FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality • Hacker News Board

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#151

Post by pekk » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

gnoway wrote: post #112

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's said a lot that infrastructure cost is the barrier to entry but I don't think that's true. Tacking cable to telephone poles is not terribly expensive. There's no good reason a great many households couldn't have two or three different cables running past their homes. As I understand it the issue is the local governments that issue permits for such things are bought off by the providers. It's a problem of corrupt…

There may be corruption involved, but the infrastructure costs are not imaginary. Modern cable infrastructure is not a big coaxial cable strung along telephone poles. It's often buried fiber with media conversion for a local loop. Either way it costs money to roll out, and where poles are involved there are ongoing leasing fees for those. This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routin…

How many times can the same dollar of infrastructure costs be used to justify maintaining a monopoly where service is bad and never gets upgraded?

It is in the company's interest to flog that dollar for all it is worth, forever, as a justification to never upgrade and maintain a monopoly so that nobody can force them to reinvest in infrastructure and they can just sit around in maintenance mode, collecting the checks with the minimum possible outlay.

If the government owned the infrastructure outright, we could at least have the discussion about why service is shit, but with this reasoning, "it was expensive to build these cables" permanently shuts down any ability to get upgrades or break local monopolies.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#152

Post by th0ma5 » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

notdonspaulding wrote: post #96

The internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance, if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network. By the 1960s AT&T was a well-established government-sanctioned monopoly [0]. It's a bold claim that says we wouldn't have gotten an internet without FCC regulation of AT&T. An easier conclusion…

Darn it if this isn't correct. It is very true to say we don't really know what the market forces would've done, because it was all already mucked with. I'm not sure I agree though that the last mile is a natural monopoly. A market could create more distributed solutions, we're seeing that with solar grid power contribution. The early Edison systems were sometimes a single location for DC power. The early net benefited from something a little more peer-to-peer than it is today.

Also all of these things will never exist independently of each other. If we had an anarcho-syndicalist system, we'd be complaining about the inability to use omnidirectional antennas effectively because of all of the interference of the airwaves, possibly...

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#153

Post by coldpie » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #99

cjslep wrote: post #26

So as someone who has been lightly following the debate, and is not familiar with the FCC's process, what are the next steps to actually start enforcing mobile and landline broadband as Title II? I also wonder how long it will take for the reclassification to become enforceable, and how long the existing companies will have to "become compliant".

> So as someone who has been lightly following the debate, and is not familiar with the FCC's process, what are the next steps to actually start enforcing mobile and landline broadband as Title II? The next step is for the FCC to vote on the proposal Wheeler is submitting and officially propose the rules (depending on whether they choose to do so as an Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or as a Interim Final Rule with Com…

The unspoken next step will be the dozen lawsuits from Verizon, AT&T, etc. Comcast's actions actually seem to be on the right side, here, though maybe that's simply a side-effect of their NBC merger terms.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#154

Post by OrwellianChild » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:08 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #57

angersock wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be quite against this (judging by your other posts on the matter). The fact remains that the current system is not going to hold, and that left to its own devices will end up with a bunch of walled gardens and other issues. I agree that it is wise to be wary of regulation in this case--but honestly, I think it's time we at least experiment. The market and regulatory forces at play have basically forced…

My complaint is that everyone's ignoring the economics of the situation. What becomes apparent if you dig into the numbers is that there's no money in building these networks, at least at scale--they are justified only when there's a money-making opportunity with respect to the content flowing through them. Historically, this has been the cable video service that brings in the lion's share of revenue. Even with Googl…

I understand that there may be some "hidden costs" that current consumers of broadband in the US don't see. I can also imagine the possibility that un-bundled broadband may be more expensive than current rates (though I can imagine other possibilities as well).

What I have a hard time understanding is your implied argument here: that by forcing a bundle on consumers that includes a high-margin product (cable TV) as well as a low-margin one (broadband), we're doing those consumers a favor. How do I benefit from a subsidized broadband service if I also have to participate in the over-priced and unwanted service that is allowing the subsidy?

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#155

Post by jgrowl » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:09 PM UTC

revscat wrote: post #75

evanb wrote: post #45

I violated Responsible Reading Of The Internet Rule #1 and accidentally looked at the comments. I am having a hard time reconciling the vehement anti-net-neutrality anti-government hair-on-fire screaming there with the reasoned discussion and general attitude here---I would have thought the majority of readers of Wired would be of similar mind to HN readers.

For what it's worth, it was linked to from Drudge.

This is the real reason. You can go to any article that is linked on drudge and you will see the exact same kind of comments.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#156

Post by pekk » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:09 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #104

pekk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about unlawful content . The NSA isn't particularly interested in unlawful content, its surveillance has a goal of intelligence gathering rather than detection of unlawful content. I understand the NSA is associated with all kinds of serious issues, but it doesn't help us figure anything else out when the subject changes to NSA even when it doesn't really apply.

The point is not about content and NSA, but about surveillance. I.e. it's already here, and tools for it are here as well. I wouldn't see it as a far stretch if all the same tools would be used for all kind of unlawful content hunting. Why should they reinvent the wheel?

No, the question was, verbatim,

"What obligation does law enforcement have to regulate content that you and I, as open-Internet believers, agree is unlawful? Shall we allow illegal content in order to err on the side of caution?"

That question wasn't about surveillance. You keep changing the subject to surveillance, because you're unwilling to address the issue of whether we should allow illegal content.

What obligation does law enforcement have to regulate content? Not surveillance. Not NSA. Law enforcement. obligation.To regulate content.

Show we allow illegal content in order to err on the side of caution? Not should we allow surveillance. Should we allow illegal content. Content. Not surveillance. Stop changing the subject.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#157

Post by phkahler » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

gnoway wrote: post #112

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's said a lot that infrastructure cost is the barrier to entry but I don't think that's true. Tacking cable to telephone poles is not terribly expensive. There's no good reason a great many households couldn't have two or three different cables running past their homes. As I understand it the issue is the local governments that issue permits for such things are bought off by the providers. It's a problem of corrupt…

There may be corruption involved, but the infrastructure costs are not imaginary. Modern cable infrastructure is not a big coaxial cable strung along telephone poles. It's often buried fiber with media conversion for a local loop. Either way it costs money to roll out, and where poles are involved there are ongoing leasing fees for those. This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routin…

>> This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routing, switching, media conversion, etc. to make that cable do something useful.

Media conversion? Like taking HD signals, converting them to "standard definition" and putting those on the line too? So you can then charge more for higher quality "HD" signals which are still transcoded to lower bitrates? Yeah, we can do without that stuff.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#158

Post by ryneandal » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #129

Apparently I'm in the minority here, but I have some concerns. 1) The problem this fixes is largely non-existent today. The threat of fast and slow-lanes is one I've yet to experience. 2) Opening the door for more internet regulation seems risky. At first, things may go swimmingly, but I suspect regulatory capture will creep up on this industry, just as it has so many others. You may trust Obama and the current FCC h…

What? The Netflix/Verizon paid peering agreement was a fast/slow lane issue, was it not?

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#159

Post by shmerl » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

pekk wrote: post #156

shmerl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not about content and NSA, but about surveillance. I.e. it's already here, and tools for it are here as well. I wouldn't see it as a far stretch if all the same tools would be used for all kind of unlawful content hunting. Why should they reinvent the wheel?

No, the question was, verbatim, "What obligation does law enforcement have to regulate content that you and I, as open-Internet believers, agree is unlawful? Shall we allow illegal content in order to err on the side of caution?" That question wasn't about surveillance. You keep changing the subject to surveillance, because you're unwilling to address the issue of whether we should allow illegal content. What obligat…

It was about surveillance. If you don't understand that, think again. To make it easier:

> What obligation does law enforcement have to regulate content that you and I, as open-Internet believers, agree is unlawful?

Translation: what obligation does law enforcement has to police Internet with surveillance in order to catch content that we agree is unlawful? Same can be asked about ISPs.

> Shall we allow illegal content in order to err on the side of caution?"

Translation: should we oppose massive surveillance to prevent power abuse even if it will prevent catching unlawful content?

To that I answered, that current surveillance is already abusive, so the question doesn't really start.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#160

Post by oconnore » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #123

myth_buster wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads exceedingly well but the devil is in the detail. As we have seen countless times that there is significant difference between what gets proposed and what gets passed. As others have stated > will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. the keyword here is lawful. Will all content be lawful unless proven otherwise?

Does this mean that (e.g.) specific cities can petition ISPs to block (e.g.) Uber in their area because it's not "lawful?"

If a federal/state/local government declares something illegal, they can shut it down within their jurisdiction. There is no "I'm on the internet so you can't enforce laws" get out of jail free card.