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

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

#411

Post by zurn » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 9:57 AM 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…

FWIW Nixon has a pretty good record compared to, and was more liberal than Obama. Nixon created the EPA, made peace on multiple fronts, instituted many pivotal social justice programs etc. Obama himself said Nixon was more liberal than him (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/02/03/obama_in_a...)

Obama on the other hand has failed to turn around most of the worst Bush era policies. Not to belittle his archievements with health care (which Nixon also tried to pass).

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

#412

Post by dzdt » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 10:27 AM UTC

rsingel wrote: post #332

spb wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking of tethering was already banned, it just isn't enforced that carriers must provide tethering.

That's not true. The only carrier banned from blocking tethering is Verizon -- and that applies only to phones using the C Block spectrum. That's because when the FCC sold that spectrum it came with strong net neutrality rules attached (e.g. open devices, use any app, etc.)

Despite the supposed ban, Verizon DOES block tethering. Source: I am a Verizon customer.

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

#413

Post by CSMastermind » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

Serious question: I was under the impression that mobile data networks were exempted from this type of regulation, is what he proposing going to eliminated things like the throttling AT&T / T-Mobile / Sprint does above a certain data threshold?

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

#414

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:18 PM UTC

slowmovintarget wrote: post #388

dragonwriter wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i don't think this issue breaks along strictly D vs. R party lines. There's a little bit of fuzzing on the boundaries, but this issue has been the focus of lots of legislative action since it first became a controversy, and its pretty consistently been a large majority of Republicans opposing FCC action for neutrality and neutrality generally. And, over the years, the partisan alignment has increasingly solidified.

The Republicans were right to oppose FCC action for "neutrality" when what it really meant (at the time) was the ability to monitor and censor conservative blogs. The recent moves have been lobbyist-inspired, though. Sad.

> The Republicans were right to oppose FCC action for "neutrality" when what it really meant (at the time) was the ability to monitor and censor conservative blogs.

The Federal Communications Commission Open Internet -- the thing the FCC has done addressing what is known in public discourse as "net neutrality" -- principles haven't substantially changed, though details of the approach to advancing them have, and neither the principles nor the implementation approaches have ever included monitoring and censoring conservative blogs. And the GOP has been opposed to FCC regulating non-blocking and non-discrimination for all lawful content by broadband ISPs for years.

You seem to be confusing what is itself a misrepresentation of the Federal Elections Commission -- a completely different agency -- discussions on rules for political ad disclosures in the wake of a 2005 Federal court ruling requiring them not to exempt all internet communication from the scope of "public communication" in their rules with the FCC's Open Internet rules.

(Or perhaps confusing something that was an even bigger misrepresentation of Federal Trade Commission rules on online general advertising disclosures.)

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

#415

Post by nullrouted » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 2:48 PM UTC

gergles wrote: post #386

nullrouted wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you show where this would be true at all?

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015... , page 3, first paragraph. Thanks for the downvote.

Thanks, I didn't see that in the original announcement so I'm glad it is being covered and I stand corrected. Also, I didn't downvote you and this isn't reddit so lets not complain of downvotes anyway.

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

#416

Post by phkahler » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

ReidZB wrote: post #178

phkahler wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

That isn't what "media conversion" means at all. It is the conversion from one medium to another: for example, from fiber optic (light) to coaxial (electric). This is standard terminology: https://www.google.com/search?q=fiber+media+converter To be frank, your post is a little ridiculous, IMO.

OK, so I got it wrong. Still, the cable in my neighborhood was laid before I got there 12 years ago. My bill has gone from $50 to over $100 and nobody has done anything locally - no digging. Sure they bumped me from 150kbps to 2meg many years ago, and I'm sure that was upgraded equipment somewhere. But even with 3 cables running down my street (yeah rare, wow, yippie) we still have relatively low data rates and high prices.

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

#417

Post by acdha » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #391

acdha wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, will this make it illegal for GoGo to block streaming video sites on airplanes during domestic flights? It should allow them to be consistent about it and rate-limit everyone evenly, which would have the same effect. The really interesting question would be what happens with their on-plan video systems – my understanding is that they cache a selection of videos on the plane which are pre-seeded to avoid cloggin…

> It should allow them to be consistent about it and rate-limit everyone evenly, which would have the same effect. That's an allocation of about 450kbit/sec (~56kb/sec) down per seat on a 737 assuming the plane is outfitted with GoGo's latest tech. Upload would be a tiny fraction of that. It's in everyone's interest to disallow high-throughput usage while permitting burstable high-bandwidth low-throughput usage. "Bri…

> It's in everyone's interest to disallow high-throughput usage while permitting burstable high-bandwidth low-throughput usage. > "Bright line" rules that no type or source of content may be discriminated against by carriers only make sense if bandwidth is not a scarce resource.

There's no reason to believe that this couldn't be solved with some variation of fair queuing with bursting and since that's content and source neutral because it applies to all users equally.

This is a basic network admin skill and the technology is already pervasively deployed – in the 90s, 56kpbs was the speed you assumed for the average home users and businesses used to have a hundred people behind a 1.5Mb T1. The only challenges since then have either been extreme scale or the more expensive things the major ISPs have tried to do to throttle traffic selectively.

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

#418

Post by pyre » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

eggnet wrote: post #385

pyre wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter makes sense for DSL, but most of the cable monopolies are not government-granted at the Federal level. Some localities have a cable monopoly, but the local government is responsible for that. Yes, the cable companies have gotten government hand-outs to build out infrastructure, but teasing apart which of that was public and private money (and therefore which would be 'fair' to force open) would be a nightm…

Many things that are worth doing are difficult. This is one of them.

My point was mostly that the argument for doing so w/ DSL is more cut-and-dry in that most/all of the infrastructure was laid under a nation-wide government-granted monopoly. The Federal government weighing in on the matter makes sense.

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

#419

Post by phragg » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 4:22 PM UTC

If millions of people can shut down SOPA/PIPA, millions of dollars can make this not happen, sadly.

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

#420

Post by jamiek88 » Thu, Feb 05, 2015, 4:35 PM UTC

phragg wrote: post #419

If millions of people can shut down SOPA/PIPA, millions of dollars can make this not happen, sadly.

Those two things are exactly opposite, surely?

Millions of people beat millions of dollars with SOPA. the same seems to be happening here.

Say what you like about the slacktivism online but when the actual web is threatened people do seem to mobilize effectively.

We can't get complacent though their pockets are deep and their patience is endless. SOPA will be back and this needs riding all the way to signature.