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Net neutrality

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Net neutrality

#101

Post by [deleted] »

lonnyk wrote: post #87
snitko wrote: post #74

I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and prices. They would show up on time and connect you very fast. They fix things quickly (in my government maintained house, the basement once became filled with water after the rain, and the wires were damaged. Even though it wasn't their fault, the ISP came and fi…

>whereas the only way to fix things is to not allow governmental interference in the first place. But we are past this point. So what is the solution now?

[deleted]

Re: Net neutrality

#102

Post by exelius »

wtallis wrote: post #61
exelius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Why? It seems to me that metered internet could work just fine, if the prices are at least somewhat connected with reality (meaning…

But the prices you list aren't connected with reality. They're your wishful thinking of what Internet access should cost. Reality says that most telecom companies make about 10-15% net margins, so there really isn't room to drop prices more than 10% or so from where they are currently, even if the ISPs are willing to abandon all hope of profits.

It's also a well-known psychological phenomenon that people will curtail usage if they know their usage will cost them more -- even if the amount is trivial. The last thing Internet-based companies like Netflix or Amazon want is for people to use the Internet less. Current metering systems really only "catch" the most egregious offenders (less than 1% of total customers). Most ISPs have a "business class" plan you can purchase for more that truly is unlimited, if you find yourself exceeding the caps on a residential account on a regular basis.

Re: Net neutrality

#103

Post by diafygi »

Retric wrote: post #66
cs702 wrote: post #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 th…

One option would be to prevent any company from operating a last mile AND selling it to retail customers. Honestly, what I find most striking is how bad cable boxes are simply because there is no completion.

Texas does this for electricity, where the grid maintainer (regulated) is split from the power provider (deregulated). It took a decade to get it to work, but now it works really well and the competition in the power provider market is fierce.

Re: Net neutrality

#104

Post by tehwebguy »

NoPiece wrote: post #83

This is not the case for the “last mile”. Consumers often can only buy Internet access from a single provider; there is no choice. This is often asserted, but not true. According to the FCC, 97% of consumers have access to at least 2 broadband providers. 67% of people have access to at least 2 providers at 10mbps. Here is the graph from the FCC: http://i.imgur.com/xhn1YCF.png and the original source doc: http://trans…

The "last mile" argument is true, your numbers don't disprove it because they don't represent a percentage of consumers with said broadband options.

The report's title is: Percentages of Households Located in Census Tracts Where Providers Report Residential Fixed-Location Connections of Various Speeds as of December 31, 2012

If the census tract where a household is located has access to 2+ broadband providers it satisfies this test, even if the household itself has access to less than 2. An entire tract that includes 2 cable companies that offer 10+ mbps but only offer exclusive service to locations would still satisfy this test even though 0 of the residences have access to 2+ services.

Re: Net neutrality

#105

Post by MBCook »

JTon wrote: post #95
MBCook wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, due to their (Comcast's) own stupidity, I ended up having a couple of visits from Comcast techs trying to fix an issue. Every single one was wowed by my TiVo. Just seeing how fast it was to respond (which has never been a TiVo strong suit) and how reasonable the interface was amazed them. That's pathetic.

Why bother attacking the comcast techs? These guys are just trying to make a living. The real problems come from well above

Sorry, I meant due to Comcast's stupidity, not the techs.

The two techs I worked with were very nice and clearly frustrated with their inability to help me at times due odd barriers in the way Comcast has things setup, stupid hoops to jump through.

I've edited my comment.

Re: Net neutrality

#106

Post by chimeracoder »

exelius wrote: post #64
chimeracoder wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> [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). This is a problem with MDUs and why the big telecoms have dedicated sales teams assigned to make these kinds of deals. The more likely scenario is that Verizon was working on getting these kinds of deals set up, then they halted FiOS expansion and stop…

> The more likely scenario is that Verizon was working on getting these kinds of deals set up, then they halted FiOS expansion and stopped adding new buildings before they got to yours.

Actually, no, they are still adding new buildings in NYC, but only on the condition that they provide both television and Internet service to the building. (For a short period of time they did Internet-only out on Long Island, but they've stopped that).

I got very far up the Verizon chain and found out a lot of information about this, which is why I know the specifics here.

In my case, I requested that Verizon figure out whether they wanted to provide service to my building (they did) and that they then contact my building (they did), at which point it turned out that TV (not Internet) for the building could only be provided by TWC.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Verizon uses this as an easy excuse to avoid expanding their service (since 2010 or 2011, Verizon has been very half-hearted about FiOS and doesn't really seem to care about expanding FiOS as much as they care about appearing to care)[0].

> I don't think contractual exclusivity is legal,

No, but they've found creative ways to get around it, and it's certainly not something that's widely enforced.

[0] My evidence in favor of that comes more from my experience dealing with them in New England.

Re: Net neutrality

#107

Post by saucetenuto »

whistlecrackers wrote: post #79

The author of this article -- like most others who write on the topic -- fails to understand that the lack of competition is not due to a "market failure". Rather, it is due to government intervention that allows only a few -- or a single -- provider in an area.

From the article:

> Municipalities, often for good reason, gave these edge providers a monopoly (the bad kind of monopoly where consumers can’t choose to leave) and often used tax dollars to fund the development.

Your guess about the author was mistaken.

Re: Net neutrality

#108

Post by matthewmacleod »

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…

"there seems to be very limited innovation in the last mile - even in London it's hard to get more than 20mbps"

That's just not true - vast swathes of London now have access to the VDSL-based Infinity service which is up to 76Mb down; there are quite a few FTTP exchanges too.

Re: Net neutrality

#110

Post by vajorie »

snitko wrote: post #74

I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and prices. They would show up on time and connect you very fast. They fix things quickly (in my government maintained house, the basement once became filled with water after the rain, and the wires were damaged. Even though it wasn't their fault, the ISP came and fi…

> BECAUSE you have government sticking its nose where it shouldn't (I'd say, it shouldn't stick its nose anywhere, but that's another story). Comcast is the second largest lobbyist in Washington.

Your argument, even though it reads like liberal laissez-faire stuff, actually is: the government is being controlled by corporations.

So, your solution of "stop regulation" is offtopic. Come up with something relevant to your own argument first. Like, hmm, "stop corporations from dictating governance". That'll work.

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