
AT&T, Time Warner, and the Need for Neutrality - thecosas
https://stratechery.com/2018/the-need-for-neutrality/
======
lend000
There is a lot wrong with internet/general utility regulation in the US, but I
think it's mostly the last-mile cable logistics which are preventing
competition in heavily populated areas, and that results in localized
monopolies or duopolies.

This piece addresses the philosophy of the potential issues better than some,
but this net neutrality hysteria in general seems to me like a lot of well
intentioned folks are trying to solve a problem which does not exist, despite
having had decades to develop (while the associated technology is still
rapidly transforming, the Internet is no longer such an immature, radical new
thing). Adding controversial regulations to the most innovative technology
sector in the US to solve a problem which _might_ develop (and could in all
likelihood be undone very quickly and without significant infrastructure
changes, were this to begin to develop into a problem) seems ridiculous to me.
I imagine there are many better trees to bark up.

But to entertain the idea, of the three final 'key principles' the author
lists, the first two are reasonable and unlikely to break things (if it was
possible for Congress to write a one-page bill that contains only the language
necessary to implement these rules, and nothing else). The third one is a slap
in the face of innovation and new services in my eyes, although the author
acknowledges it may be extreme.

The only sweeping public policy that I could support to address a problem in
this space would be for one which already DOES exist: the lack of competition
in the ISP space for the last mile. A possible public solution could include
cities implementing a basic cabling system that cover all residences in urban
areas (independent from any other private cables, which would likely be
superior) that any ISP can connect to and serve via a city hub (much closer to
the backbone, with an access point being outside the urban area, allowing many
competitors to build infrastructure around it).

~~~
pitaj
A lot of people look at ISPs and call them a natural monopoly because if they
weren't, we would have redundant last mile infrastructure.

Who cares if last mile infrastructure is redundant? Redundancy is good most
other places, and having more than one fiber line running past my house
doesn't sound like a bad thing at all. Even if it was definitively
inefficient, it would still be better for consumers than any monopoly on such
infrastructure, regulated or not.

People need to just let ISPs run whatever cables they want wherever they want,
whether that be attaching them to overhead power lines or under ground.

We should have competition at every stage of the internet, from backbone to
search engines to last mile connectivity.

Much like the debate around affordable housing, the answer is to "let them
build!" There are companies like Google/Alphabet willing to build out
infrastructure if only they were allowed.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I like the way it is done where I live. The municipality provides fibre to the
curb. I pay for getting it into the house. On the fibre I have a dozen
different ISPs offering services. From 10 mbps to 1000 mbps. TV and phone
bundles, if you want them. No extra digging.

~~~
rayiner
I’m curious, what do you pay as the initial connection fee and monthly fee?

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Connection was $1600 or so. 100 mbps is about $35/month.

------
exabrial
Stop. Being. Fatalistic. FFS. You are not helping, you are making things
worse.

No, we do not _NEED_ Net Neutrality. The internet can/has/will survived for
the short ~2ish years of really weak NN that was easily circumnavigable by
corporate lawyers. The last form of NN we had allows Comcasts of the USA to
legalize their local monopolies.

The solution is multifaceted. First, if we want to break free of the
stranglehold, we need to lower the barrier of entry into the market for new
ISPs, not raise it. Second, the FTC needs to examine the practice of "up to
50mbps" advertising and "internet service" vs "information service". Strict
definitions of these would help us along. Third, vague definitions of "service
abusers" needs to be eliminated or defined. If they are selling you "unlimited
internet", then there is in fact, no limit. If you hit a limit by an ISP, they
need to be reported in your bill when and where the policy violation took
place, plus allow for a dispute process. Finally, there are a lot more dirty
things ISPs are doing, like Verizon injecting HTTP headers that identify an
account to advertisers.

The 2015 NN laws were too weak to accomplish what they sought out to do. I'm
happy they're gone so we can possibly get some effective regulations in.

~~~
TheGRS
Is there a reason to believe that getting rid of a regulation actually fosters
in better regulations? I don't think I follow that logic.

~~~
btilly
Regulations tend to follow abuse. The more egregious the abuse, the stronger
the regulation.

Therefore a strong regulation can follow deregulation.

Of course the opposite can happen. Deregulation can shift the Overton window
to the point where regulations that once seemed reasonable are off the table.
As an example, even most of the people complaining about growing inequality
between rich and poor aren't openly suggesting a return to pre-Reagan top tax
rates of 70%.

------
CodeSheikh
What might happen is AT&T is going to show certain content to its cellular
customers that otherwise it would have to pay licensing fees to TW. For
example live games, certain movies. And not charge any data rates for those
streams only. They are going to package all of this as another tier of data
plans etc. Think of it as as Tmobile+Netflix promotion but at a whole new
level.

~~~
notyourwork
Which I agree is a problem but at face value average consumer probably won’t
see this as a problem.

------
KaiserPro
I think this article misses the point somewhat.

There is nothing wrong with a company providing all these services, so long as
they are not able to abuse their position.

Now, net neutrality is _a_ not very effective way of stopping dominance. But,
its almost not what you think or want it to be. What you actually want is
competition, so that when a company does something stupid (ie slow netflix to
a crawl) you can up sticks and move to a better service. (no I don't mean a
duopoly)

Now, you've just seen me say that NN isn't what you want. Let me unpack that
rather controversial statement. Firstly NN is the equal treatment of _all_
traffic regardless of source, protocol or destination.

You really don't want that, as it means that real time stuff will get hampered
by bulk traffic, and bulk traffic knobs (you know the people that are more
than willing to spend $25 a month on a torrent box, $500 on local storage each
quarter, but not pay for content.) Will get a free pass.

On the flip side, it means offers like [http://www.three.co.uk/go-
binge/shows](http://www.three.co.uk/go-binge/shows) (watching netflix doesn't
count towards your mobile internet cap) can't happen. Now, judging by whats
happening to Three, this is what customers actually want.

So, what America needs is bulk transit ripped away from the big three. Where
there is ISP dominance in one area, Regulated wholesale prices, allowing
virtual operators to provide internet using rented last mile infrastructure.

This is not perfect, as unless you fully strip those providing last mile
infrastructure from those providing ISP functions, there will be a reluctance
to roll out new technologies in less profitable areas.

~~~
telchar
You seem to be making an argument that I have seen a lot, in short
(paraphrased): A free open competitive market is ideal therefore you should
seek that instead of net neutrality. Don't ask for net neutrality.

I disagree. Net neutrality is not a problem. See [0] for a previous take on
the misguided notion that QoS and net neutrality are at odds.

It might be an ideal solution if we could nationalize network infrastructure
and guarantee local loop unbundling, as I think you are suggesting. But we are
so far away from that possibility in the US that you seem to be advocating
against net neutrality in favor of effectively the status quo.

Let's not throw support for net neutrality out the window in favor of a far
away pipe dream or for unproved, supposed benefits from getting rid of it.
Let's get back net neutrality first, in legislation this time, then see if we
still think we need to nationalize the network infrastructure.

If I am misunderstanding your proposal then maybe you could clarify.

0\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8125588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8125588)

~~~
KaiserPro
ah, no, I'm not asking for a free and open market. I'm asking for a regulated
market steered towards competition.

What the US has now is a free and open market, well the logical conclusion of
it. (the carnivorous rats on the island model) The lack of regulation to stop
consolidation is a big problem. The need right now is for AT&T to not merge
with time warner.

I don't think nationalisation is what is required, I think separation of last
mile infrastructure from client ISPs. This means that the Motivation for the
infrastructure company is to provide stable reliable last mile connections.
Because they are going to be used regardless of who is supplying connectivity,
it doesn't affect investment. All of this can be achieved with private
companies (indeed thats how it works in most EU countries)

This also lowers the cost of ISP startup drastically.

As for QoS, I love QoS, it means that my ADSL connection can still have low
latency stuff (audio, video games) even though I share the same uplink with
torrenting arseholes. But, I don't see how, with the weakness that is the FCC,
they are going to legally distinguish between QoS to regulate service (ie bulk
downloading via torrenting) and bulk downloading of a video on demand service.

Both have the same strain, both are video services, both can be throttled to
mask the lack of investment in backhaul infrastructure. both need to be
"shaped" to allow customers to use the ISP's "services" evenly.

I'd also like to point out that NN has only been a thing for <2 years.

~~~
telchar
I think you're right that AT&T and Time Warner should not be allowed to merge.
What you're proposing WRT the last mile is similar to what I favor, which is
banning content/copyright owners/studios from also owning the network
infrastructure. There would be some subtleties there but I think it could be
ironed out reasonably well. From an economic incentive perspective it just
makes sense.

Regarding QoS, why couldn't you as the client choose which packets are to be
considered high-priority? Is it that you want to be able to saturate your
connection with high priority packets that supercede your neighbor's packets
if you're on a video call? Maybe a NN-friendly compromise is that everyone
gets a % of their connection that get to be high-priority packets (you choose
which) and you can pay more for a bigger pipe. Therefore if you want 1M up at
high priority you need a 5M pipe. Your neighbor can keep their 1M pipe but
only 200k of their packets can be high priority. (to throw out some numbers).
It seems fair and gives you QoS options while not violating NN, which I think
is overall more important than QoS anyway.

------
forcer
zero rating is like Google putting its own content (or content of their
partners) to the top of search results.

both are legal and both are harming competition

~~~
jon_richards
Didn't they get in trouble doing this with their amazon competitor? I remember
for a while searching for things would give me options to buy them from
google.

------
niftich
Good post; a lot to unpack.

This administration's objections to the AT&T/TWC merger was probably rooted in
television because the administration's opinions about net neutrality are
rather well-known; it's doubtful they'd see the eventual outcome, if they even
envisioned it, as problematic or anticompetitive -- and that's just the
charitable reading that omits the Predient's own upset over the future of CNN,
which too reinforces approaching the subject with a television lens.

That being said, it is somewhat ironic that zero-rating was never considered
outright problematic by Wheeler's FCC [1] (or the EFF [2]) and the FCC
resolved to investigate zero-rating practices on a case-by-case basis. They
let some of them fly, but admonished several others, even in the last few days
of Wheeler's term [3]. Then, Pai predictably stopped all such investigations
when he took office [2].

In this favorable regulatory climate, it's no wonder that zero-rating looks
like a valuable tool that businesses can leverage to make their offerings seem
more attractive versus their competitors, making past predictions about a
future of vertically-integrated content silos and delivery networks
[4][5][6][7][8] seem a bit less like quackery.

As an added complication, it is much more difficult to explain to laypeople
why zero-rating is problematic, than other topics that can fall under the
wider umbrella of 'net neutrality'. Zero-rating is perhaps the most popular
facet of delivery that doesn't adhere to net neutrality, attracting a wide
range of supporters [9], including many that support missions that are helped
or enabled by no-cost access to information. Once zero-rating is commonplace,
efforts to undo it will be more politically challenging than the previous net
neutrality debate.

[1]
[https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/201...](https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342987A1.pdf)
[2] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/fcc-abandons-zero-
rati...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/fcc-abandons-zero-rating-
investigation-and-moves-backward-net-neutrality) [3]
[https://www.eff.org/files/2017/02/09/fcc-
zerorating.pdf](https://www.eff.org/files/2017/02/09/fcc-zerorating.pdf) [4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305508)
[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12350087](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12350087)
[6]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229742)
[7]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15092525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15092525)
[8]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13557318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13557318)
[9]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_again...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_against)

~~~
shmerl
_> Once zero-rating is commonplace, efforts to undo it will be more
politically challenging than the previous net neutrality debate._

Only while anti-trust remains as crippled as it is now. In practice zero
rating kind of violations should be blasted with classic anti-trust, not with
specially crafted net neutrality rules. So may be fixing anti-trust should be
a priority.

To be clear, I'm in support of strict net neutrality rules, but they are often
a fix for a symptom, while the root cause is actually anti-competitive abuse
that runs amok because anti-trust is doing nothing.

