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California’s strict net neutrality bill is close to final passage

78 points by LinuxBender 8y ago

tryptophan 8y ago
Dissenting opinion: I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. Very light users(news) are effectively subsidizing super heavy users(netflix). NN is just popular because it was removed not because it's a good policy. I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of speed/uptime/ping. This gives an incentive to companies to give you faster speed and provide levels of speed/ping that people would be willing to pay extra for. Something like: Browsing tier: .1c/GB 1mb/s 500ms ping guaranteed Video tier: .3c/GB 100 mb/s 100ms ping, 99.9% packet delivery Video conferencing tier: 100 mb/s 50ms ping, no packet loss etc... Don't focus on numbers but rather the idea.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. I don't think you have a correct definition of what net neutrality, as a policy, is. See below. > I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of speed/uptime/ping. This is perfectly consistent with net neutrality. What is not consistent with net neutrality is pricing the same GB/speed/uptime/ping differently, depending on which endpoint the traffic is coming from/going to. That is what net neutrality regulation prevents, and all that it prevents.
  - jnordwick 8y ago
    Depends on who you talk to. The EFF seems to have changed its definition of NN and now includes throttling in it as their press release for the recent Verizon tiff when they throttled a fire department. They are being really inconsistent in their definition, saying that the repeal of NN allowed the throttling to happen. I guess that isn't technically saying it falls under NN if you twist your head enough, but is certainly is conflating the two issues.
    - burkaman 8y ago
      The EFF's press release was not referring to net neutrality as a general concept, it was specifically talking about concrete language in the 2015 Open Internet Order. There's too much to quote here, but you can search for throttling to see what the rule would have banned: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-orde...
      - pdonis 8y ago
        > you can search for throttling to see what the rule would have banned I did. It bans throttling based on content. It does not ban throttling based on going over the usage cap in the plan you paid for, which is what Verizon did to the Santa Clara fire department.
        burkaman 8y ago
        You're right, I thought "on the basis of Internet service" meant your ISP service, but it actually means some other service that you're using the internet to access. On page 52: 122. Because our no-throttling rule addresses instances in which a broadband provider targets particular content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, it does not address a practice of slowing down an end user’s connection to the Internet based on a choice made by the end user. For instance, a broadband provider may offer a data plan in which a subscriber receives a set amount of data at one speed tier and any remaining data at a lower tier. If the Commission were concerned about the particulars of a data plan, it could review it under the no-unreasonable interference/disadvantage standard. In contrast, if a broadband provider degraded the delivery of a particular application (e.g., a disfavored VoIP service) or class of application (e.g., all VoIP applications), it would violate the bright-line no-throttling rule. We note that user-selected data plans with reduced speeds must comply with our transparency rule, such that the limitations of the plan are clearly and accurately communicated to the subscriber. Sorry.
    - pdonis 8y ago
      I read the EFF's post here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/verizons-throttling-fire-fighters-could-go-unpunished-because-fcc-repealed-open https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/verizons-throttling-fi... I assume that's the one you are commenting on, if not, feel free to post a link as the EFF has been putting out a lot of communications lately. :-) I agree with you that the EFF's communication here is muddled. The point I would focus on in the actual incident (the Santa Clara fire department being throttled) is this one: "Within the documents submitted by Santa Clara, it appears to be some confusion as to what exactly was Verizon selling to the fire department. Twice the public safety officials asserted they thought they were buying an unlimited plan and twice they discovered during the emergency they did not." In other words, to me the key issue here is not throttling, but whether customers understand what they are buying. (As the article notes, it might not be Verizon's fault if there was a misunderstanding; that would need to be investigated.) If you buy a plan that says you get throttled after a certain usage point, that's what you bought; I don't see how that is inconsistent with NN since the throttling doesn't depend on what sites you go to. But the EFF then argues this: "The FCC, however, could have proactively addressed this problem in the future and establish a federal rule applicable in all fifty states that ISPs are not allowed to throttle public safety services during emergencies. The FCC under its Title II authority could even go so far and categorically say it is illegal to try to upsell public safety agencies, or anyone, wireless plans during official emergencies as a matter of public safety. The agency would have good arguments as to why to set these rules, and thanks to Verizon, the evidence to demonstrate that threats to health and life are at stake in the absence of such rules. But the Restoring Internet Freedom Order abandoned those powers, so right now in America, firefighters don’t have a government agency they can turn to for help." To me this is a different issue from NN, since the whole basis of the argument is that public safety agencies should be treated differently from other customers. I don't disagree with that argument, but I don't think it falls under NN either.
- rosser 8y ago
  No. This predicates meaningful access to the internet on your socioeconomic status, further entrenching extant divisions. Educational material is increasingly being delivered in video form. What happens, e.g., to poor families have to choose between paying the electric bill, or buying food, or buying enough download capacity that their kid can learn? But that's not even the real issue. The big problem with a non-neutral internet is the barrier to entry imposed on non-incumbent players. Netflix has the money (and customer base) to absorb any "pay to play" costs imposed by the end-user's ISP. Whiz-Bang Startup Streaming Service doesn't, unless they take more funding, meaning the people who created the thing own less of it, and all of that additional money goes to the incumbent ISPs. I submit that this is an intentional outcome of the policy.
- enitihas 8y ago
  I think everyone can agree with you on the "per GB front". NN does nothing to prohibit data plans which cap at some GB limit. The issue is, the carrier shouldn't get to decide the weight of different GBs. It's about all bytes over the network being equal. If you use the internet mostly for news, you can always opt for a smaller data plan. I don't see how you get forced to pay for someone whose content is of different nature.
  - jdc 8y ago
    Yup. And (especially) since government is gatekeeping who gets to be an ISP, it has a responsibility to ensure providers focus on providing a useful service rather than using the junction as strategic chokepoint.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I don't agree with him on that front at all.
- pslam 8y ago
  Netflix is not a user. The end customer is. Flipping this on its head, so that it sounds like the "super heavy users" are the businesses, is an anti-net-neutrality talking point. Don't fall for it. Businesses such as Netflix enter peering arrangements to build out network infrastructure and server farms close to where the customer demand is. It's customers who are driving this, because the ISPs would lose them otherwise.
- ppseafield 8y ago
  Uh... what? Net Neutrality doesn't prevent ISPs from charging different rates for different speeds. They did that during the existence of the rule. It prevents ISPs from charging you based on which sites you can access. Without NN an ISP can charge you $5/month extra if you want to access Hacker News, $10/month to access Netflix, and an extra $20/month to access Netflix at speeds that aren't effectively crippled. It can flat out refuse to serve you a website.
- atrus 8y ago
  I've always wondered if it would be more fair to only pay for UPLOAD. Download all you want, but pay for everything you upload. It always seemed to me the best of both worlds. Those torrenting and serving large amounts of data (Netflix, etc) would be paying, and they're also responsible for the amounts of traffic as well.
  - mtgx 8y ago
    Sites like YouTube or Wikipedia would have never happened then. And it would completely doom the idea of P2P internet.
- orev 8y ago
  Selling per GB is an absolutely horrible idea because that’s not how networks work. ISPs have conjured this concept from nowhere solely as a way to get people to pay more money. Bandwidth is data transfer over time, and there is no “bucket of data” that gets depleted when you transfer data. It’s not gas or water or something that you drain out the more you use. Time is divided into time slots and that time is going to pass whether you put something in the packet or not. If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. But ISPs want to be able to advertise fast speeds that make them look impressive, though they don’t want to you actually be able to use it because then they have to upgrade their pipes. So they play these tricks where they can claim you have fast speeds but then this magical bucket of data gets depleted every time you use it.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    While I'm sure ISP execs are all mustache-twirling villains, what they're doing is not absurd, it's essentially the same as selling a burstable connection with a certain average bandwidth (the cap divided by one month gives a data transfer over time). And the reality is that, as a customer who loads a 5MB site and then spends 2-3m reading it, I much prefer this model than if they sold me a smaller fixed data transfer over time. That networks don't work like this is rather irrelevant, because it's a shared pipe. If they sold be a data transfer over time (say, guaranteed 256kps), that would be wasteful, because I couldn't take advantage of the higher speeds when other customers weren't using it too. A well-managed burstable connection is a much more efficient use of the resource.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    > that’s not how networks work Correct. I agree with most of your post. > If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. Yes. And you don't get that by having everybody with their foot down on the download pedal all the time. Speed oversubscription is a thing, because a lot of the time people are using a trickle down of data, in some other periods they're using more. NN is important and a byte from Netflix shouldn't be treated differently from a byte from some other site. But I think having people differentiated by the amount of data they use per month (or at least having a big tier limit) could be something ""ok"".
- emodendroket 8y ago
  You're describing my nightmare scenario but sure it's a wet dream for ISPs.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Dissenting opinion: I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. Very light users(news) are effectively subsidizing super heavy users(netflix). Net neutrality does not prohibit charging by volume of usage, if anything, the inability to do backdoor (and possibly third-party) charges based on kind of usage and remote edge provider interacted with encourages direct usage-based charges. > I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of speed/uptime/ping. Well, at least on the first two axes that is both possible and consistent with net neutrality. Charging by ping is problematic: ping to what endpoint?
- kstrauser 8y ago
  Netflix already pays for their Internet connection. I already pay for mine. Why should Comcast et al be allowed to seek yet more rent between two parties who are already paying customers?
newfocogi 8y ago
Aren't free-market capitalism and net neutrality inherently at odds with each other? My general understanding of HN culture is that it is generally capitalist and generally pro net neutrality. Could someone who finds themselves in both of these general categories explain their position?
- pdonis 8y ago
  > Aren't free-market capitalism and net neutrality inherently at odds with each other? Strictly speaking, yes. But free-market capitalism is also inherently at odds with ISPs having monopolies based on geographical area, which is the case for most of the US. Net neutrality regulation is an attempt to address the obvious issues with that, given the fact that the ISP monopolies are not going to go away any time soon. In other words, in an ideal free market, yes, net neutrality regulation would not exist; but we don't have anything close to an ideal free market in Internet access.
- orev 8y ago
  ISPs are not operating in a pure market. They have been granted billions of dollars in subsidies over the years, and in many places are/were also granted monopolies because communities don’t want wires being run by multiple companies. After all the benefits they have been given, now they want to turn around and cry “free market” and that they should not be regulated.
  - ngngngng 8y ago
    It's also not possible to operate in a completely unregulated free market when your industry relies on a finite amount of space in the ground to lay fiber or airwaves to transmit on. There's a very limited amount of competition that can operate when a city has to approve someone digging up the roads every time a new company pops up.
    - pdonis 8y ago
      > There's a very limited amount of competition that can operate when a city has to approve someone digging up the roads every time a new company pops up. The solution to this is for the actual physical infrastructure that requires digging up roads to be owned by the city (or other local entity), so it only has to be put into place once, when the city is built; and for competing ISPs to either lease, say, fiber bandwidth from the city, or get a permit to pull their own cabling through already existing underground tunnels. The problem is that every municipality that has tried this solution has been sued into oblivion by the ISPs, who want to prevent open competition by any means necessary.
eriken 8y ago
How is having different regulations for each state the recipe for increased investments? This topic just seem way too politicised.
- mtgx 8y ago
  Well, that's the ISPs' problem now. They're the ones that killed the "unified" federal net neutrality policy, no? Reap what you sow.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  You could say this about literally any state law.
- r00fus 8y ago
  F the Telcoms. They wanted to gut it and paid Ajit Pai to make it happen. This is part of their problem. They get the increased tax/regulation frustration as a minor cost to their goal of cable-ifiying the Internet.
no1youknowz 8y ago
Once Musk is ready with his satellites, there should really be a concerted crowdfunded option where an internet backbone is also launched and put into a non-profit public trust. Then, it should be an issue where leaders in the state and federal level are backed by the people and to make the incumbents like Comcast and their ilk back off and negate any moves to kill it off. Because we all know they will try and do just that through lobbying to protect their oligopoly. This should really be a free market issue. I truly believe that one day, technology will be at a tipping point that bandwidth will be free. Much like solar in the beginning, expensive to produce and not really producing a bang for buck. But now, it's a completely different picture. I can't wait until telecoms companies are consigned to history.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  Has latency and congestion in satellites been resolved? Last time I used one the latency was 1200ms end to end. Gaming was impossible. SSH, even using mosh, was painful. Most interactive websites were not usable. For watching low res videos it was ok. If this has changed, that would be great. I am tired of comcast's duopoly.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - shmerl 8y ago
    Low orbit latency is reasonable. Current satellite ISPs use geostationary orbits which are much further away. SpaceX plan to use orbits at around 1110 km - 1325 km. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit
  - frisco 8y ago
    The Starlink satellites are in a very low orbit that decays relatively quickly, and so is only feasible with a large constellation of very cheap nodes that wasn't possible before. The high latencies are to geostationary communications satellites, which are vastly farther away. Starlink latency should only be 25 - 50 ms.
danjoc 8y ago
>(a) It shall be unlawful for a fixed Internet service provider, I assume this means 'not mobile' >(1) Blocking lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management. California will outlaw ISPs providing network level ad blocking services. >(6) Zero-rating some Internet content, applications, services, or devices in a category of Internet content, applications, services, or devices, but not the entire category. California will make T-Mobile Binge On type service illegal for cable providers to offer. >(b) It shall be unlawful for a mobile Internet service provider, insofar as the provider is engaged in providing mobile broadband Internet access service, to engage in any of the activities described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), and (9) of subdivision (a). And the will outlaw T-Mobile Binge On too. Submitted without opinionated commentary.
- kstrauser 8y ago
  > California will make T-Mobile Binge On type service illegal for cable providers to offer. Hopefully, yes. > And the will outlaw T-Mobile Binge On too. Hopefully, yes. In the short term, I like those services. Hey, free streaming video! But in the enlightened self interest long term, I don't want my ISP deciding which services I can plausibly use. Imagine Verizon offered zero-rated Netflix, "but since you don't need all that expensive per-gigabyte data like our competitors try to sell you, we'll give you 2GB of data for free with your plan, but unlimited access to our wide variety of paid sponsors!"

78 points by LinuxBender 8y ago

Dissenting opinion: I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. Very light users(news) are effectively subsidizing super heavy users(netflix). NN is just popular because it was removed not because it's a good policy. I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of speed/uptime/ping. This gives an incentive to companies to give you faster speed and provide levels of speed/ping that people would be willing to pay extra for. Something like: Browsing tier: .1c/GB 1mb/s 500ms ping guaranteed Video tier: .3c/GB 100 mb/s 100ms ping, 99.9% packet delivery Video conferencing tier: 100 mb/s 50ms ping, no packet loss etc... Don't focus on numbers but rather the idea.

pdonis 8y ago
> I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. I don't think you have a correct definition of what net neutrality, as a policy, is. See below. > I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of speed/uptime/ping. This is perfectly consistent with net neutrality. What is not consistent with net neutrality is pricing the same GB/speed/uptime/ping differently, depending on which endpoint the traffic is coming from/going to. That is what net neutrality regulation prevents, and all that it prevents.
- jnordwick 8y ago
  Depends on who you talk to. The EFF seems to have changed its definition of NN and now includes throttling in it as their press release for the recent Verizon tiff when they throttled a fire department. They are being really inconsistent in their definition, saying that the repeal of NN allowed the throttling to happen. I guess that isn't technically saying it falls under NN if you twist your head enough, but is certainly is conflating the two issues.
  - burkaman 8y ago
    The EFF's press release was not referring to net neutrality as a general concept, it was specifically talking about concrete language in the 2015 Open Internet Order. There's too much to quote here, but you can search for throttling to see what the rule would have banned: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-orde...
    - pdonis 8y ago
      > you can search for throttling to see what the rule would have banned I did. It bans throttling based on content. It does not ban throttling based on going over the usage cap in the plan you paid for, which is what Verizon did to the Santa Clara fire department.
      - burkaman 8y ago
        You're right, I thought "on the basis of Internet service" meant your ISP service, but it actually means some other service that you're using the internet to access. On page 52: 122. Because our no-throttling rule addresses instances in which a broadband provider targets particular content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, it does not address a practice of slowing down an end user’s connection to the Internet based on a choice made by the end user. For instance, a broadband provider may offer a data plan in which a subscriber receives a set amount of data at one speed tier and any remaining data at a lower tier. If the Commission were concerned about the particulars of a data plan, it could review it under the no-unreasonable interference/disadvantage standard. In contrast, if a broadband provider degraded the delivery of a particular application (e.g., a disfavored VoIP service) or class of application (e.g., all VoIP applications), it would violate the bright-line no-throttling rule. We note that user-selected data plans with reduced speeds must comply with our transparency rule, such that the limitations of the plan are clearly and accurately communicated to the subscriber. Sorry.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    I read the EFF's post here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/verizons-throttling-fire-fighters-could-go-unpunished-because-fcc-repealed-open https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/verizons-throttling-fi... I assume that's the one you are commenting on, if not, feel free to post a link as the EFF has been putting out a lot of communications lately. :-) I agree with you that the EFF's communication here is muddled. The point I would focus on in the actual incident (the Santa Clara fire department being throttled) is this one: "Within the documents submitted by Santa Clara, it appears to be some confusion as to what exactly was Verizon selling to the fire department. Twice the public safety officials asserted they thought they were buying an unlimited plan and twice they discovered during the emergency they did not." In other words, to me the key issue here is not throttling, but whether customers understand what they are buying. (As the article notes, it might not be Verizon's fault if there was a misunderstanding; that would need to be investigated.) If you buy a plan that says you get throttled after a certain usage point, that's what you bought; I don't see how that is inconsistent with NN since the throttling doesn't depend on what sites you go to. But the EFF then argues this: "The FCC, however, could have proactively addressed this problem in the future and establish a federal rule applicable in all fifty states that ISPs are not allowed to throttle public safety services during emergencies. The FCC under its Title II authority could even go so far and categorically say it is illegal to try to upsell public safety agencies, or anyone, wireless plans during official emergencies as a matter of public safety. The agency would have good arguments as to why to set these rules, and thanks to Verizon, the evidence to demonstrate that threats to health and life are at stake in the absence of such rules. But the Restoring Internet Freedom Order abandoned those powers, so right now in America, firefighters don’t have a government agency they can turn to for help." To me this is a different issue from NN, since the whole basis of the argument is that public safety agencies should be treated differently from other customers. I don't disagree with that argument, but I don't think it falls under NN either.
rosser 8y ago
No. This predicates meaningful access to the internet on your socioeconomic status, further entrenching extant divisions. Educational material is increasingly being delivered in video form. What happens, e.g., to poor families have to choose between paying the electric bill, or buying food, or buying enough download capacity that their kid can learn? But that's not even the real issue. The big problem with a non-neutral internet is the barrier to entry imposed on non-incumbent players. Netflix has the money (and customer base) to absorb any "pay to play" costs imposed by the end-user's ISP. Whiz-Bang Startup Streaming Service doesn't, unless they take more funding, meaning the people who created the thing own less of it, and all of that additional money goes to the incumbent ISPs. I submit that this is an intentional outcome of the policy.
enitihas 8y ago
I think everyone can agree with you on the "per GB front". NN does nothing to prohibit data plans which cap at some GB limit. The issue is, the carrier shouldn't get to decide the weight of different GBs. It's about all bytes over the network being equal. If you use the internet mostly for news, you can always opt for a smaller data plan. I don't see how you get forced to pay for someone whose content is of different nature.
- jdc 8y ago
  Yup. And (especially) since government is gatekeeping who gets to be an ISP, it has a responsibility to ensure providers focus on providing a useful service rather than using the junction as strategic chokepoint.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I don't agree with him on that front at all.
pslam 8y ago
Netflix is not a user. The end customer is. Flipping this on its head, so that it sounds like the "super heavy users" are the businesses, is an anti-net-neutrality talking point. Don't fall for it. Businesses such as Netflix enter peering arrangements to build out network infrastructure and server farms close to where the customer demand is. It's customers who are driving this, because the ISPs would lose them otherwise.
ppseafield 8y ago
Uh... what? Net Neutrality doesn't prevent ISPs from charging different rates for different speeds. They did that during the existence of the rule. It prevents ISPs from charging you based on which sites you can access. Without NN an ISP can charge you $5/month extra if you want to access Hacker News, $10/month to access Netflix, and an extra $20/month to access Netflix at speeds that aren't effectively crippled. It can flat out refuse to serve you a website.
atrus 8y ago
I've always wondered if it would be more fair to only pay for UPLOAD. Download all you want, but pay for everything you upload. It always seemed to me the best of both worlds. Those torrenting and serving large amounts of data (Netflix, etc) would be paying, and they're also responsible for the amounts of traffic as well.
- mtgx 8y ago
  Sites like YouTube or Wikipedia would have never happened then. And it would completely doom the idea of P2P internet.
orev 8y ago
Selling per GB is an absolutely horrible idea because that’s not how networks work. ISPs have conjured this concept from nowhere solely as a way to get people to pay more money. Bandwidth is data transfer over time, and there is no “bucket of data” that gets depleted when you transfer data. It’s not gas or water or something that you drain out the more you use. Time is divided into time slots and that time is going to pass whether you put something in the packet or not. If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. But ISPs want to be able to advertise fast speeds that make them look impressive, though they don’t want to you actually be able to use it because then they have to upgrade their pipes. So they play these tricks where they can claim you have fast speeds but then this magical bucket of data gets depleted every time you use it.
- icebraining 8y ago
  While I'm sure ISP execs are all mustache-twirling villains, what they're doing is not absurd, it's essentially the same as selling a burstable connection with a certain average bandwidth (the cap divided by one month gives a data transfer over time). And the reality is that, as a customer who loads a 5MB site and then spends 2-3m reading it, I much prefer this model than if they sold me a smaller fixed data transfer over time. That networks don't work like this is rather irrelevant, because it's a shared pipe. If they sold be a data transfer over time (say, guaranteed 256kps), that would be wasteful, because I couldn't take advantage of the higher speeds when other customers weren't using it too. A well-managed burstable connection is a much more efficient use of the resource.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  > that’s not how networks work Correct. I agree with most of your post. > If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. Yes. And you don't get that by having everybody with their foot down on the download pedal all the time. Speed oversubscription is a thing, because a lot of the time people are using a trickle down of data, in some other periods they're using more. NN is important and a byte from Netflix shouldn't be treated differently from a byte from some other site. But I think having people differentiated by the amount of data they use per month (or at least having a big tier limit) could be something ""ok"".
emodendroket 8y ago
You're describing my nightmare scenario but sure it's a wet dream for ISPs.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Dissenting opinion: I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. Very light users(news) are effectively subsidizing super heavy users(netflix). Net neutrality does not prohibit charging by volume of usage, if anything, the inability to do backdoor (and possibly third-party) charges based on kind of usage and remote edge provider interacted with encourages direct usage-based charges. > I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of speed/uptime/ping. Well, at least on the first two axes that is both possible and consistent with net neutrality. Charging by ping is problematic: ping to what endpoint?
kstrauser 8y ago
Netflix already pays for their Internet connection. I already pay for mine. Why should Comcast et al be allowed to seek yet more rent between two parties who are already paying customers?

newfocogi 8y ago

Aren't free-market capitalism and net neutrality inherently at odds with each other? My general understanding of HN culture is that it is generally capitalist and generally pro net neutrality. Could someone who finds themselves in both of these general categories explain their position?

pdonis 8y ago
> Aren't free-market capitalism and net neutrality inherently at odds with each other? Strictly speaking, yes. But free-market capitalism is also inherently at odds with ISPs having monopolies based on geographical area, which is the case for most of the US. Net neutrality regulation is an attempt to address the obvious issues with that, given the fact that the ISP monopolies are not going to go away any time soon. In other words, in an ideal free market, yes, net neutrality regulation would not exist; but we don't have anything close to an ideal free market in Internet access.
orev 8y ago
ISPs are not operating in a pure market. They have been granted billions of dollars in subsidies over the years, and in many places are/were also granted monopolies because communities don’t want wires being run by multiple companies. After all the benefits they have been given, now they want to turn around and cry “free market” and that they should not be regulated.
- ngngngng 8y ago
  It's also not possible to operate in a completely unregulated free market when your industry relies on a finite amount of space in the ground to lay fiber or airwaves to transmit on. There's a very limited amount of competition that can operate when a city has to approve someone digging up the roads every time a new company pops up.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > There's a very limited amount of competition that can operate when a city has to approve someone digging up the roads every time a new company pops up. The solution to this is for the actual physical infrastructure that requires digging up roads to be owned by the city (or other local entity), so it only has to be put into place once, when the city is built; and for competing ISPs to either lease, say, fiber bandwidth from the city, or get a permit to pull their own cabling through already existing underground tunnels. The problem is that every municipality that has tried this solution has been sued into oblivion by the ISPs, who want to prevent open competition by any means necessary.

eriken 8y ago

How is having different regulations for each state the recipe for increased investments? This topic just seem way too politicised.

mtgx 8y ago
Well, that's the ISPs' problem now. They're the ones that killed the "unified" federal net neutrality policy, no? Reap what you sow.
emodendroket 8y ago
You could say this about literally any state law.
r00fus 8y ago
F the Telcoms. They wanted to gut it and paid Ajit Pai to make it happen. This is part of their problem. They get the increased tax/regulation frustration as a minor cost to their goal of cable-ifiying the Internet.

no1youknowz 8y ago

Once Musk is ready with his satellites, there should really be a concerted crowdfunded option where an internet backbone is also launched and put into a non-profit public trust. Then, it should be an issue where leaders in the state and federal level are backed by the people and to make the incumbents like Comcast and their ilk back off and negate any moves to kill it off. Because we all know they will try and do just that through lobbying to protect their oligopoly. This should really be a free market issue. I truly believe that one day, technology will be at a tipping point that bandwidth will be free. Much like solar in the beginning, expensive to produce and not really producing a bang for buck. But now, it's a completely different picture. I can't wait until telecoms companies are consigned to history.

LinuxBender 8y ago
Has latency and congestion in satellites been resolved? Last time I used one the latency was 1200ms end to end. Gaming was impossible. SSH, even using mosh, was painful. Most interactive websites were not usable. For watching low res videos it was ok. If this has changed, that would be great. I am tired of comcast's duopoly.
- deleted 8y ago
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- shmerl 8y ago
  Low orbit latency is reasonable. Current satellite ISPs use geostationary orbits which are much further away. SpaceX plan to use orbits at around 1110 km - 1325 km. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit
- frisco 8y ago
  The Starlink satellites are in a very low orbit that decays relatively quickly, and so is only feasible with a large constellation of very cheap nodes that wasn't possible before. The high latencies are to geostationary communications satellites, which are vastly farther away. Starlink latency should only be 25 - 50 ms.

danjoc 8y ago

>(a) It shall be unlawful for a fixed Internet service provider, I assume this means 'not mobile' >(1) Blocking lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management. California will outlaw ISPs providing network level ad blocking services. >(6) Zero-rating some Internet content, applications, services, or devices in a category of Internet content, applications, services, or devices, but not the entire category. California will make T-Mobile Binge On type service illegal for cable providers to offer. >(b) It shall be unlawful for a mobile Internet service provider, insofar as the provider is engaged in providing mobile broadband Internet access service, to engage in any of the activities described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), and (9) of subdivision (a). And the will outlaw T-Mobile Binge On too. Submitted without opinionated commentary.

kstrauser 8y ago
> California will make T-Mobile Binge On type service illegal for cable providers to offer. Hopefully, yes. > And the will outlaw T-Mobile Binge On too. Hopefully, yes. In the short term, I like those services. Hey, free streaming video! But in the enlightened self interest long term, I don't want my ISP deciding which services I can plausibly use. Imagine Verizon offered zero-rated Netflix, "but since you don't need all that expensive per-gigabyte data like our competitors try to sell you, we'll give you 2GB of data for free with your plan, but unlimited access to our wide variety of paid sponsors!"