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Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority
- epistasis 10y agoThis is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They typically have no competition in their markets and they refuse to innovate. Yet, we give ISPs soooo much money. If there was proper competition, would we be spending such ridiculously high fees on the internet access we get?
- mikhailt 10y agoWasn't there a bill back in 80s/90s to pay the ISPs to modernize the grid with 100mbps across the entire country? Politics isn't the sole problem, lobbying in the company interests instead of the customers is the other problem. There has to be strict federal laws to outlaw lobbying and any type of incentives for all federal employees including the politicians. No gifting, no promises for the future (job), and so on. If such an occasion has occurred, both sides must be punished and the company must be stripped of its ability to do business in the country. The politician must be banned from holding the office and any company that they were involved with for life. How about we start with removing all free healthcare from the congress, they pay the same as the rest of us and they must go through the healthcare system just like us. If they have a problem, fracking fix it.
- MrFantastic 10y agoThe public paid for the ISP infrastructure via Tax credits we should own it.
- arca_vorago 10y agoWhat lots of people don't know is many ISPs across the country took that money and shoved it in exec pockets and then raised rates and never invested in infrastructure. An exec of one in my area for example was caught embezzling millions of that grant money.
- jonomw 10y agoDo you have a source that shows their misuse of funds? I don't believe it to be wrong, I have parroted this fact many times myself. But I just realised that I don't have any evidence of it either.
- ethbro 10y agoDifferent topic, but on the legal side of the law you'll find that most exclusive franchise agreements by an ISP contain something to the effect of "we will pay the city/county $A, give them an ongoing amount of $B/yr (and are not allowed to break that out as a line item), and perform C, D, and E at no cost." All these agreements are public. Go down to your local city hall or courthouse and ask for a copy of the franchise agreement. Point being, part of the evil is Comcast. The other part is your elected local politicians...
- pseudalopex 10y agoFranchise agreements can't be exclusive anymore. Officials at any level can still play favorites, of course.
- ethbro 10y agoI stand corrected. I'd read ours recently, as I was curious. It was essentially an inherited document from the first cable company to build a network for the city. It specifically noted it was non-exclusive, but I assumed that was the exception rather than the rule.
- deelowe 10y agoLike most things, what really happened is complicated. Here's a good hn thread on the matter. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556 If you have more interest in understanding the issue, there's plenty of good assessments. Everything from the explosion of wireless, to hdtv, to local municipalities, to mergers, and technological limitations are to blame.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rhino369 10y ago>Wasn't there a bill back in 80s/90s to pay the ISPs to modernize the grid with 100mbps across the entire country? No, it's a popular uban legend based on a misunderstanding of agreements between telecoms and the government. A telecom, IIRC Verizon, promised to upgrade their network to 45mbps access across their footprint. People are now interpreting that to mean they promised to build build a FTTH residential network (capable of 45mbps) to each home for prices similar to what you pay for DSL or cable internet. But that is a total misread. Really, Verizon was promising to upgrade their Trunk lines (T-Carrier) from T1 to T3. A T3 line is 44.736 Mbit/s. And they weren't promising to deliver a trunk line to each house for 60 bucks a month. They were expecting to charge thousands a month. This was basically a service for businesses and datacenters. Not for residential use. And they actually did do that upgrade.
- aaronchall 10y agoAnd we need competition if they think they can start throttling our Internet based on the source. I signed up with my internet provider on the assumption that all traffic would be treated equally, and I will be very upset if I notice degradation in service because I'm not using my connection in a preferred way.
- ubernostrum 10y agoThis is why politics is important, even in tech. I will keep saying it until people believe me: you can't separate out "politics". Overwhelmingly, whether people think something is "politics" (or "political" or "politicized") is reliably predicted solely by whether it affects them or people they identify with, rather than any kind of Platonically-ideal classification of topics.
- drdaeman 10y agoI don't know about the US, but it surely can't be like even greediest ISPs are not having any expenses and just hoarding cash enjoying their monopolies. Even though customers sometimes feel that way. I believe the following must be true for every ISP on the planet. Hardware crashes and/or dies - power surges, thunderstorms, vandalism, firmware bugs, old age, human errors - all sorts of stuff happen almost daily. It also has to be updated to match with ever-growing bandwidth and latency requirements. The same goes about the software parts as well, although when designed right and working solid it normally doesn't need updates - except for new features - for quite a while. Either way, all that stuff normally requires a reasonably big number of engineers and technicians, always busy either fixing things or building new stuff without introducing any actual innovation (just connecting new customers). I'm not justifying $50/mo tag (honestly, I have no idea how overpriced it is, although I guess with a proper competition it would be significantly less), just saying that maintaining the real-world (=a world where all sort of stuff that shouldn't be happens on a regular basis) network must cost significant amount.
- tdb7893 10y agoLooks at the profits for comcast and time-warner. Last time I checked (admittedly a few years ago) they were really high, especially considering how much people generally hate them
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- anigbrowl 10y agoIt's not like people are demanding universal free internet so I'm not sure what point you're attempting to make.
- rayiner 10y ago> How much money does Google make off of your info? Alphabet's net income in 2016 was $19.5 billion, as much as Comcast and Verizon put together. Alphabet's return on invested capital and operating margins were significantly higher than either. There are various reasons to regulate ISPs, but "they make too much money" isn't a particularly good one: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/a-long-term-look-at-roic http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corp... (telecom ROIC is among the lowest of any industry). > If there was proper competition, would we be spending such ridiculously high fees on the internet access we get? Is Google in a market with "proper competition?"
- epistasis 10y agoGoogle isn't one of the major internet providers here, whether Google's business has proper competition or not is not my point. My point is that we pay ISPs as much as we pay for the rest of the computing infrastructure, that they are a major player, with tons of money and high profits, and terrible service. That they aren't acting like the big boys, even though they have the cash to. ISPs are currently entrenched without competition. The current FCC fudges stats to wrongly state that there is competition in the ISP space, whereas in reality almost nobody has more than one broadband option.
- rayiner 10y agoThe point is that they're not particularly profitable in comparison to Google, even though in theory Google plays in competitive markets while ISPs are "entrenched without competition."
- anigbrowl 10y agoSo what? That doesn't obviate the possibility that their profits are maintained through corruption.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
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- tn135 10y ago> The ISPs are rolling in cash. Common myth. - Comcast made merely $2B in profits last year.[verified] - ATT made around $5B from wireline data last year. [unverified] A lot of people think these are monopolies with the help of government without realising that a lot of companies including Google tried to bring disruption and have failed. Part of the reason why not many people are wasting their capital on wireline is because it is unlikely to give better results. ISPs have terrible customer service because most of their efforts are going into keeping those wires and fibres intact. I would rather have a good working internet service and a bad call center rep than opposite. Not to mention when you don't allow companies like Comcast etc. to bring cheaper labor from India, they will be forced to spend more hiring American college grads and spend more cash on their training etc. We have to pay for it in the bill.
- forgotmysn 10y ago> merely $2B in profits last year I've never seen billions of dollars in profits dismissed so casually. >ISPs have terrible customer service because most of their efforts are going into keeping those wires and fibres intact. ISP's in other countries, even ones of similar scale to the US, don't have to chose between quality customer service and quality internet service. To call your argument facile would be overly generous.
- jdminhbg 10y ago> I've never seen billions of dollars in profits dismissed so casually. Comcast has around 25 million customers [0], so that's around $65/year/customer. So if you cut that profit to $0, you can return $5/month on combined TV and internet to each customer. When people say "cable and internet are so expensive," they don't generally mean "if I got a $5 price cut I would be happy." [0]: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/comcast-statistics/ http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/comcast-statistics/
- forgotmysn 10y agoI'm not suggesting that fast, consistent internet service is cheap to provide. However, I'm also not convinced that comcast's prices aren't as high as they are, and their margins as low as they are, only because its a costly service to provide. It's also because they are really bad at providing it. But that wasn't even my main point. My point is that Comcast is more interested in providing a return to their shareholders than they in providing effective and satisfying customer service.
- bkeroack 10y agoAs a counterpoint to some of the outrage/hysteria over the new net neutrality policy, check out this interview with the new FCC chairman Ajit Pai: https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-speaks-net-neutrality-privacy-rickrolling/ https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-s... He makes some really good points and generally comes across as well-informed and well-intentioned. In this climate of crazy media hype it's good to keep an open mind and listen to the actual people working on policy.
- epistasis 10y agoThat is kind of BS. Let's contrast what Pai says: >Net neutrality, if it means a free and open internet, is something that everybody agrees upon, Meanwhile, in the Ars article, we have a sponsoring Senator who hates Obamacare saying: >In the announcement, Cruz repeated his charge that net neutrality is "Obamacare for the Internet." So not sure what you're trying to do other than misinform us.
- bkeroack 10y agoI'm not sure it's inaccurate to describe Title II regulation as heavy-handed and unnecessary when the most rapid and beneficial growth of the Internet occurred in the 90s when there was little/no regulation.
- forgotmysn 10y agoits inaccurate.
- s73ver 10y agoBut we're not in the 90s anymore. And large ISPs have demonstrated their willingness to screw their customers to make more profit.
- monocasa 10y agoThe last mile infrastructure in the 90s was heavily regulated, and in fact it was those increases in regulation that had a huge part in democratizing the Internet. Up until the mid 80s, telcos would only allow devices that they had approved to be connected to their networks. That's why you had acoustic coupler modems until then. The device that made an actual, electrical connection to the phone company's network had to be one of their approved phones. They maxed out at 1200 baud (most of the time much lower ~100baud). Then with the breakup of the bells, and subsequent regulation forcing them to open their networks and allow unapproved devices as long as they didn't have a demonstrated adverse effect on the network. So yeah, the FCC wasn't regulating AOL in the 90s, they were regulating the last mile: the Bells, GTE, etc. That's where the value in government regulation is, and that's where we want it now as well. My ideal situation, IMHO, would be nationalized last mile, with a host of choices of companies handling the peering from the local office to the internet. You then pay the peering company, and they pay rent to the gov for the last mile. By reducing the barrier to entry (by making it so that any company can easily attach to last mile fiber) you increase competition. That's unlikely to in the current political climate however (to say the least).
- matt4077 10y agoIt is bewildering how different these Senators' concepts of reality must be from mine to consider this a good idea. I wouldn't even consider it debatable... There's a reason, after all, that ISPs around the world have largely shied back from such practices in the past. Part of the problem may be that those most hurt don't even exist, yet. Depending on how blatantly ISPs would exploit their position as gatekeeper of the last mile, it could doom any startup. Oh, your two-person team wants to run a ride-sharing service? Start by negotiating access fees with every ISP, in every market... I guess the best hope is that former startups act somewhat altruistically: Apple, Google, Facebook, or Netflix may have the clout (cloud?) to stop this. Maybe thousands of calls and emails help, but it appears that Republicans consider this their rumspringe, and are probably emboldened by polls showing the ideological divide is so deep, policy is no longer relevant for public opinion.
- mikeash 10y agoThese are mostly the same people who think that climate change is a hoax and that creationism is a valid alternative to evolution. Reality is not their strong suit. Their ideology says that government regulation is bad and free markets are good, with essentially no wiggle room for nuance. This implies that ISPs are being hobbled by government regulations, and that freeing them to do as they please will benefit us all. It doesn't matter whether or not it's true, it's what they believe, and they're approaching it from a perspective that's impervious to facts.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- olleromam91 10y agoMoney.
- shmerl 10y agoHow much are they paid for this crookedness?
- forgotmysn 10y agohonestly, not as much as you'd think it would take
- arca_vorago 10y ago5k I believe is the congressional donation limit, but only by one person or org. Generally when digging through public finance statements from congress (that's the sort of crazy I am), I often see the 5k limit hit by multiple entities in the same industry around the same timeframe, so that 5k limit ends up being 50-100k, not including all the other ways to pay for a legislator. That's not even adressing the issue that ISPs have so much data they could probably run their own blackmail ops and similar dirty tricks if donations weren't enough.
- socrates1998 10y agoWhy aren't google, facebook, amazon and apple fighting against this? They are some of the biggest companies in the world and they just seem to be rolling over at this. What gives?
- narrator 10y agoThey can pay. The little guys can't.
- forgotmysn 10y agobecause they stand to benefit as much from the end of net neutrality as the ISP's do.
- alphang 10y agoIt seems to me that reaction to this has been tame so far. I believe EFF and phone calls alone aren't going to do anything. You basically need awareness on the level of blackouts.
- jonomw 10y agoWhile the existence of net neutrality-breaking ISPs could have caused any of these companies to fail in their infancy, their current position in the market allows them to largely benefit from this environment. They may have added costs, but to them, that may be worth it if it artificially filters out possible future competition.
- problems 10y agoIt's easy money for them - they pay the big ISPs to secure their monopolies for them. No upstart can ever threaten to compete again.
- fosco 10y agoTake Action, stop just posting ones and zero's to hackernews https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-don-t-surrender-the-internet https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-don-t-surrender-the...
- snickerbockers 10y agoThen don't do business with terrible companies that invade your privacy.
- Karunamon 10y agoOkay. I'll become less effective at my job, because the only search engine worth a darn is the second largest dataminer in the world. In fact, scratch that, I won't even have internet access, because the ISP datamines me. Now I'm out of work and homeless. No bank accounts either. The only stuff near me are instances of corporate banks that datamine my spending habits all to hell. Same for credit cards. When you figure out how to do this "just don't do business with companies you don't like" thing in a way that doesn't turn me into a homeless pariah, please let me know.
- snickerbockers 10y ago>Okay. I'll become less effective at my job, because the only search engine worth a darn is the second largest dataminer in the world. Clearly the cost of losing your privacy is worth it to you because choose not to use competing services like duckduckgo that will respect your privacy. With respects to banks and ISPs, the major players in those industries support overregulation because they know it prevents smaller competitors from rising up and taking their business away with a superior product.
- Karunamon 10y agoProbably because I have a concrete notion of what "my privacy" entails, and I consciously don't place "things i'm typing in a search box to $company" in the "things $company shouldn't know about" box. On top of all that, there's the functional aspect as well. DDG's results plain and simply suck, and using a search engine out of principle is purely an exercise in self flagellation if I can't accomplish the goal I set out to do.
- folz 10y agoIn many parts of the country, consumers don't have the luxury of choice between ISPs. Heck, I live in the Bay Area and my two options are between Comcast Xfinity and Comcast for Business. (I went for the latter because they have slightly stronger promises around my personal information.) I have to do business with Comcast because I need internet service, and I have no other reasonable source for it.
- maxxxxx 10y agoWhenever the words "Freedom" or "Choice" appear in the names of laws I can already guess that the laws will do the exact opposite.
- declan 10y agoCurrent headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority" More accurate headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” preserves 2015-era FCC Internet regulation status quo" Another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” temporarily prevents FCC from enacting 3-2 partisan Internet regulations, unless a future Congress changes things" Yet another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” shifts authority for Internet regulation from unelected bureaucrats, who may not even have the power to regulate here, to elected officials in Congress, who do" Keep in mind that "Net neutrality" has become a partisan issue. The current 2015 rules were passed by a 3-2 party line vote when the Democrats controlled the FCC. (They're currently being litigated, with U.S. Supreme Court review likely.) Now that the Republicans control the FCC, the 2015 rules are probably going to be repealed by a 3-2 party line vote. Even if Congress does nothing. Whatever you think of the reasoning behind "Net neutrality" regulations, it makes little sense for hundreds of pages of regulations to be enacted when the Ds win and repealed when the Rs win. It means regulations applying to a multi-billion dollar industry bounce back and forth every 4 or 8 years. It makes more sense for Congress to come up with a lasting solution that isn't subject to regulatory bounce-back, and this is what the bill being described in the article seems to do.
- amccollum 10y agoFrom your post: It makes more sense for Congress to come up with a lasting solution that isn't subject to regulatory bounce-back, and this is what the bill being described in the article seems to do. From the article: But from what we know about Lee's bill so far, it appears the proposal wouldn't impose any type of net neutrality rules to replace the current ones. Wherein lies the so-called "lasting solution"?
- alphabettsy 10y agoSo ISPs get freedom and the users get screwed? The "Net Neutrality is like a Obamacare for the internet" is one of the most disingenuous claims I've heard from Cruz in awhile, Trump was right with his "lyin Ted Cruz" line.
- pvnick 10y agoGood. The less federal regulation over ISPs the better.
- jressey 10y agoBarriers to entry in the ISP game are too high for competition. Google can't even hack it. What is your perspective as a free-market advocate in this scenario?
- pvnick 10y agoWait patiently for the inevitable correction. E.g. innovation like this and other things we can't even imagine yet: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/17/elon-musk-satellites-internet-spacex https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/17/elon-musk...
- jressey 10y agoYour answer actually resonates with me to some degree. It is not my position but I get it and think it would work in an ideal world without corrupted officials. As it stands, I see the less advanced technology thriving for longer than it should, for example fossil fuels today are not being replaced at a pace that would align with what the market demands. More and better government programs to increase sustainable energy would lead to breakthroughs, more (better) jobs, and a healthier economy for 99%. Musk's space-internet would be pushed against for years or decades because of entrenched institutions. How do you feel about the effect killing net neutrality would have on small businesses that can't afford the fast lanes that their larger competitors would use?
- pvnick 10y agoYou're right - government officials (not necessarily corrupt even) write legislation influenced by lobbyists who are hired by the big guys to protect their own interests. All legislation is influenced by lobbyists. It's just the name of the game. More legislation and regulation generally has the opposite effect of getting in the way of innovation and market efficiency. Regarding sustainable energy - a lot of government funding is already going to that in the form of research grants awarded to people in academia looking at those things. We can increase funding, but that's already happening. The surest way to kill those chances would be, for example, create a carbon tax which has the effects of getting government dependent on revenue coming from fossil fuel emissions, and introduces incentives to ensure that revenue source continues. Regarding your last question - I don't know. Haven't done the research. But I have read enough of classical economics to know that it's probably not a big deal - or if it is an issue that it will be short-lived. If the consumer is sufficiently fucked then it is the corporation who will have shot themselves in the foot. Law of supply and demand in action
- quicksilverFTW 10y agoCrawl back in your hole.
- dang 10y agoCommenting like this will get your account banned. Personal attacks are not allowed here, regardless of how wrong the other person is. Please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14249291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14249291 and marked it off-topic.
- tehabe 10y agoThe word "freedom" is really overused, and nobody seems to have an idea what it actually means. This will get ISP more freedom to charge their customers higher rates for the same service they enjoy today. I'm still a little bit jealous about what the city of Stockholm did. They started to built a dark fiber network, which ISPs can use to get to their customers. The result is, more competition and lower prices. Essentially net neutrality on layer 1.
- OpIPO 10y ago#OpIPO - Anonymous Operation IPO - Official response https://pastebin.com/n9KQQPZi https://pastebin.com/n9KQQPZi
- mikehollinger 10y agoIt's hard for me to empathize (in the literal sense of the word) with someone who dislikes net neutrality. What're the reasons / justifications for why the current laws and rules are wrong or insufficient?
- unclesaamm 10y agoThe purporse of anti-net neutrality advocates is basically to make the web less free so their clients (large telcoms) can capture more profits. I think big money realized fairly late in the game that the Internet's decentralized structure makes it difficult to perform rent-seeking, so any legislation that tends to centralize the Internet is viewed as a pro by these people. In other words, it's the same effect you see in every other field -- special interest lobbyists for large corporations want to rewrite the rules to suit them, at the expense of ordinary people's privacy and a democratic Internet
- derekp7 10y agoFrom what I understand, there is the concern that potential new technologies wouldn't be allowed under a strict interpretation of net neutrality. For a hypothetical example: go back in time when voice over IP first came on the scene. At that time there wasn't enough excess bandwidth to guarantee voice packets would arrive on time. Now you could prioritize voice traffic, but you'd have to either charge a fee, or find a way to positively identify voice data (otherwise everyone would turn on the voice QOS flag in all their apps even if they didn't need it). This would then not be net neutral. Of course, today there is enough excessive bandwidth that voice traffic doesn't need to be prioritized. But what about an application where an expert doctor is controlling a robotic surgical instrument from cross country? Would a special service class for those packets be allowed under net neutrality laws? But the real reason, is that as soon as there is additional bandwidth available, technology finds a way to consume all of it and then some. So the ISPs want to be able to de-prioritize some heavy bandwidth users (such as bittorrent), and/or give higher priority to traffic with paying users like Netflix (for a toll fee, of course), or their own video services.
- pseudalopex 10y ago
- pvnick 10y agoOnly children cry for grownups when they don't get their way. If you receive enough value from your internet and cell phone that you are willing to spend $50/month for those services, then that is what they are worth.
- caconym_ 10y agoIf your child is dying and I have a medicine that can save him but my price is that you hand over your life's savings and become a slave in my salt mines for the rest of your life, and you do it because you don't want your kid to die, was it worth it? Or is there something else going on? ISPs are a cartel protected by corrupt politicians. Let's sort that out before we start claiming that the free market is working and these services are priced appropriately and fairly.
- pvnick 10y agoFirst question - yes, duh. Except it is unrealistic in the context of free market because some other guy will just copy your drug and sell it to me for the cost of half of my life savings. A silly argument you have made. Second paragraph - get the corrupt politicians out of the picture and the problem solves itself.
- caconym_ 10y ago> Except it is unrealistic in the context of free market because some other guy will just copy your drug and sell it to me for the cost of half of my life savings. A silly argument you have made. What if I have a patent on it? ;) > get the corrupt politicians out of the picture and the problem solves itself. Sounds great! Let's do that!
- hfsktr 10y agoExcept the second guy promised he wouldn't sell you his medicine because he only sells to the people in a different town. Many places have 1 decent internet provider with no opportunity to change providers. Some places have an option if you downgrade significantly enough.
- dang 10y agoNet neutrality is an important topic, but some politicians sponsoring a bill generally doesn't count as a substantive story. The vast majority of proposed bills go nowhere.
- forgotmysn 10y agoYou raise an important point, and if this event took place in isolation, I might even agree with your sentiment. However, this, in combination with FCC Chairman Pai's recent actions demonstrate an organized, concerted effort to deregulate Internet Service Provision. And with the GOP in control of both houses and the Executive branch, combined with their desperate need for political wins, makes me concerned that they will aim for the low-hanging, and highly profitable, fruit.
- dang 10y agoFCC/Pai is getting thoroughly treated elsewhere, and the rest is political sausage-making.
- forgotmysn 10y agotrue, but its looking like the GOP is getting ready to have a bbq
- slaymaker1907 10y agoThe GOP really are the best a double speak.
- _archon_ 10y agoWhy do we call proposed Acts by the name their creators gave them, instead of choosing a more appropriate (and accurate) name? "Internet freedom Act" - Empowering Telecom Companies Act "SOPA" - Criminalize Ordinary Internet Behavior Act "Patriot Act" - Remove Guaranteed Rights In Favor Of Empowering Central Authority Act "Affordable Care Act" - Essentially Romneycare etc. Why should these names not have colloquially adjudicated corrections applied to them the way anything else does?
- unityByFreedom 10y agoCall your reps, and ask your friends to do the same. The Voices app will let you call your reps directly, https://tryvoices.com https://tryvoices.com