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You mention 4 things, but only one is a NN violation and it was from a decade ago.

by ikeboy 9y ago

shmerl 9y ago
All of these are NN violations, or related to it. The goal of Comcast in violating NN is not just abstract violation of it, their goal is harming competition, and giving themselves an unfair advantage. The core of the problem is that besides owning the physical network, they are also media company. So their direct competitors are video services for instance. Comcast try to raise the price of those services for users (and thus pushing them to use Comcast's own ones instead), by combining usage of data caps (which have no technical need and are purely fleecing / anti-competitive tool) in combination with zero rating, i.e. excluding their own services from data caps. Users have to pay extra to avoid data caps. That basically taxes users who prefer their competitors. Another method they use is interconnection starvation. That simply degrades the quality of competing services, again pushing users to use Comcast's ones. NN is relevant here (in addition to regular anti-trust of course), because Comcast are giving preferential treatment to their own traffic, while punishing competitors with data caps and bad interconnection. So, we established that Comcast clearly violate principles of NN, and can't be interested in the least in codifying proper NN law.
- ikeboy 9y ago
  This is an extremely disingenuous argument. First you point out that data caps have no technical need. Something else that isn't required technically: charging for service. Would you say that the fact they charge to use their services means they're anti competitive? Zero rating was not included in the 2015 Order that was repealed - it was always legal.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    What I find disingenuous, are attempts to whitewash abusive monopolistic behavior like data caps or claims that zero rating is not violating net neutrality.

You mention 4 things, but only one is a NN violation and it was from a decade ago.

by ikeboy 9y ago

You mention 4 things, but only one is a NN violation and it was from a decade ago.

All of these are NN violations, or related to it. The goal of Comcast in violating NN is not just abstract violation of it, their goal is harming competition, and giving themselves an unfair advantage. The core of the problem is that besides owning the physical network, they are also media company. So their direct competitors are video services for instance. Comcast try to raise the price of those services for users (and thus pushing them to use Comcast's own ones instead), by combining usage of data caps (which have no technical need and are purely fleecing / anti-competitive tool) in combination with zero rating, i.e. excluding their own services from data caps. Users have to pay extra to avoid data caps. That basically taxes users who prefer their competitors. Another method they use is interconnection starvation. That simply degrades the quality of competing services, again pushing users to use Comcast's ones. NN is relevant here (in addition to regular anti-trust of course), because Comcast are giving preferential treatment to their own traffic, while punishing competitors with data caps and bad interconnection. So, we established that Comcast clearly violate principles of NN, and can't be interested in the least in codifying proper NN law.

ikeboy 9y ago
This is an extremely disingenuous argument. First you point out that data caps have no technical need. Something else that isn't required technically: charging for service. Would you say that the fact they charge to use their services means they're anti competitive? Zero rating was not included in the 2015 Order that was repealed - it was always legal.
- shmerl 9y ago
  What I find disingenuous, are attempts to whitewash abusive monopolistic behavior like data caps or claims that zero rating is not violating net neutrality.