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I may not be up on the latest news. My understanding from the best sources I can find detail a disagreement within the government about how net neutrality is i

by Kequc 9y ago

I may not be up on the latest news. My understanding from the best sources I can find detail a disagreement within the government about how net neutrality is implemented, not that it exists. Internet providers want to repeal net neutrality. Democrats are happy with the current implementation. Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. The fact that net neutrality can currently be repealed so easily suggests to me that putting it through congress is a good idea. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/01/what-trumps-new-fcc-chairman-thinks-about-net-neutrality/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/01...

ori_b 9y ago
> Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. I've heard this, but I still see no law on the books, and a very strong push for the FCC to remove the regulations that are currently in place. I'd believe them if I saw an effort to put a replacement plan in motion before repealing.
Danihan 9y ago
You could just be against government price controls in general..
- eecc 9y ago
  How does “government price control” relate to simply forbidding double sale? All NN does is to disallow ISP from tiering the internet and double dipping on both sides of the network. Imagine if you had to pay a different subscription to call only family, another also for friends, anyone on the Bell directory, anyone on other directories, businesses. You’d imagine telephones would have remained a novelty to this day
  - Danihan 9y ago
    Why should ISPs be disallowed from charging what they like for the product they sell? That's the entire point of a free market. I understand the issues inherent in leasing the lines, but fundamentally companies should be able to price their offerings as they wish. There simply needs to be fewer barriers to entry for new ISPs to come into the market.
    - simonh 9y ago
      They’ve already sold it to the consumer. If I pay an ISP for X bandwidth and Y latency, then decide I want to use that to watch Netflix, the ISP has no business interfering with my use of the Netflix service. It isn’t Netflix traffic, it’s my traffic which I’ve already paid the ISP for. This isn’t about protecting Netflix, it’s about protecting the consumers right to use the product they bought - internet bandwidth - for what they choose without having that choice interfered with or constrained by back room extortion rackets. If the ISP wants to set up a special fast lane for my connection to this or that service, they talk to me. Not Netflix, or anyone else.
      - Danihan 9y ago
        Supermarkets don't have government price controls, and they also have very little government intervention. Yet I assume you don't worry about "back room extortion rackets" occurring with the pricing there. This is because there is a healthy amount of competition with supermarkets, something the ISP market lacks. Again, it comes down to lowering barriers of entry for new ISPs, rather than falsely labeling all network traffic the same, and pretending that solves a problem.
        simonh 9y ago
        They don’t have price controls, but they do have sanitation standards, quality of goods laws, food standards legislation and mandatory returns requirements and restrictions on misleading pricing. If you don’t like the price at a Supermarket you can usually drive 5 minutes to the next store, but changing ISPs can take weeks and you’re locked into long contracts. Maybe if we can lower the barriers to entry and give people a genuine choice of ISPs first. That would be the equivalent of talking to the customer about special deals for certain content and giving the customer the power to choose. Do that, then we can talk. Wiping out net neutrality without a genuine choice for consumers is a blatant stitch up.
  - makomk 9y ago
    One of the examples net neutrality proponents have been pointing to in order to justify it is Vodafone Australia's packages allowing customers to add unlimited usage of various groups of services on top of the bandwidth they get in their mobile internet plans. There are hugely popular viral tweets claiming this is the terrifying future of American internet access if net neutrality is repealed. That's not simply preventing double dipping on both sides of the network, it's controlling what products ISPs are allowed to sell consumers and how they can price that internet access.
    - nmalaguti 9y ago
      As far as I know, net neutrality only applies to wired ISPs, not mobile ISPs. So those sorts of deals are still possible in the US, just not from your cable company. And why would you need that when you have access to virtually unlimited data through them?

by Kequc 9y ago

ori_b 9y ago

> Republicans want to enshrine net neutrality in law through congress, stripping what they believe is overreach on the part of the FCC. I've heard this, but I still see no law on the books, and a very strong push for the FCC to remove the regulations that are currently in place. I'd believe them if I saw an effort to put a replacement plan in motion before repealing.

Danihan 9y ago

You could just be against government price controls in general..

eecc 9y ago
How does “government price control” relate to simply forbidding double sale? All NN does is to disallow ISP from tiering the internet and double dipping on both sides of the network. Imagine if you had to pay a different subscription to call only family, another also for friends, anyone on the Bell directory, anyone on other directories, businesses. You’d imagine telephones would have remained a novelty to this day
- Danihan 9y ago
  Why should ISPs be disallowed from charging what they like for the product they sell? That's the entire point of a free market. I understand the issues inherent in leasing the lines, but fundamentally companies should be able to price their offerings as they wish. There simply needs to be fewer barriers to entry for new ISPs to come into the market.
  - simonh 9y ago
    They’ve already sold it to the consumer. If I pay an ISP for X bandwidth and Y latency, then decide I want to use that to watch Netflix, the ISP has no business interfering with my use of the Netflix service. It isn’t Netflix traffic, it’s my traffic which I’ve already paid the ISP for. This isn’t about protecting Netflix, it’s about protecting the consumers right to use the product they bought - internet bandwidth - for what they choose without having that choice interfered with or constrained by back room extortion rackets. If the ISP wants to set up a special fast lane for my connection to this or that service, they talk to me. Not Netflix, or anyone else.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      Supermarkets don't have government price controls, and they also have very little government intervention. Yet I assume you don't worry about "back room extortion rackets" occurring with the pricing there. This is because there is a healthy amount of competition with supermarkets, something the ISP market lacks. Again, it comes down to lowering barriers of entry for new ISPs, rather than falsely labeling all network traffic the same, and pretending that solves a problem.
      - simonh 9y ago
        They don’t have price controls, but they do have sanitation standards, quality of goods laws, food standards legislation and mandatory returns requirements and restrictions on misleading pricing. If you don’t like the price at a Supermarket you can usually drive 5 minutes to the next store, but changing ISPs can take weeks and you’re locked into long contracts. Maybe if we can lower the barriers to entry and give people a genuine choice of ISPs first. That would be the equivalent of talking to the customer about special deals for certain content and giving the customer the power to choose. Do that, then we can talk. Wiping out net neutrality without a genuine choice for consumers is a blatant stitch up.
- makomk 9y ago
  One of the examples net neutrality proponents have been pointing to in order to justify it is Vodafone Australia's packages allowing customers to add unlimited usage of various groups of services on top of the bandwidth they get in their mobile internet plans. There are hugely popular viral tweets claiming this is the terrifying future of American internet access if net neutrality is repealed. That's not simply preventing double dipping on both sides of the network, it's controlling what products ISPs are allowed to sell consumers and how they can price that internet access.
  - nmalaguti 9y ago
    As far as I know, net neutrality only applies to wired ISPs, not mobile ISPs. So those sorts of deals are still possible in the US, just not from your cable company. And why would you need that when you have access to virtually unlimited data through them?