
House Passes Bill to Sabotage Net Neutrality - finnn
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/house-passes-bill-sabotage-net-neutrality
======
jimrandomh
Some clarity is badly needed here. If you don't know some fairly arcane
details of what's going on in Internet regulation, this looks as though it
just prevents the FCC from setting price floors and price ceilings, which
would be fine.

What's actually going on is fairly complicated, because there are five
different parties involved: the consumer, a consumer ISP such as Verizon or
Comcast, a backbone provider such as Cogent or Level 3, a business ISP such as
Linode or AWS, and a business with a web site. The wires look like this:

    
    
        Consumer --- Consumer-ISP --- Backbone-provider --- Business-ISP --- Website
    

And the flow of money looks like this:

    
    
        Consumer --> Consumer-ISP --> Backbone-provider <-- Business-ISP <-- Website
    

For each connection, there is someone paying money who can take their money
elsewhere if that connection is too slow. What's happening is that some
consumer ISPs aren't happy with only being paid by consumers, and want
websites to also pay them. That would make the flow of money look like this:

    
    
        Consumer --> Consumer-ISP --> Backbone-provider <-- Business-ISP <-- Website
                          ^_____________________________________________________|
    

The problem is that this arrangement would have businesses paying money to
ISPs that they didn't choose, and can't walk away from. From a consumer's
perspective, if a web site is slow, it looks like the website's fault rather
than their ISP's fault, which distorts the incentives. This sort of
arrangement isn't really compatible with free-market incentives, since the
flow of money doesn't match who's providing services to who; it's less like
normal business, and more like extortion.

Unfortunately, I don't expect Congress to have access to clear explanations of
all of this. But if you happen to have a congressperson's ear: rather than
convince them of a position, please make sure they understand the full shape
of what's happening. They're smart enough to draw the correct conclusion, but
are constantly bombarded by misinformation.

~~~
chongli
Consumer ISPs are not a free market, they're a collection of regional
monopolies. The solution is not regulation, it's increasing competition. If
every consumer had a choice of 5 or more competitive ISPs, then the market
would sort this out. ISPs could literally advertise "We won't slow down your
favourite websites! All websites equally fast!"

~~~
equalarrow
Sure, but the reality is that none of the ISPs are going to lay any new cable.
Don't forget, all of the original copper laid was financed by the govt back in
the 50's/60's. For fiber, unless there's a real need for an ISP to add more,
they're just not going to do it. There is absolutely no incentive.

I am not a believer in big or overbearing govt per se, but I feel like, just
like power or water, Internet is a utility and it needs to be regulated -
hard. The future depends on it. Imagine you're a startup and between 2p-6p you
don't have any or super stoddy internet access. Kinda like Comcast from 5p-11p
actually..

Anyway, It's pathetic really; we invented the f-ing internet and other
countries completely surpass our speeds and ability to access. My brother
teases me all the time because he has gigabit in Japan (in the early 00's, he
had 100 Mb).

Step outside the US and you realize our options are a total joke.

(Edits: spelling)

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
The solution, in my humble opinion, is having the government open up that
cable. Figure out a way to share it, not keep it a monopoly.

~~~
jauco
We tried that in the netherlands. Our approach did not work out that well. In
all cases there's the maintainer of the hardware (cable) and a lot of
"providers" on that hardware.

I'm not well informed enough to know why, but in all cases (cable, railroad,
powerlines, ether frequencies) the system devolved into a state where the
"provider" linked to the hardware maintainer is the dominant player still.

I'm not syaing it can't work, just that over here it didn't really work.

~~~
greggman
It worked amazingly in Japan

Practically overnight (metaphorically) it went from only metered dial up or
expensive isdn to ultra fast dsl. There was huge competition mostly lead by
SoftBank Japan. The actually handed out routers at subway station exits. Every
time their competitors including the old monopoly matched their speed they'd
double it. It was awesome to watch

------
nxzero
TLDR >> "a bill that would undermine the FCC’s ability to enforce key net
neutrality protections."

"Fortunately, President Obama has said that he will veto the bill if it
reaches his desk."

------
tzs
Vote breakdown by party (D = Democrat, R = Republican):

    
    
                    R    D
             Yes  236    5 
              No    0  173
      Not Voting    9   10
    

The 5 Democrats who voted yes were Kyrsten Sinema (AZ 9th), Jim Costa (CA
16th), Scott Peters (CA 52nd), Collin Peterson (MN 7th), and Albio Sires (NJ
8th).

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Fice
Removing net neutrality is like allowing supermarkets to buy separate lanes on
crowded city roads exclusively for use by their customers.

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cladari
I'm old enough to remember land line phones in your house. The caller payed
for the call not the person who received the call. With cell phones they
managed to convince us both parties should pay money for the call and we are
used to that, it's the new normal. ISPs now want the same double billing, they
want both parties money and see no reason why they can't have it. They want me
to pay to receive the data and the site to pay to send that same data.

------
ageek123
The headline is a huge overstatement relative to what the press release says,
which itself is scaremongering relative to what the bill itself says.

~~~
542458
I don't know about that - The legal criticisms of it are pretty severe, and
it's bad enough that the president has promised to veto it if it comes to his
desk.

EDIT: Engadget's review is much more damning. It would pretty much remove any
enforcement power the FCC has re: net neutrality. It's a pretty big deal.
[http://www.engadget.com/2016/04/13/president-veto-
hr-2666-bi...](http://www.engadget.com/2016/04/13/president-veto-
hr-2666-bill/)

~~~
themartorana
If the police are in your way, remove the police.

------
tacos
The EFF really needs to spend their bullets more carefully. And instead of
these panicked press releases in response to the normal machinations of
government, perhaps find a way to get their opinions heard and words inked
while the bills are being drafted.

Their only tool has been a hammer for decades now. And it's wearing thin.

You can't kill every bill just because something is poorly worded -- even if
you scare smarty/lefty internet people into believing the whole point is the
worst possible construction. Frankly, we don't have that much power. Time to
build up the rest of the toolbox.

~~~
0xffff2
>You can't kill every bill just because something is poorly worded

Why not? Why should we _ever_ be OK with passing poorly thought out
legislation?

~~~
tacos
Because laws are not rigid computer programs that solve logic riddles. They
are broad strokes designed for the long term, to be interpreted by Judges.

ANY contract can be read at least three ways. One of the comments here
discusses advocacy vs scaremongering and computer science people seem
particularly prone to having their buttons pushed by sloppy legalese. I wish
the real world were clearer, but it just isn't.

There's no excuse for poorly-thought out legislation -- but that's why we
elect representatives. You can't rally the minions every time there's sloppy
bricklaying. It does not scale. And as a citizen, you need to know when to
spend your limited supply of outrage.

~~~
pessimizer
Then the industry are wasting an enormous amount of time and money making sure
that the laws are written exactly this way. What idiots, right? Judges will
ultimately make sure that the laws are interpreted in a way to favor net
neutrality if we would just keep quiet about it.

~~~
Laaw
What grandparent post is failing to understand is that we're part of the
process. Our outrage was anticipated, and the system expects us to cry out
when a bad law gets proposed.

~~~
tacos
Grandparent (me) feels that if the EFF is trying to fight massive corporations
and lobbyists with blog posts -- and the end result is three posts an hour on
HN -- then perhaps the EFF needs to reflect upon its strategy.

Also killing every bill that you don't like isn't a long-term strategy. They
come back. They come back hidden. They come back stronger. They come back
sleazier.

Killing bills that are not perfect (obstructionism) merely pumps up the
pressure cooker. This is not the path to reasonable legislation.

Sometimes the path forward is to enact a bad bill then sue to set case law.

I don't see a lot of these nuances discussed during the quarterly "this kills
the internet" fire drills. Perhaps you still find them exciting? I do not.

~~~
Laaw
Other than your idea about the path forward, I completely agree. I too am
exhausted by the EFF's constant "the sky is falling" attitude.

Their strategy probably works for funding reasons, but I wish a more moderate
voice would pick up the net neutrality cause, so I'd finally have a place to
send my money.

