
FCC chairman tips his hand on net neutrality - mikecarlton
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-fcc-chairman-wheeler-ces-net-neutrality-title-ii-20150107-story.html?track=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=515009
======
justizin
"If Wheeler does propose to reclassify ISPs and regulate them under Title II
of the Communications Act, that would be a stinging defeat for ISPs"

I feel this adversarial perspective is unnecessary. Title II is good for
anyone who wants to build a good Internet Service Provider.

If you're an ISP, and you don't want to build a good ISP, that's bad for your
business with or without Title II. Title II just provides a foundation for
protecting customers of such idiots while they are in the process of going out
of business.

~~~
rayiner
Define "good internet service provider"? ISP's are businesses. Businesses
exist to make money. Regulations like net neutrality push in the direction of
turning ISP's into "dumb pipes" and there's no money in building "dumb"
anything, and certainly not enough to justify the tens of billions of dollars
ISPs invest every year into their networks.[1]

Differentiation and bundling is something you see in many areas of the tech
sector. Facebook doesn't open up their platform and infrastructure for anyone
to access however they want. They carefully control the points of entries onto
their service, and affiliations with other services, etc.

At the end of the day, users are willing to pay, e.g., $15/month for Netflix,
and don't care about who gets what part of that money. Fights over net
neutrality and copyright are about how this $15 gets split up between: content
creators, infrastructure providers, and user-facing websites.

[1] If you look into the actual finances of cable and fiber, you'll find, for
example, that both Verizon FiOS and Charter would be losing tons of money if
they didn't bundle video services along with internet access.

~~~
belorn
> there's no money in building "dumb" anything

Historically, there have been many successful utility providers that earned a
lot of money producing simple products. Telephone companies, power companies,
and oil refineries, neither won a stronghold by producing "smart" products.
Most however did produce illegal monopolies.

~~~
rayiner
1) Utility providers have historicaly been legal monopolies. I.e. in return
for rate regulation, they get protection from competition.

2) The telephone network was a marvel of engineering at the time. Same for the
power grid, power plants, oil refineries, etc. That infrastructure is the
product of huge amounts of "hard engineering."

~~~
reissbaker
1) ISPs are also essentially monopolies. 2) It is also incredibly expensive to
build ISP infrastructure.

~~~
rhino369
1) Not really. Most developed areas have at least two ISP providers, the local
cable co and the local telephone company.

30% of Americans have 1 or fewer wireline broadband connections. Satellite and
4g cover a lot of them and provide at least some competition.

That 30% is mostly rural or small urban pockets that are just outside of DSL's
effective range.

~~~
Forbo
Satellite, 4G and microwave connections are poor substitutes for a wired
connection. The sheer amount of latency and packet loss makes them not even an
option for my connection. I would hardly call them competitive. For a wired
connection, I have precisely one option: Comcast.

Even if latency and packet loss weren't an issue for my use, there are
additional restrictions that come in to play. For instance, my HOA doesn't
allow any satellite dishes or microwave antennae to be mounted in the
neighborhood. While petitioning my HOA for change would be much easier than
trying to petition for national legislation, why should those companies be
allowed to divvy service areas like gangs agreeing to stay out of each others'
"turf"?

A duopoly is no better than a monopoly for all intents and purposes. It
creates the illusion of choice. ISP A sucks at this, this and this, whereas
ISP B sucks at that, that and that. There's a voting analogy to be made there,
but let's try to stick to the topic at hand....

~~~
freeasinfree
Point-to-point microwave latency should be the same as fiber latency at the
same distance.

Multipoint systems used by most WISPs are TDMA-based and should have a fixed
latency well below 10ms depending on how many active users are on a cell.

HOAs aren't allowed to prohibit antennas under 1 meter in diameter per OTARD [
[http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-
rule](http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule)] You should
educate your board and contact the FCC if they balk.

~~~
exelius
> Point-to-point microwave latency should be the same as fiber latency at the
> same distance.

Actually, it's often less because the microwave travels in a straight line
while the fiber has to follow the utility poles or trenches (which often
aren't in a straight line due to right of way issues). High frequency traders
performing latency arbitrage use microwave dishes instead of fiber because
it's a fraction of a second faster than using fiber connections on a cross-
country connection.

Microwave dish systems are, however, a nightmare to support because
transmission can be affected by the weather, birds, and a whole lot of other
things. They also aren't very high bandwidth, and if you have a lot of dishes
that means a lot of interference. I'd say they're perfectly fine for things
like extending your LAN to your cabin up on a mountaintop, but not great tech
to run an ISP off of (though people still try).

------
adwf
What I don't understand is how exactly ISPs managed to be declared _not_
utilities.

Does no-one remember the really old acoustic coupled modems where you had to
literally pick up the phone (utility) and place it on the receiver? All that
happened was that we started plugging the phone line directly into an
integrated modem - it's still going down the phone line for most people.

An ISP _is_ a telecoms provider and should technically already be regulated as
one...

~~~
kbenson
Sort of?

ISPs _ran_ on _top_ of telecom service, which itself ran on telecom
infrastructure, not that differently than any business that received phone
calls, except it utilized telecom more heavily.

Later, with DSL, service was provided over the same infrastructure telecom
used, blurring the line a bit. Additionally, by this point, the internet was
becoming more important to daily life.

Now, we have telecom and other services offered on top of the network service
which is provided on infrastructure designed for networks, not telecom.

So I would say, yes, an ISP _is_ a telecoms provider, but they didn't really
_start_ that way.

Edit: I'm being sort of loose with "telecom" here. I'm using more in the "what
we regulate" sense than the "what the word means" sense.

~~~
seanp2k2
I don't even think telecom is ambiguous or used loosely in this regard;
comcast provides telephone service, and "telecom", short for
"telecommunications", is defined as "communication over a distance by cable,
telegraph, telephone, or broadcasting."

So in this, every single ISP is a _telecom_

------
ChrisAntaki
Does anyone else see Title II as potentially opening the door to more
competition?

From a recent article: [http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/01/google-letter-fcc-
title-i...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/01/google-letter-fcc-title-ii/)

> Mountain View pointed out that if broadband internet access is declared to
> be a Title II service, then Google Fiber should be granted the same access
> as other utilities to poles and other essential infrastructure. It went on
> to say that doing so would actually "promote broadband deployment and
> competition."

~~~
wmf
There are still a bunch of details like franchises and redlining. There's also
the natural monopoly argument.

~~~
exelius
Still not sure what you do in an overbuilding scenario. Those poles have
physical restrictions such as weight and volume. You can't have 10 different
telcos serve a neighborhood: there would just be too much gear on the pole. So
how do you decide who gets the space on the poles? The sensible argument says
you put them up for bid in an auction, but then the incumbents still have a
huge sunk cost advantage.

~~~
mikecb
You spin out the vertical. If the consumers can support ten services, then
those services should be able to support one infrastructure provider investing
in better/stronger poles.

~~~
exelius
There would be an initial land rush if the poles were to be opened, and a
large number of providers would likely fail sometime after that as the market
shakes things out. Even if the market will converge on 3 or 4 providers, there
may be initial demand for pole access by 10+ providers. Assuming the physical
limitations on the poles are less than the demand, how should a regulatory
body decide which providers get access and which ones don't?

In the end, any shared infrastructure problem inevitably ends up with a
limited franchise framework because it's the most efficient way to do it. The
FCC has tried regulating through this framework for years via spectrum
auctions, and all they've really done is provide a form of tax revenue from
the big telecoms to the FCC. The spectrum is often sold with restrictions that
are eventually waived quietly if the winners hold them for a little while, and
they get sold to the big national players anyway.

------
baldfat
We MUST have true competition and instead of localized monopolies. This is the
issue.

Government Regulation can potentially be very scary, but monopolies are 100%
scary and even Libertarians should be against them.

~~~
mindslight
How many driveways does your residence have?

You're fighting a pretty tough natural monopoly to get multiple sets of
competing wires. That we have both copper and coax is a relic from the days
where they could each only carry specific type of signal.

A form of competition could be fostered by making the wire layers into
utilities that wholesale to transit providers. However, it already is this way
on the telco side. In most areas, there is little third party interest for
investing in competing transit networks, so the ILEC is left as the only
provider. Perhaps there would be more interest if latest gen technologies were
(de)regulated in the same way, but that undermines investment in new physical
wires.

~~~
sitkack
Most people don't need wires. In a normal density neighborhood, wireless on
the pole would serve most people's needs. I am absolutely in favor of the last
mile being owned by the people and ISPs competing for services and bandwidth.
That also means that cross town traffic would be extremely low cost (free or a
couple bucks a month).

~~~
mindslight
Wireless in a neighborhood doesn't really address the problem, as you still
have to backhaul from there. (And most people would be fine investing in wire
from house to pole if they could switch it between providers without digging).

I'm all for community networks, but top-down "federal" policy will never
prescribe them.

~~~
sitkack
I was just pushing a specific technological solution for the last mile that is
a little cheaper. Yes, a wired connection to every location would be great,
but 80% of my neighbors don't need that.

In Seattle we just rolled out an LED streetlight replacement project, it would
have been an excellent time to have installed the hardware for city wide mesh
network. Power, placement and line-of-site are there at the top of a street
light.

~~~
jpwgarrison
They did roll out a mesh network here in Seattle. The problem was that it was
police only, and scared everyone. I think they mothballed it till we all
forget. I found the controversy mildly funny as the public got up to speed on
how WIFI works. I am personally more concerned about _private_ businesses
tracking my MAC around the store, which is already pervasive - but not eough
to bother turning off WIFI... [http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-
deactivating-contr...](http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-deactivating-
controversial-WiFi-network-in-Seattle-231692161.html)

------
eli
Title II would be exciting and a big change. I think it's a good thing, but I
can't help but be a little worried about the unforeseen consequences.

~~~
rayiner
Most people here, myself included, are too young to remember what the world
looked like when other industries were regulated under rules similar to Title
II. It's a 1970's style, "ask permission before you do anything" regulatory
framework. Such regulation was applied to airlines, trucking, railroads, etc.

One of the most exciting things happening right now is the disruption of
retail with vendors like Amazon shipping directly to consumers. None of that
would have been possible if it weren't for air cargo deregulation, which
allowed UPS and FedEx to come into existence:
[http://mercatus.org/publication/unleashing-innovation-
deregu...](http://mercatus.org/publication/unleashing-innovation-deregulation-
air-cargo-transportation).

I understand some people want net neutrality, but this is a bad way to go
about it.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I'm not too young to remember that. Air transport regulation isn't a
particularly good comparison. The current wireless cell phone industry is a
much better comparison, because it's already regulated under Title II. If that
really meant "ask permission before you do anything," cell phone providers
would be having to go before the FCC -- or state commissions -- to introduce
new service plans or even change existing ones. They do not.

I think it's too easy to leap on the "regulation bad, deregulation good"
bandwagon; in practice, it's rarely that clearcut. Look at phone company
deregulation in the 90s and the rise of CLECs, Competitive Local Exchange
Carriers -- CLECs would never have existed without deregulation, right? That's
true, yet it turns out that what created the first C was actually _new_
regulation: incumbent LECs were required to share their networks with
competitors. If that sort of "government interference in the market" had
happened in the early 2000s with data communications, the end result might
well have been having half a dozen different ISPs to choose from no matter
where you lived, rather than a choice between your single cable company and
your single phone company. (Of course, like what actually happened to CLECs,
there's also a good chance that the lack of regulation meant nothing would
prevent a series of ever more massive corporate mergers leaving us with the
same lack of choice we had before deregulation, but never mind.)

~~~
otoburb
>The current wireless cell phone industry is a much better comparison, because
it's already regulated under Title II.

Quoting from the posted article and jiving with my memory: "[...] the FCC
explicitly exempted wireless data networks from Title II in 2007"[1].

More specifically, I think only mobile _voice_ services are regulated under
Title II[2]. Mobile data (aka mobile broadband) is exempt, provided the FCC
follows their own declaration made in 2007.

[1]
[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-30A1.pd...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-30A1.pdf)

[2] [http://techliberation.com/2014/11/19/the-myth-that-title-
ii-...](http://techliberation.com/2014/11/19/the-myth-that-title-ii-
regulation-of-broadband-and-wireless-would-be-comparable/)

------
simon_weber
Interesting. The race is now on between Wheeler's Title II proposal and
Congress Republicans' rumored Title X proposal [0].

[0] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2014/12/19...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2014/12/19/congress-wants-to-legislate-net-neutrality-heres-what-
that-might-look-like/)

~~~
seanp2k2
My pessimistic prediction: FCC will go for Title II, a legal shitstorm will
ensue, it will be determined somehow that they don't have the right to
regulate ISPs in that way, then ISPs will start charging per-service and home
internet will basically be like cell data plans, but worse (Google Maps
requires the maps and navigation package!).

------
Zizzle
I'm a bit worried that these stories floating around about title 2 being
imminent will give the monopolies time to throw more money at the problem to
make it go away.

i.e. "convince" Wheeler or get congress to pass a bill.

Or it could be a ploy by Wheeler. Make noise about full regulation, then make
the carriers think they have won some concession when he negotiates and
implements something lesser.

------
debacle
I feel like this has been the Obama Administration's plan all along, and that
everything else has been mostly political theater - mostly to make ISPs look
bad and force them to shoot themselves in the foot.

~~~
jostmey
I disagree. My _suspicion_ is that Tom Wheeler wants to dive deeper into the
powers of government. By dragging out a decision on net neutrality he has
brought the media spotlight to himself. Just think about how many people now
know his name. He could probably run for a simple office now and win.

~~~
debacle
I'm not sure how true that is. Generally heading something like the FCC is a
bit of a death sentence to your political career. You are sort of cordoned
into the bureaucrat/lobbyist pool.

~~~
omarali
[http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c-
commi...](http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c-commissioner-
to-join-comcast)

------
skuhn
The large American ISPs (i.e. cable and telephone companies) have made an
enormous mistake with their recent attempts to create artificial network
congestion to extract rent, and I'm glad that the FCC seems to think that this
isn't acceptable behavior. I still wish that the resolution wasn't government
regulation.

Everyone should be able to access the Internet, at a reasonable cost that
covers their usage and makes a reasonable profit. No packages, plans, quotas
or other nonsense -- no limits whatsoever. The fundamental costs of building a
network lie in the instantaneous bandwidth provided and the oversubscription
ratio, not in how many bits you move in a month or whether your data is going
to this site or that site. This is not how things work right now for a lot of
people.

Likewise, everyone should be able to serve content to these users, on equal
footing relative to the legitimate costs that are being paid. If I'm YouTube,
then I should pay (or make a mutually beneficial agreement to peer) for my
transit, and my upstream providers should be incentivized to provide quality
service (at risk of being replaced). This is how things work right now for
most sites.

I think the root problem is that there is competition on only one side, the
service provider side, where you can choose from tens or hundreds of transit
partners. This side is undergoing substantial consolidation (not good), but I
believe a significant part of that is because they have to keep getting bigger
to compete with Comcast, et. al. It's an arms race.

End user connectivity, on the other hand, has already been extremely
consolidated since the late 90's. There is almost no real competition in most
markets, even if multiple providers exist.

Yes, a lot of people have two or more choices for ISPs at home or work.
Generally it's between the phone and the cable company (AT&T and Comcast where
I live). AT&T is not competitive on performance with Comcast at all, not even
remotely close. There are two other good options (who I always try to do
business with, when I can) in the area: Sonic.net and Webpass. They are either
limited in terms of performance or in availability (or both), and their
respective userbases are a fraction of AT&T's or Comcast's. They both support
network neutrality.

Why do they support it when AT&T and Comcast don't? I think it's because they
aren't monopolies who were gifted substantial control of Internet at public
expense, they aren't trying to be paid two or three times for the same
bandwidth, and they aren't trying to prop up giant unrelated dinosaur
businesses on the backs of their Internet service fees. They're both in one
business, and they compete for that business, and they know that if they fail
to perform adequately then they will lose that business.

This is what we need to bring to _all_ ISPs everywhere in the country, and we
need it way more than formal network neutrality laws. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast,
Time Warner did not build the Internet, so why do they get disproportionate
control over it by virtue of having some buried copper that runs to my house?
It is inconceivable to me that we might allow any of them to acquire more
subscribers and more territories. They should be broken up.

If a company is allowed to have a monopoly in an area, fine. Maybe that makes
sense. They should not be allowed to have a monopoly (or duopoly) that spans
half of the country though. Chop up Comcast ala Standard Oil: one Comcast for
every state (or even better, for every major metropolitan area) they operate
in. They may still try to play shenanigans with Internet connectivity, but
their bargaining power is now vastly reduced.

------
RA_Fisher
One thing that disturbs me about the Net Neutrality discussion is that
nobody's talking about what we might be giving up. I've learned a lot about
unintended effects of regulation. I have some ideas about what those might be,
like reduced infrastructure investment by the ISPs, but as a community this
discussion seems absent. Are there others out there that are concerned about
the unforeseen consequences like I am?

In particular, it feels like Net Neutrality will remove the incentive for
video streaming services to put investment into new and improved compression
algorithms.

I worry about streaming video squeezing out simpler tcp/ip.

