Trump FCC is doing away with net neutrality,

[TenEightyOne]

You can come up with a scenario where the idea won't work. That doesn't mean that the idea can't work. You are identifying real concerns and issues that need to be addressed, but you're not demonstrating anything definite with your example there. Why only 100,000 homes? Why only £60 per house? People aren't limited to cooperating with only their nearest neighbors, nor only paying a similar rate to an existing internet connection.

That's roughly the physical number of houses in the real-world example that I'm using. I chose £60 per house because at the moment those houses are paying between £30 and £60 for their monopolised service. There is no BT/Virgin/TalkyTalky in that area, never has been.

Let's double it - each house has to pay £120 a month to be in. That's £142 million a year to lay trenches through city and to link all the towns out in the countryside. It's still going to be tough to hire/equip/work even for that - and those people aren't going to all get a service in the first year. Maybe not in the first three years.

You didn't answer how you're going to get a connection through the "enemy" fibre to the NAP... unless our trench is going all the way through the Wolds, the Pennines and into Manchester?

 

[Joey D]

TalkyTalky

That sounds like Australian slang for a telephone. "Ay, mate pass me the Talky Talky woudja?"

You didn't answer how you're going to get a connection through the "enemy" fibre to the NAP... unless our trench is going all the way through the Wolds, the Pennines and into Manchester?

The other problem I see with this is that, in the US at least, it's be really hard to get city approval to run trenches anywhere. On private property it might be easy enough, but as soon as you needed to cross a road it's all going to go south real quick.

 

[Danoff]

I can agree that you have choices with regards to personal internet usage. I still think the options can be limiting though. The modern internet is designed for X speed and it will continue to ramp up speeds more and more with every generation of a webpage. I can't imagine trying to browse GTP on a 56k connection. Granted, people don't have to do most things on the net, but I could see a problem still arising with regards to the lack of choice for your personal internet browsing.

There are quiet a few options though before you get to 56k. I don't think I've ever pointed to dialup as an alternative in this thread. They can be limiting, but current options are limiting too - it's just a matter of where the limits are. My buddy finds the limits for upload caps on his ISP all the time. He has organized his life a little bit around that particular limit.

I'm not so sure about that. There's still a big push when companies catch people running torrents and I have to imagine if people are finding a workaround the companies will hunt them down to stop them. There's also a legal aspect to it too, I'm guessing with their lobbying power they could help railroad through a law regarding circumventing filtered content.

With regards to net neutrality, I think one of my big hang ups with it (besides the choice aspect) is that once it's repealed these companies will use their lobbying powers and dollars to push through laws to support their practices. I hate lobbying because I think it goes against a representative form of government. Congressmen should represent their entire district, not the will of a company that throws money at them. Obviously this is a whole other issue in itself.

While in theory the open market should allow for more competition and better innovation, I just think in reality some company's are shady and will push for regulations that benefit them and will ultimately make you get their service no matter what price they set because the other options are just no longer legal (like the VPN). Like I said, it's part of a bigger issue that probably needs to be looked at.

Yea I agree that corporate lobbyists will want to regulate the internet for their own gain. Usually those regulations are put forth for some sort of beneficial benign reason - like making sure that small time websites don't get throttled. Net Neutrality is the first chink in the armor for lobbyists to gain control over the internet. I'd much rather that we leave the internet unregulated (and thereby, immune to lobbyists), than invite the government in and hope that in this one instance they can stave off lobbyists.

Edit:

Forgot to respond to torrent crackdown. The internet is awash with hacks and workarounds for various things (including anonymous torrent). You can bypass all kinds of advertising, copy protection, encryption, etc. using tools readily found on the internet. Much money has been spent trying to stop it, and it proliferates regardless. A torrent style system would be extremely effective at bypassing ISP throttling. And even if it violates the terms of service, they have a hard time enforcing a lot of these kinds of policies against individual users (and have a history of those difficulties).

 

[Exorcet]

That's roughly the physical number of houses in the real-world example that I'm using. I chose £60 per house because at the moment those houses are paying between £30 and £60 for their monopolised service. There is no BT/Virgin/TalkyTalky in that area, never has been.

The money would not necessarily be limited to those houses that would receive the new service. It would pretty much be in the interest of the entire nation to protect themselves from unwanted business practices. A consumer union could cover the whole nation. At that point it wouldn't differ much from government besides being opt in. An alternative would be to have government regulation, but have the taxes supporting it be optional.

Let's double it - each house has to pay £120 a month to be in. That's £142 million a year to lay trenches through city and to link all the towns out in the countryside. It's still going to be tough to hire/equip/work even for that - and those people aren't going to all get a service in the first year. Maybe not in the first three years.

People could temporarily use shared internet facilities to access the net before it comes to their individual homes. So they'd give up some convenience and flexibility, but it would cut down on the availability problem. A completely smooth transition is probably impossible. People would have to be willing to give up something in the short term for the long term.

You didn't answer how you're going to get a connection through the "enemy" fibre to the NAP... unless our trench is going all the way through the Wolds, the Pennines and into Manchester?

The Open IX article I linked to is unrelated, or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here?

 

[TenEightyOne]

The money would not necessarily be limited to those houses that would receive the new service. It would pretty much be in the interest of the entire nation to protect themselves from unwanted business practices. A consumer union could cover the whole nation. At that point it wouldn't differ much from government besides being opt in. An alternative would be to have government regulation, but have the taxes supporting it be optional

The last time we had a nation-owned telecoms network it was quite disastrous. Your original argument ('change provider') was shown to be impossible in single-provider areas, you then went to 'create a small-scale provider of your own' which was shown to be impossible with no way of accessing net exchanges without using the (presumably filtered/choked) enemy, now it's 'rise up as a nation and create a single English coms provider'. I remain convinced that your idea is unfeasible at every scale you present.

People could temporarily use shared internet facilities to access the net before it comes to their individual homes. So they'd give up some convenience and flexibility, but it would cut down on the availability problem.

So people drive a few miles to check their emails? Is this serious or are you pulling the chain?

The Open IX article I linked to is unrelated, or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here?

It's unrelated in the case of suggestions about wireless comms, but I already outlined why such nets are only practical in built up areas. The bottom line remains, an "anytoany" connection as outlined in the IXP standard would require connection to an NAP. Any LAN, wired or wireless, requires an NAP outlet to be a web connection. In the local case that I gave you (the area around Kingston upon Hull) it's very hard to see how that happens. That's the real-world basis of the local company's monopoly. All the ideological talk about switching providers or crowd-networking butters no parsnips there.

 

[Danoff]

Your original argument ('change provider') was shown to be impossible in single-provider areas

Are we talking about the US? Because... I don't know of any single provider areas in the US.

 

[Exorcet]

The last time we had a nation-owned telecoms network it was quite disastrous.

That isn't necessarily the end goal. The aim is have people influence ISP offerings. You could run your own ISP, or you could organize to put pressure on them to meet your needs or create competition with each other.

Your original argument ('change provider') was shown to be impossible in single-provider areas, you then went to 'create a small-scale provider of your own'

Creating a small-scale provider wasn't my idea. What I proposed was a sort of crowd funding to help bring in an existing competitor into the area. I don't have concrete plan, I wasn't thinking about any of this before this thread existed. That doesn't take away from what you're saying, thinking over the concept is more important here, and that's why I just went with it. I just want to point this out.

now it's 'rise up as a nation and create a single English coms provider'. I remain convinced that your idea is unfeasible at every scale you present.

That's not what I'm saying. Having a single net provider with no competition would be a disaster. Do you agree at all with what I said at the end? Optionally taxed government regulation?

So people drive a few miles to check their emails? Is this serious or are you pulling the chain?

This is what I did before I had home internet. On those occasions where service to my house is disrupted I might drive to work to use the internet if I must.

It's unrelated in the case of suggestions about wireless comms, but I already outlined why such nets are only practical in built up areas. The bottom line remains, an "anytoany" connection as outlined in the IXP standard would require connection to an NAP. Any LAN, wired or wireless, requires an NAP outlet to be a web connection. In the local case that I gave you (the area around Kingston upon Hull) it's very hard to see how that happens. That's the real-world basis of the local company's monopoly. All the ideological talk about switching providers or crowd-networking butters no parsnips there.

Fair enough.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Are we talking about the US? Because... I don't know of any single provider areas in the US.

The example I was replying with is in the UK.

You could run your own ISP, or you could organize to put pressure on them to meet your needs or create competition with each other....Having a single net provider with no competition would be a disaster.

I know I've compressed your thoughts in the above quote, it's merely to illustrate that the 'disaster' is pretty much what we have here. When the service is good it's great, when it's poor there is no recourse to anyone other than the government regulator as no other company owns any infrastructure in the area as an alternative. That lack of alternative infrastructure coupled with a deliberate incompatibility with external infrastructures like BT makes own-grown networks impossible without them being reliant on exactly the same outward-bound infrastructure that they want to escape.

I agree with some of what you say in principle but my feeling is that the big companies know the ways out and have them mostly covered.

 

[CSLACR]

Nope, they've had the monopoly on phones here for over a hundred years and are legendarily good at ignoring customers. The very fact that they have the monopoly is what enables them to act like that. They were three weeks late for our last service appointment but did give me the option to cancel it.

Purdy phone boxes though. Swings and roundabouts

View attachment 694795

If it helps, it's really not much better here. Maybe in the large cities, but most of this country has 1-2 service providers, and both suck.
Every single one has terrible customer service, tries to force you to buy things, for example signing you up for "packages" that you specifically told them you don't want, refusing to fix the same "mistake", and generally not holding anywhere near advertised speeds.

I couldn't tell you the last internet I paid for that didn't slow to a crawl, or stop completely, at least once every 4 hours, although usually once every 1-3 hours.
In the U.S we pay a lot for terrible internet, and people truly believe they "need" it. It's somewhere between hilarious and Idiocracy.

Cable/TV is the same, half the time the same **** company. And why not? There is no other cable company, and satellite TV doesn't have good internet, they bundle with bottom-rung verizon/frontier/at&t dsl that's similar in nature in today's world as dial-up and AOL were 20 years ago.

Are we talking about the US? Because... I don't know of any single provider areas in the US.

Exactly how much of the U.S. have you covered, to be making that statement?

I'm particularly interested in areas like dirt-road-Kansas, and the entire Northern Mid-West.

 

[Danoff]

Exactly how much of the U.S. have you covered, to be making that statement?

I'm particularly interested in areas like dirt-road-Kansas, and the entire Northern Mid-West.

Not all of it. Although I've spent some time in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska... and my folks live in rural Texas. My parents don't have any cable service to their house, and they have no fiber. Yet they have multiple mobile companies (such as sprint and ATT) that wirelessly provide service to their house. They also have their choice of many ISPs through their T1 phone line. They can also use satellite. In order to find a place in rural Kansas that is a single-provider area for high speed internet, you'd need to find a place that has only satellite access. No wireless, no phone, no cable. I'm not saying you can't, but I don't know of those areas. I get mobile service when hiking deep in the rockies at this point. If you can find one of those areas, you'll probably find folks that are proud of it.

 

[CSLACR]

Not all of it. Although I've spent some time in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska... and my folks live in rural Texas. My parents don't have any cable service to their house, and they have no fiber. Yet they have multiple mobile companies (such as sprint and ATT) that wirelessly provide service to their house. They also have their choice of many ISPs through their T1 phone line. They can also use satellite. In order to find a place in rural Kansas that is a single-provider area for high speed internet, you'd need to find a place that has only satellite access. No wireless, no phone, no cable. I'm not saying you can't, but I don't know of those areas. I get mobile service when hiking deep in the rockies at this point. If you can find one of those areas, you'll probably find folks that are proud of it.

Wireless internet isn't still a joke?

Last I saw it was 90 bucks a month for half of the slowest dsl speed.

But I guess you didn't say "good", "affordable" or "reasonable".

You can get dial-up too....

 

[Danoff]

Wireless internet isn't still a joke?

Last I saw it was 90 bucks a month for half of the slowest dsl speed.

Google fi is $30/mo and delivers me 20Mbs. If wireless internet is a joke, why do you have it?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Wireless internet isn't still a joke?

Last I saw it was 90 bucks a month for half of the slowest dsl speed.

Agreed. Maybe it's faster in parts of the US but in the UK the average 4G download speed is 15Mbps, compared to around 900Mbps for home fibre.

 

[Danoff]

compared to around 900Mbps for home fibre.

I can technically get gig service, but I opt for 40Mbps at home because... it's hella expensive to actually get speeds that high. Are you paying for gig service?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Are you paying for gig service?

Yes. £55 per month with no extra charge for a telephone landline and local calls.

 

[Danoff]

Yes. £55 per month with no extra charge for a telephone landline and local calls.

Wow, that's quite a deal. To get gigabit, last time I checked, they want $120/mo from me.

 

[Dennisch]

Wow, that's quite a deal. To get gigabit, last time I checked, they want $120/mo from me.

€37,50 here for gigabit. That's $44,50.

 

[Danoff]

Yes. £55 per month with no extra charge for a telephone landline and local calls.

€37,50 here for gigabit. That's $44,50.

I don't know that many people in the US that even have the option to buy gigabit. It's not very common.

 

[Dennisch]

I don't know that many people in the US that even have the option to buy gigabit. It's not very common.

I think that living in a tiny country does have some perks when it comes to upgrading infrastructures.

 

[Joel]

I quite like the fridge analogy! We have true Fridge Neutrality, you can buy a fridge and put whatever you want in it. Now imagine if your fridge manufacturer made a deal with *Soda Corp 1* that would limit its temperature if you put *Soda Corp 2*'s products inside your fridge. Of course that's just hypothetical, it'd be economic suicide, no company would add DRM to a ubiquitous household appliance!

I understand why people value what they have over what they can get. It's called loss aversion. That's a lot of the reason why people cling to net neutrality.

So again, what is it?
1) People are whiners, clinging to the status quo because of loss aversion. Deregulation will lead to better value for the consumer overall because of increased innovation but people are too short-sighted to see it.

2) People are selfish and want to force ISPs to provide wish list service that's better than what the ISPs would provide of their own volition.

Loss aversion doesn't really work here unless we can reasonably expect service will be better if ISPs are deregulated. I'm not making a faulty analysis based on loss aversion if I have reason to believe my level of service will only get worse and there's little reason to believe things will get better. I understand your argument about deregulation and I agree in the broad strokes (which is why I believe in net neutrality to enable smaller firms to compete with entrenched Youtubes/Netflixes) but repealing net neutrality isn't really "deregulation". Repealing net neutrality does not mean the state laws restricting cities from creating municipal internet utilities will be repealed, nor does it mean the existing complications of getting right of way to lay cables (that AT&T and entrenched telecoms have via legacy rights from initial telegraph/phone lines a century ago).

In the very long run I agree that cables will probably be gradually replaced by mobile data and hotspots becoming commonplace. Especially because the only things that really need low latency are gaming and video calls and most bandwidth is video streaming/downloads which don't need low latency. But that's still a long way off from displacing mature technologies, internet cables are in some ways just an evolution of telegraph cables/phone lines etc. (side note- it's kinda cool to me that TV evolved from over the air to cable to satellites and now back to cables (internet) again). If car companies started half assing their power steering and ergonomics it wouldn't be loss aversion to be mad even though in the medium to long term cars will be self driving.

 

[Danoff]

I quite like the fridge analogy! We have true Fridge Neutrality, you can buy a fridge and put whatever you want in it. Now imagine if your fridge manufacturer made a deal with *Soda Corp 1* that would limit its temperature if you put *Soda Corp 2*'s products inside your fridge. Of course that's just hypothetical, it'd be economic suicide, no company would add DRM to a ubiquitous household appliance!

...didn't work out well did it?

So again, what is it?
1) People are whiners, clinging to the status quo because of loss aversion. Deregulation will lead to better value for the consumer overall because of increased innovation but people are too short-sighted to see it.

2) People are selfish and want to force ISPs to provide wish list service that's better than what the ISPs would provide of their own volition.

Both. Those are not incompatible. I think I see where you think the incompatibility is this time, so it's better presented than last time. But they're not incompatible statements. Service can be simultaneously better and worse in different aspects.

Loss aversion doesn't really work here unless we can reasonably expect service will be better if ISPs are deregulated.

It depends on your definition of "reasonable". I'm claiming that you're under estimating the likelihood of improved service because of loss aversion.

I'm not making a faulty analysis based on loss aversion if I have reason to believe my level of service will only get worse and there's little reason to believe things will get better.

See?

I understand your argument about deregulation and I agree in the broad strokes (which is why I believe in net neutrality to enable smaller firms to compete with entrenched Youtubes/Netflixes) but repealing net neutrality isn't really "deregulation". Repealing net neutrality does not mean the state laws restricting cities from creating municipal internet utilities will be repealed, nor does it mean the existing complications of getting right of way to lay cables (that AT&T and entrenched telecoms have via legacy rights from initial telegraph/phone lines a century ago).

I know.

In the very long run I agree that cables will probably be gradually replaced by mobile data and hotspots becoming commonplace. Especially because the only things that really need low latency are gaming and video calls and most bandwidth is video streaming/downloads which don't need low latency. But that's still a long way off from displacing mature technologies, internet cables are in some ways just an evolution of telegraph cables/phone lines etc. (side note- it's kinda cool to me that TV evolved from over the air to cable to satellites and now back to cables (internet) again). If car companies started half assing their power steering and ergonomics it wouldn't be loss aversion to be mad even though in the medium to long term cars will be self driving.

I don't see any half-assing here. I see some attempts to change the way service is paid for. Think about it for a moment. Take off your net-neutrality hat for just a second and think about the internet as it is. Right now, google, Facebook, youtube (I know that's still google), Expedia, Yahoo, Linkdin, etc. are making an absolute killing off of your use of their website. They don't have to charge you a dime to do it, they get that money by selling data on you to advertisers and marketers, and by using that data themselves to advertise and market products. Amazon is a great example of a company that does both, charges you directly and uses harvested data to better market to you.

These companies suck bandwidth. ISPs would love nothing more than to charge them (the ones making money off of your data) for being able to push you data instead of you (with smaller pockets) for pulling it. It's an opportunity for your data to fund not just the services you use online, but your very access to those services through your ISP.

Instead, net neutrality prevents that model, and so you'll never see super low cost internet provided to everyone at the expense of facebook. But beyond that, net neutrality enables the government to dictate what practices ISPs have. And that makes running an ISP just a little harder. What happens when someone says that emergency data should take first priority? Military data? Government data? It opens the door (further) for our government to say "this website is against national security interests". Don't tell me that such a thing is impossible, or that lobbyists, especially lobbyists for firms with government contracts, won't push for those kinds of preferences.

 

[Belifant]

These companies suck bandwidth. ISPs would love nothing more than to charge them (the ones making money off of your data) for being able to push you data instead of you (with smaller pockets) for pulling it. It's an opportunity for your data to fund not just the services you use online, but your very access to those services through your ISP.

Instead, net neutrality prevents that model, and so you'll never see super low cost internet provided to everyone at the expense of facebook.

Do you really, honestly believe that ISP's will lower prices for you, just because they can charge Facebook? They will charge you AND Facebook for the data.

What happens when someone says that emergency data should take first priority? Military data? Government data? It opens the door (further) for our government to say "this website is against national security interests".

Ahm, this is exactly what Net Neutrality currently prevents.

 

[Danoff]

Do you really, honestly believe that ISP's will lower prices for you, just because they can charge Facebook? They will charge you AND Facebook for the data.

Yes I do. Ask yourself why they don't charge $1 more right now.

Ahm, this is exactly what Net Neutrality currently prevents.

Not really. What Net Neutrality enables is government regulation of ISPs. It enables "special interests" to get a foothold in using force to bend the internet in their favor. That's worth buying more than a few congressional representatives.

 

[Belifant]

Yes I do. Ask yourself why they don't charge $1 more right now.

I'm sure they are constantly looking into ways to charge me more.

Not really. What Net Neutrality enables is government regulation of ISPs. It enables "special interests" to get a foothold in using force to bend the internet in their favor. That's worth buying more than a few congressional representatives.

Not quite true, but ok. Without Net Neutrality, it enables ISP's and private companies to get a foothold in using force to bend the internet in their favor. Is that really better?

 

[Northstar]

Not quite true, but ok. Without Net Neutrality, it enables ISP's and private companies to get a foothold in using force to bend the internet in their favor. Is that really better?

They already do that with net neutrality.

 

[Danoff]

I'm sure they are constantly looking into ways to charge me more.

They have one... they can just, you know... charge more.

Not quite true, but ok. Without Net Neutrality, it enables ISP's and private companies to get a foothold in using force to bend the internet in their favor. Is that really better?

No it doesn't. Explain to me how they can use guns to enforce their policies.

 

[Belifant]

They already do that with net neutrality.

And getting rid of Net Neutrality solves that? Or does it open the door wide open for them?

No it doesn't. Explain to me how they can use guns to enforce their policies.

Sorry, you lost me there. What do guns and policies have to do with this?

 

[Danoff]

Sorry, you lost me there. What do guns and policies have to do with this?

Force.

 

[Northstar]

And getting rid of Net Neutrality solves that? Or does it open the door wide open for them?

I don’t think it will make things any better or worse, just like when net neutrality took effect in 2015.

 

[Liquid]

Force.

Force and coercion do not exclusively require the use of guns. "Lobbying" can be achieved through bribery, blackmail or verbal threats.

Your mother forcing you to do something doesn't mean she's pointing a gun at you.