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A modest proposal on internet neutrality

BenBurch

Gatekeeper of The Left
BenBurch
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
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OK, so the courts say the FCC cannot demand that ISPs remain neutral with respect to classes of traffic, opening the door to things like Verizon cable keeping you from even finding WOW cable's web site.

And I think we can all agree that for the consumer, that's not the best.

So, how to deal with this?

I think that the ISP industry, at least those who want to remain network neutral, and there are quite a few, should form an industry trade organization which will audit the neutrality of member firms and allow those who pass the audit to display the (insert good marketing idea here) badge on their web sites.

Consumers, where they have a choice of a neutral ISP and one that is going to play games with their traffic will probably choose the neutral company, and this will force even those companies now committed to providing an un-equal access service to change and provide a neutral service in addition or instead.

What do you think?
 
BenBurch said:
OK, so the courts say the FCC cannot demand that ISPs remain neutral with respect to classes of traffic, opening the door to things like Verizon cable keeping you from even finding WOW cable's web site.

And I think we can all agree that for the consumer, that's not the best.

So, how to deal with this?

I think that the ISP industry, at least those who want to remain network neutral, and there are quite a few, should form an industry trade organization which will audit the neutrality of member firms and allow those who pass the audit to display the (insert good marketing idea here) badge on their web sites.

Consumers, where they have a choice of a neutral ISP and one that is going to play games with their traffic will probably choose the neutral company, and this will force even those companies now committed to providing an un-equal access service to change and provide a neutral service in addition or instead.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Remove local ordinances that give phone or cable utility companies right to easements unless they provide a neutral service. If they don't want to give us freedom to use the service over the entire internet then I see no reason to give them any safeguards in placing a cable under my backyard.
 
Law is written and enacted by elderly rich people who are confused by technology. Expect nothing good to remain good, and nothing good to come for some considerable time.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Law is written and enacted by elderly rich people who are confused by technology. Expect nothing good to remain good, and nothing good to come for some considerable time.
Click to expand...

You have a better understanding of the elderly rich than most. I'm sure this is useful.
 
Newtons Bit said:
Remove local ordinances that give phone or cable utility companies right to easements unless they provide a neutral service. If they don't want to give us freedom to use the service over the entire internet then I see no reason to give them any safeguards in placing a cable under my backyard.
Click to expand...
Excellent idea. They'll just have to negotiate with every private property owner along the route to place their cables.
 
WildCat said:
Excellent idea. They'll just have to negotiate with every private property owner along the route to place their cables.
Click to expand...

Indeed. And when they find this to be impossible, they'll be agreeable to the limited and reasonable regulation of net neutrality.
 
Newtons Bit said:
Remove local ordinances that give phone or cable utility companies right to easements unless they provide a neutral service.
Click to expand...
.
+1

My city made a HUGE mistake getting suckered into a single carrier easement and not demanding consumer-friendly provisions. We're seriously paying for it now.
 
Let's say for the sake of argument that net neutrality gets watered down to some extent in the U.S. How would that impact internet traffic originating from outside the United States? How would that work when some countries would continue to follow the precepts of net neutrality but the U.S. didn't? Seems like a recipe for disaster and confusion.
 
A company should have a right to do business the way it wants to be. As someone who has worked with ISPs it's usually 10% of the customer that use 90% of the resources and a company should have a right to take measures to prevent a minority from reducing the quality of service for the rest of the customers.

Can this be used for other less moral purposes such as limiting the quality of competing products? Yes. But the answer to that is that people should be able to use another internet provider and the ones that don't put such limits should do better than those that do.

The actual problem is not forcing ISPs to run their business a certain way, it's to stop allowing the monopolies and having the government give certain companies special privileges that gives them an unfair advantage over the competition which as a result limits the choices of the consumers.

It's not fair for a government to pay for the infrastructure of a company and then not allow other companies to share that infrastructure and use it to an unfair advantage over other businesses. Let the cable company limit how their customers can use their service, but don't deny the competition the same resources you give the cable company. Don't pay for the wiring of the phone company but then let the phone company deny allowing other ISPs to use those wires as well and leave consumers with no other options since no competition can have any infrastructure.

The problem I have with the net neutrality complaint is that is prevents people from seeing the actual problem at hand. The consumers best interest is in having more choices to allow competition to thrive.
 
Also, one thing people should start looking into is wireless. That's what our town is doing to provide alternatives to just one cable company and one phone company as the only options for for Internet. We also have an alternate local phone provider. The wireless however is much faster than cable and DSL though. 30Mb to 1Gb and in both directions.

The town also funded a fiber cable to come in from over the mountains and doesn't belong to any of the big corporations. They have a policy where if someone is laying fiber in the street, they have to allow other people to lay their fiber along with them so as to split the costs and prevent extra work having to be done which costs more money for the city.
 
Jonnyclueless said:
A company should have a right to do business the way it wants to be. As someone who has worked with ISPs it's usually 10% of the customer that use 90% of the resources and a company should have a right to take measures to prevent a minority from reducing the quality of service for the rest of the customers.

Can this be used for other less moral purposes such as limiting the quality of competing products? Yes. But the answer to that is that people should be able to use another internet provider and the ones that don't put such limits should do better than those that do.

The actual problem is not forcing ISPs to run their business a certain way, it's to stop allowing the monopolies and having the government give certain companies special privileges that gives them an unfair advantage over the competition which as a result limits the choices of the consumers.

It's not fair for a government to pay for the infrastructure of a company and then not allow other companies to share that infrastructure and use it to an unfair advantage over other businesses. Let the cable company limit how their customers can use their service, but don't deny the competition the same resources you give the cable company. Don't pay for the wiring of the phone company but then let the phone company deny allowing other ISPs to use those wires as well and leave consumers with no other options since no competition can have any infrastructure.

The problem I have with the net neutrality complaint is that is prevents people from seeing the actual problem at hand. The consumers best interest is in having more choices to allow competition to thrive.
Click to expand...
The problem is there is not unlimited space for such infrastructure, and it's not desirable to tear up streets and such every time a new competitor enters the market.

And nobody is telling the company how to run their business, if they are unhappy with a few customers using all the bandwidth then stop selling unlimited bandwidth plans. Don't cry that people are using the service they paid for.

The other issue is vertically integrated companies, such as when you have the ISP also operating web sites. They then have an interest in throttling competitor sites.
 
OP -- when you use the phrase "modest proposal" I expect roasted babies in the action plan. Where are my roasted babies???
 
The problem I see with the suggestion in the OP is that I doubt the practical value of having been certified as net neutral for those seeking an ISP.
 
Jonnyclueless said:
Also, one thing people should start looking into is wireless. That's what our town is doing to provide alternatives to just one cable company and one phone company as the only options for for Internet. We also have an alternate local phone provider. The wireless however is much faster than cable and DSL though. 30Mb to 1Gb and in both directions.

The town also funded a fiber cable to come in from over the mountains and doesn't belong to any of the big corporations. They have a policy where if someone is laying fiber in the street, they have to allow other people to lay their fiber along with them so as to split the costs and prevent extra work having to be done which costs more money for the city.
Click to expand...

Wireless is useless for large population regions.
 
WildCat said:
The problem is there is not unlimited space for such infrastructure, and it's not desirable to tear up streets and such every time a new competitor enters the market.

And nobody is telling the company how to run their business, if they are unhappy with a few customers using all the bandwidth then stop selling unlimited bandwidth plans. Don't cry that people are using the service they paid for.

The other issue is vertically integrated companies, such as when you have the ISP also operating web sites. They then have an interest in throttling competitor sites.
Click to expand...

But they keep going to competing websites! If we want them to watch our cable we just block hulu and Netflix. Easy simple and not at all about total bandwidth usage.
 
SezMe said:
The problem I see with the suggestion in the OP is that I doubt the practical value of having been certified as net neutral for those seeking an ISP.
Click to expand...

In South Africa, our internet connectivity is expensive, slow and controlled by a monopoly. As a result several large online communities have sprung up which constantly compare and contrast ISP's, their policies, speeds that consumers are getting at various times and packages etc. etc.

In other words, the situation in the market has forced the community to band together to share information so that consumers can make more educated choices - and they do.

I'm absolutely certain that something similar would happen should net neutrality fall away. In short order an online community would spring up with thousands of people reviewing and recommending ISP's, comparing their QoS solutions and what sorts of traffic seemed to be throttled by which ISP etc.

(for reference: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/forum.php)
 
SezMe said:
The problem I see with the suggestion in the OP is that I doubt the practical value of having been certified as net neutral for those seeking an ISP.
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You sell it as an emotional feel-good thing.

Dolphin-safe tuna has no benefits for the person eating the tin of tuna.

You can also make claims (true ones) that you will give people better access to ALL of their movies and games no matter who is providing them.
 
Jonnyclueless said:
A company should have a right to do business the way it wants to be. As someone who has worked with ISPs it's usually 10% of the customer that use 90% of the resources and a company should have a right to take measures to prevent a minority from reducing the quality of service for the rest of the customers.

Can this be used for other less moral purposes such as limiting the quality of competing products? Yes. But the answer to that is that people should be able to use another internet provider and the ones that don't put such limits should do better than those that do.
Click to expand...

Not everyone has a choice of internet service providers. Where I live we have Comcast and that is it. And we are lucky to have Comcast who protested for years they shouldn't have to provide us with broadband even though the county basically gave them millions to do so.
 
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