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

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

#281

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

twoodfin wrote: post #209

warfangle wrote: post #175

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

#282

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

wpietri wrote: post #206

monochromatic wrote: post #159

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

#283

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

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #232

rayiner wrote: post #99

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

#284

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

Selfcommit wrote: post #102

travie7273 wrote: post #88

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

#285

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

droopybuns wrote: post #235

daughart wrote: post #165

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

#286

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.

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

#287

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:56 PM UTC

williamcotton wrote: post #250

Spooky23 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Cuban's position isn't technically savvy, it's an opportunity for him to make more money. He says flat out that the Internet model that has worked for decades is broken now, because Netflix. Oh, and QVC should have a right to pay for preferred treatment and lower latency. The reality is that building core network capacity to handle the likes of Netflix and 8k television is possible and gets cheaper as time goes…

Your comment is currently "above the fold" and even though I agree with you, I downvoted because I don't think this discussion should involve what Mark Cuban whatsoever. Whatever dialog he spurs is going to be an intellectual dead end. BTW, why isn't anyone talking about the Interstate Commerce Commission, the predecessor to the FCC, and the similarities between common carrier status of railways and Internet service…

I mentioned Mark Cuban in context of the parent comment. Whatever our opinion of Mr Cuban, his arguments are essentially the same as the telecom people.

If we had a functional market, the excesses of the ICC would be a cautionary tale of great impact. Unfortunately the behavior of the ISPs has illustrated that we don't have that functional marketplace. I think we should follow the path successfully implemented (in most places) for utilities like water, electricity and the legacy telephone service.

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

#288

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 8:59 PM UTC

tertius wrote: post #150

cratermoon wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Up until very recently, everyone considered Title II the "nuclear option." As far back as the 90s, when Mosaic was still the most advanced browser out there, I was noting that Title II common carrier rules for ISPs were the best choice to balance free speech needs -- to prevent ISPs and Backbone providers from censoring the content they carry -- and protect ISPs from liability for their users' communications. It's…

> balance free speech needs -- to prevent ISPs and Backbone providers from censoring the content they carry Unless it's not deemed "legal." And I'm not talking about torrenting.

What are you referring to? And surely this is orthogonal to whether it's Title II or not; not being title II does not magically prevent anything.

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

#289

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #232

rayiner wrote: post #99

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

[deleted]

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

#290

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #273

chetanahuja wrote: post #75

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…

This sort of comment is a huge pet peeve of mine: you're accusing people who disagree with you of not just being wrong, but being maliciously and intentionally wrong . As if alternate viewpoints can only be explained by a literal conspiracy theory designed to mess with people like you. It's a lazy way to avoid acknowledging that alternate viewpoints even exist, let alone considering whether they have merit. (But then…

but this is the standard method Democrats have employed for years. They take any debate and make it personal. No longer is the discussion of the subject at hand but the persons involved. This allows all sorts of toxic labels to be branded about, racist, bigot, for the rich, elitist, and more. They don't want to debate facts, the fastest way to avoid facts is to brand the other side with a label associated with hate and/or stupidity.

I just want to know, what takes so many pages as to describe these rule changes? Why was it so important to pass changes without public review? What part of transparency don't people get?