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I for one, welcome our new Comcast-punishing FCC overlords. Wait, I got that wrong: I greatly fear putting the FCC in charge of regulating ISP's, with the fa

I for one, welcome our new Comcast-punishing FCC overlords. Wait, I got that wrong: I greatly fear putting the FCC in charge of regulating ISP's, with the fantastically-awful job they are doing with regards to the telecom and television markets. Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing comes to mind....

stcredzero 18y ago
Right. So a lack of real competition enables abuses by corporate behemoths. Solution? Bring in the government behemoth. What about enabling real competition?
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  I think the best way to encourage real competition is to decouple infrastructure maintenance from service provisioning. The internet infrastructure is a natural physical monopoly which doesn't make sense to duplicate several times over. But the current impracticality of having multiple service providers over common pipes sets up the abusive monopolization we are currently seeing. Unfortunately the behemoths seem content with the status quo of commingling those two businesses. We're caught between the wolf and the bear, and I don't see a good way out. Seeing the FCC make a strong move to protect Net neutrality is heartening, but seeing them make a unilateral decision to assume more regulatory power makes me nervous. I really don't want to see the FCC start making decisions about content in addition to decisions about technical implementations. Regulate the frequencies, not the airwaves.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    I don't see the FCC stretching for that yet. They've made no overtures toward censorship, in fact, this move is fairly anti-censorship, as it essentially prevents ISPs from engaging in that. The FCC has generally regulated content transmitted over public airwaves. And while I personally disagree with even that, they don't interfere much with stuff that comes over cables.
    - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
      The FCC (and to some extent, Congress) has been making overtures towards granting itself power to regulate content on the private Cable networks for some years now. I'm wary of any censorship, so it's one of the things I have to bring up when looking at the FCC's new rulings here.
      - mattmaroon 18y ago
        That may be true, but this in particular doesn't seem to be any attempt at censorship (in fact it's the opposite) and we can't just throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  So it's 100% certain that the only real, long term solution is to enable real competition. Probably most would agree with that. However, given the infrastructure demands, that's very hard (but possible) and will take a long time. We should push for it clearly, but we need something in between. Given that most people have only 2, maybe 3 available providers, we need the government to intervene in the mean time to enforce net neutrality. It's a stopgap measure to be sure, but it's a necessary one. Government regulating natural monopolies in the interest of the consumer is pretty common and relatively effective.
  - stcredzero 18y ago
    The problem is that, in the US, political will often dies with the stopgap solution.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      That's true, but in that case our alternative is to have a monopolistic broandband provider in each area with the ability to discriminate against traffic/websites. The stopgap solution, even if left in place permanently with no further progress, is far better than that.
      - dominik 18y ago
        I disagree. It's far better to address the root of the problem rather than just treating the symptoms on the surface. The symptoms on the surface are that monopolistic broandband providers discriminate against traffic or websites. The root of the problem is that there are monopolistic broandband providers rather than a competitive free market. Why are there monopolistic broandband providers? Where do we get our Internet from? Generally, either DSL or Cable. DSL comes via the children of another monopolistic (or at least oligopolistic) industry: telecom. And cable comes via yet another monopolistic (or at least oligopolistic) industry: cable television. Monopoly breeds monopoly, ever expanding into new industries to monopolize, more often with the government's blessings than not.

stcredzero 18y ago

Right. So a lack of real competition enables abuses by corporate behemoths. Solution? Bring in the government behemoth. What about enabling real competition?

LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
I think the best way to encourage real competition is to decouple infrastructure maintenance from service provisioning. The internet infrastructure is a natural physical monopoly which doesn't make sense to duplicate several times over. But the current impracticality of having multiple service providers over common pipes sets up the abusive monopolization we are currently seeing. Unfortunately the behemoths seem content with the status quo of commingling those two businesses. We're caught between the wolf and the bear, and I don't see a good way out. Seeing the FCC make a strong move to protect Net neutrality is heartening, but seeing them make a unilateral decision to assume more regulatory power makes me nervous. I really don't want to see the FCC start making decisions about content in addition to decisions about technical implementations. Regulate the frequencies, not the airwaves.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  I don't see the FCC stretching for that yet. They've made no overtures toward censorship, in fact, this move is fairly anti-censorship, as it essentially prevents ISPs from engaging in that. The FCC has generally regulated content transmitted over public airwaves. And while I personally disagree with even that, they don't interfere much with stuff that comes over cables.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
    The FCC (and to some extent, Congress) has been making overtures towards granting itself power to regulate content on the private Cable networks for some years now. I'm wary of any censorship, so it's one of the things I have to bring up when looking at the FCC's new rulings here.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      That may be true, but this in particular doesn't seem to be any attempt at censorship (in fact it's the opposite) and we can't just throw the baby out with the bathwater.
mattmaroon 18y ago
So it's 100% certain that the only real, long term solution is to enable real competition. Probably most would agree with that. However, given the infrastructure demands, that's very hard (but possible) and will take a long time. We should push for it clearly, but we need something in between. Given that most people have only 2, maybe 3 available providers, we need the government to intervene in the mean time to enforce net neutrality. It's a stopgap measure to be sure, but it's a necessary one. Government regulating natural monopolies in the interest of the consumer is pretty common and relatively effective.
- stcredzero 18y ago
  The problem is that, in the US, political will often dies with the stopgap solution.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    That's true, but in that case our alternative is to have a monopolistic broandband provider in each area with the ability to discriminate against traffic/websites. The stopgap solution, even if left in place permanently with no further progress, is far better than that.
    - dominik 18y ago
      I disagree. It's far better to address the root of the problem rather than just treating the symptoms on the surface. The symptoms on the surface are that monopolistic broandband providers discriminate against traffic or websites. The root of the problem is that there are monopolistic broandband providers rather than a competitive free market. Why are there monopolistic broandband providers? Where do we get our Internet from? Generally, either DSL or Cable. DSL comes via the children of another monopolistic (or at least oligopolistic) industry: telecom. And cable comes via yet another monopolistic (or at least oligopolistic) industry: cable television. Monopoly breeds monopoly, ever expanding into new industries to monopolize, more often with the government's blessings than not.