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I think we have reached a sufficiently small statement, that all traffic should be treated fairly, that we agree. But I still don't think it is appropriate or

I think we have reached a sufficiently small statement, that all traffic should be treated fairly, that we agree. But I still don't think it is appropriate or even productively useful for the federal government to mandate this and declare what is fair. And ISPs should have the right to use their position to get payment agreements with: 1. the end consumers, 2. intermediaries, per peer networks--thank you for calling these to my attention, and 3. from the domain of origin if serving that domain from external ISPs incurs a higher than average costs for the local ISP. National scale network neutrality laws would make 3 very difficult and I absolutely do not think selectively applying 3 to only the flushest companies is wrong. Why not let cities, who already have to have plans for integrating cable into roadways be the regulatory/ownership entities?

wvenable 9y ago
From your list, it's only #3 that makes no sense. The traffic is coming from their peer (which could have passed through dozens of networks) -- the ultimate source of that data is immaterial. There are no higher costs per domain for the ISP. There is just bytes and their quantity. Since ISPs already charge for quantity of data, there is no scenario where charging for the origin domain could possibly be fair. It is by definition unfair. The fact is that nearly all service providers in North America are monopolies (or duopolies). This is the reason the federal government needs to be involved. There are no market forces to correct for being unfairly treated by your ISP. You literally have no choice. If your ISP were to charge you $5 more to visit hacker news, what could you do? What if hacker news had to pay your ISP $5? What if they just didn't bother?
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Consider an ISP at node 0 receiving data from the domain naway.com through the cheapest path isp1, isp2,...isp n. But of all the members in the chain, isp0 only has a business relationship with isp1, so the price that isp1 advertises to isp0 has to be the cumulative sum of distribution costs charged by isp's 1-n. Because naway.com's server is so far away, it could cost isp0 more than average to serve this data. If there is a lot of traffic from naway.com, the ISP could compensate by raising prices on all end consumers, throttling the speed to reduce demand, or negotiating with naway.com for extra $$. Note that isp0 would only bother to do this with domains of sufficient size. If you had regional ISPs answerable democratically to the city entity that owned the roads, your ISP would be fighting for your lower prices and it would still be important to the ISP to provide access to these in demand sites. Net Neutrality seems to try to correct a symptom of a federally created, legal monopoly's concentration of power with more federal regulation. In the same way that the FCC allocates airwaves for the entire US, we need to acknowledge that the natural size for a ISP monopoly is the size of the government entity that owns the streets. Open protocols and market forces could be used for the rest of the network.
  - wvenable 9y ago
    This has been a great discussion and has really helped me to come to a good mental model about explaining net neutrality. > Because naway.com's server is so far away, it could cost isp0 more than average to serve this data. The distance makes no difference to the Internet. I'm not sure how much better to explain how the Internet works but you do keep inventing new ideas to support the idea of an ISP charging a specific domain but it has no basis in reality of how the Internet works. > If there is a lot of traffic from naway.com, the ISP could compensate by raising prices on all end consumers, throttling the speed to reduce demand, or negotiating with naway.com for extra $$. There is absolutely no traffic from naway.com coming to ISP0. All the traffic comes from ISP1. And that traffic is an aggregate of all the traffic requested by ISP0 customers. This is arguing about charging more for different tap water based on the source reservoir; at some point it's all just water. Every router reads a bunch of fiber lines, copies that data, and aggregates that output to another line. Both sides agree on how much data they are willing to accept and the router drops anything over that amount. It's really not feasible for an ISP to have a business relationship with every possible end point. > Note that isp0 would only bother to do this with domains of sufficient size. That is the problem. In effect, only large domains would either suffer or get the benefits of these business relationships. Would Facebook ever be possible in a world where Myspace had exclusive relationships with all the major ISPs? Your ISP is effectively picking the winners and losers on the Internet by whom it chooses to do business with. > Net Neutrality seems to try to correct a symptom of a federally created, legal monopoly's concentration of power with more federal regulation. One could argue that monopoly concentration in providing Internet is a natural physical consequence of the world. There is only so much right of way, so much wireless spectrum, etc. In a situation where it's physically impossible to start a new ISP, competition is going to be very limited. Perfect is the enemy of good; you want perfection but net neutrality is a good solution to today's problems. No one is attempting to create a new concept here; net neutrality simply attempts to codify into law what has been convention for most of the existence of the Internet. It's what allowed the Internet to thrive when so many closed networks failed. Arguing against legislation for legislation sake begs the question that all legislation is bad by default. But that's an entirely different argument. The argument here is whether or not net neutrality is bad policy and I would say that it's entirely not. You have not found an argument, based on the physical reality of how the Internet works, where net neutrality has any real negative consequences. It absolutely doesn't have any for consumers or Internet businesses. And ISPs have been doing brisk business for the last 20 years without issue. > we need to acknowledge that the natural size for a ISP monopoly is the size of the government entity that owns the streets. The only solution to this problem of monopoly ISPs is more federal regulation. But as you are against federal regulation in one form you should also be against it here as well.
wvenable 9y ago
> Why not let cities, who already have to have plans for integrating cable into roadways be the regulatory/ownership entities? If these things haven't already been killed; they will be. Almost all municipal broadband projects are dead or dying. It some states it's now illegal for cities to provide broadband services. I would totally advocate for this but since the broadband monopoly effectively controls the legislature through aggressive lobbying this is a massive dead end.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Perhaps everyone is fighting net neutrality on the wrong battleground. Why more pessimism about local corruption than national level corruption? At least the cities and states must compete.
  - wvenable 9y ago
    Why fight on only one battleground? I say fight on all battlegrounds. Good policy is good policy. Unfortunately, cities are affected by state laws and states are affected by national laws and national organizations.
    - benlorenzetti 9y ago
      Which would be a good reason to not make further national laws, and indeed repeal some. The states and cities can compete. Let a few pull ahead for a few years and the citizens will demand their cities follow suit.

wvenable 9y ago

From your list, it's only #3 that makes no sense. The traffic is coming from their peer (which could have passed through dozens of networks) -- the ultimate source of that data is immaterial. There are no higher costs per domain for the ISP. There is just bytes and their quantity. Since ISPs already charge for quantity of data, there is no scenario where charging for the origin domain could possibly be fair. It is by definition unfair. The fact is that nearly all service providers in North America are monopolies (or duopolies). This is the reason the federal government needs to be involved. There are no market forces to correct for being unfairly treated by your ISP. You literally have no choice. If your ISP were to charge you $5 more to visit hacker news, what could you do? What if hacker news had to pay your ISP $5? What if they just didn't bother?

benlorenzetti 9y ago
Consider an ISP at node 0 receiving data from the domain naway.com through the cheapest path isp1, isp2,...isp n. But of all the members in the chain, isp0 only has a business relationship with isp1, so the price that isp1 advertises to isp0 has to be the cumulative sum of distribution costs charged by isp's 1-n. Because naway.com's server is so far away, it could cost isp0 more than average to serve this data. If there is a lot of traffic from naway.com, the ISP could compensate by raising prices on all end consumers, throttling the speed to reduce demand, or negotiating with naway.com for extra $$. Note that isp0 would only bother to do this with domains of sufficient size. If you had regional ISPs answerable democratically to the city entity that owned the roads, your ISP would be fighting for your lower prices and it would still be important to the ISP to provide access to these in demand sites. Net Neutrality seems to try to correct a symptom of a federally created, legal monopoly's concentration of power with more federal regulation. In the same way that the FCC allocates airwaves for the entire US, we need to acknowledge that the natural size for a ISP monopoly is the size of the government entity that owns the streets. Open protocols and market forces could be used for the rest of the network.
- wvenable 9y ago
  This has been a great discussion and has really helped me to come to a good mental model about explaining net neutrality. > Because naway.com's server is so far away, it could cost isp0 more than average to serve this data. The distance makes no difference to the Internet. I'm not sure how much better to explain how the Internet works but you do keep inventing new ideas to support the idea of an ISP charging a specific domain but it has no basis in reality of how the Internet works. > If there is a lot of traffic from naway.com, the ISP could compensate by raising prices on all end consumers, throttling the speed to reduce demand, or negotiating with naway.com for extra $$. There is absolutely no traffic from naway.com coming to ISP0. All the traffic comes from ISP1. And that traffic is an aggregate of all the traffic requested by ISP0 customers. This is arguing about charging more for different tap water based on the source reservoir; at some point it's all just water. Every router reads a bunch of fiber lines, copies that data, and aggregates that output to another line. Both sides agree on how much data they are willing to accept and the router drops anything over that amount. It's really not feasible for an ISP to have a business relationship with every possible end point. > Note that isp0 would only bother to do this with domains of sufficient size. That is the problem. In effect, only large domains would either suffer or get the benefits of these business relationships. Would Facebook ever be possible in a world where Myspace had exclusive relationships with all the major ISPs? Your ISP is effectively picking the winners and losers on the Internet by whom it chooses to do business with. > Net Neutrality seems to try to correct a symptom of a federally created, legal monopoly's concentration of power with more federal regulation. One could argue that monopoly concentration in providing Internet is a natural physical consequence of the world. There is only so much right of way, so much wireless spectrum, etc. In a situation where it's physically impossible to start a new ISP, competition is going to be very limited. Perfect is the enemy of good; you want perfection but net neutrality is a good solution to today's problems. No one is attempting to create a new concept here; net neutrality simply attempts to codify into law what has been convention for most of the existence of the Internet. It's what allowed the Internet to thrive when so many closed networks failed. Arguing against legislation for legislation sake begs the question that all legislation is bad by default. But that's an entirely different argument. The argument here is whether or not net neutrality is bad policy and I would say that it's entirely not. You have not found an argument, based on the physical reality of how the Internet works, where net neutrality has any real negative consequences. It absolutely doesn't have any for consumers or Internet businesses. And ISPs have been doing brisk business for the last 20 years without issue. > we need to acknowledge that the natural size for a ISP monopoly is the size of the government entity that owns the streets. The only solution to this problem of monopoly ISPs is more federal regulation. But as you are against federal regulation in one form you should also be against it here as well.

wvenable 9y ago

> Why not let cities, who already have to have plans for integrating cable into roadways be the regulatory/ownership entities? If these things haven't already been killed; they will be. Almost all municipal broadband projects are dead or dying. It some states it's now illegal for cities to provide broadband services. I would totally advocate for this but since the broadband monopoly effectively controls the legislature through aggressive lobbying this is a massive dead end.

benlorenzetti 9y ago
Perhaps everyone is fighting net neutrality on the wrong battleground. Why more pessimism about local corruption than national level corruption? At least the cities and states must compete.
- wvenable 9y ago
  Why fight on only one battleground? I say fight on all battlegrounds. Good policy is good policy. Unfortunately, cities are affected by state laws and states are affected by national laws and national organizations.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    Which would be a good reason to not make further national laws, and indeed repeal some. The states and cities can compete. Let a few pull ahead for a few years and the citizens will demand their cities follow suit.