
FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet - jkupferman
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/15/fcc-approves-plan-to-allow-for-paid-priority-on-internet/
======
sinak
The title and post are both quite misleading. The commissioners didn't approve
Tom Wheeler's plan (to regulate the Internet under Section 706), but voted to
go ahead with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and commenting period. Tom
Wheeler stated multiple times that Title II classification is still on the
table.

There'll now be a 120 day commenting period; 60 days of comments from
companies and the public, and then 60 days of replies to those comments from
the same. After that, the final rulemaking will happen.

It's likely that the docket number for comments will continue to be 14-28, so
if you want to ask the FCC to apply common carrier rules to the Internet under
Title II, you can do so here:
[http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=r8e2h](http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=r8e2h)
and you can view previous comments here:
[http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/execute?proceeding=1...](http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/execute?proceeding=14-28)

It's probably best to wait until the actual text of the NPRM is made public
though, which'll likely happen very soon.

Edit: WaPo have now updated the title of the article to make it more accurate:
"FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet." Old title was "FCC
approves plan to allow for paid priority on Internet."

~~~
mortenjorck
Ok. That's 120 days to make Title II a household word.

Broadband's current classification as an information service, as if it's some
sort of MovieFone for the 21st century, is so far removed from reality that
the public should be in an uproar about it. Verizon itself has sought to
classify its fiber buildouts under Title II so it can get fixed-rate access to
existing right-of-way infrastructure, [1] on the technicality that its VOIP
service running across those lines is regulated under Title II. Yet the main
reason for building it is, of course, broadband, which dodged Title II on the
even flimsier grounds of those ISP email and start pages you never use.

People should be holding signs outside the FCC building with "Title II" on
them. The chair of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association,
Michael Powell, has ominously said attempts to reclassify broadband as Title
II would be "World War III"[2] – but if he wants a fight, the FCC really
should oblige him, and consumers should be beating the drums.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716802/game-of-phones-
how...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716802/game-of-phones-how-verizon-
is-playing-the-fcc-and-its-customers)

[2] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/15/5311948/net-neutrality-
and...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/15/5311948/net-neutrality-and-the-
death-of-the-internet)

~~~
rayiner
You really do not want broadband classified under Title II. You will get the
war you want, but it will be a war everyone loses.

Why do you think DSL is such a ghetto? It's because it's subject to a higher
level of regulations, and nobody wants to invest money in such a highly-
regulated industry: [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-
Veriz...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Goldman-Sachs-Wants-Verizon-to-
Sell-All-Landline-Assets-117774).

Classifying cable broadband under Title II will definitely have the effect of
killing Comcast and Time Warner's profit margins. Hooray! Your tribe wins, and
the big evil telecom companies will be cut down to size!

Except the telecom companies make up 6 of the top 25 companies with the
highest U.S. capital expenditures:
[http://news.investors.com/technology/091913-671712-institute...](http://news.investors.com/technology/091913-671712-institute-
ranks-highest-us-corporate-capital-spending.htm). You think they're going to
keep pouring all that money into low-margin heavily-regulated infrastructure?
No, they'll do what Goldman wants and divest themselves of regulated business
lines, and take that money and put it into a profitable business sector.

~~~
IanDrake
This is something most people don't seem to get. Government control ==
stagnation.

~~~
cantankerous
By "get" I think you mean "accept". I don't think most people accept it
because the evidence does not overwhelmingly support this statement.

~~~
IanDrake
>because the evidence does not overwhelmingly support this statement

To which evidence are you referring?

------
ColinDabritz
"And he promised a series of measures to ensure the new paid prioritization
practices are done fairly and don't harm consumers."

I have a measure in mind that won't harm consumers. Don't allow ISPs to
discriminate against users regarding their already paid for internet traffic
based on what they request. (Gee that sounds a lot like net neutrality.)

Anything less is open for abuse.

Perhaps "Discrimination" is a good word to tar this with, because it is. It's
discrimination against companies, but it's also discrimination against users
based on their tastes, preferences, and possibly socioeconomic status.

To say nothing of de-facto censorship issues.

~~~
twoodfin
_Don 't allow ISPs to discriminate against users regarding their already paid
for internet traffic based on what they request._

It's (relatively) cheap for Netflix or their CDN partners to connect their
content-serving systems to a few dozen "meet me" rooms where it's "easy" for
Comcast to hook as many wires up as necessary to receive the requested data
into their network at an acceptable rate. That's all Netflix or their CDNs
need to worry about. And so it's (relatively) cheap for them to scale the
amount of data they serve as their customer base, average viewing time and
stream quality grow.

But Comcast has to deliver all this data to tens of millions of customers
spread out around the nation. While it would be nice if their networks were
sufficiently provisioned to serve, say, half their customers 20Mbit/sec
continuously during primetime, that is just not the network they have today.
It will always be cheaper for Netflix to turn up the spigot than for Comcast
to build out its infrastructure. Should "network neutrality" force Comcast to
spend billions every time Netflix doubles its streaming rate?

~~~
natdempk
Basically the answer to this is yes. If Comcast spends all of this money to
upgrade their network and the cost to the end user goes up for the better
service, then there are really no problems here. That's basically how a market
should work. That plan would actually encourage them to upgrade their networks
over time and install things like fiber to meet the new demands of customers,
instead of providing poor service like they do now.

~~~
twoodfin
The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every
customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly
expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly. Why should someone who
doesn't consume Netflix pay for this? Why should Comcast be afraid to sell you
a 100MBit "bursty" connection (essentially the same kind of service they
actually advertise now) because they'd be 'forced' to potentially have the
capacity to serve 100MBit to every subscriber when Netflix goes to 8K-h.269 or
what-have-you?

~~~
dec0dedab0de
_The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every
customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly
expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly_

Then maybe they should advertise a different bandwidth?

~~~
lutorm
This is sort of like car advertisements, that always touts "350hp V8" or
whatever, even though in the vast majority of real-life usage you can use that
power for at most a second or two at some freeway onramp or in a passing lane.

Saying that the connection is technically capable of 20Mbit/s is different
from _guaranteeing_ 20Mbit/s in any possible usage situation. The problem with
my analogy is that people generally have an idea that you can't go faster than
maybe 80mph regardless of what car you have, but there is no way to know if
the "up to 20Mbit/s" connection means actual usage will show 15, 5, or 1... So
yeah, they should somehow be required to tell you, at least at signup, what
the typical throughput on your connection will be.

~~~
Already__Taken
So you're ok with buying a 350hp v8 that can only really ever do 50hp? Except
on toll roads you have to pay for again that you may use 'up to' 350hp, but
you're still not guaranteed that.

The FCC isn't talking about speed that's a red herring. It's about access.
What if the FCC say "Fine consumers must have a minimum of 1gbps" you're like
"Huzar" and the FCC say "And anyone who pays a huge amount of money get a
minimum of 100gps." ..hold the phone

------
hpaavola
I don't get this whole net neautrality discussion that is going on in US (and
maybe somewhere else, just haven't paid attention).

Consumers pay based on speed of their connection. If ISP feels like the
consumers are not paying enough, raise the prices.

Service providers (not ISPs, but the ones who run servers that consumers
connect to) pay based on speed of their connection. If the ISP feels like
service providers are not paying enough, raise the prices.

Why in the earth there is a need for slow/fast lanes and data caps?

I'm four years old. So please keep that in mind when explaing this to me. :)

~~~
grandalf
> Why in the earth there is a need for slow/fast lanes and data caps?

It's just an alternate way of pricing the service. You could ask similar
questions about a lot of industries:

\- Why does Github charge the way it does and not just price the service per
megabyte of data stored or per commit, etc?

\- Why do fast food restaurants offer free soft drink refills for $0.99 but
not offer a single fill for $0.50?

\- Why do residential bandwidth providers not offer a service with guaranteed
gamer-quality low latency?

\- Why do restaurants not offer a discount for customers who decline the free
bread and water?

~~~
politician
\- Why does the water supplied to my home come in clear and polluted
varieties?

\- Why does the electricity supplied to my office come in normal power and
brown power versions?

Oh, wait.

~~~
rayiner
Those examples are funny, because, e.g. our water infrastructure is the
subject of underinvestment to the tune of $55 billion a year:
[http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2011/12/asce-
report-o...](http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2011/12/asce-report-on-
the-impact-of-under-investment-in-water-infrastructure-in-the-us-.html)

When you make an industry a public utility, and eliminate market-rate profit
incentives, you get underinvestment, which is exactly what we see in water,
power, etc:
[http://www.asce.org/failuretoact](http://www.asce.org/failuretoact).

You can talk all you want about making internet service into "dumb pipes" but
you can't make investors and shareholders pour billions of dollars a year into
the "dumb pipe" business. They'll just dump their regulated business lines and
shift the money to something more profitable, like Goldman is encouraging
Verizon to do: [http://stopthecap.com/2012/01/09/wall-street-encourages-
veri...](http://stopthecap.com/2012/01/09/wall-street-encourages-verizon-to-
get-completely-out-of-landlinefios-business).

~~~
politician
Investors and shareholders are not in favor of pouring billions of dollars a
year into infrastructure either. That's why we're seeing this rent seeking
behavior, and one reason why we have slower speeds than other modern nations.

Yes, I am in favor of municipal fiber-to-the-home solutions paid for with
public dollars given the critical importance of these "dumb pipes".

~~~
rayiner
> Investors and shareholders are not in favor of pouring billions of dollars a
> year into infrastructure either.

Comcast spent $5.4 billion on capital expenditures in 2013:
[http://www.cmcsa.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821438](http://www.cmcsa.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821438).
TWC spent $3.2 billion: [http://ir.timewarnercable.com/investor-
relations/investor-ne...](http://ir.timewarnercable.com/investor-
relations/investor-news/financial-release-details/2014/Time-Warner-Cable-
Reports-2013-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Results/default.aspx).

Verizon and AT&T regularly top the list of companies with the highest U.S.
capital expenditures, and Comcast and TWC are usually in the top 25:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-companies-investing-
mo...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-companies-investing-most-in-
america-2012-7?op=1).

> That's why we're seeing this rent seeking behavior, and one reason why we
> have slower speeds than other modern nations.

Like? We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia, which
have similar problems as we do with lack of density. According to Akamai's
testing, we're in the top 10 worldwide for measured average connection speeds:
[http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-
soti-q413.pdf?WT.mc_i...](http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-
soti-q413.pdf?WT.mc_id=soti_Q413) (page 19, Figure 20). Ookla's NetIndex puts
us ahead of Canada and Australia, and only slightly behind the UK and Germany:
[http://www.netindex.com](http://www.netindex.com). Our Northeastern states,
like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which have density comparable to continental
Europe, have average connection speeds comparable to France, the EU standout.

> Yes, I am in favor of municipal fiber-to-the-home solutions paid for with
> public dollars given the critical importance of these "dumb pipes".

You don't, because when public dollars are involved, you get "lowest common
denominator" levels of investment. Comcast's average user uses 2-5 GB/month.
If telecom infrastructure was provisioned according to these people voting, do
you think the resulting level of investment would be at a level that would
make the folks on HN happy?

~~~
politician
> Comcast spent...

Absolute dollars isn't as interesting as a trend. According to the National
Cable Telecommunications Association, expenditure on broadband infrastructure
has declined over the past 5 years. [http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-
cable-says-broadban...](http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-
broadband-investment-is-flourishing-but-their-own-data)

> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia.

According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds.
[http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/26/america-falls-a-
dismal-31s...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/26/america-falls-a-dismal-31st-
on-ranking-of-consumer-download-speeds-report/)

> You don't, because when public dollars are involved, you get "lowest common
> denominator" levels of investment.

That must explain why Comcast and other monopoly providers fight
municipalities tooth and nail against local broadband projects. I respect your
opinion, but I disagree that communication infrastructure is not a public
good.

~~~
danielweber
_> We compare quite favorably to countries like Canada and Australia._

 _According to a 2013 report by Ookla, US ranks 31st in download speeds._

You know you didn't disagree with him at all, right? Your source shows the US
beating out Canada comfortably, and Australia overwhelmingly.

The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and
Singapore, _ever_ , because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with
weak democratic red tape.

I can't say this with 100% (I may have missed one comparing lists from
different sources), but it looks like there's no country within an order of
magnitude of America's land area that has higher download speeds on Ookla's
list.

 _EDIT_ Yep, confirmed. It looks like the biggest country that is faster than
the US is France, which is 547,000 sqkm, while the lower US's land-only area
is over 7.6 million sqkm.

~~~
chimeracoder
> The US is not going to match the #1 and #2 on your list, Hong Kong and
> Singapore, ever, because it is trivial to wire up a single dense city with
> weak democratic red tape.

But even the most densely populated areas in the US have terrible Internet
access. A small portion of New York City has FiOS, but the vast majority has
Comcast or Time Warner, and those are about$60 for 20Mbps _advertised_ [0].

I'm willing to give Singapore the fact that it's a smaller government[1], but
the bottleneck in providing better Internet access in NYC is _not_ the NYC
government.

[0] I am in midtown Manhattan, probably the most densely populated area in the
country, and I am getting 700 KB/s as I type this, so I'm not even getting
anything close to what's advertised.

[1] And the population is about 2/3 the size of NYC

~~~
rayiner
At the state level, on Ookla's data, New York performs pretty comparably to
France and Belgium. It may be that there are cities in France and Belgium that
have faster internet service. But they have better subways, etc, too. Most
Americans cities are terribly managed. While Verizon is trying to deploy FIOS
in New York, De Blasio has hired a civil rights lawyer to look into the issue
of poor people not being able to afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is
definitely NYC's government!

~~~
chimeracoder
> At the state level, on Ookla's data, New York performs pretty comparably to
> France and Belgium.

Because they're including Weill Cornell Medical College and Digital Ocean in
the data (those are the top ISPs in NYC, on their map).

It's not very meaningful unless we (A) can separate out consumer ISPs from
business ISPs[0], (B) Know what speeds everyone is paying for and has
available (currently this is all lumped together), and (C) knows how much
everyone is paying for that service.

> While Verizon is trying to deploy FIOS in New York, De Blasio has hired a
> civil rights lawyer to look into the issue of poor people not being able to
> afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is definitely NYC's government!

As someone who actually lives in NYC and has tried to get FiOS installed in
multiple buildings, there are two problems. One is that buildings have
exclusive agreements to provide television service through either Time Warner
or Comcast (usually because the superintendant and/or owner gets free cable as
a result of this agreement), and that Verizon refuses to provide FiOS Internet
unless they can also provide television service.

Verizon is fully aware of this problem, and they've framed it in a way that
allows them conveniently to point the finger at another entity.

Verizon is "trying" to deploy FiOS in New York, but they're not really
interested in expanding their coverage.

> De Blasio has hired a civil rights lawyer to look into the issue of poor
> people not being able to afford FIOS! I would say the bottleneck is
> definitely NYC's government

This would only be relevant if the NYC government were the ones actively
blocking people who can afford to pay for FiOS from having it installed, but
as explained above, that's not the case.

------
altcognito
I'm confused by this headline (and a bit by the proceeding).

After watching the FCC hearing, it seemed like all of the people who were
"for" open internet, and spoke of it from the consumer level (including
Wheeler) voted _for_ the proposal. The commissioners that said the FCC didn't
have jurisdiction to regulate and to leave the market alone, voted _against_
the proposal.

Isn't it the case that if they had voted against this, that we would have been
in the exact same boat we are in now and therefore the agreement that Netflix
signed would continue unabated?

In that case, it really didn't matter what they voted.

~~~
opendais
The people at the FCC are saying the opposite of what they mean.

Yes, we are in the same boat with Netflix having to pay for bandwidth as
before. However, by the FCC officially sanctioning something that would have
been technically illegal before the Federal ruling, they've basically reversed
course and declared open season on content providers the ISPs don't like.

~~~
rayiner
> The people at the FCC are saying the opposite of what they mean.

No, net-neutrality proponents are saying the opposite of what they mean. They
couch this in terms of "protecting the open internet." Except there never was
an "open internet." Before the short-lived net neutrality regulations, cable
companies were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their network. And
that's true now that the regulations have been struck down. The cable
companies do not need any sort of action by the FCC to be able to come to
these agreements.

What net-neutrality proponents want is new regulations to keep cable companies
from doing something that they currently are allowed to do, and except for a
small period of time, were historically always allowed to do.

~~~
opendais
If the government blocks fair competition in a market [through controlling who
can provide last mile connections by right of way], they need to provide
regulation to enforce fairness on the other end [those that provide last mile
connections can't pick and choose whose packets they carry and at what QoS].

There used to be counterweights involved [e.g. Comcast had to play ball
fairly] which effectively forced neutrality. Netflix, for instance, wasn't a
'problem' back in 2007 for the ISPs. We didn't have the ISPs pulling QoS BS
like this in the 90s because people could and would switch providers. They
can't now unless they want to go back to using dialup.

------
todayiamme
In my mind one of the key questions to ask in this debate is, if the eventual
rise of a more closely controlled internet destroys this frontier, what's
next?

Right now thanks to a close confluence of remarkable factors, the barriers
associated with starting something are almost negligible. The steady march of
Moore's law combined with visualisation has given us servers that cost
fractions of a penny to lease per hour. No one has had to beg or pay middlemen
to use that server and reach customers around the world. At the other end,
customers can finally view these bits, often streamed wirelessly, on magical
slabs of glass and metal in their hand or what would have passed for a super-
computer in a bygone age... All of this combined with a myriad of other
factors has allowed anyone to start a billion dollar company. If this very
fragile ecosystem is damaged and it dies out, where should someone ambitious
go next to strike out on their own?

~~~
ep103
They won't, this is how you kill a sector of the economy. Hopefully it won't
come to that, but then again, that's why this is important.

------
corford
If Comcast gets their way, the FCC will have effectively ended up sanctioning
the balkanisation of the US's internet users in to cable company controlled
fiefdoms.

Each cable company will then assume the role of warlord for their userbase and
proceed to dictate the terms and agreements under which their users will
experience the internet. All of which guided solely by their desire to
maximise profits.

If people aren't worried yet, they should be. Serfs didn't enjoy medieval
Europe for a reason.

The only two viable routes out of this nightmare are:

1\. Enshrine net-neutrality / common carrier status in law

or

2\. Radically break up the US ISP/cable market so that real competition
exists. This way Comcast is free to try and milk every teat they can find. If
users or content providers don't like the result, Comcast can wither on the
vine and die while competitors pick up their fleeing users.

------
Alupis
Wait a minute! You mean my ever-increasing ISP fees at my home are _not_ for
the ISP to build a better network? You mean to tell me the ISP is now going to
charge content providers for the ability to provide me with content that I'm
already paying my ISP to deliver? You mean to tell me my content providers are
now going to likely increase their fees to cope with this "fast lane"?

This sounds an awful lot like extortion, and double billing.

ISP's... you have one (1) job. Deliver packets.

------
mgkimsal
"Even one of the Democratic commissioners who voted yes on Thursday expressed
some misgivings about how the proposal had been handled.

"I believe the process that got us to rulemaking today was flawed," she said.
"I would have preferred a delay.""

\---------------------------------

But... she voted yes anyway. WTF?

~~~
ColinDabritz
For whatever reasons, she must have felt moving forward with a rule was better
than not, regardless of the process issues.

I may disagree with the decision, but I understand her position.

~~~
Alupis
"I would have done this differently. I would have taken the time to consider
the future"

Yet she did not consider the future one bit.

------
adamio
The internet is slowly being transformed into cable television

~~~
spacefight
Yes. And certain companies are pushing hard to make them succeed these days.
Mozilla is one of them.

~~~
wtetzner
I don't understand this comment. Can you explain?

~~~
probably_wrong
By agreeing to incorporate DRM in the browser Mozilla is, according to that
comment, agreeing to let the problem get worse.

One of the characteristics of cable TV is, precisely, that you don't get
access to the content if you don't pay. DRM is one way of achieving this, and
Mozilla in this case is accepting that without even a struggle.

If I understood the parent comment correctly, that is.

~~~
winslow
This is incorrect.

Mozilla fought the DRM implementation more than any other browser. They were
at the point where they unfortunately had to implement it, otherwise their
user base wouldn't be able to access services like netflix etc. At that point
it's better to keep your user base instead of them switching to another
browser and having no voice.

~~~
probably_wrong
You raise a good point. I'm not smart enough to give a good reply to the issue
on my own, so instead I'm going to quote the relevant part of the FSFs
statement[1] from a different discussion[2]:

> We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points
> out[3] that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made
> any effort to study the situation. More importantly, popularity is not an
> end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a
> nonprofit with an ethical mission.

[1] [https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between-
mo...](https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-condemns-partnership-between-mozilla-and-
adobe-to-support-digital-restrictions-management)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7749108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7749108)

[3] [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox-
cl...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox-closed-
source-drm-video-browser-cory-doctorow)

~~~
winslow
I'd argue you are smart enough to give a good reply. You've given your
reference material as well (which I should have done previously). You are
reading and engaging in Hacker News topics, this means you are way above the
"average" person. You are smart enough to give a good reply :)

------
dragonwriter
Its not a plan to allow paid priority on the Internet -- that's _already
allowed without any restriction_ since the old Open Internet order was struck
down by the D.C. Circuit. Its a plan to, within the limits placed by the court
order striking down the old plan, _limit_ practices that violate the
neutrality principles the FCC has articulated as part of its Open Internet
efforts, including paid prioritization.

------
coreymgilmore
Simply put, this is absolutely terrible. How are start ups and small business
web companies supposed to compete when their reach to consumers will
automatically be slowed compared to larger competitors who pay for faster
pipes?

And who is to govern the rates (and tiers) of faster speeds? I can only assume
ISPs will determine a cost based on aggregate bandwidth. But who is to say
there can't be a fast lane, a faster lane, and a fastest lane? Sounds anti
competitive to me (even the big name companies are against this!).

Last: "The telecom companies argue that without being able to charge tech
firms for higher-speed connections, they will be unable to invest in faster
connections for consumers" > Google Fiber is cheaper for one. Seconds, the
telecom giants have all increased subscriptions so there is more money there.
And, as time goes along shouldn't these providers become more efficient and
costs should decrease anyway? Must be nice to have a sudo-monopoly in some
markets.

------
devx
As an European I probably should be glad about this, since this combined with
all the NSA spying issues and implementing backdoors into US products [1],
should increasingly force innovation out of US and bring it to Europe, but
somehow I'm not.

All the ISPs will slow down all the major companies services, unless they pay
up. There is no "faster" Internet. It's just "paying to get normal Internet
back", like they've already done with Netflix:

[http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-
hilarious...](http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious-
graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/)

[1] - [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-
nsa-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-
factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

~~~
buro9
Anything the US does they will eventually try and put into a trade agreement
and force others to do too.

We should never look over the water and be thankful it's not happened to us,
because all we're seeing is how our (near) future is likely to be.

------
dethstar
Most important quote since the title is misleading:

" The proposal is not a final rule, but the three-to-two vote on Thursday is a
significant step forward on a controversial idea that has invited fierce
opposition from consumer advocates, Silicon Valley heavyweights, and
Democratic lawmakers. "

------
DevX101
> approved in a three-to-two vote along party lines,

Why the fuck are there party lines in the FCC? Or any other regulatory body
for that matter?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why the fuck are there party lines in the FCC? Or any other regulatory body
> for that matter?

Because regulators aren't angels that descend from heaven, but people
peforming a political function, appointed and confirmed by elected
politicians.

Or, more succinctly, _because representative democracy_.

~~~
shmerl
I think the question was not why there are members of different parties in the
FCC, but why do they differ in this vote based on partisan membership? I.e.
why would one party find these rules good while the other not? It's as if one
likes net neutrality, while the other doesn't.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's as if one likes net neutrality, while the other doesn't.

"As if"? For the whole length of the net neutrality policy debate, the support
has concentrated in the Democratic Party and the opposition has centered in
the Republican Party -- not just on the FCC, but in Congress and everywhere
else. The reason the Democratic majority of the FCC keeps trying to find a way
to advance Open Internet principles within the framework of existing law that
at best addresses the issue indirectly is because neither mostly-Democratic
supporters of express FCC authority (or mandate) for net neutrality nor
mostly-Republican supporters of expressly prohibiting the FCC from regulating
for net neutrality have sufficient support in Congress to pass legislation
incorporating those goals and get it signed into law or override a
Presidential veto.

~~~
shmerl
Let's rephrase it then. Net neutrality is a very reasonable idea (same way as
antitrust regulations are). Why do Republicans oppose it? They like
monopolistic abuses on the Internet?

~~~
flavor8
It's quite simple; net neutrality represents regulations on business.
Republicans are anti-(business)-regulation, believing that a completely free
market will deliver the best result to consumers. Of course, in this case that
disregards the reality of 80 years of telecom monopolies (and derivative
companies thereof,) i.e. mammoth established players with a history of playing
dirty to stomp all others out of the marketplace; it is possible that in a
blank slate scenario that regulation-less competition would lead to a good
result for consumers, but even that is not a foregone outcome. In short,
market idealism.

~~~
shmerl
That's the point. One has to be blind to reality to have such "idealism". They
should know better.

------
jqm
People having the freedom to look at whatever they choose on a level playing
field may not be in the interests of all concerned.

The consolidation of media companies possibly served interests other than
profits. Look at what Putin is allegedly doing with the internet. Maybe in a
way the eventual intent of this is the same. And for the same purposes. I
don't think we should let it get started just in case.

------
zacinbusiness
I don't understand the ISP's point of view on this issue. Please correct me if
I'm wrong. But it seems that ISPs are saying "Hey, we offer this great
service. But bandwidth hungry applications like Netflix are just using too
much data. And we need to throttle their data usage, or they need to pay us
more money."

The ISPs, then, are claiming to be victims. When in reality they simply
promise services that they can't cost-effectively deliver.

If I make contracts to give all of you a new pair of shoes every month. And
you pay in advance. And then I run out of shoes before I can deliver on my
promise...doesn't that mean that I don't know how to effectively run my
business? Isn't that my fault for promising a service that I can't provide?
Why would anyone feel sorry for me?

------
hgsigala
At this point everyone is officially invited to comment on the proposal. In
around 60 days, the FCC will respond to your comments and redraft a proposal.
Please comment! [http://www.fcc.gov/comments](http://www.fcc.gov/comments)

------
spacefight
"What a nice internet connection you have there. It would be a real shame if
something happened to it...".

So we had a good time, haven't we...

------
joelhaus
Can anyone make a serious argument on behalf of the carriers? Given the court
decisions, the only way to protect the American people and the economy is to
reclassify ISP's under Title II.

For the skeptics, it appears to come down to the question: which route offers
better prospects for upgrading our internet infrastructure? _Choice one_ is
relying on a for-profit corporation with an effective monopoly that is
beholden to shareholders; _Choice two_ is relying on elected politicians
beholden to the voters.

If you think there is a different argument that can be made on behalf of the
carriers or if you can make the above one better, I would be very interested
in hearing it.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Can anyone make a serious argument on behalf of the carriers? Given the
> court decisions, the only way to protect the American people and the economy
> is to reclassify ISP's under Title II.

If you ignore the various arguments about ISPs trying to get paid twice for
the same content, consider the possibility of an ISP and a major high-
bandwidth content provider (YouTube, Netflix, Akamai, etc) trying to build a
deal that's better for both of them _and_ for the consumer. For instance,
consider a CDN on the ISP's network. Consumers get content faster with lower
latency; the content provider reduces their bandwidth costs by sending only
one copy of $POPULAR_CONTENT rather than one per customer; the ISP has lower
costs and makes its customers happier.

Network neutrality would ban that, too. So this isn't the kind of thing that
can be settled with simple blanket statements like "carriers should not make
deals with content providers" or "all content should be treated identically".

> For the skeptics, it appears to come down to the question: which route
> offers better prospects for upgrading our internet infrastructure? Choice
> one is relying on a for-profit corporation with an effective monopoly that
> is beholden to shareholders; Choice two is relying on elected politicians
> beholden to the voters.

I'm always impressed when people can say with a straight face that politicians
listen to voters. Voters don't care about issues like these, unless you can
divide the issue across party lines _and_ successfully make it one of the very
small number of visible issues in a political campaign.

I'd be more interested in seeing proposed solutions to the "effective
monopoly" problem than to network neutrality. Solve the monopoly and issues
like network neutrality will disappear along with it.

~~~
joelhaus
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Care to explain your CDN/ISP hypothetical
further? Wouldn't the content providers who are capable of paying have an
advantage over those who aren't?

I'm not clear on how money changes hands in your case, but undoubtedly this
arrangement would favor the ISP. As far as peering goes, it's a bit more
complicated... server locations are more mobile than consumer locations, so
there is less concern about an effective geographic monopoly for backbone
providers. Without fully thinking through the economics of peering, my initial
thought is that there should probably be a regulated amount that ISP's can
charge to peer with backbone providers. Maybe cost plus a maintenance fee
based on traffic volume.

Regarding voting, I just feel it's the better of two imperfect solutions.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Thanks for the thoughtful response. Care to explain your CDN/ISP
> hypothetical further? Wouldn't the content providers who are capable of
> paying have an advantage over those who aren't?

Of course, just as Amazon has an advantage over smaller retailers, and Netflix
has an advantage over new steaming services. Incumbents always have certain
advantages, and business deals always favor those involved in them over those
not involved in them. Money makes things easier. But "an advantage" isn't "an
insurmountable advantage", and HN is full of startups coming up with
innovative ways to circumvent incumbent advantages.

> I'm not clear on how money changes hands in your case, but undoubtedly this
> arrangement would favor the ISP.

Not necessarily. This doesn't need to be a win/lose zero-sum scenario; it's
entirely possible, in the scenario I described, for all three of the customer,
the ISP, and the content provider to come out _ahead_.

> As far as peering goes, it's a bit more complicated... server locations are
> more mobile than consumer locations, so there is less concern about an
> effective geographic monopoly for backbone providers.

That's certainly true. And in general, I think it's much more critical to find
a solution to the ISP monopoly problem than to the network neutrality problem,
because ISP monopolies lead to quite a few other issues as well.

> Without fully thinking through the economics of peering, my initial thought
> is that there should probably be a regulated amount that ISP's can charge to
> peer with backbone providers. Maybe cost plus a maintenance fee based on
> traffic volume.

I can understand where that idea would come from, but ick; there are _so many_
things wrong with that idea.

Perhaps it would make sense to legally separate the "last-mile" provider from
the large-scale bandwidth provider, with the former providing only
connectivity to a local meet-me room. I don't particularly _like_ that idea,
but it seems far less awful than alternatives.

------
Orthanc
This doesn't sound good:

"6\. Enhance competition. The Commission will look for opportunities to
enhance Internet access competition. One obvious candidate for close
examination was raised in Judge Silberman’s separate opinion, namely legal
restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer broadband services to
consumers in their communities."

[http://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-fcc-chairman-tom-
wheel...](http://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler-fccs-
open-internet-rules)

~~~
gergles
The FCC wants to _override_ state laws banning municipal competition. This is
one thing they have right.

------
ryanhuff
The investment in Obama by tech luminaries must be a huge disappointment.

~~~
seanieb
Obama proclaiming his "commitment to net neutrality" \-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-mW1qccn8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-mW1qccn8k)

Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman, was appointed by President Obama and confirmed
by the majority Democratic U.S. Senate in 2013 (lead by Harry Reid who also
claims to be pro net neutrality) is going to kill Net Neutrality.

Please take some time to remind democratic politicians & supporters why
practicing this sort of politics will come with a price.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman, was appointed by President Obama and
> confirmed by the majority Democratic U.S. Senate in 2013 (lead by Harry Reid
> who also claims to be pro net neutrality) is going to kill Net Neutrality.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit _already_
killed net neutrality. Wheeler is trying to resurrect it within the limits set
by the Court (if you want more than that Court will allow under current
statutory authority, you need to get more net neutrality friendly people in
Congress so that they can change the statute to give the FCC more authority
with regard to net neutrality.)

------
rsync
peak internet:

[http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak-
internet.h...](http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak-
internet.html)

------
kenrikm
Great! the FCC has officially sanctioned ISP's to be Trolls, demanding some
gold to cross their bridge. This guarantees that there will always be multiple
levels of peering speed even if the connections are upgraded and are able to
easily handle the load. They won't want to give up their troll gold. That's
just peachy, thanks for letting us get screwed over even more, Go USA!
</Sarcasm>

~~~
dragonwriter
> the FCC has officially sanctioned ISP's to be Trolls, demanding some gold to
> cross their bridge.

No, the DC Circuit did that when it struck down the FCC's old Open Internet
order. The FCC has proposed a draft plan to limit harassment by the trolls,
and asked the public for comments on how to make it better before "official
sanction" is given to any rule.

------
trurl
We truly have the best government money can buy.

------
DigitalSea
There is no way in hell this can go ahead. Also, minor nitpick, but this is a
rather misleading post. Nobody approved anything, the vote was merely a green
light to go ahead with the proposal, nothing has been approved just yet, it's
not that easy.

Some of my "favourite" takeaways:

 _He stressed consumers would be guaranteed a baseline of service_ Just like
your internet provider says they don't throttle torrent traffic, but a few
major ISP's have been caught out doing just that. The same is going to happen
if this proposal goes ahead. Unless people breaking the rules are reported,
they won't be caught and where will the resources for reporting infringer's
come from?

 _Wheeler 's proposal is part of a larger "net neutrality" plan that forbids
Internet service providers from outright blocking Web sites_ I have no doubt
in my mind, the reform Wheeler is pushing for is merely a door and there are
definitely bigger things in store once the flood gates have been opened. The
pressure will be too great to close them again.

 _The agency said it had developed a "multifaceted dispute resolution process"
on enforcement and would consider appointing an "ombudsman" to oversee the
process._ The FCC has a shady history of resolving disputes, this is merely
hot air to make the reforms not sound so bad. What happens when the resolution
process breaks or is overwhelmed and can't cope with the number of
infringements taking place?

As for a handful of key entities controlling what happens with the pipeline,
China is a classic example of what happens when you let a sole entity dictate
something like the Internet and even then, the great firewall doesn't stop
everything.

Then there are questions about conflicts of interest. What happens when say a
company like Comcast owns a stake in a company like Netflix and conspire to
extort a competitor like Hulu (asking for exorbitant amounts of cash for
speed). Who sets the price of these fast lanes and will prices be capped to
prevent extortion? Too flawed to work.

~~~
law
> What happens when say a company like Comcast owns a stake in a company like
> Netflix and conspire to extort a competitor like Hulu (asking for exorbitant
> amounts of cash for speed).

Comcast actually owns part of Hulu, but its a purely economic ownership
interest (See [https://www.fcc.gov/transaction/comcast-
nbcu](https://www.fcc.gov/transaction/comcast-nbcu) for more information)

------
lazyloop
And now Comcast is planning data limits for all customers, what conincidence.
[http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/technology/comcast-data-
limi...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/technology/comcast-data-
limits/index.html)

~~~
EvanAnderson
Metered service is, ultimately, what they want. They are envious of the kinds
of margin wireless carriers are getting for data transfer over their networks.

------
Lewisham
_After weeks of public outcry over the proposal, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said
the agency would not allow for unfair, or "commercially unreasonable,"
business practices. He wouldn't accept, for instance, practices that leave a
consumer with slower downloads of some Web sites than what the consumer paid
for from their Internet service provider._

Because they've done such a bang-up job of that thus far..? It's no secret
that at comparable advertised speed, Netflix on Comcast was far worse than
Netflix on other ISPs.

I'm not sure if they're really so deluded to think their enforcement is super
great, or if they're just delivering placating sound bites.

------
QuantumChaos
If this were a matter of prioritizing traffic on the internet backbone, then I
would be in favor. There is nothing wrong with charging congestion fees.

However, in this case, we are talking about cable companies, and the
bottleneck is presumably the last mile. So what these laws are really doing is
enabling cable companies to extract even more monopoly rents, in the form of
discriminatory pricing (even though it is the content providers that pay, the
pipeline in question is closer to the end user than the content provider, and
so if the issue were congestion pricing, and not discriminatory pricing, the
charge would be on the end user, who is already paying).

------
xhrpost
So what happened? It seems like just yesterday that the FCC was the one
creating the rules around net neutrality. A federal court over-turns this and
all of a sudden the FCC decides to go the complete opposite direction?

~~~
dragonwriter
> So what happened?

Media misrepresentation happened.

> It seems like just yesterday that the FCC was the one creating the rules
> around net neutrality.

It still is.

> A federal court over-turns this and all of a sudden the FCC decides to go
> the complete opposite direction?

No, this is an attempt to revive, within the constraints of the court
decision, what was struck down. The reporting that this is about "allowing" or
"considering" paid prioritization ignores the fact that, as a result of the
court decision, paid prioritization is allowed _now_ , without any
restrictions. This proposal would declare some paid prioritization (where it
is offered exclusively to an affiliate of the ISP) presumptively illegal, and
seek to restrict paid prioritization even outside of that which is
presumptively illegal. This is in the exact same direction (though not the
exact same mechanism, _since that was ruled outside of the FCC 's authority_)
as prior net neutrality orders from the FCC, which is why the same 3-2
partisan alignment on the FCC exists on the issue that has existed on net
neutrality as a broad concept for quite some time.

------
markcampbell
Just making it easier for other countries. Shoot yourself in the foot, USA!

------
markbnj
This portion of the piece is interesting to me: "He wouldn't accept, for
instance, practices that leave a consumer with slower downloads of some Web
sites than what the consumer paid for from their Internet service provider."
Definitions are tricky, but since we all pay for more bandwidth from our ISPs
than we utilize from any one site (or almost all of us, I think), sticking to
this rule would mean ISPs would not have the power to throttle individual data
sources. Is that not a correct interpretation?

------
mariusz79
It really is time to decentralize and move forward with mesh networking.

~~~
Omniusaspirer
Can you point me towards what I can do right now to move towards this? I
already maintain an open guest network but I presume there's more I could be
doing.

------
rjohnk
I know all the basic ins and outs of bandwidth. But why is this so
complicated? I pay x amount for access to the Internet at x speed. I use
internet. I pay the access fee.

------
JimmaDaRustla
There should be a fast lane, it should also be the only lane.

------
couchand
_" If a network operator slowed the speed of service below that which the
consumer bought, it would be commercially unreasonable and therefore
prohibited," Wheeler said._

I find this quote very interesting. Currently the trend seems to be that the
sticker speed on a connection bears little resemblance to the actual speed. I
wonder if he has a plan to change that or if this was just an offhand remark.

------
jon_black
Assuming the plan were to be approved, and given that the FCC is an American
government organisation, are there any implications for those in other
countries?

Also, how can an American government organisation consider paid priority on
The (global) Internet? Isn't it better to say that "FCC approves plan to
consider paid priority on Internet for those who connect to it via a US
telecoms provider"?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Assuming the plan were to be approved, and given that the FCC is an American
> government organisation, are there any implications for those in other
> countries?

If its approved, then there would be limits -- which do not currently exist --
on what USP based ISPs could do to discriminate between content sources in
providing access to consumers. This includes, among others, content sources in
foreign countries. So it certainly has implications for foreign _content
providers_ , but probably less for foreign _consumers_.

> Also, how can an American government organisation consider paid priority on
> The (global) Internet?

Its not. Its considering _limiting_ what US broadband providers can do.

------
isamuel
The actual notice of proposed rulemaking (or "NPRM," as ad-law nerds call it):
[http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-61A...](http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-14-61A1.pdf)

I haven't read it in full yet, but I've read the introduction, and the press
coverage (surprise!) does not seem quite right to me.

------
mkempe
Who amongst the political rulers of the country, apart from Jared Polis and
Ted Cruz, is fighting against this?

I don't mean populists who make vague promises about net neutrality in order
to be elected, then put people in place to undermine their promises -- I mean
people who are in a position to fight the FCC, and who are _actively_ doing
it.

------
ozh
I hope there will be companies, upon being asked by an ISP to pay more for
higher priority in their network, who will tell them to get the f*k off and
advocate usage of VPN and anonymisers for their users so they're not
identified as US residents.

~~~
wlesieutre
Which only works until your VPN provider also refuses to pay up and gets put
in the slow lane for having too much traffic.

~~~
deathhand
Business opportunity: Start VPN service and pay for the 'faster lane'.
Advertise to users that they won't have throttled anything. ISPs become the
utility that they should be.(Although at a higher cost to the end user)

------
pushedx
You can't offer bandwidth at a premium, without reducing the bandwidth
available to others. That's (physically) how the Internet works. No matter
what Wheeler says, there's no way that paid prioritization of traffic can be
done fairly.

------
shna
The mistake will be to allow even a tiny hole in net neutrality. Once they get
hold of something it will be only a matter of time to make it larger. However
it sounds harmless any dent to net neutrality should be fought against
fiercely.

------
D9u
The FCC doesn't even agree with ISPs on the definition of what, exactly,
constitutes "Broadband" connectivity.

Meanwhile the monopoly in my area continues to receive my payments, no matter
what they do.

------
forgotAgain
The fix is in. Now what are you going to do about it?

------
knodi
No one I know in the public want this, only ISP. Why the fuck are we even
having a commenting period on this fucking knock it down.

------
phkahler
Who nominated this former lobbyist for the FCC spot? And who voiced/voted
their approval? Voters should know.

------
shmerl
I don't really understand why it's divided by partisan membership.

------
carsonreinke
Maybe I am missing something, but what is the argument ISPs have for this?

~~~
seanieb
They are a very large contributor to Democratic politicians.

~~~
couchand
To be clear, the Democrat appointees are the ones pushing for a return to net
neutrality.

~~~
seanieb
Factually acurate. And what do Obama & Congressional and Senate Democrats have
to say about it? at most feigning some concern, but ultimately doing nothing.
They don't care net neutrality, having somewhat plausible deniable and making
Comcast, at&t et al happy is a win win for them.

Do you really think the FCC chairman would do this or be able to do this
against Obamas wishes?

------
rgumus
Well, this is no coincidence. ISPs have been working on this for years.

~~~
wavefunction
ISPs or telecoms? Telecoms have been working on this for years.

~~~
spacefight
Sometimes, ISPs are both.

~~~
hgsigala
Well, that's the issue. ISP's are being classified as telecoms.

------
mc_hammer
anywhere that the internet can be routed via paid priority is the spot where
the snooping can be installed.

------
xtx23
So why isn't internet an utility?

------
wielebny
If that would pass - wouldn't be this a great opportunity for european hosting
companies to seize the hosting market?

~~~
wpietri
Probably not. Installing last-mile infrastructure is expensive. I understand
that it's also often political; early cable TV installations were often local
monopolies granted by local governments.

Even if they tried, the incumbent ISPs can afford to underprice their services
to make it uneconomical for competitors. E.g., they might lower prices
drastically in competitive areas, and raise them in uncompetitive ones.

------
thekylemontag
G_G america.

------
graycat
Okay, from all the public discussion so far, NYT, WaPo, various fora, etc., I
totally fail to 'get it'. Maybe I know too much or too little; likely a
mixture of both.

Help! More details anyone?

To be more clear, let's consider: I pay my ISP, a cable TV company, so much a
month for Internet service with speeds -- Mbps, million bits per second -- as
stated in the service, maybe 25 Mbps upload (from me to the Internet) speed
and 101 Mbps download speed.

Now those speeds are just between my computer and my ISP. So, if I watch a
video clip from some server in Romania, maybe I only get 2 Mbps for that video
clip because that is all my ISP is getting from the server in Romania.

And I am paying nothing per bit moved. So, if I watch 10 movies a day at 4
billion bytes per movie, even then I don't pay more.

Now, to get the bits they send me, my ISP gets those from some connection(s)
to the 'Internet backbone' or some 'points of presence' (PoP) or some such at
various backbone 'tiers', 'peering centers', etc.

Now, long common in such digital communications have been 'quality of service'
(QoS) and 'class of service' (CoS). QoS can have to do with latency (how long
have to wait until the first packet arrives?), 'jitter' (the time between
packets varies significantly?), dropped packets (TCP notices and requests
retransmission), out of order packets (to be straightened out by the TCP logic
or just handled by TCP requesting retransmission), etc. Heck, maybe with low
QoS some packets come with coffee stains from a pass by the NSA or some such!
And CoS might mean, if a router gets too busy (the way the Internet is
designed, that can happen), then some packets from a lower 'class' of service
can be dropped.

But my not very good understanding is that QoS and CoS, etc., don't much apply
between my computer and my ISP and, really, apply mostly just to various parts
of the 'Internet backbone' where the really big data rates are. And there my
understanding is that QoS and CoS are essentially fixed and not adjusted just
for me or Netflix, etc. E.g., once one of the packets headed for me gets on a
wavelength on a long haul optical fiber, that packet will move just like many
millions of others, that is, with full 'network neutrality'.

So, I ask for some packets from a server at Netflix, Google, Facebook, Yahoo,
Vimeo, WaPo, NYT, HN, Microsoft's MSDN, etc. Then that server connects to
essentially an ISP but with likely a connection to the Internet at 1, 10, 40,
100 Gbps (billion bits per second). And, really, my packets may come from
Amazon Web Services (AWS), CloudFlare, Akamai, some colocation facility by
Level3 or some such; e.g., the ads may come from some ad server quite far from
where the data I personally was interested in came from.

Note: I'm building a Web site, and my local colocation facility says that they
can provide me with dual Ethernet connections to the Internet at 10 Gbps per
connection.

Note: Apparently roughly at present it is common commercial practice to have
one cable with maybe 144 optical fibers each with a few dozen wavelengths of
laser light (dense wavelength division multiplexing -- DWDM) with data rate of
40 or 100 Gbps per wavelength.

So, there is me, a little guy, getting the packets for, say, a Web page.
Various servers send the packets, they rattle around in various tiers of the
Internet backbone, treated in the backbone like any other packets, arrive at
my ISP, and are sent to me over coax to my neighborhood and to me.

So, with this setup, just where could, say, Netflix be asked to pay more and
for what? That is, Netflix is already paying their ISP. That ISP dumps the
Netflix packets on the Internet backbone, and millions of consumer ISPs get
the packets. My ISP is just a local guy; tough to believe that Netflix will
pay them. Besides, there is no need for Netflix to pay my ISP since my ISP is
already doing what they say, that is, as I can confirm with Web site

[http://www.speedtest.net](http://www.speedtest.net)

I'm getting the speeds I paid my ISP for.

Netflix is going to pay more to whom for what?

Now, maybe the issue is: If the Netflix ISP and my ISP are the same huge
company, UGE, that, maybe, also provides on-line movies, then UGE can ask
Netflix to pay more or one or the other of the UGE ISPs will throttle the
Netflix data. Dirty business.

But Netflix is a big boy and could get a different ISP at their end. Then the
UGE ISP who serves a consumer could find that the UGE ISP still throttles data
from Netflix but not from the UGE movie service? Then the consumer's ISP would
be failing to provide the data rate the consumer paid for.

Or, maybe, the UGE ISP that serves me might send the movies from the UGE movie
service not part of the, say, 101 download speed from my ISP to me and,
instead, provide me with, say, 141 Mbps while the UGE movie is playing. This
situation would be 'tying', right? Then if Netflix wants to be part of this
141 Mbps to a user who paid for only 101 Mbps, then Netflix has to pay their
UGE ISP more; this can work for UGE because they have two ISPs and 'own both
ends of the wire'.

I can easily accept that a big company with interests at several parts of the
Internet and of media more generally may use parts of their business to hurt
competition. Such should be stopped.

But so far the public discussions seem to describe non-problems.

------
kirualex
Yet another blow to Net-Neutrality...

~~~
berrypicker
I don't see a problem. You can switch ISP if your current one isn't net-
neutral. Why should you force businesses to operate in certain way? They're
not breaking any laws.

~~~
trurl
Clearly you aren't living in the United States. My choices are Comcast,
Comcast, and Comcast.

I'm really starting to think mesh networks are going to be the only solution.

~~~
berrypicker
Are there no smaller, 'independent' ISPs which aren't part of conglomerates
that are unlikely to remain net-neutral?

~~~
trurl
Again, you clearly aren't from around here.

To be less facetious, I could also choose AT&T DSL, but they don't offer
competitive bandwidth. And they aren't exactly a small independent ISP. There
might be ISPs that offer "business class" service, but their prices probably
start at least 3x what I currently pay. I'm not even sure they would offer
service in an apartment complex either.

