5 ms·

To me, net neutrality is pretty much a red herring. I have had good and bad internet service in my life. The least reliable was at my somewhat rural childhood

by greggyb 12y ago

To me, net neutrality is pretty much a red herring. I have had good and bad internet service in my life. The least reliable was at my somewhat rural childhood home from TWC. The best is my current connection from that most reviled of companies, Comcast. I have had no service interruptions, and I get a reliable 50Mbps at all times of day (I check regularly with speed tests and checking Torrent activity). The reason my internet service (and customer service experience) has been so good here is that I have two viable alternative providers, a high speed DSL carrier offering similar speeds and rates in the city, and a local fiber provider (recently introduced 10Gbps connection - yes you are reading that correctly). While I would prefer to have no rate limiting based on usage or content, I don't view this as some inalienable right. There is a price I'm willing to pay for that service, but there is also a price low enough where I'm happy to accept rate limiting. I'd like to have the choice. The problem seems to be that the competition which gives me the service I'm happy with and the regulation regarding whether I am even allowed to reason about my preferences as in the above paragraph keep getting tied up with one another. To me the biggest benefit comes from having multiple options in providers. A legal monopoly who can't do rate limiting can still give me awful service. Many providers who can rate limit will most likely give me service I'm happy with, even if the plan is rate limited. The history of utility regulation is rife with cases of legally enforced monopolies.

lbenes 12y ago
Yes, of course if most American were as lucky as you, net neutrality wouldn't be an issue. But the reality is that most of us are under a monopoly.[1] And it will take years and billions of dollars in infrastructure to enable the kind of competition that you are already enjoying. After suffering under Comcast's Netflix throttling last year, I don't want to hear utopian talk about encouraging competition. I want laws that fix the problem today by making those damn QoS firewall rules illegal. Of course I also want regulations and incentives to encourage broadband competition, but in the mean time net neutrality is a important stop gap. [1] http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/02/17/monopolizing-bandwidth/ http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/02/17/monopolizin...
- greggyb 12y ago
  The point of my post is not "Hooray for me!", but was to point out that my good service comes from competition, and that the focus on rate-limiting of net neutrality is just a red herring. The thing with regulation is that it is pernicious, and once created becomes very difficult to get rid of. Let's walk through a hypothetical: Rate-limiting becomes illegal today, and simultaneously some arbitrarily effective incentive is put in place that will provide opportunities for new entrants to the market within 5 years. Now fast forward a few years. New entrants are trying to compete in the market place. One proven effective way to gain a foothold in a market with entrenched players is to offer a loss leader. Say a new firm figures out that it can gain a lot of customers with a specific strategy - a cheap plan that is very restrictive on total bandwidth, except for Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix. For a huge number of people this would be a great deal - limited bandwidth for most things, but unlimited for the services they use the most. Unfortunately for this potential entrant to the market, their most effective tool for displacing an entrenched competitor has been deemed illegal. A regulation that solves a short term problem may limit our options in the future negatively. If there must be regulation, I would prefer to see regulation that does not limit my choices. Given a low enough price, I would be very happy to have a throttled internet connection. Again, my point in the parent was not to brag or say hooray for me. My point was that I have great service because I have choices. In proportion to the limits of my choices, there are limits to my happiness with the service. I do not intend to speak for you, but I'd like to rephrase your sentiment - not to argue with you or your experience, but to put it in the context I am interpreting the situation in. You aren't upset because Comcast offers _a_ plan that throttles Netflix, rather you are upset that you did not choose that plan. While in the short term eliminating that choice may improve your situation (or maybe Comcast offers worse service or raises the price or otherwise adjusts its behavior in a way that makes you feel worse off), in the long term it is impossible to make people better off by reducing the options which they may consider.
  - lbenes 12y ago
    > New entrants are trying to compete in the market place. One proven effective way to gain a foothold in a market with entrenched players is to offer a loss leader. We could more than make up for this hypothetical disadvantage by regulating the big players to share their last mile infrastructure like we've done with cell towers and land lines. A MUCH bigger issue than ISPs startups is that the next Facebook, Twitter, or Netflix will never even get their chance because they can't compete on an Internet that doesn't offer net neutrality. Netflix paid off Comcast for their "high speed track". But no small startup could have afforded this extortion. > The thing with regulation is that it is pernicious Yes, regulations and big government suck. I get it. But how do you propose to fix the deeper problem that we're mostly all living under a monopoly? How long will this take? > You aren't upset because Comcast offers _a_ plan that throttles Netflix, rather you are upset that you did not choose that plan. Yes, I don't have a choice. Thanks again for the reminder. So what's you solution again? You remind me of my family in Florida calling to today to tell me how bad the snowstorm is outside my house. Wouldn't it be so much better if we all lived in Florida with multiple broadband ISPs to choice from?
zenogais 12y ago
Unfortunately some things fall into the naturally monopoly category (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly). Figuring out what those are is an ongoing process. Government regulated industries get a bad rap these days - mostly because deregulation has been an ongoing fad for the last 30 years or so - but a lot of these have great track records. The California electricity crisis provides an instructive example of what kinds of effects deregulating an industry that was previously govt regulated can have - in short, significantly higher prices for badly degraded service [1]. Many of the proposed fixes are further govt intervention, but this time in the form of subsidies to businesses rather to incentivize necessary expansions rather than outright re-acquisition of the industry. So in short, competition isn't necessarily always good and doesn't always produce better results. In addition, de-regulated industries aren't necessarily free from government intervention and are opened up to market manipulation and exploitation. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
- shmerl 12y ago
  > Mostly because deregulation has been an ongoing fad for the last 30 years or so Not all deregulation produced good results. On the contrary, a lot of it produced bad results, because it was often intended for selected interests and not for everyone. Here is a good overview: http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
- rhino369 12y ago
  The problem with the CA power deregulation is that it deregulated wholesale while keeping retail rates strictly regulated. Most states have deregulated power and didn't have similar issues.
- greggyb 12y ago
  See siblings for thoughts on California. Deregulation can be done poorly or well. For a counter-anecdote, see the story of Southwest, an airline started with solely intrastate routes, which kept it from FAA regulation and allowed it to compete on price in a way that other airlines couldn't. It now carries the most domestic passengers[0], is highly rated for customer service, and has posted >40 straight profitable years (including the span of the most recent recession)[1]. FAA regulation was considered necessary due to the high fixed costs associated with operating an airline. I am fully aware of the concept of a natural monopoly (econ major here), but the fact is that the majority of cable providers were granted exclusive franchises by municipalities. You may object to the source, but I am at work and don't have time to track down other support for this statement. Hopefully we can both accept the facts even if you object to the reasoning[3]. The article is talking about cable television, but since the incumbent ISPs are the same firms as the cable television providers, I hope you can agree that the analysis, regardless of your agreement or disagreement, is at least relevant. Finally, there are many areas with multiple cable companies/ISPs (I live in one, and recently moved from an area where Verizon made a large FiOS investment and is competing very effectively with TWC - I do know that they've put a stop to expansion on FiOS). It is clearly possible to see competition in this area. The fact that many/most municipalities offered exclusive franchises and that we now see many monopolies in this area is only proof that many people _believed_ cable service to be a natural monopoly, not that it is. The fact that we see areas with competition in this sector is a strong piece of evidence that natural monopoly is not the case. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines [1]http://southwest.investorroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1975 http://southwest.investorroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1975 [2]http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html
kabdib 12y ago
Comcast is great on the surface and in the short term; good bandwidth, few outages. The knife-twist comes when they decide to impose data limits with essentially punitive caps designed to quash competition, or dramatically "monetize" your accustomed use of their product. I don't think that making them a utility is a great answer either; this opens the door to taxes that are disconnected from use and politicizing connections based on content. I think the long-term resolve to keep bandwidth competitive will be lost when governments see it as a cash cow (of course you don't mind another penny per gigabyte, because it pays for roads/schools/whatever). A structure that encourages (or even requires) competition would be best, I think. Maybe neutrally administrate that last mile and share it between all parties (sorry, TWC and Comcast, you had your chance, now we've nationalized your build-out because you couldn't play fair).
- greggyb 12y ago
  Again, and not in a "hooray for me, sucks to be you" way, I have options to choose from. These options make it unlikely for Comcast to behave in that manner in my market. If they do, I may easily switch to another provider. If they are forbidden from rate-limiting me, they still have many dimensions by which to potentially decrease my happiness with their service. If they are my only option and they are forbidden from rate-limiting me, then they are likely to change their behavior in a way I will not be happy about along one of those other axes. If regulation must occur, then I would prefer to see it happen in a manner that increases rather than decreases my choices. Forbidding a certain pricing strategy does not increase my choices. If regulation must occur, then I'd like to see something along the lines required sale of excess infrastructure capacity. This could happen in terms of utility pole access (the majority of which are not owned by telecoms to my understanding[0]), or through sale of excess bandwidth in an ISP's network. [0] This is based on my recollection of readings I have done in the past, no current links. The question then becomes if the poles are not owned by ISPs (in general - in some cases they are) then why can entrants to the market not lay their own lines? This would be viable in proportion to the size/density of the market.
ohitsdom 12y ago
DSL speeds "similar" to 50mpbs? How similar? The fastest AT&T offers DSL is 6mbps (it's my only option). I thought that was a hard limit on the technology, but googling it produces varying results.
- tormeh 12y ago
  Nah, there's no real limit. It all depends on the longest distance between a sender and a receiver (there might be more than one on your last-mile) the quality of the cable and output power on the sending end. European cities seem to have settled one 15mbps as both standard and max, American ones seem to have settled on lower. The phoneline infrastructure was probably not as good.
- greggyb 12y ago
  I do not feel dishonest calling 40Mbps similar to 50Mbps[0]. This is limited based on proximity to the provider. I live in Minneapolis proper, so this is an option for me. DSL can scale up to 1Gbps[1]. [0]http://www.centurylink.com/home/internetonly/ http://www.centurylink.com/home/internetonly/ [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line
0x5f3759df-i 12y ago
Of course competition would be the best solution but in case you didn't know, infrastructure is massively expensive and that greatly limits the ability for a new comer to enter the market even on a regional level. It is in every ISPs best interest to be the sole provider of service in an area because they will have a better adoption rate and thus remake their investment quicker. This is the whole basis behind Comcast's argument in favor of the Time Warner take over, they aren't reducing competition because they each have their own areas where they operate so they so don't compete in the first place. Think about that for a minute, the CEO of the biggest ISP in America admitted that they do not compete with the second biggest ISP. There is a finite amount of competition the infrastructure market can handle due to high costs of entry and diminishing returns on that high cost as more players enter the market in an area. There is a finite amount of customers an ISP can have in any given area, it may make sense to build out to a market if you are going to be the only provider but if you are going to be the second or third provider your customer base is going to be smaller and as you start cutting up the available customer base there is likely not enough there to spend the upfront costs of building the infrastructure if you aren't going to get the amount of customers you need to support it. The ISPs are already monopolies regardless of net neutrality rules, net neutrality will just require a certain level of fairness in how they treat the traffic of the content that passes through them. I would support requiring ISPS to open their wires for lease by competitors but net neutrality seems like a great second option if that is politically unfeasible.

by greggyb 12y ago

lbenes 12y ago

Yes, of course if most American were as lucky as you, net neutrality wouldn't be an issue. But the reality is that most of us are under a monopoly.[1] And it will take years and billions of dollars in infrastructure to enable the kind of competition that you are already enjoying. After suffering under Comcast's Netflix throttling last year, I don't want to hear utopian talk about encouraging competition. I want laws that fix the problem today by making those damn QoS firewall rules illegal. Of course I also want regulations and incentives to encourage broadband competition, but in the mean time net neutrality is a important stop gap. [1] http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/02/17/monopolizing-bandwidth/ http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/02/17/monopolizin...

greggyb 12y ago
The point of my post is not "Hooray for me!", but was to point out that my good service comes from competition, and that the focus on rate-limiting of net neutrality is just a red herring. The thing with regulation is that it is pernicious, and once created becomes very difficult to get rid of. Let's walk through a hypothetical: Rate-limiting becomes illegal today, and simultaneously some arbitrarily effective incentive is put in place that will provide opportunities for new entrants to the market within 5 years. Now fast forward a few years. New entrants are trying to compete in the market place. One proven effective way to gain a foothold in a market with entrenched players is to offer a loss leader. Say a new firm figures out that it can gain a lot of customers with a specific strategy - a cheap plan that is very restrictive on total bandwidth, except for Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix. For a huge number of people this would be a great deal - limited bandwidth for most things, but unlimited for the services they use the most. Unfortunately for this potential entrant to the market, their most effective tool for displacing an entrenched competitor has been deemed illegal. A regulation that solves a short term problem may limit our options in the future negatively. If there must be regulation, I would prefer to see regulation that does not limit my choices. Given a low enough price, I would be very happy to have a throttled internet connection. Again, my point in the parent was not to brag or say hooray for me. My point was that I have great service because I have choices. In proportion to the limits of my choices, there are limits to my happiness with the service. I do not intend to speak for you, but I'd like to rephrase your sentiment - not to argue with you or your experience, but to put it in the context I am interpreting the situation in. You aren't upset because Comcast offers _a_ plan that throttles Netflix, rather you are upset that you did not choose that plan. While in the short term eliminating that choice may improve your situation (or maybe Comcast offers worse service or raises the price or otherwise adjusts its behavior in a way that makes you feel worse off), in the long term it is impossible to make people better off by reducing the options which they may consider.
- lbenes 12y ago
  > New entrants are trying to compete in the market place. One proven effective way to gain a foothold in a market with entrenched players is to offer a loss leader. We could more than make up for this hypothetical disadvantage by regulating the big players to share their last mile infrastructure like we've done with cell towers and land lines. A MUCH bigger issue than ISPs startups is that the next Facebook, Twitter, or Netflix will never even get their chance because they can't compete on an Internet that doesn't offer net neutrality. Netflix paid off Comcast for their "high speed track". But no small startup could have afforded this extortion. > The thing with regulation is that it is pernicious Yes, regulations and big government suck. I get it. But how do you propose to fix the deeper problem that we're mostly all living under a monopoly? How long will this take? > You aren't upset because Comcast offers _a_ plan that throttles Netflix, rather you are upset that you did not choose that plan. Yes, I don't have a choice. Thanks again for the reminder. So what's you solution again? You remind me of my family in Florida calling to today to tell me how bad the snowstorm is outside my house. Wouldn't it be so much better if we all lived in Florida with multiple broadband ISPs to choice from?

zenogais 12y ago

Unfortunately some things fall into the naturally monopoly category (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly). Figuring out what those are is an ongoing process. Government regulated industries get a bad rap these days - mostly because deregulation has been an ongoing fad for the last 30 years or so - but a lot of these have great track records. The California electricity crisis provides an instructive example of what kinds of effects deregulating an industry that was previously govt regulated can have - in short, significantly higher prices for badly degraded service [1]. Many of the proposed fixes are further govt intervention, but this time in the form of subsidies to businesses rather to incentivize necessary expansions rather than outright re-acquisition of the industry. So in short, competition isn't necessarily always good and doesn't always produce better results. In addition, de-regulated industries aren't necessarily free from government intervention and are opened up to market manipulation and exploitation. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

shmerl 12y ago
> Mostly because deregulation has been an ongoing fad for the last 30 years or so Not all deregulation produced good results. On the contrary, a lot of it produced bad results, because it was often intended for selected interests and not for everyone. Here is a good overview: http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
rhino369 12y ago
The problem with the CA power deregulation is that it deregulated wholesale while keeping retail rates strictly regulated. Most states have deregulated power and didn't have similar issues.
greggyb 12y ago
See siblings for thoughts on California. Deregulation can be done poorly or well. For a counter-anecdote, see the story of Southwest, an airline started with solely intrastate routes, which kept it from FAA regulation and allowed it to compete on price in a way that other airlines couldn't. It now carries the most domestic passengers[0], is highly rated for customer service, and has posted >40 straight profitable years (including the span of the most recent recession)[1]. FAA regulation was considered necessary due to the high fixed costs associated with operating an airline. I am fully aware of the concept of a natural monopoly (econ major here), but the fact is that the majority of cable providers were granted exclusive franchises by municipalities. You may object to the source, but I am at work and don't have time to track down other support for this statement. Hopefully we can both accept the facts even if you object to the reasoning[3]. The article is talking about cable television, but since the incumbent ISPs are the same firms as the cable television providers, I hope you can agree that the analysis, regardless of your agreement or disagreement, is at least relevant. Finally, there are many areas with multiple cable companies/ISPs (I live in one, and recently moved from an area where Verizon made a large FiOS investment and is competing very effectively with TWC - I do know that they've put a stop to expansion on FiOS). It is clearly possible to see competition in this area. The fact that many/most municipalities offered exclusive franchises and that we now see many monopolies in this area is only proof that many people _believed_ cable service to be a natural monopoly, not that it is. The fact that we see areas with competition in this sector is a strong piece of evidence that natural monopoly is not the case. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines [1]http://southwest.investorroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1975 http://southwest.investorroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1975 [2]http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html

kabdib 12y ago

Comcast is great on the surface and in the short term; good bandwidth, few outages. The knife-twist comes when they decide to impose data limits with essentially punitive caps designed to quash competition, or dramatically "monetize" your accustomed use of their product. I don't think that making them a utility is a great answer either; this opens the door to taxes that are disconnected from use and politicizing connections based on content. I think the long-term resolve to keep bandwidth competitive will be lost when governments see it as a cash cow (of course you don't mind another penny per gigabyte, because it pays for roads/schools/whatever). A structure that encourages (or even requires) competition would be best, I think. Maybe neutrally administrate that last mile and share it between all parties (sorry, TWC and Comcast, you had your chance, now we've nationalized your build-out because you couldn't play fair).

greggyb 12y ago
Again, and not in a "hooray for me, sucks to be you" way, I have options to choose from. These options make it unlikely for Comcast to behave in that manner in my market. If they do, I may easily switch to another provider. If they are forbidden from rate-limiting me, they still have many dimensions by which to potentially decrease my happiness with their service. If they are my only option and they are forbidden from rate-limiting me, then they are likely to change their behavior in a way I will not be happy about along one of those other axes. If regulation must occur, then I would prefer to see it happen in a manner that increases rather than decreases my choices. Forbidding a certain pricing strategy does not increase my choices. If regulation must occur, then I'd like to see something along the lines required sale of excess infrastructure capacity. This could happen in terms of utility pole access (the majority of which are not owned by telecoms to my understanding[0]), or through sale of excess bandwidth in an ISP's network. [0] This is based on my recollection of readings I have done in the past, no current links. The question then becomes if the poles are not owned by ISPs (in general - in some cases they are) then why can entrants to the market not lay their own lines? This would be viable in proportion to the size/density of the market.

ohitsdom 12y ago

DSL speeds "similar" to 50mpbs? How similar? The fastest AT&T offers DSL is 6mbps (it's my only option). I thought that was a hard limit on the technology, but googling it produces varying results.

tormeh 12y ago
Nah, there's no real limit. It all depends on the longest distance between a sender and a receiver (there might be more than one on your last-mile) the quality of the cable and output power on the sending end. European cities seem to have settled one 15mbps as both standard and max, American ones seem to have settled on lower. The phoneline infrastructure was probably not as good.
greggyb 12y ago
I do not feel dishonest calling 40Mbps similar to 50Mbps[0]. This is limited based on proximity to the provider. I live in Minneapolis proper, so this is an option for me. DSL can scale up to 1Gbps[1]. [0]http://www.centurylink.com/home/internetonly/ http://www.centurylink.com/home/internetonly/ [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line

0x5f3759df-i 12y ago

Of course competition would be the best solution but in case you didn't know, infrastructure is massively expensive and that greatly limits the ability for a new comer to enter the market even on a regional level. It is in every ISPs best interest to be the sole provider of service in an area because they will have a better adoption rate and thus remake their investment quicker. This is the whole basis behind Comcast's argument in favor of the Time Warner take over, they aren't reducing competition because they each have their own areas where they operate so they so don't compete in the first place. Think about that for a minute, the CEO of the biggest ISP in America admitted that they do not compete with the second biggest ISP. There is a finite amount of competition the infrastructure market can handle due to high costs of entry and diminishing returns on that high cost as more players enter the market in an area. There is a finite amount of customers an ISP can have in any given area, it may make sense to build out to a market if you are going to be the only provider but if you are going to be the second or third provider your customer base is going to be smaller and as you start cutting up the available customer base there is likely not enough there to spend the upfront costs of building the infrastructure if you aren't going to get the amount of customers you need to support it. The ISPs are already monopolies regardless of net neutrality rules, net neutrality will just require a certain level of fairness in how they treat the traffic of the content that passes through them. I would support requiring ISPS to open their wires for lease by competitors but net neutrality seems like a great second option if that is politically unfeasible.