
Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast - ilamont
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/12/netflix-and-alphabet-will-need-to-become-isps-fast/
======
spruciefic399
Another strategy to this (not exclusive of other strategies) is to encourage
municipal ISPs, or even go further and roll out federal ISP infrastructure ala
the federal highway system.

I've always thought that this would be well within the rubric of the USPS. The
constitutional mandate for a postal service was drafted at a time when the
internet could not have been conceived of. I would argue that the intent of
the constitutional mandate was to establish communications and not necessarily
paper mail per se. I think if the founders were alive today they would say
that ISPs were the sort of thing that was intended. I.e., have the USPS start
acting as an ISP, and charging for it like it would mail services.

I'm not saying that private ISPs should go away, just that I'm sick of this
government handout to companies that want to have their cake and eat it too.
No net neutrality? Fine. But then allow public ISPs--no, actively fund public
ISP infrastructure--and allow for unfettered lawsuits against private ISPs for
content going over their pipes. Also, take away right of way to private ISPs,
and let citizens and municipalities charge arbitrary amounts for anything
going over their property.

~~~
snowwrestler
The next step beyond the mail was the telegraph and then the telephone. Those
were built out by private companies, but operated under a regulatory regime
called "common carrier," which protected the network owner from liability so
long as it charged and carried traffic from all parties equally.

These days, that concept is called "net neutrality" in the context of the
Internet, and I suppose you may have heard it mentioned in the news recently
once or twice. (I think it was a mistake to rename common carrier, but too
late I guess.)

Personally, I think that private buildouts are a better way to go than a
government-funded network infrastructure. Private industry is better at
investment and product development than the government, and any enterprise
that generates a profit contributes to the long-term economic sustainability
of innovation. A government-run economy becomes starved for capital and
innovation slows way down; that is why the Soviet Union lagged U.S. technology
and why Cubans still drive 50-year-old cars.

But privately run networks need regulation to deliver the results that
citizens want. Railroads needed it, telephone companies needed it, airlines
needed it, and yes, ISPs need it. And if that is thwarted, then sure, let
municipalities take a swing at it. My town is looking into muni fiber now, and
I'm in favor of it because the local service from Comcast is _so bad_ and _so
expensive_ and there seems to be no other way to do something about it.

~~~
freefal
I think your point is generally spot on, but I wanted to nitpick at this one:

> airlines needed it

No, they didn't. Regulation of fares, routes and market entry of new airlines
kept prices artificially high until airlines were deregulated in the late 70s.
Quoting from Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act#Effec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act#Effects)):
"A 1996 Government Accountability Office report found that the average fare
per passenger mile was about nine percent lower in 1994 than in 1979. Between
1976 and 1990 the paid fare had declined approximately thirty percent in
inflation-adjusted terms. Passenger loads have risen, partly because airlines
can now transfer larger aircraft to longer, busier routes and replace them
with smaller ones on shorter, lower-traffic routes."

~~~
dredmorbius
If you push the fare comparison back to 1972, before the Arab Oil Embargo,
rather than 1979, the heart of the Iranian embargo, the fare picture changes
markedly.

A jet airliner's takeoff weight is over 50% fuel.

Robert Gorden in _The Rise and Fall of American Growth_ :

 _surprisingly, the period of most rapid decline in the real price of air
travel occurred before the first flight of a jet plane. As shown in figure
11–10, the price of air travel relative to other goods and services declined
rapidly from 1940 to 1960, declined at a slower rate from 1960 to 1980, and
has experienced no decline at all in its relative price between 1980 and 2014.
The growth rate of passenger miles traveled has mirrored the rate of change of
the relative price except with the opposite sign, because lower prices
stimulate the demand for any good or service._

The accompanying figure shows not merely a modest rise, but a sharp spike in
airline pirces in 1979.

[https://i.imgur.com/uykLMUa_d.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/uykLMUa_d.jpg)

Among Gordon's economic specialisations is the aviation industry.

------
pascalxus
This the end of innovation in online videos: "When companies like Netflix,
which today closed with a market cap of almost $158 billion, can’t necessarily
get enough negotiating power to ensure that consumers have direct access to
them, no startup can ever hope to compete. America may believe in its
entrepreneurs, but its competition laws have done nothing to keep the terrain
open for them. Those implications are just beginning."

Sounds like this is the end of TV and Online video watching as we know it. Oh
well, time to start reading books again ~ they'll never be able to take that
from us.

~~~
dsabanin
I just fail to see how Comcast or Verizon are going to be selling you their
internet connection if you won't be able to connect to the things you want to
connect to (like Netflix, iTunes, YouTube) through them. Especially on higher
plans, people buy a lot of bandwidth so that they can stream videos, that's
how ISPs up-sell to them. If they start throttling, they'll be selling an
empty bucket, and it's not going to be very easy.

To me it seems like this might just revive competition between ISPs, by
separating those who do the shady things and those who don't.

I'm curious how this is going to play out, it may not be all bad.

~~~
knowuh
You must live in one of the few places in the US where high-speed internet is
available through multiple providers.

That is definitely not the norm. Most people won't be able to simply switch to
the least nasty provider.

~~~
bradleybuda
More than half of US households have multiple wired broadband providers:
[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/06/50-mi...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-
or-none-at-all/)

This does not include wireless broadband options. Could the competitive
situation be better? Absolutely. But it is, in fact, the "norm" to have a
choice.

~~~
dpark
That means _nearly half_ have a single (or no) option. Further, for many who
have two choices, the decision is between not-actually-very-Fast DSL or a
single cable provider.

In Mountain View I had only shitty DSL or shitty cable. Both sucked and cable
was very expensive. (This may be different now. My experience was 8 or so
years ago.)

I happen to be lucky to have actual high speed Comcast now, with an option for
FTTH from Centurylink, plus DSL. Most people’s options are not so good.

~~~
reaperducer
_> for many who have two choices, the decision is between not-actually-very-
Fast DSL or a single cable provider_

Very true. In one city where I have a house, the choice is 4 megabit DSL for
$60/month, or 300 megabit cable for $101.

Both are considered "broadband" by the FCC because the DSL is "up to" 8
megabits. But they are not equivalent services.

There's also a wireless ISP, but it's $95/month for 5 megabits.

~~~
adventured
The FCC definition of broadband is 25mbps, not 8mbps.

There was a proposal to roll that back, however it didn't succeed.

You'll find that companies like Verizon do not call their slow DSL services
"broadband." In Verizon's case they say: "High Speed Internet (DSL) service."

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/fcc-report-keeps-faster-
de...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/fcc-report-keeps-faster-definition-
of-broadband-and-separates-mobile-from-fixed-connections/)

If you look at Verizon's DSL page:

[https://www.verizon.com/info/dsl-services/](https://www.verizon.com/info/dsl-
services/)

You'll see they can't call their actual service broadband if it's not up at
25mbps. Instead they throw the "broadband" term around on other things on the
page, such as "broadband routers" and they call themselves a "broadband
provider" (referring to their FiOS offering).

~~~
Fnoord
Broadband used to be symmetric (reference to e.g. T1 or E3). Now it is
asymmetric. Without mentioning the upload speed, it can be anything.

------
apeace
Since I work for a startup ISP I am _praying_ that AT&T will be dumb enough to
prioritize their content over others.

You're going to make TNT fast and Netflix slow? You've got to be kidding. The
amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt. It
will open up opportunities for the small guys to compete.

By all means big ISPs, please cripple a huge part of your service that is very
important to your customers. I'll be rich in no time (and my customers will be
happy).

~~~
tstrimple
> The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt.

That theory is not supported by history. Netflix will pay, because they can.
New video streaming companies will have no chance.

[https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-
com...](https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-
end-slowdown/index.html)

~~~
PuffinBlue
It's not either/or. Both things will happen. Netflix will pay and small ISPs
will capitalize. These things can (and will) happen concurrently.

------
httpz
What we really need is preventing existing ISPs from having a regional
monopoly. In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs
have to share the cables they own in a building like phone lines, or someone
has to make a technological break through that solves the last mile problem.
Also, this is a US specific problem that doesn't exist in places like S.Korea
or Japan.

Here's a NPR PlanetMoney episode on it.
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/episode-529-the-
last-mile)

~~~
amazon_not
> In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to
> share the cables they own in a building like phone lines,

No can do. We already had that law and it was revoked in the Brand X decision.

------
jedberg
Lobbying the government to restore net neutrality is far cheaper than building
out an ISP.

Also, 5G is coming by the end of this year with at least two providers
(Verizon and T-Mobile) and once that happens, ATT and Comcast won't have as
much stranglehold on the ISP market, so NN may not matter anymore.

~~~
kec
I don't see how 5G changes anything. Wireless providers were exempt from net
neutrality even when it was in force and have a long history of tiered usage
and throttling.

~~~
haikuginger
Having wireless providers who are able to provide landline-level speeds means
that many markets will go from having one or maybe two real ISP options to
having three or four. Competition means that if the benefits of net neutrality
are desirable, customers will prefer an ISP (wireless or otherwise) that
provides those benefits.

Of course, most actual counterexamples to net neutrality are seen as positives
(free Netflix or Hulu with usage not counted towards a data cap) rather than
negatives, so it might not work out.

~~~
martinald
I really don't get why people think this is possible. Even with microcells and
loads of spectrum, you might be able to get 2gigabit/sec of internet per cell,
which would be enough for perhaps a couple hundred streams (not including all
the other internet services people require all the time).

Considering most cells right now serve thousands if not tens of thousands of
devices, there is simply no way that wireless broadband will ever be able to
service that, unless you have hundreds of femtocells, but at that point you
might as well just deliver fibre to the home as you'll be a few metres from
the premises.

5G really changes nothing of this. Shannon's law dictates this and we are
close to topping out on it in terms of radio efficiency.

~~~
rayiner
5G changes things dramatically. 5G deployment will be heavily focused on small
cells. That means you can go to higher frequencies, because you don't care as
much about propagation, and you've got much more bandwidth available at higher
frequencies. So cell size goes down, users per cell goes down, and bandwidth
per cell goes up.

That still ends up being massively cheaper than FTTP. Getting fiber into
peoples' houses is an incredibly labor-intensive and high-touch process. I
just had fiber installed at my house. It took half a day to run fiber down the
main road about 1/3 of a mile to my subdivision. Another half day to run it
200 feet down my residential road. Almost a full day to dig under my driveway
into my house. And a solid half day to install the CPE. With small cells,
you'd basically only have to do the first step. You could've installed a small
cell serving hundreds of people in the time it took to retrofit just my house.

~~~
amazon_not
5G might end up cheaper than FTTP, but I wouldn't get my hopes up on it being
massively cheaper.

Higher frequencies will require either line of sight or very short distances
to the small cell. The small cells themselves will incur costs both CAPEX and
OPEX.

Basically the only part 5G will replace in a FTTP network is the drop. And
that's where the density and the topography is cooperating. Whereas if you
install a fiber drop, you'll be set for 20+ years and you won't have to
install, maintain and power a small cell forever.

~~~
rayiner
You’re not just getting rid of the drop, but also the last 100 meters or so
through the subdivision. Moreover, the drop and CPE install is 30-40% of the
cost of deployment.

Also, fiber is not fire and forget. Just the other day a tree took out the
cable to my house. Buried cable has less maintenance, but also much higher
initial costs, increasing the cost advantage of wireless for the last 200m.

~~~
amazon_not
Like I wrote in the grandparent, it's a density thing. How many subscribers
have line of sight (or close enough) for the 5G small cell to work? At some
point it's going to be more cost effective to do FTTP.

The CPE cost is negligible. You can pick one up for $20. True, the drop will
cost you, but it has a far longer lifespan than the small cell. It's not like
the small cell, it's installation, permits, engineering, pole rental or tower,
power, etc. are free either.

Like I stated earlier, 5G may be cheaper than FTTP. Or it may not. It may not
even be available in your area due to insufficient density. Even if 5G is
cheaper, it's not going to be _massively_ more cheaper.

------
mikece
Netflix seems to be hedging their bets by partnering with T-Mobile, the
company aiming to bring 5G wireless to the US. As for Alphabet, I'm submitting
this comment via my 1Gbps synchronous Google Fiber internet connection. Google
seems to have stalled rollout of Fiber, however.

~~~
regnerba
My understanding of Google Fiber is that they ran into to many headaches from
existing telecom companies while trying to expand their fiber infrastructure.
Instead of continuing to fight such an uphill battle they are trying to make a
wireless approach work.

I haven't heard much recently from their more standard wireless attempts
(other than Loom being used in Puerto Rico) but they did invest (jointly with
Fidelity) $1 billion into SpaceX. The assumption is the SpaceX investments are
specifically to support the SpaceX Starlink constellation which if successful
could bring wireless internet to pretty much all of the planet.

~~~
VectorLock
Every little town in America is a battleground of government blessed
monopolies for physical access. Trying to do a large rollout for Google Fiber
probably turned into a bigger hassle than they expected.

~~~
mikece
Would be nice if there was a nationwide building code for cities which
stipulates fiber optic to the premises with absolute minimum connection speeds
of 1Gbps synchronous and ideally 10Gbps. Completely unrealistic but I can
dream.

------
HillaryBriss
People have made endless points about how ISPs and last-mile providers will
hurt the consumer and the small video startup. I don't dispute those.

But, IMHO, independent of that, the behavior of Alphabet has been less and
less charitable to the little guy over the last few years too, especially in
the area of android app development. (e.g. they recently eliminated their
"free-forever" policy on the use of android map/location/place APIs in apps).

To me it seems that now, in one more way, the internet landscape is more fully
dominated by giant corporations. Even more of the little players will be
permanently confined to nickel-and-dime sidelines.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
There's an incredibly ironic undertone to an article suggesting two of the
world's largest global monopolies should expand their reach to better be able
to beat other, smaller regional corporations.

~~~
lkbm
Smaller regional corporations with local monopolies.

------
telchar
Or better yet, we can work toward a future (no later than 2021, I hope) when
net neutrality can be brought back into force just as it was from 2015-2017 by
FCC action or perhaps with more staying power via legislative action. Ground
taken once can be taken twice.

If we resign ourselves to the current legal landscape we hand a victory to
these corrupt players.

That said I'm sure the tech giants will want to hedge their bets.

~~~
twtw
A net neutrality bill already passed the senate. With a new house (and
speaker) it could potentially go through.

~~~
sjm-lbm
We're going to need a new president before such a bill could be signed, but
it's good news that political will seems to be moving (ever so slightly)
toward net neutrality.

------
heisenbit
Netflix as ISP seems to me the exact opposite of net neutrality no matter what
short term tactical arguments there are.

------
shmerl
Doesn't this very story with handicapped anti-trust that let AT&T run amok
teach us, that conflating ISP with media / video distribution is hurting the
end user?

So no, they should not become ISPs, but they can help independent ISPs break
current sick oligopolies.

Working anti-trust would simply forbid ISPs from owning media businesses.

------
redial
Everyone is worried about video and rightly so, or maybe is just being used as
an example, but my question is: Could ISPs prevent in any way Software
Updates? Could they block (for example) a patch that would fix a bug allowing
them to mim web requests to inject lets say, ads?

------
AndyMcConachie
Just a reminder that this is only a problem in the USA, and Netflix and
Alphabet are international companies. Now the USA is a big market, but it's
not the only one.

------
super_mario
Technically now that net neutrality is gone, everyone who routes your packets
can ask for money for them to pass through their network not slowed down and
de-prioritized.

So becoming an ISP if you are a high traffic Web company changes nothing,
unless you also own entire network from source to destination.

------
jpao79
What would seem to make sense for Netflix would be use more HDD/SSD caching of
videos, similar to how a DVR for Tivo works. There really isn't a huge reason
to live stream Netflix movie/show content. It's not live video.

The Netflix subscriber user could download up to 30 or 40 Netflix shows in
advance from their Netflix queue (sort of like the original 'Netflix by mail'
queue) over LTE at midnight under some sort of LTE multi-cast deal with AT&T
or Verizon. Or maybe lossless transmission over standard POTS/DSL or Dish
Satellite.

~~~
error54
TV's would be one (of many) limiting factors here. Most consumer televisions
have, relative to most other computing devices, low processing power and disk
space. Plus you have to factor the additional bandwidth load of downloading a
4K television show that you may not watch and then multiply that cost by 30 or
40.

~~~
jpao79
Yes, it would be like a Netflix box (maybe branded under their Roku brand
name) that's similar to Tivo. A Tivo Bolt Premier can be had for $299 with a
1TB drive.

The key is signing a lower cost deal with Verizon/ATT LTE or Dish Satellite to
do some sort of the multicast broadcasting similar to Over the Air
broadcasting but over the internet. Or do unicast transmissions but during off
peak hours and blast it out over the LTE/Satellite network over the span of a
week between the hours of 1AM to 5AM. The Netflix Top 100 is probably like 95%
of what people are watching.

That way not everyone is congested from 5PM to 11PM every night and the mobile
operators have additional revenue from existing wireless/satellite
infrastructure.

------
nickjj
I don't think ISPs have any power in this situation at all. They are just
delivery mechanisms when it comes to providing internet connectivity.

All of the power lies within Google, Netflix and other content providers.

Google could one day deny access to all of its services for all Comcast
customers. If all of the content providers / big sites band together and do
this, then there would be no value in paying for a Comcast internet
connection.

I'm sure this would never happen but that's all it would take for real change
to happen.

~~~
0xffff2
Wait a minute. Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality? If I put a
web server on the public internet, I'm perfectly free to refuse connections
arbitrarily. It's only ISPs, who are routing traffic, that are required to
route everything the same under NN.

~~~
georgemcbay
> Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality?

Sure, but it is clearly not within Google's business interests to reduce their
customer base arbitrarily. Cutting off access from specific ISPs would
basically be a nuclear option for them.

------
alfredallan1
Isn’t there a chance a subsequent administration could “reinstate” net
neutrality? If so what’d that mean for Comcast, AT&T, etc.? Or are there ways
such a move could be blocked?

------
bjornsing
I wonder if a bunch of Internet companies (Netflix, Alphabet, etc) could gang
up and collectively block an ISP...? Could give them quite interesting
leverage in negotiations.

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
It would be more effective to just buy the house senate and presidency, they
collectively have the budget.

~~~
RIMR
I don't know, if suddenly all Google services completely disappeared for all
Comcast users, I have a feeling that Comcast would bend over backwards to make
them stop.

Nothing about that would be against net neutrality rules. I can already start
a website and make it accessible only to specific ISPs by whitelisting only
the subnets I want.

------
forapurpose
I wonder how much the ISPs will invest based on the current regulatory rules.
Net neutrality could be revived, especially in a few years after the next U.S.
presidential election.

Businesses usually want certainty so that they can invest in the future. In
the state where net neutrality is repealed, there is far more uncertainty; it
could be revived any time. If the ISPs accept the state that net neutrality is
implemented, there is stability and certainty going forward.

------
Shivetya
I am more than happy on two events, seeing if the FTC truly does resume their
role as watch dog and prosecutor and seeing what Congress may end up doing.

With regards to all the panic and irrational reactions, we got to 2015 before
the FCC decided to rewrite some rules and not others and we did fine. The FTC
with FCC cooperation did work.

there are more than two sides to this argument and why we favor content
providers exclusively over service providers would need to be addressed as
well.

even some of the big high flying rollouts stalled or stopped when the rules
first changed but it was fun watching many of them dance around the
reasons.(FIOS and Google fiber pretty much are nothing). 5G is not a valid
excuse. People decry the lack of high speed internet (the definition changes
based of the techs savvy of who you talk too) but as someone who does a lot of
road trips you would be amazed where you cannot get a cell signal and how
often it happens

~~~
abvdasker
Your comment misses one of the two key points of the original post: the level
of consolidation between ISPs and content providers is unprecedented and the
merger between AT&T and Time Warner makes that even worse. Competitors which
are solely ISPs or solely content providers will not be able to compete due to
the advantage this newly vertically integrated company has in both arenas. The
article is saying the only way to avert the catastrophe of a complete monopoly
over both content and Internet access is for companies like Google and Netflix
to "fight fire with fire" by becoming vertically integrated ISP/Content
companies themselves.

This is not a case of market dominance through technological innovation, which
is generally hard to predict, but rather a completely predictable result of
old-school vertical monopoly. It's Econ 101 stuff and is not specific to the
Internet at all.

------
saisundar
Comcast acquiring Fox would also mean they gain control of Hulu -> that would
make things really interesting for Netflix, and narrow it's moat - especially
if Comcast starts bundling Hulu with it's internet services.

------
augbog
I have some friends who work at Netflix and it's crazy how far the executive
team foresaw how Netflix would grow. I know they put a lot of resources early
on into Open Connect which was to handle working with ISPs.

[https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-
works-...](https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-
isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience)

Apparently a lot of people (internally too) called them out it was unnecessary
but it's paying dividends back now.

~~~
bcrescimanno
I worked at Netflix when OpenConnect was introduced and I don't remember
anyone internally thinking it was unnecessary (though, even at the time, the
company was large enough that you didn't know everyone). Quite contrary, this
was the era of the 250GB / month cap from Comcast and we could observe clearly
that they were throttling Netflix traffic. OpenConnect, the ability to deploy
the CDN directly into the internal network of these ISPs served multiple
purposes--not the least of which was to expose the fact that they were holding
Netflix for ransom. So, to say that was the executive foreseeing things is a
bit of revisionist history. It doesn't lessen the impact or importance of
OpenConnect; but, it grew out of a very real impasse with a very large ISP.

Ultimately, Netflix did end up paying Comcast in 2014 and, surprise surprise,
the throttling stopped.

------
zn44
Can Netflix and Alphabet ‘reverse’ the problem and block the ISP that throttle
them? I imagine some consumers would rather change ISP than stop using
Netflix/google. (I would but that’s my UK perspective)

~~~
thatfunkymunki
Most people in the US don't have more than 1 viable ISP in their area, so
switching is not an option.

------
fortythirteen
Why not prosecute the telecoms under current anti-trust legislation?

I'm as troubled by the zeitgeist's two proposed solutions, more big companies
or more big government, as I am by the merger.

------
gazarsgo
don't worry, SpaceX Starlink will kneecap every other ISP.

~~~
planteen
I brought this up a while back on HN. It looks like in the most optimistic
case you are looking at 20 Gbps per spacecraft and 200 spacecraft over the
continental US for Star Link. So you are looking at 4 Tbps capacity for the
entire country. What sort of capacity does the US have right now? It seems
like 4 Tbps is very far off, like the level of a single large city. Heck, you
can get 10 Gbps service to your home in Chattanooga, TN.

Update: Cisco predicts 847 Tbps in 2021 and "busy" up to 5.0 Pbps globally. US
looks like 242 Tbps with "busy" up to 1.7 Pbps. So if Star Link has 200 space
craft over the US by 2021, it could handle about 1.5% of the US non-peak
usage.

[https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-
provider/v...](https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/vni-
forecast-highlights.html)

------
CyberDildonics
This is what happens when cable companies are the ISPs - if they give you
enough bandwidth to no longer subscribe to TV, they won't be able to sell you
data twice.

------
matchagaucho
Let's face it... Internet access is an essential utility similar to roadways,
sewage, water, electrical, and gas.

Our municipality will likely just create a bond measure to run city-owned
fiber direct to all homes and business, and put the ISP backbone operations up
for bid (contingent on net neutral management).

------
MrZongle2
I have absolutely no interest in increasing my dependence upon Google or _any_
Alphabet company.

------
WindowsFon4life
Interesting that wireless services was left out of the conversation. Given
it's massive growth in urban areas, and the fact, there are many options for
most populations. Video is hardly a high bandwidth use case. Cultivation of
victims.

~~~
twohlix_
Wireless has traditionally been left out of common carrier / nn talks because
its easier to compete in infra-structurally compared to running cabling.

------
_bxg1
We are truly in a wasteland of competition when Alphabet and Netflix are the
underdogs.

------
dragonwriter
Alphabet is already an ISP, though not a major national one.

OTOH, they could probably afford to buy a major ISP outright quite easily if
not controlling one was seen as an existential threat.

------
allthenews
I don't understand why this is turning into such a massive panic. The internet
wasn't cut up into throttled tiers pre-NN, and who exactly is going to be
paying for internet if it doesn't deliver what they want?

Why do people have so little faith in the market? Why is the answer MORE
regulation, when regulation and regulatory capture are what got us into this
monopolized mess in the first place?

What about the fact that 5G is on the horizon? That powerful people like Elon
Musk have spoken publicly about building alternatives to fiber/cable based
internet?

~~~
spruciefic399
1\. Monopolization has increased in markets in general (see: ATT-Time Warner
merger).

2\. ISPs have realized what they can do with their increased monopolies, and
have started developing technical strategies for doing so.

3\. Regardless of this, these companies are getting certain things from the
public, such as right-of-way. They act like they owe nothing to the public,
which is a lie.

It's a logical mistake to assume that behavior of ISPs in the past is what
they will do in the future.

I'll start respecting the arguments against net neutrality when:

1\. Private citizens and government entities are allowed to charge arbitrary
rates for ISP lines to go over their property.

2\. ISPs are legally responsible for the content of any and all packets going
over their infrastructure.

3\. All legal challenges / obstacles to public / municipal ISPs are dropped
and eliminated.

~~~
Spivak
Re:

1\. ATT and Time Warner didn't really compete prior to the merge.

2\. ISPs have realized that basically every business is dependent on them to
access their customers. Why wouldn't you try to extract value from that?

3\. Hand-wavy feelings doesn't mean anything in government outside of
impassioned speeches. They owe the public nothing other than providing their
service according to the contracts they made. Large organizations where every
individual has their own incentives don't really have feelings or a sense of
duty.

\---

1\. This is already true, as it turns out private citizens largely don't
actually own the land where the poles are and governments don't want to
charge.

2\. You would hate this world. Content can't be encrypted because there might
be illegal content contained within. All your traffic will need to be scanned
and scrutinized. P2P is basically dead. Any site with user-generated content
will be blocked. Sites will have to make legal agreements with ISPs to be
whitelisted for strict content moderation.

3\. Blocking municipal ISPs is not as mustache-twirlingly evil as people make
it seem. Some ISP goes to a town where it would normally not be profitable to
operate and makes a deal with city in exchange for exclusivity. The risk that
the citizens of that town would just form a municipal ISP funded by tax
dollars and undercut them once the market is established has a real cost which
is going to be paid in one way or another.

------
jhatax
Comcast just made a bid for 21st Century Fox. $65B USD offered to Fox to
compete against Disney.

Massive acquisitions and mergers are becoming commonplace.

------
ct520
well that didnt take long...
[https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-
cen...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-century-fox-
film-tv-studios-acquisition-deal-announced)

------
wpdev_63
I guarantee you that if they start tampering with netflix traffic there will
be riots.

------
aogl
Is it just me, or does this site/link not work on mobile?

------
kushnick
A few facts:

\---In 2001, there were 9300 ISPs in America, handling the majority of US
internet subscribers. \----By 2010, most of America was supposed to have a
fiber optic service to the home as every state cut a deal to have the state
utilities upgraded to fiber and to charge local phone customers. \---And every
merger made the situation worse.

Unfortunately, the companies essentially lied about the deployments while
competition was shut down, not through market forces but through a takeover of
the FCC.

The FCC, in 2005, removed the right of small ISPs to use line sharing to
offering service, and the competitors were removed by getting rid of the
wholesale arrangements, both of which started when the Telecom Act of 1996
opened the networks to competition.

By combining the 'Broadband' service, which is Title II, with the Internet
Service, an “information” service -- when the FCC mushed these 2 services
together, they became, together, an information service, which stopped the
obligation to rent the utility networks

– This caused Net Neutrality.

\---7000 small ISPs were put out of business and then AT&T and MCI were put up
for sale-- and merged.

Documented in: ‘The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal”--
a free download. [https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE](https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE)

The FCC is currently erasing all the remaining laws and regulations on the
telcos, claiming 5G will fix everything. With a range a few blocks and
requiring a fiber optic wire -- what this is really about is that we'll have a
few companies in control with no more regulations or obligations -- and
whatever they give us-- we will have to be thankful for.

My take -- this has gone too far and we need to start to break up AT&T
again.... and separate the companies from the wires.

And, we also need to go after the billions in cross-subsidies where the
companies have been able, with the help of the FCC, to manipulate the
accounting to dump most of the expenses into the state utility to make their
other services 'profitable'.

These 2 recent articles supply a short history of the mergers and the
commitments that were never completed for broadband and competition; the
second is the Verizon New York 2017 financial report -- published MAY 31, 2018

\---“The Mergers that Created ATT & Verizon Were Failures. Time to Break Up
AT&T…Again.” [https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB](https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB) and \---“How Did
Verizon NY, the State Utility, Lose $2.6 Billion in Just 2017? The FCC’s
“Zombie” Rules.” [https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0](https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0)

I summarized the findings. So far, NO regulator has bothered to examine this
new financial report and no reporter has bothered to dig into it.

We've all been played. Most people don't understand how we got here or that
the FCC and telcos have actually rewritten the history-- it is said that the
winners write the history.--We can't let this stand.

Netflix et al doesn't have to be ISPs... We need to reopen the networks for
competition—wireline and wireless and let the customer choose which ISP to use
over the networks customers paid multiple times to have upgraded.

And AT&T and Verizon should be separated from these utility networks—ie, all
of the wires which would include all the fiber that was built for wireless,
FiOS, etc).

No more tracking, blocking, prioritizing of their own affiliate companies,
overcharging, and letting the networks deteriorate.

------
pbreit
Sounds like healthy competition?

~~~
sethhochberg
I have a hard time getting excited about a world where every new business has
to be fully vertically-integrated because their competitors are all being
dicks to one another.

Healthy competition only amongst those who have the resources to compete in
all markets at once...

~~~
lotsofpulp
It's inevitable with the efficiencies brought by technology. You need fewer
and fewer middlemen, and so you end up going vertical.

~~~
aylmao
If anything this makes things more inefficient, because I bet a lot of core
infrastructure will have to be laid out many times over.

~~~
lotsofpulp
It doesn't seem to be enough to offset the gains from the efficiency of
scaling horizontally. Each product or service, when provided or assisted by
computers, requires fewer and fewer humans which are the most difficult to
scale up, so an organization can set that up and then move up and down their
supply chain. It might be a temporary benefit though, because once it's big
player vs big player they won't be able to easily extract value (or one of
them will kill the other and get even bigger, which is bad for the rest).

