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AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

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Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#251

Post by jachee »

jerkstate wrote: post #222
comex wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is true. But the counterarguments are: - At least according to Level3, it was not standard practice in the industry to charge for peering (not transit - the final destination for the packets was in Comcast's network), regardless of traffic ratios. - You could say that it should be standard practice, but that would be unfortunate because Comcast effectively has a monopoly on fast connections to its own cu…

Yes, we could argue back and forth about what is fair and what is standard. But what did the contract, agreed to by both parties, say? Was Level3 in the wrong to sell Netflix a product that they could not deliver without violating their prior contract with Comcast? I agree it sucks to be a consumer and get shafted by these shitty deals, but let's at least be honest about how we got here and what the powers that be ar…

>what the powers that be are actually gunning for

I'm genuinely curious: What do you believe the powers that be are gunning for?

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#253

Post by betterunix2 »

_red wrote: post #41

For those of us who have used the internet 1989 to present, and who are dubious anytime we are told government is taking broad sweeping actions to "protect" us. Please explain the need for this regulation to exist. 1. Please define "network neutrality" - if possible do so without using hand-waving nonsense words, but technical definitions. What strictly defines a "neutrality infraction"? 2. If the internet existed fo…

(Not the AG speaking)

The Internet did not exist for 20 years without regulation. Title II was the reason you had a choice among various dialup ISPs in the 90s; line-sharing requirements gave you a choice among numerous DSL services until 2005 when the Bush administration deregulated those services.

In fact, almost immediately after DSL line-sharing requirements were dropped, and with cable line-sharing never implemented, the abuses started and the FCC began regulating ISPs more directly. That was a decade ago, and the 2015 rules were a response to a court ruling that only Title II regulations could be used to impose net neutrality.

Personally, I would favor a reinstatement of the line-sharing rules or a hybrid approach in which an ISP can either be subject to net neutrality regulation or to line-sharing rules. That would give us the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, Ajit Pai's plan is just deregulation, without any proposal or effort to set up a competitive market. At best most Americans have either no choice or a choice between DSL and cable; in a competitive market we would have multiple DSL, cable, and fiber services to choose from, so that if we need the technical characteristics of one type of service we can still benefit from some level of competition.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#254

Post by betterunix2 »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #242
waterhouse wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical. Could you explain why that is?

There are 6 ISPs that control the majority of the market for the entire US . Most Americans have only one ISP to choose from. When a company like Comcast or Verizon owns, or owns the rights to the existing infrastructure, they can refuse to sell or lease that infrastructure to other businesses, thereby stifling competition. That is the current state of affairs. For a competing business to be successful, it needs infr…

FYI the United States had line-sharing requirements for DSL service until 2005; that could always be reinstated if the FCC actually wanted to rely on a competitive market for ISP service.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#255

Post by betterunix2 »

waterhouse wrote: post #246
thomastjeffery wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 6 ISPs that control the majority of the market for the entire US . Most Americans have only one ISP to choose from. When a company like Comcast or Verizon owns, or owns the rights to the existing infrastructure, they can refuse to sell or lease that infrastructure to other businesses, thereby stifling competition. That is the current state of affairs. For a competing business to be successful, it needs infr…

I guess there would be a couple of approaches. (1) would be for some companies (possibly a consortium thereof) to build new infrastructure. (2) would be to force companies to lease out their existing infrastructure indefinitely. (Er, "rights to"—does that describe cases where the local government owns the infrastructure, but one company has an exclusive contract to use it for N years? It seems that case could be addr…

The problem with building new infrastructure is that the first company to do so will always benefit the most. It costs the same amount to lay fiber regardless of whether or not another company has laid the fiber. If you are the first to reach the town, you pick up all the customers. If you are second, you pick up only a fraction, despite spending the same amount to get there; in other words you will see a lower return on your investment.

Basically, what you have with ISPs is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#256

Post by betterunix2 »

jlillyreed wrote: post #249
thomastjeffery wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New businesses do not necessarily need to own the infrastructure. They just need bandwidth. Competing businesses could even work together to improve existing infrastructure. The problem is that existing monopolies do not dissipate without external pressure, because it is not to their benefit. We have 6 monopolies now, and we need to actively break them up. Short of that, we need to regulate them.

Existing businesses have many incentives to not give bandwidth on their infrastructure to their competition - especially at competitive prices

In some countries, and in the USA until 2005, the regulations require incumbent service providers to lease their infrastructure to competitors. France has such requirements, and unsurprisingly they pay less for their fiber optic service than Americans.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#257

Post by chopin »

riazrizvi wrote: post #65

Mr Schneiderman, How can you enforce Net Neutrality today? I'm an ATT & Comcast user. It's clear to me that these companies are already throttling my service based on which websites I visit, which I understand is illegal. I have deduced this by switching to a VPN whenever a website does not immediately come online. In over a hundred trials in the last two years I have confirmed that over 80% of the time a website wil…

Nitpick: You just described a way to enforce it. For privacy reasons I would go that route anyways.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#258

Post by tripzilch »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #242
waterhouse wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical. Could you explain why that is?

There are 6 ISPs that control the majority of the market for the entire US . Most Americans have only one ISP to choose from. When a company like Comcast or Verizon owns, or owns the rights to the existing infrastructure, they can refuse to sell or lease that infrastructure to other businesses, thereby stifling competition. That is the current state of affairs. For a competing business to be successful, it needs infr…

> 6 large companies who do not want competition

I don't think we are disagreeing, but if we're being pedantic and frame the discussion to axiomatically state that, by definition,

1) business firms value profit over people

we should also pose that

2) large companies do not want competition

continuing,

3, .., 98) the human condition, etc

finally,

99a) arseholes

99b) and why we can't have nice things

because, defending that "businesses value profit over people" as a fact of life instead of, well, fighting it as something undesirable (like stealing, mass murder or poisoning a town's water supply), kind of sounds to me like a lot of twisting and turning because deep down you really want to retain the option to value profit over people, for yourself, your own business, because surely you can be trusted to responsibly mind your own business unlike everybody else who believes the exact same thing and on that note I refer back to my earlier points 3 up to and including 99b.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#259

Post by tripzilch »

thomasfortes wrote: post #236
waterhouse wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical. Could you explain why that is?

Would you like to have 30 different companies digging your street to lay cables? Or 10 energy cables over your street because energy competition would be great? Even in a perfect world, infrastructure is a natural monopoly. The government could handle all the big scale infrastructure and let small players handle the last mile, but that's not the case and even if it was, people would still complain.

How did you in the US ever manage to get cable TV everywhere?

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#260

Post by tripzilch »

robertpateii wrote: post #225
rsync wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers" It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical. A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition. I am sympathetic to the cause of net neutrality but surely you can do better than this ...

It's not nonsensical, but it does imply some assumptions about a free market and the social contract. Governments exist to benefit their citzens. A free market is a great benefit thanks to competition forcing out businesses that don't prioritize their consumers. This assumes perfect competition though and it assumes a lot of things that are not realistic such as there being no barriers to entering a market. Clearly t…

> a free market and the social contract

you have to pick one!

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