This is exactly right, and offers a few of many examples of how net neutrality can be violated, and in fact here in Canada ISPs were actually starting to do these things in some instances until federal regulators told them to knock it off. In one instance they were not only blocking certain types of traffic, but publicly denying that they were doing it. The enabler for some of this is technology called deep packet inspection which allows an ISP to “shape” their network traffic by assigning different priorities arbitrarily based on different traffic types, potentially reflecting different commercial interests and incentives, right down to completely blocking certain types of traffic. This might allow, for example, an ISP to operate their own streaming service or give preference to an affiliated one in competition with Netflix, their own services somehow mysteriously always working better than Netflix, and not being charged against monthly bandwidth quotas.
I think the vast majority of arguments in this thread are addressing the eggheady points of net neutrality.
The question of why should ISPs pay for network upgrades, and not get to pass off the bills to Netflix or whomever, is simply because that is what ISPs are in business to do. Of course customers are going to be responsible for paying for the services they receive. Thinking that someone else is supposed to subsidize what customers are paying for is kind of stupid - especially when customers are literally paying money to the other company that ISPs are thinking should pay their costs.
Is it your impression that mine was an egghead argument? If so, I beg to differ. If some streaming provider like Netflix has (for example) half a dozen OC-48 connections to Tier-1 backbones, are you under the impression that they’re getting this bandwidth for free? And when I, in order to receive their service, upgrade my Internet connection to one with higher speeds and higher monthly bandwidth allowances, are you under the impression that I’m not paying for this bandwidth?
And if you’re not under any of these misapprehensions, then who is it, in the neutral-network model I described, that is failing to pay for services received?
What about when they block all facetime/skype traffic so that people couldn’t talk to each other without using their minutes?
What about when they block all electronic wallets (the apps that give you the ability to pay at a store with your phone) and then only let you use one that they’ve created (Isis/Softcard)?
What about when they just don’t like a company or website and deny you access to it?
What if they hijacked your searches so when you search for something on Google, you end up on a search engine that they own (at get revenue from)?
These are all real examples that have happened. Some of these have little to nothing to do with the amount of data transmitted, but rather forcing the user to generate a revenue stream for them and in one case denying people from going to a website that they didn’t like. What if they blocked all news websites but one?
If this were purely about the amount of data being moved and them only attempting to charge heavy users a higher price, that’s what data caps are for. Give users a way to see how much data they use and help them select an appropriate plan. This, I think, is a good example of the government adding some regulations because the private companies are treating their customers so poorly.
Sure. No eggheadism there at all. In fact, I insist you use more terms that a slim part of the population understands.
Fine points all, but those issues are not responsive to the quote in the OP. I’m trying to respond to the specific issue raised, by pointing out that OF COURSE ISPs and their customers should pay for upgrades to ISP systems. No such thing as a free lunch: ISP users benefit from network upgrades, so they should pay.
I don’t see that in the OP.
If you feel people should pay for ISP system upgrades, then raise the prices across the board to support that. But net neutrality, or lack thereof, goes well beyond the scope of asking people to pay for the amount of data they use. As has been pointed out countless times since this all started, a system for charging people for the amount of data they use has been in place for quite a long time.
The problem is that ISPs will basically be able to control what you can and can’t access on the internet. If FoxNews turns against Spectrum Internet, they can block that site. If they want you to use their bundled phone line, they can block all other VOIP services, the list goes on and on. But, again, this isn’t about charging people for what they use, it’s a an attempt to squeeze more money out of you because they know you’ll pony up the extra cash rather than go without Netflix or Youtube or your favorite websites.
“Yes, the ISPs are regulated monopolies, like the phone company of old, and like then, should be able to charge depending on the use. People got charged for length of calls and distance for decades, and everyone thought it was fair. Net neutrality actually means that prices have to rise to pay for Netflix’s use, even if you don’t use Netflix.”
Yes, but I don’t think any of that addresses the quote that I just provided to Quartz. I’m not saying you are wrong, I am saying that what you said here isn’t responsive to the issue.
Really, you didn’t understand what I asked? You didn’t understand the point that heavy commercial users like Netflix pay heavily for their use, and that a customer who uses it a lot pays more for Internet service than a customer who uses it a little? Instead of answering a simple question, you deflected with snark, which doesn’t really help whatever case you may be trying to make.
The irony …
Everyone pays for Internet access in proportion to the service capacity they’re subscribed to, and no one has a problem with that. In fact that’s what the net neutrality argument is about: that everyone should be fairly provided with what they’re paying for, and not be subject to commercially biased discrimination and extortion, some examples of which I gave in #21. It’s not a complicated model. Net neutrality says that Internet providers at all levels should be regulated as common carriers, providing access to everyone at set rates regardless of content, and not giving unfair preference or disfavor for self-serving mercenary reasons. It prevents, say, a major ISP like Comcast going to an Internet business and saying, in effect, “nice business you got there, would be a shame if our 25 million subscribers didn’t have good access to it”. It has less to do with fair billing than with extortion and monopolistic abuse.
I was not aware that determining whether or not someone who claims to have proven Einstein wrong, in fact, demonstrate understanding of basic high-school physics constituted “eggheadism”.
What on earth are you talking about?
Pai and others argue that net neutrality has stifled competition (which is what the OP’s friend is clearly referring to), correct? And the basis of this viewpoint (which I do not agree with) is that various content providers, such as Netflix, ought to be paying more than they do today, in order to speed upgrades. Agreed?
So when you say that nobody has a problem with the distribution of costs under net neutrality, either there is a nuance in the statement that I’m missing, or I strongly disagree with the statement.
(Full disclosure: I was initially very skeptical of the net neutrality arguments, but over time I found them quite convincing. However, I’m simply acknowledging the other side which contends that certain content providers really ought to be paying more for infrastructure investment, and that ending net neutrality will accomplish that. I am simply trying to acknowledge their opinion, not agree with it.)
From my POV, you’re acknowledging it [the ‘other side’] only in the sense that you’re actively pushing for it or have a fundamental misunderstanding of it.
If your argument is that “certain content providers really ought to be paying more for infrastructure investment”, they already are and it’s just fine under NN.
If Netflix wants to upload more and at a fast rate, they’ll pay for that. If I want to download more and at a fast rate, I’ll pay for it. If that’s you’re argument, then why are you railing against NN? That’s not what this is about.
If your issue is with the lack of competition then ISTM, your beef is with the people that allow the already huge companies to merge. For example, Spectrum buying up Time Warner means one less player in the market (not that anyone really had a choice between the two) and the ability to drive prices up much higher.
In general, I can understand how removing NN would create more competition, but I don’t see it happening here. There’s too few players, little competition in a given market and no reason for everyone not to follow suit anytime someone else raises prices.
No, no agreement from me on any of that. I don’t see the OP referring anywhere to “stifling competition”, and in fact, unless you’ve accidentally misstated your meaning, I believe – and have argued here – that the exact opposite is true: that net neutrality promotes fair competition on a level playing field, and that eliminating it allows discriminatory monopolistic practices. See my points in #21 for more on this, or this article for a more comprehensive discussion.
I know you say that you don’t agree with it, but the essence of what the OP claims his friends’s argument is going to be is that “net neutrality actually means that prices have to rise to pay for Netflix’s use, even if you don’t use Netflix”. To me this is just incoherent. There’s a reason I mentioned a specific example like OC-48 connections before, and it wasn’t being an “egghead”. If a company like Netflix needs a few of these, which are 2488 Mbps commercial quality bidirectional optical connections, according to one source each one is going to run them almost $500,000 per month. To me, anyway, that isn’t pocket change. Local providers are then metered and billed by upstream backbone providers, and presumably the free market makes sure that the rates pay for the system with profits for all.
How on earth does the enforcement of net neutrality fair play in any way force rising prices in order to pay for a high-bandwidth service like Netflix? Don’t these conservatives railing against net neutrality have any faith in their own free-market principles, where the consumers of a commodity pay for their consumption in accordance with the laws of supply and demand?
The story I linked above offers some good examples of the kinds of abuses that are prevented by responsible regulation of a communications carrier – i.e.- net neutrality. But here’s a little factoid about one of Netflix’s current strategies, which I would hesitate to call an “abuse” because it’s actually innovative and efficient, but its implementation is ominously monopolistic. It’s the so-called Open Connect “partnership” [PDF] they’re offering to large ISPs. Basically they’re offering free Netflix servers which the ISPs get to host in their own data centers, and which contain the entire Netflix catalog, updated nightly. Thus ISPs get to localize all Netflix traffic to their own network, cutting costs and maximizing performance while engaging in lustful (and profitable) intercourse with Netflix.
This is probably one of the less troublesome examples of collusion because it’s generally to the consumer’s benefit, unless you’re a streaming service competitor or a consumer interested in alternatives to Netflix. It’s less egregious than the kind of blocking that ISPs have done to VOIP services in preference to their own, or BT throttling that mistakenly affected gaming and other legitimate services or legitimate BT downloads, but it’s still disturbingly monopolistic. I would argue that if Netflix wants to build distributed-caching network optimizations, they should do it on their own, and not be allowed to build conflict-of-interest relationships with common carriers.
As another side note, with regard to Pai, he’s a moron who’s been rightly called “the most reviled man on the Internet”, a hardline conservative who, among many other things, lifted anti-monopoly ownership rules on behalf of the ultra-right Sinclair Broadcast Group to allow them to expand their nefarious influence.
Disagree. Netflix already pays more than, say, I do or, say, some small church or small business does to get their content on the internet. They have huge streaming and hosting costs. I’m on a committee that posts some pictures and schedules online and it’s like $25/year. I’m pretty sure Netflix couldn’t use our plan to host their streaming service. Paying more for more speed is in no way a violation of NN, and that’s not the argument those who are against NN use anyway.
The argument, as I understand it, is that if ISPs can charge both ends of the connection for content, can prioritize their own content, and can otherwise extract monopoly profits, then they would have the incentive to invest more in infrastructure. It’s letting the markets do their thing.
That ignores that ISPs are often monopolies or duopolies, which everyone knows, or should know, that can distort the smooth running of market power.
nm
This cite is from 2013, which is a long time ago in internet-technology years. It also unnecessarily limits things to “wired” internet technology, ignoring satellite and mobile internet, which have come a long way in those 5 years.
Below, I have a cite with data from 2015, which shows that the percentage is up to (greater than) 91% with 2 or more 10Mbit+ wired ISP options.
So, from 2013 to 2015, we went from 28% of households with just one ISP option to less than 9%.
It’s been another 3 years since then.
Here’s something I posted over in this recent thread.
It sounds like one critical question is how much of a monopoly ISPs actually are. Clearly, an unregulated monopoly is problematic.
Closest I’ve found to a cite is the graph partway down this page, which shows that (as of 2015) 91% of “Developed Census Blocks” had 2 or more “fixed” ISPs that offer 10Mb/s down. 99% have at least one additional satellite provider at that speed. 71% have 2 or more ISPs at 25Mb/s down (no data on satellite at that speed).
Now, 10Mbps isn’t amazing. But Netflix says you need 5 for an HD stream. 2 simultaneous HD streams doesn’t seem like the backwaters of the internet. I’ve worked remotely (VNC into a server) on half that and been pretty productive. People with 10Mbps are going to be able to do reasonable things online.
Since population isn’t evenly distributed, those are going to correspond to higher percentages of people (not sure how much higher).
There’s also mobile internet, although I’m guessing that the places that have just one fast-ish ISP are probably pretty far out there, so mobile might not be a good replacement.
All that together makes me think that there aren’t many people who actually have only one reasonable ISP to choose from.
Does my new information change your mind?
I will say that I don’t believe I’ve swallowed any of the Republican’s bullshit, but I am skeptical that net neutrality is necessary or ideal. I want to clarify that that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to regulation of ISPs. I just don’t think that the specific set of net neutrality regulations are the right ones.
Thanks for the information. Could you perhaps explain why you think ISPs modifying packet routing and throughput based on the content is better for the consumer than NOT doing that?
Not really. Changing ISPs is a monster pain in the ass, even if you have two to choose from, because it’s not just your ISP – for most people, it’s also their cable provider and phone provider. So, if FIOS starts slowing Joe’s Upstart Video Service, I would first have to wait until my two-year commitment is up, then lose my forever-free DVR service, move my phone number over, and then I could change to Comcast (only to find that Comcast is blocking Ben’s Upstart Video Service).
The fact is, all I want from my ISP is an unfettered connection to the internet at whatever service level I choose. I don’t want them to give me beneficial treatment to their own services, just like I don’t want them to give me detrimental treatment to competing services. Their cable systems already do that – restrict me to the content of their choosing. There have been times when they’ve had disputes with YES network or MSG or whatever, and that ended up with them temporarily removing those channels. Without NN, they could simultaneously remove access to those websites or slow their video feeds to a crawl. I’m not going to upend my cable contract because I can’t see the MSG website (again, only to find that the other ISP is doing the same thing with ESPN).
Even a duopoly is pretty bad. Now, if they were forced to lease their lines at reasonable prices to whoever wanted to lease them, the way long distance carriers were able to lease existing lines, then I would probably be fine with the removal of NN. Back in the late '80s and early '90s, there were many long distance carriers to choose from and it was a piece of cake to switch from one to the other. In fact, I would switch several times/year as they offered incentives. When getting phone service, you just chose your long distance carrier – I’d love to be able to do that with my cable connection – choose FIOS for cable and telephone, and then choose from five or ten ISPs for my internet connection.