Net Neutrality Won't Fix ISP Throttling, Here's Why

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My buddy Joel over at HotHardware has posted an interesting editorial today explaining why net neutrality won't fix ISP throttling. Is he on to something or just on something? Give it a read and share your thoughts on the subject.

To understand the FCC's position, you need to first understand that 12 years ago, the Federal Communications Commission declined to classify ISPs as so-called "common carriers." Had the FCC done this, the various ISPs would've been compelled to provide service according to certain benchmarks (also set by the FCC) and would've been subject to a great deal of additional regulatory scrutiny. ISPs would likely have been compelled to rent their infrastructure to other companies.
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So exhibit A... email. Anyone complaining about email getting held up? I'm sure if you downloaded a 100MB email attachment and your 6Mbps connection drops to 256kbps you would argue quite a bit that throttling isn't good.

Similarly, almost everyone agrees that ISPs have some responsibility to control network performance in a manner that guarantees the best service for the most number of people
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Then this nugget... of course "almost everyone" agrees that "the most number of people" get the best service, because "almost everyone" is "the most number" so yeah they want what's theirs. Meanwhile the kneejerk response of all ISPs is <internet thing X> is only used by 2% of the users yet takes up 90% (or some other absurdly high number) of the available bandwidth, and what recourse do you have but to just think "well damn I didn't know I was in the minority... but fuck that shit gimme my bandwidth!" Anyone who downloads something that maxes out your connection, whether it's usenet, a torrent, a steam game, or anything else will by default be using more bandwidth than ISP think you should do. Hell when I had AT&T DSL, they had a decent usenet server, then one day the throttled it to max at 128Kbps because... "2% of our users are using up 98% of the capacity" ... blah blah blah... bullshit, this was 1.5Mbps days, DSL directly to my house, you're telling me that 2% of your users at any one CO were using that much bandwidth? Bullshit bullshit bullshit. Just had steam install 40 gigs of the latest Call of Duty, luckily my current ISP didn't so much as bitch one bit.
 
One of the quickest way to start promoting real competition is to make it illegal for these exclusivity deals that towns make with ISPs. ISPs should not be bidding to serve communities, they should all have access to the lines and compete for service.
 
Common carrier and line sharing would fix everything in a flash. Works almost everywhere else it's enforced, tons of companies competing everywhere.
 

My problem is that even if I'm in that 2% of that popular app, I shouldn't be throttled because I'm paying for X speed.

The alternative is heavily regulate what they say. No more throttling down to X if you use Y. How about you reverse that, they now have to advertise the minimum (throttled) speed with "boosted up to for .." And list out those apps. They won't do it, because they love the fine print disclaimers. It'd really hammer home how overcapacity their networks are.

"Yeah, I have 1Mbps/512Kbs for my cable.. But hey, it's boosted up to 50Mbps/5Mbps for my email!"

Their marketing department would have a fit.
 
SRTie4k said:
One of the quickest way to start promoting real competition is to make it illegal for these exclusivity deals that towns make with ISPs. ISPs should not be bidding to serve communities, they should all have access to the lines and compete for service.
Click to expand...

The FCC actually did address this in 2006-2007, preventing new exclusive cable franchise agreements, but not changing existing agreements until renewal, and requiring that buildout requirements not be 'unreasonable'.

But that's not really super helpful, because it's still really expensive and time consuming to run wires to enough customers to have a viable business. See how long it's taking Google, in the markets they've entered, and then notice how fast the incumbents become competitive. This is probably OK for Google, because if they can get the incumbents to make 100M internet to everyone for a reasonable price, they still win; but it would be hard to compete as a regional ISP if you spend $$$$ to build out to every house, and then the cable company and the phone company drop prices and you can't get customers.

Mandatory wholesale access, like in Europe, and like the US had under the telecommunication act of 1996 until the FCC gutted it in 2004, drives competition without the expense of overbuilding networking multiple times to each home or neighborhood. It's not without problems, but if a local/regional ISP can contract with the local cable company or the local phone company for the last mile, they can provide a differentiated service with respect to internet routing and interconnection policies, terms of service, bandwidth and other usage policies, customer service, etc.
 
Wierdo said:
Common carrier and line sharing would fix everything in a flash. Works almost everywhere else it's enforced, tons of companies competing everywhere.
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Where are these unicorn situations where common carrier created an ideal situation. One of the thing Common Carrier endorses is tiered service which is what the ISPs can use to get what they want.
 
jpm100 said:
Where are these unicorn situations where common carrier created an ideal situation. One of the thing Common Carrier endorses is tiered service which is what the ISPs can use to get what they want.
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You don't get away with bad customer deals when you have to compete with 100 other ISP options - that's where line sharing comes in.

Common carrier brings with it closer scrutiny so the owner of the dumb pipe doesn't artificially cripple the competition (ISPs, content services etc).

Also the word "common carrier" is not a one size fits all proposition either, it's up to the FCC (dammit) to decide how to handle the finer details. So the cynic in me says it's probably a pipe dream here because of corruption. But it was highly successful in many places abroad.
 
Wouldn't have to throttle down if the ISP had bought more bandwith from the backbone providers. There's about 90% of that bandwidth left.
 
Good read.

This just came up in my ethics course yesterday. I was absolutely floored by the number of people in the class (this is a computer science course) that either had no knowledge of, or no opinion on, the topic.
 
Wierdo said:
Common carrier and line sharing would fix everything in a flash. Works almost everywhere else it's enforced, tons of companies competing everywhere.
Click to expand...

There are some major problems, however. Burying our heads in the sand and pretending they don't exist won't help anything.

What's interesting is that in many places where "it's enforced" (and it is also forgotten that "common carrier" never means the same thing in Japan--or anywhere else-- that it means in the US), there are what most Americans would consider massively restrictive data caps in place--and once those caps are exceeded the cost skyrockets far above anything currently available in the US--even the current US wireless rip-off "plans." I talked to one guy in Spain running for $20 a month under a 12GB/month cap--$10 *per GB* after that, though! Talked to someone in Canada under a plan with a 15GB/month cap with similar atrocious pricing once the cap is breached. Most Americans would revolt under those wired plans, regardless of the initial download speeds--because they get gouged royally after the (token) caps are breached.

I find it downright suspicious that no pro-NN article that I read *ever* brings up the matter of data caps in those places where the grass is supposedly greener...! Many of the people I talk to positively drool over the 250GB-Unlimited data caps commonly available in wireline USA. My current data cap is...well, I don't have a cap. It's unlimited. And my ISP isn't Comcast and it isn't TW and I live in the US. (That is another common myth in the US tech press, that only 1 or at most 2 ISPs actually do business inside the US, but that's another story.)

Secondly, also conveniently overlooked by these articles is the fact that there's another, far more compelling reason the government is leery of the "common-carrier" cure-all pill. The common-carrier regulations are what killed the original long-distance competition *phone service* in the US--it was by that mechanism that the government permitted the AT&T long-distance monopoly to be born, and it was naively believed that with those regulations the government would run AT&T instead of AT&T, thereby insuring permanent long-distance phone pricing and availability in the US for all its citizens, in perpetuity. (Sound familiar?)

That was the government's plan--that we in hindsight know was flawed to the core and had no chance of success. Until the government acted to rescind its legalized AT&T long-distance monopoly and open it up to innovation & competition, so-called "common-carrier" regulations had effectively destroyed the US long-distance phone service and frozen the technology behind it in place, in perpetuity. I mean, yea, who doesn't pine for those giant plastic phones with rotary dials, right? So...as the saying goes...those who do not learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Why would we want to destroy the ISP business in the US by setting everything back by fifty years to the infamous "common-carrier" days of AT&T? Gosh, just think...if we dial back the clock to the days of common-carrier long-distance AT&T we might even get to use 14.4k baud line modems again...! Oh, joy...;)

The chief problem with the whole NN thing is that it means something different depending on who you ask. Some people think it means that every server they connect to will allow them to connect and download at the maximum speed their ISP tells them they are paying for. Other people think it means they'll get unlimited-cap 1GB/s down & up for $20 a month. It doesn't mean and will not result in *either* of those things. Ever. Tell people the truth about what NN will do--that is, open it up for open-season for litigation lawyers who will sue over every conceivable "violation" with ISP customers footing the bill in every case through the higher & higher rate increases they'll pay for their ever-decreasing quality of service--tell them the truth about the so-called "common-carrer" pill, and watch them rationalize and squirm. Nothing will change in the slightest--the companies who own the pipes today will still own them in a common-carrier NN world--but the difference for the consumer is he'll be paying a bunch of middle-men who are leasing the line service from the very same ISPs that exist today. Some people will certainly call that "competition." And that's because for some people the illusion of competition is the same as real competition because they cannot discern the difference--some genetic factor, no doubt...;)

At its heart, NN is a political seduction--not a technical matter. It promises many consumer goodies and freebies without, if you'll notice, ever codifying those promises into written form of any kind. Of course not...that would be fraud, even for the army of lawyers pushing it, and they know it. The fading Obama administration only won its initial elections because it promised Americans lots of free lunches without ever directly promising anything except higher taxes, and a temporary majority of the American electorate was seduced. Six years later the bloom is off the rose and almost everyone sees what a scam it all was. Let us hope this new-found wisdom continues to apply to the Internet we've all come to rely on--because in my view "Net Neutrality" is the only thing on the horizon that has the potential of ruining it for years to come. It took the America phone system ~30 years to recover from the AT&T long-distance monopoly created by direct government sanction and regulation. I for one do not wish to see this goose that is laying so many golden eggs for so many people (certainly *not* just the ISPs, lol) get shot out of the sky by opportunistic politicians and greedy lawyers.
 
spugm1r3 said:
Good read.

This just came up in my ethics course yesterday. I was absolutely floored by the number of people in the class (this is a computer science course) that either had no knowledge of, or no opinion on, the topic.
Click to expand...

You might want to give some thought as to why that might be--instead of simply reacting to it emotionally...I mean, really, it is a very interesting and thought-provoking observation you've made. Might their lethargy stem from the fact that few if any of them see anything to complain about with regards to their present Internet service?
 
WaltC said:
There are some major problems, however. Burying our heads in the sand and pretending they don't exist won't help anything.

What's interesting is that in many places where "it's enforced" (and it is also forgotten that "common carrier" never means the same thing in Japan--or anywhere else-- that it means in the US), there are what most Americans would consider massively restrictive data caps in place--and once those caps are exceeded the cost skyrockets far above anything currently available in the US--even the current US wireless rip-off "plans." I talked to one guy in Spain running for $20 a month under a 12GB/month cap--$10 *per GB* after that, though! Talked to someone in Canada under a plan with a 15GB/month cap with similar atrocious pricing once the cap is breached. Most Americans would revolt under those wired plans, regardless of the initial download speeds--because they get gouged royally after the (token) caps are breached.

I find it downright suspicious that no pro-NN article that I read *ever* brings up the matter of data caps in those places where the grass is supposedly greener...! Many of the people I talk to positively drool over the 250GB-Unlimited data caps commonly available in wireline USA. My current data cap is...well, I don't have a cap. It's unlimited. And my ISP isn't Comcast and it isn't TW and I live in the US. (That is another common myth in the US tech press, that only 1 or at most 2 ISPs actually do business inside the US, but that's another story.)

Secondly, also conveniently overlooked by these articles is the fact that there's another, far more compelling reason the government is leery of the "common-carrier" cure-all pill. The common-carrier regulations are what killed the original long-distance competition *phone service* in the US--it was by that mechanism that the government permitted the AT&T long-distance monopoly to be born, and it was naively believed that with those regulations the government would run AT&T instead of AT&T, thereby insuring permanent long-distance phone pricing and availability in the US for all its citizens, in perpetuity. (Sound familiar?)

That was the government's plan--that we in hindsight know was flawed to the core and had no chance of success. Until the government acted to rescind its legalized AT&T long-distance monopoly and open it up to innovation & competition, so-called "common-carrier" regulations had effectively destroyed the US long-distance phone service and frozen the technology behind it in place, in perpetuity. I mean, yea, who doesn't pine for those giant plastic phones with rotary dials, right? So...as the saying goes...those who do not learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Why would we want to destroy the ISP business in the US by setting everything back by fifty years to the infamous "common-carrier" days of AT&T? Gosh, just think...if we dial back the clock to the days of common-carrier long-distance AT&T we might even get to use 14.4k baud line modems again...! Oh, joy...;)

The chief problem with the whole NN thing is that it means something different depending on who you ask. Some people think it means that every server they connect to will allow them to connect and download at the maximum speed their ISP tells them they are paying for. Other people think it means they'll get unlimited-cap 1GB/s down & up for $20 a month. It doesn't mean and will not result in *either* of those things. Ever. Tell people the truth about what NN will do--that is, open it up for open-season for litigation lawyers who will sue over every conceivable "violation" with ISP customers footing the bill in every case through the higher & higher rate increases they'll pay for their ever-decreasing quality of service--tell them the truth about the so-called "common-carrer" pill, and watch them rationalize and squirm. Nothing will change in the slightest--the companies who own the pipes today will still own them in a common-carrier NN world--but the difference for the consumer is he'll be paying a bunch of middle-men who are leasing the line service from the very same ISPs that exist today. Some people will certainly call that "competition." And that's because for some people the illusion of competition is the same as real competition because they cannot discern the difference--some genetic factor, no doubt...;)

At its heart, NN is a political seduction--not a technical matter. It promises many consumer goodies and freebies without, if you'll notice, ever codifying those promises into written form of any kind. Of course not...that would be fraud, even for the army of lawyers pushing it, and they know it. The fading Obama administration only won its initial elections because it promised Americans lots of free lunches without ever directly promising anything except higher taxes, and a temporary majority of the American electorate was seduced. Six years later the bloom is off the rose and almost everyone sees what a scam it all was. Let us hope this new-found wisdom continues to apply to the Internet we've all come to rely on--because in my view "Net Neutrality" is the only thing on the horizon that has the potential of ruining it for years to come. It took the America phone system ~30 years to recover from the AT&T long-distance monopoly created by direct government sanction and regulation. I for one do not wish to see this goose that is laying so many golden eggs for so many people (certainly *not* just the ISPs, lol) get shot out of the sky by opportunistic politicians and greedy lawyers.
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Bravo. I've worked in telecom for almost 20 years and have rarely seen such a concise answer. Something you brought up might need to be reinforced: just because a service is common carrier *does not* mean it is publicly owned. Fedex and UPS are both common carrier providers, and they are free to schedule deliveries and tier service however they see fit. The only restriction is that they can't charge different businesses different rates, and the rates have to be posted. Different size packages? Sure, that's a different charge. More packages? Of course you're paying more. Hazardous content? That's an additional fee. Want it there faster? Money talks.
 
There's good news in Colorado at least:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...override-state-law-limiting-public-broadband/

As we reported earlier, the towns of Boulder, Cherry Hills Village, Red Cliff, Wray and Yuma were all seeking to override a 2005 state law that prohibits them from constructing or operating broadband or telecommunications infrastructure or services. That law, SB05-152 [.pdf], which was pushed by large telecommunications companies, can be overridden by a majority of voters.

Rio Blanco and Yuma Counties also had similar measures on the ballot that would have the effect of allowing those counties to get in the broadband game. All of these overrides passed handily, with margins of 70 percent or more in favor of giving authority to local governments to improve broadband access
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70 percent of the population gives the ISPs the big F*you that they so deserve, brings a tear to one's eye doesn't it?

I wish them the best luck in creating their own services, helping residents avoid the impending third world internet quality fate awaiting the rest should things stay at they are.
 
WaltC said:
You might want to give some thought as to why that might be--instead of simply reacting to it emotionally...I mean, really, it is a very interesting and thought-provoking observation you've made. Might their lethargy stem from the fact that few if any of them see anything to complain about with regards to their present Internet service?
Click to expand...

I hear what you are saying. I didn't have a visceral reaction to this, I didn't start berating people for their apparent apathy. I just felt kind of stunned. I can understand my wife not having an opinion, or knowledge, but when you decide to make a career out of something, I have a firm belief in immersion. You don't have to be an expert on everything, just cast a wide net.

Islands of expertise are useless.
 
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