Does anyone here actually oppose Network Neutrality?

[lobosrul]

The change in classification unfortunately allows the FCC to enforce rules that are completely inappropriate for broadband. These include things like banning language that many citizens consider offensive. The FCC does not have to enforce those rules on broadband because the Telecommunications Act allows them to exempt some services/devices from general rules for a class. While I hope they will keep their promise to not apply the inappropriate rules, I still hope that some day Congress will get off their butts and revise the Telecommunications Act to create a new class more appropriate for broadband wide area networking.

Yes it would be nice for congress to do actually write an appropriate law. Unfortunately in the current political climate that is extremely unlikely. Because a) they can't seem to do anything at the moment except when faced with a looming crisis (ie debt ceiling), and b) the major ISP's spend mega bucks on lobbying.

I also think your worrying about FCC putting into place morality laws covering the internet unfounded for several reasons. First, they are enforcing Title II (common carrier) regulations from a 1934 law to put NN into place. It has nothing at all to do with decency, in fact common carrier status makes the BSP's (as you put it) exempt from policing content on their network. Secondly, if they haven't put into place such laws covering cable TV it seems unlikely they will do so with the internet. Third, the international nature of the internet makes policing such rules pretty much impossible.

 

[paulhutch]

I also think your worrying about FCC putting into place morality laws covering the internet unfounded for several reasons. First, they are enforcing Title II (common carrier) regulations from a 1934 law to put NN into place. It has nothing at all to do with decency, in fact common carrier status makes the BSP's (as you put it) exempt from policing content on their network. Secondly, if they haven't put into place such laws covering cable TV it seems unlikely they will do so with the internet. Third, the international nature of the internet makes policing such rules pretty much impossible.

Thanks for your opinion on this, after considering it I think you're correct. In fact I'm not sure where I first got the impression that this was a possibility, it could have been from years ago.

 

[Nihilianth]

The issue is ISPs own infrastructure as well as provide service. And zero attempt is being made to copy the model of separately regulating the ownership of infrastructure from the regulation of service provision.

Content provision is a red herring in this debate. That is not being regulated by NN.

It still appears that most proponents and opponents of network neutrality simply do not understand what it is.

Content provision is not the red herring. That is the entire point behind NN. NN doesn't "regulate content provision," simply because it doesn't NEED to be regulated. The entire point of "The Internet," is so everyone can have a voice on an equal basis.

NN PROTECTS contention provision as a marketplace, by disallowing ISPs to interfere with content provision in competition.

It's really funny, how Francesca keeps saying other people do not understand NN. It's like a Creationist saying other people do not understand how science works.

 

[Nihilianth]

I will be the first to admit I know very little about the details of net neutrality. After posing my question, I've gotten several different answers . . . which leads me to believe that few people really understand it either. Obviously, I've got some reading to do from both sides of the issue if I'm going to form a solid opinion.

My first inclination is to oppose government regulation of the internet. It's operated quite well without it and I see no evidence of any intent by ISPs to start charging web content providers more to not throttle their speed. Further, I don't really see a big problem with such a practice. If Roadrunner started throttling content I use, I would complain and if they didn't fix it, I would switch. I can't see that becoming a huge problem with the consumers having a say by voting with dollars. But like I said, I have some reading to do. . .

It isn;t that government is "regulating the internet" with NN. It is completely the opposite: It is the government making it so that ISPs cannot interfere with the internet.

When you pay for The Internet (TCP-IP,) you are paying for the entirety of that package. Not some small portion that your ISP decides they want to allow you to use. That's why I used the gallon of milk as a comparison. When I walk into a store, and I go to pay for a gallon of milk, I am paying for the entire contents in that package: 1 gallon of milk. The store cannot decide for me how much milk I get to take home with me, based on the brand that I chose. A gallon is a gallon. The Internet is The Internet. A merchant in virtually all other industries on the planet cannot legally reduce a product or service that a customer originally agreed to purchase.

Nor can a merchant use different weights and measures outside of national policy. If I pay for 100 MB/s, I get 100 MB/sec. (Technical issues, as always, notwithstanding.) So the agreed-upon service that I agree to pay the price that Comcast wants to charge is this:

"100 MB/s speed, and access to The Internet."

That's what I buy and pay for each and every month. That what is legally owed to me. Period. If I want to visit Netflix, Netflix should be streamed to me at the rate that I paid for, and Netflix should not be bullied by Comcast through extortion by throttling their connection to their customers: I ALREADY pay for 100 MB/s!

It really is not that much more difficult than that. It really, really isn't!

 

[rustypouch]

It isn;t that government is "regulating the internet" with NN. It is completely the opposite: It is the government making it so that ISPs cannot interfere with the internet.

When you pay for The Internet (TCP-IP,) you are paying for the entirety of that package. Not some small portion that your ISP decides they want to allow you to use. That's why I used the gallon of milk as a comparison. When I walk into a store, and I go to pay for a gallon of milk, I am paying for the entire contents in that package: 1 gallon of milk. The store cannot decide for me how much milk I get to take home with me, based on the brand that I chose. A gallon is a gallon. The Internet is The Internet. A merchant in virtually all other industries on the planet cannot legally reduce a product or service that a customer originally agreed to purchase.

Nor can a merchant use different weights and measures outside of national policy. If I pay for 100 MB/s, I get 100 MB/sec. (Technical issues, as always, notwithstanding.) So the agreed-upon service that I agree to pay the price that Comcast wants to charge is this:

"100 MB/s speed, and access to The Internet."

That's what I buy and pay for each and every month. That what is legally owed to me. Period. If I want to visit Netflix, Netflix should be streamed to me at the rate that I paid for, and Netflix should not be bullied by Comcast through extortion by throttling their connection to their customers: I ALREADY pay for 100 MB/s!

It really is not that much more difficult than that. It really, really isn't!

Exactly. NN is all about treating all traffic at the same priority, and charging the same rate for it. The ISPs cannot discriminate based on the content or the destination of the data.

 

[Nihilianth]

To most people, myself included, the FCC its actions and rules are rather difficult to grasp. I've been dealing with the FCC and its rules professionally since the early 1980s, including writing simplified summaries for management. So I thought that perhaps I can clear up some of the mystery with a simplified summary of how the rules pertain to broadband.

The FCC's primary purpose is to prevent interference in the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from DC to daylight. This is partially intended to prevent monopolistic actions caused by companies intentionally interfering with competitors signals. Intentional interference had actually happened before the FCC existed, large radio stations in the early 20th century would adjust their signal in such a way that all competitors signals where effectively unusable thereby capturing 100% exclusive market share in radio for a region. In summary the FCC's basic governing principle for its rules is: Thou shall not interfere. FYI - this is what those FCC labels and notices on electronic equipment are all about, can't have your PC interfere with your neighbors TV reception.

The FCC's authority comes from a law passed by Congress. Like all federal agencies they are only allowed to create rules to implement the law, they can not change the law in any way, only Congress can do that. The law that the FCC creates rules to enforce is the Telecommunications Act. The Act specifies only a few classes of services and devices and the FCC is required to fit all potentially interfering services & devices into one of those classes. The classes are roughly: broadcast, telephone, cable TV, accidental and information. The original intent of the information class was to regulate telegraph/teletype services. The information services had a very low probability of creating interference so Congress severely limited what rules the FCC could create for that class. If the citizens of the USA wanted to prevent blocking of particular stocks from appearing on the ticker tape we were meant to use the SEC for that type of rule not the FCC.

The last revision of the Telecommunications Act was in 1996, when broadband wide area networking was practically non-existent for consumers. As broadband grew over the years the FCC needed to regulate it to prevent electrical interference with other services. Since by law the FCC couldn't add a new class of service they had to pick the exiting one most similar electrically to broadband that gave them sufficient authority to prevent interference. So they chose the information class to use for broadband wide area networking. As I mentioned above this class severely limited the FCC's authority to regulate broadband service providers. This is why the courts threw out the FCC's first attempt at network neutrality rules.

It would have been much better if the Congress had updated the Telecommunications Act to add a new class with more appropriate limitations for broadband wide area networking. The sad fact is that due to a combination of many factors Congress has thus far been unwilling to revise the law so the FCC had no choice other than to move broadband wide area networking from the information class to the telecommunication class.

The change in classification unfortunately allows the FCC to enforce rules that are completely inappropriate for broadband. These include things like banning language that many citizens consider offensive. The FCC does not have to enforce those rules on broadband because the Telecommunications Act allows them to exempt some services/devices from general rules for a class. While I hope they will keep their promise to not apply the inappropriate rules, I still hope that some day Congress will get off their butts and revise the Telecommunications Act to create a new class more appropriate for broadband wide area networking.

Thank you! Excellent post.

The problem with Congress creating a new class, is, once again, it will be an unmitigated fight between conservatives and liberals (yet again,) rather than a discussion about practicality and commonsense. You know it will turn into "But it will give MORE powers to Dictator Obama!!!11!"

 

[Francesca R]

I'd be happy for a utility as long as it was an effective one. The issue with BT Openreach is that it fails to provide an acceptable level of service because it needs to generate profits for its parent.

Yes. Utilities sometimes fail to do that . . . . .

But your beef would be with OFCOM, not with the company itself, whose customer you are not. So the avenue of redress is not via "the market".

(I agree BTW . . . for two years I worked out of my house and was requiring online connectivity for market data services all day, and it was my first experience of high dependency on openreach. Once the broadband was down for over 60 hours. There's only so much you can do with a mobile dongle)

 

[lomiller]

You think gas and electricity suppliers do not know where they get the energy from? Perhaps you should research energy retailing.

Utterly ridiculous nonsense. No amount of energy retailing is ever going to allow electricity suppliers to tell where a specific gas molecule or a specific Watt of power from or goes to.

The technology to limit or track this way for gas or electricity doesn't exist, period. It does for data, so if you want a data service to work just like a gas server or electricity service the way you claim you need rules to place rules around this type of tracking and shaping of packets.

Fixed line telephony providers certainly know where calls are originating from.

Point to point services like land line telephones are not a good model form the Internet.

It still appears that most proponents and opponents of network neutrality simply do not understand what it is.

Projection. What's clear is that you don't know how the Internet works nor what role net neutrality plays in this.


The services that ISP's provide are:
a) routing data packets originating from nodes on their network to to other networks for delivery to their destination node
b) routing data packets originating on other networks to nodes on their own network
b) transit of data packets originating and destined to other networks.


That's it. These are the items that distinguishes an Internet provider from a Private Network provider. All Net Neutrality does is restrict ISP's from throttling or restricting these packets.


Note that despite your claims to the contrary all ISP's have data packets coming from or going to other ISP's sharing their infrastructure at all times because this is fundamentally what makes them an Internet Service Provider to begin with.


Again, more competing ISP's is desirable but irrelevant to the discussion. More network providers is a moot point, if none of them exchange packets it's not the Internet. Furthermore even sharing last mile infrastructure requires some form of Net Neutrality rules to prevent the infrastructure owner from throttling the bandwidth of their competitors.

 

[lomiller]

The issue is ISPs own infrastructure as well as provide service. And zero attempt is being made to copy the model of separately regulating the ownership of infrastructure from the regulation of service provision.

I'm not entirely clear on whether you want to block ISP's from owning content services like a competitor to NetFlix or want to block Infrastructure companies from being the ISP.

Regardless, neither addresses the issues Net Neutrality does. Even if the company providing the infrastructure that connects to your home isn't the official ISP, without Net Neutrality there is nothing to prevent them from throttling NetFlix, or Wikipedia, or Google, etc unless they agreed to pay an additional fee even though you are already paying separately for the ISP to connect you to the Internet. Changing ISP doesn't help because the restitutions are not being imposed by them, it's being imposed by by the company providing the data connection to your house.


From a technical standpoint the company providing the data connection to your house is still an ISP even if they are not the one you buy your Internet access from. This is because they still have to route your data traffic to other networks which givens them the ability to do everything router technologies allow.

 

[Francesca R]

Utterly ridiculous nonsense.

You don't know how the forward and spot wholesale electricity market works. Hint: suppliers buy it from generators who sell it. Yes both parties do know who the other one is. No, neither party is required to sell to everyone or buy from everyone at the same price. It is competitive. It is not "network neutral". You absolutely would not be able to sign up for "green energy" retail plans as a customer if it was, or if suppliers did not know the source. And you can. Well, I can.

Point to point services like land line telephones are not a good model form the Internet.

Perhaps because they are another example of a competitive market that does not need any equivalent of network neutrality.

Looks like you are running out of analogies.

All Net Neutrality does is restrict ISP's from throttling or restricting these packets.

That is an incorrectly asymmetric statement. It also prohibits prioritising any source content. And it also prohibits the content provider paying any of the cost of transmission (which of course they have no incentive to do if they will not gain anything from that).

Furthermore even sharing last mile infrastructure requires some form of Net Neutrality rules to prevent the infrastructure owner from throttling the bandwidth of their competitors.

My strikeout. Of course it needs rules. That is why everywhere with infrastructure sharing does have rules requiring open access and non-discrimination, and the infrastructure owner is treated as a utility.

But it is not the level at which US net neutrality rules are applied. If it was, then it would be a great idea. Since there is no last mile sharing in the US to speak of, the US needs NN as a (distant) second best (but better than its absence). And I have stated agreement with that. But that does not mean what the US will have is particularly great.

 

[paulhutch]

And it also prohibits the content provider paying any of the cost of transmission (which of course they have no incentive to do if they will not gain anything from that).

Actually under the model we use in the USA the content provider does pay for the cost of transmission. Being both a content provider and sometimes consumer of my own content I pay twice when I consume my own content via the internet.

In the US, the content provider has to pay a network service provider for transmission of their data into the network. The consumer pays their network provider for receipt of the data from the network. If the two network providers (content & consumer) are the same company that's all that happens. If the two network providers are different companies then they have to pass the data between the networks using peering agreements (usually at no charge).

What the fast lane proposal anti-neutrality rule was going to do was make it OK for the consumers provider to charge the content service as well as the consumer. This would have made the content provider pay twice, the consumer once and the consumers network provider would get double payment. Theoretically it would have increased overall cost by 50% without necessarily changing the delivery mechanism at all. In practice the consumers provider would probably have offered a big discount to the content provider since it was basically free money they didn't have to work for.

 

[Random]

That is an incorrectly asymmetric statement. It also prohibits prioritising any source content. And it also prohibits the content provider paying any of the cost of transmission (which of course they have no incentive to do if they will not gain anything from that).

Could you clarify this a bit? I know that if I contacted RCN and told them I was starting an internet company and would need to transmit 5 Gigabytes per second, they would want to charge me for that.

 

[DavidJames]

I'm not sure I could find a better thread for arguing for the sake of arguing.

That is an incorrectly asymmetric statement. It also prohibits prioritising any source content. And it also prohibits the content provider paying any of the cost of transmission (which of course they have no incentive to do if they will not gain anything from that).

Is a perfect example as it starts with stating the quote is wrong and then corrects it by saying the exact same thing in different words.

Your 30 minutes is up, unless you want to pay for another session.

 

[Francesca R]

In practice the consumers provider would probably have offered a big discount to the content provider since it was basically free money they didn't have to work for.

Or a discount to the end customer. Which suits the latter if they want some content prioritised over other.

 

[Francesca R]

then corrects it by saying the exact same thing in different words.

Incorrect. The rules prevent a two sided market in internet service provision.

 

[paulhutch]

Or a discount to the end customer. Which suits the latter if they want some content prioritized over other.

Yep.

Of course if the consumer gets the discount leaving the content provider paying even more, then the content provider will have to increase the price of their content to the consumer to recover the extra cost.

Basically the only winner is the consumers network provider who gets to charge more money for the service they already provide.

I find the prioritization argument ineffective since nearly every content provider and consumer likes the way it works now without prioritization. Maybe someday in the future something will come along that needs prioritization to work well but so far it hasn't been needed. Oh and if a content provider really wants a faster connection to specific networks they can simply place mirror servers on the other network. Quite a few of the larger content providers already do this.

 

[Francesca R]

Of course if the consumer gets the discount leaving the content provider paying even more, then the content provider will have to increase the price of their content to the consumer to recover the extra cost.

Not axiomatic at all. It may get them more end consumers they can extract value from. This is the basis of 800 phone numbers.

Basically the only winner is the consumers network provider who gets to charge more money for the service they already provide.

If they have passed on the revenue from the content provider to the consumer they don't get to charge more money overall. The only model under which they could get this free money is if they were in a monopolistic position to start with. Bingo--that is the root issue.

I find the prioritization argument ineffective since nearly every content provider and consumer likes the way it works now without prioritization.

Such prioritisation is freely chosen in many other two sided markets which have been brought to this discussion before. Not incredulous to me.

 

[Nihilianth]

But it is not the level at which US net neutrality rules are applied. If it was, then it would be a great idea. Since there is no last mile sharing in the US to speak of, the US needs NN as a (distant) second best (but better than its absence). And I have stated agreement with that. But that does not mean what the US will have is particularly great.

No you haven't. Either show where in this thread you have stated this, or it didn;t happen.

You have categorically opposed NN throughout this entire thread. I have agreed with you that "more competition" is desirable. I have agreed with you that the UK unbundling is more desirable. But I have made points about our (US) political system that is different from the UK, and what NN DOES.

Nowhere have you stated that NN is "better than nothing." Do you now admit that I was right all along finally?

 

[paulhutch]

Text of the Rules Released

The text of the rules from the FCC have been released, they won't go into effect until they are published in the federal register, probably in a month or so.

Don't be fooled by the size of the PDF, while it is 400 pages long the actual rules are 7-1/2 pages (PDF pages 283 - 290). Those 7-1/2 pages also contain a lot of white space, indicators for where the rules remain unchanged and a page worth of definitions. The rest of the pages are statements from the commissioners and replies to the public comments.

As I suspected the FCC has explicitly not used the term Internet Service Provider (ISP) since they are not the companies that need these rules. The FCC uses the term Broadband Internet access service so I guess the acronym would be BIAS. I think they should have read my earlier post and gone with Broadband Service Provider (BSP), a much better acronym .

In any case I believe this is a very good and necessary distinction because if we ever get ISP choices on the lines they will be exempt from the regulation and only the line owner will have to be neutral. As an example currently Charter is my complete Internet provider. If someday they allow, or are forced to allow, other companies access to the lines then Charter Internet will become two parts a BSP & ISP. The other companies using the lines will just be ISPs, they and the Charter ISP will be allowed to block or rate limit the data and offer prioritized fast lanes without changing any FCC rules. While Charter BSP will be bound by these rules and forced to not block or limit anything. With competing ISPs it is much less likely to be a problem as one or more of the ISP choices will likely offer service I want. I suspect this aspect will make even Francesca happier about the new rules.

I have not read all the rules carefully but from my quick read it appears to me that the purpose statement is very descriptive of the rules.

§ 8.1 Purpose.
The purpose of this Part is to protect and promote the Internet as an open platform enabling consumer choice, freedom of expression, end-user control, competition, and the freedom to innovate without permission, and thereby to encourage the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability and remove barriers to infrastructure investment.

It will be interesting to see what the lawyers at EFF and other organizations think about these new rules over the coming days.

 

[lomiller]

You don't know how the forward and spot wholesale electricity market works.

Complete utter nonsense. You cannot track the source of a specific Watt of power over a shared power line, end of story.

What they do is meter how much power is being supplied or drawn and pay/charge based on that. This is somewhat analogous to how it traditionally works on the Internet as well but unlike electricity, individual data packets can be tracked and treated differently. If you want to use electricity markets as a model you need rules around this, which is exactly what Net Neutrality is.

Perhaps because they are another example of a competitive market that does not need any equivalent of network neutrality.

Point to point a completely different type of service that can't be directly compared. What you are saying is the equivalent of saying there is no need fire fire safety regulations when transporting gasoline because you don't need them for electricity.

My strikeout. Of course it needs rules.

It's the same rules that are going to be required because it's exactly the same issue that needs to be solved.

That is why everywhere with infrastructure sharing does have rules requiring open access and non-discrimination, and the infrastructure owner is treated as a utility.

The Internet is ALL shared infrastructure, that is what makes it different and MUCH more successful than the private networks it replaced. The infrastructure being shared are the networks of the ISP's so what you are really saying here is that ISP's need to be treated like utilities after-all.

But it is not the level at which US net neutrality rules are applied.

Net Neutrality applies to the ISP's entire network because the network itself is shared with content providers/consumers on other ISP's networks.

Since there is no last mile sharing in the US to speak of, the US needs NN as a (distant) second best (but better than its absence).

Again you are not making sense. How could last mile sharing ever address shared infrastructure issues elsewhere in the network?