What's the current state of Net Neutrality? Future of the 'net at stake?

Great Debates
41

They don’t need to collude. You’re still missing the idea of how the internet is built.

As an example, for many years I lived in a somewhat more rural area. Even so, we had several ISPs to choose from… let’s say five. Under normal circumstances, this would be enough to provide a reasonable choice from which to decide which one to use, based upon features like bandwidth provided and the like. That’s exactly how it should work, right? And Net Neutrality won’t change that(in its simplest form, there are complications there)

However, at the time, all the internet traffic of those ISPs at some point passed through the Maryland onramp. I forget who owned it, but let’s say Level 3 did(though I’m pretty sure they didn’t at the time.) This is a choke point, and it’s not exactly easy for a competitor to lay down new fiber and the like. That requires right of way and government okays and an enormous up-front cost that presents an abnormally high barrier to entry.

So, first off you have this situation, which Net Neutrality is designed to prevent: Level 3 can’t just decide to throttle Google’s connection to 40kb/s because Google doesn’t want to pay $70000/month for the 10Mb/s service. “But wait!” you say, “Isn’t that all about free market?” No, it isn’t, unless Level 3 is Google’s ISP… which isn’t necessarily the case. Nor is it okay if they’re offering MSN.com a 10Mb/s service for $500. They’re pricing out a company from an entire region due to their own preferences, and the customers in that region don’t have any say in the matter, since it’s a choke point. This would probably happen more often than you’d think.

And even if it didn’t happen that often, it would be quite easy to end up with a situation like this:

Should I go with Comcast or Time-Warner or BellSouth?

[ul]
[li]Comcast offers: 8MB down/2 MBup but caps it at 40 GB/month, and their access to Google is limited to 100k, but they have preferential treatment to Yahoo, but Dreamhost servers are inaccessible.[/li]
[li]Time-Warner offers: 6MB/3MB service, no caps, but does not allow Instant Messenger traffic or Facebook and MSN connections are throttled at 10Kb/s[/li]
[li]BellSouth offers: 12 MB/1MB access with a 50 GB/month cap, but Yahoo and Dreamhost are limited to 15 Kb/s and numerous smaller ISP services(personal web pages and the like) are inaccessible.[/li][/ul]
Is a situation like that really what you want? Especially considering how many smaller ISPs are out there hosting various pages. The list of which services are affected by your choice of ISP could easily reach into dozens and dozens of pages.

The reason that the FCC needs to get involved, at times, is because large-carrier ISPs are by their nature artificial markets, just like power generation and the like. They require government intervention to exist in the first place, and as a tradeoff for that they get more regulation than a “natural” market is subject to.

42

It seems to me that internet distribution–at least through ‘physical means’ like wires, fiber, and cable–should be considered a utility and have to function under the same sort of regulation. My perhaps limited understanding of utilities is that because they deliver a ‘essential’ service/product, but do so as a de facto monopoly, they operate under strict guidelines and regulations set by the government. The reason they are de facto monopolies is because it would be prohibitively expensive (and frankly, illogical) to have 5 different sets of telephone lines, water pipes, or electric lines.

Because of this regulation, your local water company would never be allowed to, on the one hand, deliver plentiful, fresh water to one neighborhood, and on the other, send rusty, polluted water in drips and drabs to a different part of town and then tell the polluted water consumers: “Hey… if you don’t like it, you can just get your water somewhere else. That’s how capitalism works. Tough luck!”

Similarly, your local electric company can’t charge 3 cents per kW/hr to one home, and 84 cents per kW/hr to another for the same service.

What would happen if they could? Well… let’s take the trolley to Make-Believe Land (or–“the future” if some folks have their way) and have a looksee!!! C’mon!!!
[Cheesy 70’s swirling video special FX]

:):):):):):slight_smile:
Here in MBL electric companies aren’t utilities anymore. The free-marketers have absolute and total control here and have decided it would be best if power companies were all privately controlled. Oh, look! There’s The Invisible Hand! Didja see it? No?

Let’s take the trolley down to the local electric company. Here in MBL it’s called The Sony Electric Company. They sell power at only 3 cents per kW/hr… to all the homes that exclusively own Sony’s (or an affiliate’s) super-quality appliances, central air conditioning, heating… all that happy, fun stuff!

But what if you don’t like Sony’s appliances and choose to buy other brands?

I’m glad you asked! The nice folks at Sony Power love all their customers, so even sad people who don’t understand super-quality appliances, and mistakenly purchase Sanyo or JVC products also only pay 3 cent per kW/hr!!!

…AND, they are automatically placed in Sony’s Super-Power-Plus program! They don’t even have to fill out any forms or anything!! The Super-Power-Plus program helps families learn about the Pilgrims and the Pioneers by bringing them a special ‘Blackout Opportunity’ every night from 4 to 10PM. It’s like having a camp-out every night!

But, because Sony Cares and loves Freedom and Liberty they understand that not everybody likes to camp-out. So, any ‘Non Quality-Sony-Products homeowners’ can opt out of the Super-Power-Plus program at any time by simply paying a 84 cent per kW/hr administrative fee!
:):):):):slight_smile:

[/Cheesy 70’s swirling video special FX]
To me, that hellish vision of ‘Make-Believe Land’ (aka: the possible future) is somewhat analogous to how the internet would look without net neutrality (not necessarily some Congressperson’s idea of a NN bill; just the principle of free, open, and equal access to any and all parts of the internet).

Perhaps local municipalities (not the Feds, you Black Helicopter-phobiacs) should own the actual infrastructure that the internet is sent through. They could purchase the wires, switchers, etc. from the nice folks who built and maintain them at a nice, fat profit for the corporate sellers. Or maybe they could lease it (but it should be *all *of the bandwidth). Failing that, they should at least be able to somehow insure access to a free and open internet to anyone who wants it.

But let’s face it-- some folks actually wouldn’t want it. They would prefer to be spoon-fed corporate pablum in convenient packages. After all–people bought into to the whole AOL thing for years back when AOL essentially controlled the content available to their subscribers.

With ISP infrastructure either owned, leased, or properly (IMO) regulated, the big media corporations could lease some bandwidth back from the government so as to provide that “packaged pablum” to consumers who prefer having their decisions made for them. If a given company wants to, they could use their leased bandwidth slice to exclusively provide 24/7 access to the Bill O’Reilly website if that’s what they wished. Basically, it’s be like pay-cable channels (not cable companies) do now.

But the majority of the bandwidth would be made available, essentially at cost*, to anyone who wished to surf anywhere they pleased on a free and open internet.

Caveats: As is the case now, illegal activities would not be allowed, BUT-- I’m talking about wire-fraud, child pornography, terrorist activities, etc. NOT legal pornography, gambling, file sharing… you know… all the stuff that anyone can freely find on the internet right now.

*I said that the internet service should be available at cost. But I have no problem with metering bandwidth. In fact, I think that’s how internet usage should be paid for. I don’t find that to be any sort of First Amendment abuse or “Anti-Freedom and Mom and Apple Pie” like some whiny, P2P fanatics cry about. It’s only fair to pay for what you use. Just as you do now with your electric and water utilities.

43

Data rate is (generally) what is sold. Some ISPs also put constraints on data volume, e.g., 2GB/month plus $0.50/MB in excess of the 2GB. I suppose, to be accurate, I should note that my use of “data rate” is shorthand for “bounded data rate capacity” – it’s understood that when an ISP sells access at, say, 10Mbps, the customer will actually be able to transfer data filling the allotted capacity up to the bound of 10Mbps, regardless of what data comprises that 10Mbps. (To be explicit, that understanding is the core of net neutrality: should a provider be able to manipulate said capacity?)

The problem we’re having here is that I’m responding to what you write, assuming that it matches what you mean. Here…if you go back, you said:

An ISP (again, generally, other constraints may apply) sells internet access on an “X Mbps” basis. Now read the quote above again. If XYZ is using 3X the bandwidth as Bill’s, they’ve already paid for that access. XYZ can’t use 3X the bandwidth as Bill’s – where, remember, “bandwidth” is actually better expressed as “bounded data rate capacity”. Furthermore, the total volume of data being transferred doesn’t affect the “bounded data rate capacity” of the connection. (Yes, total data volume is part of a “bandwidth” calculation covering a longer time period – say, a month – but that’s not really a concern for this discussion beyond confusing the issue even more.)

Do you see why I questioned your use of the term “bandwidth” in this case? It’s not that the term doesn’t apply to other examples. It’s also not inappropriate as a primary point. It just didn’t apply (from what I could tell) to the particular example.

Again, it’s not clear to me how you think “monopoly laws would apply”. (Note that I’m not saying they don’t, I’m saying it’s not clear to me.) For this discussion, the idea of “collusion” may be both confusing and unnecessary. Read Page Fault’s example of “Level3”; a single ISP, no collusion. Go from there. Make sure to work from the specific, which may be very clear, to a more general case.