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Okay... had my conversation with my bro last weekend.

Here's the gist.

You need to stop thinking that these cable companies are like Southwestern Bell.

The government did NOT fund the infrastructure costs... like it did for the Bell companies.

The cable lines are wholly owned by said companies.

Understand?

He did say that it's possible that comapnies like Comcast could prioritize their own content over a competitor's content: (ie, Comcast's VoD vs. Netflix). But, that is NOT the same as "throttling down" speed on netflix transactions. Instead, Comcasts can charge Netflix (and they do currently... all cable providers do that) for the right to stream accross the cable company's infrastructure.

Even before when Net Neutrality was struck down, ISP providers already OFFERS hosting services (yes, for a price) to companies like Netflix so that the customer get a better streaming experience.

The OP's "R.I.P. The Internet 1982-2014" is really overly dramatic.

Do you think the government-sanctioned monopoly these companies have gives them an advantage in their business?

 Ouze wrote:
Do you think the government-sanctioned monopoly these companies have gives them an advantage in their business?

Of course... but, that wasn't done in a vacuum.

And... your point please?

The same as it has been since page one. You keep making this argument that cable companies should be able to do what they want because they are bootstrappy, can-do types that did it all on their own and as such the government has no right to intrude onto how they handle their private business, while my argument remains that they only came to be where they are by large public subsidies, unfair market skewing and government winner-picking. If they're going to get the advantages they have gotten, that comes with a state interest in how they run their business.

 Ouze wrote:
The same as it has been since page one. You keep making this argument that cable companies should be able to do what they want because they are bootstrappy, can-do types that did it all on their own and as such the government has no right to intrude onto how they handle their private business, while my argument remains that they only came to be where they are by large public subsidies, unfair market skewing and government winner-picking. If they're going to get the advantages they have gotten, that comes with a state interest in how they run their business.

And they ARE subjected to State's/Fed's rules and regulation. It isn't the Wild-Wild West.

You're making a mountain out of an ant-hill here... imo.

I applaud you in your vigor because you fear that it will only screw the paying customer, but again, I believe it's unwarranted.

BTW: where's the info on "that they only came to be where they are by large public subsidies"???

EDIT: we're getting side tracked... I think we should be advocating ‘open access’ policies... which really means promoting easy, inexpensive and open access to publicly owned rights-of-way for these infrastructure.

The Google Fiber project in Kansas City MO is a perfect example of that.

Internet in the US is one of the worst in the world for a developed nation, IIRC.

The issue is that while the companies own the infrastructure and it isn't quite Bell, the combination of Verizon and Comcast is similar to the old Bell vs. Independents system that existed in the 20s IIRC.

Bell owned most of the infrastructure nationally, but there were also independent companies (mainly at the local and regional level), and it was Bell with like 50% of the country, while independents had the rest of the 50% divided between them. Verizon and Comcast probably have a similar amount of customers, if not more.

The other thing was that Bell wouldn't allow independents to hook their network into Bell's network, meaning that non-Bell customers couldn't talk to anyone who wasn't with their company (and Bell customers couldn't talk to non-Bell either, but they had a huge chunk of the market so it was less of a problem for them). It's somewhat similar to the way that Comcast and Verizon don't allow smaller ISPs to buy usage of their national lines to expand.

There are differences between Bell and now, but there are some similarities.

The key issue is, if Net Neutrality isn't implemented, and if the duopoly of Verizon and Comcast isn't expanded to an actual competitive market, there is a high probability that they will abuse that to charge websites more for access, which gets passed onto us OR results in worse services (or both). And no other ISPs can get into the market because of high costs of laying pipe. Sure, the companies MIGHT not do that, but if you let them have the right to do it, sooner or later they almost certainly will.

And it's not like these companies are hurting, they pretty much have all their infrastructure built and their upkeep costs aren't exactly highly prohibitive. If they can't make a healthy profit off of their duopoly, then they need new management.

The real thing that bugs me is the fact that all of the above combine with these companies trying to block municipal fiber, created by local governments. Few local governments have invested in municipal fiber yet, but in some of the places they have companies have jumped in lobbying to pass legislation to make it illegal for local governments to create their own fiber network to compete with private companies.

While it's all very anti-competitive, I believe it's protected by the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine, but it still stinks to high heaven.

SOMETHING in terms of US internet service providers NEEDS to change. Our internet, in relation to the rest of the world is slower than other countries and costs more, and we aren't doing anything to fix that.

My university provides me free 100mbit/s up&down connection among other things.

I just really wanted to rub this in.

 illuknisaa wrote:
My university provides me free 100mbit/s up&down connection among other things.

I just really wanted to rub this in.

With that kind of free high speed I'd just rub one out!

Stephen Colbert on Net Neutrality, curiously videos were removed from You Tube by (guess guess)

Resurrecting this thread to bring forth this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/netflix-strikes-deal-to-pay-comcast-to-ensure-online-videos-are-streamed-smoothly/2014/02/23/0e498d18-9cc2-11e3-975d-107dfef7b668_story.html

Yeah. They say it'll go no further, but this happened. Maybe a sign of things to come? Or are we pro-net neutrality guys crazy neckbeards?

Comcast buying out Time Warner is probably more worrying than the principle of the matter. Comcast is bad enough with its current monopoly.

 The Airman wrote:
Resurrecting this thread to bring forth this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/netflix-strikes-deal-to-pay-comcast-to-ensure-online-videos-are-streamed-smoothly/2014/02/23/0e498d18-9cc2-11e3-975d-107dfef7b668_story.html

Yeah. They say it'll go no further, but this happened. Maybe a sign of things to come? Or are we pro-net neutrality guys crazy neckbeards?

It has nothing to do with net neutrality...

It's all about Netflix purchasing bandwidth... particularly to reduce Netflix's dependence on middlemen like Cogent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
Comcast buying out Time Warner is probably more worrying than the principle of the matter. Comcast is bad enough with its current monopoly.

I suspect the Feds wouldn't allow it...

Charter was inline to buy Time Warner too.