AlmightyWalrus wrote: If number of voters was the deciding factor then the Democrats would be in control of the White House.
The Presidential election has exactly zero to do with a congressional issue.
The point being expressed that I think you missed is that the number of voters in favor of a thing does not directly correlate to the number of politicians in favor of that thing.
Yeah, Bell got in big trouble using Sandvine to shape / throttle traffic based on the type https://www.sandvine.com/.
Wiki: "Bell Canada traffic shaping: On April 3, 2008, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers requested that the CRTC require Bell Canada to immediately cease its traffic shaping and Internet traffic throttling.[25][26] On November 20, 2008, the CRTC ruled that Bell Canada's traffic shaping was not discriminatory because it was applied to both wholesale and retail customers. The CRTC also called for public hearings to ensure that network management practices are administered fairly in the future.[27]" Netflix would have never taken off here if the CRTC was not showing it was monitoring the situation.
The only other means back then of getting around it was to do a point to point encryption so they could not identify the file / stream type.
General principles is that telecom is a public utility: In Canada, under the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1993, internet providers are considered utilities which are subject to regulations which in spirit predate later debates about net neutrality that state that service providers can't give "undue or unreasonable preference," nor can they influence the content being transmitted over their networks. Furthermore, the CRTC, unlike the more directly political appointees of the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is a more arms-length regulatory body with more autonomous authority over telecommunications. For example, the CRTC's decisions rely more on a more judiciary process relying on evidence submitted during public consultations, rather than along party lines as the American FCC is prone to do.[5]
What it all boils down to is the American people view this as a "right" for democracy and freedom of speech rather than something to be completely determined by market forces.
I can very easily see tiered cost of internet by total amount used could be applied on how much you want to pay for how "free of restriction" your favored online programs can be for a cost.
Bell here was claiming Sandvine was necessary for reducing congestion of the infrastructure when there was not evidence of undue congestion, it was a means to be able to throttle competing services on their network.
Don't let it happen to you guys, we just barely got this sorted out here and it still seems to need to go further.
Easy E wrote: Despite all the stuff we may or may not disagree with in Whembly's post, his conclusion is spot-on.
The only way forward is by Congressional Action. If that is the direction, then NN supporters will have to organize, make it a campaign issue, and vote at the polls.
There is no other way forward.
I quoted myself for clarity. So stop whining about Gerrymandering and go out and do something about it.
NN is dead unless there is congressional action. Elections have consequences.
Who said that nobody is trying to do anything about it?
Elections have consequences. Unfortunately for us, one specific party has been doing everything they damn well can to make it so that elections are a farce.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: If number of voters was the deciding factor then the Democrats would be in control of the White House.
The Presidential election has exactly zero to do with a congressional issue.
The point being expressed that I think you missed is that the number of voters in favor of a thing does not directly correlate to the number of politicians in favor of that thing.
This is correct.
Voters can be in favor of a thing or best served by a thing and their representative might not give a flying feth.
Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
I don't think that will help in the USA - it feels as if most towns/counties are in cahoots with the Cable Companies - Kickbacks (maybe in the form of offering to 'pay' for 'infrastructure updates' or something?) make it so that there are basically mini-monopolies town to town...
Alpharius wrote: I don't think that will help in the USA - it feels as if most towns/counties are in cahoots with the Cable Companies - Kickbacks (maybe in the form of offering to 'pay' for 'infrastructure updates' or something?) make it so that there are basically mini-monopolies town to town...
It also goes back to the issue of gerrymandering and partisan politics.
Alpharius wrote: I don't think that will help in the USA - it feels as if most towns/counties are in cahoots with the Cable Companies - Kickbacks (maybe in the form of offering to 'pay' for 'infrastructure updates' or something?) make it so that there are basically mini-monopolies town to town...
It also goes back to the issue of gerrymandering and partisan politics.
No it doesn't unless you have evidence that proves that local and state regulations that inhibit competition to established ISPs by making it impossible to build new infrastructure or lay new cable exists only in states and municipalities whose governing bodies are controlled by the same party and that party is in power in large part due to gerrymandering.
NN was a stopgap measure to address the growing problems caused by ISP monopolies in large and populous regions of the country. It was legislation that was necessary but it wasn't the best solution or even a comprehensive solution to the problem. The silver lining to repealing NN was that by removing an imperfect piece of legislation the opportunity to pass a better piece of legislation is created. The ominous cloud of impenetrable darkness of repealing NN is that there is no reason to expect the current session of Congress or sessions of Congress in the near future, to be capable of crafting and passing a good comprehensive solution to the problems caused by ISP monopolies.
"“We used to think of telcos being very separate from content providers.
But there’s a lot of convergence now.
So one of the risks is as content and infrastructure are merged more, the pressures on both, which might be of a political nature ... might restrict certain kinds of coverage.”
As companies are in the business of the infrastructure AND content it is a "natural" want to squeeze-out the competition or leverage self serving content.
Tannhauser42 wrote:The point being expressed that I think you missed is that the number of voters in favor of a thing does not directly correlate to the number of politicians in favor of that thing.
Kilkrazy wrote:Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
There are laws that make this harder/impossible (lobbying works on all levels):
Prestor Jon wrote:No it doesn't unless you have evidence that proves that local and state regulations that inhibit competition to established ISPs by making it impossible to build new infrastructure or lay new cable exists only in states and municipalities whose governing bodies are controlled by the same party and that party is in power in large part due to gerrymandering.
Are the two links above good enough evidence? If i remember correctly there are also some other restrictions because when ISPs got government funding to adapt to the population's need for broadband access they also got additional concessions that limited competition because they were the ones improving the network and wanted guarantees on that investment (even if the government financed it).
Besides that, who think tethering might make a comeback in the USA if ISP get their way?
Prestor Jon wrote:No it doesn't unless you have evidence that proves that local and state regulations that inhibit competition to established ISPs by making it impossible to build new infrastructure or lay new cable exists only in states and municipalities whose governing bodies are controlled by the same party and that party is in power in large part due to gerrymandering.
Are the two links above good enough evidence? If i remember correctly there are also some other restrictions because when ISPs got government funding to adapt to the population's need for broadband access they also got additional concessions that limited competition because they were the ones improving the network and wanted guarantees on that investment (even if the government financed it).
Besides that, who think tethering might make a comeback in the USA if ISP get their way?
You seem to be misunderstanding what I wrote. The articles you linked to show that local and state restrictions on infrastructure projects and telecom expansion/cable laying have been enacted across the USA. This includes states such as California, Colorado, Virginia, South Carolina and Alabama. The politics in those states range from deep blue to solid red and also purple with different political parties in control of state legislatures and governorships. That proves the point of my statement that Kanluwen is wrong to attribute the problem to a single party or to gerrymandering because both political parties are happy to exacerbate the problems consumers face with ISP monopolies as long as the Parties and politicians profit from it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
skyth wrote: Plus the whole 'you have to repeal it so you can make a better version' spiel which is patently a dishonest argument.
It isn’t dishonest at all. NN isn’t perfect and doesn’t address root problems. If we want congress to address the root problems we need to remove NN and put better legislation in place. Those facts don’t do anything to change the other facts that removing NN without having better legislation ready to be proposed and passed is a terrible move that hurts consumers. I’m not defending the repeal of NN or stating that it was a good decision I’m merely pointing out that to make progress combatting the problem of ISP monopolies we were going to have to replace NN with something better. It was still a terrible decision to simply repeal NN with no plan to replace it with anything else anytime in the near future.
skyth wrote: Plus the whole 'you have to repeal it so you can make a better version' spiel which is patently a dishonest argument.
It isn’t dishonest at all. NN isn’t perfect and doesn’t address root problems. If we want congress to address the root problems we need to remove NN and put better legislation in place. Those facts don’t do anything to change the other facts that removing NN without having better legislation ready to be proposed and passed is a terrible move that hurts consumers. I’m not defending the repeal of NN or stating that it was a good decision I’m merely pointing out that to make progress combatting the problem of ISP monopolies we were going to have to replace NN with something better. It was still a terrible decision to simply repeal NN with no plan to replace it with anything else anytime in the near future.
It IS dishonest. New legislation automatically supersedes older one as long as it's refered to as doing it, you don't need to repeal the old law.
skyth wrote: Plus the whole 'you have to repeal it so you can make a better version' spiel which is patently a dishonest argument.
It isn’t dishonest at all. NN isn’t perfect and doesn’t address root problems. If we want congress to address the root problems we need to remove NN and put better legislation in place. Those facts don’t do anything to change the other facts that removing NN without having better legislation ready to be proposed and passed is a terrible move that hurts consumers. I’m not defending the repeal of NN or stating that it was a good decision I’m merely pointing out that to make progress combatting the problem of ISP monopolies we were going to have to replace NN with something better. It was still a terrible decision to simply repeal NN with no plan to replace it with anything else anytime in the near future.
It IS dishonest. New legislation automatically supersedes older one as long as it's refered to as doing it, you don't need to repeal the old law.
His point was more that it's not actually a law at all. As it (formerly) stood, net neutrality protection was an FCC classification that pointed to an existing law. This could, and was, essentially overturned by executive fiat: the POTUS appointed a chairman who was directed to change this, and after a quick kabuki show of gathering comments, he did exactly that. This could again be reversed by a subsequent POTUS, but it does nothing to make net neutrality actually robust.
This really is a problem for Congress to fix, but they've got other priorities now. After the high profile blocking and throttling shenanigans begin, and I think we all know they will, then perhaps Congress can be pushed into actually enshrining net neutrality principles into law. Yes, they can still be overturned later like every law, but it's a lot harder and it's no longer essentially by executive fiat.
Its not really uncharted territory. We can look to the past.
The Printing Press, Radio, and TV all went through similar phases in their growth to major media. When they all started, it was the "Wild West" and random people were setting up Newspapers, Radio Stations, and TV Stations at first. Then, as they grew in popularity, they started to organize into larger entities. After which they eventually drew the attention of the government.
If we look to these older models, we can get a pretty clear picture of what will happen. What made the Internet different and helped it last as the "Wild West" a bit longer was Net Nuetrality.
Now that is gone, we will see the "Cablization" of the Internet and it will just be another, purer channel for marketing and slick productions. No more amatuers or wildcat content producers. You will have to go through "the system".
Granted, this could still take a generation or so but that is the arc of history on such topics. I am sure Hats knows way more about this topic than me.
Easy E wrote: Its not really uncharted territory. We can look to the past.
The Printing Press, Radio, and TV all went through similar phases in their growth to major media. When they all started, it was the "Wild West" and random people were setting up Newspapers, Radio Stations, and TV Stations at first. Then, as they grew in popularity, they started to organize into larger entities. After which they eventually drew the attention of the government.
If we look to these older models, we can get a pretty clear picture of what will happen. What made the Internet different and helped it last as the "Wild West" a bit longer was Net Nuetrality.
Now that is gone, we will see the "Cablization" of the Internet and it will just be another, purer channel for marketing and slick productions. No more amatuers or wildcat content producers. You will have to go through "the system".
Granted, this could still take a generation or so but that is the arc of history on such topics. I am sure Hats knows way more about this topic than me.
It's already pretty simple in broad strokes. ISPs shouldn't be allowed to operate monopolies in large populous regions. Having entire states or huge metro areas with only 1 ISP choice is terrible, there should be 3-4. Monopoly busting used be something the Federal govt viewed as an important integral part of regulating commerce. There should be a separation of service provider entities and content provider entities. Vertical integration can reach a point where it eliminates choice which can shrink the market to an unhealthy size that hurts consumers. This is easy stuff to see. It's the same thing we saw with the financial crisis, banks shouldn't be too big to fail, banks should be separated into investment banks and commercial lending banks and not be the same entity. The tough part is getting Congress to pass good legislation on these points. The big banks are even bigger now than they were in 08 and are just as much of a tangled mess.
The internet is similar to the printing press in the sense that both revolutionized the ability to mass produce content for a large audience but there is a fundamental difference between the two. The printing press still presented a significant obstacle of start up costs: owning, operating and supplying the machine wasn't an option for a lot of people. Benjamin Franklin had the ability to produce Poor Richard's Almanac but the vast majority of the rest of the people living in Philadelphia did not. Printing presses led to the creation of publishing houses which is exactly the kind of gate keeper model we want avoid putting in place with the internet.
The internet is the greatest most amazing engine for entrepreneurship imaginable. While technological progress is eliminating a lot of jobs/careers it is also making it easier than ever to have your own career. If you want to put forth your talent, ability, opinion, personality, ideas, products etc. it's never been easier. If you have a smartphone/PC and an internet connection you can launch your own webstore, write your own ebooks or webcomics, produce your own podcast, or create your own website/blog and create the content you want and try to monetize it. Even if you don't want to set yourself up all on your own you can still capitalize on creating a storefront on Amazon or Ebay, create a Facebook page or LinkdIn profile, or start your own YouTube channel for an incredibly low start up cost in terms of money and time. If we let ISP providers like Comcast set themselves up like publishing houses and instead of publishers deciding which books get published depending on which books they think they'll turn a profit on we get Comcast deciding what content gets put on the internet we will stifle the small business engine of the internet at the exact moment in history when our economy and society needs it the most.
The internet is similar to the printing press in the sense that both revolutionized the ability to mass produce content for a large audience but there is a fundamental difference between the two. The printing press still presented a significant obstacle of start up costs: owning, operating and supplying the machine wasn't an option for a lot of people. Benjamin Franklin had the ability to produce Poor Richard's Almanac but the vast majority of the rest of the people living in Philadelphia did not. Printing presses led to the creation of publishing houses which is exactly the kind of gate keeper model we want avoid putting in place with the internet.
The internet is the greatest most amazing engine for entrepreneurship imaginable. While technological progress is eliminating a lot of jobs/careers it is also making it easier than ever to have your own career. If you want to put forth your talent, ability, opinion, personality, ideas, products etc. it's never been easier. If you have a smartphone/PC and an internet connection you can launch your own webstore, write your own ebooks or webcomics, produce your own podcast, or create your own website/blog and create the content you want and try to monetize it. Even if you don't want to set yourself up all on your own you can still capitalize on creating a storefront on Amazon or Ebay, create a Facebook page or LinkdIn profile, or start your own YouTube channel for an incredibly low start up cost in terms of money and time. If we let ISP providers like Comcast set themselves up like publishing houses and instead of publishers deciding which books get published depending on which books they think they'll turn a profit on we get Comcast deciding what content gets put on the internet we will stifle the small business engine of the internet at the exact moment in history when our economy and society needs it the most.
Yes, thank you for adding to my point. Similar things happened with Radio and TV before as what happened to the Printing Press.
Do you think the cos tof entry is so low now tha the "Publishing House" model is impossible to return to? NN helped keep those costs low. Without it, are we pointing back to "Publishing House" model with ISPs as the gatekeepers based on profits?
The internet is similar to the printing press in the sense that both revolutionized the ability to mass produce content for a large audience but there is a fundamental difference between the two. The printing press still presented a significant obstacle of start up costs: owning, operating and supplying the machine wasn't an option for a lot of people. Benjamin Franklin had the ability to produce Poor Richard's Almanac but the vast majority of the rest of the people living in Philadelphia did not. Printing presses led to the creation of publishing houses which is exactly the kind of gate keeper model we want avoid putting in place with the internet.
The internet is the greatest most amazing engine for entrepreneurship imaginable. While technological progress is eliminating a lot of jobs/careers it is also making it easier than ever to have your own career. If you want to put forth your talent, ability, opinion, personality, ideas, products etc. it's never been easier. If you have a smartphone/PC and an internet connection you can launch your own webstore, write your own ebooks or webcomics, produce your own podcast, or create your own website/blog and create the content you want and try to monetize it. Even if you don't want to set yourself up all on your own you can still capitalize on creating a storefront on Amazon or Ebay, create a Facebook page or LinkdIn profile, or start your own YouTube channel for an incredibly low start up cost in terms of money and time. If we let ISP providers like Comcast set themselves up like publishing houses and instead of publishers deciding which books get published depending on which books they think they'll turn a profit on we get Comcast deciding what content gets put on the internet we will stifle the small business engine of the internet at the exact moment in history when our economy and society needs it the most.
Yes, thank you for adding to my point. Similar things happened with Radio and TV before as what happened to the Printing Press.
Do you think the cos tof entry is so low now tha the "Publishing House" model is impossible to return to? NN helped keep those costs low. Without it, are we pointing back to "Publishing House" model with ISPs as the gatekeepers based on profits?
I think the gate keeper model is a possibility to be feared for as long as ISPs are allowed to maintain monopolies. We have large metro areas with only 1 ISP, like Baltimore and Comcast ( http://wypr.org/post/why-comcast-one-and-only-cable-and-internet-option-baltimore ). There are various factors that contribute to that fact but the end result is consumers have only 1 choice and with NN repealed and no new regulation or legislation likely to be passed anytime soon Comcast will be able to run it's internet service with the same business model as it ran it's cable service to the detriment of consumers. NN wasn't the only way to address the dangers of ISP monopolies and exploitative business practices and it wasn't necessarily the best way but it was a useful regulation that addressed a known problem that needed to be addressed. Vertical integration is a problem that NN didn't address. Comcast owns Hulu now so what stops Comcast from including Hulu subscriptions in the cost of Comcast internet service while putting alternatives like Netflix or YouTube behind a paywall or charging Netflix or YouTube a large fee to have access to Comcast subscribers? This would be like cable where Comcast had to pay ESPN to carry ESPN in its cable package and then passed the cost on to consumers. Comcast keeps Hulu at a low cost or as a hidden cost in the internet subscription fee while making competitor streaming services more expensive. Comcast doesn't have to throttle the speed of competitors, they can just use their advantage of owning the infrastructure and being the only ISP in town to drive more consumers to their own content and away from competitors content or to increase the cost to consumers for competitor's content. If Comcast makes YoutTube cost more then operating a YouTube channel can cost more and then that can limit entrepreneurship via YouTube.
Given that we can look back at history in the distant and recent past along with having a good understanding of pros and cons of the internet already we should be proactively addressing these issues instead of ignoring them or kicking them down the road where they'll be much harder to address. A hyper partisan political climate and big money lobbying and complexities of state and municipal jurisdictions/regulations all make this a difficult problem to solve but the longer we put it off the worse it gets.
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
IIRC, the FCC also put rules into place preventing state/local governments from implementing their own version of NN, so that's a bust idea considering how much money the various ISPs will throw at lawyers and what not to fight any sort of public internet like chattanooga has.
Which is such a dump on State's rights from the party that's supposed to support them I don't even know what to say. I mean... At least give States the option to change it if they want. If anything that will allow us to try varied solutions and see what works.
We really don't need varied solutions though. We know the solution, and it's not hope that ISPs will be benevolent. There needs to be clear and strict laws to enforce all legal internet traffic is treated equally.
Wolfblade wrote: We really don't need varied solutions though. We know the solution, and it's not hope that ISPs will be benevolent. There needs to be clear and strict laws to enforce all legal internet traffic is treated equally.
All internet traffic is not equal though. Streaming data differs quite a bit from regular web browsing which differs from email use. The post office and UPS treat a single page of paper in an envelope differently than a huge box of books. You have some content providers (like Netflix) providing content with a QOS requirement that my ISP in very rural SC (so unfortunately satellite) did not necessarily sign up to provide.
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
IIRC, the FCC also put rules into place preventing state/local governments from implementing their own version of NN, so that's a bust idea considering how much money the various ISPs will throw at lawyers and what not to fight any sort of public internet like chattanooga has.
Can you get a source for that? I don't see how that would be possible since the Federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate commerce so I don't see how the FCC can dictate how states and municipalities regulate ISPs within their own borders.
The biggest issue we need to combat on the local level is removing obstacles to competition. In the article I posted previously about how Baltimore residents are stuck with only Comcast as a cable and/or internet provider for the city, it explains that Comcast isn't doing anything to keep the monopoly it's just the fact that the cost is too high for other companies to install the infrastructure to provide a competing service. Comcast already owns the infrastructure in place and they don't want to and can't be forced to lease their cable to a competitor just to lose market share, so they're enjoying a monopoly not because of any particular business practice on their end but because nobody else wants to compete with them. If states and municipalities incentivized the construction of competing ISP infrastructure by lowering the cost to do so then we'd get more competition. We don't need a lot of options but just having 3-4 ISP providers would have a similar effect to NN, in that if one ISP wants to throttle Netflix then a competitor ISP can not throttle Netflix in an effort to gain market share over the ISP that is throttling Netflix.
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
IIRC, the FCC also put rules into place preventing state/local governments from implementing their own version of NN, so that's a bust idea considering how much money the various ISPs will throw at lawyers and what not to fight any sort of public internet like chattanooga has.
Can you get a source for that? I don't see how that would be possible since the Federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate commerce so I don't see how the FCC can dictate how states and municipalities regulate ISPs within their own borders.
The biggest issue we need to combat on the local level is removing obstacles to competition. In the article I posted previously about how Baltimore residents are stuck with only Comcast as a cable and/or internet provider for the city, it explains that Comcast isn't doing anything to keep the monopoly it's just the fact that the cost is too high for other companies to install the infrastructure to provide a competing service. Comcast already owns the infrastructure in place and they don't want to and can't be forced to lease their cable to a competitor just to lose market share, so they're enjoying a monopoly not because of any particular business practice on their end but because nobody else wants to compete with them. If states and municipalities incentivized the construction of competing ISP infrastructure by lowering the cost to do so then we'd get more competition. We don't need a lot of options but just having 3-4 ISP providers would have a similar effect to NN, in that if one ISP wants to throttle Netflix then a competitor ISP can not throttle Netflix in an effort to gain market share over the ISP that is throttling Netflix.
It starts on page 116 of the FCC's repeal, and continues onto page 117: "Just as the Title II Order promised to “exercise our preemption authority to preclude states from imposing regulations on broadband service that are inconsistent” with the federal regulatory scheme, we conclude that we should exercise our authority to preempt any state or local requirements that are inconsistent with the federal deregulatory approach we adopt today. We therefore preempt any state or local measures that would effectively impose rules or requirements that we have repealed or decided to refrain from imposing in this order or that would impose more stringent requirements for any aspect of broadband service that we address in this order." Among other things, we thereby preempt any so-called “economic” or “public utility-type” regulations, including common-carriage requirements akin to those found in Title II of the Act and its implementing rules, as well as other rules or requirements that we repeal or refrain from imposing today because they could pose an obstacle to or place an undue burden on the provision of broadband Internet access service and conflict with the deregulatory approach we adopt today."
I also removed some of the citation numbers there (729, 730, and 731 for those interested) for ease of reading, and the preceding (paragraph, I think) numbers (194 and 195) for the same reason.
Wolfblade wrote: We really don't need varied solutions though. We know the solution, and it's not hope that ISPs will be benevolent. There needs to be clear and strict laws to enforce all legal internet traffic is treated equally.
All internet traffic is not equal though. Streaming data differs quite a bit from regular web browsing which differs from email use. The post office and UPS treat a single page of paper in an envelope differently than a huge box of books. You have some content providers (like Netflix) providing content with a QOS requirement that my ISP in very rural SC (so unfortunately satellite) did not necessarily sign up to provide.
Sure, in terms of data used, streaming will use more, but we're not talking about volume of data, but legal data usage being treated equal (i.e. not being throttled because you use Hulu instead of Netflix, or because you read news articles from the Times instead of the Washington Post.)
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
IIRC, the FCC also put rules into place preventing state/local governments from implementing their own version of NN, so that's a bust idea considering how much money the various ISPs will throw at lawyers and what not to fight any sort of public internet like chattanooga has.
Can you get a source for that? I don't see how that would be possible since the Federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate commerce so I don't see how the FCC can dictate how states and municipalities regulate ISPs within their own borders.
The biggest issue we need to combat on the local level is removing obstacles to competition. In the article I posted previously about how Baltimore residents are stuck with only Comcast as a cable and/or internet provider for the city, it explains that Comcast isn't doing anything to keep the monopoly it's just the fact that the cost is too high for other companies to install the infrastructure to provide a competing service. Comcast already owns the infrastructure in place and they don't want to and can't be forced to lease their cable to a competitor just to lose market share, so they're enjoying a monopoly not because of any particular business practice on their end but because nobody else wants to compete with them. If states and municipalities incentivized the construction of competing ISP infrastructure by lowering the cost to do so then we'd get more competition. We don't need a lot of options but just having 3-4 ISP providers would have a similar effect to NN, in that if one ISP wants to throttle Netflix then a competitor ISP can not throttle Netflix in an effort to gain market share over the ISP that is throttling Netflix.
It starts on page 116 of the FCC's repeal, and continues onto page 117: "Just as the Title II Order promised to “exercise our preemption authority to preclude states from imposing regulations on broadband service that are inconsistent” with the federal regulatory scheme, we conclude that we should exercise our authority to preempt any state or local requirements that are inconsistent with the federal deregulatory approach we adopt today. We therefore preempt any state or local measures that would effectively impose rules or requirements that we have repealed or decided to refrain from imposing in this order or that would impose more stringent requirements for any aspect of broadband service that we address in this order." Among other things, we thereby preempt any so-called “economic” or “public utility-type” regulations, including common-carriage requirements akin to those found in Title II of the Act and its implementing rules, as well as other rules or requirements that we repeal or refrain from imposing today because they could pose an obstacle to or place an undue burden on the provision of broadband Internet access service and conflict with the deregulatory approach we adopt today."
I also removed some of the citation numbers there (729, 730, and 731 for those interested) for ease of reading, and the preceding (paragraph, I think) numbers (194 and 195) for the same reason.
The FCC ability to preempt state laws regarding municipal broadband networks has already been struck down in Federal court. I don't think the new preemption proposed by the FCC will fare any better when it's challenged by states or municipalities.
The Federal Communications Commission has lost in an attempt to preempt state laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband networks.
The FCC in February 2015 voted to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. The FCC, led by Chairman Tom Wheeler, claimed it could preempt the laws because Congress authorizes the commission to promote telecom competition by removing barriers to investment.
But this was a risky legal argument, as the FCC has no specific authority to overturn state laws. Officials in both states appealed the FCC decision, and today a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the states (full text).
"The FCC order essentially serves to re-allocate decision-making power between the states and their municipalities," judges wrote. "This is shown by the fact that no federal statute or FCC regulation requires the municipalities to expand or otherwise to act in contravention of the preempted state statutory provisions. This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation. The FCC relies upon Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for the authority to preempt in this case, but that statute falls far short of such a clear statement. The preemption order must accordingly be reversed."
The decision was essentially unanimous, with judges John Rogers, Joseph Hood, and Helene White all voting to reverse the FCC's order. White concurred in part and dissented in part, writing a separate opinion to address a few issues not covered in the majority opinion.
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
IIRC, the FCC also put rules into place preventing state/local governments from implementing their own version of NN, so that's a bust idea considering how much money the various ISPs will throw at lawyers and what not to fight any sort of public internet like chattanooga has.
Can you get a source for that? I don't see how that would be possible since the Federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate commerce so I don't see how the FCC can dictate how states and municipalities regulate ISPs within their own borders.
The biggest issue we need to combat on the local level is removing obstacles to competition. In the article I posted previously about how Baltimore residents are stuck with only Comcast as a cable and/or internet provider for the city, it explains that Comcast isn't doing anything to keep the monopoly it's just the fact that the cost is too high for other companies to install the infrastructure to provide a competing service. Comcast already owns the infrastructure in place and they don't want to and can't be forced to lease their cable to a competitor just to lose market share, so they're enjoying a monopoly not because of any particular business practice on their end but because nobody else wants to compete with them. If states and municipalities incentivized the construction of competing ISP infrastructure by lowering the cost to do so then we'd get more competition. We don't need a lot of options but just having 3-4 ISP providers would have a similar effect to NN, in that if one ISP wants to throttle Netflix then a competitor ISP can not throttle Netflix in an effort to gain market share over the ISP that is throttling Netflix.
It starts on page 116 of the FCC's repeal, and continues onto page 117: "Just as the Title II Order promised to “exercise our preemption authority to preclude states from imposing regulations on broadband service that are inconsistent” with the federal regulatory scheme, we conclude that we should exercise our authority to preempt any state or local requirements that are inconsistent with the federal deregulatory approach we adopt today. We therefore preempt any state or local measures that would effectively impose rules or requirements that we have repealed or decided to refrain from imposing in this order or that would impose more stringent requirements for any aspect of broadband service that we address in this order." Among other things, we thereby preempt any so-called “economic” or “public utility-type” regulations, including common-carriage requirements akin to those found in Title II of the Act and its implementing rules, as well as other rules or requirements that we repeal or refrain from imposing today because they could pose an obstacle to or place an undue burden on the provision of broadband Internet access service and conflict with the deregulatory approach we adopt today."
I also removed some of the citation numbers there (729, 730, and 731 for those interested) for ease of reading, and the preceding (paragraph, I think) numbers (194 and 195) for the same reason.
The FCC ability to preempt state laws regarding municipal broadband networks has already been struck down in Federal court. I don't think the new preemption proposed by the FCC will fare any better when it's challenged by states or municipalities.
The Federal Communications Commission has lost in an attempt to preempt state laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband networks.
The FCC in February 2015 voted to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. The FCC, led by Chairman Tom Wheeler, claimed it could preempt the laws because Congress authorizes the commission to promote telecom competition by removing barriers to investment.
But this was a risky legal argument, as the FCC has no specific authority to overturn state laws. Officials in both states appealed the FCC decision, and today a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the states (full text).
"The FCC order essentially serves to re-allocate decision-making power between the states and their municipalities," judges wrote. "This is shown by the fact that no federal statute or FCC regulation requires the municipalities to expand or otherwise to act in contravention of the preempted state statutory provisions. This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation. The FCC relies upon Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for the authority to preempt in this case, but that statute falls far short of such a clear statement. The preemption order must accordingly be reversed."
The decision was essentially unanimous, with judges John Rogers, Joseph Hood, and Helene White all voting to reverse the FCC's order. White concurred in part and dissented in part, writing a separate opinion to address a few issues not covered in the majority opinion.
Ah, ok hadn't heard that, thanks! However, unless they've changed the wording in the repeal again, there'll need to be another appeal to get it changed.
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
IIRC, the FCC also put rules into place preventing state/local governments from implementing their own version of NN, so that's a bust idea considering how much money the various ISPs will throw at lawyers and what not to fight any sort of public internet like chattanooga has.
Can you get a source for that? I don't see how that would be possible since the Federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate commerce so I don't see how the FCC can dictate how states and municipalities regulate ISPs within their own borders.
The biggest issue we need to combat on the local level is removing obstacles to competition. In the article I posted previously about how Baltimore residents are stuck with only Comcast as a cable and/or internet provider for the city, it explains that Comcast isn't doing anything to keep the monopoly it's just the fact that the cost is too high for other companies to install the infrastructure to provide a competing service. Comcast already owns the infrastructure in place and they don't want to and can't be forced to lease their cable to a competitor just to lose market share, so they're enjoying a monopoly not because of any particular business practice on their end but because nobody else wants to compete with them. If states and municipalities incentivized the construction of competing ISP infrastructure by lowering the cost to do so then we'd get more competition. We don't need a lot of options but just having 3-4 ISP providers would have a similar effect to NN, in that if one ISP wants to throttle Netflix then a competitor ISP can not throttle Netflix in an effort to gain market share over the ISP that is throttling Netflix.
It starts on page 116 of the FCC's repeal, and continues onto page 117: "Just as the Title II Order promised to “exercise our preemption authority to preclude states from imposing regulations on broadband service that are inconsistent” with the federal regulatory scheme, we conclude that we should exercise our authority to preempt any state or local requirements that are inconsistent with the federal deregulatory approach we adopt today. We therefore preempt any state or local measures that would effectively impose rules or requirements that we have repealed or decided to refrain from imposing in this order or that would impose more stringent requirements for any aspect of broadband service that we address in this order." Among other things, we thereby preempt any so-called “economic” or “public utility-type” regulations, including common-carriage requirements akin to those found in Title II of the Act and its implementing rules, as well as other rules or requirements that we repeal or refrain from imposing today because they could pose an obstacle to or place an undue burden on the provision of broadband Internet access service and conflict with the deregulatory approach we adopt today."
I also removed some of the citation numbers there (729, 730, and 731 for those interested) for ease of reading, and the preceding (paragraph, I think) numbers (194 and 195) for the same reason.
The FCC ability to preempt state laws regarding municipal broadband networks has already been struck down in Federal court. I don't think the new preemption proposed by the FCC will fare any better when it's challenged by states or municipalities.
The Federal Communications Commission has lost in an attempt to preempt state laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband networks.
The FCC in February 2015 voted to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. The FCC, led by Chairman Tom Wheeler, claimed it could preempt the laws because Congress authorizes the commission to promote telecom competition by removing barriers to investment.
But this was a risky legal argument, as the FCC has no specific authority to overturn state laws. Officials in both states appealed the FCC decision, and today a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the states (full text).
"The FCC order essentially serves to re-allocate decision-making power between the states and their municipalities," judges wrote. "This is shown by the fact that no federal statute or FCC regulation requires the municipalities to expand or otherwise to act in contravention of the preempted state statutory provisions. This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation. The FCC relies upon Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for the authority to preempt in this case, but that statute falls far short of such a clear statement. The preemption order must accordingly be reversed."
The decision was essentially unanimous, with judges John Rogers, Joseph Hood, and Helene White all voting to reverse the FCC's order. White concurred in part and dissented in part, writing a separate opinion to address a few issues not covered in the majority opinion.
Ah, ok hadn't heard that, thanks! However, unless they've changed the wording in the repeal again, there'll need to be another appeal to get it changed.
Yes. The NN repeal was passed but not implemented yet. Once the implementation date comes around I expect at least a few states or municipalities to challenge it in Federal court and then we'll see how this precedent holds up. The court can't undo the NN repeal but it can strike down all of the preemptive aspects regarding states and municipalities as being a clear instance of jurisdictional overreach. I'm not a lawyer or anything close to an expert on FCC regulations but just reading section 706a and reading the FCC argument in the repeal that they have preemptive rights over states seems tenuous at best. 706a is the section that states that the FCC and state regulatory commissions will work to encourage ISPs to provide high speed internet to schools. It never establishes that the FCC has the power to dictate to state regulatory commissions how they are allowed to encourage ISPs to provide high speed internet to schools.
Here is the text of section 706a:
Spoiler:
Section 706a
SEC. 706. ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATIONS INCENTIVES. (a) IN GENERAL- The Commission and each State commission with regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications services shall encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans (including, in particular, elementary and secondary schools and classrooms) by utilizing, in a manner consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity, price cap regulation, regulatory forbearance, measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.
Here is the argument in the repeal that claims that section 706a doesn't prevent the FCC from preempting state and municipal NN type restrictions on ISPs:
Spoiler:
731
We are not persuaded that preemption is contrary to section 706(a) of the 1996 Act, 47 U.S.C. § 1302(a), insofar
as that provision directs state commissions (as well as this Commission) to promote the deployment of advanced
telecommunications capability.
See, e.g.
, NARUC Comments at 2; Public Knowledge Reply at 27. For one thing,
as discussed
infra
, we conclude that section 706 does not constitute an affirmative grant of regulatory authority, but
instead simply provides guidance to this Commission and the state commissions on how to use any authority
conferred by other provisions of federal and state law.
See infra
Part IV.B.3.a. For another, nothing in this order
forecloses state regulatory commissions from promoting the goals set forth in section 706(a) through measures that
we do not preempt here, such as by promoting access to rights-of-way under state law, encouraging broadband
investment and deployment through state tax policy, and administering other generally applicable state laws.
Finally, insofar as we conclude that section 706’s goals of encouraging broadband deployment and removing
barriers to infrastructure investment are best served by preempting state regulation, we find that section 706
supports
(rather than prohibits) the use of preemption here.
They should hold a referendum on something like this.
We vote for US Representative (HOUSE) and US Senate every 2 years... and President every 4. That's our "referendum".
So you will be voting Democrat to ensure that Net Neutrality is brought into law?
You know that electing representatives to represent a district on every issue within a two year term is not the same as a referendum on a single issue.
Ashiraya wrote: Netflix is taking it to court. I can't wait.
They should hold a referendum on something like this.
We don't have national referendums. Only on the State, County, and Local/Municipal levels.
In order to have a national ballot, the Constitution would have to be Amended to allow for such. There has been an effort for over a decade now to do so, but nothing has come of it.
Ashiraya wrote: Netflix is taking it to court. I can't wait.
They should hold a referendum on something like this.
We don't have national referendums. Only on the State, County, and Local/Municipal levels.
In order to have a national ballot, the Constitution would have to be Amended to allow for such. There has been an effort for over a decade now to do so, but nothing has come of it.
Well, strictly speaking, we did "have a referendum" of sorts on it. It was supposed to be open for commenting. The vast majority of those comments were pro-Net Neutrality.
It's just that those comments were also filled with comments made by stolen/"appropriated" identities and deceased individuals that were all posting a very specific set of words . And rather than do the responsible thing and open up an investigation into why that was done and delay any kind of a vote...Pai pressed forward as soon as he could and refused to do anything beyond making a taxpayer funded video lambasting Net Neutrality advocates and claiming "they didn't know what they were talking about".
Thus we got something that passed (shock! gasp!) along party lines, with one specific party voting against the people and one party voting for the people.
Kanluwen wrote: It's just that those comments were also filled with comments made by stolen/"appropriated" identities and deceased individuals that were all posting a very specific set of words
Even Obama was apparently against Net Neutrality, who would have thought ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even Obama was apparently against Net Neutrality, who would have thought ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And if you listen to some people on the internet Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi - the point is don't believe everything you see in cheap infographics or intentionally misattributed quotes.
And if you listen to some people on the internet Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi - the point is don't believe everything you see in cheap infographics or intentionally misattributed quotes.
DonaldJTrump wrote: I love the smell of flame wars in the morning. It smells like.... rising approval ratings.'
You can read it in either the Joker or Duke Nukem voices and he's still the Internet Troll in Chief.
Wait a bit and you might not even need to read it in the Joker's voice... Mr Hamill has already done a few reads of various tweets.
Probably getting too close to US Politics though.
In any case, the way America has set up how their internet works seems dumb.
On the other hand, I have no idea how the way the UK internet business model is really set up, except that I know that if Sky effs around with me too much I can go to BT, Virgin or Plusnet. And so on...
Compel wrote: Probably getting too close to US Politics though.
I will be one of those skeletons you find on the floor at Vault-tec and read my emails on the locked terminal near by.
US Politics visits me at work every day, even though it has to transmit itself over the internet, over the phone lines, or ride down into the dark with it's extended security detail.
We hear them, sometimes, unwholesome tomes whispering back and forth to each other in the restricted areas. What blasphemous secrets they exchange, I shudder to even imagine. 'Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li!' over and over in the depths beneath the earth.
As the lights flicker, I sometimes muse on the truth of what the mad Arab penned: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die"
Even Obama was apparently against Net Neutrality, who would have thought ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And if you listen to some people on the internet Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi - the point is don't believe everything you see in cheap infographics or intentionally misattributed quotes.
It was just one of the many faked comments, like the ones from already dead people.
Kilkrazy wrote: Net Neutrality may be better fought at the local level. It's got to be easier to elect a town council on a platform of installing a good local internet service than to elect a congress on a single issue.
Unfortunately the same vested interests that fought to prevent and then rollback Net Neutrality federally are also at work in local politics. When Fort Collins had a vote to develop its own fibre scheme, Comcast spent a million dollars to oppose it. When Louisville took up an opportunity to piggyback on the state's own plan to lay fibre, giving Louisville residents cable at a fraction of the cost, the Koch brothers Taxpayers Protection Alliance aligned with the cable networks own lobby group to fight the project. In both cases the projects got up which shows this is perhaps an issue better won at the local level. But note the second deal actually got voted down the first time, with a vote falling on party lines and the Republican majority winning, it took a second vote and a small number of Republicans to flip to win the issue. And also note that for a while Net Neutrality was winning at the Federal level, until Republican appointments to the FCC voted on party lines to end it.
So from what I can see there's one way to win on this, and whether it happens at a federal, state or local level the action remains the same.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote: It's already pretty simple in broad strokes. ISPs shouldn't be allowed to operate monopolies in large populous regions. Having entire states or huge metro areas with only 1 ISP choice is terrible, there should be 3-4. Monopoly busting used be something the Federal govt viewed as an important integral part of regulating commerce. There should be a separation of service provider entities and content provider entities. Vertical integration can reach a point where it eliminates choice which can shrink the market to an unhealthy size that hurts consumers. This is easy stuff to see.
There's a growing idea in economics that the long term flat wages we've seen are due in large part to growing monopolies reducing the number of employers competing the competition for workers. Putting it really simply, because that's the level I actually understand it at, the old models said that a harmful monopoly would depress wage and increase prices. Prices haven't risen, so for a long time economists concluded this meant monopolies weren't a problem and something else must be causing the flat wages. But newer work has shown how prices can stay down while monopolies still exploit their power to keep wages down. It makes a lot of sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
CptJake wrote: All internet traffic is not equal though. Streaming data differs quite a bit from regular web browsing which differs from email use. The post office and UPS treat a single page of paper in an envelope differently than a huge box of books. You have some content providers (like Netflix) providing content with a QOS requirement that my ISP in very rural SC (so unfortunately satellite) did not necessarily sign up to provide.
The post office accounts for those differences by measuring size and weight. Bigger, heavier packages attract a higher charge. But the post office doesn't charge more for sending a pound of lead figures than it charges for a pound of books. And it doesn't charge more if you're sending to an address that isn't on their special list of UPS affiliates.
The internet right now has all the ability it needs to match the post office's scheme. So your argument is simply false.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote: The biggest issue we need to combat on the local level is removing obstacles to competition. In the article I posted previously about how Baltimore residents are stuck with only Comcast as a cable and/or internet provider for the city, it explains that Comcast isn't doing anything to keep the monopoly it's just the fact that the cost is too high for other companies to install the infrastructure to provide a competing service. Comcast already owns the infrastructure in place and they don't want to and can't be forced to lease their cable to a competitor just to lose market share, so they're enjoying a monopoly not because of any particular business practice on their end but because nobody else wants to compete with them. If states and municipalities incentivized the construction of competing ISP infrastructure by lowering the cost to do so then we'd get more competition. We don't need a lot of options but just having 3-4 ISP providers would have a similar effect to NN, in that if one ISP wants to throttle Netflix then a competitor ISP can not throttle Netflix in an effort to gain market share over the ISP that is throttling Netflix.
There used to be laws in place requiring internet providers to offer other providers he ability to piggyback on their infrastructure, at reasonable cost. That requirement was ended under the Bush admin's FCC. I can't remember if it was an FCC ruling or if it was legislation that was sunsetted. Either way, that's when we saw the disappearance of third party providers. In metro DC, for instance, it went from 17 providers to 3.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
oldravenman3025 wrote: In order to have a national ballot, the Constitution would have to be Amended to allow for such. There has been an effort for over a decade now to do so, but nothing has come of it.
You wouldn't have to have an constitutional amendment. There's is nothing stopping the government from having a voluntary questionaire that people can choose to take part in. It's just the result would only be finding a complete opinion, it wouldn't be binding and couldn't be used to force congress members and the president to pass any particular law.
CptJake wrote: All internet traffic is not equal though. Streaming data differs quite a bit from regular web browsing which differs from email use. The post office and UPS treat a single page of paper in an envelope differently than a huge box of books. You have some content providers (like Netflix) providing content with a QOS requirement that my ISP in very rural SC (so unfortunately satellite) did not necessarily sign up to provide.
The post office accounts for those differences by measuring size and weight. Bigger, heavier packages attract a higher charge. But the post office doesn't charge more for sending a pound of lead figures than it charges for a pound of books. And it doesn't charge more if you're sending to an address that isn't on their special list of UPS affiliates.
The internet right now has all the ability it needs to match the post office's scheme. So your argument is simply false.
How is my argument, simply stated as all internet traffic is not equal, false? The fact that ISPs can treat the traffic differently (and some very much do) kind of makes my point, no?
You can read anything you want into my words for the sake of being argumentative, but they meaning was pretty fething plain.
TLDR: Your argument is false because it simplifies the entire concept down to a point that you're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
Long version, it's false because it's a straw man argument. No one has argued that a 10 gb video file is equal in scale to a 13 kb .doc. NN does not posit that they are. NN posits that data should be treated equally regardless of where it came from or where it is going. The "all data is equal" part of NN is talking about how the transfer of data is regarded as a service, not the practical or technical needs/limitations of the network itself.
NN allows internet providers to treat a single "page of paper" differently from a "huge box of books" but this is an analogy so crude that it's virtually worthless. If I upload a 10 gb video file and a 13 KB .doc to my cloud for example, those files are going to in basic terms be taken apart and dissect into packets, sent over the line, and then reassembled on the other side according to the packet system being used by the network. To the cable itself the big box of books doesn't actually look any different from the page of paper, because while roughly analogous on a service level in real terms they function in completely different ways.
And honestly your ISP signed up to provide access to internet services like streaming video when they started selling internet access. They are expected to provide access to streaming services under NN rules in so far as NN posits that ISPs should not block accessibility, but if their service is unable to stream on a technical level that sounds like a problem with their service more than anything. I live in a complete backwater with a download rate between 200-500 KB and I can stream video well enough.
To add to LordofHats' point: With NN your ISP could charge you per GB (or whatever) but they just couldn't value different GBs differently. The problem for them is that charging that way doesn't make any sense anymore. The pipes are big enough and ISPs stopped charging like that at some point in the 90s. It was a race to the bottom, the bottom being a flat rate when it comes to the amount of data that you can push through your pipes. You only buy network throughput (bit/s) but that makes it harder for them to wring more money out of you (if your network throughput is good enough for you) as you can directly compare those numbers (cost per bit/s) because everybody moved to selling flat rates.
Now they want to remove NN so they can charge more on both sides: Content providers for the high speed lane and also you for access to certain packagers (like a video package that makes Netflix faster for you). That way they get the regular rent already get and can top it off with "convenience" fees on both sides for that extra bit of profit (as if both sides haven't already paid to get access to each other). They want to be the important one in this equation and not just provide the "dumb pipe" between you and what you value (content).
Mario wrote: To add to LordofHats' point: With NN your ISP could charge you per GB (or whatever) but they just couldn't value different GBs differently. The problem for them is that charging that way doesn't make any sense anymore. The pipes are big enough and ISPs stopped charging like that at some point in the 90s. It was a race to the bottom, the bottom being a flat rate when it comes to the amount of data that you can push through your pipes. You only buy network throughput (bit/s) but that makes it harder for them to wring more money out of you (if your network throughput is good enough for you) as you can directly compare those numbers (cost per bit/s) because everybody moved to selling flat rates.
Now they want to remove NN so they can charge more on both sides: Content providers for the high speed lane and also you for access to certain packagers (like a video package that makes Netflix faster for you). That way they get the regular rent already get and can top it off with "convenience" fees on both sides for that extra bit of profit (as if both sides haven't already paid to get access to each other). They want to be the important one in this equation and not just provide the "dumb pipe" between you and what you value (content).
Huh?
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
As a practical matter the old NN rule (classifying ISPs as Title II Utility) *was* a potential way where ISPs could be forced into being a "dumb pipe", and possibly turn it into a "metered" consumption. (which would be asinine)
The bigger concern for me, is if Comcast's Hulu services would have preferential routing over Netflix/Youtube... which the previous NN would be nearly powerless to prevent.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
Right, but there's not a technical reason for that: it's a business reason: quality of service gives a better user experience. There is no technical requirement to treat packets coming from streaming video ports any differently than packets coming from email ports.
CptJake was making a sort of bad example that his satellite provider having to perform QOS in order to have a more optimized, salable product is why they should be able to double dip, instead of, say, accurately advertising to CptJake an experience they can deliver at a price that reflects their costs... like other businesses do.
Why invest in infrastructure when you've got no real functional competitors due to a de facto monopoly?
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
Right, but there's not a technical reason for that: it's a business reason: quality of service gives a better user experience. There is no technical requirement to treat packets coming from streaming video ports any differently than packets coming from email ports.
I'm not disagreeing...just pointing out that ISPs does manage data packet discretely. Reducing latency for video streaming would be expected behaviors by your ISP provider... even to the point of *working* with the CDN or Edge Providers.
CptJake wrote: How is my argument, simply stated as all internet traffic is not equal, false? The fact that ISPs can treat the traffic differently (and some very much do) kind of makes my point, no?
Because simply noting that not all traffic is identical isn't an argument, it's an observation. That was an observation you turned in to an argument by then comparing it to the post office, which you argued does charge for different size packages. I then noted this was a bad argument, because just as the post office charges based on the size of the package, so too can ISPs charge based on the quantity of data uploaded or downloaded.
You got pretty miffed about this.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: That will always be a challenge... which has zero to do with NN.
Ashiraya wrote: Netflix is taking it to court. I can't wait.
They should hold a referendum on something like this.
We don't have national referendums. Only on the State, County, and Local/Municipal levels.
In order to have a national ballot, the Constitution would have to be Amended to allow for such. There has been an effort for over a decade now to do so, but nothing has come of it.
Well, strictly speaking, we did "have a referendum" of sorts on it. It was supposed to be open for commenting. The vast majority of those comments were pro-Net Neutrality.
It's just that those comments were also filled with comments made by stolen/"appropriated" identities and deceased individuals that were all posting a very specific set of words . And rather than do the responsible thing and open up an investigation into why that was done and delay any kind of a vote...Pai pressed forward as soon as he could and refused to do anything beyond making a taxpayer funded video lambasting Net Neutrality advocates and claiming "they didn't know what they were talking about".
Thus we got something that passed (shock! gasp!) along party lines, with one specific party voting against the people and one party voting for the people.
Sounds like local elections back in the day. We had a saying around here: "The graveyard's full of registered voters".
And I avoid falling into the trap of party blaming when it comes to something like this. None of the parties are "for the people". If the party of the Left Coast career politicians and New England Bluebloods voted "for the people", you can bet your ass they had something to gain from it.
You wouldn't have to have an constitutional amendment. There's is nothing stopping the government from having a voluntary questionaire that people can choose to take part in. It's just the result would only be finding a complete opinion, it wouldn't be binding and couldn't be used to force congress members and the president to pass any particular law.
An opinion poll or survey is just that, and the government has a website for that very thing. And the BATFE also has a site for gun owners to express their views on a proposed regulation (that was a real shocker when that site went up). Ashi mentioned a referendum on the issue, which is usually a binding vote, by the voters, on a particular issue. That would require Amending the Constitution to do on the national level.
The supporters of the parry at fault are always very quick to suggest that the debate should avoid party blaming, raising the classic 'they're both bad' false equivalency. It's entertaining how reliably it repeats itself.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The supporters of the parry at fault are always very quick to suggest that the debate should avoid party blaming, raising the classic 'they're both bad' false equivalency. It's entertaining how reliably it repeats itself.
"They're both bad" isn't "false equivalency". It rooted in history, track records, and facts. And a notion (from supporters of a any given party, when their party isn't in the hotseat) that's usually bandied about when it's time to stick your head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
Both parties are crap. Because they are made up politicians, who despite being part of the world's second oldest profession, operate more along the lines of the world's first oldest profession.
Just because the "elephants" are acting like idiots/greedy bastards with this issue, doesn't automatically make the other party a shining beacon of virtue and honesty.
Sounds like local elections back in the day. We had a saying around here: "The graveyard's full of registered voters".
This is a popular anecdote that does not support what you are trying to claim it does.
The anecdote refers to the fact that voter rolls are rarely, if ever, purged. So you have a great many dead people who are registered to vote. It is rarely if ever the case where those dead voters actually have 'voted' after their death.
And I avoid falling into the trap of party blaming when it comes to something like this. None of the parties are "for the people". If the party of the Left Coast career politicians and New England Bluebloods voted "for the people", you can bet your ass they had something to gain from it.
And yet one party has been pushing for better access to healthcare, better funding and access for retraining people in outdated fields of employment...while one party doesn't.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
But they should not treat it differently when it comes to you paying for it. It should all be the same. Why should your ISP get to decide that your GBs cost different amounts depending on what you do with them? That's just strange. Would you pay different amounts (on a per litre basis) if you were to re-fule two different cars at the same gas station with the same petrol?
The bigger concern for me, is if Comcast's Hulu services would have preferential routing over Netflix/Youtube... which the previous NN would be nearly powerless to prevent.
LordofHats wrote: TLDR: Your argument is false because it simplifies the entire concept down to a point that you're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
Long version, it's false because it's a straw man argument. No one has argued that a 10 gb video file is equal in scale to a 13 kb .doc.
Wrong.
I replied to:
Wolfblade wrote: We really don't need varied solutions though. We know the solution, and it's not hope that ISPs will be benevolent. There needs to be clear and strict laws to enforce all legal internet traffic is treated equally.
And I pointed out all traffic is not equal.
Period.
Read what ever you want into my comment. In the context I typed it, it is 100% correct.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The supporters of the parry at fault are always very quick to suggest that the debate should avoid party blaming, raising the classic 'they're both bad' false equivalency. It's entertaining how reliably it repeats itself.
"They're both bad" isn't "false equivalency". It rooted in history, track records, and facts. And a notion (from supporters of a any given party, when their party isn't in the hotseat) that's usually bandied about when it's time to stick your head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
Both parties are crap. Because they are made up politicians, who despite being part of the world's second oldest profession, operate more along the lines of the world's first oldest profession.
Just because the "elephants" are acting like idiots/greedy bastards with this issue, doesn't automatically make the other party a shining beacon of virtue and honesty.
Double down on the false equivalency with straw man. Not my first guess but still a classic.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
Right, but there's not a technical reason for that: it's a business reason: quality of service gives a better user experience. There is no technical requirement to treat packets coming from streaming video ports any differently than packets coming from email ports.
CptJake was making a sort of bad example that his satellite provider having to perform QOS in order to have a more optimized, salable product is why they should be able to double dip, instead of, say, accurately advertising to CptJake an experience they can deliver at a price that reflects their costs... like other businesses do.
Why invest in infrastructure when you've got no real functional competitors due to a de facto monopoly?
There is very much a technical reason to treat packets from streaming data differently from of an email. Packets from streaming data cannot be put back together successfully for the viewer of the stream if the data suffers delays/jitter or comes through in the wrong order (some algorithms correct a bit but the reality is QOS is very important to streaming data, hence different protocols handle the packet streams). An email even split into a series of datagrams gets assembled correctly and can withstand much more delay without the receiver noticing poor quality of service.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
But they should not treat it differently when it comes to you paying for it. It should all be the same. Why should your ISP get to decide that your GBs cost different amounts depending on what you do with them? That's just strange. Would you pay different amounts (on a per litre basis) if you were to re-fule two different cars at the same gas station with the same petrol?
Funny story, that actually does happen in the US with Diesel, and the UK too iirc.
There are two types of diesel. Road diesel, which is for vehicles operating on public roads. And then there is off road diesel which is for off road vehicles or things like chainsaws and generators.
The two diesels are identicle, except one has road taxes and one doesn't. Offroad diesel is substantially cheaper because it doesn't have these taxes on it. The diesels are given different dyes so authorities can tell the difference between them if they catch someone with a road vehicle using of road diesel for tax dodging.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
But they should not treat it differently when it comes to you paying for it. It should all be the same. Why should your ISP get to decide that your GBs cost different amounts depending on what you do with them? That's just strange. Would you pay different amounts (on a per litre basis) if you were to re-fule two different cars at the same gas station with the same petrol?
Funny story, that actually does happen in the US with Diesel, and the UK too iirc.
There are two types of diesel. Road diesel, which is for vehicles operating on public roads. And then there is off road diesel which is for off road vehicles or things like chainsaws and generators.
The two diesels are identicle, except one has road taxes and one doesn't. Offroad diesel is substantially cheaper because it doesn't have these taxes on it. The diesels are given different dyes so authorities can tell the difference between them if they catch someone with a road vehicle using of road diesel for tax dodging.
CptJake wrote: And I pointed out all traffic is not equal.
And you're still running with that straw man.
And I pointed out all traffic is not equal.
People are talking about apples and you're talking about oranges. people have explained the difference between the apples and the oranges and you're still on about the oranges. Incredible.
Read what ever you want into my comment.
Well honestly I'm gathering that you can't read, but somehow expect to be taken seriously in your opinions that are based on nothing anyone has said even after having it explained for you what is being talked about.
The bigger concern for me, is if Comcast's Hulu services would have preferential routing over Netflix/Youtube... which the previous NN would be nearly powerless to prevent.
My fear is for Comcast to discriminate Hulu traffic to higher priority (ie, less latency/better streaming service) than other streaming services.
The example you're looking for was Verizon about 5 years ago, which they got sanctioned by US FTC bigly. (PM if you want citation, as I don't have it handy)
In this case, there were all sorts of problems, but fundamentally what happened was that Netflix to non-Comcast streaming customers were using Comcast's network/bandwidth...using Comcast as a freebie CDN. In reality, it wasn't even Netflix's fault, as it was how that region's CDN was architected.
As the article stated, that's why Netflix built/bought CDNs to mitigate these scenarios. Exact same thing that Google does for Youtube as well...
(which is why I think Disney will rebrand Hulu, as Hulu already has there own CDNs, rather than try to rebuild all that on their own).
EDIT: I will not say that Comcast isn't wholly blameless as they've done some mind numbingly dumb things... but, the whole Netflix & Comcast tiff? There's more to the story here... and that's all I'm saying. Taking the view that Netflix should have "free" interconnections because Customers pay for their ISP access and Netflix membership is extremely naive. Lots happens when you stream from Netflix point A to your device at point Zulu.
LordofHats wrote: TLDR: Your argument is false because it simplifies the entire concept down to a point that you're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
Long version, it's false because it's a straw man argument. No one has argued that a 10 gb video file is equal in scale to a 13 kb .doc.
Wrong.
I replied to:
Wolfblade wrote: We really don't need varied solutions though. We know the solution, and it's not hope that ISPs will be benevolent. There needs to be clear and strict laws to enforce all legal internet traffic is treated equally.
And I pointed out all traffic is not equal.
Period.
Read what ever you want into my comment. In the context I typed it, it is 100% correct.
You're still wrong however. You're acting like different volumes of data = fundamentally different data. The only difference between email use, streaming use, and web browsing is the volume of data used really, and if there was you'd have articulated what it was instead of repeating the same "not all data is equal" line over and over while talking about something no one else is.
LordofHats wrote: TLDR: Your argument is false because it simplifies the entire concept down to a point that you're not even talking about the same thing anymore.
Long version, it's false because it's a straw man argument. No one has argued that a 10 gb video file is equal in scale to a 13 kb .doc.
Wrong.
I replied to:
Wolfblade wrote: We really don't need varied solutions though. We know the solution, and it's not hope that ISPs will be benevolent. There needs to be clear and strict laws to enforce all legal internet traffic is treated equally.
And I pointed out all traffic is not equal.
Period.
Read what ever you want into my comment. In the context I typed it, it is 100% correct.
You're still wrong however. You're acting like different volumes of data = fundamentally different data. The only difference between email use, streaming use, and web browsing is the volume of data used really, and if there was you'd have articulated what it was instead of repeating the same "not all data is equal" line over and over while talking about something no one else is.
The difference is that latency matters when streaming... whereas for emails, it doesn't.
People wont gak bricks when they hear that emails and other non-time dependent service would be placed on lower priority (ie, maybe 10 seconds longer) in the desired to reduce streaming latency. (ie, reducing the buffering when watching your shows).
Compel wrote: I'm reading all this back and forth and am noting that I don't think anyone has actually used the terms "TCP" and "UDP" in their points...
Just an observation. I've got no real dog in this race
Probably because even those of us who know what those abbreviations stand for are too iffy on them to actually explain them
It's irrelevant anyway, because NN does not posit that a 10 gb file is equal to a 13 kb file and neither did the person who apparently started this tangent. The "all data is equal" part of NN is a not an quantitative position but a qualitative one in reference to how the service functions; i.e. that an ISP should not show favoritism towards certain data over other data. Rather than regard that aspect of the principle for what it actually means we have posters who are taking it to a literal extreme, stretching the word "equal" so far out of how it is used in NN principles that they're no longer talking about NN but insist in using it as an argument against NN. Nowhere in NN is it argued that a network cannot prioritize data to met technical and practical needs. What NN does argue is that ISPs shouldn't throttle Netflix in favor of Hulu, or prioritize the delivery of Skype messages over... idk what competitors Skype has just insert one here I don't use that stuff XD
The argument against the ISPs and their desire to bring down NN has come to focus heavily on how the ISPs are not just access providers but content providers who are now in a position to advance their monopolies further by prioritizing their own services and shutting out their competitors/charging them excessive fees. These costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers. Furthering the worry is that there exists fear and concern that this opportunity will be seized to restructure how we connect, pay, and access the internet with the worse case scenarios looking really damn dystopian and it doesn't help that the major ISPs (the cable companies) have not been shy about exploring how they can execute those scenarios.
All this nonsense about what "all data is equal" means isn't just a sad display of obliviousness by certain parties, but completely beside the point.
Compel wrote: I'm reading all this back and forth and am noting that I don't think anyone has actually used the terms "TCP" and "UDP" in their points...
Just an observation. I've got no real dog in this race
I don't know if there's more than a handful of people here who would know the difference and probably less so involved in making the actual legal decisions.
oldravenman3025 wrote: And I avoid falling into the trap of party blaming when it comes to something like this. None of the parties are "for the people". If the party of the Left Coast career politicians and New England Bluebloods voted "for the people", you can bet your ass they had something to gain from it.
Ah yes, the good old standard 'I won't defend my team for doing an obviously cynical, undemocratic thing, I'll just vaguely reference vague accusations against the other side that they would maybe do something similar if they were something something both sides.'
An opinion poll or survey is just that, and the government has a website for that very thing. And the BATFE also has a site for gun owners to express their views on a proposed regulation (that was a real shocker when that site went up). Ashi mentioned a referendum on the issue, which is usually a binding vote, by the voters, on a particular issue. That would require Amending the Constitution to do on the national level.
Putting up a poll or survey means a response rate in the low millions, if it's a really contentious issue. That means participation of 2 or 3% at tops. An actual mail survey is likely to have a response rate that gives it real electoral weight. Consider the recent Australian postal survey, it was a voluntary for voters, and the result wasn't binding on politicians. But the response rate was 79%, and that response demanded electoral action. Gay marriage was passed within a month of the survey's completion.
Net neutrality isn't as big a deal as gay marriage, and so the response rate likely wouldn't be as high, and government may not be willing to pay the cost (its a few dollars per voter to send, collect and count so the US would be looking around a billion to do this), but the question wasn't whether such a process should be used to gauge public opinion on net neutrality. The issue I was responding to was the question of whether they could, and your answer was that it would require a constitutional amendment. That argument was false. It could be done as a postal survey, which would gain something more than 10 times the response rate of a submission site, and so have real and definitive bearing on legislation.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The supporters of the parry at fault are always very quick to suggest that the debate should avoid party blaming, raising the classic 'they're both bad' false equivalency. It's entertaining how reliably it repeats itself.
"They're both bad" isn't "false equivalency". It rooted in history, track records, and facts. And a notion (from supporters of a any given party, when their party isn't in the hotseat) that's usually bandied about when it's time to stick your head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
Both parties are crap. Because they are made up politicians, who despite being part of the world's second oldest profession, operate more along the lines of the world's first oldest profession.
Just because the "elephants" are acting like idiots/greedy bastards with this issue, doesn't automatically make the other party a shining beacon of virtue and honesty.
Double down on the false equivalency with straw man. Not my first guess but still a classic.
Throwing around the "Fallacies of Rational Argument" (and misusing them in the process), isn't an argument. Nor does it make the usual cop out you're using correct. Instead, it's a way to avoid the reality of modern politics, and hide from the fact that no politician or political faction cares about the "little guy".
But whatever gets you through the night, brah. It's a free country, after all.
oldravenman3025 wrote: Just because the "elephants" are acting like idiots/greedy bastards with this issue, doesn't automatically make the other party a shining beacon of virtue and honesty.
False argument. You're assuming all levels of crappiness are equal, that if one party is crap and the other party is really, really crap then that's the same thing and there's no point distinguishing the two. Obvious nonsense.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The supporters of the parry at fault are always very quick to suggest that the debate should avoid party blaming, raising the classic 'they're both bad' false equivalency. It's entertaining how reliably it repeats itself.
"They're both bad" isn't "false equivalency". It rooted in history, track records, and facts. And a notion (from supporters of a any given party, when their party isn't in the hotseat) that's usually bandied about when it's time to stick your head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
Both parties are crap. Because they are made up politicians, who despite being part of the world's second oldest profession, operate more along the lines of the world's first oldest profession.
Just because the "elephants" are acting like idiots/greedy bastards with this issue, doesn't automatically make the other party a shining beacon of virtue and honesty.
Double down on the false equivalency with straw man. Not my first guess but still a classic.
Throwing around the "Fallacies of Rational Argument" (and misusing them in the process), isn't an argument. Nor does it make the usual cop out you're using correct. Instead, it's a way to avoid the reality of modern politics, and hide from the fact that no politician or political faction cares about the "little guy".
But whatever gets you through the night, brah. It's a free country, after all.
I agree it isn't an argument. Nor did I intend it to be. For me to respond with a rational argument, I have to have a rational argument to respond to. Failing that, I'll just post what's wrong because generally I don't feel it's worth the effort to do more than that for someone who obviously doesn't care for logical debate. So no, it's not about avoiding modern politics, but nice try. You even wrapped up the original false equivalency in there too, I can't decide to call that ironic or hypocritical.
But whatever gets you through the night, brah. It's a free country, after all.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
But they should not treat it differently when it comes to you paying for it. It should all be the same. Why should your ISP get to decide that your GBs cost different amounts depending on what you do with them? That's just strange. Would you pay different amounts (on a per litre basis) if you were to re-fule two different cars at the same gas station with the same petrol?
Funny story, that actually does happen in the US with Diesel, and the UK too iirc.
There are two types of diesel. Road diesel, which is for vehicles operating on public roads. And then there is off road diesel which is for off road vehicles or things like chainsaws and generators.
The two diesels are identicle, except one has road taxes and one doesn't. Offroad diesel is substantially cheaper because it doesn't have these taxes on it. The diesels are given different dyes so authorities can tell the difference between them if they catch someone with a road vehicle using of road diesel for tax dodging.
In which case it's not the same petrol, is it?
It depends on whether you see the function of the fuel as something for running a car or something for raising additional revenue.
ISPs can definitely differentiate between Email transactions vs. Netflix Streaming vs. WoW gaming vs. etc. In fact they *have* to in order to maintain optimal routing.
But they should not treat it differently when it comes to you paying for it. It should all be the same. Why should your ISP get to decide that your GBs cost different amounts depending on what you do with them? That's just strange. Would you pay different amounts (on a per litre basis) if you were to re-fule two different cars at the same gas station with the same petrol?
Funny story, that actually does happen in the US with Diesel, and the UK too iirc.
There are two types of diesel. Road diesel, which is for vehicles operating on public roads. And then there is off road diesel which is for off road vehicles or things like chainsaws and generators.
The two diesels are identicle, except one has road taxes and one doesn't. Offroad diesel is substantially cheaper because it doesn't have these taxes on it. The diesels are given different dyes so authorities can tell the difference between them if they catch someone with a road vehicle using of road diesel for tax dodging.
In which case it's not the same petrol, is it?
It depends on whether you see the function of the fuel as something for running a car or something for raising additional revenue.
Easy E wrote: I mean, as Americans/World Citizens we can't even agree on the simple notion that Monopoly is bad... M'kay.
It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's not commonly played correctly. For example, most people aren't aware that per the standard rules as written, if someone lands on a property and then chooses not to buy it, it then goes to immediate auction (instead of just remaining there until landed on again).
This one rule alone dramatically shortens the game and makes it more fun.
Easy E wrote: I mean, as Americans/World Citizens we can't even agree on the simple notion that Monopoly is bad... M'kay.
It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's not commonly played correctly. For example, most people aren't aware that per the standard rules as written, if someone lands on a property and then chooses not to buy it, it then goes to immediate auction (instead of just remaining there until landed on again).
This one rule alone dramatically shortens the game and makes it more fun.
Easy E wrote: I mean, as Americans/World Citizens we can't even agree on the simple notion that Monopoly is bad... M'kay.
It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's not commonly played correctly. For example, most people aren't aware that per the standard rules as written, if someone lands on a property and then chooses not to buy it, it then goes to immediate auction (instead of just remaining there until landed on again).
This one rule alone dramatically shortens the game and makes it more fun.
Easy E wrote: I mean, as Americans/World Citizens we can't even agree on the simple notion that Monopoly is bad... M'kay.
It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's not commonly played correctly. For example, most people aren't aware that per the standard rules as written, if someone lands on a property and then chooses not to buy it, it then goes to immediate auction (instead of just remaining there until landed on again).
This one rule alone dramatically shortens the game and makes it more fun.
Still bad. I mean if you read the intent of the creator, it is to teach you that Monopolies in the real world are bad. However, since people continue to play it for fun, the creators intentions were not met. Hence it is a bad game, with bad design for the creator's intended purpose.
M'kay. We should continue this discussion in the Game Design section of the board.
That's pretty funny, but there's a joke in there somewhere about neckbeards sitting in their computer chairs watching internet videos and not needing anymore calories or something XD
I thought I should reopen this thread one year later. To ask a question of US members.
There was a lot of noise twelve months ago about how if Net Neutrality was repealed internet service providers would be able to throttle site they did not like, or force people to pay more not to be shunted into a slowlane.
It is now time to ask if any of these predictions have come true, are due to be implemented at any particular date, or are being kept back for some third party reason.
Pretty much scaremongering. The download/upload speeds has still increased.
The bigger fears to me is twofold:
1) The amount of personal information the FANG companies harvest and sells them to 3rd parties. It may be an unwarranted fear, as it is still living memory that pre-internet, we used to get the "White Pages" which is a book listing out the name, address and phone numbers of your neighbors in the area. But still...
2) The vertical integration of content providers and platforms (ie, Comcast and Disney).
Those are the issues really... not, whether or not an ISP provider treats the data packet of an email vs. a streaming service exactly the same way.
Nothing has really changed, but Big Tech remains my #1 personal boogeyman. Forget about net neutrality, I'm worried about what Whembly mentioned. One day, Google and companies like it will run the world, and by the time they do it will be too late to stop them because they'll have total control over the flow of information and commerce as well as an omniscient level of knowledge about everyone.
AFAIK Not much has happened because it's being fought at the state level still, but basically entire the entire industry sues when a state puts a bill forth and then rams millions of dollars into fighting or delaying the bill.
Not entirely sure if they've changed their model yet, but it's only a matter of timing.
BS! We got the worse by far despite nearly e million more people voting for the less odious one.
As to a solution, maybe we need a union. A consumers union that organizes enough peolle to refuse to accept the way cable and ISP companies abuse the! American public and force them to chaNGE by striking against them until their profits tank enough to hurt them.
Of course is someone ofganized a consumers union the corporate overlords would have a pet judge rule it illegal, jail the organizers or just send a hitman to murder them.
Verizon decided to throttle data usage by the fire department during wild fires (not the recent ones but some previous) negatively affecting their ability to fight the fire and causing them to pay additional fees in order to un-throttle.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Verizon decided to throttle data usage by the fire department during wild fires (not the recent ones but some previous) negatively affecting their ability to fight the fire and causing them to pay additional fees in order to un-throttle.
Some peolle should have gone to prison for that, BT because they had the holy word of power, Corporation, to protect them no one did.
Pretty much scaremongering. The download/upload speeds has still increased.
This is untrue. My download/upload speeds have not changed. However, now I have a soft data cap! WOOOOO! Which means if I hit a certain data cap, my company can automatically bill me for a higher tier package based only on my usage. However, I do not get to enjoy the other benefits of that package when they do that. Just the data usage! They didn't seem to understand my frustration.
The idea that the providers will never change to the much feared models is poppycock. If they didn't want to run that way they never would have fought so hard to change the regulations. The question isn't if it's when, and the repeal of net neutrality is (without getting to political) one of the recent slew of policy changes that basically no one wanted but that we got anyway. Until people stop caring so much the changes probably won't happen, but that's just a matter of playing the waiting game and multi-billion dollar monopolies always win the waiting game.
Politics as such is a banned topic of discussion on this board. Feel free to continue chatting about the technical aspects of this topic, including policy critique ...
BUT
... this thread will be locked and offending parties will have their accounts suspended if this devolves into partisan bickering.
How exactly are we supposed to discuss a political issue being debated by US politicians without mentioning politics at all? Are we supposed to pretend that policies just happen with no agency behind them, and ignore all the "who" and "why" questions? Are we also supposed to pretend that we aren't aware that net neutrality in the US is a partisan issue, with strict party-line votes with the democrats in favor and republicans opposed? TBH you might as well just lock this now instead of leaving it open as a ban trap until someone decides (with no personal bias, I'm sure) that it has become "too political" and starts banning people.
(This of course reinforces the fact that the politics ban is absurd, but I won't bother trying to have that argument again here.)
Peregrine wrote: How exactly are we supposed to discuss a political issue being debated by US politicians without mentioning politics at all?
You're not.
You can, however, discuss the technical and practical aspects of net neutrality. Just not the politics involved.
If you feel that you are unable to separate the politics from the discussion, feel free to not participate in the thread.
Edit for the hard of hearing : this is not the place to discuss the politics ban. And posts demanding that the thread be closed because you personally can't see any way to discuss the topic without including politics will be treated as off-topic and removed.
LordofHats wrote: The idea that the providers will never change to the much feared models is poppycock. If they didn't want to run that way they never would have fought so hard to change the regulations. The question isn't if it's when, and the repeal of net neutrality is (without getting to political) one of the recent slew of policy changes that basically no one wanted but that we got anyway. Until people stop caring so much the changes probably won't happen, but that's just a matter of playing the waiting game and multi-billion dollar monopolies always win the waiting game.
Many of them were previously caught doing the things people are worried they will do now. That was why the net neutrality rules were put it place to begin with.
It's like the people who rail against health and safety laws. They fail to remember that those laws requiring safe practices and explicitly stating what those safe practices must be were paid for in blood. Before the sinking of the Titanic there was no legal requirement for a ship to carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, for example. The Titanic in fact had more lifeboats than was legally required and it still had only 1178 lifeboat spaces for 3330 people.
The only real reason that ISP's haven't jumped in and throttled the heck out of any site that doesn't bribe them not to is because several states are working on laws preventing them from doing so, and it's quite likely Democrats will at some point start pushing for said laws on the national level.
They just don't want to change their business model to take full advantage of a lack of net neutrality and then have to change back if the law passes.
But be assured, they are fighting - and will continue to fight - those laws right up to the moment the Supreme Court rules one way or the other.
Without getting specifically partisan or political, I think most people would agree that we need something like an internet bill of rights to maintain the free flow of information, communication and commerce over the internet. At this point it's comparable to the printing press or the public square itself and the Constitution was written with the intent of protecting the utilization of those things for everyone. In that spirit, letting the most important and common means of communication fall entirely under corporate control is something the framers of the Constitution would probably have wanted to avoid.
Luciferian wrote: Without getting specifically partisan or political, I think most people would agree that we need something like an internet bill of rights to maintain the free flow of information, communication and commerce over the internet. At this point it's comparable to the printing press or the public square itself and the Constitution was written with the intent of protecting the utilization of those things for everyone. In that spirit, letting the most important and common means of communication fall entirely under corporate control is something the framers of the Constitution would probably have wanted to avoid.
Er...it's still regulated and there's been some government movement to look at busting up some monopolies.
The internet was doing perfectly fine before NN was put in place only a few years ago, and it'll improve just fine without unneeded government control.
It's not "government control" to say that corporations shouldn't be the determiners of what content you can look at online. To me that seems like plain old freedom, just like Comcast can't tell you what newspapers to read or where you can live.
Yeah, I'm definitely a small government type, but having multinational corporations in total control of speech and commerce doesn't strike me as any better than having those things be under the direct purview of the government. Especially considering how, much of the time, they both work together to promote each other's interests against our own. Information, speech, association and commerce should just not be something that corporate entities can flick a switch and shut off (or slow down, or bury under an algorithm etc). It's anti-competitive and monopolistic if you need a free-market justification.
Concentrating that kind of power in the hands of what are at this point unaccountable megaliths just seems like a bad idea. The issues behind net neutrality itself are just one tiny aspect; even net neutrality doesn't go far enough at all. Who cares if your ISP can charge you a few extra bucks for the bandwidth to view your favorite media source, when that media source can just be deleted or have its income frozen in case it turns out to be too competitive or uncomfortable for any number of reasons.
The internet needs to be regulated in order to remain as free as possible, there's simply no way around it. Just as our Constitution gives us negative freedoms by laying out what the government can't do to us, those same protections must be applied to ISPs, search engines, social media sites, payment processors, and all of the other companies that now have more power over our daily lives than any government conceivably could have when the Constitution was written.
Imagine China's burgeoning Social Credit system, but under the control of Comcast, Google, Facebook and PayPal. It's almost worse than having such a thing under state control, because we can elect many of our government officials, but we can't elect board members to multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations. Without some kind of restriction, it's only a matter of time before massive tech companies become the de facto state, anyway.
BuFFo wrote: The internet was doing perfectly fine before NN was put in place only a few years ago, and it'll improve just fine without unneeded government control.
You mean 10 years ago for explicit requirements of net neutrality, 15+ years ago for establishing the general concepts, and 100+ years ago for the concept of common carriers and applying it to communication lines. The internet was only "doing fine" prior to the explicit adoption of net neutrality rules because the internet was still in its very early days and the business models that can exploit the absence of net neutrality rules didn't exist yet. It would be incredibly naive to think that the situation now is like it was in 1995, and that eliminating net neutrality rules is going to turn out well for anyone but the shareholders in major corporations.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Luciferian wrote: The internet needs to be regulated in order to remain as free as possible, there's simply no way around it. Just as our Constitution gives us negative freedoms by laying out what the government can't do to us, those same protections must be applied to ISPs, search engines, social media sites, payment processors, and all of the other companies that now have more power over our daily lives than any government conceivably could have when the Constitution was written.
This, however, is going way too far. Common carrier rules apply to infrastructure, not content producers, and the arguments for them make no sense when applied outside of that line. An ISP or power company or similar infrastructure providers have de facto monopoly power, usually supported by the state picking a single provider for a region. Competition is extremely difficult, if not impossible. So it makes sense that if you're going to have a single company with a monopoly over internet/power/water/etc that company has to provide service equally to everyone, since anyone treated unfavorably has no option to go to a competitor. But the same doesn't apply for content producers like social media sites or search engines. There is no monopoly power and customers are free to move to a different product if they aren't happy with their current service. If Google or Facebook or whatever have a large market share it's because their customers feel that it's a superior product, not because the state has set such high barriers to entry that nobody can attempt to provide an alternative.
(Payment processors are kind of in a gray area. They aren't strictly infrastructure in the monopoly sense, but they sure do function like it in a lot of ways. TBH I'd be fine with the government treating bank to bank wire transfers as a common carrier service, and Paypal as an ordinary service.)
Luciferian wrote: Yeah, I'm definitely a small government type, but having multinational corporations in total control of speech and commerce doesn't strike me as any better than having those things be under the direct purview of the government. Especially considering how, much of the time, they both work together to promote each other's interests against our own. Information, speech, association and commerce should just not be something that corporate entities can flick a switch and shut off (or slow down, or bury under an algorithm etc). It's anti-competitive and monopolistic if you need a free-market justification.
Concentrating that kind of power in the hands of what are at this point unaccountable megaliths just seems like a bad idea. The issues behind net neutrality itself are just one tiny aspect; even net neutrality doesn't go far enough at all. Who cares if your ISP can charge you a few extra bucks for the bandwidth to view your favorite media source, when that media source can just be deleted or have its income frozen in case it turns out to be too competitive or uncomfortable for any number of reasons.
The internet needs to be regulated in order to remain as free as possible, there's simply no way around it. Just as our Constitution gives us negative freedoms by laying out what the government can't do to us, those same protections must be applied to ISPs, search engines, social media sites, payment processors, and all of the other companies that now have more power over our daily lives than any government conceivably could have when the Constitution was written.
Imagine China's burgeoning Social Credit system, but under the control of Comcast, Google, Facebook and PayPal. It's almost worse than having such a thing under state control, because we can elect many of our government officials, but we can't elect board members to multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations. Without some kind of restriction, it's only a matter of time before massive tech companies become the de facto state, anyway.
I really feel a kinship with you for this post. You seem a reasonable man and not a free market fanatic. I wish there were more like you.
Peregrine wrote: But the same doesn't apply for content producers like social media sites or search engines. There is no monopoly power and customers are free to move to a different product if they aren't happy with their current service.
How are you supposed to outcompete Google? The barrier to entry for a new search engine is absolutely gargantuan.
Tyranny is tyranny, fascism is fascism. Whether it's imposed by a government or a corporate conglomerate is irrelevant. Free market oppresion of individual liberty and freedom is still oppression.
Peregrine wrote: But the same doesn't apply for content producers like social media sites or search engines. There is no monopoly power and customers are free to move to a different product if they aren't happy with their current service.
How are you supposed to outcompete Google? The barrier to entry for a new search engine is absolutely gargantuan.
By making a better product. Yeah, it's a difficult task, but it's not the same as the barriers to entry for making a new internet (or other utilities). A new search engine is difficult to make because Google has created a really good product that, for most people, does exactly what they want from a search engine and doesn't have any room for improvement. A new utility company is difficult to make because the government is not going to use its eminent domain power to seize land to install the new power lines/fiber optic cables/roads/etc you need to build to duplicate the existing service. That's a regulatory barrier to entry, the government saying "you are not welcome". So yeah, the company benefiting from the state-sanctioned monopoly should face different rules compared to a company that has a near-monopoly because it's very successful on its own merits.
Techpriestsupport wrote: Tyranny is tyranny, fascism is fascism. Whether it's imposed by a government or a corporate conglomerate is irrelevant. Free market oppresion of individual liberty and freedom is still oppression.
Why post constructive discussion when you can post absurd memes that only angry 16 year olds find insightful?
Peregrine, you're totally correct from a legal standpoint as things currently are. ISP's and other utilities are basically chosen by municipalities because they have to use public infrastructure, and it's a totally different regulatory landscape from any kind of service or content provider.
However, tech companies such as Google aren't really any easier to compete with, even if there is no regulatory barrier. Google has something like a 98% market share, and each of the major social media companies is not far behind that in their respective areas of focus. As such, nearly all content, speech and commerce on the internet must flow through these services as a matter of fact, and I think that is largely due to momentum rather than quality of service per se. If you want to have a voice or market your own business, you don't have a choice but to use these services. Google, Facebook, PayPal, Amazon etc. have reached a critical mass of market share and user base to the point where it's all but impossible to compete with them, and they will and have leveraged their positions to further stamp out any competition or content that they or their partners find disagreeable.
The result is no different, even though the legal and regulatory status is. Like I said before, what difference does it make if the site you want to visit takes a few seconds longer to load or eats into a bandwidth cap when the major content providers that would be the ones paying up for fast access can just muscle it off the internet completely anyway?
Luciferian wrote: However, tech companies such as Google aren't really any easier to compete with, even if there is no regulatory barrier. Google has something like a 98% market share, and each of the major social media companies is not far behind that in their respective areas of focus.
That's on the one hand wrong and on the other short sighted.
Google is at about 90%, still a lot but not nearly everything and DuckDuckGo is, for example, a smaller competitor who provides some features that Google doesn't (and you can also ask it to search on google for you, if you need that). They grew slower but are slowly adding features and are for some people better (or just preferable) to Google.
And when it comes to major social media companies they you should remember that a few years ago myspace was the big social media community everybody used. Things can change quickly in that space and Facebook, for example, is losing users (old people being the ones who are not interesting into looking for something new). Making your own social network that can scale is easier than before. It's still not as simple as setting up an email server, for example but the barriers are slowly falling and people's distrust for the bigger social networks (or their missteps, like facebooks privacy issues, or tumblr's recent "porn" ban, the twitter diaspora to mastodon) lead to some people abandoning them and opting for smaller (and less convenient) options despite all those negative points.
There are also still old school forums and email newsletters that have gained some popularity recently due to all this issues (and those being simpler and just so much less creepy than big social networks). And there also quite competent open source options/remakes of certain apps/networks (for stuff like Dropbox and Slack). All that takes some more work but for some of those there also exist options that are provided by other people where you (as an user) can just log in like in a regular, big social network.
If you are still using those old services then it's a combination of being satisfied, ignoring their negatives for convenience, and/or you just not caring enough to shift your habits. The big (social networks, search, internet) companies have some sort of excessive power but that's normal (under capitalism) at that level. They always get to push everybody else around. But this might offer you some peace of mind. It's all fake: https://twitter.com/chronotope/status/1078003966863200256 and at some point it'll start crumbling more and more.
Oh, I'm well aware of alternatives such as Duck Duck Go. I use Duck Duck Go instead of Google, and there's a reason I do my hobby posting here instead of Facebook. Still, there's simply no comparison between how much business they get compared to the big fish.
Duck Duck Go gets 30 million queries per day, which sounds like a lot until you hear that Google gets 3.2 billion per day. Likewise, the amount of traffic going through the main social media sites absolutely dwarfs that of all their alternatives combined. Nearly all traffic on the web goes through FANG.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd like to reply to that but it'd be discussion politics, but suffice it to say that you're ludicrously wrong and leave it at that.
Such a well reasoned, thought our argument...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
NinthMusketeer wrote: I'll believe there's a chance for market competition when I see it, or when the regulatory environment changes such that monopolies are not tolerated.
As is most american laws are written to empower and protect monopolies, making it easier for hem to crush or simply starve out any competition.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd like to reply to that but it'd be discussion politics, but suffice it to say that you're ludicrously wrong and leave it at that.
Such a well reasoned, thought our argument...
Yes it is. As was noted by a Mod earlier in the thread politics is not a subject that is allowed to be discussed on dakka. If you wish to continue discussing politics please do so here;
The issue with monopolies is not just some pure moral principle that monopolies are bad, it's that we don't want them when they have negative effects on society and start to act against the best interests of their customers with no available alternative. For example, if your power company decides to raise its rates 10x there's nothing you can do about it, they have a state-granted monopoly and it's impossible (and bad for society) to create an entire separate power grid to attempt to compete with them. Therefore we accept the monopoly but introduce common carrier rules, regulated prices, etc, so that even in the absence of competition the monopolizing company has to behave. This is how the internet works under net neutrality, and it's a good thing. We recognize that it's effectively impossible to build an entire second internet and that ISPs have been granted public resources to build their infrastructure, so we treat them as a common carrier and require them to move all data packets from source to destination with equal treatment. This becomes even more true in the case of wireless internet, where the state is literally giving a company exclusive use of a portion of the frequency spectrum and it is illegal for anyone else to use those frequencies.
In the case of Google/Facebook/etc it's not at all the same. They don't have market dominance because the state has granted them exclusive access to a limited resource, they have it because they are offering a product or service that the vast majority of the market wants and their competitors aren't. Over and over again people have made alternatives (often for ideological reasons), and the market has collectively shrugged and said "no thanks". But anyone is free to start a competing company if they have a better product, there is no barrier to entry other than convincing people to buy it. Likewise, if the market leaders screw up and stop keeping their customers happy those customers are free to leave and find a replacement. Market forces are keeping them from doing anything too bad, and government regulation isn't necessary. And in any case, how would government regulation even work as a general principle? If your product/service becomes too popular, defined by some arbitrary standard, you forfeit ownership of it and the state gets to decide what content you publish? Are you going to compensate the owners financially for this seizure?
Finally, it's worth a reminder that free speech does not mean that you are entitled to have an audience listen to you, and a free market does not mean that you are entitled to have people buy your stuff. The audience is free to ignore you, and the customers are free to decide that your product sucks.
Fine! Next time someone say s"You're wrong!" as a well reasoned argument, I will devastate him with an even more logical one" "I knw y'are but what am I?"
Techpriestsupport wrote: Fine! Next time someone say s"You're wrong!" as a well reasoned argument, I will devastate him with an even more logical one" "I knw y'are but what am I?"
This does nothing to promote the conversation and is thus spam. If you can not add to the discussion with out making such comments please remove yourself from it.
Yes, the poidcast revolution is supposed to be the new way that the net will enable free speech for millions who have no access to a media empire.
Youtube was supposed to be it, then the demonitization steamroller and copyright infringement hammers got going, with people being called "Youtube heroes!" for helping silence objectionable videos.
Facebook was going to be the new vox populi, until the Zuckerborg collective decided to start censoring it with bots and blanket restrictions.
So now here come podcasts to save free speech, until the people running the ISP monopolies decide to quietly throttle down access to them until they are effectively silenced.
Yep, media in the digital age is an example that straddles both sides of the regulatory line that Peregrine is talking about. On one side you have traditional broadcast and print media, which has to conform to many of the same types of regulatory restrictions that ISP's do, and on the other you have web-native media that does not.
Until recently the only real competitive advantage that a cable news network had over any would be pundit or "citizen reporter" was that they had access to public broadcasting frequencies or cable infrastructure. You can't just start your own news channel because you have to license broadcasting rights, comply with FCC regulations etc. Now, however, it isn't difficult for a small group of people or even individual with a YouTube channel to do basically the same thing for a lot less money and reach an even wider audience (especially since so much of reporting these days is citing what someone said on Twitter or in another publication). For all intents and purposes, digital media can and should out compete traditional media because it has the ability to deliver a comparable product much, much more efficiently. Yet, conveniently for traditional media sources, obstacle after obstacle is constantly placed in the way of "smaller" content creators, even when they draw larger audiences than a cable news channel and people willingly fund them through things like crowdfunding.
YouTube was created around the idea that anyone could be their own TV channel, and it was wildly successful, until the adpocalypse happened. Suddenly, channels that were demonstrably and organically out competing traditional media outlets had their revenue stripped away. Then crowdfunding services like Patreon showed up to allow audiences to fund their favorite content directly, and now PayPal, Visa and Mastercard are pressuring Patreon to shut that down in a totally arbitrary manner. Then you have traditional media companies copyright-striking everything that contains a half second of their content even if it's protected under fair use laws and they do the same thing every day. It doesn't matter if the claims are legitimate or not because they are able to game the system through volume of complaints and shut people down without any kind of impartial review or arbitration.
It's not hard to create something that should be competitive against major companies and services; time and time again people have demonstrated a demand for alternatives and even a willingness to pay for them. My issue is that every time a competitor pops up and actually does start putting the pressure on the big fish, it gets smacked down through any number of clearly anti-competitive practices. Most of the time there is no monopolistic smoking gun in a legal sense, but a lot of it is still in a grey area.
Luciferian wrote:Oh, I'm well aware of alternatives such as Duck Duck Go. I use Duck Duck Go instead of Google, and there's a reason I do my hobby posting here instead of Facebook. Still, there's simply no comparison between how much business they get compared to the big fish.
Duck Duck Go gets 30 million queries per day, which sounds like a lot until you hear that Google gets 3.2 billion per day. Likewise, the amount of traffic going through the main social media sites absolutely dwarfs that of all their alternatives combined. Nearly all traffic on the web goes through FANG.
I'm not saying that I like their dominance but they are slightly different than ISPs and the problematic issues are not the same for both types of companies. You can avoid Google (to a degree) if you are willing to put in some work (or pay others who are offering competing services). But if you ISP starts pushing you around the foundation of your internet experience starts wobbling and it doesn't matter how good/bad Google (or any other service) is if you can't even access their site reliably because it's blocked (or the connection is "unreliable") and they want to guide you toward their preferred internet search engine (or ask you to pay an extra fee for the privilege of accessing Google reliably).
What I'm trying to say is that the same is true in reverse, especially if you are a small or independent business or content creator. All of these companies can basically get you kicked off the internet if they want to. It doesn't matter if you have metered access to the independent site you want to go to or if your ISP blocks it if it doesn't even exist on the internet in the first place. Or if you rely on traffic from Google or social media sites and they squelch you in favor of someone else. Net neutrality is only one avenue of attack and it assumes that ISP's and content providers are going to work together to create a tiered Internet, where consumers don't have equal access to whatever they choose. I'm saying that already happens with or without net neutrality.
Luciferian wrote: All of these companies can basically get you kicked off the internet if they want to.
{citation needed}
Remember, "nobody cares about my site and wants to visit it" is not the same as "kicked off the internet". You aren't entitled to an audience or customers, and a large company declining to give you advertising services is not infringing upon your rights.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Luciferian wrote: Net neutrality is only one avenue of attack and it assumes that ISP's and content providers are going to work together to create a tiered Internet, where consumers don't have equal access to whatever they choose. I'm saying that already happens with or without net neutrality.
Except you're missing the key difference:
If Facebook decides not to sell you advertising space you are still free to advertise elsewhere. Your site and your product/message still exist and people can still get there if they want. And if Facebook is too selective about their content they risk upsetting their own customers and losing market share to a competitor with a wider range of content.
If an ISP decides to block traffic to your site then it genuinely doesn't exist. It doesn't matter what your potential audience/customers want or how clever you are in trying to market it, it is cut off and removed from the internet. And in many cases there's nothing anyone can do about it since there is no alternative ISP available.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Luciferian wrote: Now, however, it isn't difficult for a small group of people or even individual with a YouTube channel to do basically the same thing for a lot less money and reach an even wider audience (especially since so much of reporting these days is citing what someone said on Twitter or in another publication). For all intents and purposes, digital media can and should out compete traditional media because it has the ability to deliver a comparable product much, much more efficiently.
This is a flawed premise. A random individual with a social media channel doesn't have the same budget and resources as a major news company. They're going to be much more limited in the degree of reporting they can do (travel, research, etc, cost a ton of money), have to settle for less-talented employees, etc. The "traditional media" company is probably going to have a superior product overall and much better resources to market it. If you abandon the assumption that a random social media poster is competing with the dominant players in the market then the rest of your argument disappears.
YouTube was created around the idea that anyone could be their own TV channel, and it was wildly successful, until the adpocalypse happened. Suddenly, channels that were demonstrably and organically out competing traditional media outlets had their revenue stripped away. Then crowdfunding services like Patreon showed up to allow audiences to fund their favorite content directly, and now PayPal, Visa and Mastercard are pressuring Patreon to shut that down in a totally arbitrary manner. Then you have traditional media companies copyright-striking everything that contains a half second of their content even if it's protected under fair use laws and they do the same thing every day. It doesn't matter if the claims are legitimate or not because they are able to game the system through volume of complaints and shut people down without any kind of impartial review or arbitration.
Well yes, this is what happens when you have a weak customer base and depend on the support of other companies. The fact that these people were putting up YouTube channels instead of keeping full control over their hosting is a concession that they didn't really have the revenue flow to operate independently. They had to rely on a partnership with YouTube to provide hosting services, arrange contracts with advertisers, etc. And once YouTube declined to continue a business partnership with them, as they have every right to do, they were unable to just say "ok, you I'm hosting my own stuff" and continue operating profitably. That's a sign of weakness, not strength.
(I will, however, grant that payment processors start to get into common carrier territory and there's a much greater case for regulating them as such.)
It would actually be pretty hard to maliciously block a public IP address by the ISP as hypothesized and get away with it...
DNS servers are the address name-to-IP translators that is ubiquitous across the internent, owned by many manyentities. DNS servers "talk" to each other to maintain valid changes to IP address and to optimize the database list to reduce "hops" between networks.
Just about the only entity who can block (or redirect) IP addresses are Countries. (looking at you China/Cuba/Iran/etc...)
Unless you think its possible for the US (or other western nations) to do this...this hypothetical is nothing more than a Chicken Little exercise that NN wouldn't address anyways.
An ISP would definitely be allowed to block access to specific IP addresses from their customers. If they can throttle certain sites, they can set the rate to 0.
And if we're talking about new sites that not many people visit. People would assume they would assume something is wrong with the site, not that their ISP is blocking it.
And considering that most ISP's have a monopoly (Or close to it) on certain areas...It's even harder to detect.
skyth wrote: An ISP would definitely be allowed to block access to specific IP addresses from their customers. If they can throttle certain sites, they can set the rate to 0.
And if we're talking about new sites that not many people visit. People would assume they would assume something is wrong with the site, not that their ISP is blocking it.
And considering that most ISP's have a monopoly (Or close to it) on certain areas...It's even harder to detect.
They won't be able to get away with it, if maliciously done. That's my point.
ISPs are in the business to maximize their subscriber numbers, so it's in their inherent interest to keep it free flowing w/o the bad throttling business.
The the bigger concern, imo, are the entities that are both ISP and content providers.
Such as, Comcast (who owns Hulu): it would be bad for them to restrict/throttle/bad-monopolistic-actions to Netflix traffic to force their customers to use Hulu instead. That's the bigger worry IMO.
skyth wrote: An ISP would definitely be allowed to block access to specific IP addresses from their customers. If they can throttle certain sites, they can set the rate to 0.
And if we're talking about new sites that not many people visit. People would assume they would assume something is wrong with the site, not that their ISP is blocking it.
And considering that most ISP's have a monopoly (Or close to it) on certain areas...It's even harder to detect.
They won't be able to get away with it, if maliciously done. That's my point.
ISPs are in the business to maximize their subscriber numbers, so it's in their inherent interest to keep it free flowing w/o the bad throttling business.
The the bigger concern, imo, are the entities that are both ISP and content providers.
Such as, Comcast (who owns Hulu): it would be bad for them to restrict/throttle/bad-monopolistic-actions to Netflix traffic to force their customers to use Hulu instead. That's the bigger worry IMO.
ISPs already do this. Here in the UK some ISPs are very proactive in blocking access to sites offering streams of video content. Sky blocks a lot because people are watching content which Sky has the UK distribution rights to, for example.
And these ISPs are doing this in the UK, where there is a lot less of a monopolistic grip on many areas of the UK compared to the US.
whembly wrote: It would actually be pretty hard to maliciously block a public IP address by the ISP as hypothesized and get away with it...
DNS servers are the address name-to-IP translators that is ubiquitous across the internent, owned by many manyentities. DNS servers "talk" to each other to maintain valid changes to IP address and to optimize the database list to reduce "hops" between networks.
Just about the only entity who can block (or redirect) IP addresses are Countries. (looking at you China/Cuba/Iran/etc...)
Unless you think its possible for the US (or other western nations) to do this...this hypothetical is nothing more than a Chicken Little exercise that NN wouldn't address anyways.
China has tried to ban VPNs with only limited effect. Even a nation with overt and heavy handed net policing can only go so far. It requires actual police footwork to close the door properly, which China is only beginning to do on a larger scale. That of itself cant happen in the US.
The major issue facing those whose content is 'shutdown' is that opposed content might still be readily available. If say YouTube/Patreon/Facebook blocks content for being infringing, those who dislike it can continue to call the work infringing without the original content creator being able to defend themselves. This is where group advocacy comes into play. Net neutrality is relevant as its a broader scale problem. Content bans are a scalpel, bandwidth throttling is a hammer. It would be possible to use a large scale approach do deal with a social/political problem.
However doing so would be evident and obvious and thus counter productive because it would trigger a larger backlash.
Personally I am concerned about corporations doing social engineering and selectively empowering and disempowering messages according to their own political agendas or dogmas. But such actions also come at a price. When a content provider bans a content maker there is a backlash from their fans and also from those who might not agree with the content but will defend the right to do so. This is also always a problem for corporations and a price to pay. The backlash on Patreon is a current topical example. Throttling would be the same but cruder more indiscriminate and muted in its effect. i.e not an effective tool of social control.
Consequently while I am seeing a theoretical political free speech threat from net neutrality repeal, but I am not seeing or any longer expecting to see an actual one.
The real issue to me has always been about monopolization and carteling of internet services. That to me is a much bigger problem, companies not in 'the club' could face real restrictions or even be forced out of business is needs be. There is no open evidence of this, but if major corporations do cartel, there won't be, so the lack is not indicative, and the window of opportunity may be tempting.
Orlanth wrote: China has tried to ban VPNs with only limited effect. Even a nation with overt and heavy handed net policing can only go so far. It requires actual police footwork to close the door properly, which China is only beginning to do on a larger scale. That of itself cant happen in the US.
But the goal of ending net neutrality isn't China-style censorship of dissent, it's profit. Most people don't know how to set up a VPN and aren't going to learn, so who cares if it is technically possible? The goal, which can easily be successful, is to make accessing the content inconvenient enough that people get out their wallets and pay for premium service and/or just go to the preferred content provider (depending on the particular business model). It's purely a gift to large corporations at the expense of the rest of us, who pay more without getting an improved product in return.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: ISPs are in the business to maximize their subscriber numbers, so it's in their inherent interest to keep it free flowing w/o the bad throttling business.
Not really true. Internet at this point is an essential service, like electricity or water. And just like other utilities you have little or no choice in the market. No matter how unhappy you are with the service you have to keep buying. That's what makes ending net neutrality so dangerous. If they tell you that Netflix costs $5.99/month you either pay or stop watching that show you love. Or they tell Netflix to hand over $$$$$$$/month or get blocked, and Netflix passes on the cost to you.
whembly wrote: ISPs are in the business to maximize their subscriber numbers, so it's in their inherent interest to keep it free flowing w/o the bad throttling business.
Not really true. Internet at this point is an essential service, like electricity or water. And just like other utilities you have little or no choice in the market.
Yes and no.
Yes, it's an essential service.
No, in that it's like electricity and water. That in many areas, you can get competing ISPs (namely cable vs telephony vs sat vs cellular)... whereas electricity/water you *only* get them from one company.
No matter how unhappy you are with the service you have to keep buying.
Only if you don't want the other available products. Some rural areas are "stuck" with telephony or satellites. I use airquotes in 'stuck' because you still have options, even if your preferred ISP, like cable, isn't available.
That's what makes ending net neutrality so dangerous.
I'm going to ask everyone to define what you mean by Net Neutrality.
For many, it's treating each internet transactions equally, no matter who's the sender and who's the consumer. Which is a drawback as things like 'zero-rating' offers from celluar companies would run afoul to this concept. Zero-rating means that a particular service does not count against a data cap. (ie, Verizon offer HBO streaming on their plans, or T-mobile offering MLB for their users... all not counting to data cap)
From context, Peregrine... I think you're referring to the fact that FCC recently removed the Obama FCC regulation era that reclassified ISPs as common-carriers. IF that's the case, its really an asinine to consider ISPs as common-carriers as this isn't like Ma Bell as the industry is so diverse, that old regulation doesn't really "fit" with what they were trying to do.
If they tell you that Netflix costs $5.99/month you either pay or stop watching that show you love. Or they tell Netflix to hand over $$$$$$$/month or get blocked, and Netflix passes on the cost to you.
Here's the thing... there's no guarantee that the Obama era FCC regulation, under title II, would've prevented your supposed scenario as it would still has to be adjudicated by the FCC for approval.
Rescinding this rule, ISP under title II regulated by the FCC, reverts it back to be regulated by the FTC under title I. The FTC has found bad actors and sanctioned them appropriately.
Furthermore, any regulatory decision is about tradeoffs. To choose one course of action is to gain certain benefits and incur certain costs, and it is to forgo the benefits (and costs!) of alternative courses of action. Here's the important point I'd like to emphasize: that makes evaluating regulations so difficult is that the benefits are usually readily apparent, mainly in hat the bad behavior or outcome would, hopefully, be eliminated. But the costs are much more difficult to quantify. Short-term implementation costs may be relatively straightforward, but future innovations and market entries that don’t happen by virtue of the regulation being in place are far more difficult to calculate. You'd literally be asking the 8-ball in trying to ascertain hypothetical impacts. Equally difficult to measure is the inevitable rent-seeking that accompanies regulation, as incumbents such as FANG would find it easier to lobby regulators to foreclose competition instead of winning customers in an open market.
Yes, we need to recognize that the Internet has been the single most important driver of not just economic growth but overall consumer welfare for... since created by Al Gore ( ). Such impacts and future sustainability should be protected of course... also, given that all of that advances that has been achieved with minimal regulatory oversight under title I, the default position of anyone concerned about future growth ought to be maintaining a light touch. After all, regulation always has a cost far greater than what we can see at the moment it is enacted, and given the importance of the Internet, those costs are massively more consequential.
The fact of the matter is there is no evidence that harm exists in the sort of systematic way that justifies heavily regulating ISPs, ie using title II that was designed for different technologies in a different era... additionally the evidence that does exist... suggests that current regulatory structures handle bad actors perfectly well. Especially since industry watchdogs and insiders are so prevalent. The only future to fear is the one we never discover because we gave up on the approach that has already brought us so far. KnowWhatIMean??
I argued that Commissioner Pai was right to return regulation to the same light touch under which the Internet exploded in our lifetime. Please note, that I am amenable to Congress passing laws specifically banning ISPs from throttling/blocking content, especially in the light of massive vertical integrations we've seen (ie, Comcast, Google, Facebook). But, for the most part, I believe we are better off in taking a “wait-and-see” approach, especially since new services and innovation is still going at rapid progress. And, again let me reiterate, if bad actors/event happens such that a "heavier touch" is required, it should absolutely be debated.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Alternatively, your post was actually not very good and it got deleted by the mods and you're just mad at the mods.
They can get on people's nerves.
One thing that needs to die is this mentality that somehow it's ok for a business to do whatever makes it profit. The free market fanatics seem to think that "profit" is a magical word of power that makes everything right.
By that metric the kid selling crack in a school is ok because he's just making a profit.
We had anti monopoly laws and regulations on banks after the great depression for a reason. Since this deregulation craze started in the 80's wecve had one economic disaster after another, starting with the SnL bailouts of the late 80's.
Eliminating net neutrality is just anotber form of deregulation, and is pretty much guaranteed to create another disaster for most people while profiting a few.
1) ISPs should not purposely slow or block data on a discriminatory basis. I am not necessarily opposed to the concept of “fast lanes”, as I believe that offers significant potential for innovative services (ie, remote medical services), although I recognize the arguments against them... I just don't think the public has really weighed in that concept. HOwever it should be non-negotiable, that ISPs cannot purposely disfavor certain types of content.
2) ISPs should not be allowed to block any legal content from their services. At the same time, services should have discretion in monetization and their algorithms.
3) Finally...and this is controversial, this is solution if we can't break the monopolies: ISP/CDNs should not be allowed to zero-rate their own content, and platforms should not be allowed to prioritize their own content in their algorithms. IE, Comcast customer shouldn't get Hulu for free, or ATT customer shouldn't get the TimEWarner library for free. Otherwise, there need to be specific rules and transparency around transfer pricing and a guarantee that the same rates are allowed to competitive services and content...which gets complicated in a hurry.
whembly wrote: Can we agree with the following principles?
1) ISPs should not purposely slow or block data on a discriminatory basis. I am not necessarily opposed to the concept of “fast lanes”, as I believe that offers significant potential for innovative services (ie, remote medical services), although I recognize the arguments against them... I just don't think the public has really weighed in that concept. HOwever it should be non-negotiable, that ISPs cannot purposely disfavor certain types of content.
2) ISPs should not be allowed to block any legal content from their services. At the same time, services should have discretion in monetization and their algorithms.
3) Finally...and this is controversial, this is solution if we can't break the monopolies: ISP/CDNs should not be allowed to zero-rate their own content, and platforms should not be allowed to prioritize their own content in their algorithms. IE, Comcast customer shouldn't get Hulu for free, or ATT customer shouldn't get the TimEWarner library for free. Otherwise, there need to be specific rules and transparency around transfer pricing and a guarantee that the same rates are allowed to competitive services and content...which gets complicated in a hurry.
whembly wrote: Can we agree with the following principles?
1) ISPs should not purposely slow or block data on a discriminatory basis. I am not necessarily opposed to the concept of “fast lanes”, as I believe that offers significant potential for innovative services (ie, remote medical services), although I recognize the arguments against them... I just don't think the public has really weighed in that concept. HOwever it should be non-negotiable, that ISPs cannot purposely disfavor certain types of content.
2) ISPs should not be allowed to block any legal content from their services. At the same time, services should have discretion in monetization and their algorithms.
3) Finally...and this is controversial, this is solution if we can't break the monopolies: ISP/CDNs should not be allowed to zero-rate their own content, and platforms should not be allowed to prioritize their own content in their algorithms. IE, Comcast customer shouldn't get Hulu for free, or ATT customer shouldn't get the TimEWarner library for free. Otherwise, there need to be specific rules and transparency around transfer pricing and a guarantee that the same rates are allowed to competitive services and content...which gets complicated in a hurry.
.
That's literally net neutrality in a nutshell. You ask "what is net neutrality" and then list off exactly what net neutrality is like it's some controversial thing we all need to agree on.
Everyone already agrees, except you, who seems to agree but will spend pages telling us all the reasons you disagree despite from all your ramblings seemingly have no disagreement. It's like you can't live without arguing with someone even when there's nothing to actually argue over.
whembly wrote: Can we agree with the following principles?
1) ISPs should not purposely slow or block data on a discriminatory basis. I am not necessarily opposed to the concept of “fast lanes”, as I believe that offers significant potential for innovative services (ie, remote medical services), although I recognize the arguments against them... I just don't think the public has really weighed in that concept. HOwever it should be non-negotiable, that ISPs cannot purposely disfavor certain types of content.
I have a big problem with this, even though I would like to agree with the principle.
Corporations are past masters of using marketing to reverse the meaning of a price differential. It is common to synchronise a discount offer with a general price rise so a product is temporarily cheaper, or even the same price yet 'reverting' to a higher price later.
in context here a company can generate slow lanes while claiming to generate fast lanes, its just a matter of labelling. "Fast lanes" become (what was) standard service at premium price, normal service become throttled service at regular price. Thus technically there are no "slow lanes".
Orlanth wrote: China has tried to ban VPNs with only limited effect. Even a nation with overt and heavy handed net policing can only go so far. It requires actual police footwork to close the door properly, which China is only beginning to do on a larger scale. That of itself cant happen in the US.
But the goal of ending net neutrality isn't China-style censorship of dissent, it's profit. Most people don't know how to set up a VPN and aren't going to learn, so who cares if it is technically possible? The goal, which can easily be successful, is to make accessing the content inconvenient enough that people get out their wallets and pay for premium service and/or just go to the preferred content provider (depending on the particular business model). It's purely a gift to large corporations at the expense of the rest of us, who pay more without getting an improved product in return.
This wasn't the point I was making. Many advocates of Net Neutrality used censorship as an argument. I made the point that repealing net neutrality doesn't lead to censorship because it doesn't have the tooling of censorship. Though it can make fringe websites harder to reach and is detrimental to them, but it would be difficult to shut down a message this way. As China has vested interests and internal control structures for shutting down the internet, and has yet to successfully do so, it is hard to fathom circumstances where a successful shutdown can occur in the US on a large scale.
This is not to say that intelligence agencies cannot interfere, but this doesn't require or rely on net neutrality laws or their repeal.
Beyond this i agree with you. The benefits are for corporate gain at public expense, and while free speech can suffer to some extent that is simply in a form of corporate 'pollution' of the internet caused by movement on the road to quicker profits.
Orlanth wrote: This wasn't the point I was making. Many advocates of Net Neutrality used censorship as an argument. I made the point that repealing net neutrality doesn't lead to censorship because it doesn't have the tooling of censorship. Though it can make fringe websites harder to reach and is detrimental to them, but it would be difficult to shut down a message this way. As China has vested interests and internal control structures for shutting down the internet, and has yet to successfully do so, it is hard to fathom circumstances where a successful shutdown can occur in the US on a large scale.
This is not to say that intelligence agencies cannot interfere, but this doesn't require or rely on net neutrality laws or their repeal.
Oh, sorry, my misunderstanding. I haven't really seen anyone trying to argue for repealing net neutrality as a means of censorship, so I didn't catch that you were trying to refute it. As you say, it's a really ineffective censorship tool and all of the discussion I've seen has been about repealing it to enable abusive business practices.
Ok, let me try to cast a little oil on troubled waters here, some people actually like some laws and programs when they are explained to them in objective, label free terms.
Let's take net neutrality here. In america at least a lot of people have been conditioned by corporate controlled media to rgard any form of government control or regulation od big business as "SOCIALISM!!!" and "BIG GUBMINT CONTROL!"" and have been conditioned to see such as pure evil.
But!
If you explain what these things mean to them part by part, they tend to like the individual parts. Like say "Do you think you should have a real choice about who you get your Internet from?"
"Well, yeah."
"Do you think you should be able to choose what parts of the net you access and not your internet provider?"
"Hell yeah!"
"Do you think your net provider should have to provide you with reliable service equal to what your paying for?"
"of course!"
"Do you think he should be able to be a local monopoly and charge you all he wants, give you sh-tty service and control where you can go on the net?"
"XXXX NO!"
"OK, that's what internet neutrality helps make happen."
"THAT'S SOCIALISM!"
Yeah, that's kinda how it goes here....
I mean it;'s like people want rate controls, quality control, freedom of access, etc. They just don't want "Duh gubmint!" doing it.
SIGH
So yeah, people here may seem to be advocating for something, but also rejecting habing the only agewncy that can do it, the government, do it and not see the cognitive disconnection there do to years of subtle brainwashing. We need to wake people up to that.
whembly wrote: Can we agree with the following principles?
1) ISPs should not purposely slow or block data on a discriminatory basis. I am not necessarily opposed to the concept of “fast lanes”, as I believe that offers significant potential for innovative services (ie, remote medical services), although I recognize the arguments against them... I just don't think the public has really weighed in that concept. HOwever it should be non-negotiable, that ISPs cannot purposely disfavor certain types of content.
2) ISPs should not be allowed to block any legal content from their services. At the same time, services should have discretion in monetization and their algorithms.
3) Finally...and this is controversial, this is solution if we can't break the monopolies: ISP/CDNs should not be allowed to zero-rate their own content, and platforms should not be allowed to prioritize their own content in their algorithms. IE, Comcast customer shouldn't get Hulu for free, or ATT customer shouldn't get the TimEWarner library for free. Otherwise, there need to be specific rules and transparency around transfer pricing and a guarantee that the same rates are allowed to competitive services and content...which gets complicated in a hurry.
.
That's literally net neutrality in a nutshell. You ask "what is net neutrality" and then list off exactly what net neutrality is like it's some controversial thing we all need to agree on.
Everyone already agrees, except you, who seems to agree but will spend pages telling us all the reasons you disagree despite from all your ramblings seemingly have no disagreement. It's like you can't live without arguing with someone even when there's nothing to actually argue over.
But none of those was codified under the previous' administration reclassification of ISP Title II as its absolutely the wrong tool to address these concerns. What is clearly needed is new legislation, not an attempt to misapply ancient regulation in a way that is trivially reversible.
Even if one disagrees with reclassification of ISP's as the wrong tool (which is strongly arguable), the problem with reversing that decision is that it was indeed addressing some of those net neutrality issues, and when that decision was reversed, literally nothing was done on the legislative end, and no hint of intention of ever doing so ever appeared.
The reversal of the title II decision didn't come because the wrong regulatory tool was selected, the reversal came because those who made the decision are actively opposed to the fundamental concept of net neutrality.
Vaktathi wrote: Even if one disagrees with reclassification of ISP's as the wrong tool (which is strongly arguable), the problem with reversing that decision is that it was indeed addressing some of those net neutrality issues, and when that decision was reversed, literally nothing was done on the legislative end, and no hint of intention of ever doing so ever appeared.
The reversal of the title II decision didn't come because the wrong regulatory tool was selected, the reversal came because those who made the decision are actively opposed to the fundamental concept of net neutrality.
Whembly is correct in point out that our previous attempts at internet regulation were suboptimal at best and you are correct in pointing out that a lack of regulation is worse than having decent if imperfect regulation. I think you're wrong in dismissing the importance of the lack of proper regulatory legislation as not being the key problem.
Since 2005 we've had a SCOTUS decision and two Federal Appeals Circuit Court decisions that dealt with the problem of trying to apply outdated laws to current situations. Nobody was attempting to address the classification of ISPs in the Communications Act of 1934 so we'll never find a clear justification in it to classify ISPs as common carriers. Likewise, 60 years later the Telecommunications Act of 1996 isn't as helpful as it should be because it deliberately created the "Information Services" classification for broadband internet providers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
Spoiler:
The Act makes a significant distinction between providers of telecommunications services and information services. The term 'telecommunications service' means the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public, or to such classes of users as to be effectively available directly to the public, regardless of the facilities used.' On the other hand, the term 'information service' means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service. The distinction comes into play when a carrier provides information services. A carrier providing information services is not a 'telecommunications carrier' under the act. For example, a carrier is not a 'telecommunications carrier' when it is selling broadband Internet access. This distinction becomes particularly important because the act enforces specific regulations against 'telecommunications carriers' but not against carriers providing information services. With the convergence of telephone, cable, and internet providers, this distinction has created much controversy.
Which is why in 2014 the Federal Appeals Circuit Court ruled in favor of the telecom corporations against the FCC's Open Internet Rules regulations of 2010. That led to the FCC passing the Title II Net Neutrality regulations in 2015 that were upheld by the Federal Appeals Circuit Court in 2016. However, because the FCC regulations were only based on FCC interpretations of the congressional Acts governing communications the FCC regulations could be set aside with simple change in majority opinion on the FCC board. which occurred in 2017. Subsequently Congress still wasn't able to pass any legislation to specifically address to current problems with ISPs. Congressional inaction is the problem here.
We're handling ISPs in an insanely stupid manner. This is akin to trying to play 40K with all the current factions and models but only using the 2nd Edition BRB and 6th edition codices. That would be a mess. Even if you managed to find a small group of gamers to play with that were willing to house rule everything for the new factions/models based on the old rulebooks you'd have to start over again if/when new members joined the group who had different opinions on how to house rule things.
For some reason we've decided that we're ok with Congress deliberately refusing to do their job and running on their respective Party affiliation and ideology instead of running on their actual job performance. If the government isn't going to pass legislation to clearly identify how something will be regulated by the government then we'll always be subject to dealing with interpretations and opinions of courts and bureaucrats of outdated laws that weren't written to address the points of contention.
whembly wrote:Can we agree with the following principles?
1) ISPs should not purposely slow or block data on a discriminatory basis. I am not necessarily opposed to the concept of “fast lanes”, as I believe that offers significant potential for innovative services (ie, remote medical services), although I recognize the arguments against them... I just don't think the public has really weighed in that concept. HOwever it should be non-negotiable, that ISPs cannot purposely disfavor certain types of content.
2) ISPs should not be allowed to block any legal content from their services. At the same time, services should have discretion in monetization and their algorithms.
3) Finally...and this is controversial, this is solution if we can't break the monopolies: ISP/CDNs should not be allowed to zero-rate their own content, and platforms should not be allowed to prioritize their own content in their algorithms. IE, Comcast customer shouldn't get Hulu for free, or ATT customer shouldn't get the TimEWarner library for free. Otherwise, there need to be specific rules and transparency around transfer pricing and a guarantee that the same rates are allowed to competitive services and content...which gets complicated in a hurry.
Having fast lanes automatically means you also have bandwidth throttling/disfavouring of content they don't like. You just need to switch your starting position. Instead of throttling they'll just offer a really slow basic service (that is more like constant throttling of everything) at a lower price and you end up needing to pay an additional fee for all the "fast lanes" (and end up paying the same as before, but with fewer fast lanes probably). And if they really want to make some service unusable (or "censor" it) they won't offer "fast lanes" for exactly that one. And they can sell you really cheap fast lanes for their preferred services (more or less: zero-rate their own content).
Essentially: Allowing the idea of fast lanes (bandwidth, latency,…) will allow them to feth with the service to their benefits and against your interests and bulldoze its way over any other points you tried to make up there. If you want something like remote medical services then you lay down internet pipes everywhere (government), maybe offer cheap municipal ISP for regions that need it (I know "government, boo! Hiss!!" ), and subsidise the people who can't afford it. If you hope that the idea of fast lanes would make remote healthcare magically cheap(er) then you'll at best end up with a solution that barely works and is marginally cheaper (or even more expensive if they can find a way for the government to pay for it) because every middleman will try to extract as much profit as possible from this arrangement while not really caring about those medical services.
I wonder what would happen if citizens in a state took up enough petitions to get enough signatures to put a law on the ballot that required ISP providers in that state to adhere to net neutrality laws i that state?
If it were a big enough state like california it wouild have a real effect.
Techpriestsupport wrote: I wonder what would happen if citizens in a state took up enough petitions to get enough signatures to put a law on the ballot that required ISP providers in that state to adhere to net neutrality laws i that state?
If it were a big enough state like california it wouild have a real effect.
The DoJ has filed suit to strike down the law on the grounds that states don’t have the authority or jurisdiction to legislate regulation of the internet. We’ll see how the courts rule. Seems to me that the internet would likely fall under the interstate commerce clause.
Ok you asked an honest question and as an American I'll give you an honest answer which will probably disappear before you see it.
In america "state's right" is far right code for "Letting racist dominated states ignore civil rights laws" and "letting christian dominated states outlaw abortion and discriminate against non heterosexuals".
"State's rights" only applies to right wing desires that conflict with federal law, like rights for people the religious right doesn't like and wants to abuse legally.
If you want proof of this note how the right rejects state's rights when states legalize marijuana or gay rights. As soon as a state that isn't dominated by the right passes a law the right doesn;t like, the right calls for the federal government to wield the almighty club of federal power to smash it down.
Prestor Jon wrote: Seems to me that the internet would likely fall under the interstate commerce clause.
Yes and no. The interstate commerce clause gives the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, it does not give the exclusive right. The federal government is saying "net neutrality is no longer in effect", they are not passing a law that prohibits anyone from obstructing efforts to provide different tiers of internet service based on content. States are free to impose stricter regulations than the federal government, like how many states have gas taxes even though the refining/transport/sale/etc of the product almost certainly crosses state lines.
On the other hand, the interstate commerce clause has been expanded to effectively mean "the federal government can do anything it wants" so who knows how it will end up.
Ok you asked an honest question and as an American I'll give you an honest answer which will probably disappear before you see it.
In america "state's right" is far right code for "Letting racist dominated states ignore civil rights laws" and "letting christian dominated states outlaw abortion and discriminate against non heterosexuals".
"State's rights" only applies to right wing desires that conflict with federal law, like rights for people the religious right doesn't like and wants to abuse legally.
If you want proof of this note how the right rejects state's rights when states legalize marijuana or gay rights. As soon as a state that isn't dominated by the right passes a law the right doesn;t like, the right calls for the federal government to wield the almighty club of federal power to smash it down.
Ok you asked an honest question and as an American I'll give you an honest answer which will probably disappear before you see it.
In america "state's right" is far right code for "Letting racist dominated states ignore civil rights laws" and "letting christian dominated states outlaw abortion and discriminate against non heterosexuals".
"State's rights" only applies to right wing desires that conflict with federal law, like rights for people the religious right doesn't like and wants to abuse legally.
If you want proof of this note how the right rejects state's rights when states legalize marijuana or gay rights. As soon as a state that isn't dominated by the right passes a law the right doesn;t like, the right calls for the federal government to wield the almighty club of federal power to smash it down.
The mod deleted my response to this...
I'll just say that you're wrong here as it's used by everyone.
Prestor Jon wrote: Seems to me that the internet would likely fall under the interstate commerce clause.
Yes and no. The interstate commerce clause gives the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, it does not give the exclusive right. The federal government is saying "net neutrality is no longer in effect", they are not passing a law that prohibits anyone from obstructing efforts to provide different tiers of internet service based on content. States are free to impose stricter regulations than the federal government, like how many states have gas taxes even though the refining/transport/sale/etc of the product almost certainly crosses state lines.
This is true... nothing is stopping the states to from passing more restrictive regulations as long as the Feds allows it.
On the other hand, the interstate commerce clause has been expanded to effectively mean "the federal government can do anything it wants" so who knows how it will end up.
Also very true... expansion of the commerce clause began when dairy farmers refuses to sell their products at the stated price set by the feds... whereby, they literally dumped their products in the streets. The act of "not selling" a product fell under the 'commerce clause' even though it doesn't actually cross the state borders.
Prestor Jon wrote: Seems to me that the internet would likely fall under the interstate commerce clause.
Yes and no. The interstate commerce clause gives the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, it does not give the exclusive right. The federal government is saying "net neutrality is no longer in effect", they are not passing a law that prohibits anyone from obstructing efforts to provide different tiers of internet service based on content. States are free to impose stricter regulations than the federal government, like how many states have gas taxes even though the refining/transport/sale/etc of the product almost certainly crosses state lines.
On the other hand, the interstate commerce clause has been expanded to effectively mean "the federal government can do anything it wants" so who knows how it will end up.
True. The most recent analogous situation that came to mind was the controversy over Arizona's SB 1070 legislation since immigration is as big of a nationally known political issue as net neutrality. The DoJ filed suit and ultimately SCOTUS overturned parts of the law based on the Supremacy Clause while letting other parts stand. It will be interesting to see if the CA Net Neutrality law is upheld as is or if it is broken up into pieces.
So, nothing stops states from regulating the net, except when the fedgov stops it, which it will do because big biz doesn't want regulations, it wants money, all your money, every cent of it.
That's a funny thing in American politics. Conservatives are all for it, right up to the point when a state wants to do something they disagree with...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Techpriestsupport wrote: So, nothing stops states from regulating the net, except when the fedgov stops it, which it will do because big biz doesn't want regulations, it wants money, all your money, every cent of it.
Techpriestsupport wrote: So, nothing stops states from regulating the net, except when the fedgov stops it, which it will do because big biz doesn't want regulations, it wants money, all your money, every cent of it.
This is a gross oversimplification and an edgy teen angst take, but that is the reason anything, and I mean anything does or does not get done on a federal level. Forget whatever rhetoric you hear politicians using or how much they say they care about group x or y and ask yourself, who is making money from this?
Ok you asked an honest question and as an American I'll give you an honest answer which will probably disappear before you see it.
In america "state's right" is far right code for "Letting racist dominated states ignore civil rights laws" and "letting christian dominated states outlaw abortion and discriminate against non heterosexuals".
"State's rights" only applies to right wing desires that conflict with federal law, like rights for people the religious right doesn't like and wants to abuse legally.
If you want proof of this note how the right rejects state's rights when states legalize marijuana or gay rights. As soon as a state that isn't dominated by the right passes a law the right doesn;t like, the right calls for the federal government to wield the almighty club of federal power to smash it down.
The mod deleted my response to this...
I'll just say that you're wrong here as it's used by everyone.
It is used by one side so they can be racist. It is used by the other side to mock and shame the racists, because it is really easy to see through their little ruse.
But sure, it is used by everyone. Context is a beautiful thing.
Welp, we went from states rights being a way to preserve net neutrality, to states rights being a way to preserve racism, to violation of states rights being a means for the federal government to enforce protective mercantilism, to states rights being used in some unspecified way that mocks and shames racists. Great talk, guys. Really coherent stuff going on here.
As a reminder, politics is banned in the OT subforum. There’s still room to discuss policy, however, especially in the technical sense. But thus thread will be locked for good, as it’s irredeemably off track.
you I'm hosting my own stuff" and continue operating profitably. That's a sign of weakness, not strength.
