What "is" Net-Neutrality?"
Posted by woodlema 9 years, 10 months ago to Legislation
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-r...
… I believe the President did the right thing. He called on the FCC to
make the right decision when it comes to the Internet and protecting it
from cable companies who want to overcharge or slow down connections.
The FCC seems to be willing to make the right call, by protecting
consumers and the Internet, under a new order which, just like a
utility, would give consumers the ability to be protected from bad
service or exorbitant fees. At this point in time, that is what we need
to do to protect consumers.
A “solution” in search of a problem.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/te...
Now let us look at “some” of what is in the actual legislation and see just how “neutral” this will become.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-cong...
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-r...
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-r...
Government has been fighting over how to control this since 2006. Anyone else see how STUPID it is to let the Feds, the FCC or any other Politically motivated bureaucracy have any more control than they already have?
When a socialist serpent asks us to partake of his offered fruit, we should all just turn our backs like those cops did to the New York mayor.
Jan
Just increased barriers to entry for new competition.
Hey have fun!
If the government tries to regulate the Internet we will simply rename the Internet and continue using it in our own ways, with whatever tech workarounds we need.
Just don't panic, and don't assume that government people have the ability to control us just because they make the claim.
- The backbone of the Internet is called the Domain Name System (DNS) and is comprised of about 13 "root" servers (+ backups) - one for each web extension (.com, .biz, .net, etc.) They keep adding them, so the number keeps going up. DNS servers translate your request for www.galtsgulchonline.com into the actual server's actual IP address at 74.125.25.121. Without DNS, you'd have to type in the numeric addresses to any site you wanted to go see and every link on the internet would instantly break. Not kidding. The entire Internet relies on those servers.
- Currently, these DNS servers are operated and maintained PRIVATELY and have done so since they were invented. And they are based in the United States.
- Part of Net Neutrality as put forth by its advocates is an attempt to impose US Federal Government control over these servers.
So a vote FOR Net Neutrality is nothing more than a vote FOR government control of the Internet. And we saw how well that works with the IRS.
Now, there is a second prong and this is the one that gets talked about while the other (more important IMHO) gets conveniently overlooked, and that is the issue of what is called "packet prioritization". With the advent of the latest version of the Internet's main routing protocol (for techies, it's IPv6), they introduced the concept of "quality of service", which basically means an allowance for the Internet Routers to service one packet before another. It didn't used to exist in the previous IP version which still is in majority use here in the US because of the MASSIVE infrastructure relying on it. The ability to prioritize was built so that Internet Telephony (think Skype, GoToMeeting, etc.) could function reasonably. The idea is that a person making a video or voice call (or streaming a movie) needed to maintain a pretty constant data flow from server to user - thus the implementation of "prioritization". But of course every application wants it's demands for information to go first, so EVERYONE's requests have this flag set, effectively rendering it useless.
The telecommunications companies actually run and administer the vast majority of the actual pipe carrying all those wonderful little bits of information. They are capitalists (to the extent they are allowed) and want to be able to form and shape the traffic flowing through their routers (which they don't necessarily get paid for, btw) to conform to their profit objectives. The problem is that if they are allowed to do that, what will happen is that the Internet will become a Pay-to-Play network. Netflix would instantly go bankrupt - either because their monthly fees would skyrocket or the fees charged by the telecomms would bankrupt them. YouTube might survive, but they would probably have to start charging content producers to post and users for fees to view videos. You can imagine how well that would go over.
So we have a conundrum - if we allow the telecomms the right to run their routers in a way that makes them money, some of the usefulness of the Internet would automatically be severely undermined. Yet if we tell them they don't have the right to run their own routers, we're imposing price caps on them unjustifiably! To a certain degree, one can look at the Internet as a "public utility" because of the infrastructure investment required to really compete with them, but do we really want the Federal government in charge either way?
I confess I'm not knowledgeable in the area of how the internet works, so thanks for your clarification.
Initially you might see a pinch but in the end all benefit.
Think about Cars, and Air Conditioning. All the things we take totally for granted used to be things ONLY the rich could afford. Now the biggest issue facing the "poor" and I use that term loosely from the perspective of the USA is Obesity.
Totally free unregulated markets always lower prices and make everything more affordable, or the product and the business dies. In a totally FREE market there could NEVER be a monopoly that harmed the people. It is ONLY when government intrudes and tries to "regulate" fairness that you get the harm to society.
I don't like the government regulation part of things, but the reality in the infrastructure is that it isn't efficient for the market to install multiple service providers in a given area any more than it would make sense to lay multiple water pipes or electrical lines. And wireless just taps into those in-ground lines - it extends, not replaces.
They MAKE electricity, provide the service, the Government does NOT own any of it in the USA.
So at what point does the private business, i.e. electric company become owned by the public? Answer: when they become a publicly traded stock then they are owned ONLY by the shareholders, not you or me or the government.
The term "Public Utility" is the antithesis of anything Ayn Rand stood for. Trying to define anything in terms of "Public Good" is nothing short of communism.
The minute ANYONE thinks or justifies for any reason that Government needs to step in and regulate private business regardless of how many people use it, they have separated themselves completely from Objectivism.
Yes, they are private businesses, but they are also commodity monopolies. VERY different in the market. I can't go down the street and get electricity from the next dealership down the road like I can with a car or truck. The presence (or in this case absence) of competition is a very big part of this conversation, and in fact I would argue that it forms the fundamental point of contention.
"They MAKE electricity, provide the service, the Government does NOT own any of it in the USA."
The utility companies are being granted monopoly operation for a particular region in exchange for oversight and price controls. And why? Because all parties involved recognize that it is impractical to duplicate the power grid. Or the water/sewer grid. Everyone involved is making a choice to intentionally limit (eliminate really) competition for the sake of practicality. If you want to justify a realistic, non-monopolistic approach to "public" utilities, I'm all ears. But it has to be a practical solution first. It's just that much better if it conforms to the ideal.
"So at what point does the private business, i.e. electric company become owned by the public?"
When they are nationalized, as in countries in the EU. You are correct that that has not happened as of yet in the United States. They do not become a government-controlled company just because they have publicly-held stock, however. Stockholders do not run the typical publicly-held business - all they can do is call for leadership changes. The terms are completely different when referring to a utility company. In such a case, the Board of Directors is the Utility Commission and they specifically retain in their charter the ability to set commodity pricing. As the taxpayers control the Utility Commission, they then have a direct say in the commodity pricing. Different business models _via contract_ because of the recognition of monopoly vs open-market conditions.
"The term "Public Utility" is the antithesis of anything Ayn Rand stood for."
I am fully aware that Rand objected to government-controlled business and I agree, but she did so in the realm where capitalism, i.e. competition, was a BETTER method of governing the market. I don't deny that premise, but one MUST acknowledge the predicate: competition! Again, I admire the zeal, but idealism takes a back seat in my mind to practicality, which has to come first.
On that I totally disagree. Too many pithy sayings come to mind for that.
All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything.
Accepting what IS, is not the same thing as agreeing with "what is".
When YOUR conviction takes the back seat you have sold out your conviction to the highest bidder.
Ayn Rand also in her interview with Phil Donohue clearly stated that when free market exists there can be no monopoly.
Directly from Ayn Rand. in her voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE9NGOgd...
What shouldn't be overlooked is that the whole point of a market-based economy ISN'T competition at all - but efficiency and maximization in matching buyers and sellers. To take the hard line and say that a monopoly can never be the most efficient method of providing an economic and efficient solution to a problem is completely debunked by the presence of commodity utilities like those which exist for power and water. That's my point: you're trying to argue that unless competition exists, the market can not reach a point of efficiency. I'm trying to point out that you're putting the cart before the horse in the case of utilities.
IN GENERAL, competition in providing goods and services creates a feedback mechanism necessary in a market system to maintain balance between supply and demand. But it only works in the cases where the other necessary portions of the market such as free entry of competitors, availability of production resources, availability of labor, open delivery of product, size of market, etc. also hold true. In the realm of utilities, these items don't conform to the standard market models because several of these key predicates are absent or so heavily skewed by natural circumstances as to distort the model past any recognition. That's what I mean about practical: that a solution exists. I can't buy a hypothesis or an ideal. I want a product or service. Show me how one can effectively deliver utilities using a competitive model (versus a monopolistic model) and I'll happily go along. I don't object to the presence of a competitive marketplace for delivering goods and services (see Boeing vs Airbus or Intel vs AMD). But the goal is not the presence of competition, but the efficient allocation of resources.
She called them coercive monopolies. Also the power monpolies you speak of are not efficient, nor does what they charge demonstrate anything BUT a coercive monopoly.
Keep in mind that Comcast, et al. have video-on-demand they would love to sell...
This prohibits them from being able to throttle performance of other providers on their IP networks, which would cause rebuffering, dropped connections, etc., and artificially paint the competition as 'incompetent'.
Personally, I'd rather see much more competition in the Internet provider space, if city governments were not so hot to sell monopolistic exclusive access rights in exchange for taxes, fees, and kickbacks from the providers, we wouldn't need this at all.
Where I live (northern California), and a stone's throw from Silicon Valley, I'm still stuck on 4 mbit down / 256k up DSL, because its the only thing in the ground to the neighborhood. The provider has an exclusive right from the county, and they have no interest in upgrading it. Even 4G house / premise connections like Clear are blocked from putting up an antenna for wireless here as it would violate the 'exclusive rights'.
"The provider has an exclusive right from the county"
GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM!!! If the County government got its face out of the free market someone else might come in and provide better service.
This is what Ayn Rand called "pull" in her book.
Realistically, Net Neutrality is kind of needed to alter the intrusion that government (at the local level) has already made into the market. If we had fair competition, there wouldn't be any need for the discussion at all, but we don't really have fair competition.
Then define "fair" for who?
What are you going to TAKE, i.e. steal from one to give to another to make this "fairness."
If they had new customers tripping over each other for service, you wouldn't see it being so ridiculous to try and cancel the service. Google for recordings of some of the calls, they are hilarious, it can take 2 hours to cancel something from Comcast, if not longer.
Comcast would love to pick & choose now and hold-up various websites for 'fees' to access their network, but they already are charging their subscribers for "Internet Access", whatever that Internet content is. Their dirty little secret is that they oversubscribe their ability to deliver that performance by hundreds or 1000s of times over under the theory that no one uses it very much, but they are having performance problems with everyone watching House of Cards or Alpha House instead of their crappy sitcom reruns on their cable bandwidth.
How long does Netflix or any other provider like that last having to pay a toll to every ISP in America? If the ISP cannot operate their business (which is really just connecting 2 wires together) then they need to step aside and let others compete. They have a zero-growth business, Wall Street doesn't really reward them with a share price anymore, and its a cry for free pennies from heaven. Nice, but they don't need to get it... (Net Neutrality just denies their ability to charge that toll).
However, the cities and counties already screwed that up in greed for 'exclusive access fees'. If you had, say an open market with multiple providers in the market at each address, you would have a free market. Presently, I know I pay $75.00 a month for pathetic DSL that hasn't changed since I ordered it in 2004, but its the only thing in the market, and they are a protected monopoly (local phone company). When I discontinued their stupid phone service, I got an added fee of $5.99 on my $75.00 DSL service fee, plus an additional $3.99 for a "dynamic IP address fee". Or, about half what the useless copper line phone cost me. I didn't care, I switched to Ooma and wasn't going back out of protest.
If you had a case where AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and a few mom & pop ISP providers were all allowed to offer competitively in every neighborhood, we wouldn't have any of these problems. If someone throttled Internet speed for specific services, then the other competitors would just get more business as people switched. We can't even have wireless providers here to houses, as they violate that 'monopoly'.
If you are paying for Internet service, you should get the service at the performance you are paying. They don't say "x speed, but only from my websites and it's x divided by 20 for anybody else". They sell it to you by a speed.
If you do not get the speed they are selling you, its false advertisement and the consumer protection really does and should step in.
The monopolies are unfairly protected by the same cities and counties, by refusal to issue building permits and access to utility easements to lay new cable or fiber, or to issue permits for wireless antennas.
So if the rule is simple, requiring anyone providing ISP services to not favor one content provider over another on that service, we have an establishment for regulation in utilities for interoperability. We have 110v / 60hz AC standard electrical service in the US, you can't have some provider going willy nilly and piping out DC or European spec AC voltage & amperage, the grid takes an enormous amount of active management, and it is interconnected. Generation has to match load at all times, or the frequency can race or drop, and burn out electrical devices. Would that be reasonable to the consumer for a service they are paying for? They are being sold a service that they are paying for, and it should operate as the same.
I don't see the issue as an intrusion at all, quite the contrary, I see it as just requiring providers to "provide" what they are committing to, or exit the business and let someone else do so.
I'm sure there are many areas that have multiple competitors, but for the vast landmass of the US, that is not the case. There were originally agreements struck with phone companies and cable providers for 'exclusivity' in exchange for building out the infrastructure, but that was 4 or 5 decades ago, or more. There isn't any need for those agreements, or the wires for that matter.
Satellite is an obvious competitor, but many municipalities put ridiculous taxes on the service at given addresses, for the same reason, to discourage, limit, or stifle competition for the 'main provider' that is giving the municipality a kickback for service.
"We have 110v / 60hz AC standard electrical service in the US,"
I use 240v, I use 3 phase, I use 5 megawatts and pay a different rate for that.
At my home I pay 60/mo. and get 60 meg down and 10 meg up. I pay for that service more than what my parents pay which is 19.99 and they get 256k up and 3 meg down.
Is that fair? Define how to make that more fair?
Maybe I pay $60/mo and get the same service my parents pay for $19.99? But now I am being ripped off.
Every time someone starts talking about "fair" the conversation ALWAYS becomes what is fair for ME is NOT fair for you, especially when it is regulated by Government who thinks fair is TAKING from one who has more and giving to one who appears to have less.
One more thing, my mother barely uses her bandwidth, I am a Computer professional who uses every bit of bandwidth I can get. So what is fair again?
This has nothing to do with what the going market rate is for service. If you are buying Internet service, you should get Internet service, not 50% of the Internet, or whatever the provider chooses to provide you. Would you really want to pay additionally for each website you want access to? (That is the opposite of Net Neutrality). We have Net Neutrality right now, the business push is to get to a model where they can bundle or charge per website like they do cable television channels... Why? Because the cable television model is failing. What if you happen to like watching porn, but your local cable provider would really rather you watch THEIR porn for $9.95 an hour. Would you want to have your porn sites blocked? How about cnn.com if your cable subscription DOES NOT INCLUDE CNN? That's already been done... HBO just announced they are wiling to start selling HBO direct online and streaming separate of the Cable service contracts because they can't come to the agreement anymore with the narrowing number of cable providers (Comcast has pretty much gobbled almost all of them up). So if you don't buy HBO from Comcast for $20, but would rather just buy it for $9.00 from HBO directly and only watch on your Tablet or Roku or whatever, do you want Comcast to then block the website on the $70.00 Internet service you are already paying for from them?
Net Neutrality just codifies the status quo in the market, nothing more. There is quite a bit of rhetoric from a few politicians, but before suddenly assuming that whatever comes out of someone's mouth is the gospel, do yourself a favor and peek at OpenSecrets.org and see who their biggest contributors are. Politics in America is pretty corrupt, unfortunately.
Like I said, we have regulated monopolies - telephone service, etc. In exchange for realizing that it is probably no economically feasible to have 6 telephone providers trenching cable to each household, and likely that only 1 can recoup the infrastructure investment (over a very long period of time) then regulation is needed in my opinion. Natural gas would be another one... you don't normally see a dozen natural gas competitors in the neighborhood. But should the only one be allowed to charge an astronomical rate of say $1200 a month to heat a home in the winter, while the local government also prohibits burning wood in fireplaces? (We also have that BS here).
Personally, I'm rather off the grid, I generate a surplus of solar power and with the exception of Internet, water, sewer, and natural gas, I don't have any other external services to the household.
Water and sewer are other great examples, the cities love to be the only provider of water, sewer, garbage... why? It's a substantial piece of their monthly cash flow revenue. Ever seen another sewer provider? Neither have I. If there was truly an unregulated free market for that, you could probably expect to pay several dollars every time you flush your toilet because the alternative would be an open-ditch sewer in the street.
My preference? Null and void all 'regulated monopolies'... we'd see some pain at first, like the California electrical crisis... or deregulating the airlines, but we things would even out if there was no corruption and free access.
In some stuff though, the free access to the CAPITAL to build out the infrastructure is not really there, the telecom bust in the 90's kind of killed any investor interest in building out telecom... so we are rather stuck for the foreseeable future.
If you really think its a horrible idea, what would you like to see happen? Or do you just really not like the idea of not having to watch whatever Hollywood deems is in your interest to watch. There are really only about a half-dozen media content providers on cable, they all own all the properties... HBO, Disney, ABC, NBC, CBS, Viacom, pretty much sums them all up actually.
Their argument is over half their traffic is a few streaming video companies. Why don't they just charge their customers by the GB, without regard to which companies transmitted the data?
They don't want to do that though, because its kind of incestuous... Comcast wants to sell their video on demand service, but people would rather just have Netflix for $8 / month, and the Netflix creates traffic on Comcast's network.
However, this is really BS... Netflix traffic is inbound at the datacenter level and is within the same internal building networks (Netflix's datacenter cage space to Comcast's space). Its not like Comcast is paying more to some other provider for that traffic somewhere, it's just 'traffic' and the last time I looked... its pretty cheap to build out network performance...
It's about wanting to block a competitor unfairly from the marketplace, the same routine that cable & telephone companies have been doing for years. Get a regulated monopoly with a city government by buying off the counsel members, and charge a premium for your services in perpetuity while making it impossible for another competitor to enter the same market.
If there really was a free market, we would have better customer service, and service vans would show up at the time they say they will not (sometime between 8 am and 5 pm).
Will this scenario work: Comcast says, "Why I'm paying to deliver my competitions' video?" So they offer a lower priced service that has just their content. But then people are willing to pay more for unfettered content. DSL providers appear. 4G providers offer an LTE service using beamforming spatial diversity directing signals to a fixed antenna on people's houses. Hardware manufactures' offer equipment to share non-cable-company data with neighbors via Wi-Fi or Wi-Max, at a small price. Eventually all data ends up coming down to the same price, i.e. mostly set by the Shannon's Law and the cost of a receive chain with a given sensitivity.
If my scenario above works, we don't need gov't-enforced Net Neutrality. (I'm not sure if it will work though. I know only enough to be dangerous when it comes to moving lots of data.)
4G also requires antennas, which require jurisdictional permits... you basically make my argument for me, open the flood gates for anyone to compete, and I agree, its fair-game and it would be much better.
If we don't allow those floodgates to be open, we need to regulate the monopolies that result.
My preference would be to tear down the monopolies and let the buyer choose.
Oh that's right YOU would have to risk YOUR money. Then everyone can tell YOU what to and not to do with the infrastructure YOU setup.
WiMAX up to 70 MBPS, 30 mile range, non-line of sight. Install a Tower near a fiber link. Go for it.
This one part is factually wrong.
Both LOS and NLOS solutions. It is NOT factually wrong. Depends on which frequencies you are using. NLOS is less than 30 miles so overlapping antennas would be needed but you could easily cover a MASSIVE area with 3 small antennas.
I think it's a stretch b/c they're showing cases of things that don't attenuate much or they're arguing that even in the Fresnel zone the fading is frequently selective so if the bandwidth is wide enough some of the subcarriers get through.
I have heard of commercial systems that push into the Fresnel zone, but I've never heard of someone putting up a system with earth between the TX and RX antennas.
It's interesting. I'm calling it a stretch.
Value for value agreed upon by two consenting parties. THAT is the basis of Objectivism AND rational self-interest.
That is what the "OFF" button is for, <CANCEL ACCOUNT> button and books are for. Free Market baby free market.
So if the ISP doesn't like your GaltsGulchOnline access and just blocks it, feel free to pick up a book.
electronic system;;; if the government does
ANYthing to mess this up, I will be infuriated
beyond rationality ,,, so I must brace myself
because it is bound to happen, somehow or
somewhen. . these people are evil incarnate!!! -- j
I think that the overall best solution is probably to keep the government out of the situation. Sigh. I will forgo my documentary for a while so that millions of people can watch their sitcom.
Because, you see, 'this is just a phase we are passing through'. The only reason that Netflix would _want_ to pay more to get priority is because there is not enough bandwidth. Solve the bandwidth; solve the problem.
Were the government to be trusted, then it would be appropriate to have them insure net neutrality until everyone had at least optic...but I do not believe that the gov would ever let anything 'go' once they got their hands on it.
Jan
Which is exactly why the Government needs to get out of the way and let the market deal with it. Private industry paid for the lines, the fiber, the labor, the hardware to provide what we have.
THEY will do what makes a profit, and kill that which does not. Also when did internet become a basic human right which is how people talk about it.
For my part you have the right to go out, WORK for the money to pay for what you want. Not have the government at the point of a gun TAKE from private industry to feed the beast of entitlement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRr...
in a humorous but accurate way.