3 ms·

I'm of a firm belief that Net Neutrality (for Tier 2 and 3 operators) is mostly a US-specific issue that primarily stems from the extra difficulty of running li

I'm of a firm belief that Net Neutrality (for Tier 2 and 3 operators) is mostly a US-specific issue that primarily stems from the extra difficulty of running lines (I mean, in addition to normal difficulty) to the customer added by market-disruptive means like lobbying (e.g. exclusivity agreements). That's a bad kind of a free market. In other words, net neutrality is only a thing because of lack of competition. If all providers are bad, and you can't have or start a good one because of some barriers, then net neutrality becomes a topic. But it's not a solution for the core problem, it's merely a band-aid that tries to ignore the core issue. I'm not against it - it surely works for the interim, but it's important that NN is not in the focus. I've worked for an ISP in another country, with heavy competition in early '10s, where many households had an option of at least 4+ different providers, and switching was as easy as calling a phone number (no long-term contracts or any BS small print). There and then, ISPs had to tread very carefully to not make their customers unhappy, or they'll start losing them in droves. Rate limiting and blocking was only ever employed to block malware or as emergency measure for network stability issues that would've otherwise caused worse outage. (Later on, that country became a dictatorship, telecom became heavily regulated, competition had essentially stopped, and now ISPs do all sort of shit because they can or forced to - but that's another story.) <conspiracy serious="no, but you never know"> It could be that Net Neutrality is a big telco distraction tactic, which they use to simultaneously banter with large services, while shifting public and government focus from stuff they don't want to lose (exclusivity agreements), towards "maybe we won't rate-limit Netflix after all, lol". </conspiracy>

michaelmrose 3y ago
The US is 9,833,520 km2 much of it sparsely populated. Not only is it inherently difficult its impossible to resolve in any reasonable duration of time. If we wanted to drive a bit more competition there was a law many years ago forcing ISP to share their lines with the competition at cost. This is actually practical and able to be implemented in the short term. Another thing we can do is repeal all the local laws restricting municipal broadband.
- robocat 3y ago
  The US is big is such a tired argument. An individual state can often implement a lot without needing federal law changes. > sparsely populated Oregon is about the same size, population and geography as my country New Zealand. Within a decade New Zealand (poorer country) has managed to roll out fibre to 85% of households using a public-private partnership model. Starlink serves rural areas.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    We did the same thing but the ISP just kept the money instead of actually laying fiber. In any case Oregon is about 3 million people in the portland metro and a million people spread over 90,000 sq miles or 10 per sq mile or about 4 per sq km Portland is already working on municipal fiber as it should but keep in mind that US government projects a bit like the Russian military a lot of money gets soaked up between budget and result. A more competitive market is something we might if we do well achieve in the next few decades. Net Neutrality helps now and will actually still be virtuous if we can move forward in other respects.
    - robocat 3y ago
      > In any case Oregon is about 3 million people in the portland metro and a million people spread over 90,000 sq miles or 10 per sq mile or about 4 per sq km NZ is more closely comparible than you are suggesting. The majority of NZ is in cities with the other ~1 million[1] spread over 103,500 sq mi. Density is a distribution, and cherry picking a single density number is nearly always very misleading. Oregon is often a fine comparison with New Zealand. Except I wouldn't want to try to compare which government is more functional (we have our serious problems too). As a generalisation, while it is difficult to compare the whole of the USA with a specific country, it is often enlightening to find a comparible state. [1] 3.4 million in top 20 cities or 3.7 million if including their greater urban areas, population 5.2 million.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >We did the same thing but the ISP just kept the money instead of actually laying fiber. Source? Surely the money came with strings attached?

michaelmrose 3y ago

The US is 9,833,520 km2 much of it sparsely populated. Not only is it inherently difficult its impossible to resolve in any reasonable duration of time. If we wanted to drive a bit more competition there was a law many years ago forcing ISP to share their lines with the competition at cost. This is actually practical and able to be implemented in the short term. Another thing we can do is repeal all the local laws restricting municipal broadband.

robocat 3y ago
The US is big is such a tired argument. An individual state can often implement a lot without needing federal law changes. > sparsely populated Oregon is about the same size, population and geography as my country New Zealand. Within a decade New Zealand (poorer country) has managed to roll out fibre to 85% of households using a public-private partnership model. Starlink serves rural areas.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  We did the same thing but the ISP just kept the money instead of actually laying fiber. In any case Oregon is about 3 million people in the portland metro and a million people spread over 90,000 sq miles or 10 per sq mile or about 4 per sq km Portland is already working on municipal fiber as it should but keep in mind that US government projects a bit like the Russian military a lot of money gets soaked up between budget and result. A more competitive market is something we might if we do well achieve in the next few decades. Net Neutrality helps now and will actually still be virtuous if we can move forward in other respects.
  - robocat 3y ago
    > In any case Oregon is about 3 million people in the portland metro and a million people spread over 90,000 sq miles or 10 per sq mile or about 4 per sq km NZ is more closely comparible than you are suggesting. The majority of NZ is in cities with the other ~1 million[1] spread over 103,500 sq mi. Density is a distribution, and cherry picking a single density number is nearly always very misleading. Oregon is often a fine comparison with New Zealand. Except I wouldn't want to try to compare which government is more functional (we have our serious problems too). As a generalisation, while it is difficult to compare the whole of the USA with a specific country, it is often enlightening to find a comparible state. [1] 3.4 million in top 20 cities or 3.7 million if including their greater urban areas, population 5.2 million.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >We did the same thing but the ISP just kept the money instead of actually laying fiber. Source? Surely the money came with strings attached?