I’m not sure what you mean by proprietary here. Cable television is transmitted over standard hardware with standard encodings. That’s why you can hook up any TV to it and it works. And you are incorrect about there being no contention for bandwidth. Cables can only carry a finite amount of data, which translates to X channels at SD, or Y channels at HD, or some combination.
This is always framed as the ISP meddling, but why isn’t this just a problem of false advertising? If my ISP is up front about the fact that I’ll get a different level of service for different things and I agree to that, then it’s not interference or editorializing, it’s just a particular service package.
I see that there’s potential for abuse here, but do you not also see that there’s a potential for better product? I’d love there to be an internet plan that had super-fast service for things that I care about and throttled the ones I don’t.
Requiring that all bits be treated the same means that services like video delivery will continue to use vast amounts of bandwidth, because with sufficient buffering, video streaming can deal with relatively unresponsive networks, while things with higher real-time requirements will continue to have issues because they can’t get the kind of prioritization they require to really shine.
I meant more that if you’re getting cable from say, Comcast, that your bandwidth isn’t being shared with a bunch of non-Comcast users on a bunch of non-Comcast programming, which isn’t the case on the wider internet. If I’m watching HBO on my cable TV, it’s coming from HBO to Comcast, and then to me, on Comcast’s network.
If I’m streaming it on HBO GO, it’s going from HBO, through their ISP to my ISP, and there may be intermediate carriers in between.
What’s to stop one of those intermediate carriers from prioritizing the traffic THEY like over HBO? I’m not paying them, I’m paying my ISP and HBO, but those assholes in the middle could potentially impact my experience by prioritizing their own traffic over mine.
Interestingly enough your link doesn’t mention if the regulation was effective.
I don’t thik that Netflix was in favour of NN out of the goodness of their hearts. With only so much bandwidth available at any certain time it’s easy to see them asking the FCC to block any new “high use” companies entering a market “until they would not create a problem”. That’s what I would do if I were Johnny Netflix.
How are they going to show that they actually solved a problem or even prevented it?
Most of the regulators are not in electable positions.
As a politician your job is to get reelected not to make people happy. I can simply convince them that I’m less bad than the other guy.
Good thing regulators never take your money or your ability to make it like licensing laws where your competition decided if you should enter a market.
So… Netflix lobbies for NN, which specifies that ISPs must be content neutral in providing bandwidth. Then, they ask the FCC to block new content companies that are trying to enter the market because they use too much bandwidth?
There’s a much less silly reason behind Netflix’s lobbying, it’s because they themselves have a giant target on their backs, and would be the first company throttled and asked to pay to get the bandwidth back.
Exactly.
Wouldn’t you do that if you were Johnny Netflix? I mean, why not use a regulator to shield you from competition? This already happens in other areas.
Definitely, but they aren’t supporting NN because of freedom and consumers but their own bottom line. It is economically convenient for them, a heavy-bandwidth user, to get the same treatment as a text-chat service. Netflix does it for them, not for us. They are the Australian 86-wheel land-train asking to pay the same toll as the guy in the Sentra.
Of course they have a big target and they have responded as all (evil, aparently) corportations do.
Once the ISPs can control the speed of the pipes, they are in a position to select winners and losers. I’m not at all OK with that. And, while it is annoying in the case of Netflix, as a large and established company, Netflix could roll with it if they had to, raising prices and negotiating contracts. Not that I think it’s OK, but they would be unlikely to be driven out of business.
More concerning to me are the ability of ISPs to favor a specific service (notably one they own) and even prevent a competing service from launching. I realize the rent-a-antenna services were ruled illegal, but consider something like that for a minute. As soon as such a service is launched, could Comcast block it or slow it? It competes with their cable, after all. How about VOIP? Again, Comcast and the others like to bundle their phone service. withot NN, what’s to prevent them for crippling those. So a lack of NN could just as easily stifle innovation.
I believe we need NN at least until such a time as the vast majority of people have multiple options for high speed internet. Then the market forces might be able to work. I do believe it is quite uncommon in most markets to have real options (cable and DSL doesn’t really count, since one is so vastly superior to the other)