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I want to say this first: I love net neutrality and I support it 100%. That said, I think this battle will go on forever until either - We have a decentralize

I want to say this first: I love net neutrality and I support it 100%. That said, I think this battle will go on forever until either - We have a decentralized network anybody can plug into without ISPs (mesh net) or - Cities build their own fiber infrastructure (or 4G towers for rural areas) and rent it out to companies. Cable/DSL become a thing of the past, and you connect via radio/public wifi/direct fiber. This battle is starting to get ridiculous. The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market. So let's give them one, on public infrastructure. Either that, or make the internet some kind of mesh-connected network that routes around blocks/slowdowns. Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection, and there's absolutely no reason, at all, to get rid of it until we either have a viable marketplace or we don't need ISPs..

Jtsummers 9y ago
A third option: Standard net, but everything end-to-end encrypted including what protocol is being used. If this information can't be discerned (easily), then priority cannot be given or taken away for any given data, only for certain data sources/destinations. If two computers (could be mobile devices, PC, server, doesn't matter) have an encrypted channel connecting them then anything could be transmitted across that channel without anyone but the endpoints knowing what it is. Now, all this traffic could be slowed. But if it becomes near ubiquitous, then only source/destination would be useful for determining throttling/accelerating data.
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  If the destination is encrypted, how does the ISP know where to send the packets? You could use some form of garlic/onion routing (Tor/i2p/etc) but that's really slow generally, and there's a decent chance the ISP at the end of the chain will be in the US anyway (and can still throttle).
- woah 9y ago
  Net neutrality advocates are worried precisely about isps being able to discriminate by source or destination. Additionally, most traffic is already e2e encrypted. You just used the system you were proposing to post that comment.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    I agree. But source/destination isn't the only way that ISPs discriminate. They can also discriminate based on the type/protocol of content (when revealed). See the way they used traffic shaping with bittorrent, what was that 8 years ago now? That was communication between peers, potentially within the same ISP. e2e encryption mitigates the impact ISPs can have when looking at the protocol/contents. But there is still work to be done to prevent them (without regulation) from having an impact based on source/destination without going the TOR (or similar) route.
    - curun1r 9y ago
      Begging your pardon, but net neutrality isn't and has never been about traffic discrimination by type. That kind of traffic shaping is not only acceptable, it's desirable. Services with real-time requirements (VOIP, streaming, etc) can and should have priority over non-real-time services. I'm sick of people polluting the net neutrality debate with this misunderstanding and discussion on a site as knowledgeable as HN should be better. Net neutrality only covers discrimination based on source/destination and we need to push back against upset torrenters muddying the waters.
easygenes 9y ago
Don't forget about the SpaceX satellite grid going up.
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  This would be a decent competitive alternative if it truly delivers. My concern would be that this is, once again, a private company on private infrastructure. So although we've added another competitor to the mix (for a grand total of between 1 and 3 in most areas) we would still rely on heavy government regulation to protect Net Neutrality. I don't trust any companies at this point to keep my best interests in mind, whether it's run by Musk or not.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Yes, it is a private company on private infrastructure, but at least it would be competition for existing infrastructure where it exists. That's better than nothing.
- falcolas 9y ago
  If it's more reliable than satellite TV has proven to be, and has a reasonable latency, then yeah. Another competitor will be quite welcome, especially in rural areas.
ianai 9y ago
I, for one, vote for the mesh network.
- guelo 9y ago
  The lag time, and probably bandwidth, on a mesh, especially a wifi one, makes it unacceptable for many uses.
  - ianai 9y ago
    That sounds like an implementation-bound constraint. Many technologies start out unacceptable for certain uses and mature to competency.
    - sp332 9y ago
      Adding lots of hops is going to slow down the connection. That's a limitation of the speed of light.
      - progval 9y ago
        On the other end, with a mesh network, your packets are less likely to go through the whole state/continent to reach a node in the same town as you.
  - orthecreedence 9y ago
    This is what I figured as well, but I also wonder if that's just because the devices we use haven't been built for this. In other words, if public interest shifted to some kind of mesh network, perhaps the devices could be improved enough to support the load. That said, I don't know much about mesh networking at all, the routing methods it uses, or if it's even possible to support what I'm talking about. It also has to contend with the existing, established infrastructure so probably won't see many large investments any time soon. I still think it would be a decent alternative to what we have now if it could overcome bandwidth/latency limitations.
  - russdpale 9y ago
durandal1 9y ago
My Stockholm apartment had multiple ISPs competing for service over fiber laid down by a state-owned company. In 2007 this meant symmetric 100mbit for about $30/month.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Crazy how social structure distort reality.
- mulletbum 9y ago
  I live in the country and have this right now. 100mb for $50 or 1000mb for $100.
  - m3Lith 9y ago
    Goddamn. In our area it's 10€ for 100 and 20€ for 1Gb.
  - rglover 9y ago
    Buhhhhhhh. Lucky.
  - nulagrithom 9y ago
    Where I'm at in the US, we have a Public Utility District that's "owned" by the city (top position is an elected position too). They've run fiber everywhere and leased it to local ISPs. I can get gigabit for under $90/mo. Lowest tier is 100x10 for under $50. One of our local ISPs even built a real nice wireless mesh network with a fiber "backbone". You can get low-latency 35x2 service way up in the hills of nowhere. It's amazing what happens when Internet is treated like a utility.
    - orthecreedence 9y ago
      Comcast HATES this one US city! (Sorry, had to) What area do you live in? I've heard of cities trying to do things like this and ISPs clamping down and suing the city to stop any sort of public infrastructure. I'd be interested to read about if/how the people in your area had to deal with this.
westbywest 9y ago
Access to useful wireless bands for mesh topologies is a hurdle. The unlicensed bands (e.g. wifi) are such precisely because they're generally junk w/r/t to propagation and atmospheric absorption. The licensed bands are unsurprisingly gated by license holders in a way to enforce exclusive access, which often does not correspond to full utilization of the available bandwidth. Especially so with license holders than just squat on their bands indefinitely.
killin_dan 9y ago
Wow, turning the free market argument into a shilling strawman is the most innovative misunderstanding of economics I've ever seen!
mnm1 9y ago
Totally agree, but I think the problem is that in America, a monopoly or duopoly is considered a viable market. What we need are anti trust laws and prosecutions. I guess that doesn't bring as much money in as letting everyone get ripped off. But hey, "let the market decide," said no one with a brain.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  No, you need a physical and legal infrastructure that will make a viable market. Basically, have the state own the cable, and rent those to ISPs by the bandwidth. No bulk order, and no minimum area or minimum bandwidth, so players of any size (including 10 nerds who want to be their own ISP) can enter the market. Then you can "let the market decide". It will decide very differently from what it is currently deciding.
  - BenjiWiebe 9y ago
    I've got a cousin in California who started a wireless ISP. They've been growing like crazy. Offering only 10Mbps. (No I don't know how this fits into the discussion either)
weberc2 9y ago
> Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection, and there's absolutely no reason, at all, to get rid of it until we either have a viable marketplace or we don't need ISPs.. On the other hand, we likely won't ever get either until it becomes sufficiently inconvenient for a huge swath of the first world. Necessity being the mother of invention and whatnot. Personally, I would prefer that the internet is governed by the tech it's built on and not governments, and I can live with hypothetically throttled Netflix (oh the humanity!) in the interim. I'm sure my opinion won't be popular.
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  > I can live with hypothetically throttled Netflix Sure, Netflix, boohoo. But what about when Comcast blocks savenetneutrality.org? This throttling argument comes up a lot, but it's just the first small step in a logical progression that allows big corporations to censor anything they don't like. Think, the private version of the Great Firewall of China. But it's ok, because the free market did it, right? I see your point: things most likely won't change until they get really bad for a good number of people. However, things can get much much worse without John Q Public giving much of a shit. That's why NN is really important now and we can't just let things devolve in the hopes it will spur some bigger shift.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    I'm fine with NN legislation, but it seems like so much of the pro-NN rhetoric even among intelligent people on HN is fear mongering and slippery slope. ISPs have been unregulated for decades and the tales of censorship are scant; certainly not deserving of such apocalyptic rhetoric. In fact, the only censorship I can imagine would be the least controversial--censorship of far-right sites like Stormfront. > But it's ok, because the free market did it, right? Is anyone making this argument? Why is this particular straw man invoked so often? I don't pretend that ISPs are beholden to the market in the same way as other services, but neither can they go around censoring with market impunity.
- s73ver 9y ago
  And I absolutely can not live with ISPs having control over content and it's speed.
pitaj 9y ago
> The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market. Oh, trust me, we understand that very well. What we want to do is expand competition by making it easier to compete. This largest barrier to competition at this time is local municipalities, which is a good place for the FCC to step in and tell them to back off and let the ISPs install their fiber. I support the FCC regulating governmental entities, not so much private ones. Net neutrality should, if enforced by government, be legislated, not initiated by a regulatory agency. This issue was brought up by people on both sides of the issue for different reasons. On the pro- side because they new a regime change would just undo it, and on the con- side because they thought such a large change was unfit for unelected bureaucrats to decide. The idea that we should introduce more regulation in order to fix bad historic policy is like government asking for a temporary tax. A long time ago my state asked for a new temporary tax for school renovations. Guess what, that tax never went away. It's the same thing with regulations. They just keep piling up.
- arcticbull 9y ago
  (1) The FCC exists (almost?) solely to regulate private and not public entities. (2) There's no evidence that local municipalities running infrastructure and allowing telecoms to compete on services instead will reduce competition. It will likely increase it by lowering barrier to entry, as you can see all over Europe. Can you cite evidence of municipalities refusing to allow fiber installs? I did a lot of research and found nothing. I've only found the inverse, private companies lobbying to prevent municipalities from running fiber. [1] (3) This kind of regulation is exactly the purview of the FCC. That's why they have a Title I and Title II. They already impose this exact kind of regulation on landline phone companies. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/03/cable-companies-want-to-block-cities-from-building-fiber-networks-heres-how-the-fcc-could-intervene/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/03...
  - pitaj 9y ago
    (1) I know that but it doesn't matter to me (2) I wasn't talking about "local municipalities running infrastructure" I was talking about them being used to prevent competition as you specifically gave an example of. (3) I know, but the application of that regulation is at the discretion of the FCC, which, as we've seen, can be easily swayed the opposite way. That's why its better to have legislation.
Denzel 9y ago
I'm very interested in and motivated towards mounting an attempt to bring munifiber to my city. Few things have been bugging me though: what vectors do ISPs compete upon if they're all renting the lines at the same price? How would one be able to offer similar speeds for less price? What value-added services can they possibly offer? If someone could answer these questions for me, then I'll have the ammo to seriously consider bringing this to my local legislators. I've tried searching the internet and I can't find any detailed pieces, they all speak at a high, fluffy level.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  There is a cost to those lines, and a minimum cost you can lease them to the ISP. This applies to ISP owned lines just the same. The difference is, you cannot hide that cost, and everyone is put at the same level. (Make sure there is no bulk offer, though, that would kill small ISPs). Now the ISPs can compete on customer support, neutrality, even privacy. Good support costs money, so that will be a consumer choice. Same goes for TV multicast streaming. The rest however cannot beat full neutrality and zero spying, so I expect they'll become the new baseline. And if it means all the big ISP die a painful death (with unemployment and all), then good riddance: they will be replaced by smaller ISPs, that will take their customers and their employees. And the resulting competition should end most monopoly practices.
  - Denzel 9y ago
    Awesome, thank you, that makes a lot of sense. So basically, if I understand correctly, it looks like munifiber would reorganize high-capex costs (buying and laying the fiber) into more manageable opex costs (renting/leasing capacity on fiber laid by the city). And furthermore, by normalizing the playing field, many different ISPs can sprout up and compete effectively on what truly matters to the end-user. That would be fantastic. If anyone is interested in talking about bringing a FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) project to fruition in a 100k+ pop. city in PA, then please reach out to me. Email in profile. Now is absolutely the right time. We're in the midst of a mayoral election and over the past 7 years or so we've had a NIZ (neighborhood improvement zone) granted by the state with the specific intention of doing things like this. Two stadiums have been built, along with numerous office and residential buildings, and we're in the process of building an entire waterfront. Laying munifiber would fit right in, and I think we could get it done with a proper proposal. I need some added expertise around estimating the cost of the project. I can build and write the proposal effectively with a solid cost basis. If anyone can help me with estimating the buildout cost of a muni-FTTH network, then once again please email me (email in profile). Thank you!
cmurf 9y ago
>Cities build their own fiber infrastructure Republicans support government intervention at both the federal and state level to disallow cities from doing this.
justifier 9y ago
How does a mesh net cross oceans?
supremesaboteur 9y ago
> This battle is starting to get ridiculous. The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market Why is there no market ? This is the kind of statement a shill would make > Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection No, first you prove this is not a problem solvable by the market
mSparks 9y ago
Taking a devils advocate position for a moment. I wonder if deminishing "net neutrality" will be "yet another nail" in the copyright industries coffin. The closest analogy I can think of to a historic non neutral network is AOL. And we (should) all know how that worked out.
Moru 9y ago
I think you are right, the free market just don't exist if one ISP owns the network to your home. My house in a tiny village in the north of Sweden had 100 Mbps up/down 15 years ago. My apartment in a slightly bigger town (2000 people) had 10/10 Mbps 20(?) years ago. All this was never above $35 per month. Right now we pay $28 for 100/100 Mbps including phone. And yes, it actually measures to 100/100 Mbps if you test it. I can freely choose between five providers with the click of a button.
turc1656 9y ago
There is absolutely a reason to get rid of it. Net "neutrality", as currently implemented, attacks the peering arrangements that were put into the spotlight by Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings. He famously said that ISP's were holding his members "hostage" until they paid up. Then the net neutrality rules changed that. But if you look at what Hastings wants you'll see why it's a bunch of crap. Peering agreements exist for larger entities to trade bandwidth without having to keep paying each other for it and then have that count as income. It's much easier, for example, to have entity A send X TB of data to entity B and have entity B send X+Y TB to entity A and instead of each of them charging the other for the total bandwidth, they instead agree to just have B pay for Y and A pays nothing. Or if Y is small enough, they just consider it a wash because in the next month/cycle A might send more. What Netflix does is 99.99% all one way traffic. And he wants to send it for free. Currently he's getting away with that explicitly because of net neutrality rules. Otherwise, Netflix was facing huge transmission fees - and rightfully so. It is estimated that during peak hours Netflix consumes more than 1/3 of all internet bandwidth during peak hours, which is insane. Hastings wants this for free. And currently, he's getting it. So if the ISP's aren't getting paid for all that extra usage, who's paying for it? The ISP are increasing the cost of their plans to account for this since Netflix isn't paying them. This means that non-Netflix customers are subsidizing the cost of the service for all Netflix streaming users!
- opo 9y ago
  >...And he wants to send it for free. No, I am pretty sure that Netflix doesn’t have free access to the Internet. (Just like the customers who request content from Netflix already paid their ISP for access to the Internet.)
balthamael 9y ago
From what I understand this issue is ridiculous is the States. I also live in Sweden and in my town 1Gb internet is included in my rent, using the city's network that had basically built fiber in the entire town. On top of that we have tons of ISPs to choose from, some the smaller ones focus on security and anonymity for example. In contrast most places in the US have no competition at all, which is kinda ironic since the US is the birthplace of the Internet. I have come to believe the there is no right or wrong absolute answer in regards to markets. Some need regulation, others don't. Internet does though, since it is already a vital part of the modern world. It's not just for porn or games like many old US politicians want to believe. The internet has to be protected from greed.

Jtsummers 9y ago

A third option: Standard net, but everything end-to-end encrypted including what protocol is being used. If this information can't be discerned (easily), then priority cannot be given or taken away for any given data, only for certain data sources/destinations. If two computers (could be mobile devices, PC, server, doesn't matter) have an encrypted channel connecting them then anything could be transmitted across that channel without anyone but the endpoints knowing what it is. Now, all this traffic could be slowed. But if it becomes near ubiquitous, then only source/destination would be useful for determining throttling/accelerating data.

orthecreedence 9y ago
If the destination is encrypted, how does the ISP know where to send the packets? You could use some form of garlic/onion routing (Tor/i2p/etc) but that's really slow generally, and there's a decent chance the ISP at the end of the chain will be in the US anyway (and can still throttle).
woah 9y ago
Net neutrality advocates are worried precisely about isps being able to discriminate by source or destination. Additionally, most traffic is already e2e encrypted. You just used the system you were proposing to post that comment.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  I agree. But source/destination isn't the only way that ISPs discriminate. They can also discriminate based on the type/protocol of content (when revealed). See the way they used traffic shaping with bittorrent, what was that 8 years ago now? That was communication between peers, potentially within the same ISP. e2e encryption mitigates the impact ISPs can have when looking at the protocol/contents. But there is still work to be done to prevent them (without regulation) from having an impact based on source/destination without going the TOR (or similar) route.
  - curun1r 9y ago
    Begging your pardon, but net neutrality isn't and has never been about traffic discrimination by type. That kind of traffic shaping is not only acceptable, it's desirable. Services with real-time requirements (VOIP, streaming, etc) can and should have priority over non-real-time services. I'm sick of people polluting the net neutrality debate with this misunderstanding and discussion on a site as knowledgeable as HN should be better. Net neutrality only covers discrimination based on source/destination and we need to push back against upset torrenters muddying the waters.

easygenes 9y ago

Don't forget about the SpaceX satellite grid going up.

orthecreedence 9y ago
This would be a decent competitive alternative if it truly delivers. My concern would be that this is, once again, a private company on private infrastructure. So although we've added another competitor to the mix (for a grand total of between 1 and 3 in most areas) we would still rely on heavy government regulation to protect Net Neutrality. I don't trust any companies at this point to keep my best interests in mind, whether it's run by Musk or not.
- kbenson 9y ago
  Yes, it is a private company on private infrastructure, but at least it would be competition for existing infrastructure where it exists. That's better than nothing.
falcolas 9y ago
If it's more reliable than satellite TV has proven to be, and has a reasonable latency, then yeah. Another competitor will be quite welcome, especially in rural areas.

ianai 9y ago

I, for one, vote for the mesh network.

guelo 9y ago
The lag time, and probably bandwidth, on a mesh, especially a wifi one, makes it unacceptable for many uses.
- ianai 9y ago
  That sounds like an implementation-bound constraint. Many technologies start out unacceptable for certain uses and mature to competency.
  - sp332 9y ago
    Adding lots of hops is going to slow down the connection. That's a limitation of the speed of light.
    - progval 9y ago
      On the other end, with a mesh network, your packets are less likely to go through the whole state/continent to reach a node in the same town as you.
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  This is what I figured as well, but I also wonder if that's just because the devices we use haven't been built for this. In other words, if public interest shifted to some kind of mesh network, perhaps the devices could be improved enough to support the load. That said, I don't know much about mesh networking at all, the routing methods it uses, or if it's even possible to support what I'm talking about. It also has to contend with the existing, established infrastructure so probably won't see many large investments any time soon. I still think it would be a decent alternative to what we have now if it could overcome bandwidth/latency limitations.
- russdpale 9y ago

durandal1 9y ago

My Stockholm apartment had multiple ISPs competing for service over fiber laid down by a state-owned company. In 2007 this meant symmetric 100mbit for about $30/month.

agumonkey 9y ago
Crazy how social structure distort reality.
mulletbum 9y ago
I live in the country and have this right now. 100mb for $50 or 1000mb for $100.
- m3Lith 9y ago
  Goddamn. In our area it's 10€ for 100 and 20€ for 1Gb.
- rglover 9y ago
  Buhhhhhhh. Lucky.
- nulagrithom 9y ago
  Where I'm at in the US, we have a Public Utility District that's "owned" by the city (top position is an elected position too). They've run fiber everywhere and leased it to local ISPs. I can get gigabit for under $90/mo. Lowest tier is 100x10 for under $50. One of our local ISPs even built a real nice wireless mesh network with a fiber "backbone". You can get low-latency 35x2 service way up in the hills of nowhere. It's amazing what happens when Internet is treated like a utility.
  - orthecreedence 9y ago
    Comcast HATES this one US city! (Sorry, had to) What area do you live in? I've heard of cities trying to do things like this and ISPs clamping down and suing the city to stop any sort of public infrastructure. I'd be interested to read about if/how the people in your area had to deal with this.

westbywest 9y ago

Access to useful wireless bands for mesh topologies is a hurdle. The unlicensed bands (e.g. wifi) are such precisely because they're generally junk w/r/t to propagation and atmospheric absorption. The licensed bands are unsurprisingly gated by license holders in a way to enforce exclusive access, which often does not correspond to full utilization of the available bandwidth. Especially so with license holders than just squat on their bands indefinitely.

killin_dan 9y ago

Wow, turning the free market argument into a shilling strawman is the most innovative misunderstanding of economics I've ever seen!

mnm1 9y ago

Totally agree, but I think the problem is that in America, a monopoly or duopoly is considered a viable market. What we need are anti trust laws and prosecutions. I guess that doesn't bring as much money in as letting everyone get ripped off. But hey, "let the market decide," said no one with a brain.

loup-vaillant 9y ago
No, you need a physical and legal infrastructure that will make a viable market. Basically, have the state own the cable, and rent those to ISPs by the bandwidth. No bulk order, and no minimum area or minimum bandwidth, so players of any size (including 10 nerds who want to be their own ISP) can enter the market. Then you can "let the market decide". It will decide very differently from what it is currently deciding.
- BenjiWiebe 9y ago
  I've got a cousin in California who started a wireless ISP. They've been growing like crazy. Offering only 10Mbps. (No I don't know how this fits into the discussion either)

weberc2 9y ago

> Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection, and there's absolutely no reason, at all, to get rid of it until we either have a viable marketplace or we don't need ISPs.. On the other hand, we likely won't ever get either until it becomes sufficiently inconvenient for a huge swath of the first world. Necessity being the mother of invention and whatnot. Personally, I would prefer that the internet is governed by the tech it's built on and not governments, and I can live with hypothetically throttled Netflix (oh the humanity!) in the interim. I'm sure my opinion won't be popular.

orthecreedence 9y ago
> I can live with hypothetically throttled Netflix Sure, Netflix, boohoo. But what about when Comcast blocks savenetneutrality.org? This throttling argument comes up a lot, but it's just the first small step in a logical progression that allows big corporations to censor anything they don't like. Think, the private version of the Great Firewall of China. But it's ok, because the free market did it, right? I see your point: things most likely won't change until they get really bad for a good number of people. However, things can get much much worse without John Q Public giving much of a shit. That's why NN is really important now and we can't just let things devolve in the hopes it will spur some bigger shift.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I'm fine with NN legislation, but it seems like so much of the pro-NN rhetoric even among intelligent people on HN is fear mongering and slippery slope. ISPs have been unregulated for decades and the tales of censorship are scant; certainly not deserving of such apocalyptic rhetoric. In fact, the only censorship I can imagine would be the least controversial--censorship of far-right sites like Stormfront. > But it's ok, because the free market did it, right? Is anyone making this argument? Why is this particular straw man invoked so often? I don't pretend that ISPs are beholden to the market in the same way as other services, but neither can they go around censoring with market impunity.
s73ver 9y ago
And I absolutely can not live with ISPs having control over content and it's speed.

pitaj 9y ago

> The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market. Oh, trust me, we understand that very well. What we want to do is expand competition by making it easier to compete. This largest barrier to competition at this time is local municipalities, which is a good place for the FCC to step in and tell them to back off and let the ISPs install their fiber. I support the FCC regulating governmental entities, not so much private ones. Net neutrality should, if enforced by government, be legislated, not initiated by a regulatory agency. This issue was brought up by people on both sides of the issue for different reasons. On the pro- side because they new a regime change would just undo it, and on the con- side because they thought such a large change was unfit for unelected bureaucrats to decide. The idea that we should introduce more regulation in order to fix bad historic policy is like government asking for a temporary tax. A long time ago my state asked for a new temporary tax for school renovations. Guess what, that tax never went away. It's the same thing with regulations. They just keep piling up.

arcticbull 9y ago
(1) The FCC exists (almost?) solely to regulate private and not public entities. (2) There's no evidence that local municipalities running infrastructure and allowing telecoms to compete on services instead will reduce competition. It will likely increase it by lowering barrier to entry, as you can see all over Europe. Can you cite evidence of municipalities refusing to allow fiber installs? I did a lot of research and found nothing. I've only found the inverse, private companies lobbying to prevent municipalities from running fiber. [1] (3) This kind of regulation is exactly the purview of the FCC. That's why they have a Title I and Title II. They already impose this exact kind of regulation on landline phone companies. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/03/cable-companies-want-to-block-cities-from-building-fiber-networks-heres-how-the-fcc-could-intervene/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/03...
- pitaj 9y ago
  (1) I know that but it doesn't matter to me (2) I wasn't talking about "local municipalities running infrastructure" I was talking about them being used to prevent competition as you specifically gave an example of. (3) I know, but the application of that regulation is at the discretion of the FCC, which, as we've seen, can be easily swayed the opposite way. That's why its better to have legislation.

Denzel 9y ago

I'm very interested in and motivated towards mounting an attempt to bring munifiber to my city. Few things have been bugging me though: what vectors do ISPs compete upon if they're all renting the lines at the same price? How would one be able to offer similar speeds for less price? What value-added services can they possibly offer? If someone could answer these questions for me, then I'll have the ammo to seriously consider bringing this to my local legislators. I've tried searching the internet and I can't find any detailed pieces, they all speak at a high, fluffy level.

loup-vaillant 9y ago
There is a cost to those lines, and a minimum cost you can lease them to the ISP. This applies to ISP owned lines just the same. The difference is, you cannot hide that cost, and everyone is put at the same level. (Make sure there is no bulk offer, though, that would kill small ISPs). Now the ISPs can compete on customer support, neutrality, even privacy. Good support costs money, so that will be a consumer choice. Same goes for TV multicast streaming. The rest however cannot beat full neutrality and zero spying, so I expect they'll become the new baseline. And if it means all the big ISP die a painful death (with unemployment and all), then good riddance: they will be replaced by smaller ISPs, that will take their customers and their employees. And the resulting competition should end most monopoly practices.
- Denzel 9y ago
  Awesome, thank you, that makes a lot of sense. So basically, if I understand correctly, it looks like munifiber would reorganize high-capex costs (buying and laying the fiber) into more manageable opex costs (renting/leasing capacity on fiber laid by the city). And furthermore, by normalizing the playing field, many different ISPs can sprout up and compete effectively on what truly matters to the end-user. That would be fantastic. If anyone is interested in talking about bringing a FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) project to fruition in a 100k+ pop. city in PA, then please reach out to me. Email in profile. Now is absolutely the right time. We're in the midst of a mayoral election and over the past 7 years or so we've had a NIZ (neighborhood improvement zone) granted by the state with the specific intention of doing things like this. Two stadiums have been built, along with numerous office and residential buildings, and we're in the process of building an entire waterfront. Laying munifiber would fit right in, and I think we could get it done with a proper proposal. I need some added expertise around estimating the cost of the project. I can build and write the proposal effectively with a solid cost basis. If anyone can help me with estimating the buildout cost of a muni-FTTH network, then once again please email me (email in profile). Thank you!

cmurf 9y ago

>Cities build their own fiber infrastructure Republicans support government intervention at both the federal and state level to disallow cities from doing this.

justifier 9y ago

How does a mesh net cross oceans?

supremesaboteur 9y ago

> This battle is starting to get ridiculous. The "let the market decide" shills don't seem to understand there's no market Why is there no market ? This is the kind of statement a shill would make > Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer protection No, first you prove this is not a problem solvable by the market

mSparks 9y ago

Taking a devils advocate position for a moment. I wonder if deminishing "net neutrality" will be "yet another nail" in the copyright industries coffin. The closest analogy I can think of to a historic non neutral network is AOL. And we (should) all know how that worked out.

Moru 9y ago

I think you are right, the free market just don't exist if one ISP owns the network to your home. My house in a tiny village in the north of Sweden had 100 Mbps up/down 15 years ago. My apartment in a slightly bigger town (2000 people) had 10/10 Mbps 20(?) years ago. All this was never above $35 per month. Right now we pay $28 for 100/100 Mbps including phone. And yes, it actually measures to 100/100 Mbps if you test it. I can freely choose between five providers with the click of a button.

turc1656 9y ago

There is absolutely a reason to get rid of it. Net "neutrality", as currently implemented, attacks the peering arrangements that were put into the spotlight by Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings. He famously said that ISP's were holding his members "hostage" until they paid up. Then the net neutrality rules changed that. But if you look at what Hastings wants you'll see why it's a bunch of crap. Peering agreements exist for larger entities to trade bandwidth without having to keep paying each other for it and then have that count as income. It's much easier, for example, to have entity A send X TB of data to entity B and have entity B send X+Y TB to entity A and instead of each of them charging the other for the total bandwidth, they instead agree to just have B pay for Y and A pays nothing. Or if Y is small enough, they just consider it a wash because in the next month/cycle A might send more. What Netflix does is 99.99% all one way traffic. And he wants to send it for free. Currently he's getting away with that explicitly because of net neutrality rules. Otherwise, Netflix was facing huge transmission fees - and rightfully so. It is estimated that during peak hours Netflix consumes more than 1/3 of all internet bandwidth during peak hours, which is insane. Hastings wants this for free. And currently, he's getting it. So if the ISP's aren't getting paid for all that extra usage, who's paying for it? The ISP are increasing the cost of their plans to account for this since Netflix isn't paying them. This means that non-Netflix customers are subsidizing the cost of the service for all Netflix streaming users!

opo 9y ago
>...And he wants to send it for free. No, I am pretty sure that Netflix doesn’t have free access to the Internet. (Just like the customers who request content from Netflix already paid their ISP for access to the Internet.)

balthamael 9y ago

From what I understand this issue is ridiculous is the States. I also live in Sweden and in my town 1Gb internet is included in my rent, using the city's network that had basically built fiber in the entire town. On top of that we have tons of ISPs to choose from, some the smaller ones focus on security and anonymity for example. In contrast most places in the US have no competition at all, which is kinda ironic since the US is the birthplace of the Internet. I have come to believe the there is no right or wrong absolute answer in regards to markets. Some need regulation, others don't. Internet does though, since it is already a vital part of the modern world. It's not just for porn or games like many old US politicians want to believe. The internet has to be protected from greed.