5 ms·

ComVeriCast: Internet Freedom

79 points by orthecreedence 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago
The best gallows humor has the hint of truth in it.
- justizin 12y ago
  totes. I really think this perfectly illustrates why I have issues with the coinage "Net Neutrality". I currently pay Comcast an additional amount for an additional amount of bandwidth, over the minimum they offer. Before I go further, let's clarify that I am not defending Comcast, and that Net Neutrality is not the "Fuck Comcast" law. My old AT&T account that PG&E, oddly, sold me when I moved to Oakland was only 1.5mbit, and it was enough for Netflix, but you could expect Netflix to perform as it performs with 1.5mbit of bandwidth. Certainly, I agree that on a lower-cost plan, services that may be hungry for bandwidth should not be allowed to be blocked, that's silly, and while noone has really ever substantially done anything like this, I agree that there is a very real risk of business interests being presented with such an opportunity. What this humor kind of fails to address is the fact that, some people will use more internet, maybe a house with 5 roommates needs more internet than an individual - this is actually a way that tiered power billing hurts poorer folks, because 1 rich person gets the same alottment as ten poor people at one address, so using even 5 times as much power costs, oh, ten or twenty times as much. The law that forces power costs to be tiered is good, and it is motivated by the right reasons, but the way it is implemented puts no pressure on the actual people who waste the most power. I think a more interesting argument would be to say, the free plan has facebook, and facebook subsidizes your internet (something AT&T is already doing with ads), and the median plan has twitter, and you can only use VPN to connect to your office on the highest plan, even if you use almost no bandwidth. If we're going to have a conversation, let's talk about something of substance.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Isn't that exactly the argument this site is making? Their fake packages have a low-end service that only includes social media, a middle tier that includes streaming video, and a top tier that allows "any site," and is presumably what you'd require for VPNs.
  - AlexandrB 12y ago
    > I think a more interesting argument would be to say, the free plan has facebook, and facebook subsidizes your internet (something AT&T is already doing with ads), and the median plan has twitter, and you can only use VPN to connect to your office on the highest plan, even if you use almost no bandwidth. Here's the problem. Any such regime will be structured with incumbent use cases in mind. What if a new VPN-like protocol emerges that can be used to ensure more privacy (e.g. TOR). Now only those who can afford the highest tiers of service will be able to access it. Basically the internet rich get richer because they have access to technology that a family subscribing to mid-tier do not. The other problem is that ISPs are not interested in the cutting edge of the internet. If this was 2005, your plan would have the mid-tier selling us MySpace access and Facebook would only be on whatever tier above that gives "neutral" web access - how does that not skew the market forces that pushed Facebook to the top of the heap and why should an ISP be allowed to skew them in this way?
    - gandalfu 12y ago
      Telcel in Mexico allows unlimited access to Facebook and Twitter while the rest of the internet is bounded by whatever data plan you have. Not sure if Facebook and Twitter pay Telcel for the bandwidth you consume.
      - artenix 12y ago
        It's known that Zuckerberg is approaching some not developed countries to do that. India is on the top of my head. And this has been categorized as a practice againts Net Neutrality. Chile, IIRC, banned it.
aidenn0 12y ago
This isn't how it will happen. The basic package will give you access to these sites, but crappy access. Youtube, Netflix, et. al. will skip, webpages will load more slowly, etc. Meanwhile sites owned by the parent company of the ISP will be as smooth as butter. That way it's not people calling up their ISPs saying "Why can't I access youtube?" instead it's people saying "I watch comvericastTube since it's so much faster than youtube"
- justizin 12y ago
  ah you kind of said similar things to me while i was typing another comment. I think it's dangerous to be too sweeping with things like, "sites owned by the parent company of the ISP will be as smooth as butter." Let me explain by talking about a net neutrality problem my clients and I had when I operated a small business, supporting small businesses. We installed VoIP systems, hosted at Rackspace, communicating over services like Time-Warner Cable. We were pretty sure that TWC had specially prioritized their packets, but we also could not get the most reliable performance without installing a router at our customer site, and dedicating a portion of bandwidth to communicating with a single IP address. QoS sounds great when you're talking about it, but not when you are talking VoIP over it, in my experience. So, stick with me here for a sec, pls - I still oppose TWC prioritizing their own traffic, but only in a way that I can't do for mine. So here comes my disagreement with the word 'neutral'. I do not want a neutral network. I want a fair one. It's subtle, but a valuable distinction IMO. So, people keep telling me that "A good neutrality implementation won't outlaw prioritization", but is that true? If I'm a voter, and I am not an engineer, does that make any fucking sense to me? Confusion is extremely bad for democracy. Anti-competetive capitalism certainly also is.
  - tga_d 12y ago
    "Fair" reminds me far too much of the horror that is FRAND. It simply provides far too much leeway on the part of the company, who would almost certainly get the largest say in what is "fair." For example, they could easily market "Is it fair that a web site who pays more for quality service gets the same treatment as those who pay less?" as justification for charging sites for "fast lane" fees.
GhotiFish 12y ago
wow. A hammy over the top dystopian style website on a technology rights topic that ISN'T made by the EFF! Amazing!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

The best gallows humor has the hint of truth in it.

justizin 12y ago
totes. I really think this perfectly illustrates why I have issues with the coinage "Net Neutrality". I currently pay Comcast an additional amount for an additional amount of bandwidth, over the minimum they offer. Before I go further, let's clarify that I am not defending Comcast, and that Net Neutrality is not the "Fuck Comcast" law. My old AT&T account that PG&E, oddly, sold me when I moved to Oakland was only 1.5mbit, and it was enough for Netflix, but you could expect Netflix to perform as it performs with 1.5mbit of bandwidth. Certainly, I agree that on a lower-cost plan, services that may be hungry for bandwidth should not be allowed to be blocked, that's silly, and while noone has really ever substantially done anything like this, I agree that there is a very real risk of business interests being presented with such an opportunity. What this humor kind of fails to address is the fact that, some people will use more internet, maybe a house with 5 roommates needs more internet than an individual - this is actually a way that tiered power billing hurts poorer folks, because 1 rich person gets the same alottment as ten poor people at one address, so using even 5 times as much power costs, oh, ten or twenty times as much. The law that forces power costs to be tiered is good, and it is motivated by the right reasons, but the way it is implemented puts no pressure on the actual people who waste the most power. I think a more interesting argument would be to say, the free plan has facebook, and facebook subsidizes your internet (something AT&T is already doing with ads), and the median plan has twitter, and you can only use VPN to connect to your office on the highest plan, even if you use almost no bandwidth. If we're going to have a conversation, let's talk about something of substance.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Isn't that exactly the argument this site is making? Their fake packages have a low-end service that only includes social media, a middle tier that includes streaming video, and a top tier that allows "any site," and is presumably what you'd require for VPNs.
- AlexandrB 12y ago
  > I think a more interesting argument would be to say, the free plan has facebook, and facebook subsidizes your internet (something AT&T is already doing with ads), and the median plan has twitter, and you can only use VPN to connect to your office on the highest plan, even if you use almost no bandwidth. Here's the problem. Any such regime will be structured with incumbent use cases in mind. What if a new VPN-like protocol emerges that can be used to ensure more privacy (e.g. TOR). Now only those who can afford the highest tiers of service will be able to access it. Basically the internet rich get richer because they have access to technology that a family subscribing to mid-tier do not. The other problem is that ISPs are not interested in the cutting edge of the internet. If this was 2005, your plan would have the mid-tier selling us MySpace access and Facebook would only be on whatever tier above that gives "neutral" web access - how does that not skew the market forces that pushed Facebook to the top of the heap and why should an ISP be allowed to skew them in this way?
  - gandalfu 12y ago
    Telcel in Mexico allows unlimited access to Facebook and Twitter while the rest of the internet is bounded by whatever data plan you have. Not sure if Facebook and Twitter pay Telcel for the bandwidth you consume.
    - artenix 12y ago
      It's known that Zuckerberg is approaching some not developed countries to do that. India is on the top of my head. And this has been categorized as a practice againts Net Neutrality. Chile, IIRC, banned it.

This isn't how it will happen. The basic package will give you access to these sites, but crappy access. Youtube, Netflix, et. al. will skip, webpages will load more slowly, etc. Meanwhile sites owned by the parent company of the ISP will be as smooth as butter. That way it's not people calling up their ISPs saying "Why can't I access youtube?" instead it's people saying "I watch comvericastTube since it's so much faster than youtube"

justizin 12y ago
ah you kind of said similar things to me while i was typing another comment. I think it's dangerous to be too sweeping with things like, "sites owned by the parent company of the ISP will be as smooth as butter." Let me explain by talking about a net neutrality problem my clients and I had when I operated a small business, supporting small businesses. We installed VoIP systems, hosted at Rackspace, communicating over services like Time-Warner Cable. We were pretty sure that TWC had specially prioritized their packets, but we also could not get the most reliable performance without installing a router at our customer site, and dedicating a portion of bandwidth to communicating with a single IP address. QoS sounds great when you're talking about it, but not when you are talking VoIP over it, in my experience. So, stick with me here for a sec, pls - I still oppose TWC prioritizing their own traffic, but only in a way that I can't do for mine. So here comes my disagreement with the word 'neutral'. I do not want a neutral network. I want a fair one. It's subtle, but a valuable distinction IMO. So, people keep telling me that "A good neutrality implementation won't outlaw prioritization", but is that true? If I'm a voter, and I am not an engineer, does that make any fucking sense to me? Confusion is extremely bad for democracy. Anti-competetive capitalism certainly also is.
- tga_d 12y ago
  "Fair" reminds me far too much of the horror that is FRAND. It simply provides far too much leeway on the part of the company, who would almost certainly get the largest say in what is "fair." For example, they could easily market "Is it fair that a web site who pays more for quality service gets the same treatment as those who pay less?" as justification for charging sites for "fast lane" fees.

GhotiFish 12y ago

wow. A hammy over the top dystopian style website on a technology rights topic that ISN'T made by the EFF! Amazing!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]