Obama speaks out in favor of Net Neutrality; Ted Cruz likens it to "Obamacare"

Answer these questions please:

1. Is unfettered access to the internet necessary for small content providers and their potential users?

2. Is there real competition to provide the necessary high speed internet service?

3. Have internet service providers generally been given exclusive service agreements with municipal governments that designate terms of service?

4. Will innovation and job creation be better served by monopolistic control of content or by free access to services by consumers?

 

Stop! Stop! Stop! NN is not going to help with competition. NN is not about competition. Making something a utility does not create competition. Outside of deregulated areas (like Texas), who has a choice of power? Who has a choice of telephone service? Natural Gas? Almost always, its one provider.

And it doesn't matter if you have 100 competitors, if they all are practicing the same models of throttling traffic, there is still the same issue.

 

In my building, I have to pay $50 a month for 12Mbps down. I have no option to move to a competitor as they're the only provider in my building.

I'm pissed. What should I be in favor of?!

 

I'd say, since you have no choice in providers, you should be against your only provider deciding which services you have high speed access to as a matter of their profit. If you are paying for 12Mbps, you should be able to run 12Mbps all day for any service you want to be using.

 

Unfettered access shouldn't be limited to content providers. It should be all inclusive. Fast lanes and slow lanes absolutely should be prohibited.

We shouldn't confuse fast/slow lanes with forcing high usage content providers to shell out extra money. This becomes very complicated. Who should be forced to pay the upgrades? If netflix is accounting for 25% of the traffic, why should the ISP be forced to spend millions of dollars and Netflix not have to pay?

Vague question. In some areas, yes, there is real competition. In most areas, no. What is your definition of necessary high speed? This is a subjective question. For example, mobile wireless has a very specific terms to define broadband. (EVDO, GRSPM, LTE, LTE-A... ect..)

Are you asking if municipals are handing out exclusive/monopoly deals to serve a specific area? The laws vary from state to state. The Sherman Act prohibits monopolies. The word "monopoly" is very often misused. Simply because there is one choice doesn't mean its a monopoly. Referencing mobile wireless, if a carrier bought all the companies, then yes, it would be a monopoly because there is a finate amount of wireless spectrum in which that one carrier would own and no one else could compete. With terrestrial internet, anyone can come in and lay lines to provide internet, provided they had the money and resources. This is the key; Nobody wants to invest this money because there is no return on investment.
That said, yes, municipals can work deals with ISP's to give them access to the municipals right of ways/easements in exchange for anything, or nothing (we work with municipals that give us unfettered access to all of their right of ways/easements). However, the municipals are playing a dangerous game as other ISP's can call foul if contracts arent written correctly.

Elaborate.

 

This is irrelevant to you. Your landlord/HOA/whatever it is called contracted to have a service provider come in and install their infrastructure throughout the building. Your beef is with the Landlord/HOA. They are the ones who signed the exclusivity.
If there is a provider that can offer services w/out having to pull any kind of infrastructure, you're free to use them. (mobile wiress, satellite internet, WISP's)

 

You are passionate about this.

I understand that, from a point of view of the ISP. NN is simply about bits with no preferable treatment, or really, about not giving the ISP the green light to arbitrary slow down data (speeding it up is another topic). However, NN can lead to a competitive problem if the ISP, for example, decided to slow everyone email services down except for their (not saying they do that, but that they have the potential to do it with any type of internet service and I don't trust that they won't). So, it does not solve the ISP to ISP competitive issue, but it does prevent the ISP from promoting their own or a business partner own service over others thus eliminating competition.

I didn't said increase competition, but solving the competition issue. Making internet a utility could do that... fix pricing or opening up the pipes (de-regulated like TX). That's a whole different can of worm that even Obama is trying to stay away from.

Yes, if they all practice the same throttling.... but I think the chance of that is much smaller since you have competitor that may not do it to attract customers... free market right

 

Question, what is the consumer paying for, if not a connection to "the internet"? Netflix already pays their provider to stream to the consumer. The problem was with the lack of interconnects between the two providers (Level 3 and Comcast). It's obviously not a technological issue since once Netflix paid to essentially increase Comcast's infrastructure, speeds boosted way up.

Imagine a world where only USPS mail trucks can drive in residential areas.

When I pay Amazon, who pays UPS to ship a package to my house, and I pay USPS (through taxes) to delivery said package, does USPS have the right to only assign 1 truck out of 100 to delivery UPS packages? USPS essentially forces Amazon to pay for even more trucks.

Those aren't terms to define broadband. Those are terms to describe the technology. Like DSL or DOCSIS.

I believe broadband as describe by the FCC is 4Mbs and this happened:
http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/...posed-10-mbps-broadband-definition/2014-09-09

There are numerous studies on consumer choices for even the 4Mbs broadband definition and it isn't pretty. If you remove wireless providers and their built-in caps, it's probably even worse. Not having any choices in a market isn't subjective at all.

Blatant lie. There is finite space to place wires, even more so than the wireless spectrum. Everything that makes water and electricity a natural monopoly puts wired cabling in the same category. Nobody else can even make that investment because the public has already subsidized the current incumbents infrastructure costs. And those that try, those incumbents will attempt to price out or legislate any new entries to market. This even includes municipalities.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

 

Yes I am! I am all for regulation. I only want it done right. There seems to be a flood of misinformation and expectation with Title II. To me its more important than healthcare. Healthcare effects people as individuals. If we do not get the internet right, the country as a whole can be affected economically.

 

Consumer pays $50 for internet to their ISP.
Consumer pays $10 to netflix for video streaming.
Netflix pays Tier 1 providers for data delivery.

If Netflix is choking the downstream traffic, why should the provider be forced to upgrade their networks? They get no compensation. It should be the Tier 1's responsibility that their customers traffic gets passed on.

A single company (netflix) shouldn't expect the entire continents networks to upgrade when they are flooding the networks.

Yes, you are correct. I should have put "their" in front of broadband ... or not used the word broadband.

The general word "broadband" is very vague, especially if we are trying to redefine it.

You're confusing the point. With mobile wireless, there is a very limited of spectrum allocated. If there is one carrier that owns it all, then it is impossible for someone else to enter the market, unless the FCC opens up more spectrum.

I am not referring to the roadblocks that prevent anyone from rolling out infrastructure. It is very possible to blanket the US with fiber cost effectively. However it would require socializing or heavy regulating everything. Will this happen? Probably not. The US will just continue to fall further behind in technology.

 

Netflix is only providing what the their (Comcast's) customers are requesting. If X% of your customers wanted access to something, normally it'd be in your best interest to provide it. Unless of course, you held a monopoly position in the last mile.

And there lies the problem. Comcast could have joined Netflix's Open Connect program if they cared about customer satisfaction, but why lose the extra revenue stream by making Netflix pay, especially when they have them by the balls. Or better yet, hope people migrate to StreamPix.

Also, I'm very doubtful of the claim that Netflix "flooded" Comcast's networks, when making the same requests through a VPN increased the stream's speed. Seems like Comcast was forcing all requests to Netflix through a congested interconnect, similar to detouring traffic to a single freeway.

Back on topic, network neutrality has nothing to do with the Netflix/Comcast fiasco, but rather symptom of having no competition and shady network management.

http://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-vs-netflix-is-this-really-about-net-neutrality/

 

If I'm paying $50 to my ISP for x speed internet, why should the ISP care what I'm using that for? Regardless of if its Netflix or something else, that's the service they provided me. If providing that service is flooding their network so they can't actually provide that speed reliably, they should upgrade their networks, charge more, and/or not offer that speed. Regardless, I'm not sure why it would be Netflix's fault or responsibility.

 

The problem is they probably see half their customers using less than a gig a month and half using 300 gigs for Netflix. I have no idea what the solution is but charging more would suck for me.

 

I think the fair and free market solution there is for the people who use less bandwidth to pay less and the ones who use more to pay more. It's no different than phone companies charging per minute or electric companies charging per kwhr used, etc. We wouldn't like it as consumers, but I don't think there's anything unfair about it.

 

Agreed. I also prefer them using a version of the cell phone program to make it work where you can have a data threshold where you are at x speed up to that and then you get throttled. You can buy up, all the way to unlimited, like you can on a cell phone. I don't know how practical that is, but I think it's more of a free market solution. Let customers pay for the speed and bandwidth that they actually use.

Lots of people who like to download movies and torrents and stuff will hate it, but it's certainly "fair."

 

NO! It's certainly fair until it's done not for nw congestion reasons. How many people have cut cable for streaming?

 

Well your desire to save money doesn't by cutting cable doesn't entitle you to internet speeds at unlimited bandwidth for a low price.

 

There is already a soft 250GB limit by Comcast and maybe other as well. I don't have any issue with a limit due to technology constraints. I'm just thinking... the day may come soon where the limit will be worth trying due to survival instinct. Let see.. Obama FCC set NN rules. Comcast have no choice but set a hard limit due to it. Easy out.

 

Customer side limits are more likely to create competition than content side limits. Customers may not even KNOW about content side throttling and money deals. (Most don't know about Comcast/Netflix issue) They'll know if they are suddenly experiencing slow downs on ALL of their internet activity.

 

Data caps are a no no. Data usage is not the overall issue. What is the point of having a Gbps connection if you are capped at 250Gbps???? And whats the point of metering data if everyone is using their data at the same time? This is why we have bandwidth limitations. You pick your bandwidth tier. Quit demanding faster service for cheaper prices. If you only need a 10Mbps connection, then pay its rate (eg: 19.99 a mo). If you need a 100Mbps connection, pay 50.00. If you need a gigabit, pay 100.00.

Those who should be charged for data are the ones who are pushing Data.

This is not the same as other metered services (water, sewer, electricity) that actually have a significant upfront cost. Your water usage will be the same, whether there are 10" diameter pipes or 48" diameter pipes. Your water and electricity doesn't get better with bigger pipes. Creating data to move is a very insignificant value. It is the pipe size needed to cover all that data moving at a given moment that is costly.

Additionally, once the FCC deregulates the television market, streaming video will explode. This is why carriers are gearing up for fast and slow lanes. There is no way for ISP's to keep up with the bandwidth demand once everyone starts streaming their TV.