FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-26/fcc-aims-to-reinstate-net-neutrality-rules-as-us-democrats-gain-control-of-panel

by goplayoutside • 3 years ago

349 285 3 years ago

bloomberg.com

mintaka5• 3 years ago

let's do this!

causi• 3 years ago

Good luck to them. I'm tired of all this prioritization, bundled services not counting against data caps, and using angry e-mails to make Tier-1 providers null-route websites.

cddotdotslash2• 3 years ago

One of the biggest arguments I remember being made back when net neutrality was a hot topic was that ISPs would bundle and sell specific websites as tiered plans. Infographics like this one [1] were shared widely. Has this happened in the US? I’ve definitely seen ISPs start to apply data caps and throttling, but haven’t seen the aforementioned packaging (at least with the major ISPs). I ask because this is one of the easy arguments that got many of my less technical friends and family to understand the risks. But if it never happened, they might start to think it’s just a scare tactic and be less interested in vocally supporting it this time around.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/%2B_Smar...

ejstronge• 3 years ago

ISPs are offering 'Netflix-included' or discounted Disney+ plans. I don't know how they account for downloads from these services but the bundling is definitely happening.

falcojr• 3 years ago

Data caps (and services being excluded from them) are different though, aren't they? IIRC these were already happening before net neutrality rules were removed.

supriyo-biswas2• 3 years ago

When a zero-rating agreement is successfully negotiated between ISPs and website operators, they share a list of IP ranges with the ISP, and any traffic towards these IPs are excluded from the consumer’s data cap.

lr4444lr5• 3 years ago

That comes with exclusive content, though - not the same thing at all as what the NN acolytes were warning us would happen if common carrier status was lost. The goal-post shifting is not admirable. We were told there would be the end of the free web, and we're almost 6 years out. Time to admit that the evidence suggests this was fear mongering, and not grasp at straws.

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

They are grouping the service payments.

Unless you can show examples of these servcices avoiding datacaps? And even then, in this case it's very likely that allow-lists were OK under NN, just not block-lists.

JohnTHaller• 3 years ago

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited Plus" which will increase your soft cap to 40GB a month and your video streaming quality to 1080p. It'll also bundle in Netflix's basic level and give you 6 months of Apple+ for "free".

0xy2• 3 years ago

How is that remotely the same thing? The infographic above and others clearly claim that ISPs will be blocking services then requiring you to pay for them separately.

Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, and for example has been regular practice all across Europe (which has "net neutrality").

Isn't it just shifting the goal posts after the original claims of NN campaigners were discredited and never materialized in any remote fashion after NN was abolished?

Let us not forget that net neutrality campaigning was primarily pushed by Netflix, who refused to pay Verizon for infrastructure upgrades as per industry standard going back decades.

The standard is that the disproportionate data user pays to upgrade the ports, equipment and/or line infrastructure. This is absolutely fair. A parallel is electricity capacity for homes and businesses, if you require more electricity than the local street infrastructure can provide you pay the power company to upgrade it to accommodate you. Only fair, the heavy users pay.

The movement carried water for deadbeat corpos. Netflix wanted to saturate internet links and balked at paying Verizon for new switches and pipes -- so they got their subscribers to complain.

2devnull• 3 years ago

Didn’t arbitrary data caps start back in the day when torrenting was a big problem? The ISPs started cutting people off because only piracy could explain such heavy usage. That was in the early 00’s iirc, prior to the net neutrality debate.

snickerbockers6• 3 years ago

Is this worse than the pre-NN system where they would just throttle everything after 25GB/month with no exceptions?

brightball2• 3 years ago

Mobile providers are a different beast because there’s a limit on radio spectrum. Throttling is necessary.

vel0city4• 3 years ago

In a more potent example, AT&T did a similar thing with streaming TV service, but they only exempted their own TV service. Using Hulu? Data cap. Fubo? Data cap. AT&T TV Now? Highest quality, no cap.

throwaway092623• 3 years ago

This doesn't have anything to do with the repeal of the FCC's net neutrality. You can see from the appeals court case[1], page 16 and 17, that mobile networks were exempt from the anti-discrimination rules:

The anti-discrimination rule applied only to fixed broadband. Id. According to the Commission, mobile broadband warranted different treatment because, among other things, “the mobile ecosystem is experiencing very rapid innovation and change,”

I have to agree with the other posts. The disaster scenarios we were told would happen didn't happen. Now people are pointing to things completely unconnected to the repeal of net neutrality as evidence that it caused problems.

I uncritically trusted the claims of activists when the debate first started, but in the years since I've begun to feel foolish for doing so. It seems clear a lot of them are peddling misinformation. This whole thing has lead me to question some of the extreme doomsday scenarios people are pushing in other areas as well.

[1] https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3F95E491...

vxNsr3• 3 years ago

My understanding of the previous NN rules was the exempted mobile anyway bec they called it necessary network management to ensure a smooth experience for everyone. So unless they also change that (which is unlikely) these rules won’t really fix or change anything, except possibly introduce regulations that will either a) push some polical agenda, or b) create a higher regulatory burden for small players and prevent new entrants.

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

We have gotten it, but with services not websites.

Misinformation.

Under all previously proposed NN rules, throttling is always allowed for network congestion and mobile actually does have a legitimate network congestion issue.

I personally would rather T-Mobile make a promise about the speeds for the first 25GB rather than say "UNLIMITED*" and make that asterisk any time they feel like it.

Likewise, they could always make allow-lists in throttling, they just couldn't make block-lists.

Nothing in your example would be better under NN rules as actually defined.

billy99k• 3 years ago

I don't really see a problem with this. Bandwidth is finite and if you have a little more money, you should be able to pay for it.

The alternative is that everyone has data caps

YeBanKo• 3 years ago

Playing devil’s advocate here. But why is it so controversial that not all the traffic is the same. It is much easier for an ISP to serve Spotify very efficiently if they patterns, data centers and even have some private links in place with Spotify. The issue I have with it is they should not be calling it unlimited.

askiiart• 3 years ago

How do carriers supposedly cap streaming quality? As long as the data is encrypted, isn't it impossible for the carrier to tell what quality a video is?

I'm limited to standard definition streaming, yet can stream 1080p just fine on mobile data.

CalRobert• 3 years ago

I seem to recall seeing it more a few years ago but there were definitely "Unlimited whatsapp" etc. style deals around. Maybe it's less relevant as data has gotten cheap enough so as to be a non-issue for most people.

https://www.androidauthority.com/freedompop-sim-card-unlimit... for instance (but that's old)

vxNsr3• 3 years ago

NN rules didn’t (and likely won’t) affect mobile carriers due to the limited nature of wireless spectrum, the FCC views throttling and data prioritization as a necessary evil.

lr4444lr5• 3 years ago

The sky was supposed to fall if net neutrality were abrogated, and IME, that hasn't happened. The only change I (and people I know) witnessed was throttling once broad data limits were exceeded, which IIRC wasn't what was at stake, and which I for one didn't object to, i.e., that people would have to pay for what they use. In short, I have not seen bandwidth or pricing weaponized at all to target specific businesses other than for morally objectionable content. Maybe my awareness is limited - I can't confirm that!

Goronmon2• 3 years ago

The sky was supposed to fall if net neutrality were abrogated, and IME, that hasn't happened.

ISPs aren't run by complete idiots. They knew this current switch back was a likely possibility. If they had rushed to implement service tiers, it would have given even more ammunition to the net neutrality debate.

Now they can say "See we had a chance for a few years to do it and didn't, so we need to pass laws to make sure net neutrality is illegal to protect our freedom." They'll pay some politicians to push something like the "Internet Freedom Act" and then they'll be good to go.

sumtechguy• 3 years ago

There are 2 'net neutrality' items in play and are conflated and team lines drawn up ages ago.

One is the double charging of services. Buy service XYZ on the internet then the ISP says 'hey you buy or special package or ABC is throttled'. That is the one most people think of when they hear net neutrality. Or 'we have not cut a deal with XYZ no data for you'.

Then there is the 'stop the cap' ones. Where 'hey here is a nice unlimited service except when you use more than X data then its not'. 'want more data pay for more on top of your "unlimited" plan'.

Then instead of passing laws to do it right they pretzelled the existing laws. Made some up and said yep thats good. Each "side" of the argument has had control of both houses and the presidential. Yet none of them got it done. Instead we are going to end up with more rubish and no real laws. Just made up interpretations that can change on a whim.

sebstefan• 3 years ago

This can't really be used to defend the abrogation of net neutrality, the sky might still fall, the only thing holding it up is how it's perceived in focus groups and that there is still some competition in the ISP market

The two are not set in stone

Give it a few years of throttling youtube to 480p if you don't have a premium plan and regular consumers will get used to more

dd368• 3 years ago

California passed a net neutrality law.

no_wizard3• 3 years ago

They instead hit consumers with data caps which you either pay overages against, or they had you sign up for additional add on which was, on average, $20-$30 more a month increase in your bill, for the same traffic, under net neutrality terms, that would not have cost more, because this would not be allowed.

I've seen the margins ISPs make on these connections, and they went from acceptable but good to absurd, its not like they were starved by net neutrality either.

hedora6• 3 years ago

At one of my previous places, AT&T offered FTTN, but only if you used their router. The router somehow managed to break next-level NAT, so there was no way to use FTTN without giving AT&T access to your LAN. That violates California's network neutrality laws that prohibit discriminating against certain devices (though so does every single cell carrier plan that prohibits tethering, or swapping a phone with a tablet or a 5G dongle).

The cell phone companies around here also all have some form of blurring video for some streaming providers, and bundling subscriptions to other video providers.

Comcast definitely weaponized data caps with absurd overage fees, and also didn't invest in backend network infrastructure until they were under 3MBps average video streaming speeds on their 100MBps plans.

travisporter• 3 years ago

The sky can’t fall, it’s not really physically possible. Also, maybe isps backed off for now, who’s to say this won’t change in the future? Shareholder value trumps all, you know

aqme282• 3 years ago

That didn't happen here, but that is an actual advertisement from a Portuguese ISP, not just some sensationalized propaganda.

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

So, you are saying some unverified tiny ISP bad marketing decision in Portugal in 2015 or earlier (that image is old) should be used to direct policy for the entire united states regardless of the reality of the actual practices?

That is exactly what sensationalized propaganda looks like in this case. You are doing it right now.

AlexandrB• 3 years ago

If net neutrality is not relevant anyways, why are ISPs so dead set against it?

cptskippy3• 3 years ago

A concern from ISPs is that they will lose the ability to shape and prioritize traffic, something that is often necessary.

A concern from consumers is that services will be restricted or rendered unusable by throttling selectively driving customers away from services.

A concern from Service Providers is that they will have to make deals with ISPs to ensure quality of service.

They're valid concerns on all sides and without Net Neutrality we've seen service restrictions, though they're advertised as benefits (e.g. free OTT messaging on flights from certain providers). We've also seen ISPs bully providers like Netflix into paying to deliver traffic their customers are paying to access (double dipping). It hasn't been the doom and gloom that was hyped but has definitely impacted services.

Under net neutrality I expect we'll see a degradation of cellular services or forced consent agreements as WISPs will not be allowed to downgrade or shape traffic otherwise.

It cuts both ways and I will be surprised if it makes much difference.

lr4444lr5• 3 years ago

Because it kept them under the FCC's thumb as common carriers, forcing them into inefficiencies to comply with regulations. There's a ton of stuff I want the govt. more involved with on the internet: data privacy, clamping down on CSAM, section 230 issues... forcing ISPs to take a total hands off approach to every traffic source on their pipes? That wasn't one of them.

NN harmed ISPs' incentive to innovate. I have since gotten faster speeds at cheaper prices. What would the NN crowd say if they had gotten their way, something vague about evil corporations and their profits?

SpicyLemonZest• 3 years ago

There are more complex aspects of net neutrality beyond "companies can't make consumers pay a Facebook surcharge".

One that I remember in detail is interconnect fees. Some companies like Netflix operate at such a scale that they're constrained by physical reality as much as network policies. So to provide good service, it's often necessary to deploy additional physical connections between the ISP and the Netflix CDN.

Separately, such connections are widespread foundations of the Internet itself. In that context they're typically settlement-free, with providers on both sides working cooperatively to get the bits where users want them. For Netflix, providers typically require a fee to interconnect, because they wouldn't otherwise want to accept the maintenance costs of this link which serves no purpose other than providing Netflix.

So Netflix pays a fee that other organizations with an interconnect don't have to pay. Is that a net neutrality violation? Netflix argues yes - they say it's just a backdoor to discriminate against Netflix traffic. But you can see why ISPs would be concerned about a rule that they can't charge random CDNs for plugging in stuff to their servers.

exabrial4• 3 years ago

No it hasn’t. We’re fighting a boogieman.

Instead, we’re going to do is further entrench local monopolies, since only the large guys will be able to afford to comply with regulation.

You literally can’t force corporate Americas to act beneficial to their consumers of incentives are misaligned. It takes literal FDA-levels of regulation to accomplish that, and even that has failures while generally making the entire process expensive while consolidating things down to just a few market players.

deltarholamda3• 3 years ago

Like many government regulations, it has a great name, "Net Neutrality," which, when it is actually implemented, will do much more than make the 'Net neutral.

Maybe, at first, it will have something to do with "you can't throttle Web services," but it will morph into "you MUST throttle this particular Web service, it spreads disinformation, which makes the Net less neutral."

It is what always happens. It is more reliable than gravity.

adgjlsfhk1• 3 years ago

Ah yes. It takes so much effort not to chose to throttle people.

mcpackieh• 3 years ago

You literally can’t force corporate Americas to act beneficial to their consumers of incentives are misaligned. It takes literal FDA-levels of regulation to accomplish that,

"Literal FDA-levels of regulation" demonstrably does not accomplish that. The FDA was fine with what the Sacklers/Purdue Pharma were doing; lawsuits filed by states and others got something (not enough) done about it, but the FDA and their regulations were no help.

hedora6• 3 years ago

How does this cause a compliance burden? It's banning the deployment of optional technologies.

If anything, this will help small players, since it prevents big ISPs from using their market leverage to negotiate favorable terms with service providers, and doing that levels the playing field.

For instance, there was a time when you could only get high resolution Netflix through large ISPs, since they'd forced Netflix to sign some CDN deal by messing with transit pricing.

ericmay2• 3 years ago

If it never happened no harm in making sure it doesn’t happen either.

cddotdotslash2• 3 years ago

Sure, but the argument kind of loses merit, no? I remember the entire collective internet having site wide shutdowns, urging users to write to congress, etc. It was an extensive campaign that looped in many non technical folks to a very technical topic. You can only cry wolf like that a few times. If a similar campaign were to launch again, I’m almost certain it would fail to get the same mainstream support, especially because the “sky is falling” arguments made last time never came true (or at least not in the ways claimed). Lost credibility is hard to regain for the next time there truly is an existential crisis.

temporallobe• 3 years ago

I’m with you, but “bundling” sites like cable companies bundle channels is not even a correct analogy. Doing so would fundamentally break the internet as we know it and I am pretty certain the site owners wouldn’t like it either, since it could break ad-delivery. It would be a complicated mess that the ISPs would have to backpedal on. The simpler solution is just to change more money for everything and throttle, though I suppose they could create app-only access like what you’re describing (basically no direct access to port 80 via normal browsers). Or, recreate the glory days of something like AOL.

adrr• 3 years ago

It happens on airplanes and paid WiFi. Some allow free browsing of certain sites and charge for full access. Some airlines charge more for streaming access. Some provide basic messaging on a low priced tier.

dfxm12• 3 years ago

People were screwed, but not like this. ISP's mostly put the screws to streaming services. Just point them to Netflix's price hikes shortly after they felt the effects of NN getting repealed in ~2019, or the constant back and forth between Verizon and Netflix.

Mobile customers didn't get away scot free though. This did enable mobile service providers to offer more tiered plans, which on average raised prices on worse service via caps and throttled speeds. Some people may still be "grandfathered" in to old unlimited plans, but a lot of people either paid more, got worse service, or both.

op00to5• 3 years ago

It's more insidious than simply bundling together access to certain websites. The main way that ISPs extract $$ out of content providers is by charging the content providers to peer to their network. If there isn't a recurring peering agreement in place, the ISP will let the content provider's peering interface overload which drives service quality down. Of course, the ISP ensures /their/ content provider is always on an interface with plenty of bandwidth to spare.

birdyrooster• 3 years ago

They don’t upgrade their interconnects with other residential ISPs which is making it hard for decentralized alternatives to displace the big cloud based vendors.

mlindner2• 3 years ago

No, nothing of that sort has happened in the US because the rules for NN haven't changed. It was a created internet hype machine to push more new restrictive rules by acting like chicken little and shouting that the sky was falling.

djoldman• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/RyFFH

stuckinhell• 3 years ago

Do we need net neutrality ? I didn't even know it was gone. My internet is the same as ever

georgeplusplus• 3 years ago

Same.

acheron• 3 years ago

It was always a con. A regulation had been in place since 2015, they repealed it in 2017, it never mattered.

Some politicians tricked people into screaming about it, and I’m sure they were able to get some fundraising because of the screaming.

WarOnPrivacy2• 3 years ago

It was always a con. A regulation had been in place since 2015, they repealed it in 2017, it never mattered.

This sounds like one of the pregurgitated anti-neutrality mantra. Specifically, the one that ignores the many growing trends (caps, prioritization, purposeful peering congestion) before neutrality and how those trends mostly paused when neutrality was passed.

It also ignores what ISPs know - that not every administration has full-throated support for anti-consumer practices. That is, not every admin will provide the cover ISPs need to get consumers used to increasing mistreatment.

Better to keep the pause on consumer harms in place until a friendlier environment can be secured for the long term.

Meanwhile it's still safe screw consumers on other fronts. One is further entrenching ISP monopoly/duopoly positions by having lobbyists write state anti-munibroadband laws for paid legislators to pass.

woeirua• 3 years ago

It really seems unnecessary at this point. Now that we have satellite based internet and 4G/5G are legit competitors to regular wire based ISPs it just seems that the market has solved this by itself. Sure, Comcast _could_ still start doing prioritization. But honestly I’d be a lot more worried about how Google/Meta/Microsoft are using your data for GenAI.

WarOnPrivacy2• 3 years ago

It really seems unnecessary at this point. Now that we have satellite based internet and 4G/5G are legit competitors to regular wire based ISPs

None of those things compete with wireline, on either performance or price.

Satellite internet is 2x-10x more expensive and requires expensive equipment. It has significant lag and greatly reduced upload.

5G speeds exist in small, limited zones. Cellular internet in general is slower, comes with tiny to small data caps, is more expensive, has more lag and reduced upload.

Here's what meaningful competition looks like. Next month I'll be able to choose from several fiber ISPs.

Backstory: We currently have one cable provider. Following the recent broadband funding, my neighborhood was just trenched for fiber. It's an open infrastructure and any ISP that wants to sell service to us - can.

This is how DSL used to work back in the late 90s-early aughts, until ISP lobbyists paid for enough elections to get those mandates unwound.

_chu1• 3 years ago

I actually get badass 5G speeds in the middle of nowhere rural Alabama with T-Mobile, the only issue is it being a CGNAT preventing me from playing most PS3 games online.

mywittyname• 3 years ago

It's your responsibility as a citizen to be able to multi-task, because there's always going to be a more important issue to worry about.

dd368• 3 years ago

It seems unnecessary thanks to states that passed net neutrality laws.

thallium205• 3 years ago

So I should be thanking those states for Starlink?

pcdoodle• 3 years ago

9 year old "Juice Rap News" video expressing the importance of net neutrality, it's a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-xSP_T0VqU

woudsma• 3 years ago

At my previous job I worked on a digital campaign protesting the repeal of Net Neutrality[0]. It was a nice technical challenge to save (and render) those millions of leaflets. More about the project here[1]

[0] https://paperstorm.it/

[1] https://studiomoniker.com/projects/paperstorm

dantheman2• 3 years ago

Glad you failed. This is pure propaganda.

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

Anyone downvoting you should actually clink those links. There is no honest and good faith discussion there at all.

jerkstate• 3 years ago

interesting that nobody is talking about how net neutrality is needed to prevent censorship anymore

snickerbockers6• 3 years ago

Now the main thread of discussion seems to be that NN is really convenient for Netflix's business model as if i should care.

monocasa• 3 years ago

It's probably not now that they've had to deal with it. Instead the web of business relationships they've had to build and the constant capital they have to spend creates a moat around incumbent players in the video space like Netflix.

birthdaydog• 3 years ago

It's predictable from the title. HN is an intensely conservative site.

Tostino2• 3 years ago

A ton on here like to pretend to take a moderate viewpoint when espousing strictly conservative views or talking points.

snickerbockers6• 3 years ago

I don't see the point of NN as long as the only "service providers" it applies to are the ones implementing layers <= 3. The main threat to online freedom is that corporate America can collude together to remove you from the internet entirely if you piss them off. See parler, 8chan, kiwifarms etc; not that i think any of those sites is particularly worth defending but there's a principle at stake which is that this can happen to anybody.

And with NN being championed by a lot of the same services that cut off the above-mentioned it seems less like something meant to preserve the freedom of the Internet and more like something meant to keep one group of corporations in control of it.

stewx• 3 years ago

Kiwifarms was down for like 2 days.

Side note: the Blocked and Reported podcast looked deeply into the allegations that led to that that site being initially shut down and they concluded they were bogus.

bombcar• 3 years ago

Cloudflare continues to run in front of literal DDoS selling sites, and animal crush sites, and more (you really don’t want to know).

tbrownaw• 3 years ago

I'd expect a neutral layer 3 to make it easier to implement protections against layer 8 attacks.

dahfizz5• 3 years ago

If you believed the scare tactics at the time, losing net neutrality literally threatened the end of the internet as we know it. But my internet has worked the same before, during, and after net neutrality. I really don't get what all the fuss is about.

However, if you really do believe this is a civilization defining piece of regulation, Why leave it to the FCC? It seems like people on both sides are happy to leave this super duper important decision to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats. Everyone loves executive overreach when its their side that does it I guess.

mattnewton7• 3 years ago

The argument is not that the internet would suddenly die, it’s that it would get chopped up and rebundled a-La cable tv. And we’re seeing isps give preferential treatment to services that pay them, just not instantly and only that because it’s been only 2 years (edit: comment below points out it’s been 5), business sales cycles are long and they aren’t stupid enough to immediately turn the heat up to 11 while the frog is still paying attention.

parineum2• 3 years ago

The argument is not that the internet would suddenly die

From honest/informed actors, you're correct but the FUD campaign during the repeal was incredibly dramatic and exaggerated.

dahfizz5• 3 years ago

because it’s been only 2 years

The net neutrality repeal took effect in 2018, its been 5 years

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/technology/net-neutrality...

llm_nerd• 3 years ago

Why did the mega providers so desperately want net neutrality to die? Why did so many lobbyists work to kill it?

"I really don't get what all the fuss is about."

This is a bit like the Y2K bug. There was a huge amount of noise and fear-mongering, and millions of developers spent an enormous amount of time fixing code and preparing systems. Y2K came and suddenly everyone is sure it was all just drama for nothing. What was the fuss about?

The massive amount of "scare tactics" made it a mainstream conversation. The images of tiered internet were spread far and wide and it put everyone on alert. We can't A:B universes, but I suspect that if net neutrality was quietly axed and no one noticed or cared, we would absolutely have had services very much like the worst-case images imagined.

pitaj• 3 years ago

Why did the mega streamers so desperately want NN to survive?

Because the mega streamers like Netflix, Youtube, and Amazon would benefit.

snickerbockers6• 3 years ago

Why did the mega providers so desperately want net neutrality to die? Why did so many lobbyists work to kill it?

because they want more leverage in their negotiations with netflix, amazon, google, spotify etc. That's all it boils down to, how much one major corporation has to pay another major corporation.

There's a reason why they're only pushing for neutrality on the ISPs, if they were actually concerned about large corporations abusing their control over critical online infrastructure they'd be pushing to regulate other classes of "service providers" like google, amazon, cloudflare, etc.

dd368• 3 years ago

States passed net neutrality laws.

op00to5• 3 years ago

But my internet has worked the same before, during, and after net neutrality. I really don't get what all the fuss is about.

Mine didn't. Verizon blackmailed Netflix and Google repeatedly for access to their network. YouTube and Netflix were unusuable for FIOS customers until they came to an agreement where Netflix gave piles of cash to Verizon.

Aloha• 3 years ago

Provided network neutrality is limited to banning 'bundling' - meaning some services do not count against a data cap but others do - I think it's an unqualified good. If it goes beyond that, it gets stickier for wireless operators - because of the shared access medium inherent to wireless, you must do much more in the way of network optimization than you would on a wireline operator.

I'd be much more comfortable with treating information services as common carriers, which has an existing regulatory and interpretive framework to decide what that means - most of which can be directly applied to information services (internet access).

I get this is a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I don't trust the courts to decide cases which are highly technical in nature.

zzzeek• 3 years ago

all good news but at this point I'd prefer if they can turn cable providers like my own Altice / Optimum into public utilities so I don't have to pay $110/month for 100 mpbs with zero alternatives, when my uncle in Wisconsin has 300 mpbs for less money.

cainxinth• 3 years ago

A lot of people in these comments are making the case that removing net neutrality didn’t do much harm, so why bother bringing it back. Let me make the counterclaim.

The argument against net neutrality is that it might stifle innovation. Well, we had net neutrality for many years and innovation didn’t seem all that stifled. Hence, what’s the harm in bringing it back?

cltby• 3 years ago

Because we should have strong priors disfavoring regulation, and this is a stalking horse for yet more internet regulation.

xwdv• 3 years ago

The harm is that it takes away resources from other important issues that require our focus right now.

Keegs• 3 years ago

I know you're kidding, but it surprises me how often I hear the idea that an organization the size of the FCC can't multitask.

BeFlatXIII2• 3 years ago

How many resources would be taken away from which issues?

dahfizz5• 3 years ago

We are tired of the fear mongering and propaganda. We have seen the internet work just fine with and without net neutrality - its a micro-optimization as far as I am concerned.

Political capital is limited. Instead of wasting it rehashing this bandaid, why not campaign for something like municipal internet that would fundamentally solve the problems of ISPs?

toyg2• 3 years ago

That's a false dichotomy if I've ever seen one.

dd368• 3 years ago

I am going to repeat this in every chain: net neutrality is the law in California.

dahfizz5• 3 years ago

Vitally, net neutrality is an actual law in California. It can't be overturned arbitrarily by some bureaucrats.

Since Congress won't do anything at the national level, this is going to be re-hashed out by the FCC every time the president's tie changes color.

andrewla• 3 years ago

Wait -- I'm genuinely curious -- does that mean that data-throttling plans from mobile providers do not exist in California? All the plans I see (in New York) say things like "unlimited but video will be SD instead of HD" which seems a frank violation of the principle of net neutrality (not to mention a bit of a technical marvel).

Are these plans legal in California, or is the California law not sufficiently specific to rein in this kind of thing?

burkaman• 3 years ago

And ISPs are treating it like it's the law in the whole country: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/17/att-will-count-hbo-max-towar...

The change will extend beyond California, since, AT&T said, “the Internet does not recognize state borders.”

PM_me_your_math• 3 years ago

You can always trust politicians to do the exact opposite of their claim. For example: inflation reduction act, affordable health care act, voting rights act 2023. The propaganda is strong with net neutrality. It is just another play for more government control over information.

hn_acker2• 3 years ago

Would you mind explaining specifically how the FCC's intention to add net neutrality rules again (actually Chairwoman Rosenworcel's intention, and dubious in mettle [1]) would give the government "control over information"? Additionally, would you mind describing what you mean by "government control over information"?

A required condition of net neutrality is that the ISPs be considered common carriers once again. Common carriers are an exception to the legal paradigm of compelled speech. So the most you can say is that the government would be disallowing the ISPs from engaging in money-motivated censorship. If that falls under your idea of "government control over information" then you would be correct (but only pointlessly correct in my opinion).

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/14/finally-close-to-having-...

bilsbie• 3 years ago

I’m pro net neutrality AFAIK.

BUT We owe it to ourselves to go and look at all the fearmongering they were putting out about ending net neutrality and figuring out why it didn’t come to pass.

And hopefully learning from that for future policy debates.

mattnewton7• 3 years ago

It’s only been a few years. I don’t think we owe our selves to call all experiments at such a short time frame. People are acting like this is some chemical reaction they should be able to observe in an afternoon instead of something slow and pernicious like large American businesses when they know they are being watched.

Edit: also several states have net neutrality laws on the books, so if you are typing this from California it’s no wonder you aren’t seeing the end of the world: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/californias-net-neutralit...

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

Can we apply the same argument of time and precedence? Machine guns were legal for new purchase in the USA from their invention in 1892 to 1986. That's 94 years of precedent so, if a couple years of "no chemical reaction" is the gauge, I bet we could roll into and back on a lot of things, right?

dd368• 3 years ago

States passed net neutrality laws.

xenadu023• 3 years ago

I don't know why I have to keep explaining the history of this. What people call "Net Neutrality" is just how the internet (and ARPANET before it) had always worked. No one had contemplated it working in any other way.

Then Verizon came along and started blocking well-known VPN ports unless you paid for a "business" account. The FCC responded with "Net Neutrality" saying no, you can't just decide to block certain protocols, websites, or services for monetary reasons. QoS should be enforced when requested by clients or for technical reasons (eg VoIP), not to create class tiers to squeeze both customers and the services they use for money on both ends. If you want more money raise your price of service.

If you think the bean counters at the big telco and cable companies aren't excited by the idea of charging you extra to use a VPN, a VoIP phone, and hitting the top 100 websites on the back end then I don't know what to tell you. Absent any legal barriers they can and they eventually will. Most people don't have meaningful competition so you'll take what daddy Comcast deigns to offer you or you can go back to 2Mbps ADSL.

dantheman2• 3 years ago

Once again the FCC tries to expand it's powers to 'solve' a non problem.

jmyeet• 3 years ago

I fully support net neutrality. Those who oppose it, like former FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, are really just bowing to ISPs who want to charge companies like Netflix and Google for "pushing" data onto their networks.

But net neutrality isn't actually what we need. What we need is municipal broadband. The major ISPs in the US are objectively awful. The best Internet access in the US are in places with municipal broadband eg Chattanooga.

A good start would be regulating ISPs as a utility.

gdubs• 3 years ago

A lot of these comments reflect never having lived in a rural or underserved area.

Like most services in life, if you live a relatively upper class life in a competitive market, things like net neutrality are probably not gonna be very loud on your radar.

ultra_nick2• 3 years ago

How?

sershe2• 3 years ago

Semi-unrelated, on bundling: about 20-25 years ago, there were a bunch of these tiny hyper-local ISPs in Russia that would wire up several adjacent flat blocks with a LAN, get an internet uplink and start signing customers within those flat blocks (your only other option at that time was dial-up). The uplink was probably expensive and so they charged per Gb (or had a very low cap) but... "a free local share with terabytes of warez, mp3s, movies and porn is included in your base fee!". I think it might have even been in the official ads, in a slightly less blatant form.

toyg2• 3 years ago

The first pure-fiber ISP in Italy effectively had the same for many, many years. Because speeds were so good between their customers but still slow towards the wider internet (this was the early '00s), they effectively closed both eyes as people established mega-shares with all sorts of goodness.

I think they eventually cracked down on it, but it went on for at least a decade.

sershe2• 3 years ago

In the Russian case, ISP itself would host the share :)

sznio• 3 years ago

That's same as an ISP I used in 2006. My internet access was 128k, but I could get warez from the local DC++ at gigabit speeds.

shockeychap2• 3 years ago

I believe it's supposed to be "U.S. Democrats", not "us Democrats".

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

On this site, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Shockingly to me, someone else in this thread writes how this is a conservative site... Well that guy must have a wildly different perspective from me!

daveoc64• 3 years ago

On a global scale, the Democrats in the US are extremely conservative.

"There are two major parties in America - a conservative party, and a very conservative party".

shockeychap2• 3 years ago

This feels a bit like arguing over the arrangement of the furniture as the house burns. The web is a hot mess of garbage SEO, ads, incendiary clickbait, and political echochambers. THIS is the thing that warrants fixing first?

ultra_nick2• 3 years ago

Are you arguing that freedom of speech doesn't matter because people can say bad things?

Andrex• 3 years ago

Was losing net neutrality as bad as we all feared?

No, not immediately. But safeguards are important to the future, and we want to prevent this particular slope from getting any more slippery.

Tempest1981• 3 years ago

"us Democrats" -> "US Democrats"

What a difference capitalization makes.

Or was it deliberate?

trinsic2• 3 years ago

I work closely with an ISP in my field. It seems to me that the biggest threat to customer choice is independent ISP's being able to provide service through the building out of the cable infrastructure, at least in northern California. Most municipalities have a grandfathered in cable network from ATT and Comcast, because of this they have been recently dictating how and when ISP can deploy their service.

Because of the democrat to republican administration change in the past, the rules have changed regarding line sharing and infrastructure build out. In many cases, the big players, who were previously prevented from interfering with other ISP's build-out, are now able to actively make it more difficult (costly) for independent ISP's from expanding their network.

If this continues, its going to put smaller ISP's out of business. So IMHO, this is more important that forcing the big players to play by the net neutrality rules in regards to throttling services, Id go so far as to say they are using that as red herring to distract people from the real problem. If there is no competition, you don't have anywhere to go when an ISP suddenly decides to do something that is anti-competitive.

readyplayernull• 3 years ago

Isn't Cloudfare a worst evil for net neutrality, to fight?

tivert3• 3 years ago

This is good, but it's so obvious this was a super low priority thing for the Democrats. It's been almost three years since they took power, and they let the FCC sit in an Ajit Pai-inspired limbo for most of that time. They hit a roadblock and just stopped for years instead of adapting.

sigmar• 3 years ago

They hit a roadblock and just stopped for years instead of adapting.

When did they stop? Gigi Sohn was nominated in 2021 and was repeatedly renominated until she withdrew this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigi_Sohn#FCC_nomination

tivert3• 3 years ago

When did they stop? Gigi Sohn was nominated in 2021 and was repeatedly renominated until she withdrew this year.

Exactly there. Instead of renominating her to perpetual failure, they should have nominated someone else. When they finally did the work to find another candidate, they actually got results. That should have happened years ago.

But it didn't and that either means they're insane (as in doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result) or the just don't care that much.

Terr_2• 3 years ago

It's been almost three years since they took power, and they let the FCC sit in an Ajit Pai-inspired limbo for most of that time.

There ought to be a name for this fallacy, like "alternating dictatorship single color lump-government."

Pretty much from day-one the Biden administration was trying to get a new FCC member to the understaffed commission, however with the slimmest possible 51-49 Senate majority it only takes one "blue dog" Democrat (or one heavily reliant on industry donations) to block it all. [0] That state of affairs continued until the latest attempt finally passed this month. [1]

[0] https://prospect.org/politics/democratic-majority-at-the-fcc...

[1] https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2023/9/cantwell-applauds-sen...

Terr_2• 3 years ago

Correction: "From day-one" is inaccurate, while there may have been informal legislator negotiations before, the formal nomination process for the seat vacated by Ajit Pai started in 10-2021 rather than 01-2021.

tivert3• 3 years ago

Pretty much from day-one the Biden administration was trying to get a new FCC member to the understaffed commission, however with the slimmest possible 51-49 Senate majority it only takes one "blue dog" Democrat (or one heavily reliant on industry donations) to block it all. [0]

They nominated the same person, over and over, who failed to get nominated each time. The failure is totally their fault if they nominate someone who can't get confirmed.

They should have learned to count votes and nominate someone who could get enough.

That state of affairs continued until the latest attempt finally passed this month. [1]

When they finally nominated someone different, someone who could get confirmed.

adolph• 3 years ago

Seems like the headline is misleading. The FCC is a tool of political will. Some politicians who will determine future FCC rule-making wish to reinstate net neutrality.

Seems like this back and forth could go on for some time. It would probably be better to come up with a solution that can supported across changes in control.

Given the discussion here it isn’t clear to me what the middle ground might be other than some scorched earth. Maybe net neutrality for consumer benefit only on a non discriminatory basis?

For example, a MVNO could not penalize any Internet traffic but they could offer a no capacity cap service as long as any other comparable service had the same access. Such a setup would probably be cause for a large number of lawyer billable hours which will make lawyers in both sides happy.

BurningFrog• 3 years ago

The internet developed without Net Neutrality.

2015-2017 there was Net Neutrality. 2018-2023 there was not.

Empirically, the disaster that Net Neutrality claims to avoid, is hard to observe.

eximius• 3 years ago

Ribbit.

xenadu023• 3 years ago

That is not correct at all. The internet developed with "net neutrality" because that's how ARPANET and later the internet had always worked. Peering agreements developed based on symmetrical traffic loads and providers regularly upgraded links as needed.

NN was originally imposed by the FCC because Verizon started blocking VPNs, requiring customers to pay for a "business" plan if they wanted VPN support. That was the first wide-scale break with internet tradition and it rightly freaked a lot of people out.

eindiran• 3 years ago

The internet developed with "net neutrality" because that's how ARPANET and later the internet had always worked.

OP is making a claim about de jure net neutrality, you are making a claim about de facto net neutrality.

TheCaptain48152• 3 years ago

Isn't the entire notion of NN outdated given the mass censorship that's sprung up the past 4-5 years?

Isn't it vastly more important to ensure free speech on the internet than the speed of your netflix stream. Seems like a misguided battle.

SV_BubbleTime9• 3 years ago

You should know a lot of the people you are asking that good question to, and the very people pushing for NN again are the people that saw no issue with the past 4-5 years because "the right people" were being censored.

In a more steelman argument, you could probably discuss that another form of censorship could always come in the form of a tier that only includes "approved sources" or throttling anyone deemed as "misinformation".

triceratops3• 3 years ago

Isn't it vastly more important to ensure free speech on the internet than the speed of your netflix stream

If they can slow down your Netflix stream, they can also impair others' access to your self-hosted blog. I can't think of a more direct, fundamental threat to free speech than that. It's the same as the power company turning off service to your printing press.

TheCaptain48152• 3 years ago

Who's "they"? Every ISP collaborating together to censor specific websites? Highly doubt that ever happens. Plus, companies like Starlink have made that practically impossible. Add in 5g internet options and I can't see how that could be practical. All of that has been added in the past 3-5 years too.

DrThunder• 3 years ago

These sorts of bills aren't necessary if you create an environment that provides enough competition. A lot of areas are getting more ISP's coming in and laying fiber which is forcing the big companies like ATT and Spectrum to compete. Imo the government stepping in is just another instance of them refusing to use the tools at their disposal to break up monopolies and instead inserting themselves into a position that gives them more power over the internet. As usual they create problems and then come up with MORE laws to fix the problems they've created, which inevitably leads to more issues down the road.

hedora6• 3 years ago

I'd rather they focus on universal broadband access:

1) Set a minimum 1th percentile download and upload speeds and 99th percentile RTTs, bucketed in 1 minute intervals over a 30 day period. If an ISP falls below that for more than 1% of customers, then they automatically lose any right of way exclusivity that they hold, and also are broken into a common carrier and retail group.

1a) Throttled / non-prioritized / blocked services count toward the SLA.

2) If a telco is not meeting the universal access requirements in an area, then their networks are automatically transferred to a telco that is meeting the requirements. The receiving telco must hold the infrastructure until it meets SLAs for 10 years. If all the local telcos fail, then ownership reverts to a locally-owned (no more than 100K subscribers) co-ops.

hn_acker2• 3 years ago

Net neutrality is gone, so why is the internet mostly the same (to people with money to spare for higher bandwidth tiers which are just as overpriced as the lower tiers)? Because STATES (Washington, Oregon, and California) passed net neutrality laws to partially compensate for the lack of regulation from the top [1].

But in the first place, net neutrality does nothing about affordability [2], subsidy fraud + corruption [3], deceptive pricing [4], and regulatory capture [5]. Net neutrality would be a relatively minor consequence of a competitive internet service market. In other words, net neutrality is a necessary outcome and nothing close to a sufficient condition.

[1] https://www.naruc.org/nrri/nrri-activities/net-neutrality-tr...

[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/what-low-income-people...

[3] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/19/senator-ted-cruz-pretend...

[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/fcc-says-too-bad...

[5] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/07/after-years-of-stupid-ga...

jscipione• 3 years ago

After us Democrats? I didn’t realize that Bloomberg were Democrats but I did realize that deceptive capitalization is a big problem on HN.

FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

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