FCC Releases Plan to End Net Neutrality!!

[hoosierdoc]

It's not a free market when a municipality grants a "franchise" to a cable company. As someone else posted, I have two landline choices for Internet:
1. Comcast Cable
2. ATT DSL (drinking the Internet through a straw)
One can also go the route of satellite Internet service but that is very costly. When the local government granted the franchise, they set up a local monopoly.

John

ATT was rolling out FIOS nicely for a while there. They made a corporate decision to slow network upgrades at the top tier level due to concerns with reclaiming investment thanks to net neutrality.

seems wireless will be the way to go moving forward for all but streaming video

Bit torrents are not illegal, that's true. But it's probably true that 95% of them are. It's not illegal to stand on a corner in a miniskirt, lean into a car and offer up some sex in a cheap motel either. From the outside looking in free sex transaction looks the same as a fee-for-service transaction too. But no one wants either on their property. Bye bye bit torrents

edit: hahahahahha. This is from 2010 though. 99.7% bittorrents illegal or infringing copyright

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/07/only-03-of-files-on-bit-torrent-confirmed-to-be-legal/

 

[wtburnette]

ATT was rolling out FIOS nicely for a while there. They made a corporate decision to slow network upgrades at the top tier level due to concerns with reclaiming investment thanks to net neutrality.

Not going to look it up, but if memory serves this was BS. The CEO of AT&T (and others) said they were going to slow investment/upgrades, but my understanding is that it didn't actually happen. I know that AT&T is currently deploying fiber to my neighborhood, though I don't see that as indicative of anything...

 

[hoosierdoc]

Not going to look it up, but if memory serves this was BS. The CEO of AT&T (and others) said they were going to slow investment/upgrades, but my understanding is that it didn't actually happen. I know that AT&T is currently deploying fiber to my neighborhood, though I don't see that as indicative of anything...

Fiber to the user lets them charge more to the user (opposite of net neutrality). Upgrading their backbone to clear congestion does not increase their revenue, only costs. My brother was on the team at Verizon deciding all this stuff. They were OCD about congestion and would upgrade their routers to clear congestion, but others would not. Intentionally not. And would refuse a FREE upgrade of their equipment paid for by their clients.

it sounds like customers feel entitled to cheap high-speed data connection and don't feel they should have to do anything other than pay $50/monfor unlimited and unrestricted access. HOV lanes, toll roads, gas taxes, state park fees, fishing licenses, etc. stuff ain't free to build or maintain.

Internet data backbone stuff is really voodoo level stuff to me. So is digital rights to media

 

[wtburnette]

Fiber to the user lets them charge more to the user (opposite of net neutrality). Upgrading their backbone to clear congestion does not increase their revenue, only costs. My brother was on the team at Verizon deciding all this stuff. They were OCD about congestion and would upgrade their routers to clear congestion, but others would not. Intentionally not. And would refuse a FREE upgrade of their equipment paid for by their clients.

it sounds like customers feel entitled to cheap high-speed data connection and don't feel they should have to do anything other than pay $50/monfor unlimited and unrestricted access. HOV lanes, toll roads, gas taxes, state park fees, fishing licenses, etc. stuff ain't free to build or maintain.

Internet data backbone stuff is really voodoo level stuff to me. So is digital rights to media

I agree with the voodoo part for sure. All I know is that when we have less rights and pay more money than most other industrialized nations, something is wrong. Reminds me of talking to my buddy's girlfriend about 15 years ago who worked for the recording industry. She was telling me all about how piracy was going to drive everyone out of business and that selling by the song instead of album would be the death of the industry. Um, no. Told her that then and seems I was right. When you look at the money these companies make (ISP's, cable co's and telcos), it seems disingenuous to me when they start griping about not having money to pay for upgrades. They have what amounts to a captive market. They were given billions of dollars by the government to build out and upgrade the infrastructure. I find it hard to believe these companies don't have the money to invest. If they won't do it, that's fine. Step out of the way and let other companies or municipalities do it. Almost every story I've read about muni-broadband makes it sound like they were able to recoup their investment in a reasonable time period and that's without price gouging their customers. It can be done, so I have a hard time buying their excuses.

 

[BugI02]

Perhaps if someone like Netflix is pursuing a business model that requires the use of resources paid for by another company and in direct competition to that company, their house was built on sand

 

[hoosierdoc]

Perhaps if someone like Netflix is pursuing a business model that requires the use of resources paid for by another company and in direct competition to that company, their house was built on sand

well Disney world requires a lot of roads to get there too

the large content providers are installing regional data hubs and setting up direct lines to the second and third tier ISPs. So frontier and the smaller telco companies can get the content quickly for their customers without going through the internet hubs.

the question is who pays for the bandwidth? The person with the data or the one who wants it?

 

[Dean C.]

It's kind of funny the cost of upgrading systems is being brought up. TDS just brought fiber optic internet to Tipton County, 300mbs internet from them is significantly cheaper per month than Comcast's 75mbs internet by about $30 a month. Maybe Comcast , ATT and Time Warner are just crappy monopolistic companies that have not had any real competition (aka incentive to upgrade aging systems) in decades and they all deserve to be ran out of business but that won't happen because of the enormous cost of setting up an infarstructure.

 

[hoosierdoc]

HVe you guys ever ran a tracert to see where your packets go between you and the site you're going to?

pretty neat to see all the hops it takes

Online Visual Traceroute Tool - Monitis

that one is odd. Do it from a dos or unix window

 

[jamil]

The idea of having to buy "packages" for internet is terrifying to myself at least. Now if there were more competition in the market maybe, but as she sits right now the "Big 4" have essentially a monopoly on service and they all have insanely bad track records for screwing over consumers. Personally I think comcast and Time Warner need a good old fashioned ATT style trust busting.

Competition is the issue. With "public utilities" that share distribution resources, at least a little, it's not so clear cut that "net neutrality" is a non-libertarian idea.

 

[Twangbanger]

I have a question for the critics of the proposed policy shift. I really do not care about the Libertarian- or non-Libertarian, free-market or "not" aspect of this, for purposes of this little slice of conversation.

To establish a few facts (and feel free to check my understanding of these):

1) Municipalities granted monopolies to Cable TV companies 40 or so years ago; they own the "last mile" into peoples' homes by decree.
2) The cable those Cable TV companies laid in the ground, has limited capacity to carry data.
3) Internet data-streaming has exacerbated the capacity problems stated in 2).
4) Net-Neutrality prevents Cable/ISP companies from adopting volume-tiered price structures for their internet service.
5) The government cannot force the Cable/ISP companies to invest and upgrade infrastructure; only control the pricing of what is already there.

So now the questions:

A) Do you hope that by forcing the owners of the cable into sub-optimal (for them) pricing arrangements, you can somehow force them to upgrade their infrastructure for your benefit?

B) If the answer to A) is yes, do you consent to have the cost of this upgrade passed along to you? Or do you expect the government to forbid that, also? What additional cost would you be willing to pay, if any, for the increased data you are using? Or do you expect to receive this more or less for free, as compensation for how those companies "stuck it to you" over the years?

C) If you expect the Cable/ISP companies to upgrade but not be allowed to pass along the cost...what is the incentive for the Cable/ISP companies to upgrade infrastructure which, by Net Neutrality, they have diminished control over?

E) As a consumer, what hope do you have that Wireless will eventually get you out of your data-consumption dilemma? (Ie, implementing new technology, as opposed to wrestling over the existing one).

F) Does Net Netrality help or hurt the chances of the type of technology development mentioned in E)?

If you despise the Cable Monopoly, does Net Neutrality perpetuate it by turning it into a sort of "Ma Bell?" ​

Will Wireless providers come to the rescue, if they have the possibility of eventually being forced into the same pricing/investment conundrum Cable providers already have under Net Neutrality?

Just trying to get an idea of what peoples' expectations are. I personally do not watch TV, so it's not personal for me and I don't understand the issue that well. Do you just want cheap cable TeeVee?​

 

[hoosierdoc]

Our home has xfinity now and soon to be metronet. I think some have ATT, Comcast, and soon metronet. Not sure the monopoly is as strong as it once was

 

[ArcadiaGP]

The Net Neutrality Thread

 

[hoosierdoc]

Hah, someone necroposted that long dead thread

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Hah, someone necroposted that long dead thread

Aw c'mon, 5 months surely isn't long enough to be a necropost

 

[hoosierdoc]

Yeah I know, had to respond to that wonderful gif

i thought we had a thread about it around here somewhere

 

[npwinder]

I have a question for the critics of the proposed policy shift. I really do not care about the Libertarian- or non-Libertarian, free-market or "not" aspect of this, for purposes of this little slice of conversation.

To establish a few facts (and feel free to check my understanding of these):

1) Municipalities granted monopolies to Cable TV companies 40 or so years ago; they own the "last mile" into peoples' homes by decree.
2) The cable those Cable TV companies laid in the ground, has limited capacity to carry data.
3) Internet data-streaming has exacerbated the capacity problems stated in 2).
4) Net-Neutrality prevents Cable/ISP companies from adopting volume-tiered price structures for their internet service.
5) The government cannot force the Cable/ISP companies to invest and upgrade infrastructure; only control the pricing of what is already there.

So now the questions:

A) Do you hope that by forcing the owners of the cable into sub-optimal (for them) pricing arrangements, you can somehow force them to upgrade their infrastructure for your benefit?

B) If the answer to A) is yes, do you consent to have the cost of this upgrade passed along to you? Or do you expect the government to forbid that, also? What additional cost would you be willing to pay, if any, for the increased data you are using? Or do you expect to receive this more or less for free, as compensation for how those companies "stuck it to you" over the years? ​

Net Neutrality doesn't have anything to do with pricing or infrastructure upgrades. Its the idea that all traffic is treated the same. My neighbors Netflix binging goes down the pipe at the same speed as my forum usage. If enough people are doing high usage things such as watching netflix, it can hurt speed on everyone's connection. Without Net Neutrality, It allows ISPs to come up with a deal with netflix to prioritize netflix traffic over my forums. With that in place, it allows my neighbors to flawless netflix viewing, however, there has to be a trade of somewhere down the pipe so now my forum usage suffers from longer page loads.

Many ISPs are also TV providers. With net neutrality, they have treat my streaming tv service the same as any other site. Netflix gets treated the same as streaming offers put out by the ISP. Without it, the ISP can throttle the speed to these sites to make the less desirable or even completely block them off. This would give the ISP the ability to slack off on their offerings, as consumers would pick them for better service when in reality, another site could be the best option, but is essentially shut off from the consumer.

C) If you expect the Cable/ISP companies to upgrade but not be allowed to pass along the cost...what is the incentive for the Cable/ISP companies to upgrade infrastructure which, by Net Neutrality, they have diminished control over?

Net Neutrality says nothing about passing the cost to the user. I expect a good faith effort to get the speed that my ISP advertise and I agreed to pay for. If they can't deliver those speeds, Then I expect them to either change their advertised speeds and rates. Or upgrade the network to achieve those speeds. If I have a contract with them, I expect them to forth a good faith effort in honoring that contract. If I don't have a contract, I expect price changes with enough notice and the ability to drop service without a hassle. When I had frontier, I had a 2 year agreement for a 7 meg connection at 19.99. If I wanted to leave early, there was a fee for every month left on the The service I received constantly during the peaks times was under 1 meg and often times slower than dial up. It would take me over an hour to watch a 5 minute youtube video. The few times I called to complain to frontier I always got theres an issue in the area with no time frame to resolve it. It was never resolved. Frontier had every right to upgrade the network and then tell me the new price when my agreement was up. For those without an agreement they had every right to tell them that in 30 days your new internet price is this. Instead, I switched to Mediacom and my monthly internet price went from 19.99 to $50 a month for a 50 meg connection.

E) As a consumer, what hope do you have that Wireless will eventually get you out of your data-consumption dilemma? (Ie, implementing new technology, as opposed to wrestling over the existing one).

There are companies such as surf air in my area. Verizon wireless also offers home internet through their cell towers if you look on their site hard enough. I have no hope for it ever stay ahead of the bandwidth curve. I use verizon for my cell phone. Love their network. I pay more for that service than someone on tmobile or sprint. However, I can drive 12 hours through rural Iowa and Nebraska to see my parents and have a solid 4g connection the entire way except in a few canyons the terrain doesn't allow it. Cell phone towers physically don't provide the bandwidth capacity of a wired connection. at my house, I have a direct line of site to a verizon 4g tower about 1,000 feet away. I'm not going to find faster 4g speeds on verizons network. If enough people subscribed to their home service, speeds would decrease considerably making it even less worthwhile for the high cost of the service.

F) Does Net Netrality help or hurt the chances of the type of technology development mentioned in E)?

If you despise the Cable Monopoly, does Net Neutrality perpetuate it by turning it into a sort of "Ma Bell?" ​

Will Wireless providers come to the rescue, if they have the possibility of eventually being forced into the same pricing/investment conundrum Cable providers already have under Net Neutrality?

Wireless providers were put under net neutrality rules along with the traditional ISPs. Net Neutrality has little affect on Infrastructure upgrades. If an Net Neutrality is repealed, and the ISP sets up compete service to say netflix. Then throttles netflix to the point that the subscribers switch the ISP service. The ISP has to maintain the Infrastructure to meet the growth of their service. The only difference is, is that the ISP gets the extra 11 a month instead of netflix. the ISP also has the ability to use the customer support system already in place for their internet to the streaming service, so theres a cost reduction. ISPs are also big on bundling packages, they very well may offer their service for free and thereby not get anything extra in return, while throttle a company out of existence.

Just trying to get an idea of what peoples' expectations are. I personally do not watch TV, so it's not personal for me and I don't understand the issue that well. Do you just want cheap cable TeeVee?

Net neutrality affects the Internet and not TV.
In February, my agreement with Directtv came up and they decided to jump my bill from 70 dollars to 130 a month. I called to see if we could get that lowered, it think the best they would do was 120 a month. I started looking for other options. Having mediacom phone and internet already I looked at them, however, the cost was more than keeping directtv. I then looked at the streaming options available with channels my wife watches. (I don't watch much tv either.) We ended up having to go with Sling for 29.99 a month and Play station vue for 45 a month to get the channels we wanted for 75 total. This month, Playstation vue got the one network it was missing for me switch over, the hallmark channel with hallmark movies and mysteries. Now I can drop Sling and save the 30 there while upgrading my playstion vue package for another 10 a month. So my monthly tv bill drops to 55 a month. Plus I'll end up with channels I watch and not just my wifes favorites. If I wanted, I could go with Vue $75 plan and get HBO and Showtime.

Repealing Net Neutrality could possible start costing me 66-120 more a month for TV by hurting the competition my ISP receives from alternative means. Mediacom could keep their internet traffic open and free, while Comcast, ATT, Time Warner all throttle them enough that subscribers leave the services I use and make them impossible to operate. Those three could say you're in the slow lane unless you pay is so much money. That can cause my fees to rise when I'm not even subscribed to their internet service.

In short
Net neutrality states that all traffic is treated equal and has nothing to do with pricing or infrastructure upgrades. This forces the ISP to reconcile costs with their customers and figure out what the market will bare for them. If the ISP has high costs and charges more for service, the customers get to decide to subscribe or not, thats the free market. Saying that Netflix is hurting their network too much while coming up with a competitor to netflix screams monopoly when the either way, it goes over the same network.

Good companies listen to their customers and upgrade and price accordingly. Bad companies don't. In this case, the Bad companies and Good companies pretty much have a legal monopoly in the area they operate.

 

[jamil]

I have a question for the critics of the proposed policy shift. I really do not care about the Libertarian- or non-Libertarian, free-market or "not" aspect of this, for purposes of this little slice of conversation.

I don't really have a solid position on net neutrality. I kinda get the feeling there are warring factions, neither of which really have my best interests in mind. So I'm going to address this with my interests in mind and not necessarily the interests of the people pushing either side.

I think much FUD (fear/uncertainty/doubt) is being propagandized by both sides to gain support from people to support their way of screwing you. Missionary or doggie style doesn't matter if you're still getting screwed.

To establish a few facts (and feel free to check my understanding of these):

1) Municipalities granted monopolies to Cable TV companies 40 or so years ago; they own the "last mile" into peoples' homes by decree.
2) The cable those Cable TV companies laid in the ground, has limited capacity to carry data.
3) Internet data-streaming has exacerbated the capacity problems stated in 2).
4) Net-Neutrality prevents Cable/ISP companies from adopting volume-tiered price structures for their internet service.
5) The government cannot force the Cable/ISP companies to invest and upgrade infrastructure; only control the pricing of what is already there.

So now the questions:

A) Do you hope that by forcing the owners of the cable into sub-optimal (for them) pricing arrangements, you can somehow force them to upgrade their infrastructure for your benefit?

Whatever net neutrality is, it's what's in place now. Whatever it is, it's not forcing owners to do something new. The new thing, from my understanding, supposedly, is to ease regulations which prevent ISPs from giving priority for some content providers over others, thereby ending "net neutrality" as it is now.

But anyway, I don't think this argument makes sense because 1) what great hindrance to upgrades exists now? In the Louisville area, Spectrum (formerly Time Warner) is finally upgrading their infrastructure. They had no incentive to do it before, net neutrality or not. They're doing it because Google Fiber is coming to this area and Spectrum's copper can't compete with that. I used to complain on INGO about my abysmal internet speed. A couple of months ago they upgraded infrastructure in my area and now I get ~300mbps down/20mbps up.

B) If the answer to A) is yes, do you consent to have the cost of this upgrade passed along to you? Or do you expect the government to forbid that, also? What additional cost would you be willing to pay, if any, for the increased data you are using? Or do you expect to receive this more or less for free, as compensation for how those companies "stuck it to you" over the years?

This argument doesn't really make any sense to me. Costs ultimately get passed onto consumers, either through paying too much for ****ty service, by hook, or by crook.

C) If you expect the Cable/ISP companies to upgrade but not be allowed to pass along the cost...what is the incentive for the Cable/ISP companies to upgrade infrastructure which, by Net Neutrality, they have diminished control over?

Again, what was the incentive to upgrade me? Besides Google Fiber giving Spectrum a come-to-jesus existential revelation, they upgraded the infrastructure in my area so that I would pay more to get more. I could have stayed on the plan I was on to get 100mbps down and 10mbps up. But dayam. 300mbps down for something like 30 bucks more/month? Two words: Done deal. Got rid of cable. Now we're 100% streaming, which kinda made up for the higher cost of internet.

E) As a consumer, what hope do you have that Wireless will eventually get you out of your data-consumption dilemma? (Ie, implementing new technology, as opposed to wrestling over the existing one).

What data consumption dilemma do I have exactly? I choose to pay considerably more in exchange for way higher bandwidth than I had. Of course that translates to more data consumption, because I have a higher capacity to stream content. Seriously. The issue of net neutrality has nothing to do with implementing new technology vs wrestling over the existing one.

As people transition more and more from cable TV to streaming services, demand will go up for higher bandwidth, and people will be willing to pay for it.

F) Does Net Netrality help or hurt the chances of the type of technology development mentioned in E)? If you despise the Cable Monopoly, does Net Neutrality perpetuate it by turning it into a sort of "Ma Bell?"

Will Wireless providers come to the rescue, if they have the possibility of eventually being forced into the same pricing/investment conundrum Cable providers already have under Net Neutrality?

Just trying to get an idea of what peoples' expectations are. I personally do not watch TV, so it's not personal for me and I don't understand the issue that well. Do you just want cheap cable TeeVee?

Fair enough.

I mostly watch sports and movies. When we decided to upgrade our internet and cut the cable TV, we bought some digital antennas and some Roku boxes, and our experience is better for it.

We subscribe to Amazon Prime, Netflix, and one of the major paid streaming services that gives us something like 60 channels geared towards the programming we like. The performance has been so far flawless.

Spectrum has their own competing streaming service that they've been trying to peddle to us since we switched. I like what we have now better than what they're offering. I suppose, to get us to rethink Spectrum's service, they could make sure our experience suffers so much with the service we have that we'd have to go with theirs. If this is what net neutrality prevents, I'd kinda like to keep that.

 

[BugI02]

It would seem that another possible solution to the cable bottleneck could be ala cart pricing. If I only want 20 or less channels I'm not using as much of the capacity. If ESPN is expensive to carry, charge the schmucks who watch it.

Unfortunately, it would be much more likely that what I do watch would be overpriced in order to subsidize a low rate for junk like ESPN. Kind of like how I can always fly to LAS or LAX for about half of what it costs if FlyoverUS is the destination

 

[SheepDog4Life]

I have no problem with an ISP being either net neutral OR non-net neutral, with the two following provisoes:

1. ISPs must declare to their potential customers whether they are net neutral or not

2. Non-net neutral ISPs by definition control content, content access and speeds... which makes them publishers... which means they shed the current protections of being content neutral and adopt all the legal liabilities of content publishers

 

[seedubs1]

Ending net neutrality is a direct affront to the free flow of information. Ending it would be a disaster.

You like this website? Let’s see how you like it when att or Comcast (or whoever your isp is) decides they don’t like their customers viewing gun related websites and they choke this one out. And how about when your ISP only wants you to view news from their designated sources.....because libertarian and freedom and ISP’s should be able to run their business as they see fit Seriously, the argument that ending net neutrality opens up the free market is freaking ludicrous. You all need to be contacting your representatives immediately and get this **** shut the **** down.