4 ms·

People consistently ignore the middle course, which is to allow a market for differentiated quality of service, zero-rating, whatever -- but to regulate that ma

People consistently ignore the middle course, which is to allow a market for differentiated quality of service, zero-rating, whatever -- but to regulate that market as to what can be offered in it. The point would be that large companies couldn't get quantity discounts with which they can blow away small ones. It's legitimate to suggest that remote/waldoed surgery needs superb data delivery guarantees, or that providers of ad-heavy contents should be allowed to pay for the data their users consume. But it's also legitimate to ensure that a small entertainment provider has a chance in bidding against the large ones. There's been a low-volume discussion of all this on my blogs for many years. http://www.dbms2.com/2014/05/14/solve-the-network-neutrality-dilemma-and-make-money-too/ http://www.dbms2.com/2014/05/14/solve-the-network-neutrality... is pretty much the latest.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
The middle course is an illusion. Look at your examples: > remote/waldoed surgery needs superb data delivery guarantees It isn't a question of bandwidth or latency, the problem is that life-critical systems need hardware-level redundancy that mass market networks just don't have. Some drunk crashes into the pole at the end of your street and your internet goes down in the middle of surgery because there is only one path. This is why the hospitals that do this sort of thing have redundant dedicated physical connections on both ends. There is no other reliable way to do it. But network neutrality has nothing to do with that sort of dedicated physical point to point connection. > providers of ad-heavy contents should be allowed to pay for the data their users consume Nobody actually wants to do that. If ad providers actually cared about customer bandwidth charges they would spend more than the obviously-zero-if-not-somehow-negative amount of time they currently spend on optimizing their ads for resource consumption. The entire thing is a sham. Nobody wants to subsidize data. The ISPs raise data rates but zero-rate their own offerings to push customers away from their competitors, then go back to their competitors with their hand out and demand money to reestablish the level playing field. Or worse, charge a toll to get on the high side of the unleveled playing field. If this wasn't the case then there would be no need to involve the ISP in the transaction. If advertisers wanted to give away their profits to users then they could just pay the users directly. Some have tried this and given up, because it's ridiculous. Users would much rather have more/better journalism or services or whatever thing the ads are supporting than some tiny subsidy which is nothing more than a pittance at the level of an individual user. The only reason ISPs are involved is that they can charge $PROHIBITIVE_PRICE for data to end customers but $MONOPOLY_PRICE to content producers and it's only by getting this "discount" that it makes any sense for the content producer to engage in the transaction. The only result compared to the situation where this is prohibited is a harmful transfer of resources from high-competition content producers to low-competition ISPs.
Chinjut 10y ago
"waldoed"?
- CurtMonash 10y ago
  A "waldo" is a remote manipulator. I think the term comes from 1940s Robert Heinlein SF.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

The middle course is an illusion. Look at your examples: > remote/waldoed surgery needs superb data delivery guarantees It isn't a question of bandwidth or latency, the problem is that life-critical systems need hardware-level redundancy that mass market networks just don't have. Some drunk crashes into the pole at the end of your street and your internet goes down in the middle of surgery because there is only one path. This is why the hospitals that do this sort of thing have redundant dedicated physical connections on both ends. There is no other reliable way to do it. But network neutrality has nothing to do with that sort of dedicated physical point to point connection. > providers of ad-heavy contents should be allowed to pay for the data their users consume Nobody actually wants to do that. If ad providers actually cared about customer bandwidth charges they would spend more than the obviously-zero-if-not-somehow-negative amount of time they currently spend on optimizing their ads for resource consumption. The entire thing is a sham. Nobody wants to subsidize data. The ISPs raise data rates but zero-rate their own offerings to push customers away from their competitors, then go back to their competitors with their hand out and demand money to reestablish the level playing field. Or worse, charge a toll to get on the high side of the unleveled playing field. If this wasn't the case then there would be no need to involve the ISP in the transaction. If advertisers wanted to give away their profits to users then they could just pay the users directly. Some have tried this and given up, because it's ridiculous. Users would much rather have more/better journalism or services or whatever thing the ads are supporting than some tiny subsidy which is nothing more than a pittance at the level of an individual user. The only reason ISPs are involved is that they can charge $PROHIBITIVE_PRICE for data to end customers but $MONOPOLY_PRICE to content producers and it's only by getting this "discount" that it makes any sense for the content producer to engage in the transaction. The only result compared to the situation where this is prohibited is a harmful transfer of resources from high-competition content producers to low-competition ISPs.

Chinjut 10y ago

"waldoed"?

CurtMonash 10y ago
A "waldo" is a remote manipulator. I think the term comes from 1940s Robert Heinlein SF.