Forum - View topicNEWS: U.S. Ruling on Net Neutrality, U.K. Bill on File-Sharing
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Takeyo
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Not as much as you might believe. The big issue is not that net neutrality itself is bad, but that the FCC is trying to extend its jurisdiction to the Internet. And if the FCC can regulate the Internet, the fear is that it can regulate content on the Internet. You know how it censors radio stations and TV broadcasts? Imagine if the FCC suddenly had the authority to decide what could and couldn't be published online. |
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Daemonblue
 Posts: 701 |
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Which is why we would want them to have powers to make sure that the ISPs can't regulate the content on their own but without giving the FCC the power to regulate it themselves. Sounds wierd when worded like that...
Basically give the FCC the authority to tell ISPs that the ISPs can't regulate something, but don't give them the power to tell the ISPs they CAN regulate something, kinda like how copyright laws evolved but in reverse, where instead of them blocking more and more, things can only be unblocked, that way no matter who is in control of the FCC at the time they can't bend the internet to their own will while making sure the ISPs don't shape traffic after overselling it and not giving people what they pay for (if I pay for 10d 1u, I expect that much, not less like what is usual at current around the US). A lot of this can be more easily solved if the companies themselves would stop over-selling their nodes and create new ones where needed, but they would rather shape people's usage than spend some more money on their backbone. |
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Takeyo
Posts: 736 |
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Net neutrality can be legislated without involving the FCC.
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Daemonblue
Posts: 701 |
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Legislated yes, enforced, not so much. Laws mean nothing if no one enforces them sadly, which is why we have the FCC, FTC, police, etc. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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We don't need net neutrality, because it stifles competition (by disallowing the variation in service required to allow for new business to come about). I do agree with the EFF on offering ways to test ISPs on whether they offer what they say ("unlimited access") and perhaps creating an independent standard on what is considered "unlimited" would be a good idea. Then you could have "certified unlimited" access or something to that extent should you desire it.
It is not a bad thing for ISPs to have the ability to pick businesses they want to make pacts with to create better service. This allows ISPs to distinguish themselves from one another in a way outside mere pricing structure. This actually encourages new businesses to come about. Increased regulation (eg net neutrality forcing them to do something specific) decreases that. Lets say we could have gaming ISPs that favor access to battle.net, xbox live, steam, etc. That might be a great option for gamers, even though they might have some lower speed for standard internet sites or torrent protocol outside those services. This is a great way for other businesses to come in, and create pacts to bring prices down in a way that benefits consumers. If consumers don't want it, then it will die, and if not then this kind of diversification is great for everyone. Those who want "unlimited" access can get their services from ISPs offering that. It might be at a higher cost, but many people would end up paying less for internet with these models. For the net neutrality fans, realize that while you want a perfect regulation that only does exactly what you want (extends the "unlimited" to everyone for all time), that will almost certainly not be what happens. As is almost always the case with any legislation, things get slipped in and compromises occur that will get pet projects by legislators tied in that have to do with allowing censorship in certain circumstances. It's very unlikely any kind of pure bill gets through that won't allow the FCC some level of ability to censor content put on the net. But the only argument isn't about the civil liberties potentially lost by censorship, it's also about the liberties lost by the government mandating that business can only do one type of internet for everyone. It forces limited competition based only on price, which doesn't allow necessary diversification of individual ISPs. It gives no incentive to get into an industry if you can only make your price lower than someone else. It also creates no incentive to invest in infrastructure, except which can be done in a broad manner. It reinforces existing businesses by ensuring competitors stay out. |
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Daemonblue
Posts: 701 |
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You say this while forgetting that the ISPs are pretty much legal monopolies, much like cable and energy companies. Letting them pick and choose what speeds certain traffic goes at is just a bad idea. People don't buy internet for just gaming or just streaming online videos, they buy it for a multitude of reasons. To suggest that an ISP should favor one type of information traveling over its wires over any other type of information is downright wrong, especially considering most people in the US only have one or two choices for their ISP.
There was actually a case back a long time ago where a railroad company made a deal with a steal company to charge them less to transport their steel than their competitors. The government had to step in because the deal forced the competitors to near bankruptcy. By not having a proper net neutrality law in place the same thing can happen with the internet. As I said before, if I pay to get high speed internet, I expect to get it whenever I darn well please, not whenever the company I'm purchasing it from wills it. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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Your point about legal monopolies isn't invalid, just ... it's attacking the wrong problem. The problem isn't that ISPs are free to do something. The problem is that ISPs receive subsidies direct & indirect that enable them to operate without competition. But this is in no way helped by increasing regulation upon them. This will only further stifle competition, making it impossible to create new services.
You state that I'm "downright wrong" but provide absolutely no evidence to support the status quote other than your own opinion and the undisputed notion that people have more than one reason for getting internet. My point was that because of these different reasons for getting internet, people should probably be offered different levels of service in order to allow for variation in pricing models and structures of business. You never explained why this was a bad idea, except to say that what is must always be. The problem with the comparison to railroads is that there are many differences in the content on the internet. If google is served over bing does the consumer automatically use google just because it's marginally faster? No. They use what they prefer, even if it's slower because they like whatever features it has. And in the long run, the ISP will be forced to go with the decisions of users on this issue. Steel companies have a product that is not distinguishable, but content services are entirely distinguishable and people have preferences that exist without regard only to the speed of a service. There are other issues with the railroad comparison, but I think that's enough for now. |
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Daemonblue
Posts: 701 |
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Ok, so your point is to offer people multiple tiers of internet service to meet their needs...which is something that is already in place. So you want them to add more tiers on top of the tiers that are already there while the current tiers would (and should) be enough to support the person paying for them if the ISPs gave them what they were paying for...so why would they need even more options piled on top of that for any reason other than making people pay even more money for some arbitrary reason?
The other problem is similar to what the music industry is currently trying to get with some ISPs, where they'll have a service provided only by that ISP and to keep the tracks you paid for you have to stay with them (I think it's the ISPs in the UK trying to get that started, but I digress). With the way it is now there is nothing to stop an ISP from outright blocking a site it doesn't agree with (again, bad business, but we never know what the future holds) and if the customers don't like it, what are they gonna do? If the ISP is the only one available to them then it's their way or the highway, and most people would rather have most of the internet than none at all if given the choice. Also, the idea of anyone getting into the competition at this late of a stage is kinda moot seeing as it costs in the billions for a competitive backbone, which nearly no startup company is gonna be able to fund. Yes, Google could very well be planning their own ISP with all the fiber they bought a few years back, but other than major companies that already exist the most you'll see from a startup company is them being a middle man, much like some of the phone service providers around where I live (they offer a "better" service than AT&T, but use AT&T for their services). On another note...I generally hate debating cause I'm not exactly great with trying to get my point across, kind of like a guy trying to tell people to be peaceful by bashing his head on the big "Do Not Press" button that launches the nukes. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I'm not saying I want them to or not, I'm simply saying it's a level of variation allowed for in the absence of regulation that would not be allowed for should net neutrality rules exist which force the issue.
As for ISPs outright blocking a site or what-not, I don't like the idea either myself but on principle I think it isn't something the government should restrict the company from doing. Even in the case of monopoly power, there is sufficient cause for companies to do what consumers want, provided that there is even the potential of outside competition. Even if there are markets where the ISP has a monopoly (certain cities/rural areas/etc.) there are large urban areas where it has nothing even close to that. Admittedly, a rural customer has theoretically less power over it's decisions due to the lack of alternatives in his area, but in reality constant complaining and spreading discontent about are all effective methods for changing companies' policies. Just look at Comcast decision to go back on it's throttling of the bittorrent protocol. |
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nadir-seen-fire
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*cough* Youtube already does pay... Web content requires payment of bandwidth from both sides. People pay their ISP for the bandwidth they use to browse the Internet and watch videos. And the owners of websites pay for bandwidth over their connection to the net in order to serve out that content as well as the incoming traffic to take HTTP requests and upload videos. So already, not only do you pay for the bandwidth you use to download the videos, and a bit of upload bandwidth sending HTTP requests to youtube's servers. But youtube pays it's ISP for all the bandwidth it uses accepting that data from you, and serving it out to others. (on top of that of course youtube has to pay for the server maintenance, fees to the datacenter, and whatnot as well; any communication between their geographically distributed servers -- ie: data transfered between two different datacenters rather than privately inside of one -- also costs them extra bandwidth on both ends -- ie: if you upload a video, not only does it cost youtube money to accept the incoming data, and serve it out to people, but it costs extra to copy that data to the servers in other datacenters and that cost is paid on both sides) Why do you think it costs money to run a website? Not even mentioning domain fees, dns hosting, advertisements if you use them, and so on... Having random ISPs you don't even use walk up to you and say "Cough up some extra dough to us in addition to what you're paying your own service providers or we'll make it troublesome for our customers to view your website." is ridiculous, especially with the whole variety of ISPs. |
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Koji98
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At this rate, it'll be like old AOL all over again.
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torreyjs
 Posts: 76 |
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Sucks the FCC lost but they have other means.
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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Koji, if those fears are valid in any way why isn't it like that now? There isn't regulation preventing it now yet we don't see it.
Business is not out to screw you, but out to make money. If you have expectations of a certain level of service they aren't going to just change it. The only way they could ever give people access to only 60 sites or something ridiculous like that is if a broad customer base supported it. That picture is a silly exaggeration of the concept where business decides to block a few websites, or.. more likely, chooses to give faster speeds to those companies who pay them more for it. Even pro-business sorts aren't for censorship of the internet, so they have nothing to gain by going that route since no one will pay them more for less. Now maybe they could get away with some lower level of service for a cheaper rate, but I don't think that's a bad concept honestly. If people who get internet for 10$ had major sites only or just gaming service networks or something like that I don't think the concept is bad at all. Some might even prefer that, and there is no reason government should mandate businesses not supply that choice if it makes sense. |
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