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F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane
- azinman2 13y agoAnd... there goes the internet.
- noobermin 13y agoColor me surprised. I'm actually a buckeye where Mr. Wheeler hails from. This fact and after watching his speech a couple of months ago, perhaps that is why I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I guess I was wrong about him.
- robbiet480 13y agoUgh.
- ihuman 13y agoI don't have the best knowledge about the FCC's plan for Net Neutrality, but doesn't this go against everything that the plan stood for?
- dragonwriter 13y agoIf it was as the NY Times piece (which seems to be fairly heavy on editorializing and weak on facts for a straight news piece) describes -- "will allow a company like Comcast or Verizon to negotiate separately with each content company [...] and charge different companies different amounts for priority service." However, the other reports on this have not described it that way -- e.g., the WSJ report [1] (which also hit HN today) says that the new rules to be proposed "would allow broadband providers to give some traffic preferential treatment, so long as such arrangements are available on 'commercially reasonable' terms for all interested content companies." Then again, this Reuters piece [2] says it won't address these types of agreements at all: "However, the rules are not expected to address the issue of interconnection, or agreements in which content companies pay network providers for faster access to their sites or services." Maybe we should wait until the rules are actually released for public comment before freaking out over the specific details (about which there are many conflicting stories.) [1] http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304518704579519963416350296-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwMzEyNDMyWj http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/us-usa-fcc-internet-idUSBREA3M1H020140423 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/us-usa-fcc-interne...
- quaunaut 13y agoHonestly, hell no, we need to raise hell now. If they're even thinking about this as a realistic possibility, the entire notion needs to be burned from their minds. Purged. Edit: Normally, I'm an arbiter of the 'wait and see' variety, but this is such a horrible, unethical, undemocratic, un-American idea that it cannot possibly for a moment be considered.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Honestly, hell no, we need to raise hell now. If they're even thinking about this as a realistic possibility, the entire notion needs to be burned from their minds. Purged. I'm just saying it will be more effective to react to the actual proposal when it is actually proposed and we know what it actually is. We have at least three conflicting news stories from anonymous sources supposedly close to the process, which suggests that at least two are mistaken (if not outright lies). Something actually will be posted with concrete terms for public comment, and that's the time to respond to the specific content -- now, its probably better to talk about what should be in any new Open Internet order, rather than flying off the handle at rumors of what will be in the next Open Internet order. Especially since one of the reasons extreme versions often get leaked ahead of actual proposals is to get activists to blow their top about something worse than the actual proposal, so that they aren't taken seriously when the actual proposal (bad in many of the same ways, but substantively different from what the activists have spent some period of time complaining about on the basis that it was the forthcoming proposal) is released.
- kevando 13y agoFred Wilson wrote some thoughts on this and I fear very much that he is accurate.. http://avc.com/2014/01/vc-pitches-in-a-year-or-two/ http://avc.com/2014/01/vc-pitches-in-a-year-or-two/
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- markbao 13y agoHonestly—who does this benefit, apart from ISPs?
- redthrowaway 13y agoEntrenched services that can pay the premium. It's their "don't worry about upstart competitors" tax.
- xcntktn 13y agoYep. There will never be another video or audio streaming startup after today. Doors closed, ladder pulled up behind them, that's it, finished. The ones that exist today are all there will ever be. Sound crazy? Exaggerated? Check back in 10 years and see.
- dragonwriter 13y agoIts not clear to me that this is a "turnaround", since it is not clear to me that pay-for-quality offered under the terms that the leaks about this have suggested (commercially reasonable terms open to all content providers equally) would have been prohibited by the previous order (had it not been struck down.)
- parfe 13y agoIn six months FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will be a VP at NBC Universal/Comcast. Not a bribe; just coincidence.
- jebblue 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler_(FCC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler_(FCC) "Tom Wheeler is the current Chairman of the FCC.[1] Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry." Wow. This looks especially bad for consumers.
- lvs 13y agoWho could possibly have foreseen this?
- higherpurpose 13y agoThere should be laws against this sort of stuff. Like you can't work for a company in a related domain for 5 years before and after taking the government job. As it is, it just leads to too much corruption.
- ZachPruckowski 13y agoThe problem with that is that the only folks qualified for these jobs are folks with some sort of recent related experience, and the only future job that this is revenue-boosting for is in related domains.
- turing 13y agoBut that doesn't mean that we have to appoint from within industry. There are probably many academics who would be just as qualified or more than former industry lobbyists. Moreover, these people would probably be more than happy to return to academia and research after serving their tenure.
- pyre 13y ago
- sroerick 13y agoIt's so frustrating to me that this is all based around the stupid legal assumption that we have to stream everything. God forbid your user should download something to watch later, to prevent having to redownload every time you watch it. And then during peak Netflix hours, I just can't use the internet reliably. If anyone knows any source for Libre video works, that I can download and watch with complete freedom, please let me know. I'd pay for it.
- lotu 13y agoHonestly the assumption that we want to stream everything is a really good assumption. People are lazy and setting up a proper storage is tricky and costs money. This means 99.9% of people don't want to do it. Yes being in the .1% it would be nice if we were catered to but that's life.
- pessimizer 13y agoIn my experience people seem to be able to use TiVos just fine.
- nfoz 13y agoPeople could use Napster just fine, too.
- AnthonyMouse 13y agoThe DVR model is really the way to do it. People know what they want to watch, so you present a catalog of all existing and future content and let people check the box next to the ones they want to watch. Everything downloads during off-peak hours as soon as the content is available and then you always have a list of things you can watch instantly, even if the internet is slow or unavailable.
- digikata 13y agoThe DVR model was strangled by the same content owners & distributors that are moving to kill competitive last-mile internet access. How many cable companies rolled their own crappy set-top DVR boxes instead of working with Tivo or some other independent DVR maker.
- mikeyouse 13y agoThis is largely due to the US Federal Courts' recent rulings that invalidated the FCC's previous attempts to guarantee Net Neutrality. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/technology/appeals-court-rejects-fcc-rules-on-internet-service-providers.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/technology/appeals-court-r... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/fcc-to-propose-new-rules-on-open-internet.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/fcc-to-propose-ne...
- cnordholm 13y agoThe FCC can regulate the internet under title II. They are simply refusing to.
- mikeyouse 13y agoIn 2002, Colin Powell's son, Michael, was the Chairman of the FCC. He determined that broadband services weren't covered by Title II, and that they could be regulated 'better' under different statutes. That is the genesis for all of these problems. Today, Michael Powell is the President of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.[1] Of course, today's FCC could walk that Title II ruling back, and reclassify ISPs from Title I to Title II, but that would be met with lawsuits for years. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Powell_(politician) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Powell_(politician)
- dragonwriter 13y agoWhatever the FCC does (well, except maybe not regulating at all) is going to be met with lawsuits for years.
- jessaustin 13y agoI'm pretty confident there would be lawsuits following a decision not to regulate at all, as well. "But, but, if the FCC isn't there to slow down unlicensed spectrum tech, all our exurban and rural customers will just sign on with their local WISP, and we won't be able to charge them lots of money for crappy service anymore! Then after that tech is in use for a couple of years, pretty soon it will be good enough even for densely-packed suburbs, and there goes that captive market! What would be left for us, running fiber to the inner city? What have we been paying you people for?!"
- quotemstr 13y agoDecisions like this lend a certain credence to recent studies showing that only the desires of the economic and political elite actually affect policy.
- ama729 13y agoStudy cited (I think): http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/04/is-america-an-oligarchy.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/04/is...
- tokenizer 13y agoWhat a fancy way of saying we don't live in a functioning republic.
- freshhawk 13y agoIt's also an evidence backed way of saying it. Which is quite useful.
- rhubarbquid 13y agoThat was exactly the conclusion of the paper. The US is effectively an oligarchy.
- smokinjoe 13y ago> The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals. Willing? I'm fairly sure it's going to end up being a "mandatory" fee in order to compete with similar online services.
- wnevets 13y agonow this is the death of internet as we know it.
- noobermin 13y agoI have a question for those more knowledgeable about this than me: compare this to recent EU [1] votes on net neutrality. What do you think, will this give European internet companies an advantage over ones here (specifically startups that don't have the big bucks to shell out to the large internet providers)? [1] http://gigaom.com/2014/04/03/european-parliament-passes-strong-net-neutrality-law-along-with-major-roaming-reforms/ http://gigaom.com/2014/04/03/european-parliament-passes-stro...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lucb1e 13y agoAs I was reading, I thought this was just a move by the FCC to get the people to understand that the internet without net neutrality is a nightmare. As I'm reading the HN comments, I'm not so sure anymore...
- frandroid 13y agoThat's, huh, way too much social engineering.
- gnoway 13y agoWell it is a little premature to cry doom before these guidelines are even adopted. But if they are, it will be kind of funny to read in a few years the comments from ISPs re: anti-neutrality policies stifling 'new' streaming services: "Our research shows there is weak to no consumer demand for alternative services"
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Well it is a little premature to cry doom before these guidelines are even adopted. It might not be before they are adopted, but it is before they are proposed and, particularly, before the news stories based on inside leaks are even consistent about what the rules are in the area of concern. EDIT: Not sure why the downvotes, but as I point out in another comment on the thread (with links to sourcs), there are at least three conflicting characterizations of what the new rules that the FCC chair is about to begin circulating and that the FCC might then propose with a public comment period will do on the point in question: 1. (NY Times): Allow ISPs to (apparently, with no signficant restrictions) negotiate per-content-provider rates for enhanced access to the ISPs users. 2. (WS Journal): Allow ISPs to offer enhanced access if the terms are commercially reasonable and open to all content providers. 3. (Reuters): Not address ISP-to-content-provider agreements at all. My point is that its premature to react to the details of the rules when there isn't any consistent picture of what those details are likely to be.
- gnoway 13y agoI don't really get the downvotes either, although it took me two readings of your comment to understand what you were saying. FWIW, here's what the FCC has actually published so far: http://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler-fccs-open-internet-rules http://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-fcc-chairman-tom-wheel... Unfortunately it doesn't actually say much.
- dang 13y ago> I don't really get the downvotes either A user went haywire and downvoted a whole bunch of comments. We've corrected the damage, although users had already corrected much of it. All: when you notice substantive, civil comments that are unfairly faded out, please give them a corrective upvote. This is a longstanding community practice. It usually only takes one or two corrective votes to get a good comment back to par, so every user can make a significant difference.
- dandrews 13y agoLegislating "net neutrality" is a crude hack. The real problem is telco hegemony in the ISP space, as pointed out in John Gilmore's 2010 essay at http://www.nnsquad.org/archives/nnsquad/msg04177.html http://www.nnsquad.org/archives/nnsquad/msg04177.html
- Zigurd 13y agoThat isn't really true. Let's say we get structural separation and retail competition (which is a fantasy in our current situation). The backbone providers could still become rent-seekers by putting the arm on whatever service lacks technical alternatives to large amounts of bandwidth (which the retail customers already pay for). The retailers have more negotiating power than consumers do, but there is still a place for regulation to prevent a pricing policy from strangling innovation.
- jessaustin 13y agoWhat would stop backbone operators from doing that? I'd guess the same thing that's stopping them from doing it now: actual competition. The monopolists are only a problem at the edge.
- avar 13y agoThis situation partially exists on the backbone in the form of paid peering.
- jessaustin 13y ago"Paid peering" is an oxymoron.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Brakenshire 13y agoThe UK has a structural separation between retail and wholesale, and the major ISPs are still desperate to be allowed to do deals with content providers. Consumer interests are not set up to directly disincentivize ISPs from trying to charge content providers for access to them. Consumers will not police that principle.
- jthomp 13y agoLooks like I wasted my time writing Mr. Wheeler an email on this very subject a few weeks ago.
- HillRat 13y agoYeah, good luck with that; regulatory capture has effectively killed any attempt at citizen influence of state and federal agencies. And, in addition to the revolving door at the FCC -- which is uniquely shameless even by iron triangle standards -- Big Cable is excellent at targeting its political donations. They're increasing cable prices faster than inflation, and using the proceeds to hire key FCC officials and donate wads of cash to any politician -- federal, state and even local -- that might be involved in oversight. Your silly little attempt at exercising your rights as an informed citizen doesn't even register. I would argue that the cable industry is pretty much the perfect example of an industry that should be held at arms' length by its regulators; the entire industry has a history of significant and intentional corruption of the political process, particularly at the local level. It's instructive, if you have the time, to check out the story of Cablevision's efforts to get the cable franchise in Queens in the early 1980s: it's essentially a blueprint for how the industry acts across the board.
- baconner 13y agoI read this as FCC plans to allow slow lanes.
- ipsin 13y agoI agreed, that was my first reading as well. I mean, the only reason you would want to pay money, as a content provider, is if your service is rate-limited to a degree that affects your customer. It's not as if that "fast lane" will be gigabit speed. It'll be the same "up to" speed the customer was paying for in the first place.
- hemancuso 13y agoTo strike a contrarian tone, how much is this going to matter a handful of years from now as the internet at large and bandwidth to the home continues to increase? In a decade is it unreasonable to expect that "really fast" home internet is 1 gigbit? At that point even your pokey 50mbit connection already has 10x-20x the bandwidth Netflix sees for a "good" connection (their metric). Does this make it harder for Netflix and future video streaming companies to send us 4k video, sure, but I struggle to come up with too many other ways that this will hurt.
- swang 13y agoDo you live in America? I find it laughable that our internet will get that good unless Google gets Fiber into large enough areas forcing competition. Even then, ComcastWarnerXfinity will find ways to jack up prices.
- Tossrock 13y agoIt's going to matter a lot, because consumer internet consumption is shifting inexorably toward mobile, which tends to have data caps. You could blow through the standard 2 GB monthly allotment in a single HD movie streamed to your phone. If suddenly Youtube videos no longer count toward your data allotment, you're much more likely to use Youtube, and not any other competitor which are metered.
- cdash 13y agoIt is not just mobile that has data caps either. Sure the caps are a lot higher than mobile caps of a few gigs but even 150-300 GB caps are pretty small. At the highest bit rate, 1 hour of Netflix video is about 3.1 GB. Now add in the fact that there is only one internet connection per household so you will have multiple people watching Netflix video and doing everything else on the internet they do and it is just terrible. A digitally downloaded game, which is not just done on PC anymore but also will be huge on the new consoles can be around 30 GB or larger.
- Bud 13y ago"Continue to increase"? As has been amply documented in various HN threads, it hasn't increased at all in the last 15 years or so, really. Certainly not to the degree one would have expected. DSL speeds are basically exactly the same (slower in many cases) as they were in the late 1990s. If you are lucky and in the right urban area, you might have fiber or cable internet with faster speeds, but otherwise? It's still the late 1990s. And the prices, if anything, are higher today for the same service.
- darrenkopp 13y agoSigned up for yesterday, had to pay $5 comcast tax for HBO go (HBO = $15, them "letting" me use HBO go - $5). This system is bull shit.
- kefka 13y agoYou have a choice. You can always NOT pay the HBO "tax" and pirate it like the rest of us.
- anigbrowl 13y agoOr not pay the HBO tax and either buy the shows on disc or go without watching them. I refuse to sign on to this entitlement mentality that says I have an automatic right to watch popular shows by hook or by crook. This isn't an endorsement of the status quo for consumers, but I do think that publishers such as HBO have the right to sell their content in whatever way makes them the most money - they're running a business after all.
- betterunix 13y agoNobody is talking about taking away HBO's right to sell entertainment in ways that make them money. They can and should out-compete BitTorrent.
- anigbrowl 13y agoBit Torrent doesn't produce anything, it's just a distribution channel. I fail to see why HBO should spend anything on accommodating people who have no inclination to pay for the product they produce.
- betterunix 13y agoMaybe HBO should embrace an innovative distribution model, instead of clinging to the obsolete premium-cable-channel model. HBO itself would have been impossible if the media establishment had been success at killing cable; why should I feel an iota of sympathy for HBO's unwillingness to embrace newer, better technologies? Why shouldn't I use better technology to access entertainment, regardless of whether or not HBO has bothered to try monetizing those technologies?
- guelo 13y agoIn the coming decades our current golden age of internet innovation will be looked back in wonder.
- pjlegato 13y agoYes. It'll be like looking back on the long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_automobile_manufacturers_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_automobile_man... -- the early 20th century was a hotbed of innovation and technical progress, being carried out by hundreds of independent groups on a small scale. Then, the industry consolidated around a few gigantic players, and technical innovation ground to a halt for decades.
- api 13y agoThis is one of my principal reasons for being a singularity-skeptic. While runaway technological innovation might be possible, I think it's likely that economics and politics will stop it. Physics won't stop Moore's law. Industry consolidation, slowing innovation, and a lack of demand will. I would not be terribly surprised if we never see computers more than 2X as fast/powerful as today's, since without corresponding software and networking innovation to drive demand why would they be built? That's a tad shy if what would be required for strong AI, "mind uploading," or any of that stuff.
- pjlegato 13y agoWe're already seeing that effect in chips, somewhat. The market has gotten to the point where relatively cheap chips are good enough for most people's purposes -- looking at webpages and viewing streaming video on a mobile device. You don't need a top of the line Intel chip to do that; a cheap ARM clone is fine. There is still a higher end driver in the server space, though, as virtualization progresses... How many virtual machines can you fit into one box?
- rasz_pl 13y agoFast Lane? more like 'not slowed down lane'
- kin 13y agowe can trust Google Fiber to be net neutral... right?
- webmaven 13y agoI certainly hope so, I'm getting their service in June.
- nfoz 13y agoWhy? It's exactly the classic problem: the distribution channel owned by a single content producer. Also, an advertisement company that gets to know literally everything you do on the Internet. What more do you need to know??
- Touche 13y agoGame over. The internet was fun while it lasted. Anyone want to start a mesh network startup?
- chris_mahan 13y agoWe need a raspberrypi-like device with wifi built-in, that can be fully off-grid (with battery, solar panel) and have about 100GB of storage, for about $100, and we can make this work.
- Corrado 13y agoI was thinking something similar while reading the article. The old adage is that "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" and in this case I think we can regard this ruling as censorship. So we should route around it. Actually, this idea of an "alternate" network is a fairly old one but it just never materialized. I think thats because the "normal" network worked fine and wasn't too damaged for most of the people. However, this new ruling may be enough to get people (i.e. us, the technorati) to act. chris_mahan has proposed one solution in a sibling thread. Are there others? I had a thought to use a cell phone as the mesh connector. Its something we all have in our pockets anyway and wouldn't require any new hardware. What about a company that provides the hardware for free but charges for the service? This is very similar to how the cable companies started out and it seems to have worked for them. :)
- rayiner 13y agoPeople say: this could hurt startups. Which makes me think: so? Isn't it inherent to startups that they have a competitive disadvantage in areas where expensive infrastructure is required? Isn't it an inherent advantage big businesses have over startups? Let's take the history of telco monopolies off the table for a minute. Let's say these are purely privately funded networks with no government sanctioned subsidies. Is net neutrality still a good idea? Does't artificially take away an advantage big companies inherently have?
- tomwrenn 13y agoThis would be pay for play(speed) though. Not efficiency for play(speed). Efficiency should rightfully be encouraged, but pay for speed effectively means the first entrant is the winner for the rest of time no matter their improvements in efficiency (obviously depending on the nature and implementation of these rumoured policies).
- sd8f9iu 13y agoThe balance between advantages to existing firms and advantages to startups is very much set by political and regulatory choices (like this). Given how much other legislation and regulation there already is affecting the balance, this is only one variable in the mix, and I'm hesitant to believe it shifts the balance in the right direction (where "right" is what's best for society). Furthermore, ISPs seem to me to be a far cry from the "free market" (I have very few options for my ISP), so I don't believe simply reducing regulation will lead to the best outcome.
- gnoway 13y agoThis is a strange position to take (net neutrality == affirmative action for startups?) but to answer your question: yes, it's still a good idea and yes, it artificially takes away an inherent advantage (or: 'regulates'). In this scenario I think regulation would be unfair and wrong, but it would be still be a good idea considering the public benefit. Although, were this to be the reality then I suspect we wouldn't have an Internet at all.
- jrjr 13y agothe pigs are creating a slow lane, not a fast lane.
- ademarre 13y agoAre there to be any regulations to prevent ISPs from artificially degrading delivery of low-priority content providers? Prioritizing content is one thing, but artificially withholding or delaying delivery of content is quite another.
- marshray 13y agoThere's no difference. TCP/IP works by gradually increasing transmit speed until packets are lost. Making traffic 'faster' for one set of connections is accomplished by dropping packets on others.
- ademarre 13y agoFair enough, but what about periods where there is little or no competition between connections of different priorities? Could low-priority transmissions be throttled well before they begin to experience packet loss?
- marshray 13y agoPacket loss is the way that TCP/IP transmissions are throttled by the network. It's beautiful in its simplicity that way.
- kator 13y agoCan we get the FCC to rule that Bit Torrent is a form of carpool lane and we should get faster access?
- AngrySkillzz 13y agoWhere's Genachowski when you need him... Oh, he's stuck in the revolving door.
- Afforess 13y agoFuck you, Tom Wheeler. That is all.
- NAFV_P 13y agoAs of 23:52 BST this article has 63 comments, 18 of which have been downvoted.
- dang 13y agoA user went haywire and downvoted a whole bunch of comments. We'll correct the damage. All: when you notice substantive and civil comments that are unfairly faded out, please give them a corrective upvote. This is a longstanding community practice. It usually only takes one or two corrective votes to get back to par, so every user can make a significant difference.
- NAFV_P 13y agoThank you, I will remember that.
- mmanfrin 13y agoThis makes my blood boil. The FCC is perhaps the one agency that could do something to step the dominance of the internet in the US by Comcast/Verizon, as nothing seems like it will happen legislatively. I have a feeling things will get a lot worse before they begin to get better.
- grandalf 13y agoI realize this view is controversial, but net neutrality is about as logical as arguing that all residential bandwidth should be dedicated symmetrical up/down. As content + routes become mainstream (the top 1-2% of bandwidth), the price of hosting them approaches the dedicated bandwidth price. This is because the usage pattern variability is arbitraged upstream of the ISP. Preferential QoS based on content source is a predictable consequence of this, since the ISP begins to have no opportunity for bandwidth arbitrage and must rely on some other revenue stream to avoid having to charge dedicated bandwidth prices.
- sytelus 13y agoI'm not sure if you are applying this "logic" correctly. Bandwidth must be treated as utility, just like electricity and water. Like any other utilities, there should be a fixed charge for fair level of use and prorated charge beyond that to consumers of the utility. Here instead the proposal is to charge content providers and that too selectively. That means only big guys favored by cable companies can become content providers. Even worse, existing content providers can buddy up with cable companies to raise the entry point so new content providers have little or no chance. This is a complete utter disaster and clearly driven by cable industry lobby to tighten up their monopoly.
- grandalf 13y ago> Bandwidth must be treated as utility, just like electricity and water. While this sounds good, it is fairly arbitrary. Why should my connection be asymmetric 20/1 with mediocre latency? What if I prefer 10/10 with less latency? The status quo QoS benefits some types of content providers and harms others.
- randomfool 13y agoDisagree that it's comparable to symmetrical up/down- the bandwidth my ISP charges me is irregardless of the direction. Your argument would be valid if I were only paying for data that I send, but I'm not. Why can't I tell my provider that I want to minimize the latency when playing a first-person shooter, and I'm willing to pay for it?
- sytelus 13y agoThis law is the worst thing that could possibly happen to Internet. We need to as zealously fight against this as we did against SOPA. All the tech millionaires and billionaires out there: THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO SAVE INTERNET BY WIELDING YOUR CONNECTIONS. I'm not even sure how a cable lobbyist dick like Tom Wheeler got in FCC in first place and I continue to wonder how people like him would never hesitate to kill something as beautiful as the system that connects entire human being for their personal profits.
- r00fus 13y agoI'm pretty sure the major tech elite is on board with this - their companies can pay for it, and they won't get upended by some upstart competitor. Consumers lose, big time. The cable-ization of the internet just hit an inflection curve. Now where are all those fools who were complaining about Julius "Caesar" Genachowski?
- gergles 13y agoIt's not a law. It's an "administrative regulation" and there's nothing anybody other than the FCC commissioners can do to stop it.
- jkelsey 13y agoWhen the Democrats come around here soon during the next two elections, with their hand out towards the tech community -- remember this. They only promise openness when they're trying to get elected, not governing.
- transfire 13y agoHere comes the proverbial "Consumer Choice": Which primary Internet package would you like: Google Plus, Microsoft Office with XBox Live, Facebook, or Yahoo? Do you need any specialty cloud services: Amazon, Dropbox, Spotify? Would you like full access to uncertified internet sites for an additional $15/mo?
- dethstar 13y agoThat's what going on with the changes on Mexican laws, it let ISPs charge for 'premium' or content.
- api 13y agoComputer operating systems are increasingly closed to "uncertified" apps, so how long before "uncertified" internet sites are also closed?
- kevando 13y agoYou know what really scares me about this? I think a lot of Americans would be fine with this kind of internet. Why should their Facebook and Yahoo! news be slower just because transfire and kevando want access to every single possible thing on the internet?
- omgitstom 13y agoBetween this and the comcast / twc merger, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the government cannot act on behalf of the consumer. Please feel free to reach out to Tom Wheeler on twitter https://twitter.com/TomWheelerFCC https://twitter.com/TomWheelerFCC
- andyl 13y agoI want to drop my Comcast home internet (Palo Alto CA) and switch to a net-neutrality friendly ISP. What other service should I consider?
- Taniwha 13y agoDon't for get to call your ISP and demand your cut of the money they're now earning for pimping you out to the content providers
- knodi 13y agoWTF!!! I'm so pissed of at our fucking government, it can't get one god damn thing right.
- webXL 13y agoIt does know how to enlarge itself.
- pushedx 13y agoI'm the lead developer at a video startup. This policy may make our concept economically infeasible. I'm so angry that I can't even think straight right now. I thought we won this battle. I thought it was over. I want to take to the streets. We need to do something. We can't let this happen.
- massappeal 13y agoif these rules are actually implemented, Silicon Valley will cease to be Silicon Valley.
- webXL 13y agoNot sure how that's possible exactly, but some might argue that's not such a bad thing, WRT to leveling the playing field a bit and avoiding investment bubbles. People argued that Detroit would cease to exist if the government did x, y or z, but I think technology and competition had more to do with its downfall.
- massappeal 13y agoAnd arguably Detroit did cease to exist. The auto industry that was based there is much more dispersed. The same thing would happen to Silicon Valley. Capital will be focused in markets where new companies can reach consumers fairly, leaving the US bereft of an innovative digital economy.
- toasted 13y agoCan americans explain to me why cable companies seem to have a monopoly on internet in the USA when presumably most houses still have copper phone lines capable of running VDSL connections capable of 52mbps?
- dredmorbius 13y agoThe Edge in one of its recent "Question" issues ran a piece by Charles Seife on capture, in response to the question "what should we be worried about". It's a tremendous problem, and not just of government (principle-agent problems in management and business are also rampant). Recommended reading: http://edge.org/response-detail/23674 http://edge.org/response-detail/23674 And the answer isn't "don't regulate". It's "regulate appropriately and effectively". Just realize that this is an eternal challenge. NB: Sadly the formatting of the questions and responses is horrible. In particular, navigating the full list by title is all but impossible. I've highlighted the specific essay in question.
- rsobers 13y agoApparently the reports are incorrect and the FCC will issue a statement shortly refuting the claims by the NYT: https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/459154485793656832 https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/459154485793656832
- zymhan 13y agoI'm crossing all of my fingers and toes. Who sent the email that he took a screenshot of, though? On second thought, I suppose that would give away his source.
- RyanMcGreal 13y agoThat response is quoted in the NYT article: “The same rules will apply to all Internet content. As with the original open Internet rules, and consistent with the court’s decision, behavior that harms consumers or competition will not be permitted.” Hilarious. In Wheeler's view, consistency means every large, wealthy corporation has an equal opportunity to pay extra for faster access to customers.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> That response is quoted in the NYT article: A response is quoted in the NYT article, but not the published refutation that was discussed upthread, which is now available: http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-internet-rules http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-i... It sounds like the intent is to hew closely to the original order but to adapt it exactly and only as much as necessary to conform to what the FCC perceives to be the parameters of the D.C. Circuit decision.
- cheetahtech 13y agoThis all from a president the YC is hosting for a fundraiser. I bet he's saying, how do you like me know! Sorry my cynical behavior, but this is horrible.
- oneandoneis2 13y agoAmerica in a nutshell: bunch of smart guys make an amazing system that changes the world; bunch of politicians cheerfully destroy it in return for a quick profit. If Snowden's revelations weren't enough to ensure the rest of the world got busy on routing traffic around America, legislation like this will. This move isn't just going to screw American consumers & startups. It's going to remove America from its status as the hub of the Internet. And all thanks to a few profit-obsessed monopolists. Yay capitalism.
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- xedeon 13y agoLet's all contact the F.C.C. and let them know how we us consumers are against this! I can't believe not a single HN user suggested this on this thread yet! Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street, SW Washington, DC 20554 To Contact the Commissioners via E-mail Chairman Tom Wheeler: Tom.Wheeler@fcc.gov <<<<<<<<< Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov Commissioner Ajit Pai: Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov Commissioner Michael O’Rielly: Mike.O'Rielly@fcc.gov Complaints: File a Complaint Freedom of Information Act requests: FOIA@fcc.gov Elections & political candidate matters: campaignlaw@fcc.gov 1-866-418-0232 FAX: toll-free 1-202-418-1440 Elections & political candidate matters
- pyvpx 13y agoI'm sorry; I think you meant to suggest we pool our pocket change and hire a lobbying firm. A fax and email campaign is going to do what? waste toner and mailstore space?
- xedeon 13y agoSuch a cynical reply, it's worth try and cost virtually nothing... Maybe individuals like yourself deserves a gutted internet that restricts information, and stifles innovation.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Let's all contact the F.C.C. and let them know how we us consumers are against this! The FCC Chair has already stated [1] that he is against the kind of rule that the NY Times story described: [1] http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-internet-rules http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-i...