I have met with the Chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, and I believe he is a good actor that wants to do the right thing. But he is fighting against very powerful lobbyists and large companies that want to disrupt the freedom of the Internet." "Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry" -Wikipedia Really? Somehow I doubt that he has turned a f…

Instead of making the lazy connection that he used to be a lobbyist and he must still keep those views, why don't you read some of the stuff he's written over the years, or look at some of the companies he's backed to see if you think he's still beholden to the cable companies?

Read this article from Wheeler about SOPA, written long before he was at the FCC:

http://www.mobilemusings.net/2012/02/how-sop-was-undone-by-s...

> Backed by Hollywood and others whose business model requires controlled scarcity of product, SOPA in many ways echoed the cable fight of 40 years earlier. The policy matter is not whether copyright holders should receive recompense for their products (they should), but whether legislation to protect that right is aircover to perpetuate old practices at the expense of new networks. There is no doubt there are honest-to-God Web pirates operating in China, Russia, and elsewhere who are stealing copyrighted product. These pirates should be stopped. But SOPA’s effort to accomplish this – which also just happened to strengthen the hand of content companies in other regards – applied concepts more applicable to the command and control networks of yesterday than to the open access networks of today. The result was an unparalleled protest and a political train wreck.

Does that sound like some mustache-twirling lobbyist-in-disguise?

Or his thinking about net neutrality from 2009:

> So, in a world where spectrum licensees are unwilling to part with their assignments and the spectrum agency wants to help while at the same time increasing demand, why isn’t net neutrality an opportunity for the wireless industry? Viewing the current spectrum and net neutrality issues holistically rather than in isolation just might be an opportunity for both the wireless industry and the Administration.

> President Obama campaigned on his support for net neutrality. Thus, it should come as no surprise that his FCC chairman has moved promptly on the matter, or that a Democrat-controlled commission is likely to adopt it. How it is implemented thus becomes more important than whether it exists. Rules that recognize the unique characteristics of a spectrum-based service and allow for reasonable network management would seem to be more important than the philosophical debate over whether there should be rules at all. Similarly, a rule that allows for variable pricing is an opportunity for wireless carriers to change the revenue paradigm at a time when revenue per megabyte is in a freefall.

http://www.mobilemusings.net/2009/11/net-neutrality-and-spec...

Re: Net neutrality

#59
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know when that happened, but when I had DSL about, oh 6 years ago, they practically begged me to sign up with MSN. I think they got a commission for it. I chose just to go straight with the company who owned the equipment, my phone company.

I think some resellers were grandfathered in when it was reclassified, but not many of them were left at that point anyway. And you're right, they probably did get some sort of commission: providing the service itself was so unprofitable (even with line sharing) the DSL ISPs had to find additional revenue channels.

Re: Net neutrality

#60
I agree, there's no real competition for the "last mile." (If there were real competition, ISPs would be trampling over each other to deliver the best Netflix experience and bragging about it in their advertising campaigns!)

Requiring the incumbent mono/duopolistic last-mile ISPs to lease their lines may improve the situation, but I'm not as sure as Sam Altman that it would bring about real competition, because of the difficulties inherent in enforcing "fair, transparent leasing." Incumbents surely would find lots of clever ways to game any leasing scheme imposed by the FCC while technically "complying" with it.

I expect it would be better for US consumers than the status quo, though.

Post reply on HN