There isn't a new level playing field coming along anytime soon.
The internet was the pinnacle of a series of benign regulatory choices, clear and present dangers of older models being avoided, and lack of incumbent awareness, and adaptation.
This era has ended, we are in the end game, and how America fights and sets an example here, <despite> all odds, will influence how this resource gets used for generations.
Well stated and I very much agree. We got the benefits of an unregulated internet largely by chance. Now the cake is baked and being sliced up. One positive thing I see happening is some small, agile companies rolling out fiber broadband. Ting comes to mind but there are others for sure.
Are you willing to drop AT&T and Verizon, regardless of the cost? That also means dropping the MVNO's who just resell AT&T and Verizon's capacity at a lower price.
You may have to build your own last mile internet infrastructure. (See comments below about mesh networking)
I assume T-Mobile will join in on this zero-rating of data, based on their "all you can eat" promotion. You may not be able to use a cell phone in the US.
Boycotts do get the attention of the company, but it's going to take a long time and a lot of hard, hard work.
I use to have this notion too, but keep in mind that the Internet was started as a military project. The fact that it ended up being commandeered by large conglomerates shouldn't really be surprising.
There are countries in Europe, the South Pacific, et. al. where carriers offer "free social" where they don't charge for Facebook and Twitter. Wikiepdia is offered for free by some African carriers; which allows them to also benefit from a lack of real network-neutrality.
When it comes to media and freedom vs industry, I think this video from the mid-2000s explains the situation best (in terms of network neutrality):
Fred's a smart guy. I hope the end of the neutral internet hastens the rise of mesh networking.
If I want to order a pizza online, it really shouldn't have to go through the ISP gatekeepers, travel along a Level 3 trunk, be inspected by the NSA, and then be routed back down to the pizza joint 3 blocks from my house.
I still can't get excited about net neutrality, but maybe that's because I'm from a country (UK) where telco competition is strong enough - and number porting etc easy enough - that anything that's anticonsumer will get punished by the market.
The UK extensively regulates and censors Internet access. It's possible you can't get excited about it because you don't have a culture of a free Internet.
British providers have happily performed deep packet inspection in order to "prioritize" traffic with little to no resistance from the public. Britain just doesn't share this principle.
Net neutrality only helps consumers at a big scale in the long run. It's not really beneficial in a direct way for any individual in the short run. So suppressing net neutrality is not something that a lot of consumers are likely to punish. Though it's clearly better for everyone overall.
The situation is a bit like drug addiction. Obviously it's better for a person's health to not shoot heroin. But an addict will always find the immediate benefit of one more hit more compelling than the vague, long-term benefits of getting clean.
Telcos understand this dynamic, and they're trying to play up the short-term pleasure - by offering so-called "free data" - in order to distract people from the long-term harm and drum up support for suppressing net neutrality.
UK has strong telco competition because of a strong local loop unbundling program (BT OpenReach), the US had that at one point (Telecom act of 1996), but the FCC progressively weakened it to the point that it only remains applied to phone lines served from a central office, which limits the number of serviceable users as well as the capacity of internet service. Since overbuilding is expensive very few areas have meaningful choices, so we're left with trying to regulate good service, instead of having poor service punished by the market.
As an Australian, me too. Kinda. Except in the opposite direction: I've never had net neutrality, and I'm not sure I care.
We've always had data-caps that would sound insane to those of you in the Americas or Europe, and we've always dealt with them by not having net neutrality.
As an example, I remember the first time coaxial cable Internet started becoming something that was really purchasable by a large number of residential users. The speed was 10Mbps down, 1Mbps up. The data limit for the month was 10GB. Extra data was available at the low low rate of 14c/MB (or $140/GB, for those who don't want to do the math). The provider, though, maintained a large private mirror of downloads that were "free" -- they didn't count towards your monthly cap. They mirrored things like patches for games, linux ISOs, and they had a fairly large shareware repository.
I couldn't get cable Internet at home -- they never ran the cable down my street -- so I was stuck on 28k dial-up. I would have killed for cable, data restrictions or not.
But that was back then. What about now?
Now? We have companies that deliver data over LTE who do similar-but-different things. I have a cellular plan with Optus (AKA Singtel), which is $80 a month. For that, I get 20GB worth of downloads, but I also get absolutely unlimited streaming of Netflix, and unlimited streaming from most of the popular music services (Spotify, Google Play, I Heart Radio, Apple Music, and maybe others I can't remember). I stream tens of gigabytes of video and audio every month, and I can do this because of the lack of net neutrality here. Some other provides on pre-paid services which typically have tiny data caps will provide "unlimited social media access" -- because that's how they draw in teens, what I assume is the most valuable market segment for pre-paid.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that when a service becomes big enough that it's marketable to with free data, then one of the providers will pick up on it as a value-add. Something they can do that improves their service so they can grab more market share.
Some of you are probably going to argue that this is a symptom of a broken market, and I'm not sure that's the case. Networking in Australia is hard. We have 1/10th the population of the US in a country about the same physical size.
It's possible I'm really very wrong about how this all works. Maybe I'm naive and it's all really terrible and I should be upset. It's just hard to see from here how perfect net neutrality is an issue.
I don't get it. So is FCC just silently sneaking in anti net neutrality again? I thought they pulled that out after huge outcry. Were they just waiting for public to forget and move on?
It's not "sneaking in," Pai has been explicitly against net neutrality and consumer protections for his entire tenure. This was one of the things Americans decided last November: a free and open Internet is bad thing, and access to it should be controlled by the big multimedia companies.
You don't think they give up after one try, do you? Look as us Brits with the IP Bill (Snooper's Charter). May tried to push it through a couple of years ago as Home Secretary and the public backlash stopped her. Four months after she becomes Prime Minister she sneaks it in with barely a whisper.
You want a US version of events? Slipping CISA in its entirety into an Omnibus Bill in late 2015 after it was initially rejected as part of the National Defense Authorisation Act.
No, since the inauguration in January the FCC has been essentially sold (perhaps given) to Verizon and is now doing exactly as Verizon wants. Similar things are happening to every regulatory body in the federal government; we are entering a dark era of zero consumer protection, zero labor rights, zero work done by the federal government to help the country/citizens in all spheres of industry. It's a great time to be a CEO of a large company, a bad time to be just about anyone else.
The outcry worked when Wheeler was chairman of the FCC -- he cared/listened. The current chair takes calls from big telecoms, not from you.
Certainly what it seems like. Internet regulations are like Climate change-- not really tangible in a traditional sense and sometimes difficult to grasp. People are very focused on this immigration/Travel Ban thing right now, because it's real and easy to understand, comparatively. I don't expect there to be a lot of popular pushback on this issue right now there was earlier, mostly because public attention is largely elsewhere
Watch some of the older videos with the last chairman, the new guy was always the one arguing on the side of short sighted business interests. The guy disgusted me when he was just a board member, now he's running the shop.
How feasible would it be to just crowd source something through maybe an organization like EFF or a collection of organizations? How many satellites would be required? Could they be rebuild so they cost less? What else would this entail? I know nothing of the subject so these are idiot questions I know.
Would this only effect up and coming telecom firms and high bandwidth services (video streaming, audio streaming, gaming, etc.), or also your every day SaaS startup?
Edit: how exactly would this have a negative impact on SnapChat?
Double edit: I think net neutrality is a good thing, and worth finding clear arguments to fight for.
Triple edit: Reasons I believe the net should be neutral...
1. Consumers should be able to use any internet service they choose.
2. Consumers should pay the same for data usage regardless of what the service is.
3. Businesses should be able to provide their service for the same data usage cost as any other business.
If Facebook makes deals with cell phone carriers to have their traffic be free to the end user, it may incentivize SnapChat users to switch to Instagram for a comparable experience minus the data charges.
Luckily, most of the largest technology companies are incentivized in one way or another to keep net-neutrality as it is. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon literally sell cloud computing services to tons of companies large and small who could be negatively impacted. Apple wants new apps made in the App Store and would prefer these new apps hurt Facebook, Google, and Amazon in some way if possible. Facebook relies on third-party mobile applications and websites for collecting tons of data to feed back into their ad system. Google prefers an open web to index and serve search ads against.
I don't think the lines are as clear as Fred has drawn here. There are plausible reasons for major technology companies to come out in support of net neutrality that are in their own self-interest, not just good-will.
Without net neutrality there is nothing stopping Comcast from switching to a whitelist model where any destination IP outside their network is unreachable once it hits 0.01% of all outbound traffic. This would allow small one-offs like a doctor's office website but block just about everyone of even small size. Then you can pay Comcast for the "privilege" of being unblocked.
They don't even need to truly block traffic, just refuse to upgrade peering links at POPs and let continued growth of traffic do the work for them, which is basically what they did to Netflix.
If we unbundled the last mile and had true competition none of this would be a problem; people would just switch ISPs. Unfortunately we don't have competition. Don't tell Ajit Pai though; he thinks competition is "robust" because you can choose from metered wireless plans on already crowded spectrum. From the point of view of his paymasters that's true: Verizon would be happy to have you switch from Comcast so you can buy data by the GB on their wireless network. It is vastly more profitable for them! They inherited their core spectrum for a song and don't have to lay fiber to millions of homes. The capital costs are vastly lower than wired broadband and the scarcity jacks the prices.
If Republicans still gave half a shit about a free market economy they'd follow the Texas electricity plan: A heavily regulated company that owns the last-mile lines. It charges cost plus a margin for future capital upgrades. Terminate at the closest NOC/POP and dump the traffic on the ISP's network. You could go even further and just task the infrastructure company with providing unlit fiber from every home and business; let the ISPs compete in providing the ONT/CPE so you can get innovation there.
People forget: the federal government spent a ton of money to get electricity everywhere. Much of the power infrastructure wasn't funded by private companies. Even the trans-continental railroads (so lauded in Atlas Shrugged) weren't built by private enterprise. The federal government back-stopped the whole thing with money and soldiers.
Why are we giving up? Tech workers, startups, and VCs collectively control huge amounts of money and skilled labor. Organizing it all would obviously be a challenge, but fighting this is a solvable problem!
The client-server model of the WWW seems to tilt in favor of consolidation. What about something more akin to database replication for sharing information? Data moving around asynchronously, viewed at the users leisure, and synchronous actions are only needed sometimes (e.g. for buying things). Right now, a lot of synchronous things happen, requiring users' action and attention for little reason (but encouraged by the client/server model because you need to make a request).
It would certainly change things. "Engagement" might be harder to measure and monetize, so it might force us toward something more like micropayments. But micropayments might be more possible in such an environment as well. With little money on the line, it's easy to update a database record and move the real money around later (if that's even required -- you could imagine digital IOU records acting like currency).
And more importantly, I think it would reduce the need of companies like facebook and other consolidating forces (though perhaps not google search).
It's not a technical problem so I think the best thing would be figuring out ways to make it visible to the average user: e.g. imagine if Netflix could reliably show a “Comcast's network is throttling your movie” message.
There never was a level playing field? Narrative fallacy.
Occasionally technology produces moments where dynamic conditions allow for people to leverage large amounts of energy if they get lucky. But all those people participating on a "level playing field?" they are "cheating" as hard as they can at every step.
The perception that things were ever even is just that. A perception. Our ecosystem is not "even". Nature doesn't "know" what "fair" is.
The idea being presented—which I agree with—is that the nature of the Internet up until relatively recently was that any organisation could participate with equal access to any other – regardless of their size. That was a good thing, and is a really excellent tool for democratisation of a resource, because it removes essentially all barriers to entry. Any company could, for example, offer streaming audio or video services, and Internet users were free to purchase those which they think are worthwhile.
This changes when the Internet stops being a public communications network in principle.
Big fan of Fred. But I am struggling to connect all the dots on the FCC statement and what the various companies responses will likely be and how long that will take?...
Basically, there's new people at FCC, where will we see the effect of new policy first and when?
Is my Verizon bill going to double? Is my phone going to give me mild but painful electric shocks if I don't click on any fucking Google AMP links? Fred, what is going to happen?
Your bill won't change. It's the companies that want to offer things on the internet that will have to pay a premium. The cable companies can now tax every little startup as well as big companies. It means only well funded companies will be able to offer things online.
I wonder how difficult it would be to stream data over Facebook video or messenger? With messenger I assume they'd rate-limit you, but video might be harder to stop.
Fundamentally, net neutrality is when everyone's upload speed matches their download speed, there is no throttling, and it is enforced.
Otherwise individual creators or those who can not pay for preferential treatment are at a disadvantage to those who can, with the spoils going to the most predatory actors.
To be fair, that's my only hope as well. There doesn't seem to be almost anyone on this miserable little planet who doesn't bend when they receive some very particular phone calls. It's disgusting and discouraging.
"Neutral" just means using some QoS setting that someone thought was "fair".
It's heavily biased toward current protocols and their current uses, and is just as unfriendly to potentially groundbreaking tech as an "unfair" QoS.
While the alarmists predict that all google.com requests would be redirected to bing, I think the reality is likely to be far more like T-Mobile's recent controversial approach.
Some factual points to keep in mind:
- There is a big difference between peak and average bandwidth, and it's very specific to the protocol what defines acceptable performance. This applies to every upstream provider, not just ISPs.
- Bandwidth providers (ISPs, ISP's ISPs, etc.) are often in the business of speculating on demand. Simply put, this means that they preorder bandwidth that they expect to be adequate for the peak and average bandwidth demanded by their downstream nodes.
- The characteristics of bandwidth demand are a function of the protocols in use and random variation. QoS is used to create a graceful fallback when there is not quite enough bandwidth to route all traffic instantly. Optimal QoS settings are a function of the protocols being used by downstream nodes. It is not guaranteed that every network congestion situation can be mitigated by QoS without a desegregation in service to someone downstream. This applies to ISPs as well as upstream providers.
- So aside from the google => bing scenario everyone pretends is worrisome, in reality what would happen is that removing net neutrality would allow for bandwidth speculators (ISPs and everyone upstream) to make smarter longer-term deals which required less extra bandwidth. This is analogous to an improved financial instrument to make longer-term thinking (and longer-term deals) possible, with less uncertainty about demand, etc. For example, a startup could offer a 4K streaming service by negotiating a deal with ISPs to ensure high quality. See the next point for an example of why this matters.
- Services with heavy demand such as youtube are not vulnerable to QoS (except for the google=>bing dystopia). Why7? Because there is extremely predictable demand. If you are an ISP and your upstream provider offers you discounted bandwidth for youtube only traffic, you can safely make that decision for the medium/long term because you know youtube is infrastructure and your customers are going to use it. This predictability creates the incentive for firms to add fiber links and capacity between youtube and ISPs so that customers get high quality video without slowdowns at peak times. Note that Youtube encouraged this competition between ISPs by having an ISP ratings page a few years back.
- For services like Tor or BitTorrent, there may be increased fees for residential circuits that require those services, because they will opportunistically use up any available bandwidth. This doesn't really fit the residential pricing model that is arbitraged by ISPs, and is more akin to a business level circuit. If the protocols become more widespread then that will change, and it will be included in the profile of residential data.
In conclusion, net neutrality limits the ability of firms to offer long term deals. It's why we don't see things like $4.99/month youtube only data plans or $1.99/month email only plans. Sure you may think that all users should subsidize those running tor or bt nodes, but that's really more of an extreme position.
Also, it would probably be better for privacy if protocols like Tor and BT started to be more indistinguishable from regular residential traffic.
> In conclusion, net neutrality limits the ability of firms to offer long term deals. It's why we don't see things like $4.99/month youtube only data plans or $1.99/month email only plans. Sure you may think that all users should subsidize those running tor or bt nodes, but that's really more of an extreme position.
It's a good thing that we don't see $4.95/month Youtube-only plans. They would basically kill the internet.
I've never heard anyone say they're worried about google.com requests being redirected to bing. The problem isn't that an inferior service would pay to kill a superior and already-popular existing service. It's that a non-neutral internet would kill innovation and hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs. $4.95/month Youtube-only plans would make it all but impossible for anyone to ever create a competitor for Youtube. It's very hard as it is today, but not impossible - e.g. Musically, Vine for a while, even Snapchat to some extent. Open accessibility has been a critical component of what has enabled all the innovation on the internet.
Maybe it's appropriate to allow less-than-perfectly-neutral data transfer in some situations. You make a fair point about things like Tor and BitTorrent. But promoting highly targeted incumbent-only plans to consumers would be bad for everyone overall.
> "Neutral" just means using some QoS setting that someone thought was "fair".
No, it doesn't. The Open Internet Order doesn't dictate any particular "QoS setting".
> While the alarmists predict that all google.com requests would be redirected to bing
No, they don't, they predict that prioritization of ISP-preferred (either first-party or because of payment to the ISP, often for exclusive preference in a category) will result in degradation of service to competing services and squeeze out competition, particularly for services like internet telephony and video streaming, where ISPs are often first-party providers.
No one, or nearly so, has predicted redirection of the type you describe; that's a strawman.
Thanks for this. I completely disagree with your conclusions, but this discussion is one of many public policy discussions where it's not a clear-cut thing. Having good arguments on both sides is the only way voters can stay educated and able to deal with proposed changes.
I'm not going to go into a rebuttal in-depth. In general I feel there are many areas where regulation is not needed -- but market/product definition is. It's far too easy for companies to create such a complex market that buyers don't know exactly what they're purchasing -- and don't have time to research all of it. Insurance is like this. We don't need ISPs heading down this same route. It's not in the interests of a free and open market.
AFAIK, QoS traffic-shaping is only vital during link saturation, which is never what a backbone should experience. The last paper I read about backbone traffic explained that they aim for less than 50% maximum utilization.
Honestly I am not worried, I am pretty sure one or more carriers will attempt to capitalize on the restricted or limited offerings from other carriers to move the market in the right direction.
by offering bound services the carriers are only going to increase users appetite for more and they will have to open the gates as the carriers will not have access to exclusive content that requires a data connection. those that offer unfettered access will win subscribers to their cell service and those that do not will adapt or just take what they can get.
would I like to see a bit of pressure from the FCC, sure but I would like to see the market work. the carriers for the most part cannot deliver bandwidth reliably but this will push them to get better
He goes from "Companies can pay for competitive advantage" and cites a S1 which is not backed by evidence, and jumps to the conclusion that the free net is over.
Somebody had some column inches left to fill or a click quota left unfulfilled.
> He goes from "Companies can pay for competitive advantage" and cites a S1 which is not backed by evidence, and jumps to the conclusion that the free net is over.
The IPO story was merely illustrative. He's basing his argument on what he sees happening in the market today and the changing regulatory climate.
> Somebody had some column inches left to fill or a click quota left unfulfilled.
He's not a journalist. He's a (very successful) VC and that is his blog.
[+] [-] intended|9 years ago|reply
The internet was the pinnacle of a series of benign regulatory choices, clear and present dangers of older models being avoided, and lack of incumbent awareness, and adaptation.
This era has ended, we are in the end game, and how America fights and sets an example here, <despite> all odds, will influence how this resource gets used for generations.
This is not a fight you can give up.
[+] [-] intrasight|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sounds|9 years ago|reply
You may have to build your own last mile internet infrastructure. (See comments below about mesh networking)
I assume T-Mobile will join in on this zero-rating of data, based on their "all you can eat" promotion. You may not be able to use a cell phone in the US.
Boycotts do get the attention of the company, but it's going to take a long time and a lot of hard, hard work.
[+] [-] djsumdog|9 years ago|reply
There are countries in Europe, the South Pacific, et. al. where carriers offer "free social" where they don't charge for Facebook and Twitter. Wikiepdia is offered for free by some African carriers; which allows them to also benefit from a lack of real network-neutrality.
When it comes to media and freedom vs industry, I think this video from the mid-2000s explains the situation best (in terms of network neutrality):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66PbSzwnLes
[+] [-] danjoc|9 years ago|reply
If I want to order a pizza online, it really shouldn't have to go through the ISP gatekeepers, travel along a Level 3 trunk, be inspected by the NSA, and then be routed back down to the pizza joint 3 blocks from my house.
[+] [-] mahyarm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kinnard|9 years ago|reply
Are you active in the Mesh Networking space? If so, what's the latest? Anyone else out there is welcome to ring in as well.
[+] [-] vacri|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arjie|9 years ago|reply
British providers have happily performed deep packet inspection in order to "prioritize" traffic with little to no resistance from the public. Britain just doesn't share this principle.
[+] [-] skewart|9 years ago|reply
The situation is a bit like drug addiction. Obviously it's better for a person's health to not shoot heroin. But an addict will always find the immediate benefit of one more hit more compelling than the vague, long-term benefits of getting clean.
Telcos understand this dynamic, and they're trying to play up the short-term pleasure - by offering so-called "free data" - in order to distract people from the long-term harm and drum up support for suppressing net neutrality.
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toast0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hug|9 years ago|reply
We've always had data-caps that would sound insane to those of you in the Americas or Europe, and we've always dealt with them by not having net neutrality.
As an example, I remember the first time coaxial cable Internet started becoming something that was really purchasable by a large number of residential users. The speed was 10Mbps down, 1Mbps up. The data limit for the month was 10GB. Extra data was available at the low low rate of 14c/MB (or $140/GB, for those who don't want to do the math). The provider, though, maintained a large private mirror of downloads that were "free" -- they didn't count towards your monthly cap. They mirrored things like patches for games, linux ISOs, and they had a fairly large shareware repository.
I couldn't get cable Internet at home -- they never ran the cable down my street -- so I was stuck on 28k dial-up. I would have killed for cable, data restrictions or not.
But that was back then. What about now?
Now? We have companies that deliver data over LTE who do similar-but-different things. I have a cellular plan with Optus (AKA Singtel), which is $80 a month. For that, I get 20GB worth of downloads, but I also get absolutely unlimited streaming of Netflix, and unlimited streaming from most of the popular music services (Spotify, Google Play, I Heart Radio, Apple Music, and maybe others I can't remember). I stream tens of gigabytes of video and audio every month, and I can do this because of the lack of net neutrality here. Some other provides on pre-paid services which typically have tiny data caps will provide "unlimited social media access" -- because that's how they draw in teens, what I assume is the most valuable market segment for pre-paid.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that when a service becomes big enough that it's marketable to with free data, then one of the providers will pick up on it as a value-add. Something they can do that improves their service so they can grab more market share.
Some of you are probably going to argue that this is a symptom of a broken market, and I'm not sure that's the case. Networking in Australia is hard. We have 1/10th the population of the US in a country about the same physical size.
It's possible I'm really very wrong about how this all works. Maybe I'm naive and it's all really terrible and I should be upset. It's just hard to see from here how perfect net neutrality is an issue.
[+] [-] Chris2048|9 years ago|reply
> that anything that's anticonsumer will get punished by the market
many large telcos are going the way of mobile networks, by tying you in with complex, one-sided contracts, salesmen-sold "bundles" etc.
How many inexpensive, short-term mobile contracts can you get? If internet contracts aren't there now, they will be soon.
[+] [-] cylinder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sytelus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldpie|9 years ago|reply
Turns out, you get what you vote for.
[+] [-] mysticmarvel|9 years ago|reply
You want a US version of events? Slipping CISA in its entirety into an Omnibus Bill in late 2015 after it was initially rejected as part of the National Defense Authorisation Act.
It's endemic.
[+] [-] wfo|9 years ago|reply
The outcry worked when Wheeler was chairman of the FCC -- he cared/listened. The current chair takes calls from big telecoms, not from you.
[+] [-] aRationalMoose|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevarino|9 years ago|reply
Watch some of the older videos with the last chairman, the new guy was always the one arguing on the side of short sighted business interests. The guy disgusted me when he was just a board member, now he's running the shop.
[+] [-] paulsutter|9 years ago|reply
Maybe Google can reconsider their decision to deproritize Google Fiber.
[+] [-] brokenmasonjars|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrdrozdov|9 years ago|reply
Edit: how exactly would this have a negative impact on SnapChat?
Double edit: I think net neutrality is a good thing, and worth finding clear arguments to fight for.
Triple edit: Reasons I believe the net should be neutral...
1. Consumers should be able to use any internet service they choose.
2. Consumers should pay the same for data usage regardless of what the service is.
3. Businesses should be able to provide their service for the same data usage cost as any other business.
[+] [-] ryanworl|9 years ago|reply
Luckily, most of the largest technology companies are incentivized in one way or another to keep net-neutrality as it is. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon literally sell cloud computing services to tons of companies large and small who could be negatively impacted. Apple wants new apps made in the App Store and would prefer these new apps hurt Facebook, Google, and Amazon in some way if possible. Facebook relies on third-party mobile applications and websites for collecting tons of data to feed back into their ad system. Google prefers an open web to index and serve search ads against.
I don't think the lines are as clear as Fred has drawn here. There are plausible reasons for major technology companies to come out in support of net neutrality that are in their own self-interest, not just good-will.
[+] [-] xenadu02|9 years ago|reply
They don't even need to truly block traffic, just refuse to upgrade peering links at POPs and let continued growth of traffic do the work for them, which is basically what they did to Netflix.
If we unbundled the last mile and had true competition none of this would be a problem; people would just switch ISPs. Unfortunately we don't have competition. Don't tell Ajit Pai though; he thinks competition is "robust" because you can choose from metered wireless plans on already crowded spectrum. From the point of view of his paymasters that's true: Verizon would be happy to have you switch from Comcast so you can buy data by the GB on their wireless network. It is vastly more profitable for them! They inherited their core spectrum for a song and don't have to lay fiber to millions of homes. The capital costs are vastly lower than wired broadband and the scarcity jacks the prices.
If Republicans still gave half a shit about a free market economy they'd follow the Texas electricity plan: A heavily regulated company that owns the last-mile lines. It charges cost plus a margin for future capital upgrades. Terminate at the closest NOC/POP and dump the traffic on the ISP's network. You could go even further and just task the infrastructure company with providing unlit fiber from every home and business; let the ISPs compete in providing the ONT/CPE so you can get innovation there.
People forget: the federal government spent a ton of money to get electricity everywhere. Much of the power infrastructure wasn't funded by private companies. Even the trans-continental railroads (so lauded in Atlas Shrugged) weren't built by private enterprise. The federal government back-stopped the whole thing with money and soldiers.
[+] [-] panic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffdavis|9 years ago|reply
The client-server model of the WWW seems to tilt in favor of consolidation. What about something more akin to database replication for sharing information? Data moving around asynchronously, viewed at the users leisure, and synchronous actions are only needed sometimes (e.g. for buying things). Right now, a lot of synchronous things happen, requiring users' action and attention for little reason (but encouraged by the client/server model because you need to make a request).
It would certainly change things. "Engagement" might be harder to measure and monetize, so it might force us toward something more like micropayments. But micropayments might be more possible in such an environment as well. With little money on the line, it's easy to update a database record and move the real money around later (if that's even required -- you could imagine digital IOU records acting like currency).
And more importantly, I think it would reduce the need of companies like facebook and other consolidating forces (though perhaps not google search).
[+] [-] acdha|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PublicFace|9 years ago|reply
Occasionally technology produces moments where dynamic conditions allow for people to leverage large amounts of energy if they get lucky. But all those people participating on a "level playing field?" they are "cheating" as hard as they can at every step.
The perception that things were ever even is just that. A perception. Our ecosystem is not "even". Nature doesn't "know" what "fair" is.
[+] [-] matthewmacleod|9 years ago|reply
The idea being presented—which I agree with—is that the nature of the Internet up until relatively recently was that any organisation could participate with equal access to any other – regardless of their size. That was a good thing, and is a really excellent tool for democratisation of a resource, because it removes essentially all barriers to entry. Any company could, for example, offer streaming audio or video services, and Internet users were free to purchase those which they think are worthwhile.
This changes when the Internet stops being a public communications network in principle.
[+] [-] qwrusz|9 years ago|reply
Basically, there's new people at FCC, where will we see the effect of new policy first and when?
Is my Verizon bill going to double? Is my phone going to give me mild but painful electric shocks if I don't click on any fucking Google AMP links? Fred, what is going to happen?
[+] [-] origami777|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strken|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fuzzfactor|9 years ago|reply
Otherwise individual creators or those who can not pay for preferential treatment are at a disadvantage to those who can, with the spoils going to the most predatory actors.
[+] [-] nojvek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdimitar|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creeble|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|9 years ago|reply
It's heavily biased toward current protocols and their current uses, and is just as unfriendly to potentially groundbreaking tech as an "unfair" QoS.
While the alarmists predict that all google.com requests would be redirected to bing, I think the reality is likely to be far more like T-Mobile's recent controversial approach.
Some factual points to keep in mind:
- There is a big difference between peak and average bandwidth, and it's very specific to the protocol what defines acceptable performance. This applies to every upstream provider, not just ISPs.
- Bandwidth providers (ISPs, ISP's ISPs, etc.) are often in the business of speculating on demand. Simply put, this means that they preorder bandwidth that they expect to be adequate for the peak and average bandwidth demanded by their downstream nodes.
- The characteristics of bandwidth demand are a function of the protocols in use and random variation. QoS is used to create a graceful fallback when there is not quite enough bandwidth to route all traffic instantly. Optimal QoS settings are a function of the protocols being used by downstream nodes. It is not guaranteed that every network congestion situation can be mitigated by QoS without a desegregation in service to someone downstream. This applies to ISPs as well as upstream providers.
- So aside from the google => bing scenario everyone pretends is worrisome, in reality what would happen is that removing net neutrality would allow for bandwidth speculators (ISPs and everyone upstream) to make smarter longer-term deals which required less extra bandwidth. This is analogous to an improved financial instrument to make longer-term thinking (and longer-term deals) possible, with less uncertainty about demand, etc. For example, a startup could offer a 4K streaming service by negotiating a deal with ISPs to ensure high quality. See the next point for an example of why this matters.
- Services with heavy demand such as youtube are not vulnerable to QoS (except for the google=>bing dystopia). Why7? Because there is extremely predictable demand. If you are an ISP and your upstream provider offers you discounted bandwidth for youtube only traffic, you can safely make that decision for the medium/long term because you know youtube is infrastructure and your customers are going to use it. This predictability creates the incentive for firms to add fiber links and capacity between youtube and ISPs so that customers get high quality video without slowdowns at peak times. Note that Youtube encouraged this competition between ISPs by having an ISP ratings page a few years back.
- For services like Tor or BitTorrent, there may be increased fees for residential circuits that require those services, because they will opportunistically use up any available bandwidth. This doesn't really fit the residential pricing model that is arbitraged by ISPs, and is more akin to a business level circuit. If the protocols become more widespread then that will change, and it will be included in the profile of residential data.
In conclusion, net neutrality limits the ability of firms to offer long term deals. It's why we don't see things like $4.99/month youtube only data plans or $1.99/month email only plans. Sure you may think that all users should subsidize those running tor or bt nodes, but that's really more of an extreme position.
Also, it would probably be better for privacy if protocols like Tor and BT started to be more indistinguishable from regular residential traffic.
[+] [-] skewart|9 years ago|reply
It's a good thing that we don't see $4.95/month Youtube-only plans. They would basically kill the internet.
I've never heard anyone say they're worried about google.com requests being redirected to bing. The problem isn't that an inferior service would pay to kill a superior and already-popular existing service. It's that a non-neutral internet would kill innovation and hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs. $4.95/month Youtube-only plans would make it all but impossible for anyone to ever create a competitor for Youtube. It's very hard as it is today, but not impossible - e.g. Musically, Vine for a while, even Snapchat to some extent. Open accessibility has been a critical component of what has enabled all the innovation on the internet.
Maybe it's appropriate to allow less-than-perfectly-neutral data transfer in some situations. You make a fair point about things like Tor and BitTorrent. But promoting highly targeted incumbent-only plans to consumers would be bad for everyone overall.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|9 years ago|reply
No, it doesn't. The Open Internet Order doesn't dictate any particular "QoS setting".
> While the alarmists predict that all google.com requests would be redirected to bing
No, they don't, they predict that prioritization of ISP-preferred (either first-party or because of payment to the ISP, often for exclusive preference in a category) will result in degradation of service to competing services and squeeze out competition, particularly for services like internet telephony and video streaming, where ISPs are often first-party providers.
No one, or nearly so, has predicted redirection of the type you describe; that's a strawman.
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|9 years ago|reply
Thanks for this. I completely disagree with your conclusions, but this discussion is one of many public policy discussions where it's not a clear-cut thing. Having good arguments on both sides is the only way voters can stay educated and able to deal with proposed changes.
I'm not going to go into a rebuttal in-depth. In general I feel there are many areas where regulation is not needed -- but market/product definition is. It's far too easy for companies to create such a complex market that buyers don't know exactly what they're purchasing -- and don't have time to research all of it. Insurance is like this. We don't need ISPs heading down this same route. It's not in the interests of a free and open market.
Good stuff, though. Thanks.
[+] [-] bcook|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
by offering bound services the carriers are only going to increase users appetite for more and they will have to open the gates as the carriers will not have access to exclusive content that requires a data connection. those that offer unfettered access will win subscribers to their cell service and those that do not will adapt or just take what they can get.
would I like to see a bit of pressure from the FCC, sure but I would like to see the market work. the carriers for the most part cannot deliver bandwidth reliably but this will push them to get better
[+] [-] jimmywanger|9 years ago|reply
He goes from "Companies can pay for competitive advantage" and cites a S1 which is not backed by evidence, and jumps to the conclusion that the free net is over.
Somebody had some column inches left to fill or a click quota left unfulfilled.
[+] [-] aptwebapps|9 years ago|reply
That's some pretty extreme hyperbole.
> He goes from "Companies can pay for competitive advantage" and cites a S1 which is not backed by evidence, and jumps to the conclusion that the free net is over.
The IPO story was merely illustrative. He's basing his argument on what he sees happening in the market today and the changing regulatory climate.
> Somebody had some column inches left to fill or a click quota left unfulfilled.
He's not a journalist. He's a (very successful) VC and that is his blog.