
California’s strict net neutrality bill is close to final passage - LinuxBender
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/californias-strict-net-neutrality-bill-is-close-to-final-passage/
======
no1youknowz
Once Musk is ready with his satellites, there should really be a concerted
crowdfunded option where an internet backbone is also launched and put into a
non-profit public trust.

Then, it should be an issue where leaders in the state and federal level are
backed by the people and to make the incumbents like Comcast and their ilk
back off and negate any moves to kill it off. Because we all know they will
try and do just that through lobbying to protect their oligopoly.

This should really be a free market issue. I truly believe that one day,
technology will be at a tipping point that bandwidth will be free.

Much like solar in the beginning, expensive to produce and not really
producing a bang for buck. But now, it's a completely different picture.

I can't wait until telecoms companies are consigned to history.

~~~
LinuxBender
Has latency and congestion in satellites been resolved? Last time I used one
the latency was 1200ms end to end. Gaming was impossible. SSH, even using
mosh, was painful. Most interactive websites were not usable. For watching low
res videos it was ok. If this has changed, that would be great. I am tired of
comcast's duopoly.

~~~
tristanb
Yes it has been solved, thats the advantage of LEO - it's currently at 25ms

[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2018/02/space...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2018/02/spacexs-satellite-broadband-nears-fcc-approval-and-first-
test-launch/)

~~~
hood_syntax
My goodness, that is exciting. I can't believe I haven't heard that yet. That
is (to use my most hated business speak) a true paradigm shift.

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eriken
How is having different regulations for each state the recipe for increased
investments? This topic just seem way too politicised.

~~~
emodendroket
You could say this about literally any state law.

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danjoc
>(a) It shall be unlawful for a fixed Internet service provider,

I assume this means 'not mobile'

>(1) Blocking lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices,
subject to reasonable network management.

California will outlaw ISPs providing network level ad blocking services.

>(6) Zero-rating some Internet content, applications, services, or devices in
a category of Internet content, applications, services, or devices, but not
the entire category.

California will make T-Mobile Binge On type service illegal for cable
providers to offer.

>(b) It shall be unlawful for a mobile Internet service provider, insofar as
the provider is engaged in providing mobile broadband Internet access service,
to engage in any of the activities described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4),
(5), (6), (7), (8), and (9) of subdivision (a).

And the will outlaw T-Mobile Binge On too.

Submitted without opinionated commentary.

~~~
kstrauser
> California will make T-Mobile Binge On type service illegal for cable
> providers to offer.

Hopefully, yes.

> And the will outlaw T-Mobile Binge On too.

Hopefully, yes.

In the short term, I like those services. Hey, free streaming video! But in
the enlightened self interest long term, I don't want my ISP deciding which
services I can plausibly use. Imagine Verizon offered zero-rated Netflix, "but
since you don't need all that expensive per-gigabyte data like our competitors
try to sell you, we'll give you 2GB of data for free with your plan, but
unlimited access to our wide variety of paid sponsors!"

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newfocogi
Aren't free-market capitalism and net neutrality inherently at odds with each
other? My general understanding of HN culture is that it is generally
capitalist and generally pro net neutrality. Could someone who finds
themselves in both of these general categories explain their position?

~~~
orev
ISPs are not operating in a pure market. They have been granted billions of
dollars in subsidies over the years, and in many places are/were also granted
monopolies because communities don’t want wires being run by multiple
companies. After all the benefits they have been given, now they want to turn
around and cry “free market” and that they should not be regulated.

~~~
ngngngng
It's also not possible to operate in a completely unregulated free market when
your industry relies on a finite amount of space in the ground to lay fiber or
airwaves to transmit on. There's a very limited amount of competition that can
operate when a city has to approve someone digging up the roads every time a
new company pops up.

~~~
pdonis
_> There's a very limited amount of competition that can operate when a city
has to approve someone digging up the roads every time a new company pops up._

The solution to this is for the actual physical infrastructure that requires
digging up roads to be owned by the city (or other local entity), so it only
has to be put into place once, when the city is built; and for competing ISPs
to either lease, say, fiber bandwidth from the city, or get a permit to pull
their own cabling through already existing underground tunnels.

The problem is that every municipality that has tried this solution has been
sued into oblivion by the ISPs, who want to prevent open competition by any
means necessary.

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tryptophan
Dissenting opinion: I dont think net neutrality is a good policy. Very light
users(news) are effectively subsidizing super heavy users(netflix). NN is just
popular because it was removed not because it's a good policy.

I think internet should be sold per GB, at different tiers of
speed/uptime/ping. This gives an incentive to companies to give you faster
speed and provide levels of speed/ping that people would be willing to pay
extra for.

Something like: Browsing tier: .1c/GB 1mb/s 500ms ping guaranteed Video tier:
.3c/GB 100 mb/s 100ms ping, 99.9% packet delivery Video conferencing tier: 100
mb/s 50ms ping, no packet loss

etc... Don't focus on numbers but rather the idea.

~~~
orev
Selling per GB is an absolutely horrible idea because that’s not how networks
work. ISPs have conjured this concept from nowhere solely as a way to get
people to pay more money.

Bandwidth is data transfer _over time_ , and there is no “bucket of data” that
gets depleted when you transfer data. It’s not gas or water or something that
you drain out the more you use.

Time is divided into time slots and that time is going to pass whether you put
something in the packet or not. If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and
you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots
as much as you can.

But ISPs want to be able to advertise fast speeds that make them look
impressive, though they don’t want to you actually be able to use it because
then they have to upgrade their pipes. So they play these tricks where they
can claim you have fast speeds but then this magical bucket of data gets
depleted every time you use it.

~~~
icebraining
While I'm sure ISP execs are all mustache-twirling villains, what they're
doing is not absurd, it's essentially the same as selling a burstable
connection with a certain average bandwidth (the cap divided by one month
gives a data transfer over time).

And the reality is that, as a customer who loads a 5MB site and then spends
2-3m reading it, I much prefer this model than if they sold me a smaller fixed
data transfer over time.

That networks don't work like this is rather irrelevant, because it's a shared
pipe. If they sold be a data transfer over time (say, guaranteed 256kps),
_that_ would be wasteful, because I couldn't take advantage of the higher
speeds when other customers weren't using it too. A well-managed burstable
connection is a much more efficient use of the resource.

