FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#171

Post by Shivetya » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

sinak wrote: post #81

The title and post are both quite misleading. The commissioners didn't approve Tom Wheeler's plan (to regulate the Internet under Section 706), but voted to go ahead with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and commenting period. Tom Wheeler stated multiple times that Title II classification is still on the table. There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from companies and the public, and then 6…

What gets me is this was a party line vote. So is it good the three voted for this or was it good the other two voted against?

Whose on whose side here?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#172

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

Zmetta wrote: post #165

dragonwriter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are reading it correctly. And the NYT seems to be reporting it correctly. While the text is not published yet anywhere I can see, the FCC fact sheet states that the proposal (direct quotes with only formatting/presentation changes) [1]: - Proposes to retain the definitions and scope of the 2010 rules, which governed broadband Internet access service providers, but not services like enterprise services, Internet t…

>Tentatively concludes that priority service offered exclusively by a broadband provider to an affiliate should be considered illegal until proven otherwise. This is still not a good proposition though. They're saying you can't offer improved service to "exclusively" your affiliates, but you can allow anyone with enough money to pay for "improved" (aka normal) service. Things are very confusing right now but we have…

> They're saying you can't offer improved service to "exclusively" your affiliates, but you can allow anyone with enough money to pay for "improved" (aka normal) service.

No, they aren't. They are saying that you presumptively cannot offer enhanced service exclusively to affiliates, and whether you can or cannot do so under other terms is governed by the screening factors for which they seek input from the public in the next bullet point, where the FCC "asks how to devise a rigorous, multi-factor 'screen' to analyze whether any conduct hurts consumers, competition, free expression and civic engagement, and other criteria under a legal standard termed 'commercial reasonableness.'"

Note that this directly addresses the language of the limitation on the FCCs authority to regulate dictated by the DC Circuit.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#173

Post by davorak » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:37 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #48

ColinDabritz wrote: post #20

"And he promised a series of measures to ensure the new paid prioritization practices are done fairly and don't harm consumers." I have a measure in mind that won't harm consumers. Don't allow ISPs to discriminate against users regarding their already paid for internet traffic based on what they request. (Gee that sounds a lot like net neutrality.) Anything less is open for abuse. Perhaps "Discrimination" is a good w…

Don't allow ISPs to discriminate against users regarding their already paid for internet traffic based on what they request. It's (relatively) cheap for Netflix or their CDN partners to connect their content-serving systems to a few dozen "meet me" rooms where it's "easy" for Comcast to hook as many wires up as necessary to receive the requested data into their network at an acceptable rate. That's all Netflix or the…

Comcast and other ISPs can charge their subscribers more.

Then they can build out their infrastructure with the new revenue.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#174

Post by seanieb » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:37 PM UTC

carsonreinke wrote: post #161

Maybe I am missing something, but what is the argument ISPs have for this?

They are a very large contributor to Democratic politicians.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#175

Post by corford » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:38 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #66

hpaavola wrote: post #22

I don't get this whole net neautrality discussion that is going on in US (and maybe somewhere else, just haven't paid attention). Consumers pay based on speed of their connection. If ISP feels like the consumers are not paying enough, raise the prices. Service providers (not ISPs, but the ones who run servers that consumers connect to) pay based on speed of their connection. If the ISP feels like service providers ar…

> Consumers pay based on speed of their connection. If ISP feels like the consumers are not paying enough, raise the prices. Imagine you build a road. Who benefits? Drivers, obviously. But also store owners, because customers can now get to their stores. It's equally legitimate to charge the driver, via tolls, or the stores they drive to (via special tax districts). If you charge only the driver, you tap into only pa…

Except without the content, the ISPs wouldn't have much of a business. What's the point connecting people to the internet if there's nothing on there to see? It's supposed to be a symbiotic relationship not a robber baron one.

Netflix should be able to just block Comcast until they give in and agree to improve their peering.

I live in the UK though, where we have a competitive broadband market. The above tactic is less effective in the US because Comcast's users don't have anywhere else to go.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#176

Post by wpietri » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

hifier wrote: post #140

twoodfin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly. Why should someone who doesn't consume Netflix pay for this? Why should Comcast be afraid to sell you a 100MBit "bursty" connection (essentially the same kind of service they actually advertise now) because they'…

So, charge consumers for what they use. Why does this seem to rarely come up? The problem with the networks comcast and others currently maintain is they are saturated. And I'm not getting what I pay for as a result. They need a new pricing structure that properly values their product (bandwidth) and charges me for it. Can anyone explain why the ISPs don't go down this road?

Because they can make more money selling pretty lies than ugly truths.

Of course, that's true for a lot of products, but the US ISP market in particular is problematic because there's little or no competition. And the big ISPs like Comcast spend a lot of money buying political support, so there's little effective regulation.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#177

Post by awj » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #83

natdempk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically the answer to this is yes. If Comcast spends all of this money to upgrade their network and the cost to the end user goes up for the better service, then there are really no problems here. That's basically how a market should work. That plan would actually encourage them to upgrade their networks over time and install things like fiber to meet the new demands of customers, instead of providing poor service…

The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly. Why should someone who doesn't consume Netflix pay for this? Why should Comcast be afraid to sell you a 100MBit "bursty" connection (essentially the same kind of service they actually advertise now) because they'…

You're asking why Comcast should be responsible for meeting the expectations they're creating? When your advertising solely conveys "always fast Internet" and "up to 100Mb/s speeds", what exactly do you think people will take away from it.

If Comcast doesn't want to or can't provide these speeds for general use, they shouldn't advertise these speeds for general use. Can you explain the problem with that logic?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#178

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

bcohen5055 wrote: post #148

dragonwriter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are reading it correctly. And the NYT seems to be reporting it correctly. While the text is not published yet anywhere I can see, the FCC fact sheet states that the proposal (direct quotes with only formatting/presentation changes) [1]: - Proposes to retain the definitions and scope of the 2010 rules, which governed broadband Internet access service providers, but not services like enterprise services, Internet t…

Can someone please clarify this line: "- Tentatively concludes that priority service offered exclusively by a broadband provider to an affiliate should be considered illegal until proven otherwise." the offered exclusively line is what gets me, if they offer a "fast lane" at a higher price to everyone it isn't an "exclusive" offer and therefore would be allowed?

> if they offer a "fast lane" at a higher price to everyone it isn't an "exclusive" offer and therefore would be allowed?

No, if it isn't an exclusive offer, then it would be tested under the test for which they seek input from the public under the next bullet point (which directly addresses the limits on the FCC's authority established in the D.C. Circuit opinion striking down the last Open Internet order.) The clear intent is to find a way to limit paid prioritization to the extent that is consistent with the limits on the FCC's authority established by the courts (because, if they exceed that authority, then the whole thing gets thrown out, which is why we are back at rulemaking on this issue again right now.)

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#179

Post by markbnj » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:41 PM UTC

This portion of the piece is interesting to me: "He wouldn't accept, for instance, practices that leave a consumer with slower downloads of some Web sites than what the consumer paid for from their Internet service provider." Definitions are tricky, but since we all pay for more bandwidth from our ISPs than we utilize from any one site (or almost all of us, I think), sticking to this rule would mean ISPs would not have the power to throttle individual data sources. Is that not a correct interpretation?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#180

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 15, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

seanieb wrote: post #170

ryanhuff wrote: post #51

The investment in Obama by tech luminaries must be a huge disappointment.

Obama proclaiming his "commitment to net neutrality" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-mW1qccn8k Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman, was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the majority Democratic U.S. Senate in 2013 (lead by Harry Reid who also claims to be pro net neutrality) is going to kill Net Neutrality. Please take some time to remind democratic politicians & supporters why practicing this sort of polit…

> Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman, was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the majority Democratic U.S. Senate in 2013 (lead by Harry Reid who also claims to be pro net neutrality) is going to kill Net Neutrality.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit already killed net neutrality. Wheeler is trying to resurrect it within the limits set by the Court (if you want more than that Court will allow under current statutory authority, you need to get more net neutrality friendly people in Congress so that they can change the statute to give the FCC more authority with regard to net neutrality.)