
Now that the FCC has repealed net neutrality, let’s adopt it in California - e_hup
https://medium.com/@Scott_Wiener/now-that-the-fcc-has-repealed-net-neutrality-lets-adopt-it-in-california-fa3bd02101ee
======
cletus
I'm all in favour of treating Internet access as the "fourth utility". It's
clear it's become almost as essential to modern life as electricity.

I do however find the doom and gloom prognostications around Title II repeal
to be incredibly hyperbolic and unhelpful. Fact is, Title II was only
introduced in 2015. It's not like repeal in 2017 is going to end the Internet
overnight.

There are three problems here:

1\. The US has a harebrained notion of "competition" in creating regional
monopolies.

2\. It actually doesn't make much sense to build multiple last-mile networks.
This is called an overbuild and is rather wasteful given the capex involved.
It's also why strict rules are in place for utilities: it underscores the fact
that utilities are monopolies and seeks to prevent overbuilds.

3\. ISPs have been allowed to frame the debate on peering with outright
falsehoods. Specifically, the likes of Comcast claim that it's "unfair" that
the likes of Netflix can "push" data onto their network for free no less.
Netflix of course isn't pushing anything. Comcast's customers are requesting
it.

It's all just a thinly-veiled attempt to stifle VOD providers to prop up dying
(yet profitable) cable TV businesses. The fact that politicians aren't able to
or don't want to see through this is both unsurprising and disappointing.

Adopting net neutrality laws at a state level is an interesting idea that may
force Federal regulatino. I mean what's worse that one set of Federal rules
for a large company? 50 sets of state rules, that's what.

Even if just CA and NY adopt this, that's already a sizable amount of the
population.

~~~
int_19h
I'm also in the pro-NN camp, and have been for a very long time, and my
observations match yours: the pro-NN propaganda this year is definitely a lot
more about hype and emotions than it is about facts.

I think it's really just because it was successfully made into a mainstream
political issue. So now you have to appeal to the mass audience, not just IT
nerds; and we're just seeing the same tactics that is routinely used to whip
up support (or opposition) to other stuff.

I'm actually weirdly uncomfortable about this. It's like being the guy who has
cried wolf for many years, and now half of the village is there with you; but
you see them pointing at rocks, logs etc, and insisting that these are all
wolves, and we're all going to die now. It really made me question just how
many people who happen to share my political positions, do so because they
genuinely understand and agree with the policies, and not because it's just
what you're supposed to do when you have a certain identity (liberal etc).

~~~
smallnamespace
And yet the temptation to extract rents from content providers is higher than
it has ever been. Just look at the market capitalization of Netflix today,
which is about 20x compared to 2010.

I just can't imagine that ISPs won't make a grab for revenues, otherwise why
spend money to lobby against NN? They're probably just waiting for the current
furor to die down and sneak it in without people noticing.

~~~
indubitable
That already happened, in 2014. Netflix made agreements with Comcast/Time
Warner/AT&T/Verizon.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens now. I imagine the ISPs
already feel they're very near the peak price:demand curve for consumers.
Their monopoly is such that customers can't really say no unless they're
willing to go with no access. So I'd agree that if there was going to be a
squeeze it'd be on other large companies. But that also opens up the door to a
far more motivated Google Fiber. And the lack of net neutrality opens up some
interesting things - for instance a Netflix arrangement with an upstart ISP
could offer free access at ultra-premium speeds to Netflix. That is something
that the current monopolists could not necessarily match.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

~~~
smallnamespace
Non-negligible competition in the form of building out new fibre is basically
never going to happen because of how inefficient it is in real economic terms.

Forget about all the political and business aspects -- the actual effort
required to lay out new wiring, then run it to the home, is from an economic
standpoint just pure deadweight loss.

1 cable is necessary. 2 cables is redundant.

Unfortunately, the ISPs have a point here that 'competition' in the form of
multiple companies laying wiring to the same home is sheer folly.

Now what's the value proposition to an investor to fund direct competition?

If you shake someone down, there's more than one way to get paid off. It can
come in the form of protection money, or you can just get them to buy you out.
I'd imagine that Comcast et al will want to keep the tolls _just_ low enough
that it's in nobody's best interest to actually run more wiring.

Plus the ISPs can always buy off cash-starved local and regional governments,
like they have been doing to Google Fiber, and delay the laying of new fibre
indefinitely. There's no need to outlaw competition, just leverage the legal
and administrative process to indefinitely fight over details like utility
pole access.

------
ruffrey
The real solution to the problem, as I see it, is not even Net Neutrality
(though I strongly support Net Neutrality).

The solution is to break the monopolistic stranglehold on last-mile internet
service.

If it were possible to have competition in the last-mile ISP space, then
consumers could vote with their wallets and choose those ISPs who supported
Net Neutrality.

An alternate partial solution would be to force companies breaking net
neutrality to report it on their customer's bill.

~~~
jimktrains2
These are orthogonal issues. Net neutrality is important regardless of isp
options. Not only on principle either, not everywhere will naturally have
competition.

~~~
dominotw
> not everywhere will naturally have competition.

Many rural areas have only one grocery store.

~~~
Afforess
And this is universally agreed to be a bad situation.[1] Do not play word
games.

[1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-
happene...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened-
when-walmart-left)

~~~
dominotw
I didn't say it wasn't bad. We aren't discussing good and bad. We are
discussing a specific situation that requires govt intervention.

I am implying this is a equivalent situation where govt didn't create rules
for grocery stores to call all brands of goods equally.

Also, that is not what a word game is.

~~~
Afforess
False dichotomies and appeal to the middle are absolutely types of word games.
I am sick and tired of "moderate"-sounding weasley arguments that excuse
corporatocracy and cronyism as "free competition".

There's only one grocery store in many towns, because the moment another chain
opens, the dominant one lowers prices to below what the market can bear. The
dominant chain takes temporary losses to drive competition out of business,
then raises prices sky-high and returns to business as usual. This exact
behavior occurs in many broadband markets.

------
uptown
See also HB 2282 in Washington State:

[http://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=2282&Year=2017](http://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=2282&Year=2017)

[http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2017-18/Pdf/Bills/Hou...](http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2017-18/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/2282.pdf)

------
dsr_
[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-
or...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-order-states-
to-scrap-plans-for-their-own-net-neutrality-laws/)

(tl;dr: fcc-will-also-order-states-to-scrap-plans-for-their-own-net-
neutrality-laws/ )

~~~
curt15
Given that the FCC only recently lost a court case about its authority to
preempt state laws banning muni broadband, how would this situation be any
different?

~~~
jandrese
Because this one would serve the interests of the rich and well connected?

I tend to agree that the FCC probably won't be able to ban states from
enacting their own form of net neutrality, but I've seen the courts side with
business interests with weak arguments more times than I'd like.

------
warent
I was under the impression that the majority voice in this argument (i.e.
mortal American citizens) was completely against this. Yet it still ended up
that they dismantled net neutrality.

If it's true that the majority wanted to keep net neutrality, then how come
the majority was ignored? Maybe I'm missing something but this seems like a
good example that our voice in the US doesn't matter beyond local things like
whether or not your town will allocate money towards a new public swimming
pool.

Go vote on whether or not you get a nice new swimming pool. The monopolists
are the only ones that have a voice in grown-up topics. That's what I'm
gathering from this. Accurate or alarmist nonsense?

~~~
dragonwriter
> If it's true that the majority wanted to keep net neutrality, then how come
> the majority was ignored?

Because the majority (at least, as weighted for electoral influence in both
political branches of government) has prioritized other things in voting for
representatives. Legislation, whether direct votes or through representatives,
involves not only opinions on particular questions, but opinions on the
relative priority of questions, which effects how questions are aggregated and
how those aggregated questions are answered.

The majority wants net neutrality, sure, but continuously says (by voting)
that they care about it much less than they care about other things, and that
they are willing to sacrifice NN tomget those other things.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I don't think there's any basis to say the majority voted for other things
over net-neutrality. The Republicans mostly hold power with minority votes.

In generaly, the things that the majority want don't get enacted under the US
system e.g. the tax bill with very low approval, so net neutrality falls into
the general bucket of stuff that the majority want but that the Republicans
don't want to them have.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't think there's any basis to say the majority voted for other things
> over net-neutrality

An absolute majority of voters casting ballots for the House of
Representatives in 2016 voted for either Republican or Libertarian candidates,
both parties opposed to the FCC regulating for net neutrality and Congress
legislating in favor of net neutrality.

It's a little less clear in the Presidential election, in part because you
have to go beyond the top four candidates tomget a majority on either side,
and detailed information on minor (often no-party) candidate positions on the
issue can be hard to find.

And the Senate requires aggregating across different election years.

------
toomim
This is the way to do it. Let the individual states experiment and decide.

If net neutrality really IS good/bad, you'll notice it when you cross state
borders and go online.

~~~
m52go
Thank you. While last mile device monopolies we certainly relevant, the root
issue here is that this really isn't a federal government problem.

Which is probably why the courts have been rejecting the FCC's attempts at
enforcing net neutrality for the past 12 years.

------
noncoml
Forget about Net-Neutrality, it's gone, it's a dead horse. Let's see some
competition.

I cannot believe that I live in the middle of the infamous Silicon Valley and
only have a single choice when it comes to fast broadband, and that one goes
down every other month for 3-8 hours.

~~~
rconti
I've got Comcast gigabit, in San Mateo county.

I took the time today to inquire (again) with Wave/Astound, Sonic, AT&T about
FTTH.

AT&T gave me the worst rep humanly possible. I spent 20mins on the phone with
her for her to still utterly misunderstand my question, as she was apparently
unable to understand or speak english. I already knew Gigapower was not
available, I just want SOMEONE to tell me when they plan to offer service at
my house, less than a mile from the Redwood City / Spring St CO. No luck.

Sonic did the usual "maybe if you sign up for DSL and you talk all of your
friends and neighbors into signing up, we'll vaguely consider bringing FTTH in
2050".

Wave actually had me enter my info and said someone would check my
neighborhood (!?) and get back to me within a couple of days.

I'd love to pay, whatever, $1000 to get someone to bring some FTTH here and
subsequently make it available to neighbors, improve their local service
offerings, etc.

We'll see.

~~~
scurvy
I used to defend Sonic as a scrappy startup fighting the good fight for good
people. But seriously, it's tiring and old. They needed to raise money to roll
out fiber to more than 25 people in the sticks. They didn't and I think a
large part of it I was Dane didn't want to give up control in return for
capital. OK, that's his choice, but I'm no longer going to laud Sonic. It's
basically a cute toy if you're lucky, not a real company.

~~~
freetime2
I think building out FTTH networks, and doing so profitably, is harder than
you give it credit for. Look at all of the issues that Google and Verizon have
run into - and they have all of the resources in the world at their disposal.

~~~
scurvy
VZ had nothing to gain from rolling it out, so they stopped. They put all
their eggs in the net neutrality/complain that the network is congested
basket.

Google might have some smart developers, but they know very little about
rolling out a full ISP with fiber plant. Their webpass acquisition showed
that. This is another case of Google's hubris tripping them up and landing
smack on their face.

Real companies and organizations with good operations can roll out an all
fiber ISP. It's not like it's never been done before. Your two counter
examples were due to greed and incompetence.

------
AndyMcConachie
The inter-state commerce clause allows Federal Law to preempt state law in
this case. Congress has imbued the FCC with the power to regulate(see Chevron
v EPA) exactly this. States have no reserved power to regulate the behavior of
telecoms.

~~~
shmerl
FCC failed to preempt local state laws that ban municipal broadband. How is
that different? Or FCC only can do it when serving monopolists?

~~~
bdhess
Because under our system municipalities, counties, etc only have as much
authority as are delegated by the state.

------
doggydogs94
I suppose CA could set net neutrality regulations for web users in CA
connecting to web services in CA. I guess you could implement this if CA got
their own internet country code; I think .ca is already taken though.

~~~
_-david-_
.ca is for Canada, .cal is owned by Google. .cali is available though.

------
kej
The same FCC that got rid of the net neutrality rules has the ability to make
a rule that preempts any state level neutrality rules.

~~~
r00fus
It's either amusing or sad that the party that ran on "states rights" in 2000
is now exercising whatever power it can to limit states' authority.

Where is libertarianism?

~~~
Analemma_
Oh it's a much older phenomenon than that. "States' rights" has _always_ been
a figleaf, going back to 1861.

~~~
twobyfour
Pretty sure that's more like 1789.

------
UncleEntity
Haven't read TFA but I'm going to say the internet most definitely falls under
'interstate commerce' so California isn't able to regulate it.

~~~
Posibyte
Can you elaborate on how this would fall under interstate commerce? As I see
it, they'd be regulating how they treat in-state customers and their
connections, not anything coming across the state-lines. i.e. They aren't
saying Comcast isn't allowed to do things to a line for a customer in Utah.

~~~
UncleEntity
Sure, if the server and customer are both in Ca but if the server is elsewhere
and they do their traffic shaping outside of state lines there isn't much that
can be done.

I never paid much attention to what they got up to before the feds stepped in
but I kind of doubt it was a last mile problem, once the packet got that far
why mess with it?

But, knowing California, they'll do one of those "...and any packet destined
for a customer in California."

~~~
notyourwork
> Sure, if the server and customer are both in Ca but if the server is
> elsewhere and they do their traffic shaping outside of state lines there
> isn't much that can be done.

Ignoring the around the world latency and assuming CA has a trans-pacific pipe
to asia they could route all CA traffic out of country first. Would this
disregard the "interstate" premise?

(talking hypothetical here)

------
Steeeve
Too little, too late.

------
sova
Ever heard of the Supremacy Clause?

~~~
rosser
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people."

~~~
danesparza
Citation:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Forced_participation_or_commandeering)

If it's true for handguns, it's true for the Internet. I say Californians
might have a shot at this (as would any other state)

~~~
UncleEntity
The city/state/D.C handgun bans got overturned by the Supreme Court not too
long ago on constitutional grounds.

~~~
jimktrains2
Not because they couldn't make such regulations, but because the ones they did
make we're too strict, if my understanding is correct.

------
exabrial
I'm all for the people of California to do this!

If you've seen my previous posts, you'll know I'm anti Title II, because I
think it's a terrible way to achieve the goal. I think state laws, relative to
local context, are absolutely the way to go.

------
danjoc
The current NN repeal is working out exactly the way Pai said it would. As he
cited, the problem is lack of competition. The solution is competition. All
the discussion happening today is about how to start an ISP to prevent cable
monopolies abusing their position.

The repeal is working _exactly_ the way Pai said it would. It is encouraging
new ISP entrants. Startup ISPs are the answer. NN supporters still don't
realize they've been on the wrong side the entire time.

~~~
s73ver_
I am trying extremely hard to not purely lash out at you, but to civilly
converse, here. But you're completely wrong.

Yes, competition would absolutely be better for everyone. There is not a
single NN supporter out there who would not love more competition. But we
still have to live in the real world. And in the real world, there flat out is
no competition. And in many places, particularly rural and inner-city areas,
there likely is not enough of a customer base to support multiple ISPs. And,
as I said, we do not have competition now. Repealing Net Neutrality is this
environment is nothing more than an anti-consumer move. It absolutely is
required now, to protect consumer interests. If we were in an environment
where market forces could work, then you would have an argument that NN is not
needed. But, once again, to stress the point, we do not live in that
environment. Getting rid of NN before that environment comes is utter
foolishness, and does nothing but serve to turn the internet into Cable TV.

~~~
tnzn
I'm an NN supporter and don't love "more competition" actually. Anarchists
also are for net neutrality fyi.

~~~
Jtsummers
What do you not like about more competition and how does that relate to
anarchists (which, depending on flavor, are often pro-competition and
diversity in choice as it's often a prerequisite for a well functioning
anarchic society).

