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Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times writes about Portugal's Internet which shows us a world without net neutrality, and it's ugly. Basically, tiered services get in there through a loophole for zero-rating.
After paying a fee for basic service, subscribers can add any of five further options for about $6 per month, allowing an additional 10GB data allotment for the apps within the options: a "messaging" tier, which covers such services as instant messaging, Apple FaceTime, and Skype; "social," with liberal access to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and so on; "video" (youTube, Netflix, etc.); "email and cloud" (Gmail, Apple's iCloud); or "music" (Spotify, Pandora).
Portugal isn't the only country allowing tiering of internet services. In Britain, the internet service provider Vodaphone charges about $33 a month for basic service but offers several "passes" allowing unlimited video or music streaming, social media usage, or chat, at additional tariffs of up to $9.30 per month. [Ed's Note: This is not entirely accurate - Vodaphone's ISP home broadband offering (17Mbps) is £24/month unlimited usage, the additional figures quoted are for faster fiber connections (38 and 76 Mbps) where available. How you use your connection is irrelevant. This is the same for many European ISPs. Smart phone costs are entirely separate.]
Although both countries are part of the European Union, which has an explicit commitment to network neutrality, these arrangements are allowed under provisions giving national regulators some flexibility. These regulators can open loopholes permitting "zero-rating," through which ISPs can exclude certain services from data caps. That's what the Portuguese and British ISPs essentially are doing.
If the vote on the 14th of December repeals Net Neutrality then consumer options will be greatly reduced while increasing greatly in prices as we can see from Portugal's example.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by jmorris on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:38PM (41 children)
Dec 14 can't come fast enough, just so these propaganda pieces will finally stop. All bits are NOT equal, should not be treated equally. The ISP market started with totally unlimited because any limits confused customers who were afraid of an unknowable bill. But if Netflix puts an appliance on your cable company's internal wire and Amazon doesn't it is entirely reasonable one should receive preferred treatment. Streaming real time services, online gameplay and certain other services put much greater demands on the network infrastructure than web browsing and downloading email so the pricing could vary if the cost is enough bigger to justify the bookkeeping, customer relations, etc. And bandwidth caps are going to be a thing, get used to it. Streaming HD video to every screen in your home for most of the day puts incredible demands on the network and allowing the assumption this would be "free" was a very bad idea which must now be corrected.
Third world countries live much closer to reality than we in the 1st, they have much less margin for stupidity. You can't charge 1st world prices for service, you push most of your traffic over expensive international links, etc. So yes the experiments to find optimal pricing models will almost certainly happen there first and eventually the successful ones will be widely adopted, even in the 1st world.
This article, like the last one I just commented on, is just another propaganda piece intended to agitate enough of #theresistance to somehow stop the FCC from doing what needs to be done. It is an op-ed, it is even noted as such. Are we really going to suffer a drudge report like collection of links to every pro net neutrality op-ed and blog post for the next couple of weeks? ENOUGH! To reverse the immortal words of Barack Obama, "You lost."
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:48PM (18 children)
Nice try muddying the waters with unrelated nonsense, paid shill.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Tara Li on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:04PM (6 children)
While I don't completely agree with him in all respects, his comments are to the point, and reasonably correct.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:25PM (5 children)
If he were making an argument for paying higher rates as usage increases, he would actually have a case. However, he is apparently defending the end of net neutrality, based on the assumption that present rules and laws can't be preserved, while making heavy users pay for their heavy usage.
I would be perfectly happy with a basic plan that starts out at 10 gig/month, next plan is 20 gig, next is 30 gig, and so on. But, net neutrality should be preserved. If I'm paying for 100 gig, it is NONE OF THE ISP's BUSINESS HOW I'M USING THAT 100 GIG!! And, they certainly have no right, or even reason, to slow down any portion of my 100 gig. It's paid for, if I'm watching porn, or soap operas, or video games, it's all the same. All the ISP need do, is deliver the goods I've paid for.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @07:32PM
*marks the calendar* Runaway said something that made sense today
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:55PM (2 children)
This is, or was, how it works in Australia.
Basic capped DSL/NBN is $50 per month. Unlimited data costs $10 more.
Faster speeds on the NBN cost more.
The ISPs charge enough to cover network fees and make a profit.
It used to be that you'd pay more for data. When unlimited (usage policies apply) plans came in the tiers changed to speed.
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:56PM (1 child)
Same here in NZ;
@100/20MBpbs Fiber 80GB/mth = approx $80 (depending on provider) Unlimited = $90 (I get a $10/mth discount as I have cell plan with my fixed line provider); so I get unlimited 100/20 for $79.95.
@50/10MBps Fiber 80GB/mth = approx $60; Unlimited = $70
There are zero rated plans on the mobile network but on the fiber network it seems there is no throttling etc; well no that I have experienced.
Note a significant portion of NZ content comes across the international links.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @01:13AM
TPG keep calling me to switch to their NBN plan.
TPG NBN is $60 a month for 8Mbps capped at 12Mbps with unlimited data.
If you want faster speeds it is $10 more. $70 a month for 18Mbsp capped at a maximum of 25Mbsp, but no guarantee that you'll get more than 5Mbps.
It's $90 a month for "Super Fast" 40Mbps.
I currently have DSL with a stable connection at 19Mbps for $60 a month with unlimited data. Why would I want to switch to the NBN?
Soon I'll have to switch because they turn off the old 'rotten copper' connections after the NBN is connected. So, I'll be paying more for what I have now. Great.
iinet is the same, except their speed ranges at Basic: 8 to 12, 8 to 25, and max: 25 to 100mbsp. Again, they don't actually guarantee more than 8Mbsp, or rather likely 4Mbsp.
For some reason all of the plans include a home phone. I don't know why. It does look like collusion. Only have phone included plans, force everyone to pay an extra $10 a month for the home phone as a tariff. Rake in the profits.
Telstra, though, is still stuck in the dark ages. $70 a month for 100GB data on a "nbn tier 25" with a "15Mbps typical minimum speeds between 7pm-11pm" although, from the reports and stats posted this is actually more like 4 to 6mbps and lots of complete drop outs.
Yes. 100GB of data. On a fibre network. In 2017. Go figure.
For $10 more, $80 a month they'll offer you 1000GB.. but only at 25 err.. 15mbps.
Phone included though, so really you're paying the old telephone connection fee / phone rental tax.
Telstra's "best pick" (for them) is a $99 a month plan which has unlimited data but still only offers 25mbps (with a clause saying don't expect more than 15).
Here's the page on that: https://www.telstra.com.au/broadband/nbn/plans-bundles#24-months [telstra.com.au]
What exactly have we done to ourselves?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:21PM
The profit margins for these established ISPs are something like 90%+, if I remember correctly. 100GB a month would be far too low a limit. We need to break up these shitty monopolies and have Internet that at least approaches the quality and price of many other first world countries.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:32PM (10 children)
One doesn't need to be paid to end up parroting these arguments. All sides of politics have a flavor of bad argument that takes root in its dumber followers. What we have here is the anti-government flavor, which can be applied to basically any argument against government action even when the government is working directly in the follower's best interests. It tends to take root easily in people that intensely dislike any one thing the government does, which can range from rural land management to welfare distribution.
Most insidiously, it affects selfish people that just hate paying taxes. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an argument that works against such people. They don't care if the rest of the world burns, and very few of them (or anybody for that matter) have the attention span to understand why the rest of the world burning would be pretty bad for them personally.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:44PM (2 children)
Messrs Smith and Wesson have a few very persuasive arguments against the particular kind of sociopath who would light the world on fire to warm their own toes...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:21PM
DuPont and Co presented good arguments [wikipedia.org] to mostly weaken if not outright refute messrs Smith and Wesson's arguments.
In the meanwhile, the opposing party has acquired military style lines of argumentation, lines that are not available to the populace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:04PM
The problem is that vanishingly few of those who see the problem are willing to use the tools that Messrs Smith and Wesson created.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cykros on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:33PM (3 children)
The anti-government argument that isn't disingenuous bullshit should be that municipal exclusivity agreements are anti-competition, monopolistic regulation that props up a handful of corporations as government backed cartels, wherein the costs are socialized and the profits are privatized, as long as the kickbacks keep flowing. I'm not for net neutrality because I'm pro-government; it's merely a common sense regulation to counteract the very foolish status quo we have held over from where the exclusivity agreement was for a non-essential entertainment source, but has grown into a stranglehold on a resource that is considered by much of the developed world to be a human right for those living in a modern society (the philosophy of this gets murky and isn't really something I'd like to delve into here).
You want to get rid of the government regulations, start with the exclusivity agreements, bring competition into the space. Then we can (happily even) talk about easing up on net neutrality regulation. Until then this is the public being shat upon simultaneously by the government and their corporate pets in tandem, and any so-called conservative or libertarian supporting this motion ought to be ashamed, or recognize that they've drifted into the arena of authoritarianism, pure and simple.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:36PM
by the corporate and their government pets in tandem... FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:03AM
That worked pretty well back in the days of dialup.
...now, with every corporation stringing its own cables...
Ever see a photo of how things looked in the early days of telephones? [google.com]
I like the notion of public infrastructure for utilities.
I have no problem with then allow privately-owned ISPs to provide access via The Commons on an equal basis, contingent on good behavior.
With lots of fiber in place and privately owned, it's probably too late for that in most places. 8-(
...without doing the eminent domain thing.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 29 2017, @03:42PM
The anti-government argument that isn't disingenuous bullshit should be that municipal exclusivity agreements are anti-competition, monopolistic regulation that props up a handful of corporations
What you're spouting is pro-government: pro-local government. True anti-government people are opposed to all government, so they support state laws that forbid municipal ISP service, since it competes against private corporations.
I'm not for net neutrality because I'm pro-government
Yes, you are. You're favoring government regulation, instead of favoring allowing corporations to make all the rules and act as they please.
and any so-called conservative or libertarian supporting this motion ought to be ashamed
Libertarians who oppose net neutrality, aren't "so-called", that's really what they are. Fundamentally, libertarianism is corporatocracy.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday November 29 2017, @03:11AM (2 children)
An example of government regulation that actually improved things would be nice to buttress you argument. One from the last fifty years better still since it avoids re-litigating a lot of historical debates. Because I can't really think of one, I'm inclined to oppose any attempt to increase regulation.
How many people die waiting for a new drug to go through ten plus years of BS vs how many would die otherwise. Assume we still have the trial lawyers. Then assume we reigned them in. Better or worse? Arguments can be made for both. We should be having those arguments.
How much did Obama promise everyone their health care premiums would go DOWN if we only trusted him and his merry band of regulators?
How long was FM radio locked in regulatory limbo by the incumbent AM radio lobby?
Now on the other side of the ledger, weren't we promised horrors if airlines were deregulated? Ok, we got some horrors but people who aren't rich can afford to fly so net positive. Now with TSA I wonder why anyone still wants to.... different debate.
Breaking the AT&T monopoly and generally deregulating telecom ended up helping kick start a revolution. Government commissions setting prices and service levels wasn't so great once people saw the alternative. Land lines are still highly regulated and are essentially dead, replaced by cheap less regulated cell service.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:17AM
Net neutrality. Comcast should not be allowed to throttle torrent traffic, for example; that is simply a behavior that is fundamentally harmful to a free and open Internet. Just like I see no reason we should allow companies to dump harmful chemicals into a river, I see no reason we should allow ISPs to violate net neutrality. I just don't see why that is desirable at all.
In other words, you're an ignorant automaton who mindlessly opposes any and all regulation.
There are bad regulations, so therefore all regulations are bad. How about all the times when corporations have screwed people over? Oh, and you can't escape from monopolistic ISPs, unless you want dial-up. Have fun!
Which of course has nothing to do with the fact that cellphones are far more convenient and portable than landlines. No, it's all because of government regulations.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:46PM
How about the Clean Air Acts [wikipedia.org]? Ignore carbon for a moment and think about soot and acid rain. We don't have those problems anymore, because the Clean Air Acts effectively eliminated industrial pollution from the air. Go to Shanghai and see what life used to be like without these government regulations - and you can bet that our regulations were a lot kinder to industry than what China is now doing to address the problem.
Of course there will be bad regulations. You want to know what makes regulations bad? The biggest thing in recent years is partisanship. The ACA has problems, but its primary purpose - making access to quality health care universal, standard, and affordable - is good. If Republicans had agreed to work towards that purpose, we would have ended up with a much better law. Instead, they refused the premise that the federal government had any role in improving health care at all.
But the ACA has fared even worse than it should have due to interference and FUD. Republican governors refusing free money for Medicaid created coverage holes for some of the most vulnerable and exacerbated the problem of people staying unemployed to stay eligible for their excellent government-funded healthcare. Republican legislators insisting that the ACA would be repealed, combined with lawsuits about the federal exchange and subsidies, created FUD in the insurance industry that lead inevitably to less investment and higher premiums. And now that Trump is in charge, it will be a miracle if any regulations are effective despite systematic efforts to undermine them.
-
I'd love to break up the monopolies. I think that is a much better solution than more regulation, most of the time. But the corporations are slowly merging together into new, more powerful monopolies. And almost nobody is talking about stopping the flood of mergers and acquisitions.
I would never have called cell service "cheap", certainly not as the cell companies are becoming fewer and fewer. If things continue as they are now, we will end up with a choice between Verizon+Sprint+US Cellular or AT&T+T-Mobile, both costing substantially more than they do now for basically the same level of service (capacity may be nominally better, but so will load based on number of customers and increasing bandwidth demands for the same kinds of traffic).
Our options to avoid the failings of this future are 1) Reverse the tide of corporate mergers, breaking up corporations so that none of them can even dream of having anything close to government-level control over our lives, or 2) Grow the size and scope of publicly accountable government regulations to make sure the increasing government-level powers of super huge corporations are ultimately accountable to the people through the ballot box. If we do neither, we will get option 3: corporations eclipse the power of democratic government to control them and begin operating as unaccountable, dictatorial, globalist pseudo-governments.
After decades of political devolution and corruption on both sides, it may already be too late.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:14PM
*ROFL* *looks at poster* LESS STUPIDITY!?!? *ROFLMAO* You have made my day!
(Score: 5, Informative) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:21PM (13 children)
Netflix shouldn't have to put an appliance on anybody's internal wire. They already paid for their bandwidth. The fact that they are now pressured into special deals with the ISP to carry their traffic is a consequence of ISP practice of deliberately shunting Netflix traffic into the same overworked hardware, rather than building up their infrastructure. If internet service were really a free market, an upstart ISP could build a better infrastructure for customers that didn't do this. As it is, however, there is almost never an incentive for the ISP to fix their bottlenecks. They didn't do it before the net neutrality rules, so it's insane to think they would do it now.
I wish this were the case, but the web has changed. These days you are likely to use much less bandwidth on online gaming (which downloads small data packets continuously) than on even basic web browsing (which regularly downloads hundreds of 200kb - 5mb JavaScript packages for every page view, and if ad block is not in use, streams multiple video ads per page as well). Streaming music and video of course is very bandwidth intensive, as well as torrents and job-related traffic to and from a corporate network. But these activities set the standard now, and as bandwidth improves, web developers will continue to have less incentive to keep bandwidth requirements low for what should be very cheap static text-based content.
Again, this problem existed before net neutrality rules, and repealing those rules is not going to fix it. Probably won't have any impact at all, really.
Are you seriously suggesting that those of us in America should pay 3rd world prices for internet traffic that doesn't go over expensive international links? You're welcome to move to Uganda if you want to live like that. The rest of us blessed to live in America will stay here with our "1st world" amenities like (relatively) fast internet, (relatively) stable government, and (relatively) safe investment opportunities. You dictator-worshiper types can go live in the bush where you'll be happy and stop trying to drag the liberal democratic world down to your pre-industrial standards.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jmorris on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:41PM (7 children)
Yea! And nobody should use Akami either, CDNs are a total scam, ISPs should simply build sufficient infrastructure that every website can be hosted in one single location! Netflix is a huge chunk of the internet's traffic needs. Putting local caches of the most viewed content at every major provider is what has allowed them to exist. Google also spreads their servers around the world, Amazon does, etc. If nothing else, putting local copies on every continent saves a lot of load on undersea cables. You are an idiot who has no clue how the Internet works right now. The threat of being charged is what caused Netflix to become so aggressive in offering "Netflix in a box" appliances to every major ISP but CDNs are a routine and required part of Internet infrastructure and have been for twenty years.
True but not important to my point. Realtime traffic isn't about bandwidth, it is about maintaining acceptable latency.
No, I'm saying Cisco and Juniper are not in the habit of discounting their gear based on where you are installing it. Same for all the other physical infrastructure bits. Their bandwidth costs to get traffic to popular U.S. destinations is higher, even if much of the bulk content is delivered from a local CDN. But third world customers can't and won't pay first world prices so an ISP operating there is operating on thinner margins. So they have huge incentives to experiment with their pricing models.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:00PM (6 children)
Having decentralized data centers is not the same as buying space in the ISP's data centers. And the market forces that have caused major Internet service providers like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Netflix to decentralize are mostly orthogonal to net neutrality.
Local caches are becoming untenable for licensing and security reasons. You can't universally cache Netflix's DRMed streams, and you can't universally cache SSL resources. CDNs are on the way out too because of CommonJS / ES6 development practices, which are only made possible by the increased bandwidth available for streaming. Since that's the direction the internet is going, ISPs are going to need to be prepared anyway. If their solution doesn't work within net neutrality rules, you can bet that it involves throttling, bandwidth caps, and/or tiered pricing structures a la cable TV. Most people would really prefer the cable TV way of doing business to die, not infect our internet service.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pav on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:29PM (2 children)
Free speech activists say this is just another vector to shut down freedom of expression on the internet. I follow progressive politics, and already Twitter and YouTube have been banning and demonotising content and accounts either silently or using "Russia, Russia, Russia" hysteria. Hell, they've attacked Wikileaks with the Russia thing so much people are actuallly starting to believe it... repetition (repetition, repetition, repetition) is the oldest form of mind control after all. (BTW, Jimmy Dore does a great job debunking the mainstream narrative : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9U6nKHJmk [youtube.com] ). If deprioritising political voices into oblivion becomes possible it WILL happen. Disagree with a companies interests? Piss off a government entity and the company has headquarters in its juristiction? If this becomes legal it WILL be used for censorship.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:21PM (1 child)
I can't tell what you're responding to. Did you put this in the wrong place?
Do I interpret you correctly that fast laning / zero rating / bundles will be "another vector to shut down freedom of expression on the internet"? It's an interesting point. However, "Twitter and YouTube" didn't obtain the power to censor their users for progressive purposes. They gain it for free by virtue of their decentralized infrastructure, unless they go out of their way to give us end-to-end encryption like Apple and Google sometimes do. And in YouTube's case, they have long used that capability to serve the MPAA/RIAA mafia.
If they are censoring unpopular speech, it's because that's what the market wants them to do with their power. But the fundamental problem is that they have that power to begin with. It's arguably worse if they never use their censorship powers the way they are now, because then the sheeple wouldn't know that they were capable of censorship at all. As it stands, censoring Russian propaganda etc. only makes it easier to make exactly the argument you are making.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:29AM
The argument I was making is if censorship became so bad on mainstream platforms that people tried moving to eg. Diaspora (federated Facebook replacement), Mastodon (federated Twitter replacement) etc... then these could (and probably would) be made to perform so badly as to be unusable (because Netflix!). You're right that the market wants mainstream platforms to censor speech... viewers aren't the customers, they're the product after all (the customers being companies often owned by oligarchs with a certain political views).
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday November 29 2017, @01:05PM (2 children)
Aren't they already doing that?
https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience [netflix.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:01PM (1 child)
Netflix Open Connect is not a universal cache. It works specifically with Netflix streams. If these streams were universally cacheable, Open Connect would not exist. But Netflix streams never could be universally cacheable, because that would require them to be universally copyable. The owners that license content to Netflix do not want that content to be universally copyable. Therefore, Netflix needed to develop a domain-specific cache that keeps copies under Netflix's direct control.
The internet was designed for universally copyable content. That's what insecure HTTP is supposed to be - GET a URI, and any server between here and there can deliver its cached copy depending on the cache settings returned by the server (or in their absence, a predefined set of default settings). It only works when those servers are capable of owning a copy of that resource.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:06AM
Oh, right. I figured you meant 'universal' as in 'all of the Netflix content'.
Indeed. It's the same reason there are so many mutually incompatible Internet media-playing services: Spotify/iTunes/Google Play Music/Amazon music, or Netflix/Amazon video/Google Play video/iTunes video/Hulu/Now TV/Vimeo/Rakuten/Playstation Store/Microsoft Store/BBC iPlayer/the many different TV catchup services. It's the same idea each time, but they're always going to be incompatible because of the questions of DRM and control (and perhaps marketing and 'customer ownership').
I think you mean the web.
Indeed, and that sort of openness is at odds with the requirements of Netflix et al, and you say.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NewNic on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:06PM (1 child)
Netflix offered to install Open Connect boxes inside Comcast's network, eliminating most of the peering traffic, and Comcast refused, at least initially, until Netflix was convinced to pay Comcast.
A likely end result of the loss of net neutrality in the USA is not a menu of options as in the linked article, but rather that video and other services will cost more. Netflix and other subscription rates will increase.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:49PM
A result that I'm sure will have nothing to do with Comcast's competing video distribution service with zero-rated streaming.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:22PM (2 children)
I mostly agree with your points, but you seem fairly oblivious to the realities of ISP finance. There's a lot of misconceptions about why bandwidth costs what it does.
You can't just waive a magic wand and have bandwidth at your house. Building an ISP is a MASSIVE infrastructure investment. Keeping up with the last mile improvements required to deliver any sort of decent service is an insane treadmill, and people just don't understand why.
Last mile infrastructure investment is expensive. Really, mind bogglingly expensive, with relatively small return, and long amortization (more than 10 years), That assumes the ISP owns the physical plant. If not, they have to pay some sort of rent, and they're at the mercy of whoever does own the plant (Usually a incumbent competitor ISP!). That assumes there isn't any wireless in the mix, which implies issues of spectrum crowding, signal quality, and licensing that are out of the ISPs control.
The backbone infrastructure is the low-hanging fruit here. If there's a backbone capacity issue, that's the easy one to justify fixing, since it's relatively inexpensive (per customer). The problem is the last mile, which is hugely expensive on a per-customer basis.
The implication that ISPs are sitting on piles of cash and are holding back from easy capacity upgrades is, in most cases, a fallacy. Anywhere where there is more than one ISP available, they're going to be working hard to get more data to you faster.
These issues exist regardless of what sort of market you're in. Simply saying "an upstart ISP could do better" in a free market is ridiculous, the infrastructure costs are HUGE, and the per customer returns are relatively tiny.
You're right that more competition makes for better and faster services, but the real culprit for the headaches here is customer density. There's a reason why areas with extreme population density (Areas in Europe and Asia) have internet that's so much better, and that's because their per-customer infrastructure costs are so much lower.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:28PM
I understand perfectly well that ISP infrastructure is massively expensive. It's the main argument for why internet should be considered a public utility like electricity, because the rollout costs create a similar market problem.
Last-mile infrastructure isn't going to be affected by net neutrality, though. If it made sense to throttle certain traffic at that level, you would see more consumer-oriented products to do just that, because it would only impact the one customer. The argument here is about overloaded backbone infrastructure.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @12:09AM
Established, monopolistic ISPs are sitting on piles of cash, though. Their profit margins at this point are insane. Not so for new players, of course. And they also receive massive amounts of taxpayer subsidies, which they usually receive, waste, and then don't suffer any consequences for doing so. Force the ISPs to rent out their infrastructure so we can see some actual competition.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:04PM (3 children)
Your entire post comes from the belief that it's not fair to ISPs for every bit to be treated equally due to some services generating higher demand. Yet, you've refrained from explaining logically as to why anyone on here, or any consumer at all, should care. What exactly is your logical reasoning behind why net neutrality is bad? In your mind, is the american telecom industry struggling for profit? Is our government bailing these providers out regularly due to unfair regulations preventing them from thriving or providing quality service? Both of those assertions would be completely ridiculous.
Here are three benefits to keeping net neutrality:
-More affordable internet (consumers)
-Far more fair market place for businesses to compete (economy)
-Lack of capability, by either industry or government, to restrict speech and ideas (the public)
Explain logically how you believe ending net neutrality will benefit consumers and/or the public in any shape way or form. If you can't do that, your position is null and void.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday November 29 2017, @02:10AM (2 children)
Nope. I think bits should cost the user more if they cost more to deliver. I think a busy wire should cost more than an idle one. These are basic laws of economics. You don't pay a flat rate for water so why do people think they should pay a flat rate for bits? Many places charge more for electricity based on the demand to encourage use at off-peak times. This is not objectionable. If Netflix or Hulu put a local copy inside the wire that activity does not impact their outbound pipe so it is reasonable to charge less for that use. If the ISP has some sort of deal with a particular end point, an ad deal for example, it is reasonable to exclude that traffic from bandwidth metering as part of a deal. The Internet is young, we do not yet know the optimal model to pay for much of the content and delivery yet. Allowing experimentation is good.
Did you even read my original post? We have "Network Neutrality regs now and censorship is rampant. You might want to actually hear Pai's side [multichannel.com] of the story.
Because "Net Neutrality" is a lie. To quote a recent post by Andrew Torba of Gab.ai, "If you want to help meme we need to change the terms. He’s not destorying net neutrality. He’s destroying Title II regulatory bullshit for broadband providers. The memes should say “annihilate Title II and restore internet freedom.”
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:52AM
I did read your first comment, I wasn't convinced, and nothing in it touched the point you responded to.
In response to your first paragraph I thought your points were not entirely unreasonable, with the exception of bandwidth caps which I believe to be an entirely separate discussion.
The second paragraph, about third world nations, I do not believe accurately applies to this discussion at all. Third world, and even second world, nations typically don't have power at all hours of the day, with rolling blackouts being an accepted part of daily life. Further, utility companies in those nations are typically corrupt, with the payment to the person mattering far greater than that to the company itself. They're very far from an example to follow, because I'm sure the internet service provided is even worse.
Both of these points you made didn't do much to convince me that this regulatory burden is not just necessary and fair, but also not difficult for our internet providers to work with.
Once again your first paragraph isn't unreasonable or wrong, but the article you linked in the second section isn't very convincing at all. The actions of edge providers, such as twitter, are completely unrelated and unaffected by net neutrality legislation. Tell me why undoing net neutrality will prevent censorship on twitter and facebook, and I will happily tally you a point.
I understand the arguments against net neutrality such as:
-The costs from treating all services equally prevents investment in improving infrastructure
-Smaller providers are less able to deal with the cost than larger ones(1)
-Dividing services into tiers allows lower income people to get online easier due to lower costs
1: In the rare case of a small provider in the current market
However, you've failed to make any of those points in your posts. Believe me I want to be won over, I love free market solutions, but the current market isn't free. Current regulation prevents proper competition between ISPs resulting in regional monopolies. With healthy competition and a reasonable barrier to entry in the market, regulation would be unnecessary; providers wouldn't dare cut their customers a raw deal due to fear of them jumping ship.
Try to win me over, explain to me how undoing this regulation, in our CURRENT market, is reasonable and beneficial. It's quite honestly entirely plausible to win me over, because I actually want to be, and believe me if you lay it out clear and plain enough to convince me, I'm willing to bet others will be convinced as well.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:55PM
The issue described in that linked article isn't going to get any better without net neutrality. In fact, it'll probably get a hell of a lot worse.
Right now we have issues where Twitter/Facebook/Google/etc will arbitrarily remove or block content. And that's a bit annoying, but it's easily solved by telling them to fuck off and using a different website.
Without net neutrality, we could easily lose that choice. When Facebook contracts with Comcast to become the official social network of Comcast, and any competing social networks are blocked, then you can't just go elsewhere. Look at the original article. The ISP offers a "Social" tier which includes Facebook, Instagram (...which is also Facebook), Twitter, Snapchat...but does it include Diaspora*, GNUSocial, or Mastadon? If you're unhappy with the actions of the big four, too damn bad, because that's the only plan you can get.
So is your argument that we should make Facebook a heavily regulated public utility so they can't engage in censorship, but allow the ISPs to do whatever they want? That seems completely backwards. The problem isn't that Facebook limits content; the problem is that ISPs want to prevent you from taking your business elsewhere. And it's a lot harder to take your business elsewhere if you don't like your ISP -- in many areas you might have exactly one choice, and building a competing service is at best an extreme logistical challenge and at worst completely illegal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:24PM
Get outta here! SHOOO! GIT YA DAMNED VARMNT!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:04AM
[Begin net-neutral encryption] Elite Social Justice Warrior Team Six, Special jmorris squad, 2nd Lieutentant "Boogers" reporting: jmorris seems to be on the move. He is defending the republican abolition of net neutrality with a venagenace. We have pulled his contract with Comcast, and we have to say his performance in this instance exceeds all contractual requirements. He may be bucking for a raise, or a promotion to High Mucky-muck in charge of censoring the Internets. In any case, further surveillance is recommended. And could someone check the router upstream? Seems our connection is becoming rather more slow and laggy. Wait a minute! Do you think jmorris has already gotten his promotion, and cannot help but stifle those of us involved in fighting for social justice? Have we been exposed? Check the encryption, Corporal Pence! Man the TOR router, Sargent Chompsky! To the barricades, everyone who loves justice and net newtons! [end preferred net access level encryption. Ha ha.]
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:01AM
As the paying customer, I requested those bits. I expect they will be delivered to me expediently, as that is what I am paying my ISP to do. That is the _whole_reason_ I am paying my ISP.
And they've tried caps, and that doesn't have anything to do with revocation of net neutrality. They sell different speed tiers, which don't have anything to do with net neutrality (and are never upheld).
As the requester of the data, as the _paying_ customer of the ISP, these two services should receive _absolutely_equal_ treatment. If Amazon chooses to be bottlenecked through some third party that my ISP has no control over, then so be it; I thank Netflix for providing a server in closer proximity to me to improve my quality (and I don't care but it'll also lessen my ISP's cost -- they're not paying Netflix for that traffic, but they would be paying Level3 for it. Right? Wouldn't they? If they don't pay the backbone providers, where does my monthly payment go?)
And that is specifically why there are varied speed tiers at varied price points. This has nothing to do with net neutrality. Do you think _any_ online game would pay an ISP for their players to be able to play the game? This would completely decimate online gaming. It would simply go away. But hey -- _I_ _AM_ paying my ISP for the bits and bytes to be able to play games online!
and so it does, through the various speed and usage tiers.
What were you trying to say about Net Neutrality, again? that it's _important_ because I, the paying customer, am the one who specifically requested those bytes? Or are you saying that my dollar isn't as good as someone else's dollar?