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Comcast Hints at Plan for Paid Fast Lanes
- brandonbloom 9y ago"fast lanes" is just a euphemism for throttling. It's still a protection racket.
- pcora 9y agoHahaha... not long after https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933396998958567442 https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933396998958567442 -- edit: this is in the article.. I saw it after..
- apeace 9y agoSounds entirely reasonable to me: > [T]he Commission also should bear in mind that a more flexible approach to prioritization may be warranted and may be beneficial to the public. For example, a telepresence service tailored for the hearing impaired requires high-definition video that is of sufficiently reliable quality to permit users "to perceive subtle hand and finger motions" in real time. And paid prioritization may have other compelling applications in telemedicine. Likewise, for autonomous vehicles that may require instantaneous data transmission, black letter prohibitions on paid prioritization may actually stifle innovation instead of encouraging it. Commercial arrangements that entail prioritizing such traffic could ensure the low latency levels needed to achieve the high level of data quality necessary for such services to thrive. VoIP really needs low latency. Buffering a Youtube video or downloading a torrent doesn't. Selective prioritization could improve the former drastically, while having no noticeable effect on the latter. Note I'm not taking a stance on the issue either way. Maybe it would be better to keep Net Neutrality and add provisions for latency-sensitive applications. Maybe it's better to nuke it and let the markets figure it out. Either way, this is an important point and I'm surprised that the HN crowd doesn't discuss it more.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Analemma_ 9y agoQoS is not net neutrality, and confusing the two is a common tactic of anti-NN shills who can’t make actual points.
- apeace 9y agoI'd love to hear more about the difference between QoS and "prioritization", as they are calling it.
- pdabbadabba 9y agoThe existing rules contain an exception to the no-throttling and no-blocking rules for "reasonable network management." Here is how the Commission has defined that term: > A network management practice is a practice that has a primarily technical network management justification, but does not include other business practices. A network management practice is reasonable if it is primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management purpose, taking into account the particular network architecture and technology of the broadband Internet access service. It's debatable what exactly this means, but providing higher QoS for traffic that needs it--in a way that does not discriminate between providers of those services--would seem to be a strong candidate.
- rosser 9y ago> in a way that does not discriminate between providers of those service Exactly. Anti-NN (broadly) wants to be able to discriminate on the basis of provider, not service.
- gdulli 9y agoPeople probably believe that the positive effects are on the more obscure or hypothetical side while the negative effects would be more severe and definite. Sorry to the hearing impaired community for not prioritizing your latency needs, but Fox News buying up all the ISPs and controlling the news is worse.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThe funny thing about this is: All of the negative effects are hypothetical. Nobody offers "fast lanes" now, is planning to introduce them in the near future, and nobody offered fast lanes before the regulation was put into place. And yet, it's the top net neutrality supporter panic call. And yes, there's a whole list of individual token offenses ISPs have committed that people will spam out when you point this out, but it doesn't change the fact that the fears and horrors propping up this movement on a large scale do not exist.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The funny thing about this is: All of the negative effects are hypothetical No they aren't; many of them are things that the FCC responded to in if years of enforcing net neutrality principles through case by case actions, such as mobile and fixed broadband ISPs blocking services that competed with their offerings, and blocking other lawful services or content, sometimes for political reasons. > Nobody offers "fast lanes" now, is planning to introduce them in the near future, and nobody offered fast lanes before the regulation was put into place. And yet, it's the top net neutrality supporter panic call. “Fast lanes” have gotten blown out of proportion because of discussion of a possible weakness in an earlier draft of the 2015 order. They aren't actually a concern for the non-neutral net, they are a concern about a potential end-run around a net regulated for neutrality but with a loophole. Unfortunately, a popular distortion side that that draft was designed by enemies of neutrality rather than people trying to save it who might have designed the draft insufficiently tightly, and so “fast lanes” have become associated with the goals and plans of the anti-neutrality camp rather than just a potential weakness in a no-longer-relevant pro-neutrality draft regulation. I mostly blame John Oliver for that. Although, in point of fact, edge provider preference much like fast lanes exists in the form of zero rating, which is occurring in the mobile broadband space. It's not precisely the same thing, but had much the same issue.
- mikeash 9y agoPrioritization is only necessary or useful when bandwidth is scarce and your endpoints would use more than you have if they could. The best solution for all of the applications listed is more capacity, not prioritization. What, then, does their eagerness for prioritization tell us? It tells us that these companies would like to stop investing so much in increasing capacity, and instead squeeze as much money as they can out of their existing infrastructure. They're going to make things worse (or let them gradually become worse over time) just so they can charge extra money to people who need something better. Beyond that, prioritization is not in conflict with net neutrality. If my ISP wants to offer me a premium subscription that prioritizes my traffic over normal subscribers, that's fine. Where we run into trouble is when they start doing this for other people who aren't their customers. If they want to charge me more for better service, that's fine. If they want to charge Netflix more to provide me with better service, that's not fine.
- andrewjl 9y agoComcast has $5 billion USD on their balance sheet in cash. They can afford to add more capacity.
- mikeash 9y agoOf course. But they'd rather have even more cash if they can.
- fancyfacebook 9y agoThey also have about $120 billion USD in debt. Not exactly the healthiest company in the world financially speaking.
- apeace 9y ago> Prioritization is only necessary or useful when bandwidth is scarce and your endpoints would use more than you have if they could. The best solution for all of the applications listed is more capacity, not prioritization. This doesn't make sense to me. Sometimes there can be large spikes in network traffic. In theory, if your network has enough capacity to handle _all_ the traffic at low latency during normal load, then the prioritization has no effect anyways. It's only there for when you are low on capacity. I'd love for someone to correct my understanding here.
- nawgszy 9y ago>Either way, this is an important point and I'm surprised that the HN crowd doesn't discuss it more. But right now all latency-sensitive applications should be operating just fine. I regularly play online first person shooters, and that is a latency-sensitive application if there ever was one. So that strongly suggests, seeing how I'm on Comcast / Xfinity's cheapest plan, that all lanes are fast lanes right now. Accordingly, that means if you were to >nuke [net neutrality] and let the markets figure it out that's actually just letting a monopoly extract more profit from their network by intentionally degrading the quality of some connections unless paid more money. I don't really think I need to say more, if this was a fair and competitive market where giant ISPs weren't lawsuit-happy in order to keep out competition, or they weren't able to do that successfully, sure, maybe the market would figure it out, and eventually the ISPs that offer true net neutrality would probably have traffic because no consumer is interested in paying more to be able to use the internet in specific ways. As it stands, it's extortion being codified into law via bribery, disguised as 'the removal of heavy-handed Obama regulations in order to improve the network you've never had any issues with'.
- legitster 9y agoA lot of games are low latency specifically because they worked with ISPs to reduce latency, or worked with a server provider that did so: https://www.polygon.com/2016/2/17/11037220/league-of-legends-was-too-slow-so-riot-built-a-private-internet-to https://www.polygon.com/2016/2/17/11037220/league-of-legends... As I understand, the monopolies like Comcast and Time Warner have almost no incentive to actually improve their infrastructure unless they have the ability to shake down the services that want speedier connections when they need them.
- dv_dt 9y agoAnd this exactly how lack of net neutrality (combined with lack of infrastructure competition) messes up market signaling. A game then inflates its price, and all customers of the game pay a little bit extra because in some areas the ISP is shaking them down. The pricing pressure lands on the game company to resolve, in part with costs to customers which only have an indirect link to the transaction, not on the ISP that could actually resolve the problem with the direct parties involved.
- simion314 9y agoIt makes more sense if you promise me X Mb/s download speed then give that to me, if you are not able then don't promise that speed, I should decide for what I need the speed, I should not have horrible speed for X protocol/site/app that I use 99% of the time but you have great speed for Netflix but we both pay same price. I want things to be fair, customers, websites, apps to be treated the same.
- nur0n 9y agoI hope this is an exercise in playing devil's advocate and not true naivety. Do you really think telcos care about these issues? They are a business and not a socialist government. Other comments have stated their goal clearly: increase margins from existing infrastructure. If fair repartition of resources was their goal, why not make that an explicit part of the laws they want to introduce? Why do it in a roundabout way? Presenting a wall of 'possibilities' only serves to obfuscate their true goal. Would you let 'the markets figure out' your water supply?
- jasonkostempski 9y ago> For example, a telepresence service tailored for the hearing impaired... It should be illegal to use children, handicap, illness and death to promote products unless all of your money goes to helping just those things.
- briandear 9y agoWhy? Why should the government have a say in how people promote products? Unless they are being fraudulent, why can’t the consumer simply use their own brains to decide what to buy?
- jasonkostempski 9y agoYou're right, I hate laws that try to fix problems like that. And I hate that "it should be illegal..." phrase. It should be illegal to use that phrase. I used it lazily to convey how exploiting emotions to sell products and views makes me angry. > why can’t the consumer simply use their own brains to decide what to buy? I wish I knew.
- lasermike026 9y ago20 years ago I helped start an ISP. I would like to do it again.
- jorts 9y agoWe need a Telecommunications Act of 1996 all over again.
- daeken 9y agoI keep thinking about what my ideal ISP would look like, then weighing the options. It's just so, so expensive to get one off the ground.
- digikata 9y agoI've idly wondered about setting up an ISP company that would focus on buildup of community networks. A city could issue bonds to pay for the network as well as a build and maintain contract with the company. Part of the deal should be that the city is free to select a different company maintain the network after a certain point in time, but the city/community maintains ownership of the physical assets.
- hamiltonkibbe 9y agoI think you should limit political campaign website access to subscribers that purchase the ultra-premium $500/mo. package
- murph-almighty 9y agoHow does one start a municipal ISP, or advocate for the creation of one?
- noncoml 9y agoDoes anyone else gets this feeling of being helpless in front of the corp mega-machine? What can one do when is forced to deal with psychopathic corporations that lie straight into one's face? i.e. https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933396998958567442 https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933396998958567442
- colin_fraizer 9y agoDoes anyone else feel this is a massive non-issue (just as it was before these rules were applied in 2015)? Have none of you visited an amusement park? Some guests pay for express passes that let them ride more rides. Others choose a budget option that means longer waits for lower cost. The feeling of being a victim originates with the state-imposed monopolies of cable franchises. People don't grouse about ATT vs Verizon because they know they can switch.
- fiftyacorn 9y agoI sometimes wonder if this type of policy would result in me using the internet less on a point of principle? I mean I watch netflix but could live without it
- api 9y agoSo broadband speeds are now frozen for normal Internet traffic. Only paid traffic will see any upgrades from here on out.
- lwansbrough 9y agoI think you mean unpaid slow lanes. A neutral network operates at maximum speed always. Prioritization really means deprioritization here.
- rhino369 9y agoPrioritization pretty much always implies something is less prioritized. Where I draw the line is throttling when the network could support higher speed. Say the fast lane is using 20% of resources and the slow lane is only using 20%, then the slow lane shouldn't be artificially slowed. But I really have no huge issue with an ISP creating a fast lane that gets 30% of resources even if the slow lane wants 90% and gets throttled to 70%. Priced based mechanisms are useful for allocating scarce resources.
- dboreham 9y ago>Where I draw the line is throttling when the network could support higher speed. I have news for you : this is the service you're already receiving. All ISPs throttle user traffic to below their network's capacity.
- rhino369 9y agoI mean beyond any explicitly stated rate limit. Or do you mean something else?
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoI think they're talking about the trunk lines, which are mostly dark (unused). The bandwidth technology has outstripped demand by orders of magnitude. There's no traffic-related reason to 'prioritize' any traffic. The real goal is to charge rent on content they don't produce, just because its going over their cable.
- rosser 9y agoOversubscribing != throttling.
- LeoJiWoo 9y agoOf course they are. They are a corporation. The real question is what do we after net neutrality is repealed? Do we try to break up the cable monopolies ? FTC lawsuits ? Start having Cities or States write laws enforcing neutrality ?
- azemetre 9y agoIf you care about net neutrality you vote for politicians who want to legislate NN into law, and seeing the voting calls on NN (past and present) it's become a partisan issue. Your best odds is to never vote for a GOPer if you care about NN. This can easily be reversed next election/presidential cycle.
- LeoJiWoo 9y agoSure, but what actions to enforce or restore NN do we force democrats to campaign on. Both sides are hugely pro-corporation (not counting the bernie fringe wing), we need to force them to run on specific issues related to net neutrality not vague notions. I'm thinking an analogous to how many NRA republicans campaign very specifically and with specific actions they'd take. The NRA should be the model we coopt to protect NN.
- chadgeidel 9y agoAt the very least the regulations in place granting local monopolies should be immediately rolled back. If a municipal entity wants to provide broadband, any lawsuit against that should be dismissed.
- Tiktaalik 9y agoBreak up and nationalize the ISPs and run the internet as a state owned utility.
- jtmcmc 9y agocity and state isps
- cmiles74 9y ago
- tedchs 9y agoIn fairness, Comcast didn't "hint" at any such thing -- this is based on Ars's conjecture based in what Comcast stopped saying.
- pishpash 9y agoThey can correct the record any time.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoGood propaganda campaigns only require that they are based on fact, like the fact that the line was removed from their stock statement. As long as you build your propaganda on a base fact, you can say almost anything you want with it.
- plandis 9y agoAlso in fairness, what trust has Comcast built with consumers? Why should I not believe that a company would attempt to make more money if possible?
- warent 9y agoIf net neutrality is lost, this could inspire a renewed invigoration of decentralized internet, e.g. Tor and P2P style. This may also inspire new ISP startups and create rapid innovation in networking. The prospect of net neutrality being repealed definitely sucks, but great things can come from hitting rock bottom
- dragonwriter 9y agoISP blocking of P2P protocols (notably Comcast and BitTorrent) was one of the acts that accelerated the net neutrality policy efforts; the technologies you point to are at least as likely to be early casualties of the non-neutral net as to take off under it.
- bo1024 9y agoAgreed. Instead, I'd hope for more interest in steganography.
- BinaryIdiot 9y agoI see a comment like this on HN quite frequently. A generic "maybe X will inspire a decentralized solution for Y". While I think this is typically fraught with user experience nightmares, I'm not sure how decentralization of ISPs would even work. Wouldn't that simply mean MORE ISPs, something that is almost impossible to do in the Untied States (and thusly one of the biggest reasons for needing net neutrality)?
- wmf 9y ago"Decentralized ISP" generally means wireless over unlicensed frequencies which requires none of those pesky permits. Historically wireless has been fairly expensive and 10x slower than wired, but maybe next time (60 GHz?) will be different. Probably not.
- nasredin 9y agoFirst you gonna have to climb from the rock bottom while the entrenched monopolists (and the government) are trying to keep you there. OTOH American people chose this, so it's not some evil corporations who are to blame, it's the people, your friends, neighbors, etc. People forget that sometimes. Also IIRC there was a case in the 90s of an ISP not playing ball with the government WRT surveillance IIRC and it ended up out of business and IIRC the CEO in legal trouble.
- joshuaheard 9y agoIf they want to build a faster parallel pipe, and charge more for it, I don't see a problem with that.
- ProAm 9y agoThe problem is that we, the tax payers, helped to fund the first set of pipes for them.
- w0rd-driven 9y agoI feel like this should be part of the stipulation. If we repeal net neutrality and you're caught degrading the internet further than it already is, you should be forced to pay all of that money back to the public. This seems to be the only incentive that may work from within the new framework. The existing ISP infrastructure is not something I opted in, even though I fortunately get to enjoy gigabit speeds via AT&T. I already have "buyer's remorse" but can I be given a clause, a lot like our "lemon laws" that state that if they, free from the shackles of regulation, make things arguably worse for everyone involved, that we can get some of that money back? I feel like there needs to be some sort of "upper bounds" to deregulation that to use a metaphor says something like "We'll give you the Wild West but it's still illegal to murder people." in whatever highly damaging thing "murder people" turns out to actually be.
- cortesoft 9y agoI am always a bit confused as to how the ideal Net Neutrality rules would work. ISPs always have to make decisions about who to peer with, how many links to have with each other network, etc. These decisions are made with business motivations, and have a huge effect on QOS for various upstream services. You can't tell an ISP they need the exact same bandwidth for each upstream connection. So what rules SHOULD they have as far as their peering and transit arrangements?
- Havoc 9y agoWell that didn't take long
- plandis 9y agoI’m not sure what can be done. When my vote doesn’t count (the man who appointed the FCC chair didn’t have a mandate and didn’t receive a majority of the popular vote). The FCC has stated that they won’t listen to my comment. What power do I have? None! I truly hope someone physically removes Pai from power as the people have no say.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- legitster 9y agoI think the idea that Comcast is going to change their pricing model around tiered access is patently ridiculous - They are already extracting near maximum value from monopolistic pricing - Services like this were tried before Net Neutrality, and they failed pretty dramatically - Bad PR could lead to future litigation - Most Importantly This process has only shown that it could be completely reversed again with the next administration. So they don't want to rebuild future revenue models knowing that the rules can be reversed again in 4 years at the drop of a hat. The whole thing is really about Comcast's ability to shake down other companies to pay for their infrastructure improvements. It's really expensive to sell a $5 a month plan to a million users. It's really cheap to get $500 million dollars out of Netflix to pay for your line upgrades. And for the next 4 years, they have a blank check to shake down companies in the background.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoYou underestimate Comcast’s ability to fail spectacularly. When the economy was crashing in 2008 they were neck and neck with Countrywide in a consumerist poll for worst company in America. Countrywide won, but barely, and they basically broke the global economy. Comcast will do every single thing they can to destroy the internet and turn it into Cable TV packages once the Trump administration deregulates the industry. In a few years when we have a new administration we can put the band aids back on.
- bksenior 9y agoUnpopular Opinion (but similar): If the ISPs win and the rules get rescinded, I think we are looking at their ultimate poison pill. An egregious push like this ends up stoking an unprecedented backlash at about the time that we see a bit of a swing in midterm elections that create less conservative leaning legislation and we finally get rules written that promote localized community broadband and essentially the end of their monopoly. As stated, I think they are pretty much making money like a monopoly now and as they push further I think they are gonna get "Ma 'Bell'd."
- malchow 9y agoAnother unpopular thought: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment I think net-neut advocates who really think there's a dark star in the offing for the web should be pushing utility-style muni networks. They're wasting time and money trying to shove the FCC into their view of the marketplace here, and shedding longer-term credibility by refusing to countenance two realities: 1) Broadband is becoming a more competitive industry, not less 2) FANG have parochial business motivations too re: their pro-net neutrality, and they are no more angelic than Comcast's. Defocusing on national rulemaking and incubating muninet successes in rising cities would do more for their desired outcome.
- jenga22 9y agoThe one thing that is good about this is that a lot of cities are now talking about rolling out their own broadband network. If Comcast does anything remotely as not adhering to the principles of net neutrality, then you are going to see even more cities talk about getting their own network.
- dboreham 9y agoAnd they can get their upstream connectivity for said network from...Comcast.
- legitster 9y agoI live in a city with municipal broadband. It's pretty overrated. Everything has to be managed by third parties, so it's more expensive than the national brands and service sucks. Not saying it can't be done, but just saying it can be worse than the current alternatives.
- exhilaration 9y agoThey're one step ahead of you. Comcast & Co have already gotten municipal broadband outlawed by many state legislatures: https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-telecom-smothers-city-run-broadband https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-tel... See previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15655548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15655548
- briandear 9y agoWhat happens when cities start banning “offensive” content based on the political flavors of the day. Imagine how much filtering happens at public libraries — when governments control the pipes, individuals have no alternatives. Government should provide incentives for competition, not socialist collectivization. People here seem to have an unhealthy obsession with government. Have we learned nothing from the soviet era? We should be demanding smaller government. Government is what created the ISP near-monopolies. What we need is competition. Government should be facilitating that. Would we want internet to be run like the NYC MTA? A profit motive is a powerful thing.