Tech Giants Support 'Red Alert For Net Neutrality' Movement

[shrapnel_indie]

I actually like my cheap Tmobile tablet plan which has unlimited music streaming but 2GB for everything else. It's only $20 per month and I stream music nearly all the time. It technically violates net neutrality, but it something that some consumers want. So blanket rules about data aren't always a win, sometimes it's a lose for consumers. Tmobile has the same thing with BingeON video for their tablet plan at $35 per month. Watch as much youtube as you want. If you ride the train like I do, it's really nice.

Don't forget.... TMobile and Sprint are merging... If you had issues with Sprint.... ouch.... you only have what left? ATT? The smaller prepaids? The prepaids the major carriers run under a different name?

THIS merger means less competition in the end. It means more control for ATT and Verizon in addition to Sprint.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

You don't make sweeping regulations based on things that MAY happen. that is absolutely ridiculous. The left pretends there was no internet prior to 2015. Do you know anyone who has had their access to the internet cut off or their plans price skyrocket since the repeal? I doubt you do. There is very little evidence of the things NN was supposed to prevent from actually happening prior to NN.

The net neutrality regulations were made in direct response to abusive actions by Comcast and other major cable companies. There is no "may" here. Prior to 2015 there were many regulatory rulings, but ISPs routinely skirted around them. You should read up on the history of the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#Regulatory_history

Comcast was throttling Bittorrent downloads, which you know most of that traffic was not legal and taking up alot of bandwidth. I'm for some Net Neutrality as long as they have rules where the consumer wins in the end. But a blanket regulation that all data is equal is simply stupid.

For instance, if the bandwidth for a particular neighborhood was being saturated by a few houses using bittorrent. I think it would be reasonable to throttle them. The government could make it so that Comcast is allowed to throttle 20-30 days of the year, for times when people are home for the holidays, or there's an unusually large amount of traffic that day. Being only given a certain amount of days would mean they couldn't oversell a neighborhood, they'd still have to make upgrades, but it would mean all the customers would be able to get a fair share of the bandwidth if Comcast was allowed to prioritize web surfing or something to that extent to make sure the majority of people have a good experience. That would be a reasonable regulation.

The biggest problem with internet in this country is not net neutrality. It's a lack of service providers and consumer ISP choice. That's what people should be fighting for. When you look at the largest campaign donators from the 2012 and 2016 elections, you'll see some of the largest as Comcast, ATT, Verizon etc.... They people unfortunately have their hands in the pockets of both Democrats and Republicans. That's why they have local monopolies.

Torrents are used for plenty of legitimate downloads. It's a very efficient way to share data.

pssst, please, you know 99% of torrents are for pirating movies and programs. I've literally never in my life used needed to use a torrent for any downloading, or was given a download link by someone because it's more efficient.

Regarding bandwidth, NN regulations do not prevent companies from putting throttles, caps, or extra charges on high bandwidth accounts. If someone's using too much, they can slow them down or make them pay more. NN just stops ISPs from inspecting the *type* of data and treating it differently based on their own judgment.

Net Neutrality does prevent companies from putting throttles on certain types of data, like video streaming for example. Instead of discriminating against the type of data, they simply limit all bandwidth to that user but that assumes that user uses a large amount of data in a month. That's where we run into net neutrality, because sometimes it's not the user that's a problem, it's just a matter of circumstance and timing. For instance, Netflix currently consumes 36% of all internet bandwidth during peak hours. That's just 1 video service. Currently, most video services are in their infancy and haven't hit their full stride just yet. Those services will consume more and more bandwidth. So let's just say 10 years from now, neighborhood congestion is a real problem. It's christmas break and a bunch of kids are still playing fortnite, people are watching netflix and other streaming, and all the stores are closed so everyone is stuck in the house. The neighborhood saturates, what's comcast supposed to do?? They could limit everyone's bandwidth equally. They could limit streaming services to 1080p bandwidth. They could can just allow a total free for all and do no throttling. I would honestly prefer they limit torrents first, then streaming services. But that can't happen with net neutrality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against net neutrality. I don't think companies should be allowed to sell "fast lanes" and throttling certain services all the time and trying to sell you a fast lane. But I do like being able to buy a cheap plan with a data cap and getting around that data cap for certain services, albeit throttled (Tmobile does this now). I also think companies should be reasonably allowed to throttle for X amount of days per year to help with unusual congestion but only during times of heavy congestion.

So you're saying these ISPs can just up the prices when they feel like it for those who use too much bandwidth, and save money by not upgrading their systems to handle more bandwidth? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I'd rather they get real and improve their bandwidth... than just look shortsightedly at their bottom line.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

[
... it's a bandwidth problem that can only be alleviated by allowing everyone a direct connection to comcast's network. ...

It a problem that can be alleviated by upgrading the network for handling higher bandwidth. Except, Comcast, et al, don't want to spend the money right now. It's easier to moan and groan, cry and complain, that certain services are eating up all their bandwidth during prime use hours.

 

[Pedasc]

Keep in mind that Netflix is a mega giant corporation too, which put Blockbuster and mom and pop video stores out of business.

Blockbuster died because it couldn't get its own VOD service working and because they partnered with Enron to do it then lost out when they realized Enron was shady. Netflix was still the small fry back then and Blockbuster had a perfect opportunity to crush them while Netflix still worked mainly via snail mail. And Netflix may have delivered the killing blow to the mom and pop stores but Blockbuster was already did most of the work by that point and the slow death of physical media was going to do that anyway with or without Netflix unfortunately.

 

[araczynski]

I live in a market where the only competition (if you can call it that) exists in the low speed segment of the market. Anything above that is controlled by one (cable) provider. You can get slow to super fast, but no matter how much you pay or how fast your service is, you're still limited to 1TB/month, unless you feel like paying extra (+$50/month for unlimited, or +$30/month for 500GB) for the extra bandwidth.

Funny how typically the biggest usage of bandwidth is streaming (netflix/prime/hulu/whatever) and guess who most of the cable companies are losing their customers to? This is only accelerating as streaming quality is going up, 1080p/4k... the cable company is sitting there laughing at the customers strangling themselves.

They don't have to control who is allowed on their lines, all they have to do is wait and laugh all the way to the bank and get their extra fees, they don't care if the fees are coming from the providers or the consumers.

Nothing will change as long as the current "business first all the time" and "trickle down economics is good for everyone" bullshit is in charge.

 

[dhayric]

"The net neutrality regulations were made in direct response to abusive actions by Comcast and other major cable companies. There is no "may" here. Prior to 2015 there were many regulatory rulings, but ISPs routinely skirted around them. You should read up on the history of the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#Regulatory_historY"

Really? A Wikipedia write up is your evidence that NN was necessary? I guarantee not one person here can fin a widespread example of an ISP actually doing something NN was sold to the public as being able to prevent, It was a massive government power grab that crushed competition. The article posted above by dhayric is 100% accurate and it was Tom's that wrote it.

 

[brooks2]

Massive government regulation, like NN, always has unintended consequences such is slowing innovation. If the regulations are based on sound arguments for the intrusion into the markets, most people will support them in spite of the downsides. When massive regulation is based on scenarios that might happen in the future, it makes me wonder what was really behind this push during the Obama administration. Since the large companies are pushing for NN, my conclusion is that NN is really about limiting competition.

 

[dhayric]

You don't make sweeping regulations based on things that MAY happen. that is absolutely ridiculous. The left pretends there was no internet prior to 2015. Do you know anyone who has had their access to the internet cut off or their plans price skyrocket since the repeal? I doubt you do. There is very little evidence of the things NN was supposed to prevent from actually happening prior to NN.

The net neutrality regulations were made in direct response to abusive actions by Comcast and other major cable companies. There is no "may" here. Prior to 2015 there were many regulatory rulings, but ISPs routinely skirted around them. You should read up on the history of the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#Regulatory_history

Really? A Wikipedia write up is your evidence that NN was necessary? I guarantee not one person here can find a widespread example of an ISP actually doing something NN was sold to the public as being able to prevent. It was a massive government power grab that crushed competition. The article I posted is 100% accurate and it was Tom's that wrote it.

 

[dhayric]

Massive government regulation, like NN, always has unintended consequences such is slowing innovation. If the regulations are based on sound arguments for the intrusion into the markets, most people will support them in spite of the downsides. When massive regulation is based on scenarios that might happen in the future, it makes me wonder what was really behind this push during the Obama administration. Since the large companies are pushing for NN, my conclusion is that NN is really about limiting competition.

Amen but the big government loving left doesn't think that way. They always think more laws is the solution and never think outside of the box as to the long term repercussions.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

Massive government regulation, like NN, always has unintended consequences such is slowing innovation. If the regulations are based on sound arguments for the intrusion into the markets, most people will support them in spite of the downsides. When massive regulation is based on scenarios that might happen in the future, it makes me wonder what was really behind this push during the Obama administration. Since the large companies are pushing for NN, my conclusion is that NN is really about limiting competition.

Amen but the big government loving left doesn't think that way. They always think more laws is the solution and never think outside of the box as to the long term repercussions.

Sometimes I think they know, and their endgame is the repercussions, so they design for it under the guise of something else.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

You don't make sweeping regulations based on things that MAY happen. that is absolutely ridiculous. The left pretends there was no internet prior to 2015. Do you know anyone who has had their access to the internet cut off or their plans price skyrocket since the repeal? I doubt you do. There is very little evidence of the things NN was supposed to prevent from actually happening prior to NN.

The net neutrality regulations were made in direct response to abusive actions by Comcast and other major cable companies. There is no "may" here. Prior to 2015 there were many regulatory rulings, but ISPs routinely skirted around them. You should read up on the history of the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States#Regulatory_history

Really? A Wikipedia write up is your evidence that NN was necessary? I guarantee not one person here can find a widespread example of an ISP actually doing something NN was sold to the public as being able to prevent. It was a massive government power grab that crushed competition. The article I posted is 100% accurate and it was Tom's that wrote it.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/small-isps-turn-to-malicious-dns-servers-to-make-extra-cash/

The article says small ISP's but their client list also included larger companies like Frontier...and Cogent.