Anymouse
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Total Stud Bush Pilot
That's kinda like job security.
And in today's wrath of the big business...
- Thread starter wsuffa
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That's kinda like job security.
SkyDog58
Ejection Handle Pulled
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Canis Non Grata
That never really bothered me. I don't smoke but it doesn't matter to me who sells tobacco and who doesn't. They still sell alcohol.
Anymouse
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Total Stud Bush Pilot
For medicinal purposes, I'm sure.
tspear
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Timothy
Consider your access to Amazon, or POA....
Or Pandora, FaceBook or whatever replaces FaceBook. The fundamental concept of net neutrality is those who own the road do not get to determine who gets a fast lane. Each packet is first come first serve.
The only thing the internet providers may do is throttle a specific consumer based on network total usage. The rules went into place because of abuse by Comcast (and others, but they got the press). There are enough technical people, plus the occasional corporate whistle blower, who have multiple network connections that internet providers which used to play games. Comcast and the other providers only backed down when Congress and the FCC proposed hearings.
I disagree. The rules are well defined and have been for a while. Issues have mostly arisen when companies have tried to game the system.
Tim
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yes, but at the consumer end the carriers cannot deny service to certain websites. Shape it, yep. Throttle, yep. But (with few exceptions) they carry everybody. Under this, they can give sites the equivalent of the IDP. This is more than shaking down the websites, this is outright denial with no cause of action.
Suppose your congresscritter takes a stand for regulation. Your provider decides that person stands for something they don't like - like telecom regs. The can block not only the candidate's site, but the party and anything related (this won't happen - see what Congress mandates for radio/TV). Or the gun control lobby targets big internet provider and demands they stop providing customers the means to access NRA or one of the other groups. Poof.
Where else are you going to go for internet service? Most towns have *at most* two providers. Of course someone live Verizon can (as they've already done with wireline & DSL in some places) terminate service altogether and put you on wireless. With expensive, capped service.
This is not just about charging the internet providers more, it's about outright blocking of sites. Look at the mess that cable TV is with retransmission consent.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Oh, and I have personal experience with the way Ma Bell/SBC dealt with the CLEC requirements - they simply put people that went the CLEC route on the worst possible pairs, and threw up their hands when they "couldn't get it to work". Funny, because they made a pair work perfectly well at the same location when one bought the service from them. The D-SLAMS were co-located for both the ILEC and CLEC. So yes, they can make it miserable if you don't play ball. But they're in the content game now, which is a whole 'nother animal.
The walled garden lives.
The walled garden lives.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Just like the CLEC thing, they wouldn’t blatantly block a site.
“We don’t know why certain sizes of packets going to your provider seem to be being mangled, sir/m’am. We will be happy to transfer you now to Tier 57... please hold...”
Telling telcos what to do is a losing game. Judge Greene set it up such that all the politicians get paid and absolutely nothing can really be done about the service.
Until you pay up, that is.
Global Crossing can literally intercept/see (and mess with) more than half of the world’s traffic, if you want to talk global instead of just domestic.
We used to joke, “He who dies with the most erlangs wins.” Yay fiber.
denverpilot
Tied Down
That’s nice that you disagree. I can still tell you flat out that packers are definitely never first in, first out, and it can be done in such a way it doesn’t look malicious, even if it is. Easy.
Saw it happen multiple times at a data center that was “Carrier agnostic”. The carriers battle constantly. Always based on who was paying whom how much money. The carrier that owned the physical outside facilities always won eventually. If a regulated service didn’t benefit them, they just cancelled that product and came out with a new one, and buried the new rules in the new contract.
I’d like to see these published rules you say exist on this. They don’t. Contracts trump almost all of them, and if you want service, you sign the contract.
If the contract doesn’t have guarantees in it, it’s worthless toilet paper. If it does, you definitely paid more for them.
JOhnH
Touchdown! Greaser!
tspear
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Timothy
Dating back to the DARPA days, inter connect agreements are governed by contracts. The basis of the contract was always the balance (or not) of the flow of traffic. So if the traffic flow was equal between the major carriers, than the peering agreement was an effective 1 dollar contract. Into this framework, many tier two providers bulk purchased capacity on the local loop and tried to leverage this both with lower costs to customers and peering agreements. This is where you ran into a lot of the friction initially. The second source of friction was companies like Comcast which built their own backbone to connect all the local providers and then wanted to charge anyone who connected to them.
Can the companies play games? Yes, some are more egregious than others. The net neutrality regulations promulgated by the previous administration attempted tame the worst behavior of the companies. Still having my hand in the data center space, I have seen the beneficial aspects of these regulations. Were they perfect, no. But they did go a long way to make it closer to a level playing field.
Tim
What bothers me right now is it seems that we're being asked to chose between a very real chance of ISPs ruining the internet or handing it over to a government agency which also has a very real chance of ruining the internet.
All I want is for them to write one very simple law which does what we want and nothing else. Basically saying bits are bits and ISPs are not allowed to discriminate between them. Nothing more. Unfortunately we can't ever seem to do anything simple. Everyone has to throw their particular axe to grind into the bill and what ought to be a simple paragraph of legislation turns into a several hundred page monstrosity.
All I want is for them to write one very simple law which does what we want and nothing else. Basically saying bits are bits and ISPs are not allowed to discriminate between them. Nothing more. Unfortunately we can't ever seem to do anything simple. Everyone has to throw their particular axe to grind into the bill and what ought to be a simple paragraph of legislation turns into a several hundred page monstrosity.
bflynn
Final Approach
Like an idiot, I went out to Walmart to get a Black Friday iPad. I was in luck, they had dozens and dozens of iPads at $100 off (5th gen, 32GB) and I told the guy I wanted a Silver one. He reached into the pile and pulled out one, pointed to the side of the box and said "Here, silver". Well, he was pointing the aluminium case, not indicating the style - two styles use the same case, Space Grey and Silver, the difference being the front frame is black or white respectively. I flipped it over, pointed to the bottom where it said "Space Grey" ,explained the difference and reiterated that I wanted one that said "Silver". He looked at me, looked back at the giant pile of iPads with a look that said "I'm not digging through that" and said "we don't have that, all we have his this one". So 30 seconds ago, you didn't know the difference, but now you know that you don't have what I'm looking for? I don't think so.
So Wal-mart lost a few sales...this plus whatever else I might have bought in the next few months. Maybe it was a loss leader and they didn't care. Whatever. I'll pay $100 extra and probably wind up buying direct from Apple, interest free on my Apple card. It's only one flight hour, right? At least the service probably won't suck.
So Wal-mart lost a few sales...this plus whatever else I might have bought in the next few months. Maybe it was a loss leader and they didn't care. Whatever. I'll pay $100 extra and probably wind up buying direct from Apple, interest free on my Apple card. It's only one flight hour, right? At least the service probably won't suck.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Well, yeah, any time a company gets too big and powerful the consumer loses. Look at what Google has become. Cable TV and media companies. Facebook. Photo sharing sites (owned by Google and Facebook). YouTube (owned by Google). E-commerce (watch Amazon's pricing?). Wells Fargo and Bank of America. IHeart media and other radio companies. Etc. etc.
Congress and Washington won't do a thing because ther is too much money flowing in politics, and too many believe that there is no need for regulation.
tspear
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Timothy
Actually that is the current regulation which many suspect the current administration wants to repeal.
Tim
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denverpilot
Tied Down
The problem with that is simple economics. It’s a lot harder to provide service to Barrow, AK than it is to provide it 3 blocks from the Central Office.
Or whatever other examples you want to use. Someone has to pay to trench in the infrastructure and maintain it.
That’s why the two A/B side carriers who were essentially given spectrum at the beginning of cell phones are still on top in rural areas. Much more money to pay for the sites and the truck rolls than T-Mobile. And a lot more spectrum for users. That won’t change.
Judge Greene didn’t really bust up the monopoly. He just forced it to restructure vertically with the illusion of competition. It doesn’t work well but it works better than the monopoly. See: NBN in Australia. What a disaster.
I’m not sure the consumer completely loses. A great many people like the services those companies provide. But yes, it takes a new crazy person with a big dream and often “unfair” usiness practices to create a new business of that size.
Omalley1537
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Sean
Worse, I’ve seen staff and the other end of an aisle in both big box hardware stores see me with a “I need assistance” look on my face and they quickly scramble to the next aisle, then vanish by the time I get there...
The only saving grace is that if I had cornered them, my experience is that most of them don’t know squat anyway...
Hank S
En-Route
I got one at Best Buy on Wednesday afternoon for $269. The sales guy dug through a large stack to find the right color.
Good luck! Visit the store, or try the website . . .
cessna182b
Line Up and Wait
+1. I refuse to even go in a CVS Store. My local food market (which belongs to Safeway) has a pharmacy where I often find sale prices or house brand generics
at reasonable prices. They get all my prescription business.
Dave
SaltH2OHokie
Pre-takeoff checklist
My dad has worked at a single location men's clothing store for 36 years, owned it for the past 19... And they're closing after the new year partly due the internet/bigger store pressure, and partly due to the general dressing down of America. Not as many folks wear suits as regularly.
Internet shopping is a topic we've discussed regularly over the years leading up to their decision to close, and the conclusion I've reached... If one is good with a market where one is almost definitely going to pay less for less service, that's the market that's going to thrive.
I'm guilty myself. I live in a rural area and take advantage of Amazon for a large margin of my non grocery needs. Partly driven by a lack of local options, partly driven by it's ease. Have to wonder about the lack of local options vs internet being a chicken vs egg sort of scenario though.
Internet shopping is a topic we've discussed regularly over the years leading up to their decision to close, and the conclusion I've reached... If one is good with a market where one is almost definitely going to pay less for less service, that's the market that's going to thrive.
I'm guilty myself. I live in a rural area and take advantage of Amazon for a large margin of my non grocery needs. Partly driven by a lack of local options, partly driven by it's ease. Have to wonder about the lack of local options vs internet being a chicken vs egg sort of scenario though.