7 ms·

What? The USPS is unique in it's relation to the US government and is not similar to a regular industry being regulated by the federal government. I much rathe

What? The USPS is unique in it's relation to the US government and is not similar to a regular industry being regulated by the federal government. I much rather have the government regulating my ISP which (in theory) I have a say in then my local monopoly Internet service provider calling all the shots.

Alupis 12y ago
> I much rather have the government regulating my ISP You probably don't really wish this... because it will ultimately be bad (think of your local power or gas company). What you really wish for is more competition on a level playing field, ie. 6-10 ISP's per city who compete with each other for your business.
- 01Michael10 12y ago
  Yes, I would... Should I make a list of all the shit Time Warner has done and tried to do to me over the years? I don't have any issues that are comparable with my power/gas companies (which I have more choices with by the way). I have already addressed the competition thing in a couple of comments on this thread... It does not exist right now and it would take a while to be a reality so ending Net Neutrality right now just makes things worse.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    These are symptoms of lack of competition. That's not a reason to make the government regulate these businesses like you seem to want. Instead we need to spur growth of competition. We can look at the cities Google Fiber has rolled out to. In every instance, competitor's pricing has decreased while bandwidth speed has increased. That is what we are fighting for -- we are not fighting for a government set bare-minimum level of service for government set price. That will get your DSL-like service -- just barely "good enough" and no innovation because there's no real competition. We need to somehow get to having 6-10 ISP's in every major city. This will drive quality of service up, and pricing down. I also think it's a conflict of interest to be a content provider while also an ISP (comcast, time-warner, etc). Either deliver bits, or create the bits -- not both.
    - 01Michael10 12y ago
      The competition thing already has been addressed my me and others a number of times in this thread. Google is not the cure all... The bigger they get the less incentive they would be for them to drive down prices and speeds. We would need 3 to 4 players in most markets at least for real competition so we agree about that but... How long would this take? A decade? The reality RIGHT NOW is that their is no competition in 99% of the US. Ending Net Neutrality right now and hoping in a decade things change would be stupid.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        Nobody says Google is the answer -- that was just one small example of a situation where someone upset the incumbent and caused decreased price and better service purely through competition with no additional government legislation. We need more of that from more companies. Perhaps a better solution is to government fund small ISP's (they exist, look for them) and help them develop their own infrastructure in major cities. It will not be an overnight solution no, but it's far better imo than permanent legislation that might just kill the innovation you seek to spur. Look at the state of DSL. It's delivered over POTS lines and falls under the legislation governing said lines. If an ISP runs lines to provide DSL service, they are required to lease the lines to whoever wants them (other isp's) for cost (not much profit made from this transaction). Suddenly everyone abandoned DSL in favor of Fiber and Cable services, and we've seen speeds exponentially grow in this area. POTS lines already exist to every home in the USA, why not use them? DSL2+ has greatly increased the speeds, but still few ISP's use it. It's because of the huge legislative hurdles they have to jump over just to provide the service (I have a friend who is a WISP in the bay area of CA, and this is the reason he gave me for why he's not currently also running DSL to homes in his service region). We risk doing the same if we regulate all internet carrying lines. I really think it's better to somehow grow a lot more ISP's that operate in great competition. I don't know the perfect solution or how to go about accomplishing this -- but I do know free competition almost always trumps legislation. What we don't have right now is free competition (we have monopolies/duopolies).
        01Michael10 12y ago
- minot 12y ago
  Forgive my ignorance but what problems do you have with your local electricity/gas utility?
  - Alupis 12y ago
    you usually don't have a choice of who services your address. you usually don't have a choice in pricing. they have no real compelling reason to go above and beyond the "just good enough" service.
    - 01Michael10 12y ago
      Well, the power/gas companies "just good enough" service is better then my ISP service. My ISP tries to raise the price more often and goes out more then my power.
      - minot 12y ago
        I live in a cold place. The only heat in my building is electric. Wednesday's minimum is 0°Fahrenheit (-18°C). People will probably die of cold if the power goes out for extended periods of time.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  > You probably don't really wish this... because it will ultimately be bad Only because the US apparently can't do regulation properly. In the UK, Ofcom regulate properly, and therefore we have plenty of competition and all the forces in place to ensure that the last mile infrastructure company doesn't touch content, allows any ISP to use its services at the same rates, and does its job of keeping the cables working. I can get Internet from any number of providers, all competing with each other fairly on top of this company's cables (and one or two providing their own cables instead). The thing is, the last mile infrastructure company doesn't run an ISP itself, so it doesn't have any reason to muck it up for the ISPs. That's the key. That's all you need to do - split the ISPs apart from the infrastructure companies.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Sorry, the UK's ISP situation is not much better. BT basically controls most of it, and the government thinks they can force-regulate things like a "porn filter" and content filters (censorship via legislation). That seems worse to me... and with statements from the US President like: "legal content" hints that in the future of government regulated ISP's, the government may step in and decide what is legal content to send over the pipes, and what should be blocked. That is not net neutrality.
    - vertex-four 12y ago
      > Sorry, the UK's ISP situation is not much better. Sure it is. There's competition, semi-regular speed upgrades, if I don't like my ISP I can take my business elsewhere. As a result, I'm currently on an entirely unlimited plan with no throttling, and no angry letter if I download more than some hidden limit. My understanding is that a significant amount, if not the majority of the US is unable to do that. > the government thinks they can force-regulate things like a "porn filter" and content filters They could do that in the USA already, monopoly regulation or no monopoly regulation. Monopoly regulation is practically entirely separate from content regulation. In any case, they only regulate that the porn filter and content filters must be an option - I've certainly never had such a thing on my connection. The only sites that are blocked for me are blocked under court order. This is practically equivalent to regulating that ISPs must provide a free copy of Net Nanny to all customers to use if they so choose, it's just done on their end rather than mine. (Also, hilariously, there isn't actually any regulation on this - ISPs are currently doing it willingly.)
- cwal37 12y ago
  You might be interested to learn that so far since the major deregulation wave in electric utilities over the past 20 years or so, no one has been able to show any real pricing benefits for the end consumer. Certain industries are inherently slanted towards a monopoly, and a regulated monopoly is often preferable to an attempt at forcing market conditions. The two industries aren't the same, and I think electric/gas utilities are significantly more inclined towards a natural monopoly, but it is important to realize what situation we currently have, rather than applying an idealized narrative.

Alupis 12y ago

> I much rather have the government regulating my ISP You probably don't really wish this... because it will ultimately be bad (think of your local power or gas company). What you really wish for is more competition on a level playing field, ie. 6-10 ISP's per city who compete with each other for your business.

01Michael10 12y ago
Yes, I would... Should I make a list of all the shit Time Warner has done and tried to do to me over the years? I don't have any issues that are comparable with my power/gas companies (which I have more choices with by the way). I have already addressed the competition thing in a couple of comments on this thread... It does not exist right now and it would take a while to be a reality so ending Net Neutrality right now just makes things worse.
- Alupis 12y ago
  These are symptoms of lack of competition. That's not a reason to make the government regulate these businesses like you seem to want. Instead we need to spur growth of competition. We can look at the cities Google Fiber has rolled out to. In every instance, competitor's pricing has decreased while bandwidth speed has increased. That is what we are fighting for -- we are not fighting for a government set bare-minimum level of service for government set price. That will get your DSL-like service -- just barely "good enough" and no innovation because there's no real competition. We need to somehow get to having 6-10 ISP's in every major city. This will drive quality of service up, and pricing down. I also think it's a conflict of interest to be a content provider while also an ISP (comcast, time-warner, etc). Either deliver bits, or create the bits -- not both.
  - 01Michael10 12y ago
    The competition thing already has been addressed my me and others a number of times in this thread. Google is not the cure all... The bigger they get the less incentive they would be for them to drive down prices and speeds. We would need 3 to 4 players in most markets at least for real competition so we agree about that but... How long would this take? A decade? The reality RIGHT NOW is that their is no competition in 99% of the US. Ending Net Neutrality right now and hoping in a decade things change would be stupid.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      Nobody says Google is the answer -- that was just one small example of a situation where someone upset the incumbent and caused decreased price and better service purely through competition with no additional government legislation. We need more of that from more companies. Perhaps a better solution is to government fund small ISP's (they exist, look for them) and help them develop their own infrastructure in major cities. It will not be an overnight solution no, but it's far better imo than permanent legislation that might just kill the innovation you seek to spur. Look at the state of DSL. It's delivered over POTS lines and falls under the legislation governing said lines. If an ISP runs lines to provide DSL service, they are required to lease the lines to whoever wants them (other isp's) for cost (not much profit made from this transaction). Suddenly everyone abandoned DSL in favor of Fiber and Cable services, and we've seen speeds exponentially grow in this area. POTS lines already exist to every home in the USA, why not use them? DSL2+ has greatly increased the speeds, but still few ISP's use it. It's because of the huge legislative hurdles they have to jump over just to provide the service (I have a friend who is a WISP in the bay area of CA, and this is the reason he gave me for why he's not currently also running DSL to homes in his service region). We risk doing the same if we regulate all internet carrying lines. I really think it's better to somehow grow a lot more ISP's that operate in great competition. I don't know the perfect solution or how to go about accomplishing this -- but I do know free competition almost always trumps legislation. What we don't have right now is free competition (we have monopolies/duopolies).
      - 01Michael10 12y ago
minot 12y ago
Forgive my ignorance but what problems do you have with your local electricity/gas utility?
- Alupis 12y ago
  you usually don't have a choice of who services your address. you usually don't have a choice in pricing. they have no real compelling reason to go above and beyond the "just good enough" service.
  - 01Michael10 12y ago
    Well, the power/gas companies "just good enough" service is better then my ISP service. My ISP tries to raise the price more often and goes out more then my power.
    - minot 12y ago
      I live in a cold place. The only heat in my building is electric. Wednesday's minimum is 0°Fahrenheit (-18°C). People will probably die of cold if the power goes out for extended periods of time.
vertex-four 12y ago
> You probably don't really wish this... because it will ultimately be bad Only because the US apparently can't do regulation properly. In the UK, Ofcom regulate properly, and therefore we have plenty of competition and all the forces in place to ensure that the last mile infrastructure company doesn't touch content, allows any ISP to use its services at the same rates, and does its job of keeping the cables working. I can get Internet from any number of providers, all competing with each other fairly on top of this company's cables (and one or two providing their own cables instead). The thing is, the last mile infrastructure company doesn't run an ISP itself, so it doesn't have any reason to muck it up for the ISPs. That's the key. That's all you need to do - split the ISPs apart from the infrastructure companies.
- Alupis 12y ago
  Sorry, the UK's ISP situation is not much better. BT basically controls most of it, and the government thinks they can force-regulate things like a "porn filter" and content filters (censorship via legislation). That seems worse to me... and with statements from the US President like: "legal content" hints that in the future of government regulated ISP's, the government may step in and decide what is legal content to send over the pipes, and what should be blocked. That is not net neutrality.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    > Sorry, the UK's ISP situation is not much better. Sure it is. There's competition, semi-regular speed upgrades, if I don't like my ISP I can take my business elsewhere. As a result, I'm currently on an entirely unlimited plan with no throttling, and no angry letter if I download more than some hidden limit. My understanding is that a significant amount, if not the majority of the US is unable to do that. > the government thinks they can force-regulate things like a "porn filter" and content filters They could do that in the USA already, monopoly regulation or no monopoly regulation. Monopoly regulation is practically entirely separate from content regulation. In any case, they only regulate that the porn filter and content filters must be an option - I've certainly never had such a thing on my connection. The only sites that are blocked for me are blocked under court order. This is practically equivalent to regulating that ISPs must provide a free copy of Net Nanny to all customers to use if they so choose, it's just done on their end rather than mine. (Also, hilariously, there isn't actually any regulation on this - ISPs are currently doing it willingly.)
cwal37 12y ago
You might be interested to learn that so far since the major deregulation wave in electric utilities over the past 20 years or so, no one has been able to show any real pricing benefits for the end consumer. Certain industries are inherently slanted towards a monopoly, and a regulated monopoly is often preferable to an attempt at forcing market conditions. The two industries aren't the same, and I think electric/gas utilities are significantly more inclined towards a natural monopoly, but it is important to realize what situation we currently have, rather than applying an idealized narrative.