FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Departure Is Death Knell For Net Neutrality

[Megalith]

Wheeler has announced that he will be leaving the FCC in January, and it is predicted that net neutrality will die with his departure. The President-Elect is no fan of it and will likely appoint a successor that will roll it all back.

Wheeler’s departure likely spells the end of network neutrality, a set of rules the FCC adopted under Wheeler’s leadership in 2015 which prevent internet providers like Comcast* and Verizon from charging websites like Netflix and Twitter a fee to reach internet users at faster speeds. Without network neutrality, smaller or new online businesses that can’t afford to pay for a faster service tier — especially if websites that are already extremely profitable, like Facebook, get to set the price — would load slower, likely causing users to navigate away to a faster-loading site.

 

[westrock2000]

a set of rules the FCC adopted under Wheeler’s leadership in 2015 which prevent internet providers like Comcast* and Verizon from charging websites like Netflix and Twitter a fee to reach internet users at faster speeds.

This is the truthful part. This is very likely to happen. And this is why all the big internet sites campaigned for net neutrality.

Without network neutrality, smaller or new online businesses that can’t afford to pay for a faster service tier — especially if websites that are already extremely profitable, like Facebook, get to set the price — would load slower, likely causing users to navigate away to a faster-loading site.

This is the part they emphasize to scare you. This is less likely to happen.

 

[nilepez]

This is the truthful part. This is very likely to happen. And this is why all the big internet sites campaigned for net neutrality.



This is the part they emphasize to scare you. This is less likely to happen.

So they're going to charge Twitter for faster speeds, but they'll give faster speeds to cash poor companies for free? If not, then the 2nd statement is true.

 

[thesmokingman]

This is the truthful part. This is very likely to happen. And this is why all the big internet sites campaigned for net neutrality.



This is the part they emphasize to scare you. This is less likely to happen.

Aren't both your points contradictory to each other?

 

[westrock2000]

So they're going to charge Twitter for faster speeds, but they'll give faster speeds to cash poor companies for free? If not, then the 2nd statement is true.

As an ISP, if you have 5 websites that account for say 80% of you total traffic, why do those limited sites get to bind up the bandwidth with no consequence? As an ISP, if you have to choose between 20 households watching Netflix with no interruptions, or 300 households visiting Twitter with no interuptions, which do you choose? Why does every router have a Quality of Service mechanism in it? Why should a video game or video stream get preferred treatment of a text website?

As Netflix and YouTube and online media become more prevalent, customers will demand more bandwidth. The ISP has to provide that. Which means they have to expend money. Yet the cost is being driven by these high bandwidth sites. So you want the ISP to make the Internet faster, but you don't want to pay more. Netflix wants to expand it's customer base, but doesn't want to raise it highly competetive subscription fee. It's going to cost someone money. Why is the ISP responsible and not Netflix?

 

[westrock2000]

So they're going to charge Twitter for faster speeds, but they'll give faster speeds to cash poor companies for free? If not, then the 2nd statement is true.

Additionally Netflix (and I'm sure others like YouTube do it too) offer free appliances to ISP's that have 100's of terabytes in popular programming. The ISP's are able to attach these appliances at localized places so as to reduce the burden of data across the back bone network. A person in Florida, does not have to stream House Of Cards from California. They can stream from an appliance located right in their city or at least state. Under Net Neutrality, these would not be allowed, because this is a preferred treatment of data and it's unfair to "cash strapped" companies.

 

[thesmokingman]

As an ISP, if you have 5 websites that account for say 80% of you total traffic, why do those limited sites get to bind up the bandwidth with no consequence? As an ISP, if you have to choose between 20 households watching Netflix with no interruptions, or 300 households visiting Twitter with no interuptions, which do you choose? Why does every router have a Quality of Service mechanism in it? Why should a video game or video stream get preferred treatment of a text website?

As Netflix and YouTube and online media become more prevalent, customers will demand more bandwidth. The ISP has to provide that. Which means they have to expend money. Yet the cost is being driven by these high bandwidth sites. So you want the ISP to make the Internet faster, but you don't want to pay more. Netflix wants to expand it's customer base, but doesn't want to raise it highly competetive subscription fee. It's going to cost someone money. Why is the ISP responsible and not Netflix?

It's not your call nor is it Netflix's call. This is the same as road traffic. If everyone is going to the mall during the holidays, is the mall responsible? Is anyone responsible for the traffic jams? Hello, who makes that distinction? And that's not even the point, its that ISP's can now monetize traffic and it enables them to control and shape traffic to suit their bias.

 

[westrock2000]

The 2 possible reasons behind Net Neutrality are this:

1. The big media companies on the net want to continue to reach new customers using cheap bandwidth. Netflix does not want to raise their cost, but they do want more people to use their service. That data has to go through a private conduit, which is owned by ISP's. In order to reach more customers, the bandwidth has to be increased and that will cost money. The big media sites are teaming together to make it illegal for them to be asked to support this cost. They want to be legally protected.
2. The government is looking for a way to get the Internet under control, and is trying to convince you that that making it a utility will solve most of these short term problems they talk about. The long term problem it would solve is being able to control the content on the Internet...aka dissidence. Look up discussions on what "lawful content" is. Lawful content was the talking point used repeatedly during the government side of the discussions. Nobody actually said what that meant.

I think #1 is most likely, with #2 being a welcomed side effect.

 

[LurkerLito]

As an ISP, if you have 5 websites that account for say 80% of you total traffic, why do those limited sites get to bind up the bandwidth with no consequence?
...
Why is the ISP responsible and not Netflix?

Because it's already been paid for. That's how the internet works. ISPs pay for transmission of data (to and from them) and the kind of data or where it is coming from/going to irrelevant. It's already been paid. Similarly the same happens for netflix or whatever other site, they already paid to send the data to others. What ISPs are saying is exactly the reverse they are saying it doesn't matter that we already paid for it and you already paid for it, your popular so give me more money. It's just the same as if you mailed a stamped envelop then received a bill to pay the bridge toll or the post office won't deliver the envelop because you sent 100 stamped envelops to someone.

 

[Spidey329]

As an ISP, if you have 5 websites that account for say 80% of you total traffic, why do those limited sites get to bind up the bandwidth with no consequence? As an ISP, if you have to choose between 20 households watching Netflix with no interruptions, or 300 households visiting Twitter with no interuptions, which do you choose? Why does every router have a Quality of Service mechanism in it? Why should a video game or video stream get preferred treatment of a text website?

As Netflix and YouTube and online media become more prevalent, customers will demand more bandwidth. The ISP has to provide that. Which means they have to expend money. Yet the cost is being driven by these high bandwidth sites. So you want the ISP to make the Internet faster, but you don't want to pay more. Netflix wants to expand it's customer base, but doesn't want to raise it highly competetive subscription fee. It's going to cost someone money. Why is the ISP responsible and not Netflix?

The main issue I think comes from the fact that a lot of these ISPs now own various companies that directly compete with various online providers. So it's within their interest to abuse their power to give their own services a leg up.

Example, cable cutting is hurting cable subscriptions (or DTV subs in AT&T case), why not tack on a surcharge to both Netflix (trying to raise their costs so they have to raise sub price) and the consumer (to make it less attractive). Since most are basically monopolies, they have no competition to correct this.

The argument of "80% of the traffic goes to a few Netflix users, while 20% of the traffic goes to a ton of Twitter users" doesn't hold up. Every customer is paying for access/bandwidth. If the providers don't want to have QoS issues, they shouldn't oversell their network infrastructure. If customer A wants to utilize his full bandwidth for 4 hours, it should have no effect on customer B. He's paying for that right, just as customer B is in their full right to not utilize their bandwidth.

 

[westrock2000]

It's not your call nor is it Netflix's call. This is the same as road traffic. If everyone is going to the mall during the holidays, is the mall responsible? Is anyone responsible for the traffic jams? Hello, who makes that distinction? And that's not even the point, its that ISP's can now monetize traffic and it enables them to control and shape traffic to suit their bias.

Then you would support classifying it as a utility. Making it a "public" conduit and such has different rules, regulations and funding.

That is the argument here. The "city street" comparision makes sense, but it has consequences.

 

[westrock2000]

Because it's already been paid for. That's how the internet works. ISPs pay for transmission of data (to and from them) and the kind of data or where it is coming from/going to irrelevant. It's already been paid. Similarly the same happens for netflix or whatever other site, they already paid to send the data to others. What ISPs are saying is exactly the reverse they are saying it doesn't matter that we already paid for it and you already paid for it, your popular so give me more money. It's just the same as if you mailed a stamped envelop then received a bill to pay the bridge toll or the post office won't deliver the envelop because you sent 100 stamped envelops to someone.

I'm not following this analogy. Are you saying they purchase futures of Internet usage? I'm not understand the past tense wording.

Every courier in operation DOES offer expedited or enhanced delivery for additional costs. You can put a stamp on it and it takes a while or you can over night it for an increased cost.

Almost every system we use in this country is "usage based", yet somehow few people can imagine this when it comes to data. Is there ANY utility that you use that isn't usage based (outside of isolated co-ops or renters)?

 

[nilepez]

As an ISP, if you have 5 websites that account for say 80% of you total traffic, why do those limited sites get to bind up the bandwidth with no consequence? As an ISP, if you have to choose between 20 households watching Netflix with no interruptions, or 300 households visiting Twitter with no interuptions, which do you choose? Why does every router have a Quality of Service mechanism in it? Why should a video game or video stream get preferred treatment of a text website?

As Netflix and YouTube and online media become more prevalent, customers will demand more bandwidth. The ISP has to provide that. Which means they have to expend money. Yet the cost is being driven by these high bandwidth sites. So you want the ISP to make the Internet faster, but you don't want to pay more. Netflix wants to expand it's customer base, but doesn't want to raise it highly competetive subscription fee. It's going to cost someone money. Why is the ISP responsible and not Netflix?

Because I already paid for 60 Mbps of service. Why the hell am I paying a fuck ton for that if I then have to pay extra for Netflix, because Netflix has to pay Comcast or Cox to send me video? These guys have monopolies in most areas. And that service is very profitable. My company got into Gigabit/video/IPT a few years back. You know where the money is? Internet. Video costs us a ton so it's less profitable, but internet is $$$$$$$. They essentially want to charge Netflix to build out their network to provide the service that they've already sold me.

That said, i totally agree that intelligent routing can and should be allowed, but it's hard to ignore that eliminating Net Neutrality is simply a move by ISPs to protect their turf and further raise prices and/or make their products more desirable (see ATT/DTV)

Additionally Netflix (and I'm sure others like YouTube do it too) offer free appliances to ISP's that have 100's of terabytes in popular programming. The ISP's are able to attach these appliances at localized places so as to reduce the burden of data across the back bone network. A person in Florida, does not have to stream House Of Cards from California. They can stream from an appliance located right in their city or at least state. Under Net Neutrality, these would not be allowed, because this is a preferred treatment of data and it's unfair to "cash strapped" companies.

I don't know what you're talking about. Those appliances are allowed. They don't slow down other traffic or even speed up their traffic. They simply bypass choke points and free up the backbone to serve other content.

 

[westrock2000]

The main issue I think comes from the fact that a lot of these ISPs now own various companies that directly compete with various online providers. So it's within their interest to abuse their power to give their own services a leg up.

Example, cable cutting is hurting cable subscriptions (or DTV subs in AT&T case), why not tack on a surcharge to both Netflix (trying to raise their costs so they have to raise sub price) and the consumer (to make it less attractive). Since most are basically monopolies, they have no competition to correct this.

The argument of "80% of the traffic goes to a few Netflix users, while 20% of the traffic goes to a ton of Twitter users" doesn't hold up. Every customer is paying for access/bandwidth. If the providers don't want to have QoS issues, they shouldn't oversell their network infrastructure. If customer A wants to utilize his full bandwidth for 4 hours, it should have no effect on customer B. He's paying for that right, just as customer B is in their full right to not utilize their bandwidth.

Again, these are fears that they are using to scare you. AT&T allows unlimited data if I buy use cable with my U-Verse, but otherwise I am "limited" to 1TB of bandwidth each month. I don't feel threatened by this. We have all read the stories of so and so ISP throttling Netflix, but it's very isolated and it's all anecdotal evidence.

The disclaimer is right there.....UP TO xxx mb/s. Should I be able to sue my ISP if at any moment I am not getting full speed? If you have a 4 port Gigabit router, can every port get 100MB/s at the same time? Net Neutrality sounds good emotionally, but it goes against much of the basic principles of networks.

 

[thesmokingman]

Again, these are fears that they are using to scare you. AT&T allows unlimited data if I buy use cable with my U-Verse, but otherwise I am "limited" to 1TB of bandwidth each month. I don't feel threatened by this. We have all read the stories of so and so ISP throttling Netflix, but it's very isolated and it's all anecdotal evidence.

The disclaimer is right there.....UP TO xxx mb/s. Should I be able to sue my ISP if at any moment I am not getting full speed? If you have a 4 port Gigabit router, can every port get 100MB/s at the same time? Net Neutrality sounds good emotionally, but it goes against much of the basic principles of networks.

You're so far from the point I don't think you get it at all.

 

[westrock2000]

Because I already paid for 60 Mbps of service. Why the hell am I paying a fuck ton for that?

Tier'ed service. You use more, you pay more. You pay for "up to" 60Mb/s. And what if you wanted gigabit? Could you pay for that?

That said, i totally agree that intelligent routing can and should be allowed

Now we are back to packets being treated differently.

I don't know what you're talking about. Those appliances are allowed. They don't slow down other traffic or even speed up their traffic. They simply bypass choke points and free up the backbone to serve other content.

Why does netflix get to bypass choke points, but Liveleak doesn't?

 

[westrock2000]

You're so far from the point I don't think you get it at all.

Your only argument was about a city street. How is that understanding the situation?

A city street has rules. Only certain types of cars. Only certain speeds. You have to be licensed. You have to be insured. You have to meet minimum safety requirements. You have to follow rules of the road. Else be fined, removed or imprisoned for not following any of the said rules.

And that's what you want the Internet to be?

 

[Ducman69]

The problem is that ISPs no longer become just "shippers" of data, but gateways to customers.

"You want to reach 100 million customers? You have to go through me, and pay me so that I give you fast access to them, otherwise I will make your service too slow to be usable. " - Comcast

Why is this a problem?

1) The big players will be able to pay this "ransom", get preferred treatment, and pass the costs on to the consumer that is now paying Comcast for access to the internet and also parts of the internet for access to them as a consumer. You've now double-paid.

2) New competitors that want to penetrate the market, will now have to pony up the "extortion" tax to Comcast for access to their customers, but they probably can't afford that initial capital investment to compete with say Netflix or Amazon Prime, which reduces competition and innovation.

3) Combined with data-caps, this gives companies like Comcast a way to kill competitors they don't like. For example, if they don't like Hulu, they can refuse to offer Hulu faster speeds and also have Hulu data counting towards your data cap, while their own services or "preferred partners" can get faster access and even declare that it doesn't count against your arbitrary data cap.

tl;dr: this can destroy competition and innovation on the internet, and gives far too much power to ISPs that already really need to be facing anti-monopoly laws and broken up.

I love the God Emperor on most issues, but he is misinformed on this (not surprising, he's an older guy and net neutrality confuses even some younger techies) and needs to be educated and pressured to change his position on net neutrality.

 

[westrock2000]

This is good. I like that we are talking about this. This is a big step for humanity, and I think all aspects need to be put out there. The sharing of information is unprecedented and their is no right or wrong answer from here. I don't think any of you are wrong about this. I want to get the arguments out there.

 

[L0s7]

Westrock, you're so off base it's almost frightening. The ISPs themselves have setup the internet on a bandwidth, not usage, based pricing model. You pay for your connection, whatever speed it may be- which is actually pretty reasonable given the tiny fraction of a penny that transmitting 1 KB/MB/GB costs (electricity to run ports that are already active anyway). Quantifying that is impossible in practice given the dynamism of the internet.

In principle:
Netflix pays for their connections
You pay for your connection

The customer requests content from Netflix. This is a big distinction. (as in a phone call, the person calling is responsible for charges because they are requesting the call)

It isn't Netflix's problem that a lot of customers are requesting their services. They pay for their connections that should be able to handle the bandwidth requirements. The customer pays for their connection. Both sides of the transaction are already paying their fair share.


On a side note: internet companies are already highly profitable on the pricing they already sell. The price customers pay should already include enough padding for future product improvements. What net neutrality is trying to block is ISPs simply trying to double dip by asking for an extra payment on top of Netflix's connection (just because they're popular) and/or intentionally hobbling companies that compete with their services.

 

[westrock2000]

Westrock, you're so off base it's almost frightening. The ISPs themselves have setup the internet on a bandwidth, not usage, based pricing model.

As I asked earlier. 4 computers are attached to a router. Each port is rated at gigabit. Can every computer on that router get 1 gigabit at the same time? If not, is the router manufacturer lying?


There is a usage mechanic to you service, it's just so high most people do not hit it. But some do. And those that use Satellite or Cellular definitely have to worry about it.
The reason they went with bandwidth was because its a more useful number to the customer. We do not use data at full tilt all the time, but we do like the bandwidth when we use it. So selling it as "250GB/month" versus "600GB/month" means nothing to most consumers.

 

[westrock2000]

On a side note: internet companies are already highly profitable on the pricing they already sell. The price customers pay should already include enough padding for future product improvements.

If I'm reading this right, Charter says the average revenue per customer per month is $110. $3.4 billion earnings, divided by 6.7 million subscribers is ~$500 profit off each customer. If they are paying on average $1320 a year, thats a 38% profit margin. Is that unreasonable?

 

[L0s7]

You mostly ignored the entire argument.

Are we talking LAN or WAN traffic? As long as the ISP can send you close to their stated speed (less TCP/IP overhead) for WAN, they have met their agreement. That is obvious.

For LAN traffic: depends on the router/switch. Find something that meets your needs.

Bandwidth caps are also something that is important to a consumer.

If they are paying on average $1320 a year, thats a 38% profit margin. Is that unreasonable?

Many industries are ecstatic to maintain 15% margin.

 

[thesmokingman]

You mostly ignored the entire argument.

Are we talking LAN or WAN traffic? As long as the ISP can send you close to their stated speed (less TCP/IP overhead) for WAN, they have met their agreement. That is obvious.

For LAN traffic: depends on the router/switch. Find something that meets your needs.

Bandwidth caps are also something that is important to a consumer.


Many industries are ecstatic to maintain 15% margin.

The insurance industry is at 3% profit, regulated ie. they can only keep 3% lol. And he's asking if 38% is good? Roflmao.

 

[westrock2000]

Are we talking LAN or WAN traffic?

Is there is a fundamental difference? Is it not driven by the same limitations?

Many industries are ecstatic to maintain 15% margin.

Most industries aren't the backbone of modern society either. The spice must flow.

 

[westrock2000]

The insurance industry is at 3% profit, regulated ie. they can only keep 3% lol. And he's asking if 38% is good? Roflmao.

Then just say that you believe profit margins should be regulated/capped on ISP's. It gets the argument worked out much easier.

If that's what you believe, then I accept that.

Again, that number is rough. That does not include regulartory fees, taxes and other costs that Charter has. It is lower, I just don't know by how much.

 

[westrock2000]

The insurance industry is at 3% profit, regulated ie. they can only keep 3% lol. And he's asking if 38% is good? Roflmao.

Also, without looking in to it, I would question if that regulation is the result of insurance being legally mandated in many applications. Meaning the government decrees everyone must be a customer of the insurance industry, but as a result they are limited by profit margins. Would it be fair if the government said you MUST buy insurance, and insurance companies were also allowed to charge as much as they wanted? Is this a dumb question to ask?

They still make a killing, despite whatever imposed limitations there are. Looks like State Farm made $6 Billion in profits last year.

 

[thesmokingman]

Also, without looking in to it, I would question if that regulation is the result of insurance being legally mandated in many applications. Meaning the government decrees everyone must be a customer of the insurance industry, but as a result they are limited by profit margins. Would it be fair if the government said you MUST buy insurance, and insurance companies were also allowed to charge as much as they wanted? Is this a dumb question to ask?

They still make a killing, despite whatever imposed limitations there are. Looks like State Farm made $6 Billion in profits last year.

Don't get into things you don't know. They've been regulated on profits long before Obama care. And you're doing great arguing on your own.

 

[westrock2000]

Don't get into things you don't know. They've been regulated on profits long before Obama care. And you're doing great arguing on your own.

Did I mention ACA? It's a great example I will admit.

You must have insurance to drive a car on public roads?

Many (most?) businesses are required to take out insurance for employees.

And of course most financial institutes require it for loans on automotive and housing, which affects most people in this country ( I realize this isn't "government").

Don't get so worked up.

 

[RanceJustice]

I was very skeptical of Tom Wheeler when he began his tenure, given his history as a lobbyist for the telecom industry, but he proved to be that 1 in 1000 public servant that can come from such a background and yet still put the people's good in front of industry cronyism. This is not to say he was perfect, but he took up the torch for Net Neutrality and fought hard for those principles instead of using his office for the good of the morality police saying there's too much smut on TV and the like, as some prior FCC heads were wont' to do. I'm very worried about his replacement in a Trump (or really, any "we hate regulation hurrdurr business growth hurrdurr trickle down hurrdurr" ) administration.

The Internet as a ubiquitous, free and open communication medium is already under threat from many moneyed interests as it is, but we will lose any chance of an Internet that is conducive to equal and open discourse if Net Neutrality is struck down. There is also the issue of information infrastrufture. Wheeler's reforms were a good starting place, but we absolutely need more protections especially with the understanding that in this era, the Internet is as important to our economic growth as the Interstate Highway System was in the past century, so things like Title II regulation are absolute minimums! Looking at the nations with the best results (mostly Scandinavia), we have good evidence for how we should handle our information infrastructure. WIth its importance, we can't leave it up to Comcast and Verizon to own the lines in the ground, roll out the very minimum to which they find profitable, and pocket huge subsidy while stomping on any threat to their control. Private, profit-driven industry cannot be trusted with something so important and just as we could not have built up our economic power in the last century if we had dispensed with the Interstate Highway System and instead asked for patchworks of toll roads to be rolled out, we need to take control of our infastructure now. We The People should own and operate all the information infrastructure, the fiber and mobile towers. In a happy coincidence, this would actually alllow for a more free market because we could allow a ton of ISPs, from the public municipal to private, to lease and manage access to the infrastructure, eliminating the barrier to entry! If we want to get to to the $30 municipal gigabit broadband connections, we can't leave it to chance!

Likewise, when it comes to Net Neutrality we must enforce regulations that put an end to preferential speed or precedence in peering, as well as other garbage practices like zero rating (this is an insidious one which fools many because "How can it be bad for the customer! They're making something free!) . Otherwise it will become a slow but continuous march where newcomers are basically sidelined while wealthy existing sites grow larger and more popular. That so-called "joke" meme about websites being treated and sold like cable TV channels could come to pass in one form or another, or perhaps we might just never see the "next" Facebook and Youtube make it to prominence because they can't afford the deal! Worse, the most ethical elements of the Internet such as those who wish to exist using open standards, lack advertising and data mining etc...will be threatened even greater because the increased cost of doing business in a world without Net Neutrality will be affected by the toxic, plutocratic capitalism that is the underlying cause to so many of our current issues with our society.

We really need to do much better.

 

[Tsumi]

It's not your call nor is it Netflix's call. This is the same as road traffic. If everyone is going to the mall during the holidays, is the mall responsible? Is anyone responsible for the traffic jams? Hello, who makes that distinction? And that's not even the point, its that ISP's can now monetize traffic and it enables them to control and shape traffic to suit their bias.

91 in southern California has express lanes where you can pay to avoid traffic in the normal lanes. 580 and 680 in Nothern California has express lanes that you can pay to use during rush hours. There is a highway that cuts through Irvine and is privately owned, and it has tolls to just use it. Florida has a network of private tolled highways which often allow you to reach places faster than the public highways. These practices, which have been in place for years, have just turned your argument against you.

 

[aaronspink]

Westrock, you're so off base it's almost frightening. The ISPs themselves have setup the internet on a bandwidth, not usage, based pricing model. You pay for your connection, whatever speed it may be- which is actually pretty reasonable given the tiny fraction of a penny that transmitting 1 KB/MB/GB costs (electricity to run ports that are already active anyway). Quantifying that is impossible in practice given the dynamism of the internet.

The actual reality is that most ISPs either get infinite inbound bandwidth for FREE or get PAID to take it. ISPs basically do not pay for inbound bandwidth and never really have paid for inbound bandwidth. Nor do they really pay for outbound bandwidth because of their artificially shaped traffic ratios.

 

[Dead Parrot]

If lawmaker's understanding of Net Neutrality is anything like their understanding of cyber security, it really doesn't matter who is in the White House. Congress will vote the way the most effective lobbyist ask them to regardless of party affiliation because they won't have any idea what they are voting on. "I got all this money for my next campaign so this bill must be good." is about as far as most of them think.

 

[dgz]

Aren't both your points contradictory to each other?

It's what he usually does.

 

[Wierdo]

Yay lets un-solve the throttling problem.

 

[Zion Halcyon]

You're so far from the point I don't think you get it at all.

Actually, given the usual hysteria over this, he is the first person I've seen to adequately explain the deal with net neutrality.

So how is he far from the point? Is it because he isn't engaging in screaming and histrionics like people usually do over this?

 

[ianken]

Get ready for the "Comcast Blast Streaming Package," only $29.95 to access your favorite streaming services! For twelve months, then the price goes to $49.95. This can be waived if you use the Netflix app on your X1 set top box.

It's going to be a shit show. You think Comcast and Time Warner suck balls now? The ball sucking has just begun! ROFL.

I'm to cynical to see any other outcome.

 

[LurkerLito]

I'm not following this analogy. Are you saying they purchase futures of Internet usage? I'm not understand the past tense wording.

Every courier in operation DOES offer expedited or enhanced delivery for additional costs. You can put a stamp on it and it takes a while or you can over night it for an increased cost.

Almost every system we use in this country is "usage based", yet somehow few people can imagine this when it comes to data. Is there ANY utility that you use that isn't usage based (outside of isolated co-ops or renters)?

The past tense wording is because ISPs and most services buy data bulk blocks ahead of time. So a big outfit let's say Netflix estimates they are going to be sending 300TB a month to customers they buy a bulk data transfer of that size for the month. Your ISP does the same thing. The speed of receiving and sending is not applicable cause it is sent at whatever their connection can support. You seem to be thinking of the customer connection to the ISP which is usually regulated by a speed cap by the ISP. That does not apply for this discussion. The bandwidth speed of the ISP to say Netflix is as fast as the data can be sent between the two points whose speed is determined by the physical connections the two services have built to connect to the internet backbone.

The reason the post office example works is because you can think of the internet as the post office where there is only one speed, as fast as it can go. There is no expedited or enhanced delivery, because everything is a single 3x5 envelope (data packet) with a stamp on it that already covers the costs of sending it. Just because you want Netflix to send you some data that takes 1000 envelopes doesn't change or give the right to the receiver (ISP) to extort extra for the final delivery and withhold it from you receiving the envelopes, when it was already agreed that all parties have paid the appropriate fees for delivery.

FYI landline telephone is not "usage based" it is now unlimited with some exceptions to certain countries. Usage based will never happen for wired internet service. The ISPs would lose money. When their highest profit makers (grandma's they are ripping off now) who only check email and occasionally browse the net are paying $10/month. Their biggest customers would be the data hogs that they currently hate but account for < 5% of their customers.

 

[DocSavage]

91 in southern California has express lanes where you can pay to avoid traffic in the normal lanes. 580 and 680 in Nothern California has express lanes that you can pay to use during rush hours. There is a highway that cuts through Irvine and is privately owned, and it has tolls to just use it. Florida has a network of private tolled highways which often allow you to reach places faster than the public highways. These practices, which have been in place for years, have just turned your argument against you.

It's a lot cheaper and easier for an isp to add backbone connections than it is to add highway lanes. I think it took Comcast less than two weeks to add capacity last time Netflix paid them off.

 

[King of Heroes]

tl;dr: this can destroy competition and innovation on the internet, and gives far too much power to ISPs that already really need to be facing anti-monopoly laws and broken up.

To expand on this a little, that right there is a big reason why net neutrality is so vitally important. Normally if a company's practices and/or behavior is at odds with what customers want or expect then those customers can simply take their business to that company's competitor. This is how a free market is expected to work. Unfortunately this DOESN'T work with ISPs, who enjoy regional monopolies thanks to contracts cut with individual states and openly collude with each other on pricing and features. This makes them immune to most, if not all, forms of customer protest as there are no competitors that they can take their business to. Even in regions where competitors are allowed to exist, the cost of entry is too high even for new entrants that enjoy significant financial backing (e.g. Project Fi, despite being backed by the behemoth that is Google, has had to tap out under the combined onslaught of cost and a court system that has been weaponized against them by the incumbents). The need for net neutrality is a consequence of the excessive amount of power ISPs already have, and an attempt to provide some sort of check against them.

If you believe net neutrality is a government overreach, then that is okay. But you need to solve the problem of lack of customer choice. Customers need to have the ability to protest if a company is acting against there interests. Many ISP customers don't have that ability right now. This can be done by actually applying anti-monopoly laws, reducing the cost of entry into the market, or a combination of both.

ISPs CANNOT be both immune to the free market AND be the ultimate gatekeepers to content. That is unfair and extremely dangerous.