4 ms·

I personally learned the importance of open networks the hard way. In the mid-1980s I was president of a startup, NABU: The Home Computer Network. My comp

I personally learned the importance of open networks the hard way. In the mid-1980s I was president of a startup, NABU: The Home Computer Network. My company was using new technology to deliver high-speed data to home computers over cable television lines....But NABU went broke while AOL became very successful....While delivering better service, NABU had to depend on cable television operators granting access to their systems....The phone network was open whereas the cable networks were closed. End of story." A person can't go through an experience like this without having it fundamentally affect their worldview. I wonder why, with all of the coverage the lead-up to this decision has gotten, I have not read this story before.

supergeek133 12y ago
Stuff like that is pretty interesting to me too. It's also a nice real-world description of why there is little to no competition in the market. The only reason Google accomplished it is by throwing money at the problem and laying new infrastructure, bypassing the existing in most cases. The barrier to entry of a competitor is so high from the infra cost alone.
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  It's said a lot that infrastructure cost is the barrier to entry but I don't think that's true. Tacking cable to telephone poles is not terribly expensive. There's no good reason a great many households couldn't have two or three different cables running past their homes. As I understand it the issue is the local governments that issue permits for such things are bought off by the providers. It's a problem of corruption, not infrastructure cost.
  - gnoway 12y ago
    There may be corruption involved, but the infrastructure costs are not imaginary. Modern cable infrastructure is not a big coaxial cable strung along telephone poles. It's often buried fiber with media conversion for a local loop. Either way it costs money to roll out, and where poles are involved there are ongoing leasing fees for those. This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routing, switching, media conversion, etc. to make that cable do something useful.
    - pekk 12y ago
      How many times can the same dollar of infrastructure costs be used to justify maintaining a monopoly where service is bad and never gets upgraded? It is in the company's interest to flog that dollar for all it is worth, forever, as a justification to never upgrade and maintain a monopoly so that nobody can force them to reinvest in infrastructure and they can just sit around in maintenance mode, collecting the checks with the minimum possible outlay. If the government owned the infrastructure outright, we could at least have the discussion about why service is shit, but with this reasoning, "it was expensive to build these cables" permanently shuts down any ability to get upgrades or break local monopolies.
    - phkahler 12y ago
      >> This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routing, switching, media conversion, etc. to make that cable do something useful. Media conversion? Like taking HD signals, converting them to "standard definition" and putting those on the line too? So you can then charge more for higher quality "HD" signals which are still transcoded to lower bitrates? Yeah, we can do without that stuff.
      - jahewson 12y ago
        No, he means transmission media conversion, such as converting from fiber optic cable to coaxial cable on the local loop.
      - ReidZB 12y ago
        That isn't what "media conversion" means at all. It is the conversion from one medium to another: for example, from fiber optic (light) to coaxial (electric). This is standard terminology: https://www.google.com/search?q=fiber+media+converter https://www.google.com/search?q=fiber+media+converter To be frank, your post is a little ridiculous, IMO.
        fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        Poster seems to have misunderstood, but: >Like taking HD signals, converting them to "standard definition" and putting those on the line too? So you can then charge more for higher quality "HD" signals which are still transcoded to lower bitrates? Yeah, we can do without that stuff. The cable company in my town does this. Ostensibly it was to maintain compatibility with CRT/low def. televisions as a convenience to people with obsolete equipment but the scheme persists. It seems to now serve the purpose of allowing them to advertise low prices for this subpar service and then upsell customers to much higher price tiers. Sure, that's a legal tactic, but it probably wouldn't work in a competitive market.
  - jaynos 12y ago
    Many areas don't have telephone poles. Digging trenches and ripping up roads to lay cable is where that gets more expensive.
  - supergeek133 12y ago
    In some areas, that might be the case. But then there is routing, provisioning equipment, people to handle customer support, modems themselves, etc. Not to mention all the old wiring in everyone's house, especially in the city. Oh and if for some reason you actually do decide to invest in infrastructure, you get to fight local, city, county, AND state government for permits, taxes, etc. Sometimes government good, sometimes government bad. Haha.
    - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
      The point here is internet infrastructure is in no way a natural monopoly like sewage or water. The margins are plenty high and there's no physical problem having two or three competing physical networks most places. The only reason we don't have competing local networks is artificial entry barriers.
      - supergeek133 12y ago
        I agree, but the financial barrier to entry is pretty high. Even if you remove the bureaucracy.
eggnet 12y ago
How then, with this powerful backstory, did Wheeler choose not to unbundle last mile access? The cable networks are still closed.
- MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
  Political capital is a finite resource.
- gnoway 12y ago
  I wonder about that too. In my mind at least, there is a distinction between requiring neutral treatment of traffic routing through a network and requiring an operator to let a competitor hook up their equipment in your facilities and sell a competitive service using infrastructure you laid. The latter IMO is a lot less fair, even though my personal experience is that I had more choices for service when it was done w/ DSL.
  - pyre 12y ago
    The latter makes sense for DSL, but most of the cable monopolies are not government-granted at the Federal level. Some localities have a cable monopoly, but the local government is responsible for that. Yes, the cable companies have gotten government hand-outs to build out infrastructure, but teasing apart which of that was public and private money (and therefore which would be 'fair' to force open) would be a nightmare.
    - eggnet 12y ago
      Many things that are worth doing are difficult. This is one of them.
      - pyre 12y ago
        My point was mostly that the argument for doing so w/ DSL is more cut-and-dry in that most/all of the infrastructure was laid under a nation-wide government-granted monopoly. The Federal government weighing in on the matter makes sense.
mikeyouse 12y ago
I love HN, but the echo chamber here about how Wheeler was some crony of the NACTA was impossible to drown out. If you look at the bottom of many of the previous Net Neutrality threads, there will be heavily downvoted posts (some of mine included) that Wheeler was previously an entrepreneur who was trying to disrupt traditional service providers, he was a VC who backed truly disruptive companies, and he had already been blocked from implementing very consumer-friendly rules at the FCC -- so he might be not be some mustache-twirling villain. The ignorant fervor was pretty intense.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  It is not ignorant to be sketical of a political appointee, on the contrary, anyone is wise to be skeptical. Observe the tremendous difficulty of either political party to find and appoint suitable people to these positions. Color me cautiously optimistic, but not yet ready to abandon all Wheeler/FCC skepticism. There are so many things in politics that are not what they appear to be; and, there has to be a tremendous amount of pressure on Wheeler from all sides. If Wheeler turns out to be a political appointee who manages to be a reasonable advocate for the citizenry despite the considerable pressure from all competing interests, I'll call him a remarkable exception.
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    It's ignorant to seize on one line of a political appointee's 40-year resume to insist they'll be corrupt when there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Wheeler kept a blog for years about all of his thoughts regarding telecom regulation, but it's much easier to call him a dingo and assume he's evil than it is to do research and develop a true picture of his intentions. Unfortunately, his blog has lapsed, but some of the posts are still available via Archive.org. Some Good posts; * Networks are More Important than Nations - https://web.archive.org/web/20110205091739/http://www.mobilemusings.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110205091739/http://www.mobile... * How SOP was Undone by SOPA - https://web.archive.org/web/20120625185358/http://www.mobilemusings.net/2012_02_01_archive.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120625185358/http://www.mobile... The 2nd is particularly interesting since he explicitly supports the anti-SOPA movement: The policy matter is not whether copyright holders should receive recompense for their products (they should), but whether legislation to protect that right is aircover to perpetuate old practices at the expense of new networks. There is no doubt there are honest-to- God Web pirates operating in China, Russia, and elsewhere who are stealing copyrighted product. These pirates should be stopped. But SOPA’s effort to accomplish this – which also just happened to strengthen the hand of content companies in other regards – applied concepts more applicable to the command and control networks of yesterday than to the open access networks of today. The power of the Internet is its lack of centralized control. Its distributed architecture means the network functions at the edge rather than at a central point. That edge activity, in turn, creates what the SOPA supporters were trying to constrain: access they can’t control. While its goal of stopping piracy is laudable and important, SOPA’s practical effect was to restructure through law the functionality of the Internet. Call it ignorance or call it lazy cynicism, but it's clear the blind Wheeler hate was completely unfounded.

supergeek133 12y ago

Stuff like that is pretty interesting to me too. It's also a nice real-world description of why there is little to no competition in the market. The only reason Google accomplished it is by throwing money at the problem and laying new infrastructure, bypassing the existing in most cases. The barrier to entry of a competitor is so high from the infra cost alone.

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
It's said a lot that infrastructure cost is the barrier to entry but I don't think that's true. Tacking cable to telephone poles is not terribly expensive. There's no good reason a great many households couldn't have two or three different cables running past their homes. As I understand it the issue is the local governments that issue permits for such things are bought off by the providers. It's a problem of corruption, not infrastructure cost.
- gnoway 12y ago
  There may be corruption involved, but the infrastructure costs are not imaginary. Modern cable infrastructure is not a big coaxial cable strung along telephone poles. It's often buried fiber with media conversion for a local loop. Either way it costs money to roll out, and where poles are involved there are ongoing leasing fees for those. This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routing, switching, media conversion, etc. to make that cable do something useful.
  - pekk 12y ago
    How many times can the same dollar of infrastructure costs be used to justify maintaining a monopoly where service is bad and never gets upgraded? It is in the company's interest to flog that dollar for all it is worth, forever, as a justification to never upgrade and maintain a monopoly so that nobody can force them to reinvest in infrastructure and they can just sit around in maintenance mode, collecting the checks with the minimum possible outlay. If the government owned the infrastructure outright, we could at least have the discussion about why service is shit, but with this reasoning, "it was expensive to build these cables" permanently shuts down any ability to get upgrades or break local monopolies.
  - phkahler 12y ago
    >> This is only part of the infrastructure anyway. You've still got all the routing, switching, media conversion, etc. to make that cable do something useful. Media conversion? Like taking HD signals, converting them to "standard definition" and putting those on the line too? So you can then charge more for higher quality "HD" signals which are still transcoded to lower bitrates? Yeah, we can do without that stuff.
    - jahewson 12y ago
      No, he means transmission media conversion, such as converting from fiber optic cable to coaxial cable on the local loop.
    - ReidZB 12y ago
      That isn't what "media conversion" means at all. It is the conversion from one medium to another: for example, from fiber optic (light) to coaxial (electric). This is standard terminology: https://www.google.com/search?q=fiber+media+converter https://www.google.com/search?q=fiber+media+converter To be frank, your post is a little ridiculous, IMO.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        Poster seems to have misunderstood, but: >Like taking HD signals, converting them to "standard definition" and putting those on the line too? So you can then charge more for higher quality "HD" signals which are still transcoded to lower bitrates? Yeah, we can do without that stuff. The cable company in my town does this. Ostensibly it was to maintain compatibility with CRT/low def. televisions as a convenience to people with obsolete equipment but the scheme persists. It seems to now serve the purpose of allowing them to advertise low prices for this subpar service and then upsell customers to much higher price tiers. Sure, that's a legal tactic, but it probably wouldn't work in a competitive market.
- jaynos 12y ago
  Many areas don't have telephone poles. Digging trenches and ripping up roads to lay cable is where that gets more expensive.
- supergeek133 12y ago
  In some areas, that might be the case. But then there is routing, provisioning equipment, people to handle customer support, modems themselves, etc. Not to mention all the old wiring in everyone's house, especially in the city. Oh and if for some reason you actually do decide to invest in infrastructure, you get to fight local, city, county, AND state government for permits, taxes, etc. Sometimes government good, sometimes government bad. Haha.
  - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
    The point here is internet infrastructure is in no way a natural monopoly like sewage or water. The margins are plenty high and there's no physical problem having two or three competing physical networks most places. The only reason we don't have competing local networks is artificial entry barriers.
    - supergeek133 12y ago
      I agree, but the financial barrier to entry is pretty high. Even if you remove the bureaucracy.

eggnet 12y ago

How then, with this powerful backstory, did Wheeler choose not to unbundle last mile access? The cable networks are still closed.

MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
Political capital is a finite resource.
gnoway 12y ago
I wonder about that too. In my mind at least, there is a distinction between requiring neutral treatment of traffic routing through a network and requiring an operator to let a competitor hook up their equipment in your facilities and sell a competitive service using infrastructure you laid. The latter IMO is a lot less fair, even though my personal experience is that I had more choices for service when it was done w/ DSL.
- pyre 12y ago
  The latter makes sense for DSL, but most of the cable monopolies are not government-granted at the Federal level. Some localities have a cable monopoly, but the local government is responsible for that. Yes, the cable companies have gotten government hand-outs to build out infrastructure, but teasing apart which of that was public and private money (and therefore which would be 'fair' to force open) would be a nightmare.
  - eggnet 12y ago
    Many things that are worth doing are difficult. This is one of them.
    - pyre 12y ago
      My point was mostly that the argument for doing so w/ DSL is more cut-and-dry in that most/all of the infrastructure was laid under a nation-wide government-granted monopoly. The Federal government weighing in on the matter makes sense.

mikeyouse 12y ago

I love HN, but the echo chamber here about how Wheeler was some crony of the NACTA was impossible to drown out. If you look at the bottom of many of the previous Net Neutrality threads, there will be heavily downvoted posts (some of mine included) that Wheeler was previously an entrepreneur who was trying to disrupt traditional service providers, he was a VC who backed truly disruptive companies, and he had already been blocked from implementing very consumer-friendly rules at the FCC -- so he might be not be some mustache-twirling villain. The ignorant fervor was pretty intense.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
It is not ignorant to be sketical of a political appointee, on the contrary, anyone is wise to be skeptical. Observe the tremendous difficulty of either political party to find and appoint suitable people to these positions. Color me cautiously optimistic, but not yet ready to abandon all Wheeler/FCC skepticism. There are so many things in politics that are not what they appear to be; and, there has to be a tremendous amount of pressure on Wheeler from all sides. If Wheeler turns out to be a political appointee who manages to be a reasonable advocate for the citizenry despite the considerable pressure from all competing interests, I'll call him a remarkable exception.
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  It's ignorant to seize on one line of a political appointee's 40-year resume to insist they'll be corrupt when there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Wheeler kept a blog for years about all of his thoughts regarding telecom regulation, but it's much easier to call him a dingo and assume he's evil than it is to do research and develop a true picture of his intentions. Unfortunately, his blog has lapsed, but some of the posts are still available via Archive.org. Some Good posts; * Networks are More Important than Nations - https://web.archive.org/web/20110205091739/http://www.mobilemusings.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110205091739/http://www.mobile... * How SOP was Undone by SOPA - https://web.archive.org/web/20120625185358/http://www.mobilemusings.net/2012_02_01_archive.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120625185358/http://www.mobile... The 2nd is particularly interesting since he explicitly supports the anti-SOPA movement: The policy matter is not whether copyright holders should receive recompense for their products (they should), but whether legislation to protect that right is aircover to perpetuate old practices at the expense of new networks. There is no doubt there are honest-to- God Web pirates operating in China, Russia, and elsewhere who are stealing copyrighted product. These pirates should be stopped. But SOPA’s effort to accomplish this – which also just happened to strengthen the hand of content companies in other regards – applied concepts more applicable to the command and control networks of yesterday than to the open access networks of today. The power of the Internet is its lack of centralized control. Its distributed architecture means the network functions at the edge rather than at a central point. That edge activity, in turn, creates what the SOPA supporters were trying to constrain: access they can’t control. While its goal of stopping piracy is laudable and important, SOPA’s practical effect was to restructure through law the functionality of the Internet. Call it ignorance or call it lazy cynicism, but it's clear the blind Wheeler hate was completely unfounded.