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Honest question, but is Net Neutrality the answer to these problems? A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming po

Honest question, but is Net Neutrality the answer to these problems? A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. Is the same true of the Internet? I absolutely agree that ISPs that are also in the entertainment business shouldn't be allowed to prioritize their own data, but that seems to me an anti-trust problem, not a net neutrality problem. I also agree that ISPs should be regulated like utilities, but even utilities are allowed to limit service to maintain their infrastructure (see: rolling blackouts). Perhaps I simply do not understand NN and perhaps organizations haven't done a good job of explaining it, but I don't know that these problems are not best solved by the FTC, not the FCC.

syrrim 9y ago
ISPs are allowed to limit their services to prevent overuse. See: data caps and bandwidth limits. Net neutrality is concerned specifically with limits on usage that are not related to the amount of data used, but rather the information contained in that data.
Someone1234 9y ago
Imagine if a water company intentionally degraded the water supply coming into your home so that it was unsafe to consume but safe for most other needs. Then that same company offers to sell you safe to consume bottled water. There's nothing specifically immoral about selling safe bottled water. But as soon as you induce people to buy it, in this case by degrading the tap water, you're doing something wrong. Much like water companies, many areas either have no choice in ISP or can only choose between the big three who have very similar policies. Choice is in effect an illusion.
secabeen 9y ago
>A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. I don't think so. Water is a resource that can be stored. Bandwidth is a perishable good. If it's not used, you can't store the excess for use later. Billing based on peak usage or peak available bandwidth maps properly to provider costs, but billing based on usage doesn't.
dublinben 9y ago
Water is a terrible analogy. There is no marginal cost per bit for consumer internet access. The only scarce resource is peak utilization. The only reality-based and fair network management that residential ISPs can employ is rate-limiting during peak time. The stereotypical customer who only uses their connection to stream Netflix/YouTube during prime time is actually more costly than a heavy P2P user who transfers TBs of data in the off-hours overnight and in the early morning.
deleted 9y ago
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lightbyte 9y ago
>This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. Bits on the wire are not a scarce resource.
sbov 9y ago
Great, I can get behind an anti trust angle! Where's the link to the court case? I don't see any. Where's the link to the petition surrounding this? I don't see any. Where can I see that you, or the people pushing the anti trust angle, has developed any headway into pushing this sort of answer? I haven't seen any. If the government brings suit, and loses, will they/you continue to point to anti trust law? "The real problem is X" is fine and good if working on X is anywhere in sight. Yes, X may be the real problem, but generations can be born, grow old, and die while you're waiting for X to be solved.

syrrim 9y ago

ISPs are allowed to limit their services to prevent overuse. See: data caps and bandwidth limits. Net neutrality is concerned specifically with limits on usage that are not related to the amount of data used, but rather the information contained in that data.

Someone1234 9y ago

Imagine if a water company intentionally degraded the water supply coming into your home so that it was unsafe to consume but safe for most other needs. Then that same company offers to sell you safe to consume bottled water. There's nothing specifically immoral about selling safe bottled water. But as soon as you induce people to buy it, in this case by degrading the tap water, you're doing something wrong. Much like water companies, many areas either have no choice in ISP or can only choose between the big three who have very similar policies. Choice is in effect an illusion.

secabeen 9y ago

>A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. I don't think so. Water is a resource that can be stored. Bandwidth is a perishable good. If it's not used, you can't store the excess for use later. Billing based on peak usage or peak available bandwidth maps properly to provider costs, but billing based on usage doesn't.

dublinben 9y ago

Water is a terrible analogy. There is no marginal cost per bit for consumer internet access. The only scarce resource is peak utilization. The only reality-based and fair network management that residential ISPs can employ is rate-limiting during peak time. The stereotypical customer who only uses their connection to stream Netflix/YouTube during prime time is actually more costly than a heavy P2P user who transfers TBs of data in the off-hours overnight and in the early morning.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lightbyte 9y ago

>This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. Bits on the wire are not a scarce resource.

sbov 9y ago

Great, I can get behind an anti trust angle! Where's the link to the court case? I don't see any. Where's the link to the petition surrounding this? I don't see any. Where can I see that you, or the people pushing the anti trust angle, has developed any headway into pushing this sort of answer? I haven't seen any. If the government brings suit, and loses, will they/you continue to point to anti trust law? "The real problem is X" is fine and good if working on X is anywhere in sight. Yes, X may be the real problem, but generations can be born, grow old, and die while you're waiting for X to be solved.