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I'll have to agree to this. Electricity is electricity, water is water, natural gas is natural gas. But Internet traffic isn't a homogenous substance.
by skylan_q 12y ago
I'll have to agree to this.
Electricity is electricity, water is water, natural gas is natural gas.
But Internet traffic isn't a homogenous substance.
- pavanky 12y agoBytes are bytes.
- skylan_q 12y agoIt delivers more than just bytes. It's communication in different forms for different purposes. On the other hand, when water is delivered it's the same water here or there.
- maccard 12y agoTelecoms are also classified as utilities.
- angersock 12y agoAnd what form does that communication take? Bytes. As for the water, once delivered it is used for drinking, for washing, for cooling, for watering...but it travels, unmolested, as water being commonly carried.
- ericd 12y agoThe electricity certainly gets used for lots of different things. UDP and TCP is what I want my ISPs concerned with, not what I'm doing with those packets.
- pbz 12y ago"different forms for different purposes" -- no it's not, it's all bytes. The ISP should not care or know what the purpose of those bytes are. The same way the electric company doesn't care what I plug into my outlets.
- Terr_ 12y agoNot disagreeing with the basic idea, but there's also latency and peak throughput.
- Windwaker 12y agoThe utility that Internet providers are providing is information.
- skylan_q 12y agoYou're calling it a utility. I guess you're just going to define it a utility, ham sandwhich is also a utility.
- pyre 12y agoI'm not sure if English isn't your first language, but many words have several meanings. For example "providing utility" means "to provide something of use" per this[1] definition: Utility, or usefulness, is the (perceived) ability of something to satisfy needs or wants. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y agoWell they regulate radio. [Edit] Just check out the innovations in radio?
- skylan_q 12y agoWell they regulate radio. I agree, they regulate a bunch of stuff. I suppose that's a carte blanche to regulate anything it sees itself fit to regulate?
- enraged_camel 12y agoYou're being obtuse on purpose. The name of the organization is Federal Communications Commission. They have the authority to regulate all interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The Internet absolutely falls within their jurisdiction.
- drawkbox 12y agoUtilities are the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial. Utilities in the US are typically public, so the internet is a public useful, profitable and beneficial utility. A utility is a platform that is standard/common so that more useful platforms can be built on top of it. Utilities become part of the stack of economic production. A utility could be seen as an economic standard. If wireless and radio are utilities then so is broadband and wired.
- rhino369 12y agoThey aren't typically public. They are typically private companies that are regulated by a utilities commission at the state level.
- dippyskoodlez 12y agoTypically, but not always.
- eigenvector 12y agoThere are certainly detailed technical regulations about what type of electricity and water your utility must provide.
- aninhumer 12y agoIndeed, the very fact that someone can say "water is water", shows just how successful regulation has been in that market.
- task_queue 12y agoApply the same logic to any communication network, say telephones.
- marcosdumay 12y agoIsn't the goal to make it homogeneous?
- fnordfnordfnord 12y agoI think I'd like it fine if my ISP treated my internet traffic as if it were.