How To Fight The FCC On Net Neutrality (Opinion)

[gggplaya]

I disagree that your scenario for school work vs streaming is valid. I argue that anyone that paid for the service is allowed access to that service equally regardless of what someone deems a more valid use. If you are going to use QOS and throttle at high usage times then only critical, societal services (i.e. police, hospitals, etc) should be exempt.

I don't believe that either stance on this subject is truly right or wrong here, but certainly a difference of opinion. You see, from my perspective, I could institute a strict bandwidth allowance for each user in my home, but that wouldn't be the most efficient use of my internet, because some users require little bandwidth but higher priority data, like web surfing and gaming. They want pages to load super quick, in short bursts, but not necessarily alot of data. However, streamers use high amounts of data for long periods of time. So it makes sense to prioritize data instead. That way the total internet bandwidth is used to it's full potential, and everyone but the streamer gets a better quality of service.

As to your ISP statements, sadly a fact of life here are localized monopolies on internet. Cable TV has stiff competition from the 2 major satelite providers. But internet does not. Don't get me wrong, Net Neutrality is necessary, but I believe they should make reasonable amendments to make sure the consumer is the one that comes out on top. The problem, however, as you can see from this OPED is that you have people misreporting, or heavily biased to write about it in extremes. The author never gave the FCC chairman a fair shake in his comments, exploring his arguement, instead just trying to destroy it. That's why I feel I need to get out here and create a dialogue to help make a better bill or amendments that are more reasonable, instead of a all-or-nothing style of legislation.

Ok well,
1. Your family aren't paying customers to you that expect the service that you promised them and they paid for.
2. Your home isn't a business so you can allocate your bandwidth however you want.
3. This is only possible for you because the ISP you are paying is giving you the bandwidth you paid for and expect.
4. If ISP's and the Municipalities focused on improving the infrastructure instead of being in each other pockets, properly servicing the customer instead of throttling them wouldn't be a concern.

Yes all or nothing is rarely the answer but it seems neither government nor business have the consumer in mind when this type of regulation comes up. Fixes to NN are always possible but what is proposed is throwing the baby out with the bath water essentially. It's nothing but caving to corporate lobbyists to make the rich richer.

Absolutely, but if you look at cellular for instance, there are times when they are heavily congested. Like if a festival comes into town or something and the bandwidth is fully maxed out. Wouldn't it be reasonable to allow for a QOS for a few days, otherwise it's just a free for all for data, and everyone has a bad experience. And again, you can set a limit for how many days per year they can institute a QOS. That way they could use it in certain situations, but not use it all the time, and would have to upgrade their network to meet the true demand of the local community.

But if you look at cellular, you aren't getting the bandwidth that you pay for, at least in my area. You can be standing right next to the tower and still not get 1/10th of the advertised speeds.

 

[cryoburner]

America covers a very large area compared to these other developed countries, and people are spread out further, so it naturally requires far more infrastructure, and in turn greater cost to upgrade Internet and cellular services here.

I dismiss the premise of your argument outright.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
Click "Density" to sort by density. Review only developed nations (to compare apples to apples), and note the names. Australia? Canada? Sweden? Norway? Finland? All operating substantially cheaper and faster internet than America, despite being significantly more spread out than we are. If you're looking for a reason that America has the craptacular internet offerings we do, look no further than the market physics of oligopoly. That is, the intentional collusion between competitors to keep prices high and choices limited in various markets to establish control over availability and access to a product. And again, this hold is cemented through the deals made between ISP lobbyists and your local municipal government. Whatever city you live in, unless it happens to be one of the smarter ones, likely has an agreement in place with your local ISP overlord to provide free cable in exchange for rules making it nearly impossible for ISP startups.

You seem to be selectively picking data that fits your argument, along with some that doesn't. Australia and Canada don't even have faster average Internet speeds than the US, at least going by the latest Akamai State of the Internet Report from Q1 of 2017. In fact, Australia is quite a bit behind the US, so I'm not sure why you would bring them up. Out of the 9 countries in the world that have faster average Internet speeds than the US, only 3 of them have lower population densities, the Scandinavian nations of Norway, Finland, and Sweden. And what do these three neighboring countries have in common? They're the most northern countries in Europe, and while they are relatively large, a significant portion of their terrain is mountainous and cold, so most of their populations are concentrated in the southern and coastal regions. Additionally, the total populations of these countries are tiny compared to the US. Norway has about 5 million people, Finland about 6 million, and Sweden about 9 million, while the US has a population of around 325 million. Upgrading Internet service for one of these countries might be comparable to upgrading a single state in the US, so it makes sense that it's easier for them to stay ahead of the curve. It's also worth pointing out that some of the individual states in the US have higher average Internet speeds compared to these countries. Delaware averages over 25 Mbps, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are close to 24 Mbps. And even the state with the lowest Internet performance, Idaho, averages about 12 Mbps, which is higher than the Australian average. Simply put, it's easier to upgrade Internet performance in locations where people live closer together. Both Hong Kong and Singapore each just consist of a densely packed city. To better depict this data, I've compiled the most recent Akamai data with some of the data from that chart you linked to...

Country		Average speed	Density/km2  Population	       Area
#1  South Korea     28.6 Mbps		487	 48m	   99,538km
#2  Norway	    23.5 Mbps		 14	  5m	  385,155km
#3  Sweden	    22.5 Mbps		 21	  9m	  449,964km
#4  Hong Kong	    21.9 Mbps	      6,349	  7m	    1,104km
#5  Switzerland	    21.7 Mbps		191	  8m	   41,285km
#6  Finland	    20.5 Mbps		 16	  6m	  338,145km
#7  Singapore	    20.3 Mbps	      7,148	  5m	      710km
#8  Japan	    20.2 Mbps		337	127m	  377,873km
#9  Denmark	    20.1 Mbps		128	  6m	   43,094km
#10 United States   18.7 Mbps		 33	325m	9,826,675km
Global Average	     7.2 Mbps

In actuality, Internet performance in the US is among the best in the world, and is arguably impressive considering the scale of the country compared to nearly all of those that manage faster average performance. Now certainly these are averages, and there are some people stuck with significantly lower Internet speeds in certain rural areas, but that applies to all these countries, with the possible exception of the city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore that lack rural areas entirely. Now imagine an ISP wants to provide broadband to a relatively remote area of the US that is without it, but the low population density and in turn subscriber base only justifies a limited amount of network resources. Shouldn't they have the option of throttling the speed of torrent traffic during their busiest hours, for example, to make sure that a relatively small number of file-sharers aren't overloading the network for everyone else? The alternative might be to supply lower performance to everyone on the network, or implement strict bandwidth caps to avoid such issues, but that could be considered counter to the goal improving internet performance.

As for price, it is possible that the US might cost more for high speed Internet than many of these other countries, but cost comparisons between different countries can be difficult to accurately determine without a thorough amount of research, since things like exchange rates, cost of living, and taxes put toward Internet expansion, in addition to differences between things like capped and uncapped plans, can make direct comparisons difficult.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That link should be https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express - will change it shortly. Thanks for the catch!
-JP

Guess what, the link still isn't changed and you can bet that a lot of people, unlike me, who clicked on it, and went to the FCC page and found an error, are probably not going to know to scroll down here to the comments to find the correct link. So the whole article is almost a waste if you don't get that link fixed.

 

[Darkbreeze]

You must work for a cable or telco. No, they shouldn't be able to do that. And only an idiot or somebody who was getting their pocket lined by one of these companies WOULD think that.

It's so far from sane that it's like saying yes, hell yes the governement should be able to listen in on my phone conversations, retrieve records of who I've called and when, actively track what channels I watch on cable, retrieve data remotely from my computer, record every movement I make ALL day long whether in public or private and recieve copies of all my billing statements for everything I do because they NEED to be able to do that in order to keep ME safe from terrorists. BUT, we won't do that to the terrorists, only to the citizens.

That's how sane what you are suggesting sounds to me, and to most everybody else too.


And as far as comparisons go, it's much like this.

You, along with everybody else in your town, contributes ten dollars so that business X can open a steak house. You pay fees on a monthly basis, so that the steak house can buy, raise and butcher cattle to sell at the steakhouse. Of course the steakhouse is paying some of the startup costs, but you and your local or state government are fronting part of the money too.

Then later on, when you go to the steakhouse you pay 25 dollars for a T-bone steak meal but when you go to eat it your are told that you cannot eat the tenderloin portion of the T-bone because it is the choicest part and they need to keep that in order to sell to somebody else that is willing to pay more for it, and has more money to do so.

So you say ok, well at least I still have the strip portion but when you go to eat that they tell you that you can only eat half now because they need you to hurry up and leave to make room for the next customer, AND that you will have to forfeit the remaining portion of the strip because they want to hold that in reserve just in case somebody happens to come in that is willing to pay full strip price for it. So you've helped them get started, helped them grow the cows that are their cash crop and paid for the steak that is on your plate, but you only get to eat a portion of it because if you ate the whole thing, they might not be able to make as much money off of it by selling it again.

But don't worry, because eating the salad and potato are ok.

 

[raycrayz]

@Chris.Ransdall
Chris, you're acting woefully ignorant here for someone who claims to have been around that long.

Look at Windows as an example. Apple came out with the app store, Microsoft sees that as a great idea to increase profits, and so Microsoft did the following:

1) Sabotage previously released operating systems so that they could not be updated.. even using Microsoft update for already released updates. (This affects Windows XP, and Windows 7 the most).

2) Sabotaged games that work natively on Windows XXX, using a DRM block, so that they won't work on Windows 8 or Windows 10 except with hacking. They did this to force the developers to pay for the privilege of selling these games for Windows 10. They completely screwed all of their old customers whom bought that software already.

3) Microsoft picks and chooses which compression algorithm they'll support, requiring 3rd party websites to take up the slack (free-codecs).. once again due to DRM.

4) Microsoft pays to limit advanced CPU codes from AMD and Intel for their Ryzen and 8th gen CPU lines so that games using these CPU's will only see full functionality under windows.

Do you not see a trend?

Maybe you need more examples?
-Do you remember seeing bees when you were a kid? Do you know what a native bee looks like.. because I don't think you do. You should google that, then you may realize that when you were young (if you're roughly 40 yrs old as you say) you would have seen a ton of bees actively working on flowers in your front-yard. Do you see that now? That's what no-regulations does.. it destroys things. And those Bees? just about the most important relationship man has with an insect. We depend on Bees for a whopping 75% of our food. You do know that in China the bees are dead so that crops are now pollinated by hand? I wonder how expensive that'll make food.

You probably need another example though.
OK, since you remember the Internet, lets look at that.
-When it came out usage was unlimited, and the bottleneck was speed. BUT, once speed hit 1Mb/sec down speed was no longer the issue (but ISP's made it an issue). They decided to charge for usage but only advertise speed as if that was still a concern thereby setting up clients to have plans with 25MB/s down with a usage of only 50 GB. That sound fair for this unregulated segment? A customer would blow his usage in less than a few hours and would be charged hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

It happened in cell phones as well. Text messages used to be unlimited and free. It's not as if text messages take up any space anywhere. There's is certainly no extra equipment of service costs related to the ISP with respect to text messaging but they're still charging for it.


Perhaps you'll be interested in paying for air since that's unregulated as well. I suppose you don't live in the California dust bowl of herbicides, pesticides, and almonds do you?
Or maybe you're only interested in paying for water.. that isn't even properly cleaned anymore of .. you guessed it herbicides, pesticides, and other chemical by-products from industry.

Do you have cancer yet? No.. you will. It's guaranteed for anyone who's under 40 yrs old to have cancer at some point before they die (if they live long enough).

But yeah.. who needs regulation eh?

 

[bit_user]

Also, why do these useless comments that provide no commentary other than to link to some obviously biased website continue to be featured comments.

The vote tallies determine which comments are featured.

 

[bit_user]

The analogy opening this article sounds like complete scaremongering,

Agreed. I think they went for that scenario, because it's the one that would cause the most visceral reaction.

While I don't think it's the most likely scenario, I also don't think it's impossible. What's more likely to happen is ISPs will try to charge publishers for prioritized access to the ISP's subscribers.

Either way, we're looking at one of two outcomes: content will suffer and/or you'll pay more. The only ones who benefit are the ISPs' shareholders, and possibly whichever content providers that manager to strike exclusive deals with ISPs to gain advantage over their competitors.

 

[bit_user]

Implementing Net Neutrality will first hit wireless providers immediately.

Dunno where you get your facts, but net neutrality never applied to wireless providers.

So Tom's, perhaps research the other side of the arguement, and publish it.

So, ggg, perhaps research your point before attacking Tom's.

I'd rather have throttled Netflix.

It's great that you have Netflix and like it. But, what if there's some content you want that's not on Netflix?

 

[Darkbreeze]

In either/any scenario, it's definitely NOT something that is beneficial to the consumer or end user. This is PURELY decision making based on cash cow lobbying. The mere fact that he served as counsel for Verizon should have been enough of a red flag to exclude him from ANY consideration as the head of the FCC. In fact, it ought to be made LAW that any person who has ever been employed by one of the very companies the FCC was designed to regulate and implement policy for, cannot hold any position on the commission as it is clearly and unmistakably a gigantic conflict of interest.

These people have long term personal and professional relationships with the exact people that stand to gain the most from revoking net neutrality. How in God's name can it make any sense to allow them to then make such decisions. Clearly the current administration and the majority of GOP congressman have ONLY business interests in mind and care nothing at all for the rest of the country. Notice that I say majority, as I don't think all of them are of a like mind, but they are so outnumbered in their party that the fact that they dissent is entirely futile.

 

[bit_user]

I've been on the net for a LONG time (back when PPP was a big upgrade over SLIP etc!)... I feel like the Internet has done very well for itself (and for mankind) as it has been (almost entirely self regulated in terms of policy and governance).

You're ignoring the fact that technology has improved by many orders of magnitude and now enables ISPs to do things they could scarcely even dream of, in the early days.

 

[bit_user]

The mere fact that he served as counsel for Verizon should have been enough of a red flag to exclude him from ANY consideration as the head of the FCC.

I'd tend to agree, but it's only fair to point out that former head Tom Wheeler (once a "lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry") actually seems to have done a pretty good job of siding with consumers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler

I'm not arguing against the kind of firewall you describe, but we should acknowledge that it's not 100% predictive of how someone will govern. IMO, the more important point should be that they can't have any financial stake in the industry and should be prevented from subsequently working in service of the industry they're regulating for a significant amount of time (I'd say at least 5 years).

... have ONLY business interests in mind and care nothing at all for the rest of the country

Even those with doubts and misgivings might be worried about having a well-funded challenger, in their next primary election. People tend to overlook this, but it's a real threat congressmen face - even in "safe" districts.

 

[bit_user]

... with the artificial monopolies (got to love government regulation) that have been formed, there isn't much competition when it comes to telecom services.

Just curious: how many electric and natural gas utilities do you have to choose from?

Utilities have a natural monopoly, because there are physical, practical, and economic limits to how many can offer service. That's why they need to be regulated. ISPs should be no different.

 

[bit_user]

Really the biggest problem with the internet in the United States is not mainly hypothetical based problems such as Net Neutrality, but it's lack of competition and localized monopolies. Add in competition like the availability of 3-4 ISP's to every household and problems like non-Net Neutrality become even more hypothetical.

At present, it seems to be non-economical for some people even to have one broadband provider.

I have a choice of 3, and yet Comcast still throttles my torrents. With more choices, all you get is a race to the bottom.

No, the solution is quite simple. The sort of regulation that has worked for electric and gas utilities can work just fine for ISPs.

 

[bit_user]

Last thing to say is that there was no net neutrality before 2014. Things seemed fine to me. I was alive. I used the Internet all the time. I had no packages. And I don't remember being intentionally throttled from anywhere. Granted, I'm sure shady stuff happened, but it went largely under the radar.

Leaving aside the 2010 rule, the other difference ushered in by the new change is that ISPs were probably afraid to do things which would cause a major backlash. However, this new rule change basically cuts them a lot more slack before they have to worry about Congress passing any laws that would re-impose any sort of limits.

What we had before was like driving in a car and you're approaching an intersection with no sort of traffic light. You use some caution, because it's unknown. However, with the new change, it's like giving these guys a green light to really go nuts and try to make as much money off everyone as they want.

Let's not forget that if they would charge packages to access a site like Toms, just go through a VPN.

Great. So, now you have to pay a VPN provider, just to sneak past your ISP. And guess what? Your ISP is probably going to charge a toll on that VPN provider, making them even more expensive than they currently are. And do you know what it'll do to your page loading times?

So, your brilliant "solution" is actually worse in every way.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Let's not forget that if they would charge packages to access a site like Toms, just go through a VPN.

Great. So, now you have to pay a VPN provider, just to sneak past your ISP. And guess what? Your ISP is probably going to charge a toll on that VPN provider, making them even more expensive than they currently are. And do you know what it'll do to your page loading times?

So, your brilliant "solution" is actually worse in every way.

The solution would never have to happen in the first place because there will be no packages. ISPs in the United States of America are not going to be charging packages for accessing specific websites. Mark my words.

If they wanted to charge somebody bit_user, wouldn't it make a heck of a lot more sense if they charge Tomshardware instead? Throttle Tomshardware, go to Tomshardware, say "Joe Phishgar, give us $30,000 if you want people to be able to access your site without horrible slowdowns". Tomshardware has to give them the money, what else can they do? This is all behind-the-scenes, no public outcry and anger, and they can get arguably more money out of the companies than the people.

That's much better than creating these dumb "packages" everyone keep freaking out about. The Portugal stuff you see is entirely fake. I've seen two images: one was completely fake, and the other one was real but it was the ability to pay extra money so certain apps wouldn't apply to reaching your data cap. So completely different scenario that was misrepresented everywhere on the Internet, especially Reddit.

And if the ISPs want to milk money out of people they could just increase the cost of the current plans they already have. Instead of $30/mo for x speed, they could charge $40/mo. Why wouldn't they just do that instead of "packages"? No argument seems to hold any firm ground against that.

No, the solution is quite simple. The sort of regulation that has worked for electric and gas utilities can work just fine for ISPs.

I agree with you 100% but net neutrality is not even close to the type of regulation needed for it to be equivalent to the electric and gas utilities. Net neutrality doesn't do much at all at making the Internet close to a utility. It should be repealed and replaced.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Until and unless there is some form of congressional law passed, it's still better than nothing at all. And while there may have been a sample of one who showed the ability to not be corrupted by their obvious affiliations, that means very little in the bigger picture. Better that one person who may have been capable of acting fairly and in good faith be blocked from holding that position (Firewalled to use your term), than nine others who would not have been able to do so.

 

[bit_user]

... there will be no packages. ISPs in the United States of America are not going to be charging packages for accessing specific websites. Mark my words.

If they wanted to charge somebody bit_user, wouldn't it make a heck of a lot more sense if they charge Tomshardware instead? Throttle Tomshardware, go to Tomshardware, say "Joe Phishgar, give us $30,000 if you want people to be able to access your site without horrible slowdowns". Tomshardware has to give them the money, what else can they do? This is all behind-the-scenes, no public outcry and anger, and they can get arguably more money out of the companies than the people.

Yes, I did say that. I think most of us agree on this point.

The mafia showed us all how to do racketeering a long time ago - go after the businesses, not the customers.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

... there will be no packages. ISPs in the United States of America are not going to be charging packages for accessing specific websites. Mark my words.

If they wanted to charge somebody bit_user, wouldn't it make a heck of a lot more sense if they charge Tomshardware instead? Throttle Tomshardware, go to Tomshardware, say "Joe Phishgar, give us $30,000 if you want people to be able to access your site without horrible slowdowns". Tomshardware has to give them the money, what else can they do? This is all behind-the-scenes, no public outcry and anger, and they can get arguably more money out of the companies than the people.

Yes, I did say that. I think most of us agree on this point.

The mafia showed us all how to do racketeering a long time ago - go after the businesses, not the customers.

Exactly! And that's why I support net neutrality.

 

[Olle P]

... Out of the 9 countries in the world that have faster average Internet speeds than the US, only 3 of them have lower population densities, the Scandinavian nations of Norway, Finland, and Sweden. And what do these three neighboring countries have in common? ... most of their populations are concentrated in the southern and coastal regions.

I'd say that the US population is even more concentrated in cities and towns with a population >25k.

... the total populations of these countries are tiny compared to the US. ... Upgrading Internet service for one of these countries might be comparable to upgrading a single state in the US, so it makes sense that it's easier for them to stay ahead of the curve.

While keeping up is a smaller task in total, the cost per customer is higher.

The key issue, regarding net neutrality, here is how many competing companies will fight to provide affordable connections in the rural countryside? What portion of the population have less than 20 neighbours within a mile radius?

 

[svan71]

My price didn't go down under NN my speed didnt increase under NN but the size of goverment went down after NN so I'm happy. The bigger the goverment the smaller the citizen.

Free-market advocates say paid prioritization in other industries, such as highway toll roads, have spurred investment that benefit the larger public. In this case, that could mean more investment in broadband infrastructure, such as expanding and improving wireless and fiber networks that would increase internet access and overall data speeds.

But supporters of net neutrality say consumers could be charged extra to stream certain content if they don’t want to be hampered by network congestion. Others have warned that customer choice of internet service providers could shrink and prices of broadband service could increase.

“Net neutrality rules keep the internet open for all and ensure consumers can access the websites and apps they — not their Internet service provider — choose,” Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union

 

[bit_user]

Free-market advocates say paid prioritization in other industries, such as highway toll roads, have spurred investment that benefit the larger public. In this case, that could mean more investment in broadband infrastructure, such as expanding and improving wireless and fiber networks that would increase internet access and overall data speeds.

Toll roads are a very inefficient way of adding capacity. They only tend to get built in places where it's politically impossible to raise adequate funds for road construction and/or toll road operators have disproportionate political influence.

Worse yet, ISPs don't even have to add capacity to make more money. They can now start charging a toll to upstream providers without having to build anything. At least with a toll road, you get a new route if you can afford to use it.