Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 452 posts

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#71

Post by Terr_ »

ceejayoz wrote: post #18
supergeek133 wrote: post #4

I get what they're trying to accomplish, we all want faster more reliable service, but as comparison is anyone 100% happy with their utility (power, water, etc)? That's where this is headed.

> I get what they're trying to accomplish, we all want faster more reliable service, but as comparison is anyone 100% happy with their utility (power, water, etc)? I am. My water is clean and I've never had an outage. My power is reasonably cheap and quite reliable. The state doesn't allow either one to raise rates exorbitantly from year to year, either, and despite that both have made major upgrades to their facilit…

And General Electric doesn't change you extra for your power when they detect it's being used in a non-GE toaster.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#72

Post by djrogers »

freehunter wrote: post #47
IanDrake wrote: post #23

That will be a sad day. Internet technology still has a lot of room to improve before the government steps in and kills all market forces that encourage those improvements. If you don't like your current service levels now, just wait until the government gets involved.

>market forces that encourage those improvements. Like a Comcast monopoly? You mean those market forces?

Most municipalities grant monopolies to cable providers based on the theory that it's the only way to get someone to build and maintain the cable infrastructure.

Granted monopolies do not allow for market forces...

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#73

Post by brown9-2 »

djrogers wrote: post #46
skywhopper wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that these "unelected bureaucrats" are nominated by a President for limited terms and confirmed by the Senate, and that all powers they have are bestowed upon them by Congress and can be revoked, and that their regulations have to fit within restrictions that are defined and may be revised by Congress. It's certainly not pretty, but it's not unaccountable, and it seems to be moving things in the gen…

>> their regulations have to fit within restrictions that are defined and may be revised by Congress This is only notionally true, and history is replete with examples of federal agencies declaring their own authority over things which were obviously not envisioned so. While congress could act to change that, they don't, so power collects.

and history is replete with examples of federal agencies declaring their own authority over things which were obviously not envisioned so

What about in this case? Would you argue the Title 2 declaration is within or not within the FCC's mandate? If you agree it is within the mandate, then bringing up unrelated assumptions of authority is not relevant.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#74

Post by nickff »

amputect wrote: post #52
supergeek133 wrote: post #4

I get what they're trying to accomplish, we all want faster more reliable service, but as comparison is anyone 100% happy with their utility (power, water, etc)? That's where this is headed.

My tap water is clean and delicious and I have never, ever had a problem with it. I have never experienced an unscheduled service interruption with my water, and scheduled service interruptions are very rare and advertised well in advance. My electricity is stable and reliable, and any power outages I've experienced have been brief, and exclusively due to exceptional weather events. I'm also a Comcast customer, and I…

Why would a lack of service by an internet provider be comparable to a utility pumping sewage?

Shouldn't you be looking at water restrictions which the utilities blame on drought? This is the most similar type of event to the Comcast outage which you are describing. Both could have been prevented through better planning, capital expenditures, and forethought. If this is the comparison, both Comcast and many water providers fail, though the internet providers have gradually improving products, while the utilities do not (as far as I know). Most industries' products do not fall from the sky, yet they still manage to provide an adequate supply.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#75

Post by toomuchtodo »

tptacek wrote: post #22
markbao wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you live, I suppose. I have zero problems with my ConEd power and whoever supplies my water, and I find the pricing pretty reasonable. My power supplier even offers different energy sources to use other than the standard one, which honestly blows my mind. And then I call into Time Warner spend more time trying to get them to understand what I'm talking about than I've ever spent on the phone with my…

I also have generally positive experiences with power company employees. On the other hand: i. I can't fire my power company, nor can I ever really expect to gain that ability. ii. As nice and hardworking as the power company employees are, there's still only one main power run for the 1/8th of Oak Park that I live in, and any time a tree goes down in the alley along that run, or a squirrel detonates a transformer al…

> ii. As nice and hardworking as the power company employees are, there's still only one main power run for the 1/8th of Oak Park that I live in, and any time a tree goes down in the alley along that run, or a squirrel detonates a transformer along it, I lose power for 6-8 hours. My block has a truly awful electric service uptime.

Is that power run an overhead ComEd hasn't/won't bury?

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#76

Post by sliverstorm »

pluma wrote: post #41
spiritplumber wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised at how reliable utilities are in America. I was in a low income neighborhood in San Antonio during university, and had maybe 2 blackouts in 3 years.

Where are you from exactly? I live in Europe and 2 blackouts in 3 years would still be an outrage. (To be fair, we have less natural disasters.)

We're missing a lot of context. San Antonio is in Texas, which means these could have been rolling blackouts, one of the last-ditch efforts employed by power companies during record summer temperature spikes (which translate to monumental load spikes in the form of A/C)

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#77

Post by chc »

IanDrake wrote: post #23

That will be a sad day. Internet technology still has a lot of room to improve before the government steps in and kills all market forces that encourage those improvements. If you don't like your current service levels now, just wait until the government gets involved.

From all I have heard, places with better-regulated ISPs or even municipal broadband (gasp!) tend to have better service. You seem to be grinding a political axe rather than considering what the evidence says about the real-world effect of this particular change.

The simple fact is, getting approval to put your network somewhere is not only really expensive, but already heavily regulated, and this grants a de facto regional monopoly to companies like Comcast and Time-Warner in places where they have done so, because the startup costs of competing with them are unreasonably expensive and they can lobby to prevent competition. The market does not work efficiently in this particular area and no amount of idolizing market forces can change that.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#78

Post by punkcoder »

brandonmenc wrote: post #56
punkcoder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I call the water company, I don't talk to some guy in India who has never heard of my state, let alone my city. When the power and water go out, the service isn't great but compared to my internet provider it would be a huge improvement. YMMV.

I don't think net neutrality will dictate that support staff be located in America.

The statement was more in the direction that when it's a utility local people / municipality are responsible for the maintenance of that system, local people means that there is a far greater chance of getting local, mostly because there is someone local with _responsibility_ for keeping it working.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#79

Post by bsder »

Shivetya wrote: post #28
supergeek133 wrote: post #4

I get what they're trying to accomplish, we all want faster more reliable service, but as comparison is anyone 100% happy with their utility (power, water, etc)? That's where this is headed.

As in, better be damn happy with the speed you have now because you ain't going to get faster anytime soon. Well unless your lucky and someone politically connected on your street. Going back to the days before cable, when high speed was whatever the regulated its a utility phone company decided I was allowed to have There is no free lunch and regulation will just mean normalization at best, to the lowest allowed num…

> As in, better be damn happy with the speed you have now because you ain't going to get faster anytime soon.

Yeah, well my internet speed has been stagnant in all the areas I spend decent amounts of time for basically the last 5 years anyway.

Except where Google Fiber threatens to come in.

So, we can revisit this question when Google Fiber is a choice for 80% of the US.

And, Google fiber might be exempt because it won't be a cable provider. That would be an interesting thing, now, wouldn't it?

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#80

Post by dkhenry »

skywhopper wrote: post #14

The major critique quoted here comes from David Farber of Carnegie-Mellon, who worries that classifying Internet access under Title II will allow it to be taxed. If that's the worst thing you can think of, we're in good shape.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Post reply on HN