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

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

#591

Post by copsarebastards » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:23 AM UTC

meragrin wrote: post #366

copsarebastards wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stick around and be a productive member of the community and I'll happily engage you in debate. But I don't see much point debating with < 1 hour old accounts spitting ISP talking points -- so far it's most likely you're just an astroturfing corporate shill. I can't prove it of course, I'm just playing the odds.

Why would people want to stick around and be a productive member if they are immediately branded as a shill? This topic has certainly brought out the worst. It seems like everyone is accusing everyone of being an astroturfing shill.

    user:	meragrin
    created:	6 hours ago

I'm not sure what you were expecting here.

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

#592

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:25 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #500

chaostheory wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't drastically increased competition solve problem one over time?

Originally the answer is No , because shaping reduces costs for overburdened (older) networks, and these these are infrastructure-heavy regional markets so the entry cost is already very high for competition. But then you have companies like Google who can come in an put in Fiber because they're a tech conglomerate who can subsidize these costs in other ways.

[deleted]

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

#593

Post by Zancarius » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:34 AM UTC

Zancarius wrote: post #586

Animats wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my understanding that the FCC will enter a period of public comments after voting on the rules but prior to enacting them. That was all done last year. Now the rules are out.

I'm aware of that. The problem is that I had been "corrected" (incorrectly) in a discussion elsewhere when I mentioned there was only the one comment period by someone who stated that there would, in fact be a period after the rules were voted on where there would be a second period to accept comments from the public. I should have looked it up myself, rather than taking the correction at face value. In fairness to t…

For what it's worth, since no one's bothered to post a link to the actual rule making process, I'll share what I've stumbled on:

http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/rulemaking-process-fcc

As dragonwriter wrote in reply to me--and as you can read above--there's at least 30 days after the rule vote before they become available to allow for analysis and for dissenting petitions to be filed during the reconsideration period.

It should be interesting to see what happens at this point.

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

#594

Post by Zancarius » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:37 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #524

Zancarius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how something intended to prevent ISPs from throttling content turned into a debate about helping out the disadvantaged, etc. It worries me that issues like this are co-opted to turn them into a one-size-fits-all batch of regulations sidelining their original intent. On the other hand, it's my understanding that the FCC will enter a period of public comments after voting on the rules but prior to enacting them.…

> On the other hand, it's my understanding that the FCC will enter a period of public comments after voting on the rules but prior to enacting them. No, the usual process is NPRM, comment period, Final Rule. The NPRM was last spring, the comment period took up much of last year, and the Final Rule is now. > I suspect if the rules are too far-reaching, they'll be mired in litigation for years. There'll be litigation f…

Good points, thanks for the corrections!

It's long passed time that I can add edits to my original comments (so obviously, there's no point), but I've included what I've found, and why I was incorrect here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9116126

So it looks like the timeframe we're expecting is 30+ days or so to allow for a) the commentary you mentioned and b) the reconsideration period to come to an end for parties wishing to file petitions against the rules.

Thanks!

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

#595

Post by mehwoot » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:37 AM UTC

ertdfgcb wrote: post #563

oceanstone wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There does seem to be a bias towards overly worded critical comments.

I think at least part of it is because the people on HN enjoy solving problems so much. When there's a post that says "we solved this problem", a lot of people here (me included) think "great, what's the next problem to solve". The focus is on "the next problem to solve" more than the "great", sometimes to the degree that the "great" is completely ignored. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it can get…

I think at least part of it is because the people on HN enjoy solving problems so much.

Or we're all cynical assholes. Just possibly.

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

#596

Post by Zancarius » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:39 AM UTC

thanksgiving wrote: post #66

Zancarius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also true. But then you run into the problem of Congress actually doing something. And even if they do, the President can still veto it. I suppose they could try to defund the FCC, but I guarantee that would never happen.

If the FCC had no funds to enforce regulations, what's to stop me from squatting prime spectrum property that Verizon spent so much money on?

Honestly, I wasn't outright suggesting the FCC should be defunded (that blurb was sarcasm; I should have labeled it as such). That would be a bad thing. ;)

However, I can say with a straight face that I know plenty of people who might make that sort of suggestion...

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

#597

Post by randyrand » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:44 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #463

xnull2guest wrote: post #158

Unfortunately the Net Neutrality 'debate' was another lose-lose situation for the United States. What we wanted wasn't for the big telecom duopoly to be forced to either run their business as a tiered service or as a regulated utility. What we wanted was for the US Government to exercise its Anti-Trust capabilities and bust the universally hated Comcast and Time Warner into a bunch of small companies, and set "Goldil…

There are two problems, and the FCC has solved one of them perfectly. Problem 1: ISPs trying to charge to (de)prioritize packets. Problem 2: The two biggest ISPs suck, and should be broken up, and/or it should be mandated that competition is much easier. Would you be happy if they solved problem 2 without solving problem 1? Leave problem 2 for another day, and celebrate that problem 1 has been dealt with.

But it's almost a catch-22. To solve problem 2 after solving problem 1 with regulation, you have to introduce more regulations. As a general rule of thumb, the more regulations you introduce, the more lobbying is used to stifle competition. The companies get in bed with the government, time and time again.

Were now increasingly dependent on the goverment for internet progross.

That's not what we want. We want progress to be a freebie. A natural by product of real competition. We've effectively gave up on the pure solution, and elected for the long politically complicated "government mandated progress" solution.

History shows it's unlikely to end up in our favor in the long run.

Damnit.

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

#598

Post by a_c_s » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:55 AM UTC

xrange wrote: post #499

keslag wrote: post #316

Okay, as a Canadian with no dog in this fight, this seems to be a good thing for America. So I'm having a very hard time understanding the opposition. The arguments for title II are pretty clear and logical. The arguments against include giving up personal freedoms (You live in America, you've been giving up most of your personal freedoms willing for the pack two decades) and this isn't one of them. There are some co…

As an American, with an uncertain dog in this fight, could someone explain the pro side to net neutrality? I can certainly see that in theory if your ISP is providing you a bit pipe, they shouldn't treat different bits differently. But the status quo seems like it has been working remarkably well for the last 20 years (at least from my perspective). It seems like the big hub-bub is that one of the hated cable compani…

Net neutrality is the way things ran for most of the last 20 years. This is less of a change but a return to what worked well in the recent past. The reason we are even discussing this topic is that telecoms are moving away from net neutrality.

A) What happens if your ISP blocks all VOIP traffic unless you buy their phone service bundle? Or throttle all streaming video (which competes with their cable offerings)? In other markets these would be seen as an abuse of monopoly power (which, in many local markets, telecoms are). Given that, is indeed a government concern.

B) Any workaround is trivially blocked by the ISP.

C) It isn't obvious to the consumer why a site is slow, especially if some competing sites do pay the extra fees ISPs are asking for. Again, local monopolies (and oligopolies) mean that telecoms don't have much incentive to make their customers happier: at this point nobody is going to forgo internet service entirely.

As far as billion dollar enterprises are concerned, Google, Facebook, or Skype could have been squashed in their infancy. AOL search would be the best we ever got - or the only search engine that AOL users could access: there's no incentive to improve when you're the only option.

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

#599

Post by novalis78 » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #533

novalis78 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the free market in telecommunication does not exist "yet" or is, due to a long history of regulation and government involvement, inhibited, we need to add another bureaucratic layer? If Google Fiber shows up in my neighborhood and Comcast did everything to upset us, would not we all switch and Comcast realize that it needs to adjust (its service, pricing, quality, speed)? I guess my difficulty lies in not und…

Two decades is a long time to set up a market, to be honest. And in that time, there have been fewer choices in the market, with smaller companies being regularly gobbled up into large conglomerates with astoundingly bad customer satisfaction the result. or is, due to a long history of regulation and government involvement, inhibited And this is really begging the question, in the fallacious sense. Where does this "b…

Stefan Molyneux came out with a one hour long video today - very detailed historic overview and discussion - of the government involvement that led to the current state of affairs (which beg for more government involvement, etc). Its worth watching it in its entirety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z_nBhfpmk4 Personally, I can't stand Comcast/Verizon/AT&T either, but I was born in Stasi East Germany. To me, the idea to further entrench government in what should be a completely free market place, seems backwards.

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

#600

Post by kevinnk » Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 3:00 AM UTC

xrange wrote: post #554

dragonwriter wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like the big hub-bub is that one of the hated cable companies is slowing down Netflix traffic to extract a ransom from Netflix. The combination of limitation choice and blocking policies are actually the big thing -- Netflix specifically and "ransom"/paid prioritization are recent aspects of that debate, but it really goes back to things like Comcast blocking Bittorrent, and many ISPs having rules governin…

>it really goes back to things like Comcast blocking Bittorrent, and many ISPs having rules governing what kind of applications users are permitted to use on their connection. ...I'm not up to speed on Bittorrent, but are they specifically blocking Bittorrent, or is coming under the ruberic of "thou shall not run a server behind your cable modem"? Certainly I can see that the 'net is supposed to be peer-to-peer and y…

> I'm not up to speed on Bittorrent, but are they specifically blocking Bittorrent, or is coming under the ruberic of "thou shall not run a server behind your cable modem"?

Maybe try googling before you comment? Comcast would inject forged TCP rst packets to inbound bittorrent connections. It did not send these packets to people running servers or other peer-to-peer protocols. In fact, people complained that the resets would sometimes prevent Windows Remote Desktop from working and Comcast adjusted their system to prevent it from jamming.

https://www.eff.org/wp/packet-forgery-isps-report-comcast-af...

> I'm interested to know what other sorts of things/applications ISPs may be blocking. Is there a name-and-shame site out there listing various ISPs and what they don't allow.

The current issue isn't really blocking, it's throttling. There are a couple of sites that do this sort of measurements. Look at http://www.measurementlab.net/

> Is it 10% of the population who can't get DSL, wireless, satellite or some other form of competition of some kind?

The FCC's current definition of broadband is 25mbps.

Vast majority of DSL isn't broadband speed (Avg is 10Mbps.) 4g isn't broadband speed (~12Mbps). Satellite isn't broadband speed (~15Mbps and usually expensive compared to wired.)

At 25mbps, 20% have no service and 55% have only one service.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/09/most-of-the-us-has-n...