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FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

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

#631

Post by MarkMc »

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.

If Problem 2 is solved, I don't see why Problem 1 is any more of a problem than allowing FedEx and UPS to charge different prices to different customers.

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

#632

Post by hawkice »

xrange wrote: post #627
hawkice wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same problem, but worse: marginal costs would kill you with the drone delivered SD cards. Blimps... might be interesting. I feel like the blimps I've seen are so close to the ground they'd just be harder-to-maintain cell/WiMax towers.

The drone idea was just something crazy I threw out there for the heck of it, but now I'm kind of warming up to it a little more. Let's say you, the end-user, owns the drone, a one-time cost of let's make up a number of several hundred dollars. You give it instructions to download the next 10 episodes of your favorite netflix shows, etc.. It flies to your nearest library3 miles away where you've got an account, and i…

3 miles of fuel for a drone is the expensive part. The latency isn't great but I suppose that's a matter of taste.

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

#633

Post by saalweachter »

cubano wrote: post #481
pnut wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you heard a Republican politician on the national stage raise an issue that was not obviously directed at their base, or donors? A comment that plainly stated a fact in a noninflammatory way? Or proposed a course of action that was not designed to be punitive to some group, or alternately, designed to disproportionately benefit the powerful? Republicans inhabit a carefully-crafted parallel real…

> When was the last time you heard a Republican politician on the national stage raise an issue that was not obviously directed at their base, or donors? Do you seriously believe that it's only Republicans that pander to their base?

To be fair, Republicans are way better at pandering to their base. Democrats tend to flake out and betray their base at the drop of a hat.

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

#635

Post by nknighthb »

gojomo wrote: post #551
nknighthb wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4Mbps is already plenty for HD movies and video teleconferencing The last six years of my life have been consumed by work on video streaming services. While in a lab environment you would be correct, I can tell you that in the real world you are off by a factor of about 4, and will be off by a factor of about 8 for 4k video. > Most places in the US had zero 4Mbps options 20 years ago, and now they have 5+. I have n…

While I trust your experience with regard to whatever specific streaming assumptions & goals your project was seeking, in fact my DSL, maxing at 5Mbps in speed tests, has no problem streaming HD from Netflix for a sharp picture on a 50" TV. (A sibling commenter links to Vudu's FAQ that reports 2.25Mbps as their threshold for HD streaming.) And we're not limited to streaming: at 5Mbps, iTunes HD downloads complete fas…

You are fortunate to live somewhere with high-quality DSL, and not have anyone else using your connection. These things do not hold true for the majority of people. I expect you're also tolerating much longer startup times than most consumers tolerate.

Vudu is not providing meaningful HD. The way you get 2.25mbps "HD" is by providing a 720p or 1080p stream of very low quality. 2.25mbps is not capable of providing even close to HD quality without going to h.265, which is not currently practical.

Your premise was that 4mbps was "plenty" for HD. To now speak of SD is simply admitting that you are wrong, and 4mbps is not meaningfully broadband.

I also have T-Mobile LTE. It's almost useless without putting the phone in the window, has massive latency spikes, and can't maintain high speeds for long without dropping out completely. It is of no practical use in replacing the connection I do actual work on.

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

#636

Post by xrange »

kevinnk wrote: post #600
xrange wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 rese…

Thanks for that informative link about the number of providers and the speed links. I wonder what the velocity of those numbers is, or how fast the average speed available is increasing. Also, I am enjoying my advancing years quite a bit. You kids and your making a federal issue about only having one provider of 25Mbps for your you-tubes, and your corporately produced circuses. Talk about a first world problem. Back in my day we had 9600bps, and by golly we were grateful to have that. Get off my lawn ;-)

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

#637

Post by webXL »

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.

> ISPs trying to charge to (de)prioritize packets

I'm still not getting it. Isn't this like saying restaurants are charging to provide more flavorful, healthier food? The cost burden may appear to fall on the suppliers in the ISP case, but they just pass that onto the consumer, just like the price you see next to the menu item.

Problem 1 only appears to be a problem because of problem 2. It's a competition issue. Are we really closer to solving problem 2 now? How so?

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

#638

Post by tim333 »

shmerl wrote: post #5

Congratulations, but it's far from enough to improve things. It will just prevent some abuse. Now, as a next step they should pass unbundling of the last mile.

Yeah unbundling the last mile has worked quite well in the UK. The wires to the phone socket my London flat were put in by British Telecom but now used by Plus Net to provide me broadband at about half BTs rates. I'm not quite sure how the deal works between the companies - I guess Plus Net rents the line from BT at some government fixed price? I pay like £13 a month line rental.

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

#639

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#640

Post by mikeyouse »

nknighthb wrote: post #635
gojomo wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I trust your experience with regard to whatever specific streaming assumptions & goals your project was seeking, in fact my DSL, maxing at 5Mbps in speed tests, has no problem streaming HD from Netflix for a sharp picture on a 50" TV. (A sibling commenter links to Vudu's FAQ that reports 2.25Mbps as their threshold for HD streaming.) And we're not limited to streaming: at 5Mbps, iTunes HD downloads complete fas…

You are fortunate to live somewhere with high-quality DSL, and not have anyone else using your connection. These things do not hold true for the majority of people. I expect you're also tolerating much longer startup times than most consumers tolerate. Vudu is not providing meaningful HD. The way you get 2.25mbps "HD" is by providing a 720p or 1080p stream of very low quality. 2.25mbps is not capable of providing eve…

As another data point on your behalf, Netflix won't even serve 720p unless you have 5mbps service;

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

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