A Simple Guide To Net Neutrality 154
superapecommando writes in with a neutral introduction to net neutrality from ComputerWorld UK. While it doesn't go into a lot of technical depth, it's rare to see anything written on the subject that isn't rabid on one side or the other. "Google's recently announced plan to set up trial fiber-optic networks in the US with ultra-high-speed Internet connections puts the long running national debate over Net Neutrality back into high gear. A hot topic of discussion and debate in government and telecom circles since at least 2003, Net Neutrality, actually involves a broad array of topics, technologies and players. Here's a primer for those looking to get up to speed fast."
It's all about profits anyway. (Score:2)
The other companies are looking to get a slice of Google's profits.
Fuck them.
The day Google offers fiber in my neighborhood I am going to sign up with them.
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I have no problem with doing that with the way things are done now.
But when there is a new guy running Google (and it will happen eventually) - I don't know if I want to be fully dependant on Google services.
I think you might have heard that euphemism about eggs and baskets...
If Google provides me from everything from a computer to internet to applications... It's a scary thought if someone else starts running the show, with the only goal of seperating me from as many dollars as possible.
Re: Baskets (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem is, the other baskets are Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.
They all rotate into the limelight with something awful.
Google is a really tricky company. I think they do a decent job of scaring everyone into line.
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If Google provides me from everything from a computer to internet to applications... It's a scary thought if someone else starts running the show, with the only goal of seperating me from as many dollars as possible.
Maybe. But remember when your Dial-up provider was different from your ISP? Or when you had to source all of your computer parts separately, assemble them all together, and pray that they worked?
Having one company responsible for larger chunks isn't necessarily a bad idea, especially if they m
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Call me old fashioned (at 21?) But I have a different phone provider from my ISP. And I still source all of my parts seperately and assemble them together, since it is cheaper that way.
Relying on 5 different companies means if Dell makes some stupid moves (See example: Enron) I'm not left stranded - I will have a raport with a Linksys Rep since they handle my servers, or an HP rep because they handle my printers. I don't personally choose HP computers because I think they make better accessories than CPU's,
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But then Google will know where you live!
Big whoop. Google already knows where all its AdSense publishers and AdWords advertisers live.
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Ever searched for directions to/from your house? Sent an e-mail with your address? They probably have at least a pretty good idea of where you live anyway.
Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry about (Score:5, Insightful)
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While this is true, consider that if the company imposes bandwidth caps on "internet" while allowing "cable plus" content from that provider to be delivered, one could conceivably make a NN claim on the "same pipes" logic. This is a stretch, I'm not going to lie, but consider that these things are related. Otherwise, the provider could just offer a "internet plus" with no caps and access to limited sites on the same pipes...you see where I'm going with this.
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Sorry. Xfinity Cable is not the same as Xfinity Internet. You are using Xfinity Cable to watch On Demand programs, not Xfinity Internet. It doesn't matter that the same wire is being used to deliver both, and your Xfinity Telephone service too.
By
Re:Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry ab (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats just as horrible as electric utilities making you pay per Killowatt/hour of power.
Honestly.. I would prefer a $X per Giga or Megabyte over $x for unlimited*
*Where we define unlimited, who gets throttled when and can cut you off for exceeding any internal threshold that we will not tell you about.
Seriously.. If I am curious about my power usage, I can walk outside, look at the meter, and figure out pretty close to what I owe.
Re:Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry ab (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats just as horrible as electric utilities making you pay per Killowatt/hour of power.
The difference is power distribution companies are not allowed to charge exorbitant fees to green power generation companies to transport that power to the end user. They have to charge the same price they charge their own coal fired power generation subsidiaries. Having a monopoly on power distribution, they are restricted from using that to gain an unfair advantage in another market, such as power generation. Claiming green power and coal power are different product even though they go over the same pipes in the same way is the same as claiming television service is different from any other data going over the cable network. You can't artificially raise the price of your competitors from a monopoly position.
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Comcast is not legally a monopoly or a duopoly. There is no regulation prohibiting a second, third, or even fourth cable company from setting up shop. Most smart cable companies were very careful not to sign exclusive franchises anywhere.
In fact, Comcast faces stiff competition from satellite and telco providers.
The only competition Comcast doesn't face is from competing cable companies, and that is not because of regulation, it's a cost issue.
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Thats just as horrible as electric utilities making you pay per Killowatt/hour of power.
What's wrong with that?
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Kilowatt/hour of power
-> kilowatt-hour of energy
Just sayin'...
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EEEK.. here, clip a corner from my Geek Card.. thanks!
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Metered bandwidth would be an even bigger blow to innovation on the Internet than lack of net neutrality. If all Internet users were forced onto metered bandwidth plans, these things would all be dead:
That last one is the real kicker. The Internet basically runs on advertising. When Internet access i
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Even if they DID go metered they'd exempt their own bits from measuring.
Watch a gigabyte's worth of cable, it's free. Do so on your computer, they charge.
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The difference is it that to make energy to how to put more energy in to get more out. You have to pay for the cost of the coal/gas/uranium you're burning. (traditionally, solar, tidal, and wind energy is a different business)
Every form of backbone in existence costs the same idling as it does running full tilt. Thats not true, this is a difference, its just so small that its really not worth mentioning as you probably can't detect that power difference (on the network infrastructure gear) in the facebook
Direct versus indirect costs (Score:5, Interesting)
Power is finite and needs to be generated on-demand from (usually) consumable resources. Bandwidth doesn't fall in the the same category.
Really? Bandwidth is finite and it requires the exact same power from those exact same consumable resources, plus the equipment to deliver the data. I agree it's not quite an apples to apples comparison but it's closer than you are making it out to be. The difference is that one is a direct cost and the other is an indirect cost [wikipedia.org]. They're both real costs but one can be directly assigned to a cost center and the other cannot. This has enormous implications that I think you should study a little deeper. Charging per bit is a way to turn an indirect cost into something resembling a direct cost. Not perfect to be sure but there are good reasons to do it.
For fibre, if you have something that's sitting around idle, you're "wasting" (say) 1 Gb/s of bandwidth each second that it's not lit up. It could be used to transfer information for someone, but if you've capped people and so they're not using it because they're over their caps, you have all this telco equipment doing absolutely nothing.
Whether that is a valid argument depends entirely upon whether there is excess capacity to be had and how the costs are allocated. The "wasted" bandwidth is only wasted if someone wants it and can't get it. If there is no demand for it then you have a case of excess capacity and the costs for the equipment will be higher for everyone who pays to use it. If the bit can be delivered but at the cost of slowing down other customers there is an opportunity cost in play. ISPs do need to make sure that all their customers have access to bits, not just the customers who use the most bits. There also might be upstream costs since your ISP probably pays some rate per bit for data delivered outside their own network. If bandwidth is artificially limited when it could otherwise be delivered without interfering with other customers, then your argument may carry weight.
With electricity, I'm being charged for the consumption of coal/gas/uranium (plus some overhead for transport). What exactly am I being charged for consuming when I download a bit?
The cost of the equipment to deliver that bit, the electricity needed to power that equipment, the staff needed to manage that equipment, depreciation, insurance, upstream bandwidth costs from other suppliers and a number of other costs. Welcome to the wonderful world of direct versus indirect costs [wikipedia.org]. This is what makes cost accounting such an important and difficult endeavor.
Disclosure: I'm a certified accountant.
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For fibre, if you have something that's sitting around idle, you're "wasting" (say) 1 Gb/s of bandwidth each second that it's not lit up. It could be used to transfer information for someone, but if you've capped people and so they're not using it because they're over their caps, you have all this telco equipment doing absolutely nothing.
Whether that is a valid argument depends entirely upon whether there is excess capacity to be had and how the costs are allocated.
I suspect this is why companies have been
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Power is finite and needs to be generated on-demand from (usually) consumable resources. Bandwidth doesn't fall in the the same category.
For fibre, if you have something that's sitting around idle, you're "wasting" (say) 1 Gb/s of bandwidth each second that it's not lit up.
Same could be said for my 200AMP service, when I'm only using 50 amps.
On the other hand, if you're not using power, that means the generation companies aren't burning coal/gas/uranium. You don't use, they don't use. But an ISP, if you don't use... their plant is still running.
How often do they power down dams and nuclear reactors near you? Those, along with coal, are base-load, and almost always run.
Basically, what you are alluding to, I think, is that with electricity, the power is finite, and the delivery mechanism is the cheap part.
My argument is that bandwidth is the same, but backwards, the bandwidth is relatively infinite, but the delivery mechanism is the expensive part. (fiber to your house or node,
Re:Net Neutrality isn't the only thing to worry ab (Score:5, Insightful)
The big cable companies should be allowed to do whatever they want with their networks. They paid for the networks out of their own pocket, free from any tax-payer subsidies, right?
Wait. What's that? They didn't? Oh. My mistake!
At least we're not throwing 7 billion dollars of taxpayer money in their general direction in the form of "stimulus".
Really? We're doing that too? You're kidding?
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You didn't explain how bandwidth caps are "not really" outside the purview of network neutrality.
Yes, the ISP must treat your packet to site A and site B equally, but once you reach X Gb of transfer for the month, they can block any and all of your traffic under the poorly defined category of "reasonable network management".
According to the FCCs proposal, the definition for reasonable network management includes the clause of "(b) other reasonable network management practices"... uh...
The only proposed rule
Common argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Common argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the biggest issue with the competition argument: in the vast majority of markets, there is at best a duopoly (cable and dsl). If you're completely out of luck, you only have one high-speed provider; generally ATT. The idea that free markets will magically keep the ISPs honest is ludicrous to the point of being a flat-out lie. At this point, I have to believe that anyone claiming that competition will do anything in the high-speed ISP market is just lying.
The only competition that exists is in the cellular high-speed internet access, and even that is incredibly limited competition: the high costs of terminating a contract prematurely make sure of that.
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If you ignore the fact that satellite is available everywhere and DSL usually (if not always) is provided by more than one ISP (the local telco plus other ISPs such as Covad), then you would be correct.
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You do realize that the vast majority of "independent" ISPs are merely leasing lines from the incumbent provider? That leads to such joy as "Sorry you have such issues with your line, but it's up to ATT to send a technician out to fix this line. I wouldn't hold my breath."
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While true, that's unrelated to net neutrality.
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It is directly related to the competition argument, which is always pulled out by people arguing against the need for neutrality regulation: "Competition will keep ISPs honest!" No it won't, because there is basically no competition. In the absence of competition, ISPs can institute any pricing scheme they want - which goes against Net Neutrality.
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The latency and slow upstream doesn't affect many casual Internet users. For them, satellite broadband is a good substitute, therefore, a direct competitor, of DSL and cable.
Fixing that would create even more competition within DSL than exists today.
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"Even more competition"? You completely ignore Hoxford's argument about how telco's marginalize their DSL "competition". Qwest is our local telco, and none of the other local DSL providers can beat Qwest's rates or performance. If you believe that has nothing to do with the fact that Qwest controls the pipes, I have a nice bridge you might be interested in.
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If other local DSL providers even exist, then so does competition.
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Latency on a single satellite connection can be up to 1/2 second, compared to 50 milliseconds for other broadband options. This is sufficient to make it untennable for VOIP, gaming applications, cloud applications, and video streaming (depending on the implementation). This is why companies like My Blue Dish [mybluedish.com] advertise themselves as "an excellent replacement for dial up." The satellite internet providers know that they aren't a good substitute for ground-based network options. Add in weather patterns mes
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Most things casual users do with their broadband connection work just fine with satellite broadband, which makes it competition for cable and DSL. They aren't perfect substitutes [wikipedia.org], but they don't have to be.
Define "real broadband connection." The FCC says it's broadband if it's 768kbps in one direction [engadget.com]. How does 1+ Mbps satellite broadband not meet that definition?
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The FCC's definition of broadband and most of the rest of the world's definition of broadband are not connected. [worldpoliticsreview.com] Further, that only measures sustained transfer rate... fine if you're uploading files over FTP, but can have extremely inconsistent performance [brisbanetimes.com.au] for simple HTML. The linked article goes into how that 1/2 second gap can add up to a full minute to load a single web page. To me, that sounds comparable to ISDN performance, which is not generally considered broadband.
Even if you go by their own esti
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But the article claims that web browsers request only one object from a web page at a time. In Firefox, the default is 4, not 1.
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Agreed, the ideal solution is to break the duopolies. But that isn't realistic. No one in congress has even proposed it.
I apologize if this sounds jaded, I don't think competition would help. The corporations would probably band together to lock-out anyone who provided a neutral experience. The DOJ would find out and sue them, but the court case would last 20 years and be thrown out by congress passing an amnesty law because the ISPs would contribute to their campaigns too much. And the customers who s
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No. The duopolies are created by sweetheart deals between the carriers and the local municipalities.
By the way, do you understand the concept of natural monopolies? Whereby markets that require heavy upfront investment favor the incumbent to the point of making it impossible to compete with them after they've establish themselves? Please do not invoke free market incantations when you have no idea what defines a free market.
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Cell internet access is vastly more expensive with far worse connection speeds. Cable and DSL occasionally compete, but not always. And when they do, it's in the form of a duopoly, which isn't much of a competition.
As for your argument that the lack of rising internet rates indicates successful competition - where the hell were you 10 years ago? 10 years ago, I could get a 756kbit line for about $50. Now, thanks to absolutely craptastic ATT lines, I get 756kbit lines... for $60. This, in a time, when many o
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You lease a circuit to your Internet provider of choice, perhaps to the same one Pirate Bay uses if you don't want any traffic blocked.
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Any competitor which doesn't block it will get more business.
Oligopolies (Score:2)
Any competitor which doesn't block it will get more business.
Only if there is a competitive market [wikipedia.org]. As it stands the major ISPs (telephone and cable companies) are really an oligopoly [wikipedia.org] and there is little or no way for new competitors to easily enter the marketplace.
The problem there is that the government funded their cabling, yet the companies turned around and monopolized it.
The government did NOT fund their cabling. They granted AT&T [wikipedia.org] and later the cable companies monopolies but generally speaking the networks were built with private funds. AT&T was wildly profitable for decades and there was no need for the government to give them any money. Furthermore there were
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One of the most common arguments that I hear out of net neutrality opponents is that competition will somehow keep most ISP's net neutral without any messy government regulation. But what happens if all the major ISP's start blocking certain sites (like Pirate Bay)?
There are two things about this. First, if they all do this at the same time that suggests collusion, which is a violation of existing anti-trust laws. Second, if your hypothetical comes to pass, that is the time to push for the institution of some kind of net neutrality regulations.
The problem with instituting government regulations for a problem you foresee occuring in the future (but that has not yet manifest itself), is that any government regulation will limit the options for future advances.
Basica
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First, if they all do this at the same time that suggests collusion, which is a violation of existing anti-trust laws.
And when is the last time you saw those laws enforced?
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First, if they all do this at the same time that suggests collusion, which is a violation of existing anti-trust laws.
And when is the last time you saw those laws enforced?
There was an article on here sometime in the last two years about price fixing by the manufacturers of big screen TVs, so sometime in the last two years.
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Are you really arguing that "since the existing set of regulations isn't enforced, we need more regulations - they're sure to be enforced this time"?
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Where did "the government" say it's unfair to have tiered pricing?
Transparency is the key to real neutrality... (Score:2, Informative)
IMO, I'm not a huge fan of strict network neutrality, there are cases where you want advanced traffic management techniques that would be non-neutral: EG, if you are dealing with wide-area wireless, banning P2P applications is probably a very good thing, as wireless bandwidth is vastly more expensive. Likewise, token-bucket hacks which improve interactive traffic could in some ways be considered "non neutral", as the start of a transfer is given preference, but the net result is it greatly improves user e
Re:Transparency is the key to real neutrality... (Score:5, Informative)
"IMO, I'm not a huge fan of strict network neutrality, there are cases where you want advanced traffic management techniques that would be non-neutral"
You simply don't understand what "Net Neutrality" is.
Hint: is not promoting some protocols over some others. It's about promoting some *providers* over the alternatives.
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Hint: is not promoting some protocols over some others. It's about promoting some *providers* over the alternatives.
Says who? My definition of NN doesn't allow discrimination between protocols.
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You really don't want that. Realistically, a long FTP download should be lower-priority than voice (or even HTTP) packets.
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You really don't want that. Realistically, a long FTP download should be lower-priority than voice (or even HTTP) packets.
It's hard to come up with prioritization rules that work (other than customer marking), especially now that VoIP and video are flowing over TCP and bulk BitTorrent traffic is using UDP.
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>> You really don't want that. Realistically, a long FTP download
>> should be lower-priority than voice (or even HTTP) packets.
Sure, most people would agree. But when the proposed rule says "a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner" you can't prefer FTP traffic over any other.
It does rely on how "discriminatory" is defined, though. Is any preference discriminatory? Is it only harmful discrimination? What's
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"is not promoting some protocols over some others". Tell that to anyone who has bumped into the heavy manipulation of BitTorrent by Comcast and others.
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I think that's what his point was. Some people see Net Neutrality as "My download of Serenity.iso should never be throttled!" Others are, perhaps more legitimately, worried about plans to diminish service to specific websites or services if they do not pay a ransom. Both opinions seem to be currently part of the debate, and that window allows the ISP's to argue that traffic shaping is essential for providing a reasonable level of service (it is).
Of course, it is one step between "traffic shaping is essen
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Why limit it to banning P2P?
If someone is running an FTP server on a wide-area wireless network shouldn't that be banned too?
Or downloading anything big, youtube should be blocked too.
Or they could just put a hard cap on usage so that if you use up all your bandwidth in the first 3 days torrenting Lost it's your problem.
P2P isn't the problem.
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On the one hand, total bandwidth usage can be difficult wherever it is found and maxed out.
On the other hand, P2P generates a surprisingly large amount of routing overhead, which can quickly overwhelm networking equipment in less fault-tolerant ways than other protocols. If you're downloading 1,000 packets from an FTP server, the server's single connection will wait patiently for clogged pipes to free up. But 1,000 connections from 1,000 P2P sources will generate 1,000 times the network overhead in packet
Do we have a neutral network now? (Score:2)
Reasonably neutral... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a comcast customer and their network is reasonably neutral, as based on actual measurements I've performed as well as looking at their network management policies. So yes, its reasonably neutral for me:
They do do DNS wildcarding (ick ick ICK), but actually have a workable opt-out (rare, most who wildcard don't).
They do block the windows ports outbound, and do dynamic blocking of spam-bots. (Not strictly neutral but arguably VERY good things)
They bias the network to allow the first X MB within a given
Re:Do we have a neutral network now? (Score:5, Informative)
Legitimate QoS is not prevented under network neutrality. ISP's can, and should, prioritize VOIP over HTTP. They could even throttle BitTorrent if they wanted to.
BitTorrent is the big problem with the FCC's plan. They specifically allow ISP's to filter out illegal traffic. BitTorrent has many many legitimate uses, unfortunately no ISP that has filtered BT has ever recognized that fact and simply blocks it all.
not removing incentive of profit for innovation (Score:2)
Double-dipping and extortion is not innovation.
The ISPs are still allowed to do prioritization based on packet type. They just have to treat all of the same type of packets equally regardless of source/destination (within bandwidth limits, of course).
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To translate: net neutrality is about removing the incentive of profit for innovation.
Yep, that's why nobody has ever been able to make money on the internet without artificially blocking their competition.
Go back to foxnews.com where they actually believe your cries that "Socialism is killing America!" Those of us who actually know what the word means and are smarter than a rock aren't buying your crap. Or you could pull your head out of your ass and actually read what the GP said.
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I think you're misunderstanding. Net Neutrality legislation is not intended to prevent ISP's from selling 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 4Mbps, etc tiered services. Net Neutrality legislation is intended to prevent ISP's from requiring extra premiums be paid to access specific websites and competitor services. For example, Comcast could not (as has been discussed) charge an extra $10 per month to access Youtube.com, or use VOIP competitors like skype (above and beyond basic bandwidth usage charges). Further, it would pr
Public Utility Option (Score:2)
What about the Fed building, owning and running fiber as a service? The states could get in it as well.
Charge a federal sales tax on all purchases made via the interweb to fund it. Or maybe just have a national system that does not aim at making a profit to compete against the companies.
How about making the damn providers compete? In the US, telcos DO NOT COMPETE in any meaningful way. Maybe lifting the laws that prevent competition would help. Prices are going up instead of down or staying flat, while s
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Maybe lifting the laws that prevent competition would help.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that the sorry state of broadband competition in the US wasn't the fault of laws, but economics: building the necessary infrastructure (coaxial cable, telephone lines, fiber, wireless hubs, cell towers, etc) is prohibitively expensive.
But that only highlights your original idea: high-speed data transfer is a kind of a natural monopoly, due to the aforementioned infrastructure needs. That makes it very much like any other utility: water, sewer, electricity, ana
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The federal government is no less prone to creating abuse than privately owned entities. When the government is the sole provider in town and they screw you over, it's a bit harder to get a new provider. There won't even be a duopoly to switch to since nobody can compet
"Net Neutrality" sucks (Score:2)
"Net Neutrality" sucks. Net Neutrality, as I understand it, is very nearly fundamental for economic growth.
Seriously, this is a geek site, and every time NN comes up people talk about different things.
I think we should talk about "common carrier" status. I know it doesn't legally apply to telcos in the US, but it should, and it's a reasonably well-understood term.
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Am I the only one that read the submitter's username as Super Rape Commando?
Yes... it's just the guilt manifesting itself from when in 1991, you raped and murdering a teenage girl. Why won't you just come clean already? I mean, we've all been there buddy, at least at some point, so why are you refusing to talk to us about it?
Just Like Celebrity Jeopardy (Score:2)
I'll take "The Rapists" for $200, Trebek.
That's "Therapists", Connery!
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Contestant: "What is a hoe?"
Trebek: "No. (pause) Whoa, whoa, whoa. They teach you that in school in Utah, huh?"
Other contestant: "What is a rake?"
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Re:to all the propentants of net neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
Because in 2006 AT&T's CEO opened his mouth and basically stated he wanted to hold his customers hostage from Google in exchange for more money. He plainly stated that he wanted to charge both his direct customers AND people who were incidentally coming across the lines. It was made plainly obvious that corporations can and would abuse their services and their customers for the sake of making a profit, especially when they had a monopoly position in areas.
My personal preference would be to force common carrier status on all data providers.
A bunch of regional monopolies serve as the only reasonably modern gateway to the most important technology of the late 20th/early 21st century, and they're more than willing to destroy what makes it unique.
The carriers should be forcibly struck blind. They've already been caught fucking with connections, and are more than willing to host and affect their networks (and customers) with conflicts of interest that serve only themselves.
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Because in 2006 AT&T's CEO opened his mouth and basically stated he wanted to hold his customers hostage from Google in exchange for more money. He plainly stated that he wanted to charge both his direct customers AND people who were incidentally coming across the lines. It was made plainly obvious that corporations can and would abuse their services and their customers for the sake of making a profit, especially when they had a monopoly position in areas.
so, 3-4 years later... what's happened because o
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so why pass it then, even if it's true that the threat made them back off? And if they implemented those plans, how long do you think they'd last? really? They wouldn't. there's too many options.
As for it being harder to get into the industry, that's easy to say but do you have the least bit of evidence to back that up? Do you have any idea how difficult it is *now* ??
WHy make it harder? I'm not saying it's easy, It's not easy for anybody to come along and make a successful business. but successful bus
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It's not easy for anybody to come along and make a successful business.
It'll be interesting to see if Google manages to get their fiber ISP off the ground. I suspect they've got their choice of neighborhoods willing to pay the fiber installation costs, but the real question is how they're going to get packets from the neighborhood to the internet.
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Comcast initiated RST attacks on users and denied it for ages. Bandwidth caps began applying, except to the streaming services provided by the carriers themselves. But if you're willing to trust a corporation not to fuck you over, well, that's your own game of russian roulette.
And the end result is people wont' get the service they want and will find alternatives. And you can make the same comparison to cars, which is a lot more appropriate. But in general, the free market works well to protect the consu
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i've given concrete examples, explained why things work, and all that i've basically heard in opposition is that things might happen (when they haven't, and it's been this way awhile). and i'm the true believer??
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And we've given you concrete examples of things that did happen, and your answer has always been "oh well people will use dialup if their high-speed internet sucks because it's totally an equivalent good, just like a tricycle can replace a Porsche". Assuming, of course, that the phone company didn't decide to just hang-up on everyone every now and then just to make sure everyone who doesn't use their DSL is as miserable as they are.
there's satellite, which isn't great, but again. you want to screw over the
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And you can make the same comparison to cars, which is a lot more appropriate.
The proper car analogy would be having your engine stall out every few minutes, and when you take it in for service you're told that everything is fine and you must be doing something wrong. Then, a year later someone at a bar mentions how their car stalls all the time, discovers that the bartender drives the same model that stalls out too, and then goes around and realizes that all of the company's cars stall every few minutes.
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and how often does that happen? i'm sure it has happened.. but it's pretty rare.
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Dial up is pretty much only good for granny checking her email once a week, and then only if nobody sends her pictures of the grandkids.
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I have a simple question: Why?
So that you can continue to post here without your ISP blocking you.
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and if my isp blocks me from posting here, i'm gonna keep giving them money? No, they'll start losing money, thus they won't block me, and in the case they do, they'll go bankrupt.
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and if my isp blocks me from posting here, i'm gonna keep giving them money? No, they'll start losing money, thus they won't block me, and in the case they do, they'll go bankrupt.
Not your ISP. The backbone operator between you and Slashdot will block you. Because your ISP doesn't give them a cut of that fat income stream Slashdot generates.
If Slashdot is the only thing you do on the 'Net, well I guess your ISP is going to lose you as a customer. But they're betting that their own branded discussion groups will keep most of their paying customers happy. So I doubt they'll miss you very much.
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they're gonna just cut off parts of the net? they will lose customers. that's what happens. if toyota makes a crappy car there's honda, subaru, ford ect. although people might enjoy more options in buying a car, the internet business is still pretty young.
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they're gonna just cut off parts of the net? they will lose customers. that's what happens.
So what? The back end marketing deals your ISP cuts with its partner sites will more than make up for the few belly-achers like you that threaten to drop their service just because a couple of sites disappear.
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look at what happened with 4chan and verizon blocking that on some networks. I really doubt it would happen very often, since it's hasn't happened yet.
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look at what happened with 4chan and verizon blocking that on some networks. I really doubt it would happen very often, since it's hasn't happened yet.
So, you want a world where the wronged party has to turn to vandalism (4chan) or be big enough to push a carrier around (Skype) to get justice?
Bring on the regulation. Please.
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no, the consumers will leave/voice their opinions ect. which, well was the reason i heard about 4chan getting banned. i guess it's not surprising that they would start an attack on verizon though.
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i'm gonna keep giving them money? No, they'll start losing money
You and what army? Even if the million (mostly inactive) users here all canceled their internet connections in protest, I doubt the ISPs will be crying too hard.
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not like this, the FCC has stepped in and mucked with minor stuff. and that was only recently.
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lol i love it. call me a moron pl0z thx.
But unnn.. do provide me with some links to the current wonderful regulations, becuase i'm to stupid to find them myself (and i haven't heard of them).
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How soon kids forget the history. It is currently enforced that Net Neutrality happens. Those laws had a sunset clause. The ISP's and cableco's don't want any replacement laws.
So, despite your the "largely unregulated internet has gone on in mainstream for over a decade now, with no major problems," has been BECAUSE of the net neutrality laws in place for those decades, YOU come along and ask "why do we net netrality laws now?".
The answer, bub, is that the current net neutrality laws are ending. THAT is why you need them now.
What laws are those? Can you tell me what laws are ending that currently enforce network neutrality (or have recently ended)?