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Net Neutrality - thoughts?

Can we get back to the topic? What's the timeline on this? What can Obama actually do?
 
The FCC is an independent agency. From what I read recently they are in the early stages of developing a policy that will treat transactions between content providers and ISPs as falling under the utility rules (i.e., no preferential treatment allowed - net neutrality) but transactions between the ISPs and their customers differently, allowing for more customization (i.e. they can make you pay more for more data consumed or to get faster speeds, like now, and maybe they can offer customers the option to pay for Netflix or games to stream faster IDK). They have to issue the rules, get public comment, and then probably fight it in court. So I'm guessing it'll be the beginning of 2015 before they actually come out with a proposal, maybe later if Congress starts hassling them with a bunch of hearings and stuff to try and leverage them on behalf of their telecom lobbyist friends.
 
Do your job, FCC. Aren't you salaried???slashslash
 
lulz, the editorial i just read compared it to how internet works in china, so... i don't think they get it.
 
I don't think I can even support keeping it where they can charge different rates for different levels of speed considering they often don't deliver the level of speed promised.
 
Listening to Diane Rehm on net neutrality. I wonder if the anti-net neutrality shills actually believe what they're talking about.

I didn't know Wilson, NC had community broadband.

The cable company shill just said that the difference in page load times in Korea and the US is 0.6 of a second, so it's not a big deal.

That's a huge difference when you think about how many pages are loaded on an average day. That's several minutes of productivity wasted.
 
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PhDeac said:
Listening to Diane Rehm on net neutrality. I wonder if the anti-net neutrality shills actually believe what they're talking about.

I didn't know Wilson, NC had community broadband.

The cable company shill just said that the difference in page load times in Korea and the US is 0.6 of a second, so it's not a big deal.

That's a huge difference when you think about how many pages are loaded on an average day. That's several minutes of productivity wasted.
Click to expand...

Wilson was working on expanding their offering to some other surrounding areas when TWC pitched a fit about it and ran crying to the legislature, who then let them write a bill and passed it that blocked communities from implementing their own networks even if TWC refuses to service their area.
 
Deadbolt said:
Wilson was working on expanding their offering to some other surrounding areas when TWC pitched a fit about it and ran crying to the legislature, who then let them write a bill and passed it that blocked communities from implementing their own networks even if TWC refuses to service their area.
Click to expand...

#smallgovernment
 
I'm curious what you all think about this viewpoint (The author ran an ISP in Chicago).

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3355222

It seems to be similar to the decision to fund a stadium. Not everybody wants to attend the games, but the area would potentially benefit. Perhaps another example would be roads. Everyone can agree that roads are valuable, encourage business and are something that the public should fund. However, if Netflix was a trucking company, and they began to completely fill I-95 bumper to bumper with trucks, I'm not sure the government paying to widen the road (and spreading that cost to taxpayers vs customers of Netflix trucking) would be the automatic answer.

I like the idea of net neutrality, but I think the effective monopoly of the last mile is the biggest issue.
 
I mean, the author is also a founding member of the Tea Party...

Regardless of his political motivations behind it, the article reads like it's from a guy who ran an ISP 20 years ago. There's a ton of nonsense in there. I mean, claiming a user paid for his ISP but that Facebook didn't give them anything and forced ads on them is laughable. Facebook gives you the free use of Facebook. Google gives you the free use of Gmail. All that is tied to a simple equation of pay for product in the form of an ISP. All the 100Mbps isn't REALLY 100Mbps stuff is just nonsense based on a very dated view of supplying bandwidth to customers.

Not to mention citing Netflix and others are such overly-specific examples it completely nullifies the point. Torrents are #2 behind Netflix and they didn't even exist 15 years ago. Nobody knows what traffic will look like in 5 years or what will drive bandwidth usage. It's like he's solving the very easy problem of tiered bandwidth/usage (which, granted, was a big problem in the 90's) and labeling it as a Net Neutrality issue.

It's not. That's not the question. At all. He gets the last mile part right but the rest is garbage.

It's a very clever tool to use an overly simplified metaphor, like roads and cars, and equate it to something people don't understand - like bandwidth delivery. I don't know if that guy is honestly oversimplifying things based on a poor understanding of the current reality or if it's deliberate, but the result is an article that's way off base.
 
DCDeac said:
I mean, the author is also a founding member of the Tea Party...

Regardless of his political motivations behind it, the article reads like it's from a guy who ran an ISP 20 years ago. There's a ton of nonsense in there. I mean, claiming a user paid for his ISP but that Facebook didn't give them anything and forced ads on them is laughable. Facebook gives you the free use of Facebook. Google gives you the free use of Gmail. All that is tied to a simple equation of pay for product in the form of an ISP. All the 100Mbps isn't REALLY 100Mbps stuff is just nonsense based on a very dated view of supplying bandwidth to customers.

Not to mention citing Netflix and others are such overly-specific examples it completely nullifies the point. Torrents are #2 behind Netflix and they didn't even exist 15 years ago. Nobody knows what traffic will look like in 5 years or what will drive bandwidth usage. It's like he's solving the very easy problem of tiered bandwidth/usage (which, granted, was a big problem in the 90's) and labeling it as a Net Neutrality issue.

It's not. That's not the question. At all. He gets the last mile part right but the rest is garbage.

It's a very clever tool to use an overly simplified metaphor, like roads and cars, and equate it to something people don't understand - like bandwidth delivery. I don't know if that guy is honestly oversimplifying things based on a poor understanding of the current reality or if it's deliberate, but the result is an article that's way off base.
Click to expand...

Porn. It will definitely still be porn.
 
Another problem with the analogy is that governments widen roads all the time account for increased traffic.

The arguments against for simply questioning net neutrality seem very contrived.
 
DCDeac said:
Torrents are #2 behind Netflix and they didn't even exist 15 years ago. Nobody knows what traffic will look like in 5 years or what will drive bandwidth usage.
<snip>
Click to expand...

I don't think torrents are a good comparison, because they utilize a swarm of streams (both directions from a client). Torrents speak more to the baseline utility of the internet than to the specific business/consumer issues that a Netflix brings up.

The main issue with Netflix (don't get me wrong, I love Netflix) is they drive a lot of one-way traffic, where the internet was built on bartering two way traffic with peers who mutually want to exchange traffic. The answer is for Netflix to locate a (large) server closer to the customers, but who pays for that infrastructure? Comcast wanted Netflix to. Netflix wanted Comcast to.

If Comcast eats that bill, then all of it's customers are paying to subsidize the Netflix subset of users. If Netflix pays for it, then it is harder for a future new internet business to get off the ground. Eventually it will boil down to two options:

1) ISPs need to eat the cost of that new, minimum level of service, which will raise everyone's bill (relative to where it is now). There is no longer an option for a non-Netflix level of service (since the government mandated equal access for content providers).
2) Netflix et al bear more of the cost of their delivery, and a cheap customer still has the option to buy lesser service that works with Netflix on a best-effort level.

I think comparing it to a stadium is still a good analogy. Cities wrestle with that all the time. The team could pay it's own freight, or the city can with the hope that it benefits everyone, including non sports fans. Sometimes the non sports fans have a problem with that.

You could even compare it to a la carte cable. Everyone is on board for that so they don't have to pay for anything but ESPN + HBO, but isn't forcing the cost of Netflix's infrastructure needs on everyone like imposing bundled channels?

I think it is hardly a no-brainer, and I'm wary of the whole "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" thing. Government granted monopolies tend to stagnate IMO. I don't think that option would have the outcome that people are looking for. Everyone can probably agree that a provider should not be able to penalize a particular source of content (the neutrality part), however who foots the bill for any given provider to provide sufficient service for any given content source is a lot dicier.

If we could sort out the last mile problem and have good competition there (with municipal players as well), then I think the rest would sort itself out. A provider hungry for users would be more willing to provide the best network for the lowest cost, even if that means putting in edge caches just for Netflix.
 
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