
The FCC says Net Neutrality cripples investment, but that's not true - doener
https://www.wired.com/story/the-fcc-says-net-neutrality-cripples-investment-thats-not-true/
======
philamonster
I live in a small-ish market in the Northeast that has been under Time
Warner's thumb (now Spectrum) for some time. Since moving here ~2012 there has
been the promise of fiber to the home by a small local ISP. To everyone's
surprise, and even TWC, expansion started really happening in 2016 and has
exploded since for this same small ISP. They're relying on actual order
fulfillment with payment once property easements are settled and engineering
completes in what they designate as individual districts. With packages
promising 100mbit/10mbit as base for $50/month and up to 1gbps/100mbps for
$100 ($110 for static IP) TWC couldn't come close (30mbit/5mbit for $70+ at
the time I was able to switch in spring 2016). This expansion prompted TWC to
expand their packages after the Charter merger but they still cannot deliver
what this now growing ISP can promise at similar cost.

This is what Net Neutrality means to these large ISP's. Giving equal footing
to consumers and small businesses they have been fleecing for so long though
nowhere near actually being equal. It's clear people are fed up and can
express that. Pai & his FCC removing any semblance of voice to that public is
shameful and unethical and clearly, as has been stated over the previous
months, not based in fact.

~~~
treis
What does Net Neutrality have to do with your story?

~~~
jjoonathan
It's strong evidence that net neutrality wasn't the dominant factor "crippling
investment."

~~~
treis
Isn't it the opposite? A new ISP competing is presented as something
noteworthy and unusual. That's exactly what we would expect to see in an
environment of crippled investment.

~~~
philamonster
>A new ISP competing is presented as something noteworthy and unusual.

But it is. I moved here from a large city and my _first_ thought after having
FiOS for a couple years was damn, TWC; throttling, data caps & absenteeism. I
heard nothing but complaints and horror stories from locals but the only
alternative was (only) Frontier which was somehow worse.

In the view you present, how is overturning NN not benefiting TWC while at the
same time allowing for more investment and growth? Wouldn't that be
detrimental to TWC's business? Not to mention this new ISP's expansion didn't
really start until after NN was enforced, whether coincidentally or not.

------
rectang
Supposedly "anti-regulation" forces energetically oppose Net Neutrality -- but
don't expect them to follow through and remove the regulations that protect
the telco monopolies.

"Anti-regulation" rhetoric against Net Neutrality is either sock puppetry or
useful idiocy.

~~~
betterunix2
Actually, I and a number of other engineers submitted comments on this
proceeding to that effect. Pai's argument is, in part, that ISPs provide
access to information services (social networking sites, email, video
streaming, etc.) and should therefore be considered information services. Of
course, any form of communication, even carrier pigeons, can be used to
communicate over the Internet, so in theory what he is saying is that nothing
can be regulated under Title II.

The FCC's draft rules respond to this objection by simply dismissing it. The
draft rules basically dismiss all commentary that did not come from ISPs as
"not persuasive." The only reason any of those comments were cited at all is
to prove that all submitted commentary was considered, something that is
legally required of them.

~~~
Delmania
On multiple occasions, Pai has indicated he is going to roll these rules back
regardless of what anyone says. He did claim that he would entertain a sound
argument proving that Title II hasn't hurt investment, but the only way to
prove that is with the cooperation of the entities that stand to profit.

This is why there is a good chance this will be tied in the federal courts.
The comment process is supposed to prevent an "arbitrary and capricious"
decision by a federal agency. Pai's comments could be used to make a
persuasive argument that this is arbitrary (says we're desperate doesn't
help). Capricious is a much harder thing to prove. I think the fact that data
shows the comment period was tainted by foreign entities, false entries, and
that 98.5% of the valid comments were in support of NN could use to show this
is capricious in that his actions show a disregard for the consumer.

------
DiThi
I keep seeing everywhere comments against Net Neutrality using this argument.
And saying that it cripples free market, because new ISPs wouldn't be able to
compete having the expense of regulatory compliance. But _nobody_, absolutely
no one explained to me _why_ would it cost even a cent to ensure Net
Neutrality (that is not part of ensuring a quality service in general). We
should ask this more when discussing that argument, because it seems there's a
lot of people truly believing this having that notion unchallenged.

~~~
drieddust
Unregulated Capitalism in the very reason monopolies are created. Founder of
Capitalism favoured an economy where a lot of small companies competed
together to the benefit of consumers. He also recommended regulations where
natural monopolies arise due to limited supply. As an example, he recommended
heavy taxes on rent seeking[1].

This is a case of American Capitalism taken to its logically conclusion where
any regulation makes it anti competitive. American psyche is so attuned to
"Free Market" that anything lazy argument will be invoked.

On the contrary we have Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in India
which has done wonders for us. Our market is highly regulated, yet we enjoy
cheapest ISP services. We have also favoured Net Neutrality by opposing
Facebook[2] when they came knocking on our door and now its part of our
regulations after a year long deliberation [3].

[1] [https://www.prosper.org.au/about/geoists-in-history/adam-
smi...](https://www.prosper.org.au/about/geoists-in-history/adam-smith-on-the-
rentier/)

[2] [http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/TRAI-
ru...](http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/TRAI-rules-in-
favour-of-Net-neutrality/article14068029.ece)

[3] [http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/trai-differential-data-
pr...](http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/trai-differential-data-pricing-
regulations-net-neutrality/1/1104985.html)

~~~
drdaeman
Counterexample: we had mostly unregulated (except for mandatory government
survelliance boxes, billing software licensing, and a reasonably affordable
license to provide telecommunication services if you have more than 1K
subscribers or more than 2 years in business - but all of this wasn't
particularly heavy) market in Russia and the competition had worked. From the
subscriber perspective, it was a norm to have 5+ different options, that had
actually competed on pricing, quality and features. Every year prices used to
go down. Then, when they got real low (like 100-200 RUB - when it just didn't
made sense to go lower), speeds and packages started to grow. And whenever one
option did something wrong (like throttling P2P traffic) they started lose
active userbase very fast. It really worked.

Then things had changed. Last 5 years our Czar and his pet Duma noticed there
is lack of regulation, so they started to write laws one after another. All
sort of mandatory logging, censorship, peering policies (who can and who can't
peer), extra licensing rules, UGC-related policies, etc etc - and, of course,
all for the sake of subscribers' and national "security". Small ISPs died like
it was a plague. Larger ones grow even larger - for obvious reasons.

Various explanations are possible (and regulations here are mostly different
from NN, just authoritarian government strengthening their hold), but here's
what I'm absolutely certain of: not all regulation is good. At the very least,
consider if you trust your government (and all future governments) with such
powers.

\---

Full disclosure: I've worked for 10 years for an ISP in Russia. Haven't been
to the U.S. so don't know how exactly things are there. Yet, have a
preliminary/uneducated opinion that they should've either hold NN (as a sort
of a kludge - but there is no competition) and think how they can add more
competition (=choice), or abolish NN but only _simultaneously_ deregulating
things so new ISP startups can actually enter the market.

~~~
DiThi
> and regulations here are mostly different from NN

Not mostly, but totally. It costs very very little to comply with NN law, and
protects the consumer. The ones you mention sound more costly and attacks the
consumer freedom.

> or abolish NN but only simultaneously deregulating things so new ISP
> startups can actually enter the market.

There's a lot of regulations that should be gone, but NN is not one of them.

~~~
drdaeman
> The ones you mention sound more costly and attacks the consumer freedom.

Also, the problem is sometimes things work differently. For example,
licensing/certifying billing system (not a recent thing, though) was meant to
protect customers from broken accounting. In reality it primarily worked as
providing "certified billing providers" a source of revenue. And billing
failures were still not unheard of.

Data storage requirements (recent set of policies) were sort of pro-customer,
with the idea to help privacy of personal information. In reality, it doesn't
do any much (except for the fact every form with personal data now has an
extra mandatory "I agree" field)

> It costs very very little to comply with NN law

The recent edition (as I've briefly seen it) - yes, probably you're right. It
fixes the issues I'm about to mention. The "customer traffic is sacred"
edition I think there was once (unless I'm mistaken - maybe I read someone's
incorrect interpretation, or some early edition that wasn't complete) - nope.

Having a ton of hacks that analyze traffic and policy/route it differently - I
believe is a norm for every ISP that respects their customers.

Without that you have phone lines full of customers complaining that YouTube
buffers every minute, their favorite MMO ping is crappy so they can't raid,
VoIP calls drop, commodity WiFi access point fails because it's overloaded by
torrents, etc etc. In an ideal world, everyone would correctly tag their
packets, no one would try to abuse the system and so on. In reality, sometimes
even quite nasty hacks are necessary just to make users happy.

Heck, I'd admit - we even had to intercept DNS records once as a temporary
measure. It was early 2010s, Google had some issues back then - some of
YouTube servers were just slow and no amount of routing hacks (we tried to use
every upstream) had helped. A great sin, but at least users were able to watch
videos they wanted. And we had "don't mess with anything" option, directly in
the self-service area.

That's actually why I believe NN is a sort of kludge, that only makes sense if
there is no fair competition - when consumers can switch providers literally
in a matter of days if not hours, so providers _deeply_ care about customer
satisfaction. Otherwise it's just irrelevant, and I'm generally against
useless regulations.

Disclaimer (again): I've worked for an ISP so I'm probably biased. I try to
debias myself (and I swear, I believe I write honestly), but still I can't be
sure.

~~~
eropple
_> That's actually why I believe NN is a sort of kludge, that only makes sense
if there is no fair competition_

This is completely true. America, as it happens, _loves_ its natural
monopolies wherever it can get them, and so that's why this kludge is our best
(and only) option.

------
perlpimp
Net neutrality cripples rent extraction by semi-institutionalized quasi
monopolies and tapestry of highly bureaucratic resistant to instant
competition environment.

------
Crontab
In my opinion, FCC chairman Ajit Pai is corrupt as hell. The only reason to
make this change is corporate donors.

------
kjrose
While I agree it doesn’t cripple some investment. I can see how it can cripple
other investments. It’s essentially choosing a winner and declaring the other
folks to be utilities without actually calling them utilities.

~~~
tzs
Who is the winner and who are the other folks?

I've seen some similar language from some politicians, but they have been
confused over the difference between an ISP and a web site. To use a meat
space analogy, they can't tell the difference between a taxi company and
Walmart, and think that they both should fall under the same regulatory
framework and have the same rules.

~~~
kjrose
The roads are still privately owned in the net neutrality analogy. So the
government isn’t paying to maintain or upgrade them. However the taxi
companies also don’t have any direct payments or influence since the roada
must remain neutral.

If we want net neutrality than make the roads a public good. To do this FCC
political play is just silliness.

~~~
Kadin
> If we want net neutrality than make the roads a public good

That would be nice, but unfortunately the same corporate interests that are
presently disassembling net neutrality rules already prohibited public-sector
projects that might compete with them and interfere with their monopoly rents.

There is no feasible route to public ownership of the infrastructure at the
moment; ensuring reasonable and non-discriminatory access to it, on the basis
of that infrastructure only existing due largely to license and permitting
agreements (use of public land, pole leases, etc.), is -- or rather was, until
last November's election -- a reasonable step in the right direction.

I wouldn't mind a public conversation, though, about seizing last-mile
infrastructure and making it a public good, just as a sort of Overton Window-
shifting maneuver. Right now the momentum favors the ISPs, and they are going
to continue to consolidate their monopoly positions and extract maximum rents
from consumers while the regulatory environment favors them. Blunting the
momentum and inevitability of their regulatory takeover would be good,
although I'm pessimistic about being able to do it in the near term.

------
nkkollaw
I'm European so I have no idea, but does the FCC not exist to protect you from
things similar to what themselves are proposing!?

~~~
Kadin
It used to, but the current administration is intentionally handing the
control of various regulatory agencies over to the industries that they
regulate.

There is little reason in trying to argue with those in charge of the FCC,
EPA, etc., because they very obviously don't care about arguments based on
public benefit or their agencies' traditional mission. They are interested in
creating a regulatory environment that is more profitable for the entrenched
players, that is all. And they are going to do that, as long as they have the
power to do so, and damn what anyone has to say about it.

Ajit motherfucking Pai doesn't care what anyone in the public sphere thinks
about him; he's almost certainly doing what he's doing, in full knowledge of
how hated it's going to make him, in exchange for some sort of payback on the
back end that he believes is worthwhile. Presumably "fuck you" money; enough
that he thinks he can live comfortably and ignore the people he pissed off to
get there.

I do not think that there is much that can be done, presently, to stop these
people. However, I do think there is, or rather will be, an opportunity once
they leave office to discourage anyone from doing it again, by doing all that
is possible to prevent them from simply retiring comfortably from the public
eye and enjoying their ill-gotten wealth. Anything that can be done to disrupt
their lives on a personal level, keep the public aware of their doings and
whereabouts, and prevent them from knowing peace, will be a good warning to
others who might consider doing the same. I have no faith in the legal system
to do this, so it will need to be done extralegally through the press and
social pressure.

~~~
nkkollaw
Thanks for the ELI5.

------
CodeWriter23
I’m pretty sure I can explain the decline in investment in 2015. The tl;dr
version: Time Warner cooked the books by cutting spending on essential
maintenance during the proposed acquisition by Comcast.

Here’s why I come to that conclusion. In early 2015, I had TWC Business Class
installed at our Downtown LA warehouse. One day, the time between scanning a
shipment to print the shipping documents and the acknowledgment beep from the
system grew from sub-second to 15-30 seconds. The scanning would trigger
access to an internet-hosted database to update the order, and would initiate
a label request to our postage provider. The label requests would time out. It
was huge headache for us.

I begin my investigation by pinging my local router. Nice 1-2ms responses.
Pinged the modem, again 1-2ms responses. Tried pinging 8.8.8.8 and WOW!
1200-15000ms response times. FIFTEEN SECONDS for an ICMP request/reply! And a
lot of packet loss to boot. I worked around the problem by using my phone as a
hot spot for the computers in the warehouse.

I called TWC and since it was Business Class, they rolled a truck within 4
hours. The tech was from a third-party contractor and was very competent by
all appearances. He was astonished by my observations. He put his scope on the
line in my unit and saw a minor deviation in signal loss. He replaced the drop
from the pole to my unit, and said the female receptacle on the pole looked a
little worn so he moved the new drop to a new location on the terminal. And
the ping times went back.

But the story doesn't end there; in fact this went on for nearly 2 months.
During periods of the day, the lag and timeouts would occur. I improved the
software to add some retries to the postage provider if the label request
failed. I started pinging 8.8.8.8 on a constant basis so I could show the
patterns of packet loss and high latency. About the third visit from the same
tech, he told me that card in my local node was oversubscribed. He said a
single card was intended to serve about 250 customers and that my card had
about 600 customers on it.

I hammered on TWC for weeks. I coordinated with my neighbors who understood
what "oversubscribed" meant and spoke decent English to do the same. After
about 8 weeks, the same tech came knocking and told me the node had been
upgraded and wanted to check in. Ping times were great. We had no problems
after that.

Sounds like a one-off just bad luck, right? Not so fast. Fast forward about a
year. The TWC/Comcast merger is off. I'm sitting at home one day, using my TWC
consumer service. Something took to long to load, so I looked a little
further, and what do you know? Long ass ping times to 8.8.8.8 and packet loss.
I call. I have to wait days for the truck to arrive because I'm not Business
Class at home. One tech comes out and observes a few db of signal loss and
decides to replace the drop from the pole. I point out the drop was only about
2 years old and was replaced due to a different problem. It's now a two man
job, and we wait for the second tech. Once he arrives, they cheerfully install
a new drop, and then the problem didn't go away. I told them based on my
experience I thought the local node was oversubscribed. They punted and said
someone else would come the following day. They arrive with two techs and a
lead or engineer. The lead calls various plays to rule out numerous things.
After about an hour, they have ruled everything out. He confirms my local node
has an excess of subscribers on it but they had not seen it causing this kind
of problem before. He pulls up a network schematic on his ToughBook, and
isolates the identifier of my local node. Then he switches to - __THE SMOKING
GUN __\- a list of about 25 or 30 node identifiers, each with a date in the
second column. It 's a maintenance schedule to upgrade the nodes that they let
languish during the TWC/Comcast acquisition phase. He tells me my node will be
upgraded in about 3 months and they leave. About 3 months later, I got a
follow up call. Things worked fine, case closed.

I filed a story tip with Ars Technica about this. They never got back to me.

