
Let’s Keep the Internet Dumb - sdfjkl
http://blog.theoldreader.com/post/84124784954/lets-keep-the-internet-dumb
======
danielweber
Most calls for net neutrality read more as polemics ("cable companies suck!")
rather than calls for what should and should not be allowed.

My two big issues with lots of net neutrality proponents are:

1\. Priority of traffic. If my neighbor is bit-torrenting The Avengers I still
want to be able to have my VoIP call work. He doesn't really care if his
packets move marginally slower while I really care that my packets get through
nearly all the time.

The rejoinder here is "well the ISPs should always make enough bandwidth for
both of us." But the very nature of shared networks is that what my neighbor
does can affect me. If you want a channel reserved for yourself, get a leased
line and pay the expensive premium for it. (Or buy a guaranteed channel on the
shared pipe, but that runs into the same issue with net neutrality.)

2\. Companies with more money will always be able to buy better access. You
can say "well we shouldn't make it even easier to them to be faster," but at a
certain point this logic leads to crazy things like making it illegal for
Netflix to use a private network running parallel to the Internet to move
things faster to their CDN end points.

I want a net neutrality that stops my cable company from interfering with my
Vonage packets because they want me to sell me their own VoIP service. I want
a net neutrality where my ISP doesn't care if my video packets are coming from
Microsoft or Netflix or YouTube. But that doesn't mean I'll sign up for
anything wrapped in a "net neutrality" flag that is trying to nail jelly to a
tree.

~~~
venomsnake
Net neutrality and QoS are different things. I have never understand why they
are both mashed together.

Neutrality means non discrimination on who sends the packet and who receives
is.

QoS means that the provider have obligation to deliver a packet with strict
timing.

So you buy 100-mbit slow lane and 1Mbit fast. They can even give you 2 IPs for
that. If you are a call center you buy 100 of the fast lane and so on.

~~~
darkmighty
I think this is a great solution to this discussion. Customers should be
charged transparently for a given QoS, and not secretly manipulated for a good
average QoS for the network.

The only problem is complexity for both users and applications. Ideally you
would have a set of pipes with different parameters and assign each
application the right to use some pipes -- e.g. voip gets a slow and stable
while torrent gets a fast but unstable one (but the assignment is your
choice). Of course, those should be regionally consistent so that companies
can't extort money from users of known traffic types (e.g. I know a priori Joe
uses voip a lot so I'll raise his voip-optimal cost).

Consumers may also not be very happy with an inconsistent pricing, though.
Some misconfigured app could use ton of expensive bandwidth. But this has to
be worked out, it's essential for the future of the net; we can't be
completely at the mercy of ISPs as the gatekeepers of content.

------
rayiner
This article is a mishmash of ideas that don't really work together. The
author advocates for treating telecom infrastructure as a public utility, but
then uses AT&T as an example of an "intelligent" network that wasn't
innovative. But the phone system, under the AT&T monopoly, was regulated as a
public utility! It was a system that prioritized stability, universal access,
and yes, neutrality, over innovation. That's the nature of public utilities.

The author suggests that the cable companies should be forced to lease out
their hybrid fiber-coax networks to competitors. Leaving aside the fact that
these are private networks built with private money, there is the issue that
this would destroy any incentive on the part of the cable companies to enhance
and upgrade that infrastructure. Why pour billions of dollars into upgrading a
system only to get razor-thin returns?

~~~
blueskin_
>The author advocates for treating telecom infrastructure like public
utilities, but then says that competition is the answer. These are not
compatible ideas!

Why not? I can choose to get my electricity and gas from any of about 6
different companies, and water from at least 4. They still come in through the
same cables and pipes, but price and packaging varies.

>The author suggests that the cable companies should be forced to lease out
their hybrid fiber-coax networks to competitors.

Again, here, BT have to do that as part of being able to have a
(near-[1])monopoly on building those networks in the first place. That means
people can get fibre to the cabinet/premises without having to pay for BT's
overpriced and underreliable service, even if it runs over their fibre network
for the last mile.

[1] BT have a near-monopoly nationwide, while some areas have their own local
networks in addition, but these can not be nationwide. Virgin (formerly
NTL/Telewest) have a parallel national network, which uses coax for the last
mile more like US cable[2], but has a far lower overall availability, being in
a general case only available in cities and major towns, and in many of those
then only in certain areas of them.

[2] BT's network is fibre to the cabinet with copper from the cabinet to
premises in most populated areas now(up to 80 mbit), with some lucky area
having fibre to the premises(up to 1 gbit), and rural/undersubscribed areas
having copper to the cabinet (generally, maximum rates of ~12mbit or worse;
many can only get 0.5 mbit). Virgin's network can generally get 100mbit to
most/all premises it serves, which is a far more limited subset of BT's. Local
ones vary wildly and may be anything up to 10gbit, but are generally around
100mbit.

~~~
breischl
>>I can choose to get my electricity and gas from any of about 6 different
companies, and water from at least 4.

Huh, seriously? I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that didn't have
monopoly gas, electric, water and sewer providers. Monopoly trash pickup is
not that uncommon either. Perhaps that's a UK vs. US thing.

~~~
Consultant32452
Where I live I can pay a small premium to have my power generated by renewable
sources. Electrons are fungible on the grid so I assume they have it worked
out on the back-end of the provider just supplying X load to the grid.

~~~
blueskin_
Yep, it's a fairly complex (as in, I don't understand it fully, although I've
read a little) interaction of subsidies, varying prices, and the same of
standby capacity (i.e. not actual capacity, but the ability to ramp up to
generate x GW in y seconds should it be needed, to cover spikes - generally by
gas power stations, which are able to vary output power far more quickly than
most types, and by pumped storage, which can release up to a certain amount of
energy per day for very short, large spikes, for example one one caused by
people putting the kettle on when popular TV shows finish).

Most of the trading is automated and humans aren't involved, as prices are
being constantly renegotiated as demand changes, and supply may also be
throttled down or up for fuel-consuming non-nuclear sources (nuclear runs as
close to max output as they can due to running costs being consistent through
output levels, and fuel costs being negligible in any case) to maximise profit
- generally by increasing output as prices rise, but for wind and other
renewables, sometimes output is artificially limited as a way of manipulating
subsidies, which can actually be _more_ profitable for the operators if less
power is sold under the right grid conditions.

All the data is open, which lets some interesting sites appear, such as
[http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php)
. Mousing over the source numbers shows a brief overview, and the site also
includes international purchase/sale data.

------
ds9
With this author and a lot of people, I agree that network neutrality is vital
to the social benefits of the internet, and that the "public utility" model is
best. The question, however is how to get there.

Historically, once big-money, rent-seeking [1] entities start profiting from
some arrangement, it becomes extremely hard to dislodge them, because they
protect their position by hijacking the government to their interests.

There's a little cause for hope in that there might be a mass protest like
with SOPA.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-
seeking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)

~~~
gldalmaso
There is hope still. At least in Brazil we just recently got a net neutrality
law passed.

The bill existed before, though after everything with the NSA, it got moving
pretty fast.

------
kikki
Off topic but that blog is really hard to read with those distracting
background patterns. Interesting topic but I came away needing an eye break.

------
magice
You know what I love about these kinds of posts and articles? It's their
awesome logics: private entities (who, naturally, seek to maximize their
profits) are damaging net neutrality (to make profit); therefore, we should
limit the government (FCC). My natural reaction whenever I see FCC being
bashed over net neutrality is, "either there is some weird causal fuckup
somewhere, or logics stops working; either way, WTF?"

~~~
zhemao
What part of the argument do you see as trying to limit the FCC. If anything,
it is telling the FCC to regulate more sternly by enforcing the line-sharing
rule.

------
iterationx
The only tool of the common man against centralized monopolies seems to be to
innovate faster than the monopoly power can centralize.

I think the only hope for the free Internet is some kind of p2p wireless mesh
network or other mechanism to circumvent Comcast altogether. Comcast and
Monsanto are untouchable. (Thinking about Monsanto because of some lame GMO
prop I heard on NPR this morning)

~~~
marcosdumay
You can not economicaly circunvent cable (or fiber). P2p networks are not
efficient.

What you can do is include the cable and fiber into the p2p network. People
can bill routing with some Bitcoin like tech (altough I doubt Bitcoin itself
could be used), and let Comcast et al. completely in the dark about whose data
they are carrying.

------
leccine
The biggest shock for me when I moved to US was to get to know that my
apartment complex has an exclusive contract with one cable company. I think
they would be sued out of existence (both of them) in Europe for trying to do
the same. Net neutrality starts here, so that I have access to at least 3
major service providers in my home and nobody can get an exclusive deal on
providing internet to a certain area. You could see how fast Comcast and
Verizon disappears when the real competition comes in play...

------
smutticus
So many of these net neutrality initiatives seem to think "the Internet" is a
strictly American phenomenom. The Internet at large cares very little about
what the FCC or anyone in America does. The USA might have an outsized
influence over what other countries do with their Internet, but that appears
to be waning in recent years.

In short, I would appreciate if these recent net neutrality initiatives
stopped insinuating that US telecoms policy, FCC action, or
Comcast/Verizon/Large US ISP, have any effect on the Internet at large.

