6 ms·

If it allows paid fast lanes, then clearly it allows degradation.

by coldcode 9y ago

croon 9y ago
The GOP didn't expect us plebs to see through that.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  I dunno. Given their recent fondness for passing statute at GOP-held level N that preempts statute at non-GOP level N-1, they seem pretty brazen to me. Federalism is out the window, districts are gerrymandered, packing the courts, etc.
- pjc50 9y ago
  They're in charge. Their supporters will vote for them no matter what so long as the guns and abortion issues are untouched, because they get their news from a parallel system in which this is all presented as a good thing. They don't depend on floating voters because there aren't any.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    The GOP most certainly depends on floating voters. There are many independent/non-affiliated voters in the US, more than either the registered Republican or Democrat voter base. And there were plenty of people who voted for President Obama but voted for Trump. 13% of 2012 Obama voters voted for Trump in 2016. http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-how-many-obama-2012-trump-2016-voters-were-there/ http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-h... I strongly agree with the rest of your post.
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    I don't know, the polls seem to suggest that 3 out of 4 Republicans polled support net neutrality (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12/this-poll-gave-americans-a-detailed-case-for-and-against-the-fccs-net-neutrality-plan-the-reaction-among-republicans-was-striking/?utm_term=.318924241880 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...). I suppose it boils down to where in the priority list this falls for the average voter. I think you could easily give supporters in this realm, that aren't quite aware of the worst case scenarios people fear about net neutrality repeal, food for thought using news as an example. Comcast for instance owns NBC Universal. If Comcast, often the de facto Internet provider in some areas, decides to favor vertical integration in news and "prioritize their outlets"... let's just say that the news outlets NBC Universal owns tend to be exactly opposite of the "parallel news system" outlets you are talking about. :)
rhino369 9y ago
Priorization and throtting aren’t exactly the same. Throttling implies rate limiting even if there is surplus bandwidth. Prioritization would only occur when bandwidth was limited. Think of it as QoS based on a list of sites provided by the ISP.
- sametmax 9y ago
  But throttling is really hard to prove. They can always downsize some hardware to "prioritize" and "retarget their budget", but effectively they just throttle. Basically they can do whatever they want with the proper wording now.
  - rhino369 9y ago
    Sabotaging their network just to throttle just doesn't make sense. Nobody is going to pay for a white-list only internet. That is fear mongering by the pro-NN side.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      ...except for it already happening in other countries without protections.
    - haZard_OS 9y ago
      You call it "sabotaging", I call it "enhancing monetization powers". Either way, it's sabotaging the public's access.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      > Nobody is going to pay for a white-list only internet. That is fear mongering by the pro-NN side. White-list only after the first few gigabytes is already happening. It's called zero-rating.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      If you had sane competition, maybe. But you don't, so they can do whatever they want and you'll pay for it unless you don't want internet at all.
murph-almighty 9y ago
Literally my concern with this. Everyone gets the same coverage except premium customers. Then degrade that base degree of coverage. Boom.
sametmax 9y ago
Most of the time when somebody is selling "premium service" in IT, it doesn't mean "better service", but "regular service while we artificially make any other ones worst". Regular customers will just see their quality drop for the same price. Web sites will have to pay for the bandwith their customer already paid for to their ISP. It's going to suck. Hope this never happens in France, but our leaders love to copy the worst decisions taken in the US so...
g00gler 9y ago
Is that definitely the case? I interpreted this as meaning that although you pay for 10mb/s Internet, Comcast can offer a special package that allows you to stream Netflix in 4K.
- tantalor 9y ago
  That would be unfair to other streaming services e.g. YouTube, Hulu, HBO, Amazon, etc.
  - oreo81 9y ago
    Why? Do you think google adwords is unfair to companies that don't pay for ads?
wanderingbort 9y ago
That is objectively false. Degrading the "slow" lanes is only one way to produce a fast lane. Direct peering arrangements and co-location of services are two ways to create "fast" lanes without having to degrade anything. They are also not free, so it makes sense that business-to-business deals would be made to establish them (aka paid fast lanes). The effective bandwidth of the internet looks like an hour glass. As things fan out to individual users you may have capacity for 100+mbps but no way to consume it because upstream there is a bottleneck. In many cases that bottleneck exists at the edge of an ISP or farther upstream of it. Direct peering increases the capacity of the ISP's "edge" but only for the services available on the peer. Co-location puts those services on the internal side of the bottleneck, again increasing effective capacity, but only for the services that are co-located in the ISPs datacenters. Almost all major providers (google, akamai, netflix, facebook) offer some form of co-locatable server however, those cost money to deploy and maintain.
- dahart 9y ago
  You've missed the point. The very existence of fast lanes means that whatever's left is a degradation. This has been the point NN proponents have been making all along. Proposing to ban slow lanes but allow fast lanes effectively does nothing for NN proponents. It doesn't have to be "actively" slowing down traffic to be degraded. If ISPs can go faster, and they choose not to unless you pay more, that is a form of degradation. One of many forms the degradation could come in is ISPs failing to build out faster networks until people are paying higher prices. Service can be allowed to degrade over time by simply not doing anything unless you pay more money.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    It is not. If Netflix did not have PNIs to Comcast, Comcast internet would have been unusable for everyone. [Edit: Post more downvotes] Guess what happens to the Netflix traffic when the best route to Netflix is over Comcast transit?
    - wtallis 9y ago
notyourday 9y ago
Not needed: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2010-December/029251.html https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2010-December/0292...
- wanderingbort 9y ago
  whats interesting is that nothing about the current net-neutrality discussions addresses concerns like these. They may or may not be substantiated concerns. The graphs don't show intent so, that much is assumed.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    That's because NN proponents have no idea what they are talking about. Cure for SVitis is make everyone do a stint racking servers, running fiber and opening tickets with a telco to undo effects of grooming on your circuits.

If it allows paid fast lanes, then clearly it allows degradation.

croon 9y ago

The GOP didn't expect us plebs to see through that.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
I dunno. Given their recent fondness for passing statute at GOP-held level N that preempts statute at non-GOP level N-1, they seem pretty brazen to me. Federalism is out the window, districts are gerrymandered, packing the courts, etc.
pjc50 9y ago
They're in charge. Their supporters will vote for them no matter what so long as the guns and abortion issues are untouched, because they get their news from a parallel system in which this is all presented as a good thing. They don't depend on floating voters because there aren't any.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  The GOP most certainly depends on floating voters. There are many independent/non-affiliated voters in the US, more than either the registered Republican or Democrat voter base. And there were plenty of people who voted for President Obama but voted for Trump. 13% of 2012 Obama voters voted for Trump in 2016. http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-how-many-obama-2012-trump-2016-voters-were-there/ http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-h... I strongly agree with the rest of your post.
- soundwave106 9y ago
  I don't know, the polls seem to suggest that 3 out of 4 Republicans polled support net neutrality (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12/this-poll-gave-americans-a-detailed-case-for-and-against-the-fccs-net-neutrality-plan-the-reaction-among-republicans-was-striking/?utm_term=.318924241880 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...). I suppose it boils down to where in the priority list this falls for the average voter. I think you could easily give supporters in this realm, that aren't quite aware of the worst case scenarios people fear about net neutrality repeal, food for thought using news as an example. Comcast for instance owns NBC Universal. If Comcast, often the de facto Internet provider in some areas, decides to favor vertical integration in news and "prioritize their outlets"... let's just say that the news outlets NBC Universal owns tend to be exactly opposite of the "parallel news system" outlets you are talking about. :)

rhino369 9y ago

Priorization and throtting aren’t exactly the same. Throttling implies rate limiting even if there is surplus bandwidth. Prioritization would only occur when bandwidth was limited. Think of it as QoS based on a list of sites provided by the ISP.

sametmax 9y ago
But throttling is really hard to prove. They can always downsize some hardware to "prioritize" and "retarget their budget", but effectively they just throttle. Basically they can do whatever they want with the proper wording now.
- rhino369 9y ago
  Sabotaging their network just to throttle just doesn't make sense. Nobody is going to pay for a white-list only internet. That is fear mongering by the pro-NN side.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    ...except for it already happening in other countries without protections.
  - haZard_OS 9y ago
    You call it "sabotaging", I call it "enhancing monetization powers". Either way, it's sabotaging the public's access.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    > Nobody is going to pay for a white-list only internet. That is fear mongering by the pro-NN side. White-list only after the first few gigabytes is already happening. It's called zero-rating.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    If you had sane competition, maybe. But you don't, so they can do whatever they want and you'll pay for it unless you don't want internet at all.

murph-almighty 9y ago

Literally my concern with this. Everyone gets the same coverage except premium customers. Then degrade that base degree of coverage. Boom.

sametmax 9y ago

Most of the time when somebody is selling "premium service" in IT, it doesn't mean "better service", but "regular service while we artificially make any other ones worst". Regular customers will just see their quality drop for the same price. Web sites will have to pay for the bandwith their customer already paid for to their ISP. It's going to suck. Hope this never happens in France, but our leaders love to copy the worst decisions taken in the US so...

g00gler 9y ago

Is that definitely the case? I interpreted this as meaning that although you pay for 10mb/s Internet, Comcast can offer a special package that allows you to stream Netflix in 4K.

tantalor 9y ago
That would be unfair to other streaming services e.g. YouTube, Hulu, HBO, Amazon, etc.
- oreo81 9y ago
  Why? Do you think google adwords is unfair to companies that don't pay for ads?

wanderingbort 9y ago

That is objectively false. Degrading the "slow" lanes is only one way to produce a fast lane. Direct peering arrangements and co-location of services are two ways to create "fast" lanes without having to degrade anything. They are also not free, so it makes sense that business-to-business deals would be made to establish them (aka paid fast lanes). The effective bandwidth of the internet looks like an hour glass. As things fan out to individual users you may have capacity for 100+mbps but no way to consume it because upstream there is a bottleneck. In many cases that bottleneck exists at the edge of an ISP or farther upstream of it. Direct peering increases the capacity of the ISP's "edge" but only for the services available on the peer. Co-location puts those services on the internal side of the bottleneck, again increasing effective capacity, but only for the services that are co-located in the ISPs datacenters. Almost all major providers (google, akamai, netflix, facebook) offer some form of co-locatable server however, those cost money to deploy and maintain.

dahart 9y ago
You've missed the point. The very existence of fast lanes means that whatever's left is a degradation. This has been the point NN proponents have been making all along. Proposing to ban slow lanes but allow fast lanes effectively does nothing for NN proponents. It doesn't have to be "actively" slowing down traffic to be degraded. If ISPs can go faster, and they choose not to unless you pay more, that is a form of degradation. One of many forms the degradation could come in is ISPs failing to build out faster networks until people are paying higher prices. Service can be allowed to degrade over time by simply not doing anything unless you pay more money.
- notyourday 9y ago
  It is not. If Netflix did not have PNIs to Comcast, Comcast internet would have been unusable for everyone. [Edit: Post more downvotes] Guess what happens to the Netflix traffic when the best route to Netflix is over Comcast transit?
  - wtallis 9y ago

notyourday 9y ago

Not needed: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2010-December/029251.html https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2010-December/0292...

wanderingbort 9y ago
whats interesting is that nothing about the current net-neutrality discussions addresses concerns like these. They may or may not be substantiated concerns. The graphs don't show intent so, that much is assumed.
- notyourday 9y ago
  That's because NN proponents have no idea what they are talking about. Cure for SVitis is make everyone do a stint racking servers, running fiber and opening tickets with a telco to undo effects of grooming on your circuits.