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

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

#271

Post by LLWM »

jchendy wrote: post #210
TheHypnotist wrote: post #179

One part of me hates this because the idea of our government dipping their hands into what has become the major source of information, entertainment, conducting business, etc. is quite scary. We all know their tendency to fuck things up because of politics, money, stupidity, or a combination of any and all of these. On the other hand, I look at my other utilities and realize I have absolutely no complaints. Yeah, the…

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm honestly curious: why is pay-for-use bad for internet access but okay for water, electricity, and phone?

It's not bad for consumers but companies like Google and Netflix have a vested interest in keeping everyone away from that model because their own businesses rely on average joes moving large amounts of data. At this point they have so much PR leverage that usage-based pricing can't realistically happen.

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

#272

Post by droopybuns »

jarin wrote: post #254
droopybuns wrote: post #227

Netflix traffic and some hypothetical future tech like Surgery-over-IP traffic should not be prioritized equally.

This is kind of a red herring. 1) Surgery-over-IP would be designed within the limitations of the existing infrastructure, which is more than capable of handling high resolution real-time video. 2) Surgery-over-IP would be useful mostly in areas that are unlikely to have reliable high speed internet access (poor countries, battlefields, etc.). 3) Netflix traffic is streamed to the customer using a strategy that tries…

Really, Red Herring? It is not distracting, and in fact is not intended to be distracting. I argue that it is certainly uncomfortable for most technologists.

We are still at the very beginning of the Internet. With all the connected devices that are coming online, the nature of network traffic at a macro level is going to change. We really don't know where it's going to be tomorrow.

All of the pro-net-neutrality arguments seem to ultimately boil down to a desire to avoid a "buffering" toast on any video. The practical reality is that the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Because "BUFFERING" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKcjQPVwfDk

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

#273

Post by dippyskoodlez »

nkw wrote: post #243
chez17 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is essentially giving up and saying we are going to live with Internet access being run by monopolies like the power company. It puts us back to the Bell System in 1982, and that makes me sad. What do you think we have now? A robust ecosystem of carriers? Also, your post sounds a lot like you don't want Title II because you'll have to comply with regulations and you don't like the current system because instead o…

> What do you think we have now? A robust ecosystem of carriers? No, not at all. I think we pretty much have a duopoly with the cable company (Comast+TW) and the phone company (AT&T) as the only realistic choices for the vast majority of consumers. >Also, your post sounds a lot like you don't want Title II because you'll have to comply with regulations and you don't like the current system because instead of complyin…

As someone that has been waiting for GFiber because of the lack of Title II classification, I say bring on the Title II. They already abuse their classifications when possible anyways.

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

#274

Post by dippyskoodlez »

rhino369 wrote: post #142
drawkbox wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utilities are the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial . Utilities in the US are typically public, so the internet is a public useful, profitable and beneficial utility. A utility is a platform that is standard/common so that more useful platforms can be built on top of it. Utilities become part of the stack of economic production. A utility could be seen as an economic standard. If wireless and radio are…

They aren't typically public. They are typically private companies that are regulated by a utilities commission at the state level.

Typically, but not always.

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

#275

Post by lomnakkus »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #250
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.

In his own words (along with ), I think his bigger objection is that it will stifle innovation. The history of telecommunications regulation tells a sorry story of glacial decision-making focusing on yesterday’s problems, inhibition of innovation, and, worst of all, what economists call “rent-seeking”—businesses’ use of the regulatory process to put their competitors at a disadvantage. http://www.technologyreview.com…

Yes, because clearly one-or-two possibly-colluding ISPs in your particular area are driven existentially towards increasing the value for you, the customer. Get real.

Besides, there's very little innovation in the actual IP layer anymore -- though, perhaps you could point to some? It's basically (by sheer domination) not displacable at this point. Hence QUIC and such things which could probably be done (even) better at a lower layer, but which for all practical purposes are dead in the water if they don't function above IP. (In the case of QUIC at the IP/UDP layer.)

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

#276

Post by cheald »

falcolas wrote: post #222
cheald wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with my landline is price ($35/mo to start) and features (practically non-existent, with huge premiums charged for useful things). The service effectively hasn't changed since the 1980s, while the prices have steadily risen. I replaced my landline with an Ooma (a VOIP phone which let me port my old landline number) which sounds WORLDS better, lets me manage personal blocklists, aggregates community blockli…

> It's in a completely different class of service, and it costs a fraction of what my competing local offerings do. However, your VOIP will not work during a power outage, during an internet outage, or any other time the VOIP company's servers are down. Landlines work during power outages, during internet outages, and they provide around 5 nines of uptime (that's less than 6 minutes of downtime a year). Those are the…

The landline option I had previously was serviced by my cable company. If my internet was out, so was my landline, despite it not being VOIP. At my previous residence, it was serviced by the local phone company, and ran through a multiplexing box which plugged into my house power. Both that option and my cable modem have battery backups which continue to function in a power outage, but once that's gone, no more service.

That leaves only VOIP provider outages as a concern, and I've yet to experience one of those in a few years.

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

#277

Post by jchendy »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #235
jchendy wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm honestly curious: why is pay-for-use bad for internet access but okay for water, electricity, and phone?

Pay for use for water and electricity is good because the resources are finite, and you want to conserve them. The advantage of unlimited internet use is it promotes the creation of services that need more bandwidth.

Isn't network usage also finite? I.e. wouldn't there be issues if every device connected to an ISP simultaneously tried to stream large data?

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

#278

Post by walterbell »

jarin wrote: post #246
jkn wrote: post #221

Pretty impressed with the negativity here. Just a year ago, I remember all the stories on HN with people lamenting that the FCC doesn't have the guts to regulate broadband as a utility under title II [1,2,3] (admittedly with a minority speaking against title II, most prominently rayiner, whose comments I generally look forward to for an interesting contrarian view). Y Combinator even published an open letter[4]. Quot…

Let's not forget that political sock puppet accounts are on basically every social media site these days.

An interview with the author of Grassroots for Hire, based on his doctoral thesis, https://qualpolicomm.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/q-a-with-ed-wa...

"Walker shows how repertoires of participation originally developed by advocacy organizations, electoral campaigns, and social movements are commercialized by public affairs consultants who offer them as professional services ... The result is an increasingly “subsidized public” where selective incentivization and rational prospecting by public affairs consultants looking to mobilize support for their clients’ interests work to get people involved in particular political processes."

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

#279

Post by tptacek »

dragonwriter wrote: post #265
tptacek wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were? 90s ISPs regulated by Title II? What? No we weren't. I started managing ISPs during the dialup era and played shepherd to a field of Livingston Portmasters. I migrated us to racks upon racks of Ascend boxes during the 56k modem wars. I set up ISDN PRIs and DS1 terminations. I turned up our DS3s and set up our first default-free peering. I left just before the DSLAMs went in. At no point were we ever subject…

DSL was covered under Title II until wireline ISPs in general were ruled as an "information service" rather than a "telecommunication service" by the FCC in 2005 in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in NCTA v. Brand X upholding the FCC's earlier (2002) declaratory ruling finding that Cable modem internet access was an "information service". See, for instance, http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2005/20050805a…

I'm lost. EnterAct/21stCenturyCable/RCN, the ISP I worked for --- starting as employee #2 --- wasn't subject to Title II, despite offering DSL service. Is it possible that this DSL ruling was a wrinkle that affected only ILECs? The ILECs were, of course, heavily regulated... hence the emergence of the CLEC market. The upthread comment did not say ILECs; they said "ISPs".

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

#280

Post by lomnakkus »

jkn wrote: post #221

Pretty impressed with the negativity here. Just a year ago, I remember all the stories on HN with people lamenting that the FCC doesn't have the guts to regulate broadband as a utility under title II [1,2,3] (admittedly with a minority speaking against title II, most prominently rayiner, whose comments I generally look forward to for an interesting contrarian view). Y Combinator even published an open letter[4]. Quot…

I'd also add that there's at least a couple of suddenly-prolific "green" commenters here today... which is interesting (but definitely not conclusive) as to what exactly is going on.

Personally, I'd go from the assumption that suddenly-prolific "green" commenters have some special interest in the topic. These days -- since HN has become mainstream -- I'd lean towards astroturfing or some other monetary interest.

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