Net Neutrality

Gerhardt

Gerhardt

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Gerhardt
There are some strong arguments to be made on both sides. Obviously Netflix would be for it since they eat up so much bandwidth. I'd be all for pay-as-you-go. I just don't trust the companies that say "give us the power to be overlord and we promise not to abuse it."

I'm curious what the real pros and cons are that I haven't read about.
 
It is going to lead to deals between the big players, which will potentially shut out startups. We will have to see if there is enough competition to keep that from happening. If you can run Netflix fast, but Hulu gets throttled, which are you going to pick?
 
There are pros for media conglomerates and investors, and cons for consumers and employees. That is not the same thing as “pros and cons”.
 
Just another adverse consequence of eliminating regulation just to be eliminating regulation. IMHO.
 
Comcast changed their website statement on Net Neutrality on April 26th of this year. April 27th was the day that Ajit Pai announced the plan to drop net neutrality.

From 2014 to April 26th 2017
april-26-2017-640x420.jpg



From April 26th to now:
april-27-2017-640x340.jpg



If that isn't telling, I don't know what is.

Source
 
Couple of things....

First we've only had net neutrality for about 2 years now I believe, we all lived with the internet before that and my guess is not much will change. That said, the whole reason it came about was some ISPs were pulling some really rotten shady stuff like slowing down Netflix unless they got paid more, blocking or limiting certain other services, etc. Now if there was more competition it would be fine, if your ISP started ruining your netflix you could just switch providers and any provider doing that would see their customers leaving in droves. Unfortunately much like the power company most don't have a choice- there's only one company serving your area so do you want internet or not? I think the predictions of having to pay extra to use facebook or youtube or other services are far fetched but might they degrade a type of service- say streaming video unless you pay an extra monthly fee? They could and they might. I think customers would be pretty outraged but that doesn't mean it won't happen. So consider stopping that a pro for net neutrality

The problem is in typical government fashion instead of having a narrowly defined law they declared it a utility and handed over control to the FCC. The government has been trying to get regulatory power over the internet for a long time and until recent years the tech community had been uniformly against it. The issues I mentioned above that brought about net neutrality changed that. The problems that we opposed regulation over still remain though. Government is traditionally very bad at regulating technology- most of the legislators don't understand it well enough to make informed decisions and even if they do things change so fast that by the time they get legislation through it's often either pointless or creates an unanticipated problem. Beyond that, there have always been political forces that want to be able to shut down certain types of things they don't agree with on the internet. This really ramped up after the last election and all the talk of fake news, alleged Russian influence, and social media impact. The fear is net neutrality could be the camel's nose in the tent which might give the legislators or the FCC the tools they need to start clamping down on this stuff. They wouldn't just outright ban political speech though, it will probably start as something most people are OK with like some act to "protect" children then ban hate speech.... and we already see a robust national disagreement on what is and isn't hate speech. Not saying it will go there but it could and there are most certainly people who want it to. It's a small danger but the consequences are huge and it isn't something to be taken lightly. There's your con.
 
I am for freeway neutrality, get rid of the Lexus lanes. Why should those rich folks have lane they can use for themselves.
 
cowman said:
Couple of things....

First we've only had net neutrality for about 2 years now I believe, we all lived with the internet before that and my guess is not much will change. That said, the whole reason it came about was some ISPs were pulling some really rotten shady stuff like slowing down Netflix unless they got paid more, blocking or limiting certain other services, etc. Now if there was more competition it would be fine, if your ISP started ruining your netflix you could just switch providers and any provider doing that would see their customers leaving in droves. Unfortunately much like the power company most don't have a choice- there's only one company serving your area so do you want internet or not? I think the predictions of having to pay extra to use facebook or youtube or other services are far fetched but might they degrade a type of service- say streaming video unless you pay an extra monthly fee? They could and they might. I think customers would be pretty outraged but that doesn't mean it won't happen. So consider stopping that a pro for net neutrality

The problem is in typical government fashion instead of having a narrowly defined law they declared it a utility and handed over control to the FCC. The government has been trying to get regulatory power over the internet for a long time and until recent years the tech community had been uniformly against it. The issues I mentioned above that brought about net neutrality changed that. The problems that we opposed regulation over still remain though. Government is traditionally very bad at regulating technology- most of the legislators don't understand it well enough to make informed decisions and even if they do things change so fast that by the time they get legislation through it's often either pointless or creates an unanticipated problem. Beyond that, there have always been political forces that want to be able to shut down certain types of things they don't agree with on the internet. This really ramped up after the last election and all the talk of fake news, alleged Russian influence, and social media impact. The fear is net neutrality could be the camel's nose in the tent which might give the legislators or the FCC the tools they need to start clamping down on this stuff. They wouldn't just outright ban political speech though, it will probably start as something most people are OK with like some act to "protect" children then ban hate speech.... and we already see a robust national disagreement on what is and isn't hate speech. Not saying it will go there but it could and there are most certainly people who want it to. It's a small danger but the consequences are huge and it isn't something to be taken lightly. There's your con.
Click to expand...
Great summary, thanks!
 
Net never has been neutral and never will be. Peering points have always been price-negotiation points, as well as speeds. If people want telecom to be a government monopoly they can reverse what Judge Greene did. Technically all he did was break the monopoly horizontally and it rearranged into a three way monopoly organized vertically. LOL...
 
cowman said:
Couple of things....

First we've only had net neutrality for about 2 years now I believe, we all lived with the internet before that and my guess is not much will change. That said, the whole reason it came about was some ISPs were pulling some really rotten shady stuff like slowing down Netflix unless they got paid more, blocking or limiting certain other services, etc. Now if there was more competition it would be fine, if your ISP started ruining your netflix you could just switch providers and any provider doing that would see their customers leaving in droves. Unfortunately much like the power company most don't have a choice- there's only one company serving your area so do you want internet or not? I think the predictions of having to pay extra to use facebook or youtube or other services are far fetched but might they degrade a type of service- say streaming video unless you pay an extra monthly fee? They could and they might. I think customers would be pretty outraged but that doesn't mean it won't happen. So consider stopping that a pro for net neutrality

The problem is in typical government fashion instead of having a narrowly defined law they declared it a utility and handed over control to the FCC. The government has been trying to get regulatory power over the internet for a long time and until recent years the tech community had been uniformly against it. The issues I mentioned above that brought about net neutrality changed that. The problems that we opposed regulation over still remain though. Government is traditionally very bad at regulating technology- most of the legislators don't understand it well enough to make informed decisions and even if they do things change so fast that by the time they get legislation through it's often either pointless or creates an unanticipated problem. Beyond that, there have always been political forces that want to be able to shut down certain types of things they don't agree with on the internet. This really ramped up after the last election and all the talk of fake news, alleged Russian influence, and social media impact. The fear is net neutrality could be the camel's nose in the tent which might give the legislators or the FCC the tools they need to start clamping down on this stuff. They wouldn't just outright ban political speech though, it will probably start as something most people are OK with like some act to "protect" children then ban hate speech.... and we already see a robust national disagreement on what is and isn't hate speech. Not saying it will go there but it could and there are most certainly people who want it to. It's a small danger but the consequences are huge and it isn't something to be taken lightly. There's your con.
Click to expand...

Great summary, thanks!
 
cowman said:
First we've only had net neutrality for about 2 years now I believe, we all lived with the internet before that and my guess is not much will change.
Click to expand...
Thanks... people forget this. The rest of your post is also well summarized, and is appreciated. But I wanted to really call attention to this because the average person doesn't realize this

Someone mentioned a highway analogy... which is pretty similar... but people already have the option to pay a lot of money for a fast luxury car, can use carpool lanes if they have the occupancy (or pay for it), or can spend less money on something slower.. imagine if the government regulated that every car be exactly 120 hp, accelerate at 3.5 m/ss, etc., always have no more and no less than 4 occupants, etc. Deregulating that wouldn't suddenly mean car companies could screw you, they'd compete for you

If you want to pay more for a fast car, or a "fast lane" than why not? People who want to pay for that will get it. Don't we do that with everything else in life? I also don't think this will price gauge customers... the fear is the evil companies take over and force everyone into squalor with slow internet... but I see the opposite, there will be pricing competition. Take a look at how cheap Target and WalMart's prices are... it's not like they take their monopoly to screw us (even though they easily could since mom and pop shops are all but gone and barriers to entry are crazy hard for a small business.. we know, we started one)

Anyway, maybe I have it all backwards and I don't pretend to be an expert, maybe I'll be wrong.. but I wouldn't take everyone else's hysteria and assume the consequence
 
^edit, I know the government heavily regulates cars, emissions, etc., but my point is that everyone can still choose whether they want an M5, Prius, F150, Jeep, etc.
 
I'm totally for small government and keeping government out of our lives and homes, that said keeping net neutrality is a no brainer if you both look into what it is as well as look into how political the big companies like time warner have become.

Strangely by "deregulating" the Internet we actually gave the government MORE POWER over it, over censorship and over control of what we see.
 
James331 said:
Strangely by "deregulating" the Internet we actually gave the government MORE POWER over it, over censorship and over control of what we see.
Click to expand...
That's my fear exactly, that's why I'm a little conflicted on this. But I'm hoping that the power of the buyer will keep that from being the case. Just about every single person today uses the internet.. so in theory the consumer has a ton of power here
 
Tantalum said:
^edit, I know the government heavily regulates cars, emissions, etc., but my point is that everyone can still choose whether they want an M5, Prius, F150, Jeep, etc.
Click to expand...

But not one of the naughty VWs. Those must be parked to rot. ;)
 
Tantalum said:
Thanks... people forget this. The rest of your post is also well summarized, and is appreciated. But I wanted to really call attention to this because the average person doesn't realize this

Someone mentioned a highway analogy... which is pretty similar... but people already have the option to pay a lot of money for a fast luxury car, can use carpool lanes if they have the occupancy (or pay for it), or can spend less money on something slower.. imagine if the government regulated that every car be exactly 120 hp, accelerate at 3.5 m/ss, etc., always have no more and no less than 4 occupants, etc. Deregulating that wouldn't suddenly mean car companies could screw you, they'd compete for you

If you want to pay more for a fast car, or a "fast lane" than why not? People who want to pay for that will get it. Don't we do that with everything else in life? I also don't think this will price gauge customers... the fear is the evil companies take over and force everyone into squalor with slow internet... but I see the opposite, there will be pricing competition. Take a look at how cheap Target and WalMart's prices are... it's not like they take their monopoly to screw us (even though they easily could since mom and pop shops are all but gone and barriers to entry are crazy hard for a small business.. we know, we started one)

Anyway, maybe I have it all backwards and I don't pretend to be an expert, maybe I'll be wrong.. but I wouldn't take everyone else's hysteria and assume the consequence
Click to expand...

I am not sure this is an accurate analogy. You can buy a fast car (Internet bandwidth), but without net neutrality, they can put a governor on your car that throttles you to 55 MPH, if you don't buy gas from Shell. That is the comparison.
 
Tantalum said:
^edit, I know the government heavily regulates cars, emissions, etc., but my point is that everyone can still choose whether they want an M5, Prius, F150, Jeep, etc.
Click to expand...

But the toll lane to drive my G37 costs me each direction and affords a 10MPH increase in speed limit. Which, much to the chagrin of most Texans and PoA members, I abide by.
 
I don't object to companies and other users being required to pay for what they use, but what concerns me is the potential for anti-competitive practices on the part of Internet service providers. For example, to my mind:

An ISP charging all streaming services the same price per gigabit for comparable speed = OK.

An ISP having its own streaming service and charging competitors significantly more for comparable service, or denying them access to high speed service altogether = not OK. (Does anyone know whether this will now be allowed?)
 
Tantalum said:
Probably too early for thread creep, but there was a couple who drove there cheating and polluting crosscountry to raise awareness..

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-volkswagen-customers-protest-0116-biz-20160115-story.html

That's like burning your own house down to raise awareness about the dangers of house fires
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LOL. I remember those Boulder hippies. They were funny. Local coverage was even funnier because it had audio and the reporter let them ramble.
 
John221us said:
I am not sure this is an accurate analogy. You can buy a fast car (Internet bandwidth), but without net neutrality, they can put a governor on your car that throttles you to 55 MPH, if you don't buy gas from Shell. That is the comparison.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that helps (and as an analogy it makes sense), so taking it a step further then.. why would Shell do this? To earn more money.. sure they're greedy, but if it comes at a loss to them they wouldn't. I doubt we'll get screwed as consumers because it's not in their long term financial interest to screw us

Would a smaller streaming service have some barriers to entry, absolutely.. but that's not unique to the internet world. I could have the best idea for a cool, fast, luxury electric car.. but unless I am someone like Musk that idea is going to stay on a piece of paper. I'm sure there are already high barriers for a wannabe-Hulu-Netflix startup that's going to have a very hard time with licensing, etc.

The biggest problem I could see is that there are so few ISPs out there that the power of the consumer may be mute

We'll see what happens. If it really is a disaster and everyone hates it then I am sure the next election cycle will see some sweeping changes and reversions

Disclaimer: I'm not a proponent of this, I'm just generally weary of drinking the same kool aide as everyone else
 
In terms of "investment", don't expect to see much. Cox has imposed at least 10% increases each of the past 3 years - that maintains the current system, so I don't see how charging providers will change that.

So what will the result be? Charging Amazon and other online merchants a percentage of revenues generated from the providers customers? Or will some enterprising lawyer now haul an internet provider into court after a mass shooting, alleging that access to the NRA site and folks that sell firearms caused the tragedy - and that the internet provider is partly responsible because it allowed access to the sites? Will some of the protections that website and internet providers enjoy if they don't exercise editorial control still apply? Or will we see allegations (or real-life) influence of elections? (I note that licensed broadcasters are required to carry certain political ads unmodified - cable is not necessarily bound by those restrictions and internet is not bound).

The result remains to be seen, but when the other party takes back control of Washington (and it will happen), we will see things deregulated, quite possibly more than before....
 
I think there's a huge strong argument for neither side. The internet has been running for decades without any rules about pipes. The removal of rules that are just two years old will probably have virtually no impact.
 
bflynn said:
I think there's a huge strong argument for neither side. The internet has been running for decades without any rules about pipes. The removal of rules that are just two years old will probably have virtually no impact.
Click to expand...

I like this answer, unless the real difference is that if kept in place it would have opened the door for future government control and even censorship. If true we've done the right thing.

Private parties censoring speech is one thing (Facebook deleting supposed hate speech posts for example) but government doing that is an entirely different thing and should NEVER happen in the U.S.
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't object to companies and other users being required to pay for what they use, but what concerns me is the potential for anti-competitive practices on the part of Internet service providers. For example, to my mind:

An ISP charging all streaming services the same price per gigabit for comparable speed = OK.

An ISP having its own streaming service and charging competitors significantly more for comparable service, or denying them access to high speed service altogether = not OK. (Does anyone know whether this will now be allowed?)
Click to expand...

Focusing on the wrong end of the problem. Why do you only have one ISP to choose from? And why did you allow your local politicians to do that?
 
Tantalum said:
That's my fear exactly, that's why I'm a little conflicted on this. But I'm hoping that the power of the buyer will keep that from being the case. Just about every single person today uses the internet.. so in theory the consumer has a ton of power here
Click to expand...


Don't think it's going to go down like that.

For one, the government and all the different types of quid pro quo if enjoys, the result could be stuff you never even notice, like sites reporting poorly on the current regime or person who the Internet company likes just don't work.

For two, many places only have one ISP

For three, places with a few ISPs can all be on the same gravy train if they agree together to make price gouging standard, if everyone charged the same extra $9.99 a month to stream Netflix and Amazon, what are you going to do?


Think salvation is going to be avoiding the whole thing, which will also end up costing money for a higher speed VPN/proxy to get around this BS, VPN/proxys also have a second benifit of added security from overzealous government types and bad actors in the private sector.
https://fossbytes.com/vpn-and-net-neutrality-bypass-throttling/


Welcome to china boys!
 
It's also hilarious how we spend like 80% of the income tax by taking one hour out of every four worked money earned, to fund a military that sends mainstreet out to get shot up and blown up under the banner of "defending" against places like North Korea and china, yet that same government does its damnedest to make our country more like those same places by constantly attacking our constitutional rights, especially 1A, 2A and 4A and limiting what we can see and say.
 
denverpilot said:
Focusing on the wrong end of the problem. Why do you only have one ISP to choose from? And why did you allow your local politicians to do that?
Click to expand...
My town has at least two ISPs, but what if both of them engage in anti-competitive practices?
 
John221us said:
I am not sure this is an accurate analogy. You can buy a fast car (Internet bandwidth), but without net neutrality, they can put a governor on your car that throttles you to 55 MPH, if you don't buy gas from Shell. That is the comparison.
Click to expand...

This is part 1 of everyone's 2 biggest concern. Part 2 is that they can keep you from even knowing there are other brands of gas available, and prevent you from buying it if you discover it on your own.

A lot of people saying they'd never do that. I wish I was more trusting. Yes, I know life was good before 2 years ago. It's just that times change. People change.

The argument the other direction is that the heavies invested heavily in the pipeline and to an extent they should have more control over it. Like I said, there are valid arguments for both.
 
Gerhardt said:
I just don't trust the companies that say "give us the power to be overlord and we promise not to abuse it."
Click to expand...


Do you trust a government that says "give us the power to be overlord and we promise not to abuse it?"

I don't see a need for the government to regulate something that can be regulated adequately by market forces. Streaming Netfix isn't exactly a life and death thing. We're not talking about regulating pharmaceuticals.

In my worthless and oft disputed opinion, the automobile analogy isn't too close. This is more like telling printing houses that they can't charge more for one newspaper or magazine than another, or that they can't refuse certain ads. Or telling a retailer that they can't negotiate favorable shipping rates with FedEx.
 
James331 said:
It's also hilarious how we spend like 80% of the income tax by taking one hour out of every four worked money earned, to fund a military that sends mainstreet out to get shot up and blown up under the banner of "defending" against places like North Korea and china, yet that same government does its damnedest to make our country more like those same places by constantly attacking our constitutional rights, especially 1A, 2A and 4A and limiting what we can see and say.
Click to expand...

We take 3/4 of the tax bill to fund FICA (formerly know as social security), Medicare, Medicade and other legislatively mandated programs. As large as the DoD budget is, it's sill less than 1/7th of the overall Federal Budget.
For 2017 total budget $3,650 Billion (http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/120/2017-Estimate)
DoD $528.5 Billion (https://www.defense.gov/News/News-R...-fiscal-year-2017-presidents-budget-proposal/).
FICA, Medicare, Medicare, etc.: $2,687 Billion (https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/entitlement_spending)

Just for accurate data to argue about.
 
I lived without the internet for 40 years or so before Al Gore invented it. My life hasn’t changed much since then so if it wanished tomorrow a) my personal info wouldn’t get stolen, again, and b) I couldn’t use Amazon Prime to buy more useless crap.

NBFD to me, Net neutrality or not.

Cheers
 
A few points for consideration.
The FCC tried to have a very light regulation on net neutrality. Verizon and Comcast took the FCC to court and won. The Judge basically said, you either have the authority because it is a utility, or you do not.
So the FCC declared the internet was a utility, then tried to craft the regulations as "light" as possible and still meet the legal requirements of a utility. There were a lot of legal challenges and comments on the proposal.
Next, if you want to see what would happen, read on the history of Comcast and Verizon for how they have throttled and abused the consumer; especially in a monopoly market. You can then look at Portugal, where there is not net neutrality, and the ISPs charge extra if you want to go to competitor services.

Tim
 
Half Fast said:
Do you trust a government that says "give us the power to be overlord and we promise not to abuse it?"
Click to expand...

At least with the government, the voters have the opportunity to "throw the bums out." It's happened before, and it will happen again.

I don't see a need for the government to regulate something that can be regulated adequately by market forces.
Click to expand...

In order for market forces to regulate anything, there has to be competition. Is there enough competition between ISPs? Beats me. :dunno:
 
cowman said:
Couple of things....

First we've only had net neutrality for about 2 years now I believe, we all lived with the internet before that and my guess is not much will change.
Click to expand...
I’ve seen this response/attitude expressed a lot over the past two days. The problem is, it is in conflict with the facts. We’ve always had “net neutrality” rules, they were just encompassed under a different section of federal law prior to 2015. That year, Verizon won a lawsuit challenging the rules, and the government was given the option of reestablishing the rules under a different legal framework (title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934, I believe), and the FCC did just that. Guess who was a lawyer for Verizon at the time? The current FCC chairman.

Don’t believe for one second that this is just about overburdensome regulations.
 
There are many examples of anticompetitive behavior that did happen before net neutrality.

ISPs that also offered landlines were blocking VOIP internet traffic.

ISPs that offer cable television (Comcast Verizon) were throttling bandwidth to customers using Netflix.

Comcast was flat out blocking P2P internet traffic.

ATT was blocking video calling from iPhones.

There was a growing trend of ISPs finding themselves in direct competition with future internet technologies, and they clearly showed time and time again that their solution was interfere with the internet to stop innovation and hurt these potential competitors.
 
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