

There Are Only Two Weeks Left to Comment on Net Neutrality - ted0
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/02/there-are-only-two-weeks-left-to-comment-on-net-neutrality/

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felipesabino
What was that? I am so disappointed to see that they featured a video showing
net neutrality being ONLY about facebook, youtube and more video streaming...

If they wanted to go mainstream, John Oliver did a much better job (and
funnier, btw)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU)

~~~
tzs
Oliver implied that we have net neutrality now, and the FCC is trying to take
it away. If the large number of people who watched that video and then
commented based their comments on that, there is a decent chance that they
told the FCC to not regulate the internet, which in effect telling the FCC
that the commentator is against net neutrality.

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kristopolous
Honest Question: Doesn't the FCC have the privilege of disregarding every
comment and moving forward however they want?

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exelius
Yes; as they should.

Net neutrality is (and always has been) a good philosophical idea that is
completely impractical to implement given the business structure that has
arisen around content distribution.

Right now, we have a situation where the big guys (i.e. the major ISPs) can
effectively force companies that are pushing large amounts of bandwidth to
sign private interconnect agreements. This is less onerous than it seems,
because the industry is already largely split functionally into creation and
distribution. The only companies this really affects significantly are the
ones who are big enough that having vertically integrated creation and
distribution functions create a cost savings. Paying interconnect fees cuts
into margins for those companies. Smaller companies are just going to pay CDNs
(who have always paid ISPs for interconnects) for delivery anyway: the value a
CDN provides is more than just network connectivity.

With true net neutrality, we would have a situation where the big guys (in
this case, large traffic generators like Netflix/Amazon/YouTube/Akamai etc.)
flood the small guys off the net. The popular assumption is that ISPs would
throw more money into upgrading their networks to deal with the flood of data;
but every industry person I've spoken with believes the opposite. It would
lead to a mass exodus of investment dollars from wired broadband because there
would be no way for the ISPs to recover those dollars in the future. These
companies have other things they can invest in; and they will likely choose to
spend the money they would have spent on infrastructure on restructuring their
companies to look more like Netflix because the FCC has effectively blessed
that business model. This would be bad for the consumer and bad for companies
like Netflix.

Net neutrality is a good idea in principle, but there is no good way to get to
true net neutrality from where we are. If the goal of net neutrality is to
create a faster Internet, it would need to be accompanied with about a half a
trillion dollars of government money over the next decade; and the FCC doesn't
have the power to do that without Congress.

~~~
kristopolous
Alright but (1) why should I publicly subsidize a private company who can't
manage to fit a project like that on its balance sheets?

(1a) Isn't that a sign they need to be a public utility?

Furthermore, (2) the last time we did this (1996 Telecommunications act),
wasn't it no strings-attached? (3) Wasn't it widely seen as the private
companies not coming through with the intention of the legislation?

(4) What do you mean "flood the small guys off the net"? Are you saying they
would maliciously do denial of service attacks on smaller companies, as in a
"Trespass to chattels"? If not, then what do you mean, in concrete terms,
without platitudes?

(5) "no way for the ISPs to recover those dollars in the future" \- Isn't it
true that other companies in other countries can do it without government
subsidies and are yet, still profitable?

(6) [background] It seems like you are outlining an industry-wide endemic
attitude which belies service. Although I agree that there are institutions
structured this way, there are others, such as Level3, or my ISP, Sonic.net,
which appear to be committed to tendering networking services.

[question] Wouldn't it be better if companies who _do not_ value providing
high quality service actually _do_ exit to a NetFlix model ... as service-
providing doesn't seem to be the right industry for their culture (they are
entertainment companies such as Paramount, not utilities such as PG&E).
Thoughts?

Thanks.

~~~
exelius
(1) It's more that they would have no incentive to do so themselves.
Businesses do not exist to serve the public good; they exist to make money. I
agree that consumers may be better served by a public utility structure; but
it's hard to get the will in government to spend the money when a commercial
alternative already exists.

(2) No; there were plenty of strings attached.

(3) This can be attributed to the line-sharing rules on DSL. It became less
profitable to invest in landline infrastructure, so the telcos started buying
up wireless companies instead because it was a better investment.

(4) No, I mean that there will be congestion in any large networked system. In
any congestion scenario, low bandwidth applications get squeezed, while video
just sends crap along without worrying about congestion / latency. It may have
to downscale, but by and large big bandwidth generators will continue to
dominate traffic scales and cause latency and throughput issues. Without the
ability to perform QoS at the link level (a legitimate conern given that layer
7 QoS may not be viable much longer if everything gets wrapped in SSL) these
problems become worse.

(5) I'm guessing you speak of Europe. The structure of their bandwidth markets
are much different and can't be compared. Telecom in Europe is largely a
public/private partnership, where in the US it is privately owned.

(6) They could provide better customer service, but it would cost more (in
fact, many of the large ISPs do offer a "premium support" option for a fee).
But customers are not willing to pay more for better customer service, because
generally you call customer service once or twice a year at most.
Additionally, most utilities I've had to deal with also have terrible customer
service.

Furthermore, it's disingenuous to compare B2B companies like Level3 with
consumer ISPs. B2B is a totally different market: business customers expect a
certain level of support _and are willing to pay more for it_. Support is a
feature of the product in the B2B space; in the B2C space it's just a
necessary cost center. Furthermore, if you're a consumer who does value
business-class support, you're free to purchase access from a B2B provider:
you just may not like the price.

~~~
kristopolous
ok, I think we are quite different but let me address just two things.

For (4), are you suggesting that a company first pays for the bandwidth, and
then pays again, for essentially the privilege to use the bandwidth paid for?
(Given the Verizon/Level3 debacle, it was clearly shown that the networks are
at about 40% capacity - so the narrative of scarcity or oversubscription is
false - can't be used, sorry.)

And for (6), I'm suggesting that conglomerate companies have industries they
are good at, and those they aren't. I wouldn't expect to buy an automobile
manufactured by starbucks - and furthermore if starbucks went out to
manufacture automobiles, everything from the board of directors down would be
poorly suited for the task - they are in the food services business - it's
fundamentally different.

So the idea here is that perhaps some of these modern cable service providers
should be entertainment companies and not distributing in-house hardware or
laying out the internet infrastructure - they may be terribly structured for
that job.

~~~
exelius
No, I'm suggesting that a company like Netflix pays to deliver traffic
directly to a company like Comcast. Netflix only pays once (they're paying
Comcast instead of paying Level3/Cogent, at least for delivering to Comcast
customers).

I think our big difference of opinion comes in the understanding of the
industry. Content and distribution have _always_ been intimately linked. In
fact, that's the whole disagreement: Netflix is performing content
distribution but is not paying for the full cost of that distribution.
Inexplicably, a lot of people feel those costs should be pushed to the
consumer (i.e. "I already pay once for Internet! Netflix shouldn't have to pay
because I already do!") rather than to the company making the profit off the
specific act of a user watching a video (who will inevitably push those costs
to the consumer, but only to THEIR consumers).

Netflix's business model is nearly identical to HBO's. The only difference is
that HBO bills through the cable companies and Netflix does not. But the cable
companies take a cut of HBO's earnings for distribution. Netflix wasn't paying
that until recently.

~~~
kristopolous
I think the ISP should be a common-carrier and unbiased vehicle for the open
exchange of information that makes the Internet so intellectually critical. It
sounds like you prefer them to be a privately held entity with zero civic
obligations.

I really wish that there was a metaphorical wall between entities that
facilitate the civic function of a press and these more or less chicanery-
based private corps.

I'm terribly worried about the fact that the fate of modern discourse, society
planning, press, arts, and culture essentially lies in the hands of the people
whose primary goal is to bring commercially sponsored leisure distractions to
the living room - their interests are too narrow and their vision of the task
is too thin - as if we asked the Orville Redenbacher corporation to single-
handidly draw up agricultural subsidization, land use, and disbursement policy
(I bet their suggestions would favor more popcorn and leave 80% of the problem
unsolved.)

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mmagdic
A question: is the commenting only open to residents of USA?

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juanplusjuan
They ask for a US address but I doubt it's verified. I used a random one
because I'd rather not have my personal details on the public FCC web page.

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golemotron
I thought the deadline was a month or so ago.

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kyrra
They extended it because the website died when everyone tried submitting
comments near the deadline.

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spindritf
_There is now a vocal “net neutrality” chorus that will fight any form of
price discrimination in wireless services, including fighting zero-rated apps.
I think that they are misguided and represent no actual consumers. However,
the FCC will do everything to make them seem important, because that in turn
justifies having the FCC do more regulatory meddling._ [1]

And this how the comments will be used: mined to support yet another power
grab. Later, do you really think that a regulatory body will side with you in
the long term over organized interests and large corporations?

[1] [http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/data-price-
discrimination/](http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/data-price-discrimination/)

~~~
smutticus
It's not a 'power grab' for the FCC to regulate wireless transmissions.
Congress gave them that explicit authority in 1934. I really don't understand
your comment.

