I don't understand how it's "progress" to move decisions from a small number of bureaucracies to a single, less accountable bureaucracy.
Because no where does it imply progress. 'Victory' could very well mean maintaining the status quo.
Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
31–40 of 181 posts
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#32I once heard an interview with the Economist digital editor Tom Standage where he claims (at 5:45 into the interview) that net neutrality is the wrong thing to focus on, and the important thing is just making sure there is more competition between the telcos. Can someone more familiar with this issue tell me if this argument is correct? https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/i63zqo-untether-tv-mobile-st...
This is true. In the US you have a small number of telcos with a strong grip on the industry whereas in many (but not all) EU countries excessive choice reduces the problems.
The thing to understand about net neutrality is it's a transfer of power from business to government. The devil is in the detail. If you look closely at the laws involved there are vague clauses that allow for extra government censorship and control in the future.
In basic terms, net neutrality sort-of makes sense in the US and makes less sense in the EU. It's a poisoned chalice created and pushed by do-gooders.
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#33Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number. Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best. Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!) provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak…
Second that. Furthermore it would be nice if they could have a map with mean bandwidth per region. If the infrastructure allows it everyone should receive the same service as long as they pay the same fee. We need more information in this matter and only legislation will get us there. ISPs are anything but transparent.
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#34I once heard an interview with the Economist digital editor Tom Standage where he claims (at 5:45 into the interview) that net neutrality is the wrong thing to focus on, and the important thing is just making sure there is more competition between the telcos. Can someone more familiar with this issue tell me if this argument is correct? https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/i63zqo-untether-tv-mobile-st...
This is true. In the US you have a small number of telcos with a strong grip on the industry whereas in many (but not all) EU countries excessive choice reduces the problems. The thing to understand about net neutrality is it's a transfer of power from business to government. The devil is in the detail. If you look closely at the laws involved there are vague clauses that allow for extra government censorship and con…
Can you clarify who you are referring to as the do-gooders here? Everyone who is asking for net neutrality?
And is the common people the group who is the victim of the poisoned chalice?
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision. If the services is cheap enough and has the thing that they usually use then they are done. Competition can easy bring cheaper services but hardly can bring improving in long term needs. That's why we have laws that forbid companies to poll…
"The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision." I think you're missing the implication of the point. If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality. Customers don't have to be aware…
> If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality.
Can you explain this further? I struggle to see how you get from "a lot of competition" to "de-facto net neutrality", and how that would continue indefinitely.
It seems to me that we had de-facto net neutrality from the outset but that over time, as the industry matured, the large players started to talk about colluding. It has taken pro-neutrality lobbying and legislation to maintain neutrality in what was previously a free market.
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#36Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number. Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best. Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!) provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak…
That's not likely going to happen nore is it a sensible thing to ask for.
As an ISP how would you _guarantee_ the bandwidth for each endpoint? You would have to provision for the maximal capacity all over your network. Given that most people only utilize their channel 1% of the time, this is a huge waste!
What's sensible to ask ISPs to do is: (a) Communicate historically experienced bandwith at each region (b) Provided certified, standartized measurement facilities (software / hardware?!) that can be used to monitor of the link utilization/saturation levels. (d) Refund policy, when agreed service level targets (as measured in b) were not hit. (This should be legally mandated)
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#37I don't understand how it's "progress" to move decisions from a small number of bureaucracies to a single, less accountable bureaucracy.
The same argument could be made against the US federal government. Two points:
(A) unified legislation is tremendoulsy important for trade/business (B) larger associations have far more influence than small ones.
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#38I don't understand how it's "progress" to move decisions from a small number of bureaucracies to a single, less accountable bureaucracy.
It's "progress" when the larger bureaucracy is harder to regulatorily capture, if only because in larger jurisdictions there are more competitors.
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#39It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue. And this is why Brexit is so heart-breaking. I'm surrounded by people in my personal life who think it's a fantastic idea, but they're not the most... informed? Likewise for local politicians. (Side note to my rant: I have this theory that the rise of the iPhone,…
Those are candy-bars to make you happy, just like the EHRC is keeping the leftists in line while we slowly shift toward an ordoliberal paradigm at the european level. For countries like France, Italy and even Germany, that means social regression and harmonisation by the bottom.
>Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.
Yay structural unemployment in the eurozone! The folks at the commission and at the ECB sure know as hell what they are doing since the EU is a sui generis structure and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment absolutely did not hurt western economies and destroyed the industrial tissue of those countries. I am being sarcastic.
Now, without any offense, you sound like someone who has red a wikipedia page about the European Union and who nows consider everyone having dissenting opinion to be a stinky redneck who does not deserve a voice.
Maybe that's not what you wanted to convey, in that case I apologise, but to be honest, at this point, I have met so many pseudo-smartass people who think they understand everything that I have very little hope you don't fall into that category of people. Thinking technocracy will magically solves all your problems is lazy, at best.
Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision. If the services is cheap enough and has the thing that they usually use then they are done. Competition can easy bring cheaper services but hardly can bring improving in long term needs. That's why we have laws that forbid companies to poll…
"The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision." I think you're missing the implication of the point. If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality. Customers don't have to be aware…
> If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality.
I don't see the point. If Google decides to pay to providers to speed up Google content. How having more carries solves the problem? Is not even worse as then Google will have more power to bring carriers to its side?
What will happen with little content providers? Can they compete once they are slow?
I see that is more difficult for carriers to agree on something, as the more they are the more difficult it gets. But I don't see hot it facilitates net-neutrality on, for example, the situation that I describe.