Funny how you call other extremists. This is a pure ideological viewpoint that has proven to be wrong in how internet and telecommunications evolved. It was built on standards and it was built on national and international regulations. It's why you can take a phone used in Germany and use it in India.
"3) Zero-rating in emerging markets (e.g. FB in India) is really the only way for many lower income users to afford services at all -- particularly for video services."
What are you basing this on? Data is very cheap and cost has been decreasing rapidly the last years. If you can afford a device that can play internet video then you can afford the data. Having lived in Cambodia over a few years I have witnessed the extreme uptake in mobile phones in a developing country (a very poor one too). A GB of data is about one dollar. It's used by garment factory workers earning about $130/month. It's used by women selling their own produce at the market. We are seeing the same in Myanmar with mobile phones being used along nearly all income groups. It's really obnoxious to see Facebook and supporters making arguments of farmers earning a dollar a day when they try to introduce a closed network. Poor people got 99 problems and paying top dollars for watching a video online isn't one of them. Those who cannot afford data cannot afford a usable phone. If Facebook wants to help these people in India then there is a bunch of ways of doing so that doesn't lock people and countries into a walled garden from a tech giant.
Why assume they are stupid and unable to make decisions for themselves?
So regulations are important. Partly so because some markets are very difficult for an average consumers to gain full knowledge about. That's for example one of the reasons why we had a financial crisis some years back.
First of all you seem to dismiss the problems I described. Perhaps you need to re-read what I wrote with a less subjective attitude. Second you seem for some strange reason think that there is a choice between "pesticide-laced food or malnutrition/starvation". That's a false narrative. Also don't get hung up on pesticides, it was just as an example of lack of education, lack of information, lack of laws, corruption, and other issues that results in a market where the consumer have not got enough information to make a reflective choice.
I don't want to continue down your strange little rabbit hole that doesn't reflect any realistic option or facts of how life is in Cambodia or other similar countries. Given your strange questions I don't think you actually know so much about life in these countries or the issue people face. Seems you rather have some ideological viewpoint that you want to define as a narrative. I can assure you that any solution is not as easy as you think. It's complex issues. So please don't come with any simplistic ideological based statements with questions that doesn't make any sense, and attack me as someone who doesn't want to communicate with you.
"What was everyone in Cambodia eating before the food with the pesticides on it?"
Seriously, what are you expecting from this kind of question? Does it provide any value? Does it provide any argument at all? What are you really expecting me to explain to you from this question?
Oh and btw: Cambodia was a educated country with a functional society until the 1960s. Then USA decided to drop US 540,000 tons of bombs on the country killing hundred of thousands people. This resulted in Pol Pot taking over who then pretty much killed everyone with an education and lots more.
So the NN side are the extremists. Not the side that wants to radically change the way the internet has worked for 40 years. Not the side that wants to upend the most innovative segment of the economy in favor of dinausour monoplies, radically reshaping the foundations of billions of dollars in investment and billions more in created wealth. Those guys are "conservative" right?
I've worked on the carrier side, on the last mile side and on the consumer side and I'm not a fan of most of the proposed legislation. We need to prevent anticompetitive practices, but thats about it.
I know how the market works, NN is not new, it is how the world worked.
Anti NN is new. It's hugely anti competitive and anti consumer.
If it gets close to getting passed, I'll be really happy for the segment. Wouldn't be happy being a consumer.
Edit: IMO, the American telecom industry is shafting its consumers regularly and has been underinvesting for years. (Investing in regulatory capture is a lot more), there's many other nations with significantly better networks and speeds, and it's a joke stock for the rest of the world to see the country which created the internet writing the book on how to not enjoy it.
But yeah, if you don't believe me, feel free to look at a bunch of financial statements and lavish over as many models as you like. Check ARPU numbers or read up on the history of your own markets. In true finance fashion, do your diligence and reach your own conclusions.
It's a lot less morality based once you look at the numbers. It's just business.
To summarize your statement: "I am correct because I have read the data. Since you have not read the data, you should go read the data, because then, and only then, will you see that I am correct. Until then, just accept that I am correct."
I still reject your claims because you have not provided any meaningful measure of support for them.
If I knew the world was round, and you kept saying it was flat - why would I have any reason to do more than let you know it wasn't so?
Translation: I don't really have good arguments against NN except for a couple one-liners I'm reading off some Free Market (tm) blog, so I'll attack who you are instead of what you're saying.
The state should file antitrust charges and use the fines to erect new infrastructure that any ISP can lease, restoring competition.
Are you suggesting pro-NN people don't understand how it works? This is a strange summary of NN to me.
Since I think bureaucrats are gonna bureaucrat, handing them power over anything is a terrible idea.
Are companies good? no, many of them are terrible.
But if enough people don't like a company, the company ceases to exist.
I've yet to see a similar mechanism work for changing something about a bureaucrat i don't like.
I.E. the same thing that causes you to distrust a company (human nature) plays out just the same with a government body. What is it about being a bureaucrat that fixes human nature?
"Bureaucrats" are ultimately responsive to the politicians which are ultimately responsive to us, as we see with Trump now getting the power to reshape Obama's FCC policies. I'll tell you this, if they really go through with giving the web over to the ISPs for them to ruin with nickel and dime schemes voters will eventually force your new favorite bureaucrats to back down.
While we've set up a complex representative government to try and hold the people in power to account, that is still much more rigid and manipulable than the fluidity of a highly-competitive commercial market.
We need to focus on making the markets run well organically, not trying to make things happen by fiat.
Net neutrality is arguably part of that, but it's not the only, or even the major, part of it. The biggest part is finding some way to allow open competitive access to the in-the-ground infrastructure that runs modern telecoms. Net neutrality is a band-aid to cover up the fact that most Americans are beholden to a single ISP for data services. In a functioning marketplace, it wouldn't be necessary, because if $ISP_Y slowed down $Site_X, $ISP_Y's users would, in theory, move to $ISP_Z.
In reality, most consumers would probably happily accept a plan that allowed universal access at 5mbps and "turbo access" to some sites in exchange for a lower monthly fee. I understand that makes some people unhappy, but that doesn't mean we should deprive people of the freedom to make that tradeoff if they wish to do so.
Also, bureaucrats are responsible to the organizations most influential to them. "The American People" can barely be motivated to vote in a presidential election, because they rightfully perceive that their votes don't matter, and a vote between two shitty options is a shitty vote.
So, businesses (like Comcast) can just earmark a few million dollars a year to keep buying whatever organization has the power to regulate them, and we (the people) can do nothing about it.
The reason I strongly dislike Net Neutrality is _because_ comcast is horrible and hated. It's reasonable to assume that as we speak, the comcast executive team is figuring out how to best wine and dine top FCC officials.
Because that's way cheaper than being a better company.
You are right that this is a big problem, however it is more an implementation flaw than a flaw of regulations. A more strict enforcement of information and financial transparency could address the bribery concerns.
There is another problem that is perpetual in the interaction of government and corporations, which is that the corporation lawyer has many times, 10x or 100x, the financial incentive to make the bureaucrat ineffective, than the bureaucrat himself has to be effective.
I would suggest a (difficult) solution that any governmental office or agency should have their success evaluated in terms of economic impact by something like a team of independent economists every year or two.
The agency's funding as well as staff compensation would then be derived from that, as a fixed percentage of the societal benefit. I have no idea of the exact numbers, but the point is to create the same motivational incentives as the corporations have.
One side is working for themselves and reap the significant benefits of their hard work. The other side is working for all of society and really should also reap the benefits of their hard work.
This is completely untrue. I'll give an analogy: If enough people don't like a tyrannical government, does the tyrannical government cease to exist? No, it has all the power to keep people in line and also to make life just bearable enough so people tolerate it. Any sign of uprising or resistance will be squished in infancy.
The only way is if the situation becomes so unbearable for the people that there is a massive uprising/revolution, and even then the people are not guaranteed victory. Furthermore, suppose the tyrant is overthrown, without the institutions of democracy in place it's more likely than not that there will just be another tyrant in his place.
This is the law of the jungle, and it is not the best way to run a society. That is why we have laws, and that is why we need regulations for our corporations.
Edit to clarify: On second reading the above may sound to some like hysteria but any entity that has monopoly on a very expensive but vital infrastructure in a completely free and unregulated market, has all the power over its "customers". Hence the tyrannical government analogy.
If you violate some obscure statute, you can be fined. (At best.) If you don't pay the fine, the penalties can escalate until the local police or feds arrest you (at gunpoint, if you resist) and lock you in a box.
There's 180,000 pages in the federal register [0].
How is that "easy to ignore"?
I'll take "business that I can stop paying at any time" over "armed gunmen with the legal authority to arrest me" every time.
[0] https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/regulatory...
If you are a small company trying to start an internet based business, I'm pretty sure you'd take "limited bandwidth for all" over "high bandwidth for the competition; limited bandwidth for me" anytime.
That is also the best way to ensure the 'lower bound' for bandwidth is kept as high as possible.
I think as long as we are talking about the hardware infrastructure, (2) is a fundamental problem that cannot be fixed by adding competition, because it shares some common features with utilities like water, electricity, etc (making me believe internet access ought to be treated more like a utility). Maybe a better solution is a national commitment to fund and build quality internet access infrastrcture for the entire country, then encourage competition among what flows over those wires. (Disclaimer: not an economist and do not have expertise on this subject.)
There are some interesting ways to increase competition, including: 1) New access methods (WISPs, etc.) 2) Letting providers pick types of customers (multi-tenant buildings, for instance) 3) Dropping universal coverage requirements at some level of granularity -- maybe a provider only serves new neighborhoods, or some smaller lot size neighborhoods, or richer neighborhoods more likely to buy service. 4) Shared trenching/pole access, possibly in the form of bulk-running infrastructure a few times per year? 5) Shared physical infrastructure in some areas -- maybe local or single-purpose utility owned, like fiber in the ground going to neighborhood locations with Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory colo for provider equipment, or optical cross-connects?)
It should be possible for me to build some kind of public network, somewhere, for some purpose ... and dictate bits/traffic any way I see fit.
Now maybe I can't do that with CATV because common carrier.
And maybe I can't do that with public spectrum because public resources.
But there should be some way I can do that. Net neutrality extremism suggests that there should not be any way I can do that.
The issue is ISPs, who by definition are supposed to provide Internet access. Throttling and filtering for profit are not compatible with the Internet as we know it.
No, I should have been more clear - I mean an Internet connected network that is open to the (paying, presumably) public.
Again, we know lots of ways you can't do that because of common carrier laws and public rights of way ... and even human decency ... but if I conjure the thing up out of thin air and there's nobody twisting your arm, I should be able to run that thing.
And then throttle your speeds to xyz.com in favor of abc.com.
Or whatever.
> No, I should have been more clear - I mean an Internet connected network that is open to the (paying, presumably) public.
Again, you couldn't advertise it as "internet access" because you're not giving people equal access to the internet.
> but if I conjure the thing up out of thin air and there's nobody twisting your arm, I should be able to run that thing.
The problem is if you're the only carrier in an area, or if the majority of carriers make this sort of decision. "You can just pick someone else" doesn't work if someone doesn't have another option.
I doubt I'm the only one.
I recommend picking a better argument than CP to defend net neutrality.
You either follow net neutrality or you can try and get along without common carrier protections.
We figured this out with the telephone company many decades ago, and the principle hasn't changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
47 USC §230(c)(1) provides that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" and then (c)(2) immediately says that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of [...] any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected [...]".
Edit: to be precise, the content immunity in §230 isn't a generic common-carrier immunity; if you read the introductory text, it's a very Internet-specific immunity for "interactive computer services" such as Internet services!
I don't know the exact answer to where that line is, but I truly believe it needs to be much more strict than it is right now.
Why? Government bureaucrats dictate aviation engineering standards to airplane manufacturers, automobile engineering standards to car manufacturers, radio engineering standards to electronics manufacturers, and so on. These are generally good things: they ensure that citizens can have a reasonable expectation of safety and that resources are shared fairly.
Even with better competition, the ISPs will still wield a tremendous amount of power - internet access is critical to modern, prosperous life, so demand will be quite inelastic regardless of what they do to consumers. Furthermore, lifting regulations that providers must service an entire market won't help the many consumers who are in single family homes. They'll be left to pay for the service of a monopoly (or a duopoly if they're lucky) who can now legally extort smaller content providers without the power and clout to negotiate better terms.
Fiber I lay in the ground isn't a shared resource, and no one's safety is impaired by prioritizing my on-network traffic over off-network traffic.
A more direct analogy is government regulation of something like how food tastes or how entertaining TV shows are.
There's some justification for regulating carriers who have an enforced monopoly in a region, but the problem is the monopolies are local government monopolies, and the regulation here would be national.
That's true, sort of. The fiber you lay in the ground isn't a shared resource, but the internet as a whole IS. Mediating my access to it without reasonable alternatives removes my stake in a shared resource.
> A more direct analogy is government regulation of something like how food tastes or how entertaining TV shows are.
I'm trying to interpret this charitably, but I must admit that my initial reaction is "that's absolutely ridiculous". This strikes me as a lurid, sensationalist comparison designed to appeal to anger rather than logic. If I am missing an obvious logical connection then I'd love to hear it.
If anything, I think a worst-case breakdown of net neutrality falls closer to having my personal choices regulated than government intervention does. It's not hard to imagine an example scenario where it is only profitable for my home to be serviced by an ISP which has political beliefs antithetical to mine. In such a case it would be perfectly legal for them to charge exorbitant rates to access this content, effectively controlling what I consume.
> There's some justification for regulating carriers who have an enforced monopoly in a region, but the problem is the monopolies are local government monopolies, and the regulation here would be national.
I think you're making this statement because of regulation requiring that providers service an entire market? I can't imagine how else to interpret the statement that "monopolies are local government monopolies", given that most people have a choice of one (two, if they're lucky) of {comcast, time warner, AT&T}. Simply lifting this regulation doesn't necessarily solve the problem - admittedly I'm speaking from a position of ignorance, but it strikes me as likely that there are many consumers to whom it isn't immensely profitable to provide service.
I couldn't easily think of a non-public-safety, non-shared resource regulation that exists. (because most of those things aren't regulated). If you can think of a better example, I'm fine with using that.
> local monopoly
Local monopolies are because local governments restrict who can trench or otherwise install in an area. I believe there are local/state/federal restrictions requiring universal access. If it weren't for these monopolies you'd at least have two crappy cable companies in a region vs. one, and there would be competition. (In my market, sometimes apartment complexes and others do monopoly agreements with one or the other of the local carriers -- Wave vs. Centurylink vs. Frontier (dying) vs. Comcast -- which is an issue too, but much more open to commercial pressure.)
There are some national policies which restrict the total number of providers in the US market, but mostly it is restrictions at the local level which keep individual locations from having multiple of those providers. There are some inherent natural monopoly aspects here -- trenching has costs, etc. -- but a lot of it is a consequence of government policies.
(I want there to be open access to high speed, inexpensive Internet (with as uniform speeds across sites as possible) in as many places as possible; my disagreement with extreme NN policies is that they both violate private property rights AND are not likely to produce the desired result.)
Comparisons between regulation of telephone service and internet service seem like the closest analog, and there are certainly examples of the former. Early telephone network providers were forced to peer by government regulation, for instance. An even more closely related example is the regulation that cell network providers may not charge extra fees for tethering; that's actually quite close to the net neutrality argument, where the cell network provider is being forced to act as a "dumb pipe" and accept traffic at the same cost regardless of the source (though admittedly they have metered usage billing, which I would be totally fine with from my ISP if that solves the problem). That we as a society accepted regulation in both of these cases is not a sufficient argument for why net neutrality is necessary, but it defeats the argument that such regulation is unprecedented.
I think we're in agreement about what we want, and the argument that net neutrality will fail to produce this is reasonable since we aren't currently in the goal state. My fear of anti net-neutrality legislation is based on the fact that what we have now, though not ideal, is acceptable, and it's quite plausible that things could become much worse rather than better unless this is addressed very, very thoughtfully. I'm open to the idea that net neutrality as it currently stands is unsustainable, but that needs to be paired with a clear explanation of how revoking it won't lead us to the nightmare scenario I've described above in which a small monopoly of providers serve as unelected gatekeepers. As I mentioned earlier, if the answer is metered billing where the high costs of the long tail are amortized by the low costs of popular content, then that seems perfectly appropriate. You also gave an example in a sibling comment about net neutrality only being waived when consumers had access to a certain number of providers.
I disagree, and you are trivializing serious issues that lead to this regulation.
There's a good reason there's a lot of regulation in this space: people don't like it when companies tear up their street (or yard or driveway) to install utilities, and complain to their local elected officials when it happens. Democracy really works at this scale. For every person that is willing to have their street torn up for a second (or 10th) time to install a competing ISP's infrastructure, there are 49 people that don't understand and will keep paying comcast, and 50 people that don't care at all, but they sure as hell care about backhoes and construction workers in their yard.
Honestly, the local officials preventing competing ISPs from operating aren't even wrong, even if you view it as short sighted to represent their constituencies accurately. It's monstrously inefficient and stupid to lay competing physical networks.
The FCC and states should do something to help foster more competition and lowing the barrier to entry.
http://www.recode.net/2016/2/26/11588286/google-fiber-swings...
This is too insidious and must be killed
Firstly - google offers free, complete internet via wifi at train stations in India. This solves multiple problems at once and actually makes an impact. (No last mile issues, at a major node where millions of people interact every day)
Secondly - Zero rating as proposed in India, would allow for a small curated list, which of course would be done by Facebook.
As zero rating stood, it was used by college kids who wanted free Facebook. Not by Kanta Bhen, in the middle of no where trying to find medical advice.
Thirdly-importantly: Wikipedia is not the internet. Facebook is not the internet. Google is not the internet.
These are fundamentally sites on the internet, and while hugely important to the English speaking world, the real value is the place where these things were made possible. And that is the internet.
That is what India risks losing, at a time in its development when it's more prepared to make pong than it is to make candy crush.
Sure, theres huge English speaking populations in the cities.
But rural India speaks a whole menagerie of local languages, many of which don't share a common root language.
So removing the chance for people to actually see that open, flat network, connecting everyone around the world is a massive short sighted loss.
The core idea is only fairness: e.g. Comcast can't throttle or charge for connectivity based on your perceived ability to pay and their in-house service shouldn't get separate pricing.
Similarly, zero-rating isn't usually considered a network neutrality problem as long as the option is open to everyone at the same pricing. It becomes anticompetitive if e.g. you're quoted twice what Comcast charges the company they have an interest in.
That's still extremely anti-competitive. Incumbents are in an much better position to pay large sums of money to have relatively minor services stream for free. People will flock to those services and a small competitor will have no viable option of paying for the fees and remaining profitable.
You might counter that with "get funding!" But I think the internet is amazing because of it's low barrier to entry. Blocking that might not prevent "disruption" from startups, but it sure as hell will prevent many people from casually trying things.
I do agree that there's a public-good aspect to supporting Internet access but I think that's an even greater change to the current market, at least where most users are on wireless.
If NN were structured such that a company like Netflix had to provide content servers for internal-to-network deployment or netflix customers would higher rate or lower performance for Netflix traffic, but Comcast had to charge the same rate and same standards for Netflix, Comcast's own video product, or any other third party to do this, I'd support it.
I don't particularly value the ability of a carrier to engage in bundling/commercial exploitation of the monopoly, but I do want providers free to engage in technical innovation to provide multiple 4K streams and gigabit access to customers at $50/mo, etc.
This is an even bigger deal when you start looking at other network technologies (wireless/cellular, some of the WISPs, etc.) than fiber to the home or HFC.
Competition > Regulated Monopoly > Unregulated Monopoly. (A duopoly which decides not to compete isn't really competition.)
I think the regulated monopoly model makes the most sense for the last mile connection: make it like what we had with DSL where anyone can rent the wire and competition happens at the service level. I wouldn't mind Verizon offering a ton of bundled services over FIOS if I could simply buy only internet from someone else.
Fiber to the Home is an extremely marginal economic proposition today. It's not deployed today. Without strong economic drivers for it, it won't get built.
I'd accept that once FTTH exists (bringing fiber back to a neighborhood point), that might be good enough to not require more competition at that level (as long as maintenance can be done.) I'd in principle be fine with any solution to get that built -- a regulated monopoly, direct government buildout, whatever.
Also, not sure you've looked at FTTH recently enough: Verizon alone has 32 million customers according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_in_the...
That's all well and good where competitive markets exist, but in many places, they simply don't.
Only 23% of American census blocks, for example, have more than 1 option for 25MBPS+ internet.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
In general, it solves the problem that underlies it all: unregulated private monopolies become anticompetitive.
If you force private monopolies to be fair, or end their monopoly, you have a nice solution.
Easier said than done. As with utilities like power, water, or gas, it's not exactly that easy to get multiple companies running infrastructure to every home.
And to be clear, all of Americas Internet provider problems stem from the last mile monopolies, not the core infrastructure.
I agree there is a lot of detrimental regulatory overhead, but I disagree that it is the primary hurdle.
Last mile infastructure is not fluid. If the customer doesn't buy, it can't be sold to someone else and the builder is stuck with the bill. It's just too expensive to build and maintain for investors to want to enter in saturated markets.
Actually, this is why I feel wireless networks need less regulation than wired ones. Radio spectrum is fluid and normal market marchanics are more at play.
This is not the argument you make against net neutrality.
3. Terrible idea. No one wants FB to be the gatekeeper. And no its not the only way. Many state govts (especially Telangana) are rolling out programs to provide data access to poor people. Telangana in particular is laying out the fiber optic network statewide wherever the ground is being dug up for more critical infrastructure projects like water and gas.
Your point stand only when the markets are ideal and utopian. Unfortunately it can only happen when the companies are not beholden to shareholder interests.
I have to admit I read that and I completely discount the rest of your comment. Nobody who actually believes in even the concept of sensible government regulation uses phrasing like this. I'm surprised you didn't call out "three letter agencies" too.
And besides that I believe you're just trying to fool people too stupid to know what NN is when you say net neutrality "dictates network engineering standards". I don't think your comment is intellectually honest at all.
If we generously assume the latter, it's important for you to know that the sort of thinking that let Trump win the white house is echoed in your entire comment. Congratulations!
I've got to run, but in the meantime, perhaps you can educate yourself on some of the potential shortcomings associated with regulating the internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Reduction_in_in...
Edit: Oh look! Downvotes for observations. What an amazing display of irony.
I wonder if this breakdown is at least in part between populations in the USA and everyone else.
I've sat down with some pro-nn folks, honestly trying to understand how they reconcile the two, and have not made much progress.
Are you suggesting that all government regulation is a violation of user privacy? (If so, I would suggest you share a different definition of privacy to most people)
Supporters of Open Internet regulation do not want the government "regulating the entire internet".
Does the solve the cognitive dissonance issue for you?
1) While I dislike monopoly carrier antics, I'm even more unhappy about the idea of government bureaucrats dictating network engineering standards to carriers and ISPs. If you build a network with caches/content servers close to users, and expensive backhaul back to your network core, you can offer essentially unlimited traffic to users hitting the cache, and still provide more limited access to other stuff. I'd prefer high bandwidth everywhere, but that isn't always an option. It should be a market decision, not a national government decision.
2) The real problems with lack of NN are due to lack of competition in the access provider market. Focus on fixing that. A lot of this is due to local governments requiring providers cover entire markets to cover any of a market -- if someone wants to build another WebPass or CondoInternet and only serve high-density developments, that's great! Trenching fiber to single family homes is marginal anyway, but if you have low take-up in a neighborhood it is even worse. If you are going to push for regulation, have it be regulation to empower actual competition in the network access market.
3) Zero-rating in emerging markets (e.g. FB in India) is really the only way for many lower income users to afford services at all -- particularly for video services.