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Everyone here is so cynical, saying he's in the pocket of telecoms. Maybe he is. But maybe he's just ideologically opposed to these rules being implemented by

by pitaj 10y ago

Everyone here is so cynical, saying he's in the pocket of telecoms. Maybe he is. But maybe he's just ideologically opposed to these rules being implemented by a regulatory bureaucracy on the federal level.

MaulingMonkey 10y ago
It can be both - in their pocket because he's just ideologically opposed.
thomastjeffery 10y ago
To have an ideological stance does not mean every decision is already made. Neither ideology nor partisanship excuse an individual of ignorance or malice.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dv_dt 10y ago
He can be ideologically opposed to rules, but he is also blatantly ignoring information regarding lack of competition for last mile broadband customers, and without that, consumers have no market method of counterbalancing corporate overreach. Of he offered more of a structural remedy, or something, anything that actually addressed lack of last-mile competition I would be willing be less cynical about him.
- prasadjoglekar 10y ago
  His structural remedy is to remove government from the mix and let the market dictate the price of bandwidth. One thought is that the last-mile problem becomes irrelevant when mobile providers are offering high-speed internet. Whether you agree with that sentiment is largely dependent on how you view the world.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Net neutrality is a relatively recent policy development in response to actual market conditions. Deregulators like to avoid the question of why the regulations were put in there to begin with, claiming they were imposed by some ideological interloper but never acknowledging that regulations are often put in place by popular demand.
  - wtallis 10y ago
    > "One thought is that the last-mile problem becomes irrelevant when mobile providers are offering high-speed internet. > Whether you agree with that sentiment is largely dependent on how you view the world." There are readily available objective truths about what wireless networks can and cannot do. They cannot compete with fiber or high-end DOCSIS deployments. Since wired last-mile infrastructure is a natural monopoly, there cannot be any reasonable expectation that a free market will exist.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    The wireless provisioning of bandwidth to a residential market has basically failed and does not provide any real competition to wired last-mile access. Without that there is no competitive market for the last mile. The current landscape is that mobile service providers basically do not provide any service that meet the needs of residential networks. It is difficult to even connect a network of devices to a mobile wireless hotspot without violating the terms of service from the mobile provider or very rapidly hitting bandwidth caps. As far as I can tell, multiple small companies focused on providing wireless residential network service have failed, or stayed very small regional companies because of an inherent technological inadequacy of wireless to compete with the same level of wired transit... So it becomes not a market for raw bandwidth (which I would be reasonably happy with), but a market for access to bandwidth bundled with whatever junk the provider is trying to bundle. That bandwidth is further encumbered with business agreements restraining travel of data through last-mile access bottlenecks based on secondary agreements not between the customer and ISP (and not disclosed to the end consumer). This also does not make for a good market - choice and visibility are removed from the customer.
antisthenes 10y ago
Being a clueless libertarian might as well be indistinguishable from outright malice. > But maybe he's just ideologically opposed to these rules being implemented by a regulatory bureaucracy on the federal level. Or maybe he's incentivized to be ideologically opposed. Cynicism should be the norm when dealing with politics and people in positions of power.
anigbrowl 10y ago
First, in what possible way would it make sense for those rules to be implemented at the state level? As for whether there should be rules in the first place, why should the opinions of providers carry more weight than that of the consumers who pay them? ISPs will of course say that all those rules will drive prices up for consumers. OK, let prices go up and then let consumers decide whether they want to change the rules. somehow europe manages to have strong privacy protections and dirt cheap broadband. Market conditions are not exactly the same in the US, but nor are they anywhere near as difficult as corporate spokespeople claim them to be.
milcron 10y ago
Read about him on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai He worked as a lawyer for Verizon before becoming FCC chairman.

by pitaj 10y ago

MaulingMonkey 10y ago

It can be both - in their pocket because he's just ideologically opposed.

thomastjeffery 10y ago

To have an ideological stance does not mean every decision is already made. Neither ideology nor partisanship excuse an individual of ignorance or malice.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dv_dt 10y ago

He can be ideologically opposed to rules, but he is also blatantly ignoring information regarding lack of competition for last mile broadband customers, and without that, consumers have no market method of counterbalancing corporate overreach. Of he offered more of a structural remedy, or something, anything that actually addressed lack of last-mile competition I would be willing be less cynical about him.

prasadjoglekar 10y ago
His structural remedy is to remove government from the mix and let the market dictate the price of bandwidth. One thought is that the last-mile problem becomes irrelevant when mobile providers are offering high-speed internet. Whether you agree with that sentiment is largely dependent on how you view the world.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Net neutrality is a relatively recent policy development in response to actual market conditions. Deregulators like to avoid the question of why the regulations were put in there to begin with, claiming they were imposed by some ideological interloper but never acknowledging that regulations are often put in place by popular demand.
- wtallis 10y ago
  > "One thought is that the last-mile problem becomes irrelevant when mobile providers are offering high-speed internet. > Whether you agree with that sentiment is largely dependent on how you view the world." There are readily available objective truths about what wireless networks can and cannot do. They cannot compete with fiber or high-end DOCSIS deployments. Since wired last-mile infrastructure is a natural monopoly, there cannot be any reasonable expectation that a free market will exist.
- dv_dt 10y ago
  The wireless provisioning of bandwidth to a residential market has basically failed and does not provide any real competition to wired last-mile access. Without that there is no competitive market for the last mile. The current landscape is that mobile service providers basically do not provide any service that meet the needs of residential networks. It is difficult to even connect a network of devices to a mobile wireless hotspot without violating the terms of service from the mobile provider or very rapidly hitting bandwidth caps. As far as I can tell, multiple small companies focused on providing wireless residential network service have failed, or stayed very small regional companies because of an inherent technological inadequacy of wireless to compete with the same level of wired transit... So it becomes not a market for raw bandwidth (which I would be reasonably happy with), but a market for access to bandwidth bundled with whatever junk the provider is trying to bundle. That bandwidth is further encumbered with business agreements restraining travel of data through last-mile access bottlenecks based on secondary agreements not between the customer and ISP (and not disclosed to the end consumer). This also does not make for a good market - choice and visibility are removed from the customer.

antisthenes 10y ago

Being a clueless libertarian might as well be indistinguishable from outright malice. > But maybe he's just ideologically opposed to these rules being implemented by a regulatory bureaucracy on the federal level. Or maybe he's incentivized to be ideologically opposed. Cynicism should be the norm when dealing with politics and people in positions of power.

anigbrowl 10y ago

First, in what possible way would it make sense for those rules to be implemented at the state level? As for whether there should be rules in the first place, why should the opinions of providers carry more weight than that of the consumers who pay them? ISPs will of course say that all those rules will drive prices up for consumers. OK, let prices go up and then let consumers decide whether they want to change the rules. somehow europe manages to have strong privacy protections and dirt cheap broadband. Market conditions are not exactly the same in the US, but nor are they anywhere near as difficult as corporate spokespeople claim them to be.

milcron 10y ago

Read about him on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai He worked as a lawyer for Verizon before becoming FCC chairman.