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ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

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Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#51
post #10
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But customers are already paying for 'unlimited internet' -- or for some amount of data up to a cap. You're suggesting that we should double charge the providers that the customers want to access, as well?

Telekom already does this for a very long time, at least in Germany. see for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10645577

Have there been no attempts in Germany at introducing net neutrality?

Also, does the ISP who wrote that linked article, Hetzner, still support net neutrality? I can't find anything else in English about it since the linked article from 2015 (archive [1], and new link [2]), but maybe that's because other content hasn't been translated.

> Hetzner Online stands for high-performance and high capacity Internet. In the last few years, our network infrastructure has expanded little by little in order to provide our customers with optimal performance. Currently, about two-thirds of our network traffic is directly exchanged with cost-neutral peerings of various partners. Among them are privat peerings with large network operators.

> For this reason, we have been increasingly concerned with DSL and cable providers who have no open peering policy themselves but are also not connected to other Tier-1 carriers with sufficient capacities. During the peak traffic period of 7 pm to 10 pm in particular, the concerned DSL and cable providers hit their capacity limits and thereby impede the fluent data stream between individual networks. This has lead to increasing complaints from the providers' customers because the customers cannot access their servers with the level of performance that they are used to having from Hetzner Online.

> These customers already paid for comprehensive and quick access to the Internet with their monthly DSL and cable fees. However, providers are no longer satisfied with just this source of profit. They now also want to collect revenue by charging large content providers fees for access to their network. For this reason, interfaces are being operated at their highest capacity -- to make paid access to the DSL and cable providers' networks attractive for content providers. The end consumer is then forced to pay double for unlimited access to the Internet. We at Hetzner Online do not support such policies and declare our support for full net neutrality.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150906025055/http://wiki.hetzn... (archive b/c the OP link is no longer accessible)

[2] https://www.hetzner.com/presse-berichte/2015/01/156830 (article appears to have been amended)

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't agree with what the ISP is doing, but I can rationalize how they think it makes sense. It only makes sense if they perceive no backlash for overreaching. We need to look closely at what they are currently doing. They're expanding zero rating on mobile, and also on broadband in some areas by claiming that their network is "proprietary technology" and not subject to such net neutrality laws. Meanwhile, munici…

I agree with your general point (a lack of competition is why they can get away with double-charging for traffic), though this feels like a theoretical concern as of yet. But you're conflating different ISPs with different types of anti-competitive behavior. Prioritizing non-streaming-service (e.g. throttling Netflix at prime time) packets could, for example, help a regional ISP stay competitive. That's different tha…

> this feels like a theoretical concern as of yet.

This was Ajit Pai's argument. That we should regulate nothing until there's a problem. There are two problems with it,

(1) It's already a problem. There have been documented examples of ISPs throttling, favoring their own partnered content. Also they are actively expanding or seeking to expand zero rating which is anti-competitive.

(2) At the point you actually have a barren landscape in which competitors cannot grow, you've already sucked in a slew of investors on the idea that these monopolies' business models are sound. If the government steps in at that point, they risk being seen as the bad guy for destroying all that investment, which can have political consequences.

We can avoid all that by acknowledging the existing problems, and encouraging competition among ISPs. There should be very few people advocating for monopolies, and we outnumber them.

> Prioritizing non-streaming-service (e.g. throttling Netflix at prime time) packets could, for example, help a regional ISP stay competitive.

That only helps Netflix and that ISP maintain their grip. It's only competitive if by competitive you mean stomping out any new ISP or content provider that is unable to make such agreements.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#53
post #2

> California's net neutrality law is similar to the federal rules repealed under former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. California prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic. It also prohibits requiring fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to consumers, bans paid data cap exemptions (so-called "zero-rating"), and says that ISPs may not attempt to evade net neutrality prot…

The primary beneficiaries of this are basically Netflix and Google, no? My understanding is most of these policies have always been targeted at the large streaming services that are putting the most burden on the networks and who often already have special interconnect agreements. The claims that these policies would be aimed at small businesses seem largely to have not been realistic. The whole situation with lying…

> My understanding is most of these policies have always been targeted at the large streaming services that are putting the most burden on the networks and who often already have special interconnect agreements.

"large streaming services that are putting the most burden on the networks"?

That is completely non-sensical. It is not streaming services that are creating a burden, it is the ISP's customers. The ISP's customers are asking for the bits. They are using their Internet service / connection to get what they want (video). Is HN 'causing' the traffic to flow over my ISP's pipes when I reply to comments, or is it me (the ISP customer) when I click on "reply"?

The streaming services are not dumping bits on to the network like a chemical plant polluting a river. The streaming services are sending bits that the ISP's customers requested.

If the ISPs can't deliver the traffic that their customers want then they need to architect their network to handle it.

ISPs are selling access to the Internet, streaming service are on the Internet, and so ISPs need provide it or stop advertising that they're providing Internet access.

The streaming services are paying for their Internet connection, and ISP's customers are paying for their Internet connection, and it is the job of the ISP to connect the two.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies can be held accountable in court for words used in their marketing.

I think you're just angry at ISPs (I don't blame you, they're usually monopolies or oligopolies which engage in dirty behavior.) But given the state of the market, I don't know a _single_ ISP or customer that would confuse DIA for regular bandwidth. Buying DIA involves getting a quote from the ISP and going back-and-forth with an operator over how to connect. And the fine print for most ISPs explains what "unlimited…

Fine print isn’t a blanket solution for false advertising issues. Essentially advertising X while providing Y becomes a question of fraud.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#55
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question becomes who should be charged for bandwidth. The ISPs in this case are arguing they want to charge a small subset of above normal bandwidth consuming services rather than the ISP customers.

Why should the companies pay for it? There are agreements in place for bandwidth between the peering companies and last mile providers. They shouldn’t care how it’s consumed. The issue is not use it’s prioritization. That’s the danger. Netflix pays to prioritize their traffic over Discovery+ or your video streaming startup. Now when it’s busy and the pipe is fully consumed, Netflix is perfect and your company is drop…

That scenario will be true regardless, though, because Netflix can and does set up interconnects at dozens of peering locations to skip half the pipes.

It's true that it'd be bad for Discovery+ to pay for prioritizing their traffic over yours, and I'm very sympathetic to net neutrality on those grounds, but opponents would point out (as far as I can tell correctly) that ISPs have never really tried to build such a program. Throttling and traffic fees rarely come up except at the scale where the actual components of the underlying infrastructure matter.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies can be held accountable in court for words used in their marketing.

I think you're just angry at ISPs (I don't blame you, they're usually monopolies or oligopolies which engage in dirty behavior.) But given the state of the market, I don't know a _single_ ISP or customer that would confuse DIA for regular bandwidth. Buying DIA involves getting a quote from the ISP and going back-and-forth with an operator over how to connect. And the fine print for most ISPs explains what "unlimited…

ISPs took tons of taxpayer dollars, often have lousy service, maintain regional monopolies, and lobby municipalities out of building their own networks with shady dealings. Who would be satisified with that? We can do better.

> But given the state of the market, I don't know a _single_ ISP or customer that would confuse DIA for regular bandwidth.

You brought up DIA. I didn't see anyone else comment on it.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#57
post #46

The whole net neutrality saga just exposed the deep regulatory capture between ISPs and the FCC (the Republican Commissioners at least). Pai's argument for repealing net neutrality was that it wasn't a Federal government concern. That was originally what prompted California to institute these rules. But suddenly it wasn't a state issue either. Weird . The US has some of the most expensive Internet access in the world…

>Customers are pulling that data and those customers, by definition, are already paying for the bandwidth

Downloading bandwidth is free. The person who is uploading is the person who pays.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#59
post #46

The whole net neutrality saga just exposed the deep regulatory capture between ISPs and the FCC (the Republican Commissioners at least). Pai's argument for repealing net neutrality was that it wasn't a Federal government concern. That was originally what prompted California to institute these rules. But suddenly it wasn't a state issue either. Weird . The US has some of the most expensive Internet access in the world…

>Customers are pulling that data and those customers, by definition, are already paying for the bandwidth Downloading bandwidth is free. The person who is uploading is the person who pays.

You might get that deal on a server, but not a mobile or broadband contract.

Now that I think of it, I don't know whether my capped mobile usage counts uploads towards my contracted limits. I assume it does.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#60
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telekom already does this for a very long time, at least in Germany. see for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10645577

Have there been no attempts in Germany at introducing net neutrality? Also, does the ISP who wrote that linked article, Hetzner, still support net neutrality? I can't find anything else in English about it since the linked article from 2015 (archive [1], and new link [2]), but maybe that's because other content hasn't been translated. > Hetzner Online stands for high-performance and high capacity Internet. In the las…

> Also, does the ISP who wrote that linked article, Hetzner, still support net neutrality?

They do, but had to relent on holding Telekom accountable because customers threatened to leave as their end-customers from Telekom complained that the services were not reachable or low-performant.

In the end, IMO it's safe to say that Telekom abused their customers to bully Hetzner into paying.

[1] https://www.hetzner.com/de/news/03-20-dtag/

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