7 ms·

FCC chair: An Internet fast lane would be ‘commercially unreasonable’

67 points by Libertatea 12y ago

dtdt1 12y ago
If internet access regulation can be compared to railway regulation it seems like providing a fast lane service is a fair option from the ISP point of view. The only wrinkle is when the ISP is a monopoly, in which case the definition of the tiers and the pricing in the individual tiers must be regulated.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Unfortunately, the Internet is very difficult to analogize to anything else. Bandwidth is not an exhaustible resource, so it's not comparable to power or water. Throughput can be increased without modifying the medium just by replacing equipment in a few locations, so it's not like roads or railways. This makes it difficult to reason about the Internet without direct knowledge of its distinguishing characteristics, thus making it easy for entrenched interests to sway legislators and the public. We need to convince people that the Internet is special, that we need to think carefully about how we run it, and that we can't lazily shove its square peg into the round holes of ill-fitting analogies.
coreymgilmore 12y ago
Finally, the FCC is hearing the demands of users/consumers of internet service. The fast-lane idea was terrible for businesses - other than huge companies who can pay the fast lane fees - and for users who already deal with pretty widely terrible experiences with ISPs.
wmf 12y ago
Too bad paid prioritization is last year's battle. This year it's intentional congestion.
- Istof 12y ago
  maybe a class action lawsuit could solve intentional congestion (for not meeting contract agreements)
mratzloff 12y ago
I wish they'd stop calling it a "fast lane"--it's the slow lane for anyone who doesn't want to pay up. Somewhere a cable industry Frank Luntz-alike probably focus grouped the term and now everyone in the media is using it.
- dattaway 12y ago
  That's how reading their positions becomes easy. They coin a weasel word term and dance with it. I prefer the langauge EFF is using, which appears fairly reasonable.
- ColinDabritz 12y ago
  The slow lane/fast lane propaganda is the small fight, they can have it. It's not about the speed, it's about equal access. The ISP discrimination and censorship lanes are the real problem.
  - mratzloff 12y ago
    Sure. But phraseology shapes the debate, as is evident from "death tax", "health care rationing", "government takeover of health care", etc.
    - ColinDabritz 12y ago
      Exactly, my point is that the slow/fast phraseology is the wrong phrasing fight altogether. Whenever someone counters "fast lane" with "slow lane" they are promoting the premise that the issue is 'just' about the speed of the connections. While I care about connection speed, it's not the critical issue at the core of net neutrality. The issue is that the ISPs can choose discriminatory speeds based on any criteria they like, including censorship. And because they are known monopoly abusers, this is an especially critical issue. slow/fast ignores it entirely. It's possible this is deliberate strategy on their part, instead of just a simple marketing attempt. I propose we take the phraseology debate to them, and use phrases like "ISP discrimination lane".
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
randomfool 12y ago
If they were to allow fast lanes, would there be any incentive for Comcast to upgrade regular peering connections? - They'd lose out on fast-lane revenue. - Increased peering bandwidth would just be increased costs. - Worse internet video experience supports their Cable TV business.
- claudiusd 12y ago
  YES, and the reason is the whole basis for the argument around Net Neutrality: traffic through Comcast's peering connections is a result of demand by its customers. Comcast's customers pay for bandwidth and expect to get it when they use any site on the internet, even sites that use heavy bandwidth like YouTube and NetFlix. Any normal business would respond to demand by its customers, but the telecoms have an oligopoly which they can leverage to increase revenues at their customers' expense. If the "fast lane" were allowed, Comcast would have a decent argument for not providing its customers the bandwidth they paid for to high-traffic sites: "we'd love to give you the bandwidth but the Googles and NetFlixes refused to pay for it". That position is totally back-asswards, is a result of their oligopoly, and is not in the best interest of consumers. Comcast will continue to do just fine without forcing companies to pay for the "fast lane".
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  Peering was created because the two peers wanted to send each other nearly-equal levels of traffic. If we have a situation where one peer wants to send alot of traffic and not receive anything in turn, this is a problem settlement-free peering cannot handle. It's absurd to expect Comcast or anyone else to bend over backwards and pay for upgrades so that the other party gets to do this for free. None of them are obligated to peer. If we force this issue, we may get something that looks like a victory, temporarily. And then it will backfire on us. I keep getting downvoted on reddit because I point this out. There are people who claim "but it's still Comcast's fault! Netflix offered them servers to relieve the load"... Never mind the fact that placing servers in Comcast's own datacenters is something they rightly bill companies for the privilege of. No one is being sensible about this, or so it seems.
  - 12y ago
higherpurpose 12y ago
This rule is so easy to bypass. All it means is that ISPs can't "offer" fast lanes anymore - as in premium access for certain companies, for which they would charge extra. However, under this rule, they can still do what they're already doing: slowing down everyone's Internet, and then charging websites money to "get it back to normal". This way they didn't create a "fast lane". It's the same "normal lane" - for which they now charge extra money, unless you want them to slow you down. Like this: http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious-graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/ http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious... Wheeler is either a fool, or playing ignorant, if he doesn't realize this.
- asn0 12y ago
  Or, he's brilliant – by playing along with the cableco's game, he's making the fight public, which also puts the heat on the cableco's, and gives the FCC the political capital to push back on the cableco's.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > However, under this rule, they can still do what they're already doing: slowing down everyone's Internet, and then charging websites money to "get it back to normal". It would be fairly hard to construct either the actual text of the proposal itself or Wheeler's statements of the FCC's intent in applying it to find any rule under which a "fast lane" would not be "commercially reasonable", but intentionally reducing the quality of service for normal use and paying to bypass that reduction would be "commercially reasonable". In fact, its hard to see how the latter is not exactly the same as the former.
smutticus 12y ago
Maybe Wheeler's plan is to keep making confusing nonsensical statements until we get fed up with him and stop paying attention. Seriously, it seems like the FCC just can't be clear about what it is they actually plan to implement. Just reclassify broadband as a 'telecommunications service' already. The court in Verizon v. FCC said the FCC had the authority to reclassify. So do it and stop wasting everyone's time with your vague contradictory incomprehensible statements.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Seriously, it seems like the FCC just can't be clear about what it is they actually plan to implement. The FCC is very clear that they haven't entirely decided what they "plan to implement" in complete detail. They have formally adopted something that is both an outline and a call for public input with specific questions on both the outline itself and alternatives to it (including specific questions related to Title II classification), and on how best to fill in details within the outline. > Just reclassify broadband as a 'telecommunications service' already. Doing so is a basis for regulation which has its own constraints distinct from those for regulation of information services, and deciding to do that doesn't, in and of itself, resolve the details of how to regulate. The FCCs recent call for comments specifically invites comments on that alternative, and details of how commenters see that alternative compared to the proposed outline (including details of how regulations under that authority should be crafted to acheive the broad policy goals that the FCC's Open Internet work is designed to serve.)
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  I won't defend Wheeler, he's a jackass. However, no one else anywhere seems to be telling the truth. And we're never going to arrive at a solution that everyone enjoys or thinks fair if we continue to chant internet activist slogans. In 1997, peering worked because we need a simple solution whereby dozens of private companies could hook their networks together without going through the complicated accounting of who owed who how much. Most networks sent as much as they received, there was little point in nitpicking the slight differences. In 2014, this may not be the case. Level3 wants to send much more traffic to Comcast than Comcast would ever send to Level3. This is because Netflix (a Level3 customer) is asymmetric in nature. Why is Comcast obligated to do this for free? Comcast doesn't offer its customers "Netflix service". Indeed, if it did, people would go crazy screaming net neutrality slogans. Comcast offers internet service, and they don't guarantee access to Netflix especially when Netflix doesn't bother to acquire sufficient network connectivity. This doesn't mean Netflix is evil. It doesn't mean that Comcast is anything other than evil. But Comcast does feel cheated if they're forced to pay for the upgrades, and Netflix feels cheated if they're forced to pay for the upgrades (even though they are the ones who benefit from this). This means that peering in general may not work anymore. That is the real problem that no one seems smart enough to address. And if it does not work, what replaces it? So if you're suggesting Wheeler isn't smart enough to fix it... well, that sort of figures. > Just reclassify broadband as a 'telecommunications service' already. That wouldn't really fix anything though. It's very likely to have not only unintended consequences, but bad ones.
superduper33 12y ago
Careface.
superduper33 12y ago
Careface.
tom_jones 12y ago
Providing broadband connectivity to rural Americans should have priority over giving 'fast lanes' to those who already enjoy broadband service.

67 points by Libertatea 12y ago

dtdt1 12y ago

If internet access regulation can be compared to railway regulation it seems like providing a fast lane service is a fair option from the ISP point of view. The only wrinkle is when the ISP is a monopoly, in which case the definition of the tiers and the pricing in the individual tiers must be regulated.

nitrogen 12y ago
Unfortunately, the Internet is very difficult to analogize to anything else. Bandwidth is not an exhaustible resource, so it's not comparable to power or water. Throughput can be increased without modifying the medium just by replacing equipment in a few locations, so it's not like roads or railways. This makes it difficult to reason about the Internet without direct knowledge of its distinguishing characteristics, thus making it easy for entrenched interests to sway legislators and the public. We need to convince people that the Internet is special, that we need to think carefully about how we run it, and that we can't lazily shove its square peg into the round holes of ill-fitting analogies.

coreymgilmore 12y ago

Finally, the FCC is hearing the demands of users/consumers of internet service. The fast-lane idea was terrible for businesses - other than huge companies who can pay the fast lane fees - and for users who already deal with pretty widely terrible experiences with ISPs.

wmf 12y ago

Too bad paid prioritization is last year's battle. This year it's intentional congestion.

Istof 12y ago
maybe a class action lawsuit could solve intentional congestion (for not meeting contract agreements)

mratzloff 12y ago

I wish they'd stop calling it a "fast lane"--it's the slow lane for anyone who doesn't want to pay up. Somewhere a cable industry Frank Luntz-alike probably focus grouped the term and now everyone in the media is using it.

dattaway 12y ago
That's how reading their positions becomes easy. They coin a weasel word term and dance with it. I prefer the langauge EFF is using, which appears fairly reasonable.
ColinDabritz 12y ago
The slow lane/fast lane propaganda is the small fight, they can have it. It's not about the speed, it's about equal access. The ISP discrimination and censorship lanes are the real problem.
- mratzloff 12y ago
  Sure. But phraseology shapes the debate, as is evident from "death tax", "health care rationing", "government takeover of health care", etc.
  - ColinDabritz 12y ago
    Exactly, my point is that the slow/fast phraseology is the wrong phrasing fight altogether. Whenever someone counters "fast lane" with "slow lane" they are promoting the premise that the issue is 'just' about the speed of the connections. While I care about connection speed, it's not the critical issue at the core of net neutrality. The issue is that the ISPs can choose discriminatory speeds based on any criteria they like, including censorship. And because they are known monopoly abusers, this is an especially critical issue. slow/fast ignores it entirely. It's possible this is deliberate strategy on their part, instead of just a simple marketing attempt. I propose we take the phraseology debate to them, and use phrases like "ISP discrimination lane".
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

randomfool 12y ago

If they were to allow fast lanes, would there be any incentive for Comcast to upgrade regular peering connections? - They'd lose out on fast-lane revenue. - Increased peering bandwidth would just be increased costs. - Worse internet video experience supports their Cable TV business.

claudiusd 12y ago
YES, and the reason is the whole basis for the argument around Net Neutrality: traffic through Comcast's peering connections is a result of demand by its customers. Comcast's customers pay for bandwidth and expect to get it when they use any site on the internet, even sites that use heavy bandwidth like YouTube and NetFlix. Any normal business would respond to demand by its customers, but the telecoms have an oligopoly which they can leverage to increase revenues at their customers' expense. If the "fast lane" were allowed, Comcast would have a decent argument for not providing its customers the bandwidth they paid for to high-traffic sites: "we'd love to give you the bandwidth but the Googles and NetFlixes refused to pay for it". That position is totally back-asswards, is a result of their oligopoly, and is not in the best interest of consumers. Comcast will continue to do just fine without forcing companies to pay for the "fast lane".
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
Peering was created because the two peers wanted to send each other nearly-equal levels of traffic. If we have a situation where one peer wants to send alot of traffic and not receive anything in turn, this is a problem settlement-free peering cannot handle. It's absurd to expect Comcast or anyone else to bend over backwards and pay for upgrades so that the other party gets to do this for free. None of them are obligated to peer. If we force this issue, we may get something that looks like a victory, temporarily. And then it will backfire on us. I keep getting downvoted on reddit because I point this out. There are people who claim "but it's still Comcast's fault! Netflix offered them servers to relieve the load"... Never mind the fact that placing servers in Comcast's own datacenters is something they rightly bill companies for the privilege of. No one is being sensible about this, or so it seems.
- 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

This rule is so easy to bypass. All it means is that ISPs can't "offer" fast lanes anymore - as in premium access for certain companies, for which they would charge extra. However, under this rule, they can still do what they're already doing: slowing down everyone's Internet, and then charging websites money to "get it back to normal". This way they didn't create a "fast lane". It's the same "normal lane" - for which they now charge extra money, unless you want them to slow you down. Like this: http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious-graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/ http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious... Wheeler is either a fool, or playing ignorant, if he doesn't realize this.

asn0 12y ago
Or, he's brilliant – by playing along with the cableco's game, he's making the fight public, which also puts the heat on the cableco's, and gives the FCC the political capital to push back on the cableco's.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> However, under this rule, they can still do what they're already doing: slowing down everyone's Internet, and then charging websites money to "get it back to normal". It would be fairly hard to construct either the actual text of the proposal itself or Wheeler's statements of the FCC's intent in applying it to find any rule under which a "fast lane" would not be "commercially reasonable", but intentionally reducing the quality of service for normal use and paying to bypass that reduction would be "commercially reasonable". In fact, its hard to see how the latter is not exactly the same as the former.

smutticus 12y ago

Maybe Wheeler's plan is to keep making confusing nonsensical statements until we get fed up with him and stop paying attention. Seriously, it seems like the FCC just can't be clear about what it is they actually plan to implement. Just reclassify broadband as a 'telecommunications service' already. The court in Verizon v. FCC said the FCC had the authority to reclassify. So do it and stop wasting everyone's time with your vague contradictory incomprehensible statements.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Seriously, it seems like the FCC just can't be clear about what it is they actually plan to implement. The FCC is very clear that they haven't entirely decided what they "plan to implement" in complete detail. They have formally adopted something that is both an outline and a call for public input with specific questions on both the outline itself and alternatives to it (including specific questions related to Title II classification), and on how best to fill in details within the outline. > Just reclassify broadband as a 'telecommunications service' already. Doing so is a basis for regulation which has its own constraints distinct from those for regulation of information services, and deciding to do that doesn't, in and of itself, resolve the details of how to regulate. The FCCs recent call for comments specifically invites comments on that alternative, and details of how commenters see that alternative compared to the proposed outline (including details of how regulations under that authority should be crafted to acheive the broad policy goals that the FCC's Open Internet work is designed to serve.)
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
I won't defend Wheeler, he's a jackass. However, no one else anywhere seems to be telling the truth. And we're never going to arrive at a solution that everyone enjoys or thinks fair if we continue to chant internet activist slogans. In 1997, peering worked because we need a simple solution whereby dozens of private companies could hook their networks together without going through the complicated accounting of who owed who how much. Most networks sent as much as they received, there was little point in nitpicking the slight differences. In 2014, this may not be the case. Level3 wants to send much more traffic to Comcast than Comcast would ever send to Level3. This is because Netflix (a Level3 customer) is asymmetric in nature. Why is Comcast obligated to do this for free? Comcast doesn't offer its customers "Netflix service". Indeed, if it did, people would go crazy screaming net neutrality slogans. Comcast offers internet service, and they don't guarantee access to Netflix especially when Netflix doesn't bother to acquire sufficient network connectivity. This doesn't mean Netflix is evil. It doesn't mean that Comcast is anything other than evil. But Comcast does feel cheated if they're forced to pay for the upgrades, and Netflix feels cheated if they're forced to pay for the upgrades (even though they are the ones who benefit from this). This means that peering in general may not work anymore. That is the real problem that no one seems smart enough to address. And if it does not work, what replaces it? So if you're suggesting Wheeler isn't smart enough to fix it... well, that sort of figures. > Just reclassify broadband as a 'telecommunications service' already. That wouldn't really fix anything though. It's very likely to have not only unintended consequences, but bad ones.

superduper33 12y ago

Careface.

superduper33 12y ago

Careface.

tom_jones 12y ago

Providing broadband connectivity to rural Americans should have priority over giving 'fast lanes' to those who already enjoy broadband service.