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

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#321

Post by sentenza » Fri, May 16, 2014, 7:43 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #219

mortenjorck wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. That's 120 days to make Title II a household word. Broadband's current classification as an information service, as if it's some sort of MovieFone for the 21st century, is so far removed from reality that the public should be in an uproar about it. Verizon itself has sought to classify its fiber buildouts under Title II so it can get fixed-rate access to existing right-of-way infrastructure, [1] on the technicali…

You really do not want broadband classified under Title II. You will get the war you want, but it will be a war everyone loses. Why do you think DSL is such a ghetto? It's because it's subject to a higher level of regulations, and nobody wants to invest money in such a highly-regulated industry: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-Veriz... . Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitel…

I live in Europe, where there is a lot more regulation on Telecom Companies. My house is in a small village in the woods (45min away from the next Autobahn!) and yet I can get 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up for 50€.

Regulation sets the market incentives. Having no regulation is just the choice to set the incentives to benefit those that control the natural monopoly.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#322

Post by takeda » Fri, May 16, 2014, 7:56 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #219

mortenjorck wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. That's 120 days to make Title II a household word. Broadband's current classification as an information service, as if it's some sort of MovieFone for the 21st century, is so far removed from reality that the public should be in an uproar about it. Verizon itself has sought to classify its fiber buildouts under Title II so it can get fixed-rate access to existing right-of-way infrastructure, [1] on the technicali…

You really do not want broadband classified under Title II. You will get the war you want, but it will be a war everyone loses. Why do you think DSL is such a ghetto? It's because it's subject to a higher level of regulations, and nobody wants to invest money in such a highly-regulated industry: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-Veriz... . Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitel…

You should read recent Level3 blogs showing that actually currently those companies don't have any incentive to improve their infrastructure, because keeping it in bad shape generates them more money. I know it is counter-intuitive but that's what it is.

Regional ISPs are natural monopolies and there's no other way but to regulate them. Same as you regulate electricity company, water, gas etc. You can't just let everyone dig holes around city to place new wires, pipes etc. There's no other way then regulating it.

BTW: If Comcast and Time Warner would move to a different methods of delivering access then it's all even better we will have more alternatives than just cable, or dsl. If instead they would decide to close down and sell, then I'm sure there would be plenty of other companies who would want to purchase their infrastructure with their subscribers to make money out of it.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#323

Post by D9u » Fri, May 16, 2014, 10:12 AM UTC

The FCC doesn't even agree with ISPs on the definition of what, exactly, constitutes "Broadband" connectivity.

Meanwhile the monopoly in my area continues to receive my payments, no matter what they do.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#324

Post by pling » Fri, May 16, 2014, 10:51 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #247

rayiner wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time to nationalize then. I hate even thinking that, but I'd rather have tax dollars wasted than see our money funnelled to Wall Street. When capital investment into broadband is set by vote, do you think you'll be happy with the resulting level of investment?

Nationalizing anything nearly always leads to lower quality. Compare the toll roads in France to the "free" autobahns in Germany. The French toll routes are far better maintained. Another case is health care, compare an NHS experience with a hip replacement in the UK with a hip replacement in France (or the US.) In the UK, the waiting list is measured in 6+ months, while in the US or France, it is almost immediate. F…

Yeah the nationalised healthcare here in the UK sucks.

Last night my wife got seen by an emergency dentist at 21:45 an it cost £18.50 ($31).

My grandmother was on the waiting list for her hip replacement for 11 days and that cost... $0

I broke my ankle and it was X-ray'ed cast and dealt with in 2 hours from being picked up by the ambulance and it cost...$0

My wife had three C-sections over the space of a decade an that cost...$0 (no wait either!)

My wife has had two other surgeries and they cost $0 and the waiting time was less than 3 weeks.

Oh and our medicines cost a max of £104 a year (if you get a year prescription certificate) and for most people they are free. That's for ANY amount of them.

Yeah nationalisation of healthcare is absolutely fucking awful especially here in London...

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#325

Post by Yardlink » Fri, May 16, 2014, 11:13 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #314

mwsherman wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CDN only carries traffic for those who’ve paid to be on it. That’s privileged, and not neutral. If the CDN is on Comcast’s premises, or primarily feeds a single last-mile network (which would de facto be true on a local level), then same.

> A CDN only carries traffic for those who’ve paid to be on it. A CDN doesn't carry traffic at all; it hosts content (multiple copies of it in different locations) for others to carry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network CDNs operate servers , not routers. The servers can be located in data centers with easy connections to ISPs and transit providers, but their traffic still doesn't get privileged ov…

I think you're focusing too much on the technical implementation. I agree with the parent that a CDN effectively carries traffic from a content provider to the end user. Sure it does it in bigger chunks, and uses existing network connections. But the end result is still "pay more for faster access", and isn't that exactly what net neutrality is against?

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#326

Post by Yardlink » Fri, May 16, 2014, 11:19 AM UTC

ColinDabritz wrote: post #167

mwsherman wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDNs are essentially identical (technologically and economically) to what Netflix bought from Comcast: http://clipperhouse.com/2014/05/07/what-netflix-bought-from-... To my mind, I can’t imagine a rule that describes a fast lane that doesn’t also describe a CDN.

The difference to me is that CDNs increase the availability of content to everyone. If CDNs did not exist, the content would still be available. Comcast is talking about "not decreasing" the availability of content. Some businesses can afford to pay to use already-paid-for infrastructure. Others are out of luck, and their content is not fully accessible. If Comcast did not exist, current users would not be able to re…

There isn't really a difference between "increasing" and "not decreasing". Some of these debates have been about ISPs not investing in infrastructure when they otherwise might have.

The market can still provide a solution with the Comcast payments. That would be customers wanting fast everything don't use Comcast. If there's no competition for those customers then that's the real problem - a monopoly - not what tricks the monopoly uses to take advantage of people.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#327

Post by rayiner » Fri, May 16, 2014, 11:33 AM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #307

danielweber wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia. According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds. You know you didn't disagree with him at all, right? Your source shows the US beating out Canada comfortably, and Australia overwhelmingly. The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and Singapore, ever , because it is trivial to wire up a single dense cit…

> The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and Singapore, ever, because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with weak democratic red tape. But even the most densely populated areas in the US have terrible Internet access. A small portion of New York City has FiOS, but the vast majority has Comcast or Time Warner, and those are about$60 for 20Mbps advertised [0]. I'm willing to give…

At the state level, on Ookla's data, New York performs pretty comparably to France and Belgium. It may be that there are cities in France and Belgium that have faster internet service. But they have better subways, etc, too. Most Americans cities are terribly managed. While Verizon is trying to deploy FIOS in New York, De Blasio has hired a civil rights lawyer to look into the issue of poor people not being able to afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is definitely NYC's government!

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#328

Post by hussong » Fri, May 16, 2014, 11:59 AM UTC

sentenza wrote: post #321

rayiner wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really do not want broadband classified under Title II. You will get the war you want, but it will be a war everyone loses. Why do you think DSL is such a ghetto? It's because it's subject to a higher level of regulations, and nobody wants to invest money in such a highly-regulated industry: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-Veriz... . Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitel…

I live in Europe, where there is a lot more regulation on Telecom Companies. My house is in a small village in the woods (45min away from the next Autobahn!) and yet I can get 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up for 50€. Regulation sets the market incentives. Having no regulation is just the choice to set the incentives to benefit those that control the natural monopoly.

To be fair, you can consider yourself lucky — many people in rural areas can only get 384 kbit/s DSL.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#329

Post by flavor8 » Fri, May 16, 2014, 12:49 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #147

dragonwriter wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's as if one likes net neutrality, while the other doesn't. "As if"? For the whole length of the net neutrality policy debate, the support has concentrated in the Democratic Party and the opposition has centered in the Republican Party -- not just on the FCC, but in Congress and everywhere else. The reason the Democratic majority of the FCC keeps trying to find a way to advance Open Internet principles within the…

Let's rephrase it then. Net neutrality is a very reasonable idea (same way as antitrust regulations are). Why do Republicans oppose it? They like monopolistic abuses on the Internet?

It's quite simple; net neutrality represents regulations on business. Republicans are anti-(business)-regulation, believing that a completely free market will deliver the best result to consumers. Of course, in this case that disregards the reality of 80 years of telecom monopolies (and derivative companies thereof,) i.e. mammoth established players with a history of playing dirty to stomp all others out of the marketplace; it is possible that in a blank slate scenario that regulation-less competition would lead to a good result for consumers, but even that is not a foregone outcome. In short, market idealism.

Re: FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet

#330

Post by danielweber » Fri, May 16, 2014, 1:02 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #307

danielweber wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia. According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds. You know you didn't disagree with him at all, right? Your source shows the US beating out Canada comfortably, and Australia overwhelmingly. The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and Singapore, ever , because it is trivial to wire up a single dense cit…

> The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and Singapore, ever, because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with weak democratic red tape. But even the most densely populated areas in the US have terrible Internet access. A small portion of New York City has FiOS, but the vast majority has Comcast or Time Warner, and those are about$60 for 20Mbps advertised [0]. I'm willing to give…

I didn't mean to imply that Singapore had a smaller government. But Singapore and Hong Kong definitely have governments where, once the leaders decide to do something, it happens. If it's what you wanted to happen, great. If it inconveniences you, too bad.

How could any putative problems in broadband deployment not be because of some difference in governance? I don't mean this as a "government sucks" rant (although that could definitely be the problem, as 'rayiner mentions FiOS being used as a social justice issue, of all things). But there are lots of rich people in dense areas who would be willing to pay money for the service. NYC's government must be doing something wrong (whether it's over-regulation or under-regulation or mis-regulation).