
FCC weakens net neutrality rule in a prelude to larger rollbacks - vivekmgeorge
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/23/fcc-weakens-net-neutrality-rule-in-a-prelude-to-larger-rollbacks/
======
guelo
I hate these types of articles that provide extensive quotes and even a
screenshot of part of the pdf, but refuse to link to the actual documents.
It's probably an advertising thing where they don't want people to leave the
site.

The actual statements are available here [https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-
addresses-unnecessary-accou...](https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-addresses-
unnecessary-accounting-requirements-carriers)

~~~
devindotcom
You're quite right. Normally I'm pretty good about that. (At least, I
remembered today: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/24/fcc-prepares-to-pull-
broad...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/24/fcc-prepares-to-pull-broadband-
privacy-rules-adopted-last-year/))

This article went through several revisions as I did research so the original
opening couple paragraphs and links got lost in the shuffle. I've added the
link back in.

~~~
mulmen
Wow, thank you for this response. An author responding to a comment on their
article seems rare in my eyes. Do you think this kind of commentary should
happen on the TC website instead of a third party site? Do you think Facebook
comments are conducive to constructive commentary on your articles?

~~~
devindotcom
Personally I see no sense in trying to contain discussion on-site rather than
here, on Facebook, or reddit etc. People want to discuss things in the
community of their choosing. Better to intelligently collate and sort those
conversations. I wrote about it here if you're curious:

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/shouts-and-
murmurations/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/shouts-and-murmurations/)

~~~
phreack
I actually believe exactly the opposite, it was chance that you saw this post
on HN and had the good faith to update the article, and I believe fostering a
nice community on your own sites increases the odds of these kinds of events,
and in the end improves reporting accuracy and quality (among plenty of other
benefits).

------
tomelders
Undersandly, the conversation in here revolves around the technicalities and
semantics of net neutrality. But this isn't an issue of technology. It's a
political issue, or worse, an ideological issue. It's not about the empirical
truths of net neutrality, or the collective intent of those who created, and
those who continue to develop the technology that has woven itself into the
fabric of humanity. It's about idealouges imposing their ideals on every facet
of our lives, regardless of the facts.

The sad fact is, this is yet another grim attack on net neutrality by
nefarious agents who see the web as something to be dominated and bent to
their will exclusivley for political and economic gain.

Like it or not, the work we do is going to become highly politicised. Are we
ready for this? Do we have the moral fortitude to resist the influence that
fuzzy, sloppy, and emotive politics seeks to have on our discussions?

I think back to how we handled the Brendan Eich debacle. I (regretfully) came
down on the punitive side of that argument. And I participated in that debate
with a level of anger and vitriol that embarrasses me now. But whichever side
you took, there's no doubt that for a brief moment we were deeply divided. The
Brendan Eich story was a flash in the pan compared to what is about to happen.

Should we engage in political debate, or should we avoid it? Can we buck the
trend and participate in political debate in way that doesn't tear us apart,
or should we ignore it as it happens around us and impacts upon our lives and
work? Or is there a path between the extremes, where we can be neither
ignorant to our political leanings nor beholden to them?

I don't dare offer any advice on how we should prepare ourselves for what is
about to come, I just hope we can all think about how we hope to respond
before it happens.

One thing I will say though, being someone prone to highly emotional reactions
in all aspects of my life; developing software in teams has taught me the
value of "strong opinions, weakly held".

~~~
intended
I think the tech industry and HN crowd are waking up too late, and this might
be because of the previous HN cultural wave. Initially HN was like the
slashdot crows, in that it was geeky and making money of being entrepreneurial
was an ideal, and not a way of life.

Eventually that changed as the culture shifted to enabling and succeeding in
startups. A lot of the meta culture and crowd is now many steps away from the
old hacker roots and far closer to the entrepreneur /wanterpreneur group.

This latter group really isn't in it to get into a political battle, and it
makes no sense to get involved in a waste of time. As a result achieving
critical mass, or uniting people under political oriented architectures won't
happen soon enough.

Maybe it's time to head back to /. ?

~~~
pyrophane
im ignorant here. What was HN like initially? I assumed since it was the
discussion board of a startup accelerator that it was always pretty focused on
that.

~~~
intended
Hmmm.

Yes and no. The question/answer is of degrees.

I can't point to a categorical set of submissions/comments to provide you with
some perfect bouquet of HN circa 2008 vs 2012 or such.

Essentially it started out more as hackers figuring out how to hack becoming
entrepreneurs or making things work - to entrepreneurs or startup founder
babies figuring out what to do. So HN was more geeky initially, and the techie
perspective of what startups are doing.

Now it's slightly more towards the startup side looking at the tech
perspective.

This is all relative. If you compared HN crowd to the WSJ and it's consumers,
this site would be far and ahead a site of techies talking tech stuff.

I hope this helps, because this is making a risky argument since it's
subjective.

\---------

Part of this is covered by basic theory of websites - initially a site has a
simple good or utility, (information, expertise) and attracts only people in
the know. They come to discuss their field.

Eventually, if the knowledge allows people to get ahead, your culture shifts,
as more people come to the site. Your experts to normal concentration shifts.
PG has a good article on this, he identifies what he calls midbrow arguments.

~~~
mwfunk
My understanding is that it was originally just a place for people in YC-
funded startups (or people otherwise affiliated with YC) to share
useful/interesting links and information with each other. I don't associate HN
(then or now) with any particular crowd, it's just an ever-evolving nexus of
common interests that YC maintains as a public service more than anything
else.

I bet it's more focused on geeky interests and less focused on entrepreneurial
topics than it was originally. Longtime readers might sense that it's more
dumbed down or diluted now, but I suspect that's really just those longtime
readers themselves getting more knowledgeable over the years, and HN seeming
less revelatory than it did in the past. :)

Example: it seems like everyone I know used to read Slashdot but stopped at
some point when they realized how much the discussion quality had
deteriorated. What's funny is how different people's timelines are. I thought
Slashdot was a great resource in 1998 but felt like the quality of the
comments had descended to mostly garbage by 2001. I know other people who are
way smarter than me (but a few years younger) who will swear that Slashdot was
awesome in 2003 when they started reading it, but lament its downfall circa
2008 or something. The biggest factor in an individual's Slashdot timeline
seems to be, they loved it when they were younger, less mature, and less
knowledgable, then as they got older and more experienced they started getting
annoyed by it. But really, Slashdot's demographics didn't change nearly as
much as they did.

~~~
intended
No, I know what you mean - I'm accounting for that.

Forum history and human behavior on the web is my hobby subject.

In this case I'm not saying it's become smarter or less earth shattering. I'm
saying that the average focus has shifted, as a cultural shift in the
community which come so here.

------
morgzilla
I can see how a bit of outrage about this is how the NRA got to the place it
is today. This by itself isn't that meaningful, but anything can be
politicized, turn public opinion and gain momentum. That's why the NRA's
position is to say NO to any kind of gun regulation, because they know that's
how you ensure guns are made available and gun culture is for sure secure.

In the tech community I see people rising up against any kind of movement
against net neutrality. And I do not want to see it erode. But I worry that by
becoming averse to any reversal, any compromise, the communities stance will
eventually be so politicized that it is just another part of the unreasonable
and ultra biased political landscape that grinds progress to a halt.

~~~
wtallis
There are pros and cons to gun ownership; it both contributes to and harms the
public good. Net neutrality is a more lopsided issue—the arguments against net
neutrality are all about legalizing extortion and promoting a tragedy of the
commons, or else they're non-specific arguments against regulation of any
kind.

Taken on its own and rationally, the net neutrality issue is much less
amenable to producing a permanent stalemate than gun control. Existing
political factions can incorporate positions on net neutrality into their
existing political stalemate, but outside of such a context it's pretty easy
to see that holes in net neutrality like the one here are absurd—why should
smaller monopolies have more leeway to abuse their customers than large
monopolies?

~~~
chris_va
To be fair, your "arguments against net neutrality are all about legalizing
extortion" already sounds a bit "ultra biased".

What if someone wants to start an ISP, and charge less for a lower QoS band?
Is that legalized extortion?

(Not to say it would be a good idea, I agree that it is a slippery slope)

~~~
wtallis
What do you mean "charge less for a lower QoS band"? Net neutrality has
nothing to say about an ISP that wants to offer both 10Mbps and 100Mbps plans,
or business-class plans that offer an SLA for a higher price than ordinary
residential plans.

~~~
chris_va
This hypothetical company wants to drop packets from lower tier customers
first, when congested, and oversubscribe their fiber to reduce costs.

~~~
tempestn
That still doesn't sound like it would violate net neutrality. NN is about not
discriminating based on content. In this case all content is still treated the
same. Now, if they throttled everything except a few 'vital' resources, then
you'd have an issue.

~~~
chris_va
Continuing the hypothetical :)

Let's say we need to drop packets from my lower tier. We'd prefer to keep a
good experience for those customers if possible, so it would arguably be
preferable to drop lower utility packets rather than grind everyone in that
tier to a halt.

If 90% of the packets were coming from streaming video, the ISP could drop
them all without affecting that tier's ability to access their bank accounts.

That is really the crux of the issue, because it is very close to reality.

~~~
wtallis
I think you've taken the hypothetical far beyond plausibility. If you think
you need to drop 90% of a customer's traffic because of congestion internal to
your network, something has already gone badly wrong. I don't think it's
realistic to hypothesize that you have a functioning and profitable ISP that
enforces strict priority of higher-paying customer traffic over lower tiers
rather than proportional or equal allocation of available bandwidth.

But setting aside the question of whether anybody would sign up for such a
shitty ISP, you don't suddenly need to throw out 90% of a customer's traffic
unless you're suddenly hit by a DDoS that you can't mitigate in any saner
fashion. Congestion that bad will build gradually, and you'll have plenty of
RTTs to send congestion signals to your customers. If a customer is running an
application that is so unresponsive to congestion signals that they end up
using 10x the bandwidth your backhaul has available for them, then that
customer can have no reasonable expectation that any other applications remain
usable. Any sane video streaming service would have lowered the resolution and
then dropped the connection entirely as the congestion developed and packet
loss increased.

Ignoring even that, you still haven't come up with a situation that requires
non-neutral traffic management. AQMs like Stochastic Fair BLUE and Cake will
automatically identify the unresponsive flow(s) and probabilistically drop
those packets at whatever rate is necessary to alleviate the congestion,
converging on 100% drop probability as the flow continues to behave like a
DoS, while well-behaved TCP-like flows are minimally impacted (aside from a
degree of congestion signalling necessary to keep their total bandwidth usage
within the limit of what's available). SFB and Cake don't care about where the
traffic is going other than to identify what flow it belongs to. They don't
care what kind of traffic it is, they just care about how it behaves. They're
neutral algorithms, and they provide a reasonable solution to the unreasonable
challenge you've posed.

~~~
chris_va
I think you slightly misunderstood the hypothetical (well, I stated it
poorly). In this case, the network is congested and we need to drop packets
from a low tier. In the low tier, 90% of the packets are (hypothetically)
video streaming. It doesn't need to drop 90% of the packets, I'm just
characterizing the traffic in that tier. This is also fairly representative of
evening traffic in the US from a residential ISP.

The ISP cannot fully rely on all parties behaving well, unfortunately. The
question is: Can the ISP drop packets from this low priced tier that it knows
are likely video streaming, even well behaved video streaming, over other
packets? Is that acceptable, or "legalized extortion"?

Obviously it would selectively drop DOS traffic first, as you mentioned, but
we are past that point.

~~~
wtallis
> The question is: Can the ISP drop packets from this low priced tier that it
> knows are likely video streaming, even well behaved video streaming, over
> other packets?

Such a policy is not necessary for the ISP to deliver good quality of service.
Content-neutral traffic management is good enough, and often better than
poorly-designed discriminatory traffic management policies. There's no real
upside to permitting ISPs to engage in this kind of discrimination.

~~~
argigg
Are you claiming that, for any fraction _x_ of traffic that must be dropped,
overall subscriber utility is completely independent of what type of traffic
is dropped?

------
jerkstate
Does anyone with a strong understanding of internetworking, peering and
transit contract negotiation actually believe that "net neutrality" is
possible? traffic shaping of saturated links seems like a necessary outcome to
not undermine the smaller users (i.e. low bandwidth communications) that are
impacted by heavy users (i.e. video streaming) if two peering parties can't
come to terms on cost sharing for link upgrades.

~~~
riskable
Does anyone actually believe we will "run out of bandwidth" to the point where
traffic shaping will become essential?

Traffic shaping of saturated links sounds like a waste of time and resources
when it's so much easier to just upgrade the hardware. It's cheaper too! It
also happens to be _the fucking purpose of the ISP_ (to provide adequate
bandwidth for their customers).

Think of how much it costs to pay people to manage an incredibly complicated
traffic ruleset--not to mention the massively increased CPU overhead--versus a
one-time hardware purchase.

What you're talking about is either an ISP that's dying and can't afford to
upgrade their shit _or_ a greedy evil monster that simply wants to extract
more profit from existing infrastructure in the most obtuse and invasive way
possible.

~~~
grandalf
> Traffic shaping of saturated links sounds like a waste of time and resources
> when it's so much easier to just upgrade the hardware. It's cheaper too! It
> also happens to be the fucking purpose of the ISP (to provide adequate
> bandwidth for their customers).

This is a very naive comment. For anything other than a dedicated "business
class" circuit with hard performance guarantees, speculation and shaping is
involved in delivering the end product.

~~~
wtallis
> For anything other than a dedicated "business class" circuit with hard
> performance guarantees, speculation and shaping is involved in delivering
> the end product.

The alternative to a connection with a SLA guarantee is a _best effort_
connection, not discriminatory traffic shaping. Underprovisioning part of your
network doesn't require you to show favoritism to certain traffic—the normal
way to cope with larger than expected usage is to just start dropping packets
where there's congestion. That doesn't imply or require traffic shaping.

~~~
grandalf
> just start dropping packets where there's congestion

Aside from being normal, do you think this is preferable because it is fair?

I think of QoS as a way of allowing more types of SLA to exist. Maybe Youtube
makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer (before packets start
dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow T-Mobile to invest in
other parts of its infrastructure.

Isn't _any_ backbone link in a sense a way of shaping traffic? The old pattern
(from point A to B, say) may have been less efficient than the new pattern
(using the new link).

The link makes economic sense to install simply because there is demand for
bandwidth from A to B. If there weren't, a link would have been installed
elsewhere instead. The price of the new link is passed along to downstream and
upstream providers.

Assuming that each ISP has a shaping model in place that is generally fair, is
there really any difference between these three things:

\- the ISP shopping upstream providers based on SLA committments for traffic X

\- the ISP imposing QoS that addresses the quality experienced by customers
using traffic X

\- the ISP investigating upgrading networking hardware to allow for superior
handling of traffic X

I'd argue that in every case the ISP has a cost and a benefit. In the case of
the QoS change, the cost is that some customers might be slightly worse off
(those who used traffic Y but never used traffic X).

~~~
redler
_Maybe Youtube makes a deal with T-Mobile to keep videos playing longer
(before packets start dropping) in exchange for money. This money might allow
T-Mobile to invest in other parts of its infrastructure._

Another possibility: as a major ISP nears network capacity, they can
implicitly (or explicitly, depending on law) solicit revenue streams from
Youtube and many others for "priority access" to their somewhat- or
completely-captive customer base. Eventually, secondary tiers are created to
efficiently segment the content market -- a priority plan conveniently sized
for every budget. Those who can't or won't pay fall into an ever decreasing
performance category as the priority slices are snatched up.

The ISP then starts selling premium bundles on the customer side -- Platinum
Service will include Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, Apple (and get our bonus in-
house streaming service at no extra charge!). Platinum-Plus, for another
$14.95 per month plus fees, adds priority streams from your choice of up to
three major sports content sources. And Platinum-Pro adds non-degraded VPN so
you can work from home. Choice!

The ISP is monetizing the fact that they're NOT adding capacity. Eventually
they can choose to take the hit to their numbers and make that investment, but
they'll do so within the now-normal tiered framework -- offering new capacity
and premium deals at the top of the stack, rather than letting the bottom
free-ride into better service.

~~~
grandalf
You are describing a content lock-in dystopia. Yes, this would be
anticompetitive (and appropriately addressed by the FTC or DOJ, not the FCC)
and it is among the more unlikely scenarios.

~~~
redler
Sure, I'm painting a picture to illustrate the point. But reductio ad absurdum
can be a useful way to explore the problem. I don't think there's anything in
my scenario that's beyond the pale. We could get there by degrees in an
aggressively unfettered market.

~~~
hueving
>We could get there by degrees in an aggressively unfettered market.

Don't you mean the heavily regulated market we have now that prevents new ISPs
from easily servicing customers? The entire reason ISPs can behave like this
is because customers realistically have no alternatives.

Look at how Comcast behaved in markets where Google Fiber showed up. They
often increased bandwidth and reduced prices effective immediately to try to
keep customers. An 'unfettered market' would be one where an ISP doesn't have
to spend years negotiating with city councils just to get the privilege to put
fiber in utility tunnels where local cable companies already have it.

~~~
wtallis
Your "unfettered market" would still leave incumbents with the massive
advantages conferred by their natural monopoly; it just lessens the artificial
barriers to competition on top of that. Your "unfettered market" would not be
a healthy competitive market. Government intervention akin to local loop
unbundling would be necessary to create a freely competitive market where one
will not naturally develop.

~~~
hueving
Google Fiber _gave up on silicon valley_ because of the regulatory burden of
convincing local governments to let them install fiber. Let that sink in.

Google, who has enough cash to pay for nearly half of the entire Comcast
company, was not able to rollout fiber to the area because of government
regulations.

Why do you think they started in Kansas City of all places? It wasn't because
they thought that was the strongest market for fiber in the country. It was
because they actually convinced the government to let them bring fiber to
peoples' homes.

>Government intervention akin to local loop unbundling would be necessary to
create a freely competitive market where one will not naturally develop.

While this would make it even cheaper to get into the market, there is no
proof that a market wouldn't develop if the government wasn't already
intervening to make it so difficult to build networks.

~~~
wtallis
> While this would make it even cheaper to get into the market, there is no
> proof that a market wouldn't develop if the government wasn't already
> intervening to make it so difficult to build networks.

Local governments aren't completely undemocratic. If the local government is
hesitant to let corporations start digging up the streets and yards, it's
likely that the residents are similarly hesitant to invite that sort of
disruption. How many people are actually eager to have a second gigabit-
capable cable buried through their yard? Whether or not the federal government
intervenes, there will always be barriers to an upstart ISP. Yes, with all
local restrictions usurped, a company as large as Google can certainly deploy
new infrastructure to select markets where there's sufficient demand for a
more reasonable alternative to the incumbent ISP. But that's still a far cry
from a functioning competitive market. Who would fund construction of a
_third_ set of cables, or the sixth? Even with local restrictions removed, how
much capital does it take to build a competitive ISP from scratch (keeping in
mind that Google wasn't quite starting from scratch)?

In the most pedantic sense, there's obviously no proof that a functioning
competitive marketplace would develop, but we are talking about a real natural
monopoly, and that means something. Building last-mile infrastructure is very
expensive. Each new competitor faces much worse prospects for recouping their
initial investment, much more resentment from their prospective customers, and
the incumbent(s) can always undercut you at the drop of a hat. Given the
choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling solution—it
doesn't have the high costs of building redundant infrastructure, it doesn't
make a mess of the town, and it leads to the same end result of diverse
choices for services.

~~~
hueving
>how much capital does it take to build a competitive ISP from scratch
(keeping in mind that Google wasn't quite starting from scratch)?

It's significant, but it's often done in cities that don't have this
regulation problem (see most high-density cities around the world with sane
access to cabling tunnels). Or, if you take it to the extreme the other
direction, look at all of the municipal fiber projects that end up working
out. If a municipality can pay for it, certainly a company would be able to as
well.

Laying fiber requires labor, but many of the service tunnels already exist so
the only digging required is the last bit from the street to the customer's
house.

There is an entire industry designed to help finance capital-intensive
projects. Just because you can't do something with a text editor and a
compiler in your basement doesn't mean it can't be done.

>but we are talking about a real natural monopoly

No we aren't. Trying to build up an ISP is 95% lobbying local governments.
It's only 'natural' in the sense that it's a government created monopoly.

>much more resentment from their prospective customers

You wouldn't be pulling fiber to peoples' homes if they weren't already
signing up (see the google fiber rollout mechanism).

>Given the choice, the customers would vastly prefer a local loop unbundling
solution

Not if it means the best they can get is 5 mbps over cables that were laid to
homes 20 years ago. If your city is filled with a bunch of NIMBYS, they are
just as likely to vote down a bond or whatever it takes to raise money to lay
in new fiber.

------
seibelj
I know several people who are highly involved with the FCC, telecom industry,
and telecom law that think that "network neutrality" is just 2 words. Until
1970, and only because of lawsuits, it was illegal to connect anything to your
phone line. You could get any phone you wanted from Ma Bell as long as it was
black.[0] If you wanted a different color you had to pay extra. It took force
to make Ma Bell and the FCC allow you to plug in your own phone, your own
computer, etc. The FCC supports monopolies, if you want competition you should
applaud the deregulation of telecom.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone#Ownership_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone#Ownership_and_AT.26T_divestiture)

~~~
badsock
Telecoms are a classic example of a natural monopoly - which is to say it
would be monopoly whether there's regulation or not.

How do you imagine there would be competition in, say, fibre? A bunch of
companies all running their own last mile? That's incredibly inefficient.

~~~
asciimo
The whole thing should be a public utility like water, electricity, and sewer.

~~~
rayiner
Yes, just like sewers: [http://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-
area-st...](http://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-area-still-
trying-stop-sewage-spills/VqIGSuNOsCDJjXLZCJZ7ZN).

Also, nobody advocating for "treating telecom like a utility" is actually
advocating for that. Try looking up the cost of a county water/sewer hookup
sometime. It's not free, and your $50/month water bill doesn't pay for it. I'm
paying off a $30,000 bill to get "public utility" water and sewer access.
That's pretty typical.

If we required every house builder to pay thousands of dollars up front to
install fiber people would be frothing at the mouth.

~~~
bumblebeard
$30,000 seems like a lot unless you live in a very rural area. Where I live in
Michigan it's $1,410 for a hookup within 500 feet of a road. Why is it so
expensive where you are?

Also, fiber would probably be pretty cheap once the infrastructure was already
in place. A single phase overhead power line is often provided for free to new
homes and underground service runs about $3.50/foot so I imagine fiber would
be similarly cheap.

~~~
rayiner
Where in Michigan? Here's the fee schedule in my county:
[http://www.aacounty.org/departments/inspections-and-
permits/...](http://www.aacounty.org/departments/inspections-and-
permits/permit-center/utility-and-impact-fees). Fairfax County, where my
parents live is similarly expensive: about $25,000 for a smallish house.

~~~
bumblebeard
Midland county. Here's a similar document for an area near me; the city
doesn't seem to have a fee schedule online anywhere.

[http://www.lincoln-
twp.org/forms%20policies/New%20Water%20Co...](http://www.lincoln-
twp.org/forms%20policies/New%20Water%20Connection%20Procedures%20Rev%201-14.pdf)

$2,520 is what they charge for water; not sure what it is for wastewater -
they may not have a public sewer system - but it's about $3,500 where I live.
It used to be $150 (seriously, not a typo) and people got really upset when
they raised it by a few thousand dollars all at once a few years ago.

I guess it's not a very densely-populated area and the state is surrounded by
water so that might explain why it's so cheap.

------
subverter
This raises the limit on the number of subscribers a provider can have before
regulation kicks in. In other words, a larger number of smaller providers have
one less regulation to worry about.

Isn't more competition among providers what we want? Shouldn't we be doing
everything we can – even if it's saving 6.8 hours per year in regulatory
compliance – to help these smaller guys be able to take on these horrible
behemoths like AT&T and Comcast?

~~~
fragmede
By the way, every time I've noticed the FCC has come up on HN in the recent
past, an aged account has always posted a pro Trump's FCC comment with an
argument tweaked for HN's biases, as seen above, and if that is the only
comment you read in the thread, you'd falsely conclude that they're right and
believe that Ajit Pai's version of the FCC will be better for business than
Tom Wheeler's.

Ajit Pai's FCC _will_ be better for business, incumbent businesses like
Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon, who'd rather not actually pay for network
engineers, sysadmins, or software developers, and just sit there raking in
cash, without owing anything to the communities they're in.

Reduced-cost access for people that can't afford it was the first thing on the
chopping block, as well as for schools and libraries. Next up is net
neutrality; this is undoubtedly the first move of many on this front.

In other news today, laws subjecting ISPs like Comcast and AT&T to get
permission from you, before sharing browsing history, location, and other
sensitive data. Don't be fooled, Ajit Pai's FCC is a friend to big business.

~~~
subverter
I'm certainly not sitting here agreeing with everything Pai's FCC has or will
do, nor am I pro-Trump (not that it matters). My belief is their decisions
will be a mixed bag in the long term.

What I've noticed is that almost every FCC decision since Pai took over has
been spun as weakening net neutrality, which I think is incorrect and unfair.

~~~
1_2__3
In what way do you expect it to be a "mixed bag"? What are the positive parts?
You seem to claim smaller ISPs will benefit, but we've already got a dearth of
small ISPs in the US and I don't see the FCCs decisions likely leading to more
of them, as other commenters have pointed out. So what, specifically, will be
better? "Friendlier" to businesses is as much nonsense as words like
"wellness" to people, so I'm looking for actual, real-world positive things.

~~~
subverter
Here's how I see it...

A positive decision is one that removes regulation or protects us from the
government.

A negative decision is one that adds regulation or protects incumbents in the
industry.

We can disagree on that, but we probably agree on the bigger issue: keeping a
free and open internet. I want that as much as you probably do, I just don't
believe government should play the role of guardian of the internet.

I see this specific decision as positive because it removes one more (albeit
small) hurdle from competitors entering the market. Believe it or not, but all
of this regulation protects the AT&Ts and Comcasts because they already have
the infrastructure to comply. But a small, scrappy startup? It's hard enough
building a quality service, but even harder when you have to devote a large
chunk of time and money to even qualifying to play.

------
woah
I asked this in another thread a few days ago, but why are edge servers and
CDNs not a violation of "net neutrality"? If you've got an edge server on an
ISP, and are paying extra for a leased line from your main data center to that
server, you are effectively paying the ISP an additional fee for priority over
other traffic on their hardware.

~~~
grandalf
To the end customer it's not priority, consider the two cases:

customer:

GET www.site.com/images/rounded_corner.gif

 _first hop to ISP, then n hops to www.site.com_

vs

GET cdn001.site.com/images/rounded_corner.gif

 _first hop to ISP, then second hop to cdn001_

The overhead takes place in the routing mechanism, not in the prioritization
mechanism. In both cases, it costs the ISP the same amount to send the data
back to the customer. The data is not prioritized, it just happens to be
available in fewer hops, which is often (but is not necessarily) faster. A CDN
could exist that imposed greater latency in exchange for an improvement
elsewhere, such as reliability.

------
ryandrake
Article didn't load for me:

ERROR: TechCrunch is not part of your Internet Service Basic Web pack. For an
extra $29.99 a month you can upgrade to Internet Service Extreme, offering
access to over 50 more web sites!

------
Crye
Let me put my hat in the ring here.

Deregulation of access to consumers will result in cheaper internet and most
likely faster internet speeds. However, it will concentrate power to those who
already have it. Large ISPs will charge heavy bandwidth companies and only the
largest heavy bandwidth companies will be able to afford the fees.

Those heavy bandwidth companies paying the fees will recoup the money through
advertising. Remember newspapers and large TV media companies make the
majority of their money through advertising. When companies rely on
advertising, the users are no longer the customers. They are the product.

Further protecting the companies which rely on advertising will allow those
companies to focus less on the customers and more on the advertisers.
Companies relying on the allegiance of advertising will naturally shape their
political standing to views of the advertisers. Remember also that advertisers
are not paying for just eyeballs, but they are all paying for control. If a
company starts moving away from their advertisers' political ideology they
will lose revenue. Net Neutrality will ultimately give more control to
companies that already hold power.

Just my two cents...

~~~
jackmott
I would amend that to say it may result in the illusion of cheaper internet.
Your internet bill will go down, but services on the internet you use will
either get more expensive, or degrade (as with adding advertisements).

------
pasbesoin
Google Fiber got to a couple of nearby communities before they put the brakes
on.

I'm left hoping that's close enough to branch out wireless service in short
order.

Otherwise, I'm left screwed, between an AT&T that refuses to upgrade its local
network (and it's a dense, accessible, suburban neighborhood -- hardly the
boonies), and a Comcast that has doubled its rates for basically the same
service. Both with caps that will quickly look increasingly ridiculous in the
face of the wider world of data transfer.

We'll be back to them insisting on big bucks for assymmetric streaming of big-
brand content, with increasing pressure to make that _their_ content (a la
data-cap exemptions, etc.)

------
dopamean
Why is the FCC against net neutrality?

~~~
dragonwriter
The Republican Party is against net neutrality and now controls a majority of
seats on the FCC, hence, the FCC now opposes net neutrality. Since the issue
really became a big deal, the FCC has been split on party lines over it.

~~~
dopamean
Then why are Republicans against net neutrality? I suspect the answer is
"money" and that the wrong people are greasing the right palms to get this
done. If that really is the truth then why aren't companies in tech doing more
of the same to protect their interests? How the hell is it that companies like
Comcast have the upper hand here?

~~~
arebop
Comcast is/should be willing to spend the net present value of their future
revenue streams to defend their monopoly. Ditto AT&T, Verizon, etc. The
combined market cap of these companies is a pretty big lobbying bill to pay
even for Apple, let alone Netflix. Google tried just building a competitive
network but apparently they didn't have the stomach to combine network
construction with lobbying at the necessary scale.

~~~
Cshelton
Yeah, Google realized just how entrenched the established telecom companies
are with local municipalities. To the pint where the muni says, "only AT&T"
can use OR put a pole in this area. Straight up block everyone else because
AT&T pays the city to do that. How do you govern and take that on at a
national scale. Not only the money, but the ridiculously massive amount of
lobbying.

I think wireless point to point is the answer, and what Google is working on
now after buying WebPass. You only have to connect a neighborhood and have one
pool with a p2p receiver that services the whole neighborhood. A mini ISP if
you will.

Then we can tell the corrupt city/local council people to F OFF and stop F'ing
over your citizens by taking bribe deals from the large ISPs. It's pretty bad,
see AT&T in Dallas, where they are head quartered. The corruption in the city
that AT&T buys is crazy. Even another large competitor such as Spectrum
wanting to put fiber down is blocked by the city because AT&T has exclusive
rights. So what speed is offered in that area by AT&T? 3-6 fucking mbps. And
they make you a great deal and only charge $30/m for it. Seriously, F them and
the city.

I now have a direct p2p internet access point on the roof of my house that
gets about 80mbps up and down for less than $30/month. My only other option in
a well developed, dense area is 3mbps from AT&T. A block away, Spectrum
installed fiber and they get 1 gig speeds. I fought it for months, the
corruption goes deep. Fuck AT&T.

------
VonGuard
This is the end. If we think this guy's gonna listen to the people, we're
completely wrong.

~~~
MrZongle2
This is why getting _laws_ passed, instead of relying on executive orders and
the whims of bureaucrats in power at the time, is so crucial.

~~~
dragonwriter
The same faction that opposes net neutrality in the FCC also controls both
Houses of Congress plus the White House, in fact, the change in the latter
that completes that control is _why_ they control the FCC, not an unrelated
independent event.

So laws would be no less vulnerable than FCC regulations.

~~~
repiret
But eight years ago, the opposing faction had even more control. They could
have enshrined net neutrality in law then.

~~~
dragonwriter
And then it could be repealed now. For the same reason the the FCC approach
will be.

------
Pica_soO
I wish we had a slow, but high bandwith alternative to the web in public
hands. The problem is the infrastructure.. if there was a way to create a gnu
add-hoc wifi network between every home hotspot - at least within a city, the
web neutrality could be restored.

------
rebase
I'd like to add the only optimistic response I can think of. The only benefit
of deregulation is the opportunity for disruption of monopolies. Especially so
in a landscape of tech.

If provider A starts providing terrible bandwidth, incredibly high prices, and
terrible service, it means that that provider X has a lucrative opportunity to
provide better bandwidth, better prices, and great service.

I hope these rules aren't used to help entrenched monopolies, but provide an
ripe opportunity for the space to innovate.

I hope these rules will be on the wrong side of history, but there is little
stopping anyone from using the free market to their advantage.

------
wav-part
Is not net-neutrality better handled by IANA ? If you are going to call your
router "internet", you must treat all IP packets equally. Seems like
reasonable terms to me. Afterall this is the property that made Internet what
it is today.

~~~
wmf
IANA has no enforcement authority. I also wouldn't be surprised to see ISPs
respond by simply removing the word "Internet" from their advertising.

------
fallingfrog
I suppose one way to enforce net neutrality might be to route all traffic
through TOR.. that might mess up the caching for a service like Netflix
though. (Could someone who knows more than I do comment on that?)

~~~
amazon_not
Tor does not help against net neutrality violations. Tor only helps if you
want some anonymity for your traffic.

------
beatpanda
How long until access to the open internet costs extra?

~~~
wtallis
If you want a publicly accessible IP address without an ISP-imposed firewall
blocking incoming connections on at least some ports, then it already costs
extra, and has for a long time. For the most part, we're already getting just
WWW (client not server) access plus a handful of other approved services. What
we're facing in the future is difficulty even getting unrestrained access to
the whole WWW.

------
lacroix
The FCC won't let me be

------
bobbington
Internet is plenty fast. Companies need to disclose what they are doing to
customers, but government shouldn't regulate it

------
rocky1138
Can't we just create our own local Intranets using Ethernet cables running
around cul-de-sacs?

Mine connects to yours which connects to his which connects to hers.
Eventually we'll have formed a network.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Yes. Then eventually someone will come along and say, "i'll do it for you for
a fee" and they'll get a bunch of customers and they'll own the cables and
then rename themselves Comcast.

~~~
rocky1138
How about we make it a rule that if anyone wants access to the network they
are not allowed to charge for it. It must be done only to help grow the
network for its own sake.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Someone will sue and then laws will be made. Whoever has the most money/best
lawyers will win.

~~~
rocky1138
Because the network is grass-roots, we can ignore the laws.

~~~
st3v3r
No, we can't.

------
transfire
This issue could well turn out to be Trump's Achilles heal. If they go too
far, the engineers that actually make the Internet work can easily bring the
whole shebang down in protest -- and the world is so addicted to the Internet
at this point the outrage would be deafening. And if Trump is too proud to
back down...

------
bobbington
Leave it alone. Stop demonizing the companies that give Internet.

------
boona
If Trump also continues with his plan to deregulate as well, I'm of the
opinion that this is great news. This could make Google Fiber and other
similar undertakings much more viable. It always gives me the hibby-jeebies
when government takes strong control over an industry. This is especially true
in the case of the FCC where their original mandate went from regulating
airwaves, to regulating the content of said airwaves.

~~~
TheGRS
I'm not sure how federal deregulations would help cities install more fiber,
are there any federal regulations that would impede them? I always thought the
issue was more around infrastructure monopolies in each city. Its not like new
fiber companies can just lay their own lines down, they need to work through
the city to get permission to put new lines in or share existing lines.

~~~
boona
Hmm, that's a good question. It's not clear to me at what level of government
the most stifling regulations are. I had also read that they wanted to offer
phone services for free, but they dropped those due to the incredibly high
regulations in that field as well.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-government-let-us-
build-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-government-let-us-build-a-
faster-net/)

~~~
wtallis
That article shows Google wanting new regulations imposed in some areas
(forcing local governments and utilities to accommodate Google), but not
wanting relief from net neutrality regulations.

~~~
boona
> That article shows Google wanting new regulations imposed in some areas

Where did you get that? Kevin Lo from Google is quoted as saying "Regulations
tied to physical infrastructure sometimes defer the investment altogether".
Are you saying that in reference to something else?

~~~
wtallis
Google's wanting federal regulations enacted to cut the local red tape, some
of which is from local governments and some is from incumbent utilities.

