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

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by EarthLaunch »

IanDrake wrote: post #33
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.

I realize HN is full of idealistic kids who never lived through the government taking control of something to "improve" it, so your down votes are forgiven.

Oh, they believe in it. They don't know how the market works, no, but they know they want to destroy it. Their goal is to stop progress, in the name of progress. It's not that they're aware of their goal - they're deliberately remaining ignorant in order to be able to support something so reprehensible.

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

#122

Post by thoth »

djrogers wrote: post #72
freehunter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

Yet public infrastructure requires granted monopolies (i.e. government power). It would be impossible to acquire the necessary land rights and right-of-ways needed - having to contract with every land-owner to build anything would fail due to expense.

The ideal case would be the government owns the infrastructure, taxes (and use fees from bidding out access rights) pay for construction and/or maintenance, private companies to bid for the right to run services for the public.

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

#123

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

skylan_q wrote: post #103
0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is involving the FCC at all.

I'll have to agree to this. Electricity is electricity, water is water, natural gas is natural gas. But Internet traffic isn't a homogenous substance.

Well they regulate radio. [Edit] Just check out the innovations in radio?

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

#124

Post by skuhn »

skylan_q wrote: post #107
dkhenry wrote: post #94

I understand the desire to regulate the internet as a utility, but are they going to actually regulate it like a utility or are they going to call it a common carrier and then just make up a few BS rules that need to be followed. I have a sinking feeling that all this will result in is a situation where monopolies are given out to the existing players and no one is forced to do anything to upgrade the existing servic…

I have a sinking feeling that all this will result in is a situation where monopolies are given out to the existing players and no one is forced to do anything to upgrade the existing service. It's naive to think it would be anything but this. We like the Internet as it is today but for some reason we need to have the FCC control it in order to try to keep it the way it is.

We like the way it is (or rather, the way it was 15 years ago), but the cat appears to be out of the bag. Comcast, Verizon, et. al. all have giant dying industries to support on the backs of our Internet access fees, and they are going to extract every penny of value from their local and regional monopolies.

I don't especially want the government involved, but doing nothing is not going to maintain the status quo. Destroying local monopolies that have sway over a global network is a much better move in my opinion.

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

#126

Post by skylan_q »

Windwaker wrote: post #119
skylan_q wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have to agree to this. Electricity is electricity, water is water, natural gas is natural gas. But Internet traffic isn't a homogenous substance.

The utility that Internet providers are providing is information .

You're calling it a utility.

I guess you're just going to define it a utility, ham sandwhich is also a utility.

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

#127

Post by dublinben »

bratsche wrote: post #92
cranklin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can dump my cable company if they piss me off. I can't do that with my utility companies

In my area, the cable provider is the only one that offers somewhat fast speeds. Whenever they overcharge me and I spend hours sorting it out (this has happened a few times) with them I wish I could switch, but DSL is just not fast enough for working remotely. I don't have other options for all my other utilities, but so far they have overcharged me and screwed things up royally exactly zero times.

The FCC just raised its minimum definition of broadband, so that DSL probably doesn't even qualify anymore. As if it should have before.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/fcc-chairman-mocks-i...

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

#128

Post by nickff »

na85 wrote: post #117
nickff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

I love how the upvote system encourages pedantry. It's clear that Parent is saying "Comcast delivers shitty service" -> "water utility delivers shitty water". It's a (possibly unintentional) pun, and I'm quite certain that Parent was able to get their point across regardless of technical inconsistencies. But don't let that stop you in your quest to nitpick on the internet.

First off, that's not a pun; though it may qualify as some sort of base humor.

I'm not nitpicking, I just think the comparison doesn't make any sense unless one is trying to make Comcast out to be some sort of villain spewing sewage through everyone's taps. An internet outage is rightfully characterized as similar to a power outage or drought. The latter two are caused by poor planning and capital investments by power utilities, and the former is caused by similar behavior by the ISP. Both are fairly common.

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

#129

Post by skylan_q »

Zigurd wrote: post #88

That's a peculiar choice of word for an article title. The FCC can't "regulate the Internet." The FCC can regulate service providers in the US in certain limited ways.

They're not changing what the Internet is, only how it's provided.

They don't realize the way that the Internet is provided is the essence of the Internet itself.

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