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We don't have the same problem in europe with net neutrality. The problem in the states is very very different. In the states you have three corporations provi

We don't have the same problem in europe with net neutrality. The problem in the states is very very different. In the states you have three corporations providing shit, slow service. Th Traffic shaping, which stops one person on a contented link (ie ADSL) ruining everyone else's day by torrenting every last drop of bandwidth. Its been a fact of life for many years. THe problem in the states can be characterised in two ways: * A lack of competition There is often only one ISP in town, and they don't have to try hard. This means that service is terrible, and so is innovation. * A lack of bandwidth In Europe bandwidth exchanges, or peering exchanges are normally run by a cooperative. This means that its in everyone's interest to talk to everyone else as fast as possible. Its really really cheap to peer in london, (http://www.lonap.net/fees.shtml http://www.lonap.net/fees.shtml) In the states, exchanges are run by either AT&T, verizon or level3. Which means everything costs squillions. As there is no need to provide more bandwidth, because customers can't move between ISPs so no one peers. For example in the EU, ISPs are more than keen to have CDN leaf nodes in their infrastructure, it lowers costs and improves customer experiences. However they can't charge Netflix et al to install them because there is too much competition. Its not like they can limit access to netflix for a few months to make a point, because their customers would change ISPs. Something not possible in the States. So net neutrality is really a side issue to competition.

chimeracoder 12y ago
> So net neutrality is really a side issue to competition. No, net neutrality is not a side-issue to competition. Competition would mitigate some of the harms of non-neutrality, but it does not address the full picture. Non-discrimination is essential both for consumers and for content producers[0]. Non-neutrality has an incredibly chilling effect on business, even if it only applies to a portion of the population[1]. We need both neutrality and competition; we can't sacrifice either one for the other. [0] ie, web companies, startups [1] https://avc.com/2014/01/vc-pitches-in-a-year-or-two/ https://avc.com/2014/01/vc-pitches-in-a-year-or-two/
- KaiserPro 12y ago
  As someone who works for a content producer, the only place to make money is in the gatekeeping to content. Once again, with competition that sort of practice doesn't work. If a service is popular it will cost customers to ban it. Nokia phones came with music for the best part of 3 years, it didn't stop the rise of spotify. (back when data cost £1 a megabyte) Spotify is bundled with many contracts here in the UK, but people still use other services. None of those VC ideas are businesses, it won't be net neutrality that stops them it'll be common sense. Who invests in clones of already loss making services?
vpeters25 12y ago
I think you are missing the big picture: it is not about the net but about free flow of ideas (free speech). With these new rules governments can now decide which services are qualified as "specialized", with this they can for example censor the opposition by slowing them down to a crawl, or take bribes to declare some corporation's service "specialized" gaining an edge over the competition.
jahnu 12y ago
But net neutrality doesn't necessarily conflict with managing basic categories of traffic to keep a system functioning so I don't see how the the one person torrenting on a contended line matters. You use traffic management to limit their bandwidth use, not their choice of protocol or their choice of destination or source. Then the customer can switch to a competitor or stay but we can rest assured that these management techniques won't result in incumbents preventing competition or free speech.
- KaiserPro 12y ago
  First, there is no such thing as free speech in the EU. Especially not in the UK Second of all net neutrality is not about freedom of speech. It is a concerted campaign by Google, netflix, yahoo and amazon to keep costs low. There is a very real threat that people like verison will charge real money to peer with the above companies. This is a direct threat to their business model. The reason why its not an issue here is that all ISPs in the UK peer at coop exchanges. The concept of charging $17 million dollars to peer just doesn't apply. ISPs over here wanted to ban torrenting, as 1% of the userbase started racking up 80% of the bandwidth costs. However as ISPs introduced caps and blocks, other popped up offering light traffic shaping instead, or bandwidth caps. The market forces won.
lgbr 12y ago
> We don't have the same problem in europe with net neutrality. Europe actually does, and net neutrality violations are actually commonplace within Europe. In fact, the EU documents a list of currently on-going violations of net neutrality: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/net-neutrality-challenges http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/net-neutrality-challen... Mobile carriers are the worst offenders in Europe. Prepaid data plans in particular will actively block VoIP connections so as to prevent you from making Skype or other VoIP calls over their networks because they want you to pay for their own minutes. P2P Throttling is also very commonplace. This is something that Comcast was lambasted for in the past, and as far as I know hasn't happened on a large scale in the US for some time, but it's very common in Europe. While Europe does have a lot more providers to choose from, you'll often find that there are still monopolies just like in the US. Most of the DSL lines in the UK are owned by BT, and most of the DSL lines in Germany are owned by Telekom, for example. Add to this that cable isn't nearly as widespread in Europe, and you have a situation that's even worse than the usual Cable vs. DSL choice that you have in the US. In Europe your choice is likely limited to only DSL, and only one company provides the copper running to your residence.
- KaiserPro 12y ago
  Everyone uses traffic management. Its a fact of life. Unless you are paying for a dedicated line, or are peering, then you are going to be managed. Anyone that has a cheap line and says they are not managing it either has shit service, or the ISP is telling porkies. P2P will always need to be throttled, and has been since pretty much the start of ADSL. If you want to be uploading gigs of data, at high speed then pay for the correct line. don't use consumer lines. As I pointed out, if you want uncontended connections, peer at an exchange. They are cheap. Yes BT has a monopoly, but unlike the US they are highly regulated. They can only charge a certain amount for each line(I think ~£4 a month). They cannot stop arbitrary data for business reasons, all resellers have the same SLA. The BT network is in much better shape than the US, with a thriving reseller market. This means that ADSL is often thrown in for free with TV. With mobile data, its only vodaphone that do that kind of thing, as they are very keen for you to burn through your data allowance and run up bills. Also VOIP over 3g is terrible (300ms round trip) by the way :)

chimeracoder 12y ago

> So net neutrality is really a side issue to competition. No, net neutrality is not a side-issue to competition. Competition would mitigate some of the harms of non-neutrality, but it does not address the full picture. Non-discrimination is essential both for consumers and for content producers[0]. Non-neutrality has an incredibly chilling effect on business, even if it only applies to a portion of the population[1]. We need both neutrality and competition; we can't sacrifice either one for the other. [0] ie, web companies, startups [1] https://avc.com/2014/01/vc-pitches-in-a-year-or-two/ https://avc.com/2014/01/vc-pitches-in-a-year-or-two/

KaiserPro 12y ago
As someone who works for a content producer, the only place to make money is in the gatekeeping to content. Once again, with competition that sort of practice doesn't work. If a service is popular it will cost customers to ban it. Nokia phones came with music for the best part of 3 years, it didn't stop the rise of spotify. (back when data cost £1 a megabyte) Spotify is bundled with many contracts here in the UK, but people still use other services. None of those VC ideas are businesses, it won't be net neutrality that stops them it'll be common sense. Who invests in clones of already loss making services?

vpeters25 12y ago

I think you are missing the big picture: it is not about the net but about free flow of ideas (free speech). With these new rules governments can now decide which services are qualified as "specialized", with this they can for example censor the opposition by slowing them down to a crawl, or take bribes to declare some corporation's service "specialized" gaining an edge over the competition.

jahnu 12y ago

But net neutrality doesn't necessarily conflict with managing basic categories of traffic to keep a system functioning so I don't see how the the one person torrenting on a contended line matters. You use traffic management to limit their bandwidth use, not their choice of protocol or their choice of destination or source. Then the customer can switch to a competitor or stay but we can rest assured that these management techniques won't result in incumbents preventing competition or free speech.

KaiserPro 12y ago
First, there is no such thing as free speech in the EU. Especially not in the UK Second of all net neutrality is not about freedom of speech. It is a concerted campaign by Google, netflix, yahoo and amazon to keep costs low. There is a very real threat that people like verison will charge real money to peer with the above companies. This is a direct threat to their business model. The reason why its not an issue here is that all ISPs in the UK peer at coop exchanges. The concept of charging $17 million dollars to peer just doesn't apply. ISPs over here wanted to ban torrenting, as 1% of the userbase started racking up 80% of the bandwidth costs. However as ISPs introduced caps and blocks, other popped up offering light traffic shaping instead, or bandwidth caps. The market forces won.

lgbr 12y ago

> We don't have the same problem in europe with net neutrality. Europe actually does, and net neutrality violations are actually commonplace within Europe. In fact, the EU documents a list of currently on-going violations of net neutrality: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/net-neutrality-challenges http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/net-neutrality-challen... Mobile carriers are the worst offenders in Europe. Prepaid data plans in particular will actively block VoIP connections so as to prevent you from making Skype or other VoIP calls over their networks because they want you to pay for their own minutes. P2P Throttling is also very commonplace. This is something that Comcast was lambasted for in the past, and as far as I know hasn't happened on a large scale in the US for some time, but it's very common in Europe. While Europe does have a lot more providers to choose from, you'll often find that there are still monopolies just like in the US. Most of the DSL lines in the UK are owned by BT, and most of the DSL lines in Germany are owned by Telekom, for example. Add to this that cable isn't nearly as widespread in Europe, and you have a situation that's even worse than the usual Cable vs. DSL choice that you have in the US. In Europe your choice is likely limited to only DSL, and only one company provides the copper running to your residence.

KaiserPro 12y ago
Everyone uses traffic management. Its a fact of life. Unless you are paying for a dedicated line, or are peering, then you are going to be managed. Anyone that has a cheap line and says they are not managing it either has shit service, or the ISP is telling porkies. P2P will always need to be throttled, and has been since pretty much the start of ADSL. If you want to be uploading gigs of data, at high speed then pay for the correct line. don't use consumer lines. As I pointed out, if you want uncontended connections, peer at an exchange. They are cheap. Yes BT has a monopoly, but unlike the US they are highly regulated. They can only charge a certain amount for each line(I think ~£4 a month). They cannot stop arbitrary data for business reasons, all resellers have the same SLA. The BT network is in much better shape than the US, with a thriving reseller market. This means that ADSL is often thrown in for free with TV. With mobile data, its only vodaphone that do that kind of thing, as they are very keen for you to burn through your data allowance and run up bills. Also VOIP over 3g is terrible (300ms round trip) by the way :)