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As someone from a country without net neutrality, I have to say this hasn't happened. Generally you get very cheap or free plans that are sponsored by Facebook

As someone from a country without net neutrality, I have to say this hasn't happened. Generally you get very cheap or free plans that are sponsored by Facebook or others that give priority to Facebook, but ISPs are always happy to take a little bit more money for an unlimited plan that gives you full access. And at least in my country, they're not unreasonably priced. Even without net neutrality, your single monopoly ISP could triple their prices and there would be nothing you could do about it. The fact that they haven't seems to show that net neutrality probably isn't going to affect you all that badly. No sane company is going to block Google Wallet or Netflix. Feels like net neutrality isn't the problem - it's Spectrum that is the problem. If repealing net neutrality gets your country to fix your real problem, then I'd say it's going to be a massively good thing in the long run as top parent on this comment chain implied.

komali2 9y ago
>No sane company is going to block Google Wallet Verizon, then, is insane. http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_google_wallet/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_go...
- RyanZAG 9y ago
  How long did it stay blocked? I bet they unblocked it as soon as customers complained. Definitely an interesting example though. Nothing like that has ever happened in my country without net neutrality, but then we have a fairly competitive market where a single carrier trying that would lose their customers very quickly.
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    > How long did it stay blocked? Nearly 2 years.
    - RyanZAG 9y ago
      That's crazy! I'd have cancelled and swapped ISPs after a week. Guess people didn't really care? EDIT: After reading more replies, it seems like you guys actually have no choice. Serious red flag that it sounds like net neutrality was covering up. I think you will be better in the long run with it removed, but you all need to get active and fix your ISP problem and create a free market.
      - Chaebixi 9y ago
        > That's crazy! I'd have cancelled and swapped ISPs after a week. Guess people didn't really care? Lucky you, having a no-contract plan and alternatives that don't have worse policies.
      - nostrademons 9y ago
        In many regions in the U.S. you don't have any other ISPs. Cable & telecom companies have de-facto monopolies in most places; your only competition is often a reseller that uses the exact same pipes as the local telecom and so is subject to the same throttling. Internet speeds are also ridiculously slow. In the heart of Silicon Valley, I'm on 5 MBPs/sec, even though the equipment can easily do gigabit. (How do I know this? Because if you pay several hundred bucks a month, they will upgrade your speed to gigabit without anyone coming out.)
        RyanZAG 9y ago
        Yeah you definitely have bigger problems than net neutrality. I'm in the middle of Africa, 30km from the CBD of a small city, and I have 1gb local / 100mb international fiber with no caps or throttling for the equivalent of ~$85/month. Plus I can WhatsApp the tech support if something goes wrong and they'll drive over and fix it within 30 mins or so. I also have a choice of about 8 different ISPs offering me fiber lines to my door who seem to be in a price war with each other at the moment. I don't have net neutrality though. But surely the problem you're facing is ISP/government monopoly related, not the net neutrality bit? Or do you think it's something else causing the ISP issues there?
        9y ago
    - JohnTHaller 9y ago
      > That's crazy! I'd have cancelled and swapped ISPs after a week. Guess people didn't really care? The vast majority of people in the US only have access to a single broadband ISP. I live in NYC and only have access to one. My other options are slow DSL (under 15Mbps download and under 1Mbps upload), dialup, or using a hotspot that is generally limited to 15GB download (3 Netflix movies) for $90 a month.
    - jtuente 9y ago
      > And This Doesn't Apply To Google Wallet > The thing is, these rules don't even apply in the case of Google Wallet, because Verizon isn't blocking anything. Why'd I bother explaining them, then? So you can see exactly how they don't apply. > Unlike the tethering app that requires root access, Verizon isn't actively preventing the Wallet app from being installed on phones. That's all Google. If Google wanted to make the Wallet app compatible for every Verizon phone in the Play Store such that you could download and install it, it could. There is absolutely nothing to stop that happening - but the app wouldn't actually work. [0] - http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
- jtuente 9y ago
  http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
- hiram112 9y ago
  Just read the article. They blocked Google Wallet on Verizon phones, so not completely comparable as, say, throttling Nexus. As a side note, their competing mobile payment platform was called ISIS. I'm guessing they rebranded since then.
  - selectodude 9y ago
    They re-branded themselves to Softcard and then dissolved.
- nickysielicki 9y ago
  It's not entirely clear whether they blocked it from being installed on their carrier locked phones, or if they blocked it from communicating with Google servers at the network level. Back in 2011 it was relatively uncommon to buy unlocked phones, particularly for use on CDMA networks. It sounds to me like they just blocked the phone from installing the application, rather than anything that net neutrality would prevent. There's no legal reason that a carrier has to allow you to use an unlocked phone on their networks. My cable ISP doesn't allow me to bring my own modem, for example. From what I can tell, the net neutrality rules wouldn't have changed this situation at all. edit: This article[1] is extremely informative; Verizon was not blocking anything at a network level, they were disabling the OS from accessing the necessary "secure element" (TrustZone) in some of their carrier locked phones, which made the Android APIs that Google Wallet relied on cease to function. Due to this, Google chose to not show the app on the Play Store to customers on Verizon because they didn't want people to try the app and have it fail. So in conclusion, this "blocking" (if you can even call it that) is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand about net neutrality. [1]: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
  - jrnichols 9y ago
    yet that is one big example that even the ACLU has been spreading around. No wonder people have been confused.
    - freedomben 9y ago
      The level of disinformation with NN is staggering. The perils and draw of confirmation bias does not discriminate based on political orientation.
JohnTHaller 9y ago
Every example I gave in my comment you are replying to are things that a US ISP did prior to the implementation of net neutrality. Even during net neutrality multiple ISPs were caught artificially throttling Netflix to attempt to get payouts.
- RyanZAG 9y ago
  Ho! Amazing, thanks for clarifying. Your ISPs are pretty messed up. Are they government monopolies? I think your problems are far, far deeper than net neutrality, and just re-affirms my belief that net neutrality was a band-aid that needed to come off for you guys to wake up and fix your problems directly at the source. I wish you well in the fight ahead!
  - egypturnash 9y ago
    Well yes, most of the US's problem stem from the fact that Corporations Are People (when it suits them to be), and can thus give unlimited amounts of money to politicians because Money Is Free Speech. It’s been getting worse and worse over the past few decades because of this, and we may be near the point of violent revolution. Except probably not because hey, who has time for that when they gotta put in forty hours a week plus overtime, or three part time jobs, just to barely fail to make ends meet?
fjabre 9y ago
All of the services you mention were founded in the US on NN principles. We wouldn't have services like Netflix or Facebook or Google if NN had not been in place. What web services & startups have come out of your country recently that are house hold brand names? Can you name any? You are missing the point entirely.
- RyanZAG 9y ago
  Sorry, I may be incorrect here, but from what I understand net neutrality only came into effect two years ago in 2015. All three of the companies you mentioned were up and running prior to that. So net neutrality enabling them doesn't seem to be correct to me. EDIT: As for my country.. c'mon, low blow. Most of the people in my country are having some difficult problems with simpler issues than video streaming. We're getting there though, hopefully!
  - Goronmon 9y ago
    2015 was when official rules were put into place to protect Net Neutrality. But before that, ISPs had generally worked in a way favorable towards Net Neutrality. But then they started to act against Net Neutrality and then the rules were put into place. So, you could argue that we've have net neutrality in principle since the internet existed (or at least up until 10 or so years ago when ISPs started to push back) but we have only had Net Neutrality enshrined in regulation for a couple years. It appears that going forward we will have neither.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    > Sorry, I may be incorrect here, but from what I understand net neutrality only came into effect two years ago in 2015. The 2015 regulations were a replacement for 2010 regulations. The 2010 regulations were struck down in court on the grounds that they exceeded the FCC's powers under Title 1 of the Communications Act; the court told the FCC they would have to classify ISPs as Title 2 Common Carriers in order to enforce net neutrality.
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    No. The entire history of the internet has been built and developed under NN principles. It was merely codified by the FCC in 2015. Companies regularly violated these principles in the past, and the FCC has previously intervened on behalf of customers. Now, there are no protections, with the FCC stating that it will no longer intervene for these violations.
33W 9y ago
What type of competition do you have among your ISPs? I think this is a fear in the US because many people are locked into a single ISP because of geography.
- RyanZAG 9y ago
  Tons of competition. I have a choice of multiple different fiber line providers, government copper phone line provider, a bunch of different wireless options, and then multiple different ISPs who run over those different fiber or copper lines or 4G towers. Generally small towns would only have access to 1 fiber or copper line provider (generally Telkom our useless government supplier), but multiple ISPs running on that line so it's not that bad, but I live in the suburbs near a city so I have a lot more choice.
  - dbnoch 9y ago
    I wanted to add that I think everyone's case is different. I had a tenure in Chicago and all of the apartment buildings I lived in were locked to a single ISP. This is very much so a YMMV.

komali2 9y ago

>No sane company is going to block Google Wallet Verizon, then, is insane. http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_google_wallet/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_go...

RyanZAG 9y ago
How long did it stay blocked? I bet they unblocked it as soon as customers complained. Definitely an interesting example though. Nothing like that has ever happened in my country without net neutrality, but then we have a fairly competitive market where a single carrier trying that would lose their customers very quickly.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  > How long did it stay blocked? Nearly 2 years.
  - RyanZAG 9y ago
    That's crazy! I'd have cancelled and swapped ISPs after a week. Guess people didn't really care? EDIT: After reading more replies, it seems like you guys actually have no choice. Serious red flag that it sounds like net neutrality was covering up. I think you will be better in the long run with it removed, but you all need to get active and fix your ISP problem and create a free market.
    - Chaebixi 9y ago
      > That's crazy! I'd have cancelled and swapped ISPs after a week. Guess people didn't really care? Lucky you, having a no-contract plan and alternatives that don't have worse policies.
    - nostrademons 9y ago
      In many regions in the U.S. you don't have any other ISPs. Cable & telecom companies have de-facto monopolies in most places; your only competition is often a reseller that uses the exact same pipes as the local telecom and so is subject to the same throttling. Internet speeds are also ridiculously slow. In the heart of Silicon Valley, I'm on 5 MBPs/sec, even though the equipment can easily do gigabit. (How do I know this? Because if you pay several hundred bucks a month, they will upgrade your speed to gigabit without anyone coming out.)
      - RyanZAG 9y ago
        Yeah you definitely have bigger problems than net neutrality. I'm in the middle of Africa, 30km from the CBD of a small city, and I have 1gb local / 100mb international fiber with no caps or throttling for the equivalent of ~$85/month. Plus I can WhatsApp the tech support if something goes wrong and they'll drive over and fix it within 30 mins or so. I also have a choice of about 8 different ISPs offering me fiber lines to my door who seem to be in a price war with each other at the moment. I don't have net neutrality though. But surely the problem you're facing is ISP/government monopoly related, not the net neutrality bit? Or do you think it's something else causing the ISP issues there?
        9y ago
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    > That's crazy! I'd have cancelled and swapped ISPs after a week. Guess people didn't really care? The vast majority of people in the US only have access to a single broadband ISP. I live in NYC and only have access to one. My other options are slow DSL (under 15Mbps download and under 1Mbps upload), dialup, or using a hotspot that is generally limited to 15GB download (3 Netflix movies) for $90 a month.
  - jtuente 9y ago
    > And This Doesn't Apply To Google Wallet > The thing is, these rules don't even apply in the case of Google Wallet, because Verizon isn't blocking anything. Why'd I bother explaining them, then? So you can see exactly how they don't apply. > Unlike the tethering app that requires root access, Verizon isn't actively preventing the Wallet app from being installed on phones. That's all Google. If Google wanted to make the Wallet app compatible for every Verizon phone in the Play Store such that you could download and install it, it could. There is absolutely nothing to stop that happening - but the app wouldn't actually work. [0] - http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
jtuente 9y ago
http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
hiram112 9y ago
Just read the article. They blocked Google Wallet on Verizon phones, so not completely comparable as, say, throttling Nexus. As a side note, their competing mobile payment platform was called ISIS. I'm guessing they rebranded since then.
- selectodude 9y ago
  They re-branded themselves to Softcard and then dissolved.
nickysielicki 9y ago
It's not entirely clear whether they blocked it from being installed on their carrier locked phones, or if they blocked it from communicating with Google servers at the network level. Back in 2011 it was relatively uncommon to buy unlocked phones, particularly for use on CDMA networks. It sounds to me like they just blocked the phone from installing the application, rather than anything that net neutrality would prevent. There's no legal reason that a carrier has to allow you to use an unlocked phone on their networks. My cable ISP doesn't allow me to bring my own modem, for example. From what I can tell, the net neutrality rules wouldn't have changed this situation at all. edit: This article[1] is extremely informative; Verizon was not blocking anything at a network level, they were disabling the OS from accessing the necessary "secure element" (TrustZone) in some of their carrier locked phones, which made the Android APIs that Google Wallet relied on cease to function. Due to this, Google chose to not show the app on the Play Store to customers on Verizon because they didn't want people to try the app and have it fail. So in conclusion, this "blocking" (if you can even call it that) is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand about net neutrality. [1]: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
- jrnichols 9y ago
  yet that is one big example that even the ACLU has been spreading around. No wonder people have been confused.
  - freedomben 9y ago
    The level of disinformation with NN is staggering. The perils and draw of confirmation bias does not discriminate based on political orientation.

JohnTHaller 9y ago

Every example I gave in my comment you are replying to are things that a US ISP did prior to the implementation of net neutrality. Even during net neutrality multiple ISPs were caught artificially throttling Netflix to attempt to get payouts.

RyanZAG 9y ago
Ho! Amazing, thanks for clarifying. Your ISPs are pretty messed up. Are they government monopolies? I think your problems are far, far deeper than net neutrality, and just re-affirms my belief that net neutrality was a band-aid that needed to come off for you guys to wake up and fix your problems directly at the source. I wish you well in the fight ahead!
- egypturnash 9y ago
  Well yes, most of the US's problem stem from the fact that Corporations Are People (when it suits them to be), and can thus give unlimited amounts of money to politicians because Money Is Free Speech. It’s been getting worse and worse over the past few decades because of this, and we may be near the point of violent revolution. Except probably not because hey, who has time for that when they gotta put in forty hours a week plus overtime, or three part time jobs, just to barely fail to make ends meet?

fjabre 9y ago

All of the services you mention were founded in the US on NN principles. We wouldn't have services like Netflix or Facebook or Google if NN had not been in place. What web services & startups have come out of your country recently that are house hold brand names? Can you name any? You are missing the point entirely.

RyanZAG 9y ago
Sorry, I may be incorrect here, but from what I understand net neutrality only came into effect two years ago in 2015. All three of the companies you mentioned were up and running prior to that. So net neutrality enabling them doesn't seem to be correct to me. EDIT: As for my country.. c'mon, low blow. Most of the people in my country are having some difficult problems with simpler issues than video streaming. We're getting there though, hopefully!
- Goronmon 9y ago
  2015 was when official rules were put into place to protect Net Neutrality. But before that, ISPs had generally worked in a way favorable towards Net Neutrality. But then they started to act against Net Neutrality and then the rules were put into place. So, you could argue that we've have net neutrality in principle since the internet existed (or at least up until 10 or so years ago when ISPs started to push back) but we have only had Net Neutrality enshrined in regulation for a couple years. It appears that going forward we will have neither.
- wtallis 9y ago
  > Sorry, I may be incorrect here, but from what I understand net neutrality only came into effect two years ago in 2015. The 2015 regulations were a replacement for 2010 regulations. The 2010 regulations were struck down in court on the grounds that they exceeded the FCC's powers under Title 1 of the Communications Act; the court told the FCC they would have to classify ISPs as Title 2 Common Carriers in order to enforce net neutrality.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  No. The entire history of the internet has been built and developed under NN principles. It was merely codified by the FCC in 2015. Companies regularly violated these principles in the past, and the FCC has previously intervened on behalf of customers. Now, there are no protections, with the FCC stating that it will no longer intervene for these violations.

33W 9y ago

What type of competition do you have among your ISPs? I think this is a fear in the US because many people are locked into a single ISP because of geography.

RyanZAG 9y ago
Tons of competition. I have a choice of multiple different fiber line providers, government copper phone line provider, a bunch of different wireless options, and then multiple different ISPs who run over those different fiber or copper lines or 4G towers. Generally small towns would only have access to 1 fiber or copper line provider (generally Telkom our useless government supplier), but multiple ISPs running on that line so it's not that bad, but I live in the suburbs near a city so I have a lot more choice.
- dbnoch 9y ago
  I wanted to add that I think everyone's case is different. I had a tenure in Chicago and all of the apartment buildings I lived in were locked to a single ISP. This is very much so a YMMV.