4 ms·
>Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are probably soon going to dictate what traffic can or cannot arrive at people’s end devices. This was the money quote for m
by na85 7y ago
>Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are probably soon going to dictate what traffic can or cannot arrive at people’s end devices.
This was the money quote for me. FANG may kill the web, but the idea that ISPs (in my opinion some of the scummiest corporations out there) get to decide what content they serve me and what they don't has the potential to kill the Internet as we know it.
- blackflame 7y agoNaw, with the coming of 5G it will destroy their monopolies on the communication lines which should open the door to more local competition.
- bransonf 7y agoBut what makes wireless telecom giants any better than ISPs?
- doctorshady 7y agoI think their point is more competition is better regardless; every one of them will try to find some way to make themselves seem better than the other. Though the problem with that regardless is that from a business perspective, there's a very finite amount of spectrum, and it's being gobbled up exclusively by four (maybe soon to be three with the pending Sprint merger) companies. From a technical perspective, there's definitely been mixed reactions to the effectiveness of 5G technology. That's another topic in and of itself, though.
- m10i 7y agoCould you elaborate on this?
- randomsearch 7y ago5G isn’t a substitute for fibre.
- Teknoman117 7y agoThat assumes that you'll have a healthy offering of wireless providers. If you're from Europe, then I understand that's the norm there, but in the US, it's the same story as your local ISPs. For home internet, you'll be beholden to whatever companies own the towers near your property.
- superkuh 7y agoNo. The modulation and time sharing built into 5G only offers 15-20% increase in bandwidth available, MHz for MHz, when compared to 4G LTE. This is not a significant increase. It is not at all like the 3-4x increases in bandwidth, MHz for MHz, that the jump from 3G modulations to 4G LTE did. Almost all of any potential increase in total speed will have to come from using new parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. To that end the FCC is kicking out old users from the 3 GHz range and auctioning it off to the mobile telcos. This includes both the traditional backend media distribution role and completely eliminating the amateur radio alloacations (ref: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-360941A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-360941A1.pdf). But even with stealing bandwidth from you, me, and the normal media companies it won't replace an ISP with wire. Why? Every single wire or fiber has as much bandwidth to itself as the entire electromagnetic spectrum useable in freespace. And you don't have to share. Wireless, no matter the modulation, can never replace wired ISPs simply because there's not enough spectrum for everyone to use it at once. Additionally, the 3-4 GHz spectrum really doesn't have that good of propagation characteristics. And mm-wave, well, that's about as effective as a light post light in terms of coverage area. No, 5G will not destroy any monopolies. That's silly.
- namibj 7y agoSmaller cells do wonders. A LimeSDR with <200$ of general-purpose CPU/assorted components to work between the USB3 SDR and Gigabit Ethernet (and some <50$ antenna + GPS-clock) is enough for a small 5G cell, where small primarily refers to single-channel and limited reach due to ~4mW output power (on each of the 2 antennas). The reach can be increased for <50$ to at least a few hundred meters radius.
- Nextgrid 7y agoI don't understand, are you advocating for hobbyists to make their own 5G cells, or carriers? Why not use Wi-Fi at this point?
- mch82 7y agoI assume Namibj is suggesting a switch from our current hub-and-spoke ISP model to a peer-to-peer mesh networking model. Radio technologies have strengths and weaknesses. While WiFi works great in a home, other radio types are better at transmitting data long distance. The best solutions combine a mix of radios to leverage their strengths.
- Spooky23 7y agoLol. Over the air carriers have much broader latitude to block and prioritize traffic than the wired ISPs do. They also have an absurd national security justification to build out 5G local infrastructure without any input or regulation from local authorities.
- vbezhenar 7y agoHow can they even do it with encryption and CDNs everywhere? It's just not possible. The last trace is unencrypted domain name in TLS handshake and it'll be gone soon.
- j88439h84 7y ago> The last trace is unencrypted domain name in TLS handshake and it'll be gone soon. How can they respond to dns queries if they don't know what you're asking for?
- computerex 7y agoI think you could potentially use a DNS independent of the ISP? But ultimately the ISP will know what IP you're trying to reach due to the nature of their position.
- vbezhenar 7y agoI can use https://1.1.1.1/ https://1.1.1.1/ as my DNS resolver. So all my provider can see is encrypted connection to 1.1.1.1 then encrypted connection to some 1.2.3.4 which belongs to cloudflare and serves plenty of different websites.
- swinglock 7y agoISPs/governments and CDNs/clouds could start partnering/synergizing/colluding. Shake some hands and write some APIs to share user data with each other in real-time. Even make it a 3GPP standard.
- mch82 7y agoYes. The author of the article buried this point under all the Google, Facebook, Amazon commentary. Yet, it’s the key point. Also, this article got me thinking that maybe public research should get to work on the AR/VR aspects of the web so the key infrastructure of the web continues to be publicly owned.
- buboard 7y agoBut somehow it's the FANG that decide what to serve/monetize, not the ISPs.