Are we going to lose net neutrality?

Great Debates
141

This simply isn’t true. For an unambiguous example, you said that 22GB a month was sufficient for the average consumer’s bandwidth needs. I linked to a very reputable cite that the average is actually 190gb a month. Did you learn anything from this, or did you just blow by it without absorbing any of it?

I don’t think you understand the issue. Yes, better wireless protocols in the future can increase the peak data transfer rate between a radio transmitter and receiver. But there’s a finite limit to how much information you can transmit over a particular frequency range, which is strictly allocated. Do you think that having theoretical peaks of 1 gigabit per second between a radio and receiver means that you could have infinite users all utilizing the network at 1 gb/s? No, of course not, you quickly run out of channels in the available frequency spectrum. There’s simply not enough of a frequency range to be able to hold all the data we’d use if people started using even 5g wireless access as their main home ISP. And the more people switched over, the worse it would get for everyone.

Land based telecom has no such limitations. You an lay as much fiber as you want.

It’s so weird that people are reaching for inferior forms of telecommunications as an alternative for censorship refugees through the traditional means. It feels to me like you guys are arguing that it’s okay if we relax all laws on the municipal water supplies, because when they start skimping and poisoning our water, we could always go to the grocery store to get bottled water, even though that’s a poor solution. Instead of creating alternative ways that can we can try to take refuge with when they ruin our already-existing superior ways… why don’t we just not allow them to ruin the superior ways in the first place? I don’t want to hope Elon Musk manages to launch a network of satellites so that I could potentially match what I already have right now, today. It’s such a strange notion.

142

I can definitely confirm that that other point you made, about downloads happening on home wifi, was absolutely correct. Due to my wifi being shit, and my mobile connection being marginally better, and my provider just giving me 100GB for three months for no adequate reason, I used my phone as an interim solution. I ended up burning through 30GB of data in a few days. Normally, my 4GB data plan is just fine. But then again, I don’t stream movies or watch youtube or download video games or play Overwatch on my phone. I do that on my home PC. (And keep in mind, I don’t do Netflix, either - the video I watch is mostly dinky 480p youtube videos!) The idea that 22GB is enough for the average consumer is fucking laughable.

143

Yeah, 22GB can be used up with even fairly infrequent YouTube usage. I don’t understand why Comcast fanboys are so committed to supporting an argument that is premised on such blatantly false premises.

144

Actually, your efforts to persuade me have mostly consisted of repeating the same thing over and over, and offering very little in terms of backing up your claims, so that’s why I’m not rolling over to your very strongly held position. Contrast this to Whack-a-Mole, who to his great credit has been very patient and given me an awful lot to think about.

That’s a fair point that consumers always pay in the end. But now I’m wondering if this is sort of like a question of who should bear the costs of road maintenance: right now, all drivers pay some amount, but drivers of big trucks pay more because they put more stress on things.

Again, this is a very good point. You’ve raised the issue of the negative effects of an ISP making a decision to throttle services from particular providers – like, I’m paying for a 50 Mbps service, but Verizon is a jerk so I can only get Netflix as though I had a 5 Mbps service. Let me go back to the AT&T example: what if ISPs were required to serve all content providers for the 50 Mbps service that I’m paying for, but if Verizon cuts a deal with Hulu, I can get the ultra 4k super-duper streaming service as though I’m paying for 100 Mbps? So instead of throttling as a punishment for content providers that don’t cut deals with them, what about preferential treatment for content providers that do cut deals with them. What’s the downside of such an arrangement?

145

Yes, I understand it just fine. Perhaps you don’t. There is no difference between a Netflix subscriber streaming movies, and a guy streaming porn 24 hours a day. Or running a file-sharing site. Or a web site with a lot of content on it. If many people who purchase 10mbps service start doing this, the ISP will have to increase the bandwidth going to those houses if the current bandwidth is over utilized in order to maintain 10mbps bandwidth to the customers. I don’t know what Netflix has specifically to do with it.

146

So local and state governments have been corrupted and made mistakes by limiting competition, therefore capitalism doesn’t work for the internet. Quite a logical leap.

147

You are repeating the same factual inaccuracies that don’t address my point. It’s not 22 GB a month and that’s all you get. It’s 22 GB of month at broadband speed and then an unlimited amount of data at something that may or may not be broadband speed. And I never said that it would be as good as having a broadband connection.

Again, you fail to address the point. Cellular internet, for most people, is good enough that it represents a practical alternative and a real limit on how bad Comcast can be. If Comcast started blocking foxnews or rerouting Amazon.com to NotAmazon.com people will switch. Perhaps not you, SenorBeef, but certainly the 20, or 30, or 40, or whatever percent of people that would be fine with cellular internet.

Sigh. Instead of writing another post with wrong information why don’t you fire up google and type in 5G. Whether you want to believe it or not, we are on the cusp of revolutionary wireless internet speeds.

But that isn’t a net neutrality issue that is a vertical monopoly issue. Of course, the reason that Netflix argues the net neutrality issue and not the vertical monopoly one is because Netflix is doing it’s best to become their own vertical monopoly.

148

Netflix is the only company with the right combination of internet traffic and size to bully. Netflix is 37% of traffic, Youtube 18%, and then iTunes, Amazon, Facebook, and Hulu are all around 3%. 3% isn’t enough traffic to specifically target and those companies are big enough to potentially hit back. Youtube at 18% is significant but Google has a big stick to wield in Google Fiber. Netflix is a huge part of your traffic and they don’t have any real way of hitting back at the ISPs. So Netflix gets the shake down and has to pay off the ISPs.

149

Netflix has LOTS of competition (Amazon, Hulu, ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, Showtime, Starz, Sling TV, DirecTV, Playstation Vue, Crackle…probably more).

150

It seems those arguing against net neutrality here are doing so from a general stance that “regulations = bad” and that the market should solve its own problems.

I would even agree with them if there was a proper market here. But there isn’t. If there were 15 ISPs to choose from then they could compete based on things like their commitment to net neutrality and then consumer could decide among them. The market would find its price and service levels naturally.

But that is not what is happening here. The ISPs have an effective monopoly in their service areas. The consumer does not have a choice and is at the whim of the companies.

When that happens regulation is necessary because these companies do not have the consumer’s best interests at heart.

151

The ISPs are also content providers, and are pissed that people are getting content from Netflix, Amazon, ect instead of from them…and on THEIR bandwidth. If we would just not allow content providers to also be ISP’s there wouldn’t be the conflict of interest. Plus, we need more competition amongst ISPs.

152

And I never said that they didn’t. A vertical monopoly is controlling the production and distribution of a product. The competition issue with Comcast is that they produce and distribute content. That gives them an incentive to favor their own content which hurts competition. My point is the cure to that is not forcing Comcast to treat all data equally. It benefits the consumer to have different data lanes in the same way that it benefits the consumer for Fedex to have overnight and two day shipping. The cure is to remove incentives for Comcast to favor different data in a way that doesn’t benefit the consumer.

And as I said before, that argument isn’t being made because Netflix et al are trying to do the same thing.

153

Vertical integration is not the same thing as a vertical monopoly.

Netflix has no monopoly.

154

This is factually incorrect. Most Americans have at least two wired broadband providers to choose from, a variety of wireless options, and satellite. It’s clearly not a very competitive marketplace but it is absolutely not a monopoly.

155

Yeah? Where else can I go see Orange is the New Black?

156

Having an exclusive show is not a monopoly unless that was the only show in existence. Every first run TV show ever is shown exclusively on one channel. Those are not monopolies.

157

Duopoly then.

30% of Americans have only one choice for ISP.

In Chicago, where I live, there are two consumer choices (Comcast and RCN). There are more choices for business but they are specialty providers and hugely expensive.

Somehow the competition between the two in Chicago is weirdly not competitive. I am not suggesting illegal collusion, probably a wink and a nod between the two companies to not engage in price wars. A duopoly is not substantially better than a monopoly.

Satellite and DSL are substantially worse choices to the point it is apples and oranges to compare them. They are not competitors in a meaningful sense since they cannot provide anything close to the same service.

158

No, I understand just fine, but I may misunderstand your point.

I was making the point that that it doesn’t mater if it is netflix traffic or cnn, but that the bandwidth to a particular location is usually limited to less than that of the collective capacities of the subscribers in that location. If everyone starts using closer to their maximum bandwidth, then the ISP is going to have to expand, and that will cost some money.

Yeah, and on that speed, you may be able to send emails, but you are not going to be able to stream even podcasts, much less videos.

So, you get 7 hours of video a month, and then you can email. That seems a dramatic enough step down that even you admit that it is inferior to broadband. But you say it is good enough.

Well, this will effect the cellular providers as well, and as they have even more limited bandwidth than broadband providers, they will be even more inclined to throttle connections.

And this is also saying that you claim that 40% of current broadband users will be happy with 7 hours of video a month.

I seriously doubt that. Your 20% figure is probably close to an order of magnitude too high.

And in order to move all of this data, if more than 20-25% of broadband users go to wireless networks, the wireless networks will be over-saturated.

And if you are worried about fossil fuels, go to google and type in “fusion.”

Just because there are proposed standards, does not mean that those standard will be achieved, and you are very optimistic if you think that they will be rolled out in any sort of volume within 3 years.

And there is still the fact that with no net neutrality, the wireless providers can do the same thing as the broadband providers.

Netflix isn’t the only streaming site on the internet. They are probably one of the easiest things to compete against, in fact, as it requires very little effort and expense to set up your own streaming service.

Changes to net neutrality would change that.

159

I’m not really interested in getting into a semantic argument about what a monopoly is. Instead, why don’t you actually address the point related to net neutrality? In case you missed it:

You said that net neutrality is needed because Comcast might favor Comcast Streaming Services.

My point is that that problem is not a net neutrality issue. It is a vertical monopoly issue and the cure is to not allow vertical monopolies.

160

I cannot answer your question to your satisfaction.

There is no vertical monopoly for Netflix.