So will internet prices go up now, just like with cable, where the FCC initially got involved to keep prices down?
FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
681–690 of 745 posts
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I think that solving problem 2 is the most important, and problem 1, if it is truly a problem, could be solved by a competitive free market. If it's truly possible for new competitors to enter the market, then if problem 1 really matters, market forces will handle it.
if problem 1 really matters, market forces will handle it. Market forces didn't handle seat belts, air bags, fuel efficiency, racial discrimination, taxation without representation, etc. We cannot rely on the market to solve all problems.
True - but in defence of OP's point, the UK has a competitive market for broadband service providers and there (for the most part) net neutrality is not an issue. So, anecdotally, solving problem 2 could minimize the effect of problem 1.
On the other hand I think this is a great win on its own :)
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've already seen companies with Netflix competitors wielding caps against Netflix. It's hardly a crazy concept that Comcast could wield them against speech they don't like too.
The caps were already there. That is what peering is about. If you can offer the service internally on your network, then by all means you should be able to allocate as much bandwidth as can. The peering points are the choke points. This is where things get nutty. Netflix has developed boxes that can be deployed in operator networks to avoid the peering choke points. They didn't want to pay Comcast to operate these b…
> The peering points are the choke points.
http://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to...
> According to Cogent’s CEO, “[f]or most of Cogent’s history with Comcast…[as] Comcast’s subscribers demanded more content from Cogent’s customers, Comcast would add capacity to the interconnection points with Cogent to handle that increased traffic.” After Cogent began carrying Netflix traffic, however, “Comcast refused to continue to augment capacity at our interconnection points as it had done for years prior.”
This was a deliberate strategy to bring Netflix to heel, and it meant Comcast screwing over their own customers, who were paying good money for their internet service, to win the battle.
> Netflix has developed boxes that can be deployed in operator networks to avoid the peering choke points. They didn't want to pay Comcast to operate these boxes (They have to be operated).
Do you have a citation for this? Netflix eventually paid the peering agreements, which are dramatically more expensive than paying Comcast to operate OpenConnect boxes (unless they're taking the same strategy with those and pretending they'd cost millions of dollars to plug a few 4U servers into a rack).
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#684Earlier 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…
Within the US , Title II been a divisive topic. On the global stage, though, countries that have set similar policies (e.g. the UK) have ended up with much healthier broadband ecosystems.
The UK did not set up a similar policy. They built the phone network with government money, then when they privatize BT, they gave Openreach a monopoly with high rates to ensure profitability. Consequently, BT has twice the profit margin of your typical American utility, and actually about the same as TWC. It's EBITDA on revenue for Openreach is almost 50%. It's a sanctioned monopoly that enjoys monopoly profits.
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#685Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FCC frequently stop pirate radio stations since they were not granted a license to broadcast and were causing harmful interference with those who DO have a valid license. Please step outside your bubble and understand what the FCC does. And a citation for you, cheers mate: http://www.fcc.gov/maps/fcc-enforcement-actions-against-pira... If you wish to test them, please setup a pirate radio station and you will be…
I think you just proved his point. Bye bye thepiratebay or anything else the US government calls a 'pirate' website. Oh yea, be sure to pick up your public web service license so are not causing harmful interference with those that DO.
I think there is a fundamental difference between the internet and Radio.
Radio represents a hard-limited amount of spectrum. There is literally a maximum amount of broadcasts that are possible before you have to start overlapping on the same frequencies. Those pieces of spectrum can be owned or rented just like public address space on the internet.
The internet has no such limit, adding to the internet just makes the internet bigger, it doesn't push someone else off the internet.
The real corollary to pirate radio would be someone hijacking google.coms DNS records to point to their own website instead. And tthat is and should remain illegal.
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
if problem 1 really matters, market forces will handle it. Market forces didn't handle seat belts, air bags, fuel efficiency, racial discrimination, taxation without representation, etc. We cannot rely on the market to solve all problems.
True - but in defence of OP's point, the UK has a competitive market for broadband service providers and there (for the most part) net neutrality is not an issue. So, anecdotally, solving problem 2 could minimize the effect of problem 1. On the other hand I think this is a great win on its own :)
In particular it's worth noting that some providers wanted to make net neutrality an issue in the UK: In particularly once iPlayer launched, they were wildly unhappy with the traffic the BBC "caused".
But they were in the unhappy position (for the ISPs, not users) that if they started negatively affecting iPlayer, their customers would have plenty of choice.
The comical part of that whole affair was that they should have cheered the BBC on:
Bandwidth used for iPlayer was bandwidth they could get incredibly cheaply simply by peering with the BBC [1] at a range of public peering points or even directly, and bandwidth end-users used to get at iPlayer content would be bandwidth they wouldn't use to stream over far more expensive routes.
Of course, the reason they were whining was that many of them had severely underdimensioned their backhaul networks to their core networks compared to the speeds they were actually selling to their customers, so in the short run it drove up costs, but in the long run the larger market share the BBC and other domestic streaming providers have, the better, for the above reason.
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#687Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? The regulations will certainly be released in the next couple weeks. Yes, that's also when the lawsuits will start. But I was talking about the regulations being released (since that's what the comment I was replying to was talking about.) Feel free to take your terrible attitude elsewhere.
> Feel free to take your terrible attitude elsewhere Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.
I stand by my assertion that telling him he has a shitty attitude is not a personal attack. No more so than you telling me that I made a personal attack is a personal attack. His comment showed a shitty attitude underlying it.
Pointing that out is just like pointing out that someone is being aggressive, insulting, etc.
EDIT:
And as far as me telling him to feel free to take it elsewhere, that's just me saying I'm not interested in it.
While it's good that HN discourages/disallows personal attacks, that can be taken too far to the point of being reactionary and looking for any excuse to simply dismiss someone because they said something someone else didn't like.
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#688Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of interest, what is the situation like in Germany with regard to the networks?
Mostly depressing. Basically the Telcos are acting in the same way as the ones in the USA. But we didn't have such an uproar from the people without which, I assume, the new NN rules couldn't be established in the USA. Politicians are influenced mostly from the telcos and seem to follow their line of argument. We do have some services that would violate net neutrality rules, like the circumvention of data caps sold b…
"the circumvention of data caps sold by Deutsche Telekom (totally different from T-Mobile US) for users of Spotify."
This is not net neutrality, it is just Deutsche Telekom bundling a product with their subscriptions. It only becomes a net-neutrality problem if DT begin to prioritise Spotify traffic over other traffic (ie; let's allow Spotify traffic, but throttle iTunes).
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#689Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly depressing. Basically the Telcos are acting in the same way as the ones in the USA. But we didn't have such an uproar from the people without which, I assume, the new NN rules couldn't be established in the USA. Politicians are influenced mostly from the telcos and seem to follow their line of argument. We do have some services that would violate net neutrality rules, like the circumvention of data caps sold b…
"the circumvention of data caps sold by Deutsche Telekom (totally different from T-Mobile US) for users of Spotify." This is not net neutrality, it is just Deutsche Telekom bundling a product with their subscriptions. It only becomes a net-neutrality problem if DT begin to prioritise Spotify traffic over other traffic (ie; let's allow Spotify traffic, but throttle iTunes).
Considering that you can't really use music streaming with the usual caps here (200MB, 500MB, 1GB, 3GB), it makes it impossible to compete with Spotify, unless you also pay DT.
Therefore, in the context of mobile, all other music streaming services are essentially throttled when compared to "exclusive partners of DT."
Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
if problem 1 really matters, market forces will handle it. Market forces didn't handle seat belts, air bags, fuel efficiency, racial discrimination, taxation without representation, etc. We cannot rely on the market to solve all problems.
As always, these items are only presented as "problems" because of the presence of government. So when government steps in and solves them, all pro-state individuals shout a glorious "Hurray, take that free-market!!'. >Seat Belts: If individuals wanted them, the car companies would have followed suit. You forget that not only were seat belts mandated to be installed, but people were FINED if they didn't put them on.…
I'll let that great promoter of free trade and market forces Adam Smith weigh in here:
“People of the same trade seldom meet together... but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public,...”
Corporations have vast resources and capabilities far beyond those of the individual and frequently use them against us for their own benefit. Tobacco companies faked and suppressed research and knowingly lied in their advertising. Car companies fought seat belts and air bags tooth and nail. Few companies campaign for minimum quality standards in their categories of products, yet information about quality are essential to informed participation by purchasers in any market.
Ideally each of us indivudualy should be fully informed about every decision we make, but the fact is it's simply not possible. So instead we delegate responsibility for many of these decisions to our leaders. They regulate markets on our behalf and increase the efficiency of markets by performing necessary research, standardisation and negotiations on quality once so we can all benefit from it every time we make a purchase.
Appropriate regulation of markets is essential to their function, and delegation of responsibility based on democratic choice is itself a market mechanism. Of course there are arguments to be made about the appropriate level and type of regulation.