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In theory, if Google Fiber was widely available, would this drastically dilute the effects of net neutrality problems? Or are these two issues completely unrela

In theory, if Google Fiber was widely available, would this drastically dilute the effects of net neutrality problems? Or are these two issues completely unrelated?

valas 13y ago
"Net-neutrality" means different thing to different people. If by net-neutrality you mean the system where a paying broadband customer can consume any content, irrespective of that content owner ability to pony up to cash to broadband provider, then yes, these two issues are related. More competition in consumer broadband market would keep providers in check. In an ideal world (at least my ideal), broadband providers would strive to do everything they can to deliver content to me. In current world, it's well documented that Comcast is passively allowing interconnects to fill up, causing congestion, and forcing content providers to pay up for better interconnect.
edraferi 13y ago
It becomes much harder to violate net neutrality in the face of competition. Here's an example: Say you have two ISP options at your home. Firm A forces Netflix to pay $1/month for access to enough bandwidth to stream movies in HD to your house, because they want you to use janky-streams.com, which they own. Firm B keeps their peering infrastructure up-to-date without charging Netflix. Where does this leave you as a consumer? All else equal, you'll switch over to Firm B. Why? Because Netflix works there even without paying a ransom for their data. It costs Netflix more money to provide their service to you on Firm A. They could pass that cost along to you directly (increase Netflix bill $1/month) or reduce the stream quality and blame the ISP. The end result is that you're paying more or getting worse service because of the Net Neutrality violation. However, Firm A understands this logic. They know that charging Netflix would push consumers to Firm B. Thus they decide to play nice and pass along the data you already pay them for.
- bsbechtel 13y ago
  That's what I was suspecting, just wanted to be sure I understood things correctly. 'Your margin is my opportunity' -Jeff Bezos I guess that only holds true when there aren't artificial barriers to entry into a market.
- VLM 13y ago
  To complete the analogy, even more comically, to enforce the punishment by firm A against netflix, they probably had to make a capital investment in sabotage gear of perhaps 75 cents per month TCO. Thats kind of how it was in telecom before they gave up on detailed long distance billing. You'd spend 4 cents/min on billing infrastructure which was OK when a LD call from CHC to NYC was $4/minute, not so great when Sams Club was selling LD cards for 5 cents/min. Never forget that creating false scarcity of a non-scarce good takes a lot of time, effort, and money.
- a_c_s 13y ago
  The problem is that instead, Firm B could just follow the lead and also charge $1/month for Netflix, leaving the consumer with no choice. Or they could charge $1/month for other streaming services and leave Netflix alone, so the consumer gets to choose between slow Netflix or slow Hulu & Amazon, with no chance to 'vote' with their wallets for fast everything. This is the danger of oligopolies - even when they don't collude, their interests are in not competing 'too hard' to gain customers. If there are two firms, and each has roughly half of the customers, then the most money Firm A could get with no competition is 2x what they already have, so getting into a price war could easily result in lower total profits. For example, if they have a 50% profit margin, then lowering consumer prices by 25% (and thus cutting profits to only 25% margin) only breaks even if they are able to sign up every customer of their competition. Free markets work best when there are many players and markets are easy to enter, as there is much more incentive to compete, which is not the structure of broadband markets.
gress 13y ago
If Google Fiber was widely available Google would be the one controlling traffic priority.
- quokka 13y ago
  That is true, and why to the solution to the US's slow internet providers isn't "get Google fiber to everyone". It should be "make it easy for new companies to provide service, even if another fast service is already available".
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Throw a couple of billions to create fibre last mile to every home in the USA that would be owned by the homeowners and it would go a long way to solving the problem. As a side effect it will also create that king of blue collar jobs that US needs right now.

In theory, if Google Fiber was widely available, would this drastically dilute the effects of net neutrality problems? Or are these two issues completely unrelated?

valas 13y ago

"Net-neutrality" means different thing to different people. If by net-neutrality you mean the system where a paying broadband customer can consume any content, irrespective of that content owner ability to pony up to cash to broadband provider, then yes, these two issues are related. More competition in consumer broadband market would keep providers in check. In an ideal world (at least my ideal), broadband providers would strive to do everything they can to deliver content to me. In current world, it's well documented that Comcast is passively allowing interconnects to fill up, causing congestion, and forcing content providers to pay up for better interconnect.

edraferi 13y ago

It becomes much harder to violate net neutrality in the face of competition. Here's an example: Say you have two ISP options at your home. Firm A forces Netflix to pay $1/month for access to enough bandwidth to stream movies in HD to your house, because they want you to use janky-streams.com, which they own. Firm B keeps their peering infrastructure up-to-date without charging Netflix. Where does this leave you as a consumer? All else equal, you'll switch over to Firm B. Why? Because Netflix works there even without paying a ransom for their data. It costs Netflix more money to provide their service to you on Firm A. They could pass that cost along to you directly (increase Netflix bill $1/month) or reduce the stream quality and blame the ISP. The end result is that you're paying more or getting worse service because of the Net Neutrality violation. However, Firm A understands this logic. They know that charging Netflix would push consumers to Firm B. Thus they decide to play nice and pass along the data you already pay them for.

bsbechtel 13y ago
That's what I was suspecting, just wanted to be sure I understood things correctly. 'Your margin is my opportunity' -Jeff Bezos I guess that only holds true when there aren't artificial barriers to entry into a market.
VLM 13y ago
To complete the analogy, even more comically, to enforce the punishment by firm A against netflix, they probably had to make a capital investment in sabotage gear of perhaps 75 cents per month TCO. Thats kind of how it was in telecom before they gave up on detailed long distance billing. You'd spend 4 cents/min on billing infrastructure which was OK when a LD call from CHC to NYC was $4/minute, not so great when Sams Club was selling LD cards for 5 cents/min. Never forget that creating false scarcity of a non-scarce good takes a lot of time, effort, and money.
a_c_s 13y ago
The problem is that instead, Firm B could just follow the lead and also charge $1/month for Netflix, leaving the consumer with no choice. Or they could charge $1/month for other streaming services and leave Netflix alone, so the consumer gets to choose between slow Netflix or slow Hulu & Amazon, with no chance to 'vote' with their wallets for fast everything. This is the danger of oligopolies - even when they don't collude, their interests are in not competing 'too hard' to gain customers. If there are two firms, and each has roughly half of the customers, then the most money Firm A could get with no competition is 2x what they already have, so getting into a price war could easily result in lower total profits. For example, if they have a 50% profit margin, then lowering consumer prices by 25% (and thus cutting profits to only 25% margin) only breaks even if they are able to sign up every customer of their competition. Free markets work best when there are many players and markets are easy to enter, as there is much more incentive to compete, which is not the structure of broadband markets.

gress 13y ago

If Google Fiber was widely available Google would be the one controlling traffic priority.

quokka 13y ago
That is true, and why to the solution to the US's slow internet providers isn't "get Google fiber to everyone". It should be "make it easy for new companies to provide service, even if another fast service is already available".
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Throw a couple of billions to create fibre last mile to every home in the USA that would be owned by the homeowners and it would go a long way to solving the problem. As a side effect it will also create that king of blue collar jobs that US needs right now.