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For years, Comcast has been promising that it won't violate the principles of net neutrality, regardless of whether the government imposes any net neutrality rules. That meant that Comcast wouldn't block or throttle lawful Internet traffic and that it wouldn't create fast lanes in order to collect tolls from Web companies that want priority access over the Comcast network.
This was one of the ways in which Comcast argued that the Federal Communications Commission should not reclassify broadband providers as common carriers, a designation that forces ISPs to treat customers fairly in other ways. The Title II common carrier classification that makes net neutrality rules enforceable isn't necessary because ISPs won't violate net neutrality principles anyway, Comcast and other ISPs have claimed.
But with Republican Ajit Pai now in charge at the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast's stance has changed. While the company still says it won't block or throttle Internet content, it has dropped its promise about not instituting paid prioritization.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:06PM (5 children)
We won't "block or throttle" legal traffic, but we may do "paid prioritization" but not in an "anti-competitive" manner.
So, assuming I got what they said right, what does it say?
First, the game is about scheduling and queueing packets from different services onto limited transport paths.
Physics dictate that if there are more packets than transport path bandwidth, then not all the packets will be lucky (delivered with minimum delay) .
If there was sufficient b/w then nobody would pay for prioritization, so that seems a dead end.
If some of the packets get dropped or delayed, then it's a question of which ones.
If paid prioritization makes some packets lucky, then in also makes some unlucky.
That seems like blocking and throttling, which they said they would not do.
Here lies the first confusion in their statement.
There are many kinds of competition possible here, but the NN issue is to provide an environment where the next big thing can start and grow.
This permits competition among information services.
The big ones, like Google, Facebook, and Netflix, can afford to pay to play.
In theory, small startups can't.
Creating a situation where all information services are treated equally in buying prioritization may seem competitive from the bandwidth provider's standpoint.
Unfortunately, when coupled with the large size difference in information services, it creates a seemingly anti-competitive environment in this space.
Here lies the second confusion in their statement.
Bandwidth isn't free and must be funded, but the Internet is a critical utility and a powerful position in controlling it should not be exploited this way.
Finding a balance is the trick, but no parties involved seem interested in doing this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:27PM
hey
they are going to charge people more to get what they used to get. you'll need a package to see some sort of "discount" for paying more. bundling the services together to lower the price and get you to pay more has been their strategy since day one. its not even supply and demand.
now for businesses, they'll say you need more bandwidth to prevent customers from having a slow website even though most businesses don't even host anymore. its a dying art, but the sales reasons haven't changed.
or worse, your guest wifi will suffer and customers will complain. buy into the fast lane like all your competitors that paid protection money, and we'll make sure you pay more for the same level of service because it'll feel faster when you aren't the slowest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
It's Shemantics. Problem is that they do not realize they are shitting on their plate where they eat. What if they push people offline with their nonsense? What would be lost really?
I don't really need internet per se. And lately I have been playing more single-player games than online games, so you know what? Just like cutting the cord 17 years ago, I might be one of the first people who will just shut down internet in my house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:03PM
I've been wondering about doing similar myself. Perhaps I wouldn't completely cut the cord, but I've been thinking that maybe degrading to a DSL provider or just going back to 56k dialup would do. Perhaps a more modern alternative to 56k dialup is reverse tethering my phone and using mobile data when I want to be online.
I'll miss The Pirate Bay, but I dunno. I have lots of patience, and I can wait for a download to come through like I used to.
I'm on Charter, and ever since they rebranded as Spectrum, they've been shit. I used to have an IPv6 /64 allocated to my house through a 6RD tunnel. Now here comes Spectrum, and all I get is piddly /128!
Everything is just getting fucking worse. It used to be that things got better. That doesn't happen any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:40PM (1 child)
Maybe it is to understood this way: They don't block or throttle the data, they just send it over the congested and slow routes, while the prioritized traffic gets the high-bandwidth and fast routes. So technically they are not blocking (the data arrived, unless the packets are dropped in normal congestion control) nor throttling (they are indeed sending the packets over those links as fast as possible; it's just that they don't chose the fastest links), but the effect is the same (non-prioritized traffic gets slow and unreliable).
To make a car analogy: They open up the highway only for paying customers, but on the standard roads, the cars are allowed to drive as fast as the traffic allows, therefore technically they don't slow down the traffic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:47PM
Yes, there's a big loophole there.
I guess we need to change "game is about scheduling and queueing packets"
to "game is about routing, scheduling, and queueing packets"