
FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality - daegloe
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/21/fcc_net_neutrality/
======
pmoriarty
FYI:

The deadline for comments is March 30, and the deadline for reply comments is
April 29, (though it's not clear what the difference between comments and
reply comments is).

The FCC document (in all its legalistic glory) can be seen here: [1]

And you can comment here: [2]

[1] -
[https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-168A1.pdf](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-168A1.pdf)

[2] -
[https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Thanks for that, my comment was:

 _Just as the commission has always held it was the responsibility and duty of
all users of a particular part of the spectrum from intentionally or
unintentionally interfering with any other legitimate users, the commission
should make rulings that require that providers of Internet service (ISPs)
shall not intentionally or unintentionally interfere with any legitimate use
of the network bandwidth between the end user and the service provider
communicating with that end user. Such policies of equal access for all
legitimate uses has been a bedrock of FCC policy since the commission was
established._

For people trying to fill out the form, use 17-108 as the proceeding you are
commenting on.

~~~
angry-sw-dev
Appreciate your posting the filing.

Keep in mind, what you post to FCC is public with your contact info. Posting
it here verbatim creates a linkage between your persona here and IRL. You may
not mind, but it's something to consider.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yeah, that train left the station a long long time ago. But it is good advice
for people who haven't been on the net long enough. Another fun fact, get your
HAM license and "whoops" they use your address as the station address.

------
skizm
Why won't the opponents of net neutrality do the same thing they did last time
and just buy comments from ad-tech companies? Most comments last time (even
the ones obviously programmatically added) were legit.

Shell companies were created, those companies would buy "leads" from ad-tech
companies. Those "leads" were names/emails of people who checked a box saying
"I'm okay if you use my name and email to comment on the net neutrality
issue." There is no real way to tell where these leads come from.
Theoretically the ad-tech companies will place ads on publisher websites which
contain a checkbox allowing a user to "opt-in". Once the leads make it back to
the shell companies, they can add those leads to the comments section because
the person willingly (in theory) gave them their info for this exact purpose.
In reality the ad-tech industry is rife with grey-hat SEO techniques at best,
and outright fraud at worst.

~~~
nl
Why would adtech companies buy anti-net-neutrality comments?

They are some of the biggest proponents of it because they don't want ISPs
trying to charge them for transit to their users.

~~~
cowpig
I believe the parent comment was saying that AdTech companies were _selling_
peoples' identities to use for fake comments on the FCC website (to,
presumably, Comcast/Verizon/etc)

~~~
nl
Hmm maybe you are right.

I'd like to see one of these checkboxes though.

------
Mountain_Skies
Would introducing competition for internet access at the residential level
help prevent the type of consumer abuse that was predicted to happen? If
Comcast is my only choice for broadband and there is no net neutrality, they
can set whatever terms they want. If I have a choice between Comcast, three
LEO internet providers, and four fixed wireless providers, Comcast loses its
leverage.

~~~
snisarenko
Creating traditional competition in local infrastructure is difficult if not
impossible for several reasons

\- Last mile sections of the city will always have winner takes most
(customers) situation, making the lines built by the other providers redundant
and wasteful

\- There are only so many communication lines you can put on poles, and
underground, before the people start complaining about ugliness, and never
ending construction.

I think a good approach for local communication infrastructure is ownership by
community/local-goverment and private contract bidding on construction,
maintanance and support

\- Companies bid on building new infrastructure,

\- Companies bid on running & maintaining existing infrastructure (usually a
2-3 year bid contract that sets fixed rate for all customers for 2-3 years).
At the end of each contract a new bid goes out, but the same company can "win"
the bid

\- People in the community vote on the bids. The POLITICIANS don't get to pick
the winning bid

~~~
thrtythreeforty
A lot of people agree that the problems that net neutrality regulations try to
solve are caused by local, unimpeachable telecom monopolies. The economics of
having a bunch of competing infrastructure make no sense. As much as I
generally dislike regulation, I welcomed Title II classification because
regulations are an effective answer answer to an abusive monopoly.

However, I think another overall approach would be just as effective at
achieving pro-consumer ISP behavior. The approach is simply this: via
regulation, force local loop unbundling, and take no other action. Suddenly,
anyone would be allowed to start an ISP and rent the existing infrastructure.
This would reintroduce the free market and allow it to solve the underlying
behavior problems. I think that when it came time to vote with their wallet,
most people would select a pro-neutrality ISP, regardless of their political
alignment. Competition generally works fine in places it's actually present.

Incumbent ISPs would complain and scream, possibly louder than they have
against Title II. I don't know what the legal approach would be for forcing
unbundling, but I seem to recall it wasn't completely infeasible.

~~~
snisarenko
I disagree. Local loop un-bundling does not solve the problem. You are still
back to the same situation. A single pipe can only handle so many providers,
thus limit local competition to 2 or 3 providers. So either all will collude,
or the one with the deeper pockets will under-price the other ones until they
go out of business. (sure you can add more "regulation", but this just
throwing duct tape on a broken system)

Local infrastructure will always be a winner takes all economic game. So its
pointless to play it. (side-note: Elon Musk's Starlink might change the
economic game)

The only way for people to "vote with their wallets" on local communication
infrastructure, is BEFORE the winner "settles in", not AFTER.

A bid system, allows 100's of companies to compete to set the price for 2-3
years. Rather than 2-3 companies competing to set the price for perpetuity. It
also creates an incentive to produce quality service, because they will be
competing for another contract in 2 to 3 years (i.e. they have 2-3 years to
demonstrate they are a competent provider).

~~~
xkemp
> A single pipe can only handle so many providers

A single pipe can handle only so many customers. I don't see how it limits the
number of providers?

There actually are countriess with such rules, and they seem to work well. The
difficult part is the need to set some uniform price providers must pay for
that "last mile" connection to their customer. I seem to remember something
like $8/month in Germany. That's actually low enough, it would allow healthy
competition even if you set wholesale price 50% higher than neccessary.

The same mechanism is used for competition among power and natural gas
companies.

~~~
snisarenko
I guess you are right. You can really put as many "providers" on a pipe as you
want. But are they really providers from a competition standpoint, or just the
same pipe with a different logo?

The problem is that they can't compete on price (in the downwards direction),
and they can't compete on building new infra with latest technology. The
minimum price is established by the price the owner of the pipes charges.
Which is usually set by the gov't. So the can only compete on value added
services (i.e. hey we are not going to sell your data hooray!)

The core competition we want in local infrastructure is faster internet and
cheaper prices. I think the dual bid system can accomplish that (i.e. separate
bids on building/upgrading infra, and bids on maintenance/support)

As for gas and electricity, I think a similar bid system would work as well.

------
jasonlfunk
It’s been over two years since Net Neutrality was repealed. I remember at the
time there was a lot of talk about how the internet was going to be ruined by
throttling, paid “fast lanes”, etc.

Have any of these things happened? Or did that turn out to mostly be fear-
mongering?

~~~
epanchin
Fast lanes benefit established players at the expense of start ups.
Consequently, if there has been detrimental effects, I doubt you would notice
them.

When you think to yourself, why do I put up with youtube, why isn't there an
alternative... that's the 'thing happening'.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Where are these fast lanes? I believe you of course, but how do I know these
exist like you say?

~~~
IggleSniggle
Netflix is probably the most relatable case study on what fast lanes look
like, because it is Netflix that pays whatever rate the teleco thinks it can
insist on in order to install their CDN in your ISPs hub, that in many cases
must compete with the exact same content the telco is now serving.

(Side note: one more good reason for Netflix to be in the content creation
game)

Netflix gets to pay whatever rate to get priority infrastructure at the telco,
you get to pay more to Netflix, and you blame Netflix (not the telco) if the
content delivery is botched / not as good as what your "cable subscription
over the Internet" delivery is.

That doesn't line up perfectly with the narrative about fast lanes that we
were sold, but it does show some of the power being wielded by the telco today
as more than just a dumb pipe, and how they leverage their position against
competitors.

~~~
xkemp
That's not a scenario net neutrality regulation would affect. Larger companies
will always have more resources, and with that they will have opportunities to
invest in infrastructure and improve service that smaller competitors cannot
match. There's a continuum from "choosing a more expensive cloud provider" to
CDNs to these edge caches.

~~~
IggleSniggle
> That's not a scenario net neutrality regulation would affect.

I'm not sure that's true. Netflix must _pay a premium to the ISP_ to get
_prioritized access within the ISP_ in order to get their edge cache in
position to _compete against the ISP_. That's three ways in which the ISP is
not acting as a dumb pipe.

The Wikipedia understanding of network neutrality is: the principle that
Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications
equally, and not discriminate or charge differently based on user, content,
website, platform, application, type of equipment, source address, destination
address, or method of communication.

------
Proziam
I just left my remarks. Here's what I wrote, just for the sake of public
record (last time we played this game there was a lot of comments thrown out,
unfairly).

The internet is a critical part of both military and civilian infrastructure
and should not be monitored, limited, or in any way restricted by any entity.
Under the definition of arms understood at the time of the Constitution (as
written by James Madison in Federalist 46), the internet and any digital tools
which may be used in the defense of the nation are "arms" and therefore
protected by the second amendment.

Further, because the internet is ubiquitous in modern society as a means of
communication, much more so than letters were at the time of the constitution,
the government has no right whatsoever to restrict access or use of the
internet. Even if there were a disagreement over this interpretation, there
can be no doubt that the general public 'assembles' and 'petitions' using the
internet. This petition itself is being written on the internet. All this
ignores the simple truth that the internet is the most common means of
distribution for the press worldwide.

Finally, because the federal government has singularly supported, with
enormous sums of taxpayer dollars, the internet infrastructure which is now
(against the interest of the public, for which the federal government is a
trustee) owned by private corporations, all internet infrastructure should be
treated as public property, and ISP's should act only in a capacity of
providing a utility service.

In summary - there should be no privatization of internet infrastructure.
There should be no government or corporation monitoring anyone's use of the
internet (without a proper warrant, signed by a judge, on a case-by-case
basis). A person's digital information should be treated as 'papers' and
'effects' as they are considered to be by the general public and by most
experts in the subject. And lastly, there should be absolutely zero limits,
restrictions, rationing, throttling, or other mitigation of any person's
access to a completely free and open internet.

~~~
cozos
> Under the definition of arms understood at the time of the Constitution (as
> written by James Madison in Federalist 46), the internet and any digital
> tools which may be used in the defense of the nation are "arms" and
> therefore protected by the second amendment.

I'm not sure about this. What about shovels, nuclear bombs, or meth [0]? Do we
have a right to bear nukes?

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_subst...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substituted_amphetamines#Military_use)

~~~
Proziam
My personal stance on the 'right to bear nukes' question is that a weapon of
mass destruction has no defensive utility and is either self-destructive or
offensive by nature. Therefore, nukes would not be protected in the same way
as precision munitions and firearms.

Amphetamines or other performance-enhancing drugs are absolutely useful for
military applications. As much as I loathe drugs and addiction I don't believe
I have the right to restrict what another human being can or cannot put into
their body.

~~~
mattashii
EU citizen here.

> My personal stance on the 'right to bear nukes' question is that a weapon of
> mass destruction has no defensive utility and is either self-destructive or
> offensive by nature.

Serious question: How is that different from munition and/or firearms?

As far as I know, if you exclude weapons whose utility is only self-
destructive or offensive, you'll only have (active/passive) shielding left,
which precise munitions and firearms to the best of my knowledge are not. Yes,
they can be used as a threat, but the same can be said for nukes.

~~~
Proziam
Essentially it boils down to this:

If someone breaks into your home, you can reliably combat the intruder with a
firearm - without harming a bystander.

If someone is attacking your town or village, you can at least situationally
combat them with precision-guided munitions without killing any civilians (not
that they are used ethically in all cases, just speaking to their potential
use).

Neither of those things is true of WMDs. You have to stretch the bounds of
realism pretty far before you can find a way to deploy a nuke effectively
without killing innocent people, or yourself.

------
op00to
Is my dead mother going to come back from the beyond again to give pro-isp
propaganda?

~~~
OrgNet
Do you have a better option for the crooks?

------
NikolaeVarius
Recent interview with Ajit Pai covers some of his thoughts on net neutrality.
I thought it was was worth a listen/read

[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ajit-
pai/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ajit-pai/)

As for the article, I don't think it matters all that much except maybe
possible slight embarassment?

~~~
mlb_hn
I'm not sure I would agree that the article doesn't matter that much. It's an
argument that while the FCC's going along with what the courts decided,
they're not necessarily doing so in good faith because they tried to bury the
announcement with fluff and didn't use a title that would be understandable to
the average user.

------
exabrial
My opinion on this is really unpopular on HN, but I still hold it's the
correct approach: Net Neutrality is a policy destined for continuous failure
and we need to abandon it.

* Creating competition is the only surefire path for improvement

* State/Local governments should not subsidize players to avoid entrenching ISPs and creating local monopolies.

* In areas with entrenched ISPs, the only way to break the cycle is to bring in new players (Google Fiber successfully proved this)

The FTC should regulate ISPs, not the FCC:

* An "internet service" provides internet access unfiltered subject to a well defined classes. Anything that is not an ISP is an "information service" provides a narrow walled garden and must be advertised as such.

* ISPs should be regularly investigated for false claims on advertisement.

~~~
wilc0
Google Fiber is essentially dead. It halted expansion in 2016 and has only
supported its existing locations since then. Even for a company as rich as
Google, it wasn't financially feasible for them. How are companies smaller
than Google even supposed to compete?

------
Corrado
I ran across an old article that might help you craft a comment. "How to write
a meaningful FCC comment supporting net neutrality"[0]. I used several of the
tips on there and I think my comment was pretty good.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/saving-net-
neutr...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/saving-net-neutrality-
tips-for-writing-persuasive-comments-to-the-fcc/)

------
thayne
> You are filing a document into an official FCC proceeding. All information
> submitted, including names and addresses, will be publicly available via the
> web.

Why do they need my address at all? And worse, why do they need to make the
email and physical address public?

------
travbrack
Paid fast lanes are a bad idea, but I think 100% equality for all packets is
just as bad or worse. Real time traffic should be prioritized over data
transfers. Right now my video call gets clobbered when I download a file. It
doesn’t have to be like that.

~~~
gsich
How should your ISP know? Diffserv might help, but I doubt some shitty
application will set them.

~~~
javagram
They can tell right now. T-Mobile gives free data usage for video and music
streaming, for instance.

You can either do traffic pattern analysis or just base it on what IPs they
are connecting to.

~~~
gsich
That is not independent and not net neutral.

~~~
travbrack
It also doesn’t cross the ISP boundary.

~~~
gsich
It probably doesn't need to, bottleneck is usually at the customers side.
(Mainly due to bad upload)

------
propogandist
Last time, Net Neutrality had clauses that would provide the government and
corporations the ability to effectively establish a firewall that would Only
Allow "Lawful internet traffic" and "Lawful applications, services or nom-
harmful devices..."

previous Net Neutrality text:

> § 8.5 No blocking. A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet
> access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful
> content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to
> reasonable network management.

> § 8.7 No throttling. A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet
> access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or
> degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content,
> application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to
> reasonable network management.

-

this is putting too much faith in the government (+corporations) and enables
the lawful establishment of the Great American Firewall to manage what's
"lawful"

~~~
Treblemaker
It does no such thing. All ISPs and public wifi I have ever connected to have
terms of service that prohibit illegal activities.

------
dgzl
Sometimes I feel like the only tech nerd who doesn't support NN.

~~~
Treblemaker
Why do you not support it?

~~~
dgzl
It's been a while since I've looking into the subject, but from what I
remember... the idea was that Telecom could sell slow-lane service at a
discount. This would benefit people who would rather save money than purchase
fast-lane service, which I imagine is more people than you'd think. If fast-
lane public WiFi is available pretty much everywhere in town, and you're
really trying to not spend money, then you might opt for slow-lane traffic at
a discount at home and use public internet for you're more demanding
transfers. Alternatively if you only want access to specific services and you
can save money for doing so, then... same idea.

------
brightball
I must just live in a good area because I don’t understand why people still
rally around this. In the past 10 years my home internet speed has gone from
15mb to 200mb with Charter/Spectrum without me paying another dime. They keep
sending me free modem upgrades and there’s no fee attached. The service is
good enough that I can stream 4 HD shows at the same time without an issue and
internet based TV services are a viable option for people around the country.
And I can do this without any noticeable drop off in work usage.

What is the expected gain from Net Neutrality at this point?

~~~
xkemp
None of that has anything to do with NN.

NN is when you can't get to "Social Media Startup X" because _they_ didn't pay
your ISP.

You are unlikely to even notice this, because only newcomers would be required
to pay ransom. Blocking existing sites would lead to customer complaints and
actual competition.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
> NN is when you can't get to "Social Media Startup X" because they didn't pay
> your ISP.

That sounds bad! Any examples of that ever happening before or after NN?

~~~
Treblemaker
This is the case that first brought it to my attention:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-
comc...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-comcast-bit-
torrent-blocking).

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Ok, so YEARS before Net Neutrality and the FCC fined them for doing it.

So, in no way supportive of the NN argument.

