FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote • Hacker News Board

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#351

Post by venomsnake » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:49 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #119

chetanahuja wrote: post #76

Wow.. This thread has turned into an astro-turfing campaign for the anti-NN advocates. The main gist of the the new regulations is the classify broadband access as a utility under Title II of Communications act. This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing... and a necessary thing seeing how there's virtually no competition in broadband access for most people in the US. Reading commen…

I don't believe I have enough information to conclude that classifying broadband as a Title II utility will be a good thing. My general impression is that more and stricter regulations in an industry is usually (though not always) a bad thing for consumers in that industry, so while I'm not vehemently against this NN bill, I certainly am not excited or optimistic. I consider my views reasonable, although I guess an u…

Lets scrap the USDA safety measures. We will eat so much better.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#352

Post by frandroid » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:49 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #244

warfangle wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Up until very recently, Title II was the "nuclear option." Up until recently (2005), ADSL was classified as Title II. Reclassifying it as an information service made it so much better that VDSL2 (which can provide 100Mbps!), defined in 2005, has .... hardly rolled out anywhere.

I'd argue that Title II classification (along with competitive access requirements) was a huge handicap on the telcos ability to make money in DSL, so it was starved of investment, and that by 2005 they were already too far behind cable to compete. Why won't this happen with cable? What motivation does Comcast have to keep increasing the speed of their network? Especially since, believe you me, the calls for the FCC…

We have competitive access in Canada and that hasn't stopped telcos from making money or layout out new technology.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#353

Post by gojomo » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:50 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #241

monochromatic wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This thread has turned into an astro-turfing campaign for the anti-NN advocates. Anybody who disagrees with you must have been bought and paid for by your evil opponents, huh. > This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing... and a necessary thing seeing how there's virtually no competition in broadband access for most people in the US. Honestly, this kind of statement is what sound…

There is quite literally almost no competition in US broadband access. See the graph here: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/09/most-of-the-us-has-n... To have a robust market, you need a variety of players. Witha duopoly, you generally end up with approximately the same service as a monopoly, but with two slightly different price points. But the fast majority of the US has at best 2 choices even for a 4 Mbps plan…

The FCC had to change their definition of "broadband" to get that "quite literally almost no competition" result.

The traditional 4Mbps standard found 2 or more wired and 3 or more wireless providers at about 90% of US addresses.

I like ever-faster service, but the idea that's what most people need or even want – when superfast speeds cost more – isn't well-supported. 4Mbps is already plenty for HD movies and video teleconferencing. When and where people crave more, and if the solo 25Mbps-provider annoys them with pricing or traffic policies, more options will arrive, just as they have been arriving for the past two decades.

Most places in the US had zero 4Mbps options 20 years ago, and now they have 5+. Options and speeds have been steadily growing, not shrinking. But utility-style federal regulation, without regard to local competitive possibilities, slowed telephone-network dynamism for decades. It will similarly constrain rather than expand 'broadband' choices, by forcing them into a nationally-managed utility mould.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#354

Post by throwaway150219 » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:50 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #273

rayiner wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing. This is revisionist history. Up until very recently, Title II was the "nuclear option."[1] There's plenty of people who are pro-net neutrality who were skeptical of Title II. That's why they originally threw their support behind the FCC's last attempt at net neutrality, which tried to impose neutrality without reclassification. The EFF o…

What exactly makes Mark Cuban tech savvy other than: 1) He's loud 2) He's reasonably well known

3) Selling a domain name to yahoo.com[1]

[1] http://broadcast.com

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#355

Post by venomsnake » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #153

badsock wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel, Cisco, and IBM all sell deep packet inspection products. They have a material interest in not seeing NN go through.

And all of the web-tech companies who support Net Neutrality rely utterly on other peoples' wires to deliver content to their users. They have a huge interest in regulating telcos into "dumb pipes." There's huge monetary incentives on both sides of this debate.

And I think dumb pipes open for everyone is best.

After all ... it would be inconvenient if your utility company told you what can you use your electricity for.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#356

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

Selfcommit wrote: post #106

travie7273 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Eric Schmidt told Obama it was a bad idea. IBM, Intel, and Cisco are against it. My posts were shadow banned on HN for being against these regulations. It's odd that people like you can't fathom that there are two sides to this issue.

Your account was created 15 min ago and has 6 Karma - Can you back up who you are at all?

That's a pretty good karma rate! I think my account was probably weeks old before I got to 6.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#357

Post by crazy1van » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #299

chetanahuja wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thesis is that these accounts are not here for legitimate argument. They are here to spread FUD via talking points. I attempted to prove the futility of attacking the arguments by showing that they have been clearly countered before while failing to budge this account from their fixed talking points.

Let's turn the tables- I'm going to apply a hypothetical: I find all of your arguments to be talking points. How can we possibly have a reasonable dialog? I have just insulted you by explicitly stating that you are insincere in your position. This is how you're treating everyone who disagrees with you. It is utterly unproductive. You are executing a Denial of Service attack on any reasonable dialog.

> I find all of your arguments to be talking points.

Please define "talking points"... I find it often means an often repeated argument that my side doesn't agree with.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#358

Post by loqi » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:55 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #322

chetanahuja wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For example, you are unlikely to change my viewpoint or opinion on a great number of things, even through well thought-out and concise arguments." Thank you. I think this is sufficient grounds for me to avoid wasting any of my time arguing with you.

> Thank you. I think this is sufficient grounds for me to avoid wasting any of my time arguing with you. Conversely, has anyone managed to change your mind here in this thread? Probably not... The point of good argument isn't to convince the other party they are woefully wrong and everyone should just eventually come to the same conclusion. Some debate for sport/fun, others to make a point. In the end a good debate s…

> The point of good argument isn't to convince the other party they are woefully wrong and everyone should just eventually come to the same conclusion.

Applied to both parties in the argument, yes it is. Argument is digging for truth. The most productive outcome is for some or all of the parties involved shift their beliefs to more accurately reflect reality.

Just to clarify - when you argue, are you attempting to present the actual reasons you believe your point to be true? If not, then you are arguing in bad faith, and contributing heat to the discussion rather than light. If you really are arguing in good faith, then it's just plain crazy to strengthen your position upon being confronted with flaws in your reasoning.

> Some debate for sport/fun

In the context of a serious discussion, I believe the term for this is "trolling".

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#359

Post by tzs » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:55 PM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #277

daughart wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does "prioritization" effectively become blocking? People navigate away from websites that take a long time to load or have advertisements.

Is your use of the Internet limited to websites? If you play video games, use realtime video services like facetime, or use a VPN for mission critical work, do you really want your traffic flows to be identical to something that delivers content to a rendering engine? Different traffic has different requirements & performance characteristics. From a pure engineering perspective, this is a very poor decision and treat…

> Different traffic has different requirements & performance characteristics. From a pure engineering perspective, this is a very poor decision and treating all traffic equally provides artificial and often unnecessary constraints.

Banning paid prioritization does not stop the ISP from prioritizing traffic for engineering reasons.

What it bans is prioritizing traffic because a content provider paid for their traffic to be prioritized. For example, Amazon would not be able to pay to have Amazon video prioritized over Netflix video, and Netflix would not be able to pay to have Netflix video prioritized over Amazon video.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#360

Post by bcheung » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:56 PM UTC

Can someone clarify "paid prioritization" and "fast lane"?

If I buy the 50Mbps ISP plan and someone else buys the 10Mbps isn't that a faster lane / paid prioritization?

What about if a company decides to put their server in a datacenter instead of hosting out of their office? Aren't they paying for better access?

What about CDNs? Aren't those "fast lanes"?

It doesn't seem like this is the intent but based on how it is worded, it seems like it would apply.