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The Internet Communications Government Network United States

California Senate Votes To Restore Net Neutrality (theverge.com) 116

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The California Senate voted on Wednesday to approve a bill that would reinstate the net neutrality regulations repealed by the Federal Communications Commission in December. The bill, S.B. 822, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), was introduced in March and passed through three committees, all along party-lines. The bill was approved 23-12 and will now head to the state Assembly. The bill would reinstate rules similar to those in the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order. It forbids ISPs from throttling or blocking online content and requires them to treat all internet traffic equally. But the bill also takes the original rules further by specifically banning providers from participating in some types of "zero-rating" programs, in which certain favored content doesn't contribute to monthly data caps. If the bill goes on to pass in the Assembly, providers will no longer be able to obtain government contracts in the state of California without obeying the regulations.
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California Senate Votes To Restore Net Neutrality

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  • But Comcast put my contribution in the slow lane
  • So T-Mobile won't be able to offer Netflix with its service?
    AT&T won't be able to offer DirecTV?

    • Sure, they can offer it. But they have to charge its usage against data caps just like they do all other services. That would be a great reason to extend the data caps to something reasonable (say, 1 exabyte a month), or do away with them altogether.

    • by Sarten-X ( 1102295 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @04:12PM (#56701832) Homepage

      To put it another way, Netflix will have to compete directly with DirecTV, rather than making exclusivity deals with cell providers. Right now, Netflix (to pick a party at random) gets a chunk of customers (in turn improving its negotiating power and company value) just by having a deal with T-mobile, and they don't have to actually improve service for it. Long-term, consumers still lose, even though it's promoted as being a "free" deal.

      • by Ramze ( 640788 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @06:35PM (#56702498)

        Could you elaborate? I'm not sure how preventing ISPs from omitting services from their data caps or treating services differently otherwise through throttling or QoS methods has anything to do with what you mentioned.

        Netflix isn't an ISP, it's a service. T-mobile isn't an ISP, it's a cellular network and is exempt from these rules as it's "different." DirectTV isn't an ISP, it's a satellite TV / psuedo ISP that plays by different rules as well as far as I can tell. This should only affect landline phone, cable, and fiber customers. (ATT Uverse, Comcast, Charter, Google Fiber, etc)

        All it should mean is if say... Comcast has a data cap for service tiers, they can't exempt their own programming or Hulu from that cap but include Netflix or others in data for that cap. They also can't throttle Netflix.

        Am I missing something?

        • A minor correction: DirecTV just resells other ISP services in a bundle with it's satellite service. They don't own any internet infrastructure of their own. That's why they get to play by different rules. They don't even bundle the same ISP's service in every region... though since they were recently bought by AT&T, I think the result of this whole net neutrality fiasco will probably affect how they continue to restructure the company and their services going forward.

    • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @06:00PM (#56702322) Journal
      ..no, that's not what it's about, it's about T-Mobile and AT&T prioritizing Netflix and DirecTV traffic over all other traffic, or, alternately, slowing all over traffic intentionally in favor of Netflix/DirecTV. It's also about throttling or blocking competitors' traffic as it traverses their networks (i.e. you're a Comcast/Xfinity customer trying to access some site that is hosted by AT&T, and Comcast/Xfinity slows or even blocks access -- or vice-versa). It's also about not allowing ISPs to create the 'Walled Gardens' you've heard mentioned before (i.e. 'tiered service') where you'd have to pay extra to access some areas of the Internet; example: you're a Comcast/Xfinity customer, and you want to watch something on Netflix. You find you can't access it at all unless you pay Comcast/Xfinity extra on your bill every month. That's what Net Neutrality laws are intended to prevent. Essentially, without them, the big ISPs could chop up the Internet. If it was bad enough, they could even break it in significant ways. That's why it's important to stop them from doing that.
      • Let's get real. Netflix is everyone's enemy here. Nobody is gonna prioritize them over any of their own services, ever. The scenario you outline is perfectly reasonable except for the completely disingenuous placement of Netflix in this scenario as the beneficiary of shady illegal government lobbying.

  • existing telco monopolies and their paper insulated wireline.
    Time to allow some innovative community broadband and real networking competition.

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