Net Neutrality expected to be reinstated after officials vote on 4/25/2024

Sindalis said:
Zero rate billing has nothing to do with net neutrality. as long as the traffic is treated equally, thats all that matters.
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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...exemptions-in-update-to-net-neutrality-rules/
European telecom regulator BEREC has updated its net neutrality guidelines to include a strict ban on zero-rating practices that exempt specific apps or categories of apps from data caps imposed by Internet service providers.
I am not sure how you can say that treating data billing according to the type of data as nothing to do with net neutrality (which is an ideal of not treating any data differently by its nature)

California net neutrality also ban zero rate billing:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-stop-fighting-california-net-neutrality-law/
California's law also bans paid data cap exemptions (so-called "zero-rating") and says that ISPs may not attempt to evade net neutrality protections by slowing down traffic at network interconnection points.

It is hard to have a biggest difference in data treatment than free vs non-free outside not accessible at all vs accessible. If doing iFace video call, Apple picture cloud and Apple Music does not count in your dataplan but competitor would, that a big deal.
 
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I guess we have a difference in opinion then.

I have no issue with zero rate billing but still would like all my traffic to be treated equally. Which is what I have referred to as net neutrality.

I have been educated now that other places are combining zero rate billing into net neutrality.

That personally I don't support; but can see your argument as well. I just don't agree that that's the right thing to do.
 
The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
 
Net Neutrality is conceptually a good thing; I find it concerning that certain vested interests attempting to just make up often contrary descriptions has worked as well as it has. In short, Net Neutrality just means that from a all traffic must be treated equally regardless of its type or destination. This does not mean that you cannot engage in technical QoS prioritization, but it does prevent slowing and/or blocking traffic to undesirable sites or using undesirable protocols, as well as giving preference to favorable ones such as "zero rating" bandwidth or transfer caps on those the ISP finds favorable.

There's really no good that comes from the removal of Net Neutrality as a guiding principle of ISP conduct, but a lot of potential benefit - and profit - for megacorp owned ISPs, especially those who's business interests overlap with content production/streaming (Oh do you have Comcast? Well, WB/Comcast is going to make sure that if you choose to stream HBOMax that doesn't count and gets the fastest speeds, but Netflix counts against your transfer cap and seems to be given the lowest priority so it buffers and stutters a lot etc...and you should just forget about BitTorrent!), or would prefer that certain file sharing sites or protocols are, if not blocked completely, deprioritized to a point of unusability. There are all examples of these things happening and the widest expansion thereof when the previous adminstrations' FCC appointments voiced plans to remove or otherwise undermine Net Neutrality on broadband ISPs, to say nothing for issues in the past; mobile ISPs are their own whole separate situation for varing reasons and need to be addresed individually, but that's another discussion.

I don't think it helps anyone to vaguely gesture to conspiratorial suggestions or frame objections in overly broad terms that don't have anything to do with what is actually occurring. Is it reasonable to be concerned that a bill could be twisted to suit other interests? Absolutely but it good to realize that A) the interests most likely to benefit from said twisting are the ones who have something to lose from net neutrality and all manners of benefit to gain if they can convince others,regardless of accuracy, that its a bad thing and B) Net Neutrality doesn't require Congresional legislation and instead falls under the purview of the FCC, where the Commissioners (traditionally those of both parties, with the Chair being appointed b the current administration) vote on the policy. Thus, it isn't possible for al sorts of other interests to attach unrelated riders or otherwise exploit the process of lawmaking to add something unintentioned : its simply majority vote to reinstate Net Neutraity provisions . For what its worth the current chair, Jessica Rosenworsel, has been a pretty strong advocate for privacy, an open Internet, and places the benefit of individual ordinary americans above that of corporate entities that often have a a history of profiteering and exploitative businness practices - her campaign against unwanted/spam/scam robocalls and refusal to hobble municipal public-owned broadband ISP at the behest of private ISP lobby groups seeking excusivity dominions, are a few high points in addition to her support of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is supported by the vast majority of open Internet and information freedom focused organizations, such a the Electronic Frontier Foundation,the Free Software Foundation, and many others.

Net Neutrality will not fix all the problems of broadband infrastructure, ISP governance, or other Internet related concern, but its a strong restoration of one of the underpinnings of a free and openly accessible Internet.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
IMHO the standard needs to be reworked. It's 2024. Symmetrical full duplex or GTFO.
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Virtually no one needs much upload at home unless they're serial pirates trying to maintain a ratio on their private trackers, anyway. I see no problems with this.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Virtually no one needs much upload at home unless they're serial pirates trying to maintain a ratio on their private trackers, anyway. I see no problems with this.
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I don't know, the explosive growth in streaming, and devices syncing increasingly crazy high resolution images, everyone video chatting, etc. etc. uses more upstream bandwidth than in the past.

The internet is supposed to democratize content creation, not just turn us all into content consumers. For that to happen, the flow needs to go both ways, not just down.

And that's not even mentioning all the ACK packets sent in the opposite direction for just downloading.

If you are maxing out a gigabit download using TCP, that alone will use up ~30Mbit in just ACK packets.

So if you have a gigabit connection with 30mbit up, you are consuming 100% of your upstreeam by just downloading, leaving no bandwidth for anyhting else.
 
LukeTbk said:
But would it not be an obvious reason to create something a la semi-broadcast for very popular internet content accessed by millions at the exact same time ? Sometime we see the same with a new very popular game on steam, I think.
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No, that's a backbone issue not a line to home issue. It's not like cable owners aren't punished when this happens. It's not uncommon when you get home to use your internet that it slows down around the same time everyone else gets home. With fiber this shouldn't be an issue. This wasn't a problem with DSL for the same reason, because you have a dedicated line going to your home. Cable has this problem, but cable should be phased out in America. We'd be creating digital scarcity for profit motives. It's not like ISPs weren't given tax payer money to fix their infrastructure. Why give them anymore leeway?
 
You can keep your 1G synchronous just give me my unlimited data back. If you want a zero usage model, then make sure it's zero for all traffic between 10p and 6a, you know, off peak, so we can schedule our steam and windows updates. Oh, and weekends free, too.

My security system cloud upload can take 20-30g a day, easy. Granted, I'm running more than a single doorbell cam on low quality. It eats my data like nothing else. So, any game downloads wreck my usage. Forget about 4k streaming. I constantly have to manage it or pay through the nose.

But, that's not really the issue. It's all that sweet, sweet money floating around the isp's want to charge for. Cause owning the isp and the video service you subscribe to and the content creation studio and distribution companies are fragmented. So, they need the gov't to create some rules so they can fortify their services. Then charge us accordingly. It's justifiable. We're the pawns they'll use to make more $.


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Good. Keep them in chains.

Because I'm not a smart man, please comment on her actual proposal.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-397235A1.pdf

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"Security" and no rate regulations and network unbundling.

The FCC WIIFT? Control. Power. FDA like "oversite" for the elite techligarch's.

What's our WIIFM? Seriously, what's our upside in the current market condition? I see nothing of value for the average consumer in her proposal that's changing the current state.


Other people's opinions:
https://energycommerce.house.gov/po...te-was-settled-when-the-internet-didn-t-break
https://www.ala.org/news/press-rele...orcel-s-proposal-reinstate-network-neutrality

Her testimony back in 2022.
 
DukenukemX said:
We'd be creating digital scarcity for profit motives.
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Or the complete opposite (if it is more efficient that way), I could really not say because that all factual heavily technical question that I cannot (or anyone) just opine like that, but banning any form of any multicast (because by definition that make some data not being handled the same way than other so not neutral could be a risky move).
 
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DukenukemX said:
Maybe RFK Jr. if he's the popular 3rd choice.
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Isn't that the dude who is most likely on steroids and thinks aids doesn't exist and wifi makes your brain leak

DukenukemX said:
No, that's a backbone issue not a line to home issue. It's not like cable owners aren't punished when this happens. It's not uncommon when you get home to use your internet that it slows down around the same time everyone else gets home. With fiber this shouldn't be an issue. This wasn't a problem with DSL for the same reason, because you have a dedicated line going to your home. Cable has this problem, but cable should be phased out in America. We'd be creating digital scarcity for profit motives. It's not like ISPs weren't given tax payer money to fix their infrastructure. Why give them anymore leeway?
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Fiber isn't really a guaranteed dedicated line per person - FIOS is split, for example. They can technically oversubscribe, but there's probably enough bandwidth that you're pretty likely going to hit the cap unless you and several literal neighbors are going full throttle at the exact same time on the highest tier plans.

Also, I agree cable should be dead, but ultimately even Google and their infinite dollars ran into issues getting Google Fiber into some places. Even the companies that took that money love to fight tooth and nail to do jack shit.

Thankfully where I'm at, there's a couple providers that seem to be getting into a bit of a dick measuring competition. I got a letter saying 8 gig symmetrical was available for me now a while back. Pretty gnarly.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
A vote against net neutrality is a vote for your ISP or upstream their networks deciding what you can and cannot do online. You don't want that.
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Because all of that is happening right now in the absence of "net neutrality" rules.
Zarathustra[H] said:
Except usually ISP's operate as cartels, carving up territory, and not straying into territory controlled b others.

Sometimes they even have granted local monopolies by towns and municipalities in exchange for rolling out service to the entire town. (and surprise surprise, they often never do, and then tie the town up in legal battles for decades, because that is cheaper, and they have a bigger legal budget than some little town.)

Consumer choice is a good way to make businesses fight for your business, but unfortunately in large portions of the country (maybe even in a majority) there is only one choice.

In my neck of the woods it used to be Comcast or nothing. Then in ~2009-2010 Verizon FiOS came to town, and all of a sudden Comcast increased bandwidth, maxed out upstream bandwidth, rolled back plans for bandwidth caps, and lowered prices.

Competition is great! Most people don't live where they have competing ISP's.

It's very difficult for a small startup to swoop in and disrupt a market when that market is so infrastructure dependent. It is very expensive to run cable and switching on a community infrastructure scale. That, and the existing players have means to lock them out. If Comcast and/or Verizon own all the poles - for instance, unless there is regulation to prevent them from doing so, they can effectively block anyone who tries to move in by not granting them permission to use the poles. There is lots of stuff like this.

So yeah, you cannot depend on free markets to sole this one, when it isn't a free market in the first place.

Even in a duopoly there is no guarantee it will work. Economic research shows that for the maximum effect of free markets benefiting the consumer, you need to have between 3 and 5 roughly equal competitors. That is almost never the case in any industry, as businesses seek to instead carve out niche's in which they can justify cranking up prices and fleecing those who need that niche.

In 2024 - humorously enough due to a lack of regulation - the free market is horrifically broken, and is manipulated to high heavens. This is especially true within tech/IT (both consumer and Enterprise) and even more so within ISP and other service providers.
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There is no free market because the government and the law is meddling in how the market operates. For competition to be bred the regulations that increase the cost of doing business need to be cleared, and laws that allow the ISPs to sue any person or company that tries to come in and lay out their own infrastructure need to be taken off the books.
 
I have 3 isp options where i live, small town of 8k people. Spectrum gigabit $60, some whoever 100mbit for $100, and another whoever 25mbit $50. Which im assuming isnt even real, probably just renting space from spectrum.

lol few more actually, earthlink still offering DSL in my area.
 
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Darunion said:
I have 3 isp options where i live, small town of 8k people. Spectrum gigabit $60, some whoever 100mbit for $100, and another whoever 25mbit $50. Which im assuming isnt even real, probably just renting space from spectrum.

lol few more actually, earthlink still offering DSL in my area.
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The small town where I group up of under 2k people has had fiber since the late 2000s. They've always had really fast cable internet and a half dozen DSL providers. And they were very cheap back when when I lived there. Now they also have multiple wireless options that are pretty fast, not even including the satellite or regular cell phone internet options, and I heard a second fiber provider is there now too. The town government never did any "deals" with any of the ISPs. The ISPs had to make those deals with individual people and compete with all the other ISPs. Pretty crazy what happens when government just let's people do business.
 
sharknice said:
The small town where I group up of under 2k people has had fiber since the late 2000s. They've always had really fast cable internet and a half dozen DSL providers. And they were very cheap back when when I lived there. Now they also have multiple wireless options that are pretty fast, not even including the satellite or regular cell phone internet options, and I heard a second fiber provider is there now too. The town government never did any "deals" with any of the ISPs. The ISPs had to make those deals with individual people and compete with all the other ISPs. Pretty crazy what happens when government just let's people do business.
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The government "just letting people do business" is how we got loads of ISP duopolies and even monopolies. Occasionally you get a flourishing market without government involvement, but an anecdotal experience of it doesn't mean your experience is commonplace.

Never mind regulatory capture... in this thread there are instances of enthusiast capture, where the telecoms have convinced some users that hurting themselves (by opposing net neutrality) is in their best interest.
 
Aurelius said:
The government "just letting people do business" is how we got loads of ISP duopolies and even monopolies. Occasionally you get a flourishing market without government involvement, but an anecdotal experience of it doesn't mean your experience is commonplace.

Never mind regulatory capture... in this thread there are instances of enthusiast capture, where the telecoms have convinced some users that hurting themselves (by opposing net neutrality) is in their best interest.
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The federal government has given out over a half trillion dollars since the 1990s to ISPs to "expand their networks to underserved areas" which they used to buy up competition. Countless local governments have made deals with ISPs that give them exclusivity.
 
sharknice said:
The small town where I group up of under 2k people has had fiber since the late 2000s. They've always had really fast cable internet and a half dozen DSL providers. And they were very cheap back when when I lived there. Now they also have multiple wireless options that are pretty fast, not even including the satellite or regular cell phone internet options, and I heard a second fiber provider is there now too. The town government never did any "deals" with any of the ISPs. The ISPs had to make those deals with individual people and compete with all the other ISPs. Pretty crazy what happens when government just let's people do business.
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That is very much an extreme exception. A unicorn if you will.

This is not the norm. More like a one in a million outlier.
 
sharknice said:
The small town where I group up of under 2k people has had fiber since the late 2000s. They've always had really fast cable internet and a half dozen DSL providers. And they were very cheap back when when I lived there. Now they also have multiple wireless options that are pretty fast, not even including the satellite or regular cell phone internet options, and I heard a second fiber provider is there now too. The town government never did any "deals" with any of the ISPs. The ISPs had to make those deals with individual people and compete with all the other ISPs. Pretty crazy what happens when government just let's people do business.
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In NJ there was a boycott from cable providers to prevent FIOS coming here. The cable companies had deals with local governments to prevent competition . Upstate NY where my uncle lives the town had to create their own fiber service because the local ISPs werent. As much as some people love the free marketmarket, it does have its problems.
 
I live in a small town, too. If it wasn't for the big housing boom in the mid 2000's I don't think we'd have cable here. We do, and crappy DSL and a low speed (max 50mbps) line of site carrier and, finally, Starlink is an option.

Net neutrality has zero impact on the number and quality of the internet providers available to us. It's all about charging for the data.

Give me a dumb pipe and a cheap, unlimited plan. Can't handle the traffic volume? Build more infrastructure and stop selling everyone 1,000,000,000,000 Terabilliontrilliongazillion bits per nanosecond bandwidth speeds. If your network can't handle it, stop selling it. Stop trying to convince me that data caps assure "fair use". Enough already.
 
DukenukemX said:
In NJ there was a boycott from cable providers to prevent FIOS coming here. The cable companies had deals with local governments to prevent competition . Upstate NY where my uncle lives the town had to create their own fiber service because the local ISPs werent. As much as some people love the free marketmarket, it does have its problems.
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The problem there is government stepped in to create the problem, assure no competition for the ISP's investment, then had to solve the problem they created.

That's not how the "free market" works. Free market means no regulation, not government enforced monopolies. That's the issue most of us face. The companies laying copper or fiber are guaranteed no one will take their investment away from them. Makes sense to get stuff like this done using the private sector. Cost/benefit, risk/reward. But, you paint yourself into a corner.

If the government puts the copper/fiber in the ground, they can manage it like a utility. We pay to get it done but then we own that part of it. Provide ISP service themselves or let others provide service and they maintain the pipes. Let various ISP's connect and compete. But, that's not going to fly with most corpo's. And they have more lobbyists and money to throw at the politicians and others who need funding, like bureaucracies and think tanks that support their wishes, than all of us combined.
 
It is a sector where government intervention can make a lot of sense, and not just police-basic law of the style not let a company destroy the other one infrastructure, without any this can become possible:
historical001.jpg


While no service in rural place at the same time. To have the market work well, enforcing a lot of good rules can help, a rule are not anti-market per say (imagine a rule that say your marketing must make the price you charge clear and true, a rule you cannot have cable that create interference to destroy competitor signal and so on) or some public infracstructure under the street or the pole that must be shared instead of everyone have to make them and so on

But yes DukeNukem is describing something that is very much not the free market.
 
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LukeTbk said:
It is a sector where government intervention can make a lot of sense, and not just police-basic law of the style not let a company destroy the other one infrastructure, without any this can become possible:
View attachment 645828

While no service in rural place at the same time. To have the market work well, enforcing a lot of good rules can help, a rule are not anti-market (imagine a rule that say you marketing must make the price you charge clear and true, a rule you cannot have cable that create interference to destroy competitor signal and so on) or some public infracstructure under the street or the pole that must be shared instead of everyone have to make them and so on

But yes DukeNukem is describing something that is very much not the free market.
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A lot of people see a bad regulation, and instead of wanting to fix that regulation, their first reaction is "regulation = bad"

I'd argue in many cases "no regulation" is just as bad as, and sometimes maybe even worse than "bad regulation".

The goal should be to demand GOOD and appropriate regulations, not no regulations at all.

And quite frankly, the proposed Net Neutrality Regulation, simply implementing Title II is good regulation. It was enacted as part of the Communications act in 1934 and it has stood the test of time, being an effective and good regulation that has safeguarded telecommunications for 90 years

The real problem here is that it wasn't applied to the internet from the very beginning in the early 90's.

Most of the resistance to Net Neutrality in its current from is quite frankly nonsense. Nonsense astroturf arguments seeded by organized campaigns by the ISP's who want to be free to abuse the internet as they see fit.

Unless you are one of those who stands to make money by abusing the internet, you should have absolutely no reason to oppose the FCC's Title II common carrier classification of the Internet. There isn't even a single legitimate concern. All of it is made up by lobbyists and paid industry think tanks trying to make up things to convince people to voice opinions counter to their own best interests.
 
LukeTbk said:
It is a sector where government intervention can make a lot of sense, and not just police-basic law of the style not let a company destroy the other one infrastructure, without any this can become possible:
View attachment 645828

While no service in rural place at the same time. To have the market work well, enforcing a lot of good rules can help, a rule are not anti-market (imagine a rule that say you marketing must make the price you charge clear and true, a rule you cannot have cable that create interference to destroy competitor signal and so on) or some public infracstructure under the street or the pole that must be shared instead of everyone have to make them and so on

But yes DukeNukem is describing something that is very much not the free market.
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That is a picture of DC electricity distribution, which isn't applicable here since the free market is actually how AC won the current wars in spite of Edison's and Brown's appeals to local governments. Funny how that worked out.
 
sharknice said:
The small town where I group up of under 2k people has had fiber since the late 2000s. They've always had really fast cable internet and a half dozen DSL providers. And they were very cheap back when when I lived there. Now they also have multiple wireless options that are pretty fast, not even including the satellite or regular cell phone internet options, and I heard a second fiber provider is there now too. The town government never did any "deals" with any of the ISPs. The ISPs had to make those deals with individual people and compete with all the other ISPs. Pretty crazy what happens when government just let's people do business.
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We moved into a new neighborhood, as in Greenfield neighborhood and got Comcast as our option. CentryLink is in the area as well but isn't coming to our build out. I have no idea how that even happens today but competition it is not. Well aware NN isn't going to help this situation, just explaining how broken competition is. ☹️
 
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Armenius said:
That is a picture of DC electricity distribution, which isn't applicable here since the free market is actually how AC won the current wars in spite of Edison's and Brown's appeals to local governments. Funny how that worked out.
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dude, net neutrality is literally the embodiment of free market. it says that X service can't get priority over company Y that's being limited because they didn't want to pay an extortion fee that actually doesn't even exist right now. it's for a free and fair internet, what's to hate about that?

plus if ISP's start charging say netflix some fee just so they can stream 4k movies to people without getting limited, all they're gonna do is pass the fee down to the customers so we'd be the ones losing in the long run anyway.
 
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Armenius said:
That is a picture of DC electricity distribution, which isn't applicable here since the free market is actually how AC won the current wars in spite of Edison's and Brown's appeals to local governments. Funny how that worked out.
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There also a lot of telephone, alarm system, telegraph and AC line for lights as well.
 
d3athf1sh said:
dude, net neutrality is literally the embodiment of free market. it says that X service can't get priority over company Y that's being limited because they didn't want to pay an extortion fee that actually doesn't even exist right now. it's for a free and fair internet, what's to hate about that?
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If an mobile carrier ISP want to use internet data for voice or text in a different way that it would for skype and cannot because of the government, is it the embodiment of the freemarket ? It is not purealy anti-market obviously, but I am not sure if it is the embodiment of it.
 
Any company that profits off something that is necessary (internet, communications, utilities) is just in too powerful of a position and will always exploit for profit. Look what we pay for cell usage now.
 
d3athf1sh said:
dude, net neutrality is literally the embodiment of free market. it says that X service can't get priority over company Y that's being limited because they didn't want to pay an extortion fee that actually doesn't even exist right now. it's for a free and fair internet, what's to hate about that?

plus if ISP's start charging say netflix some fee just so they can stream 4k movies to people without getting limited, all they're gonna do is pass the fee down to the customers so we'd be the ones losing in the long run anyway.
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I've no issue with the rules themselves. What I take issue is the reclassification of BIAS as common carriers under Title II, along with applying regulatory oversight under Titles I and III. The lengthy document from the FCC establishing these rules simply state that they would "forbear" enforcing the regulations under Title II that do not make sense, but that is no guarantee that they can't or won't use that regulatory framework to force service providers to contend with undue burdens that can kill competition. What, exactly, is the point in Title II classification if you're only going to apply 3 sections of the law?

This is precisely what Michael O'Rielly points out in his dissenting opinion beginning on page 385 of the order. He also rightfully points out that the FCC is rewriting parts of the US Code when they are not a legislative body. That is the sole Constitutional authority of Congress, not an "independent" regulatory commission whose members are appointed by the Executive.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-15-24A1.pdf

Regardless, the very fact that the government is involved in this at all means this is not the "embodiment" of the free market. It's a regulated market, by definition, which means the government gets to pick winners and losers.
 
Armenius said:
This is precisely what Michael O'Rielly points out in his dissenting opinion beginning on page 385 of the order. He also rightfully points out that the FCC is rewriting parts of the US Code when they are not a legislative body. That is the sole Constitutional authority of Congress, not an "independent" regulatory commission whose members are appointed by the Executive.
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Are they though? Typically the way these things work is that Congress passes laws at a high level, but because the septa- and octogenarians in congress don't know shit about shit, they write laws at a high level, and congress leaves it up to the agencies to write the detailed laws.

This happens in almost every area regulated by a federal agency. Congress writes the law, and tells the agency to go figure out the details.

This is where I will fully admit that I am not well read on the detailed language of the Communications Act of 1934, and I don't have the time to read up on it right now, but my educated guess would be that since it was written in 1934, it used rather high level umbrella language for communications technology (because most of it didn't exist back then), leaving a HUGE grey area for the agency to interpret as it sees fit. And whether or not Internet is in or out is probably one of those balls and strikes they get to call.

As for only enforcing certain sections of the law, that is also usually permissible, depending on how the law is written. It all comes down to the details of how congress used the words "must" and "shall" with regards to the enforcement action of the agency, or if they used softer language like "should" (more of a suggestion) etc. In many cases with laws there is no mandatory enforcement written into the law at all, in which case it falls into classic "executive action" or "executive judgment" territory, where something may technically be a law, but the executive branch can choose whether or not to enforce it, as there is nothing explicit in that law that tells them they must enforce it.

Would it be better if all of this were codified into actual law, so that we don't have the back and forth cycles depending on who controls the executive branch, and thus making the industry more predictable? Absolutely. I'm just not holding my breath for congress to actually agree on much of anything in the near future enough to pass an actual useful law.

And the above is probably why we haven't seen the worst predictions of Net Neutrality activists come true during its absence in the last few years. Any ISP or other network owning company is going to be painfully aware that politics go back and forth, and with a new administration in office, that judgment call could easily be reversed. They are businesses after all, and they don't want to invest in some of the technologies to selectively throttle some traffic over others, if in 4 years or less (depending on when it is done) a new guy is running the show, and it is now suddenly illegal, and they have wasted a ton of money on implementation for no return.

I wouldn't count on the above fear of an uncertain future keeping nefarious behavior at bay forever though, and that is why this action is necessary.


All of that said, I think we risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. There is some (albeit very limited) network prioritization I would be supportive of. Notably, I would be in favor of allowing network owners to prioritize packets which impact real-time technologies. (Voice calls, video calls, remote surgical robot controls, heck, even gaming packets) over things where a few milliseconds don't matter at all, like web traffic, or streaming static content, or other downloads.

The question is how you implement that without it getting abused by developers (or even individuals through some sort of encapsuling or tunneling) to prioritize their traffic over everyone else, even when it doesn't fall into those "real-time" categories.
 
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Net Neutrality didn't solve any problems other than some limited arguing over skype and BitTorrent that was going to implode anyway because of competition.

The end of Net Neutrality didn't bring about anything anyone seems to have noticed. Going through a dozen hand wringing articles from outlets insisting that we must bring it back, not a one gives an example of things that went horribly wrong when it was shut down.

There is no current looming threat from ISPs. Which would imply the only reason they are trying to pass legislation is to do something beneficial for the politicians trying to pass it.

Does it end local franchise laws? Does it force equal access like we got with telecom deregulation? Does it end the ban on municipal ISPs?

Someone thinks they will get a payday, and it isn't for helping you and me.
 
raz-0 said:
The end of Net Neutrality didn't bring about anything anyone seems to have noticed. Going through a dozen hand wringing articles from outlets insisting that we must bring it back, not a one gives an example of things that went horribly wrong when it was shut down.
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As has been repeated many times in this thread, this is only because the ISP's and other networks are not stupid. They know that the lifting of Title II for the internet came not by law, but by a change of executive priorities, and that as soon as a new administration was in place this could and would change.

They are not going to want to invest in expanding their capabilities to filter and prioritize the packets they approve of (or make them more money) and de-prioritize the packets they disapprove of, compete with them or make them less money, if by the stroke of a pen, the laws can change back and they've wasted their investment.

They are waiting this one out and seeing where it goes, and only when they have confidence that the future is less certain will they invest more money in some of that nefarious shit. And that is why this action is necessary. A potential future threat only remains a potential future threat for so long, until it stops having an effect.
 
The FCC abandoned oversight of "broadband" in 2017. What exactly is broken now that requires the FCC to vote on (fix) "net neutrality"?

Here's the text for the upcoming vote - only 434 pages of light reading. A fraction of Obamacare.

If it's national security, then let's get a national security rule going. How does "net neutrality" square with blocking China from owning part of the telecom infrastructure or providing equipment used by these companies? It makes sense to have some safeguards in place. But would "net neutrality" safeguard China's data moving through all these pipes to users here? Hmm. Now do mean tweets. Once the FCC has the power, who decides what constitutes a security threat? Maybe this "net neutrality" thing isn't quite so "neutral".

Affordable Connectivity funding? That's a budget issue. How is that related to net neutrality? Address it in a spending bill. Or, take some executive action and use some other agency funding, you know, like they constantly do with our benefit dollars being used for illegals.

Landlords locked tenants into a bad cable contract? Well, that's racist. How is that related to "net neutrality"? Who manages landlord tenant law? The feds? Or the locals?

Access to "poles" is a critical issue facing providers today, right? I hear about it all the time. My internet sucks because Cox doesn't have access to the public utility infrastructure it needs. Oh wait, that's not a thing. But, paying for the pipe is. Again, nothing to do with net neutrality.

Speaking of public infrastructure, so, this "net neutrality" also gives the FCC power to intervene if a local government is interfering with a provider by enacting unreasonable legislation. So, is this a states rights issue, then? The Fed wants/needs control and the states or local governments have control.

So, who benefits from all that? Where exactly does it state bible study videos get that same treatment as porn videos?

The Federal Government - the original "service bundlers". Rolling up all these new powers they "need" with a nice term that sounds good.



I did find this interesting. I'll send this up to the powers that be to knock down bandwidth limits.
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LukeTbk said:
If an mobile carrier ISP want to use internet data for voice or text in a different way that it would for skype and cannot because of the government, is it the embodiment of the freemarket ? It is not purealy anti-market obviously, but I am not sure if it is the embodiment of it.
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if i remember correctly i don't think the NN rules apply to mobile carriers

and i think i remember something from not too long ago about one of them limiting netflix to low bitrates.

edit: i'm having trouble finding the article, it could've been another streaming service. but i did find this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom...ir-favorite-streaming-victim/?sh=558e56ce2031

actually they mention it in that article: "T-Mobile, which has a bundling deal with Netflix, throttled Prime Video"
 
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wareyore said:
The problem there is government stepped in to create the problem, assure no competition for the ISP's investment, then had to solve the problem they created.
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Who owns the poles that house the lines that run to the homes? That's why government steps in but this means cable owns the lines that runs to homes. The government even paid them to do so. If the government didn't step in, then we'd have no lines for farm houses and all the lines for cities.
That's not how the "free market" works. Free market means no regulation, not government enforced monopolies. That's the issue most of us face. The companies laying copper or fiber are guaranteed no one will take their investment away from them. Makes sense to get stuff like this done using the private sector. Cost/benefit, risk/reward. But, you paint yourself into a corner.
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History has shown us that the free market is rarely a market. Remember when Bell was the monopoly and the government had to break them up? Bell owned all the infrastructure in the United States and prevented competition. Free Market doesn't fix anything.
If the government puts the copper/fiber in the ground, they can manage it like a utility. We pay to get it done but then we own that part of it. Provide ISP service themselves or let others provide service and they maintain the pipes. Let various ISP's connect and compete. But, that's not going to fly with most corpo's. And they have more lobbyists and money to throw at the politicians and others who need funding, like bureaucracies and think tanks that support their wishes, than all of us combined.
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Your suggestion is still involving the government. I agree with the idea, and we even had something like this for a short time, until it was ended. We need the government to push for competition, because the free market will always gravitate to a monopoly. The companies born from the Bell breakup have started to merge again. This is the nature of the Free Market. Everyone strives to become a monopoly. Competition hurts the bottom line.
 
d3athf1sh said:
if i remember correctly i don't think the NN rules apply to mobile carriers
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That was my recollection from the first time around, but they tried so many things before the Title II change stuck (well, at least temporarily) that I can't remember what the final deal was anymore.

I had kind of hoped it would go all the way this time around and include mobile carriers as well. Data is data. The method it gets to your house should be irrelevant to these kind of rules.

d3athf1sh said:
and i think i remember something from not too long ago about one of them limiting netflix to low bitrates.

edit: i'm having trouble finding the article, it could've been another streaming service. but i did find this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom...ir-favorite-streaming-victim/?sh=558e56ce2031

actually they mention it in that article: "T-Mobile, which has a bundling deal with Netflix, throttled Prime Video"
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And this is exactly the kind of reason we need it.

By all means enter an agreement and bundle something, but as soon as you use your power as a network to limit your customers choice, you are the bad guy.

I'm not crying a river for Amazon here. They are a big boy trillion dollar corporation. They can take care of themselves. I am more concerned with the individual customers of T-Mobile who are having their choice taken away from them.

At least with mobile networks - in most cases - it is relatively non-trivial to switch to a different carrier due tot he wireless nature of them. (And maybe this is why some think they don't need to be covered by Title II) But if someone has - for instance - entered into a payment plan agreement for a phone (which are getting increasingly expensive) they might feel stuck, at least short to medium term and unable to switch to a network that isn't trying to limit their choice. Or maybe they live in an area which only has adequate coverage from one carrier?

I'd argue we need Title II for it all. Any method of connecting an end user to a network of data of any kind, regardless of the technology used.

There need to be some limitations though. For instance, there should be nothing preventing a home owner from shaping traffic on their own private network, or a business shaping the traffic used by their employees while in the office during work hours. But that's about it. If as a consumer or business you are paying for communication service (voice, video, or data) it needs to be covered by Title II without any exception.
 
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raz-0 said:
The end of Net Neutrality didn't bring about anything anyone seems to have noticed. Going through a dozen hand wringing articles from outlets insisting that we must bring it back, not a one gives an example of things that went horribly wrong when it was shut down.
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I do not live in the US, in my country net neutrality stopped being enforced by the government. So what happened to the consumer?

I have a 1Gb/400Mb connection, if I access Netflix, Google, Microsoft or Steam it's all good I mostly get those speeds.
Now if I stray from the path and say connect to my VPN, I would get around 300Mb/s and now I get 30~80Mb/s.
If I send a file to someone on a different ISP I used to get 100~200Mbs of upload, now I get around 10Mb/s
Heck the other day I was setting up a project and the initial build was taking forever, 20mins instead of 1~2mins my colleague on a Net Neutrality country was experiencing. Turns out my download speed of a github subdomain was again around 10 Mbit/s.

(This was observed also by other friends and colleagues that depend on internet for remote work. It also depends on ISP as some are more aggressive than others on the throttling.)

So, on my side of the pond, the removal or un-enforcement of Net Neutrality had a significant effect in my day to day use of the internet.
 
I have a dedicated work PC I set up. There are several different company's systems I connect to and they all have different security schemes. So, whatever they need to manage the can on that system. I don't connect to Netflix on that pc. But, we have tons of video we access and I sometimes have to upload large files. The networked assets that require me to use a VPN destroy my bandwidth on that system. I sometimes forget to disconnect the VPN then scratch my head for a bit when my speeds are slow and glitchy or file downloads/uploads take a hit.

In the US, several states stepped in to create their own versions of net neutrality laws. That's cool. I'm a fan of local government and state's rights. In it's media focused, narrative form, "net neutrality" is fine. But, look at what the FCC is proposing and ask, what specific consumer problems are they proposing to solve with their ask of more power? It's always the same with the Fed's here.

We point at the "great firewall" China created and ridicule them for it. Censorship and control, right? Here we have the foundation for the exact same thing at a federal level. Most of the FCC proposal is based around getting control of the network infrastructure for "national security" reasons. But, it's bundled as consumer focused "net neutrality" so every one is all on board.
 
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