App developer Panic Inc. knew it had a network problem when customers began complaining about trouble downloading and updating Panic apps.
"Geez, your downloads are really slow!" was the common complaint that started coming in a few months ago, Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser explained in a blog post titled, "The Mystery of the Slow Downloads."
But once the mystery cleared up, it all made sense. Panic and its users were the innocent victims of a longstanding network interconnection battle between cable ISP Comcast and Cogent, which operates a global network that carries traffic across the Internet.
The situation will only get worse once the Net Neutrality appeal process is complete.
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When Slow Downloads Hit an App Developer, Only Comcast Customers Suffered
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday March 12 2018, @08:10AM (2 children)
If you allow Comcast to charge Cogent for the traffic, can you imagine how much the quality of service to end-consumers will improve due to Comcast's increase capacity to invest in new infrastructure?
Yes, exactly!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Monday March 12 2018, @11:54AM (1 child)
A big degree?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @12:18PM
Cast it to null.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @08:41AM
All I wanted was Google Fiber.
But they wouldn't give it to me!!!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by cocaine overdose on Monday March 12 2018, @09:48AM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @10:58AM (2 children)
The problem with having cable TV outfits becoming internet providers was that they still see everything in terms of cable TV.
Infographic - The Internet Without Net Neutrality [imgur.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @12:32PM (1 child)
That is exactly how it is in some parts of the world
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DavePolaschek on Monday March 12 2018, @02:15PM
Could be worse. It could be Phone Companies.
https://nojitter.com/post/240168772/we-dont-care-we-dont-have-to-were-the-phone-company [nojitter.com]
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday March 12 2018, @02:48PM (4 children)
1. ISP slows downloads for random app
2. Customers blame random app, and rates app poorly
3. App makers want to resolve issue, and identify ISP is at fault
4. ISP sells "Gold Tier" access to app makers
5. Customers can now download app quickly, which makes the app better than competing apps which don't pay for premium access
6. App profits, ISP profits, Customers profit?
Yes not exactly how the article played out, but this is where I see the internet heading
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday March 12 2018, @02:55PM (2 children)
You're missing the alternative:
4. App makers specifically warn customers that if they use Comcast, to expect slow speeds because Comcast intentionally degrades their service, and that they should find a new ISP
5. Customers gripe and complain but generally put up with slow speeds suitable for countries like Zimbabwe
or 5. (This one is not so likely) Customers in metro areas push for local politicians to strongly regulate ISPs and/or invest in municipal-owned ISPs (this last one isn't allowed in certain states thanks to Republican voters)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dwilson on Monday March 12 2018, @04:47PM (1 child)
Or 5. (I rate this one as the most likely) Customers, being average folk with no real understanding of how their modern world's technology works and lacking the give-a-fuck to learn, disregard App maker's warning (assuming they even received it, or read it if they did...) and continue to blame the App maker, spread the same misinformation via twitter/facebook/reviews. App maker's business tanks as a result.
And the world moves on.
- D
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday March 12 2018, @06:19PM
And 6. (In my ideal world...) App makers leave the US market, or at least charge much higher prices for US customers than in markets where they don't have this problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @03:20PM
If it were possible to have a free market with infrastructure (which internet is these days), then ISPs who did not have "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" would likely win. Maybe they wouldn't; the invisible hand is capricious, but it generally gives us all a superior product or at least a choice of products that suck in different ways.
However, infrastructure has that strange property we call "natural monopoly." While we will never convince anarcho-capitalists, I would hope that small L libertarians and members of the Libertarian Party in the USA can see the reasons it makes sense for a violently imposed monopoly to provide infrastructure service. We can even have potable water delivery, for example, as a government monopoly, and the government monopoly can rent the pipes out to different water/sewer treatment plant operators. Electricity too. Want to pay more for green energy? Go for it! The transmission lines are maintained by government monopoly. Generation in the free market (and we can come up with different models for providing individual homes compensation for sending excess power generation into the grid, though people here who understand the electricity network better than I do will always remind us this is easier said than done). Roads also. And now communications in the form of TCP/IP pipes, layer 1 provided by government monopoly, and layer 2 services provided by ISP operators on the free market.
Why can't we be more flexible instead of everything socialist and everything capitalist as our black-and-white DuR (Dempublican and Republicrat) team alternatives?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by mobydisk on Monday March 12 2018, @03:22PM (4 children)
Network Neutrality has nothing to do with this at all. The article confuses "Title 2 classification" with "Network Neutrality." It states that once Comcast is no longer under Title 2 classification, the complaint process will change and Cogent will no longer be able to file complaints with the FCC against Comcast.
I am frustrated with the barrage of articles that try to tie Network Neutrality to every internet issue. Many people are against network neutrality because they can't figure out what it means. So throwing the phrase into unrelated articles just muddies the water even further. So the next time somebody associates NN with "heavy-handed regulation" you'll know why. It's because reporters take every opportunity to use the phrase.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday March 12 2018, @06:49PM (1 child)
Please explain the difference.
(Score: 1) by mobydisk on Wednesday March 14 2018, @01:40PM
Title 2 is a legal classification that allows an entity to be regulated more strictly by the FCC. It was generally applied to companies that ran telephone wires, as that was considered critical infrastructure. Those companies are regulated monopolies, get federal funds to lay the wires, and the FCC set the prices that they can charge. That's how rural Americans get telephone service: it wasn't actually profitable for the telephone companies to do so. Title 2 basically forced them to provide it at a fixed price, and subsidized them accordingly.
Network Neutrality is the principle than an ISP should not alter your network traffic. It's kinda like free speech on the internet.
The relationship between the two is that some telephone companies were pushing back against the FCC neutrality rules saying that the FCC could not mandate Network Neutrality for a service that was regulated under Title 1. The Title 1 regulations were too loose to allow that. I'm unclear here. But the FCC moved ISPs under Title 2 so that there was no question about this.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @07:03PM (1 child)
net neutrality is the only thing giving title 2 regulations to isps. it doesn't quite classify them as title 2 carriers, but no title 2 protections are provided by any other regulation
so you're technically right, but what you're saying is dead wrong. congrats.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 13 2018, @12:28AM
BZZZT! Wrong!
Please actually have just a basic understanding of what you're talking about [wikipedia.org] before blathering on with a steaming pile like you've done here.
Thank you. Peace out, Troop!