Los Angeles Becomes First US City to Outlaw Digital Discrimination

https://themarkup.org/still-loading/2024/02/01/los-angeles-becomes-first-us-city-to-outlaw-digital-discrimination

by jyunwai • 2 years ago

27 94 2 years ago

I'm guessing the reasoning for offering worse service is not because the ISP's are actually mustache twirling racists, but because there are economic factors that make it more profitable to do so. Anyone know what those might be?

gottorf11• 2 years ago

I'd imagine that people living in lower-income neighborhoods generally pay for lower-tier services, which lowers profitability for any given provider, and also lowers the incentive for other providers to come in and compete, which would lower prices for everyone.

infecto4• 2 years ago

I was thinking about this too. Could it be these neighborhoods have older infrarstructure with slower speeds and when companies price products its standardized on pricing across a region based on tiering and not the actual throughput? Like Tier 1 in new infrarstructure is faster than Tier 1 on old infrarstructure. Along those lines, maybe it just costs the same amount to support an old DSL connection as it does to support a modern fiber/cable hookup?

I don't have an answer to the problem but I am not sure forcing pricing standards is the answer. Seems like it would be better to just handle it locally and build city owned internet as well.

galago• 2 years ago

I feel like it could be as simple as people poorer neighborhoods trying to buy the cheapest data/tv plan. In some countries this would be considered a necessity like electricity/sewer/water so from that perspective LA perhaps should force the ISPs to provide the same service all over the city.

no_wizard• 2 years ago

One I'm willing to guess is the monopoly / duopoly of ISP providers in nearly all US neighborhoods means its less profitable to provide better service when there aren't alternatives to begin with

jtr1• 2 years ago

It gets lost in the culture wars, but as I understand it, the whole point of the concept of “structural racism” was that mustache-twirling racists aren’t required for modern laws and policies to have a targeted, negative effect on specific minorities. A legacy of historical racism can set the stage for the intended effects to metastasize and remain as generational problems.

onlyrealcuzzo3• 2 years ago

Okay - but why do ISPs need to fix racism and not everyone else like grocery stores and gas stations?

Should Erewhon be forced to operate equally in neighborhoods of different diversity - even if they clearly appeal to a certain type of customer?

Why should ISPs invest evenly / charge evenly if it doesn't make sense for them?

The funny thing about good business people is - they're usually more interested in making money than being racist (obviously there are exceptions).

gottorf11• 2 years ago

the whole point of the concept of “structural racism” was that mustache-twirling racists aren’t required for modern laws and policies to have a targeted, negative effect on specific minorities

You cannot have a targeted negative effect without mustache-twirling racists; what you have instead is an incidental negative effect. I discussed this elsewhere in the thread, but the "disparate impact" clauses of various civil rights legislation attempt to deal with precisely this -- cases when in the absence of any intent to discriminate along protected lines, nevertheless an outcome arises that impact those protected groups differently.

I posit that this part of civil rights legislation is fundamentally flawed, because it is basically not impossible that any policy or action, public or private, impacts all subgroups of a population in equal measure. Make a law regulating taxis? There's a disparate impact on men, who are 85% of all cab drivers. NFL negotiates player pay? There's a disparate impact on black people, who comprise over half of the players. Covid policies close ski resorts in Colorado? There's a disparate impact on white people, who are the overwhelming majority of both people who work at ski resorts as well as those who visit. In none of those cases is there an intent to cause protected groups to be affected differently, but they are.

phpisthebest• 2 years ago

>Anyone know what those might be?

A simple resolution would be that the physical infrastructure in some area does not support the same speed as in other areas, and it more economically feesable to upgrade in area where the average bill is higher than in area's where the overage bill is lower. The ROI is clear

waterheater• 2 years ago

Might have to do with demand in those neighborhoods. An financially-constrained person living in a major city in 2024 will have two main choices for an Internet-connected device: laptop or smartphone. These days, the smartphone is the obvious choice. Paying for cell service lets you use the phone around town and at home, whereas paying for home internet is quite restricted.

An ISP usually has a neighborhood hub where local lines connect and feed into the broader infrastructure. I'm betting that ISPs have a pricing model using a "neighborhood utilization ratio" factor, calculated as houses-served-in-neighborhood over total-number-of-houses-in-neighborhood. To cover known network infrastructure expenses (equipment replacement, technician labor costs, etc.), the pricing needs to work out, but low service demand in a given service area for the same infrastructure requires those fixed costs be borne by the few people using the service.

Many infrastructure services typically are more expensive in a rural area, presumably due to this effect but spread over a larger geographic area because population density is lower.

intalentive• 2 years ago

Basically, the providers don’t want to build new infrastructure where they may not recoup their costs.

From the original report:

“They’ve made a decision that those neighborhoods are going to be treated differently,” said Callahan. “The core reason for that is they think they don’t have enough money in those neighborhoods to sustain the kind of market they want.”

lotsofpulp4• 2 years ago

Why is why the correct solution here is wired fiber internet being a taxpayer funded utility.

But as I mentioned in another comment, this might manifest in higher taxes for the top percentiles, whereas a policy of requiring the business to help the poor allows the burden of the subsidy to be paid by the middle income deciles via higher prices for the business’s services.

toast02• 2 years ago

The city of Los Angeles has a perhaps surprising, non-compact boundary [1], and the local conditions vary significantly.

Some areas are served by underground utilities which means change is much more expensive. For AT&T which is called out specifically, there's a lot of different access technologies, and wireline distance and quality and quantity of lines is a major factor in service quality. There's a lot of older neighborhoods in the area, which have had increased density over time and may not have enough good wiring in the street / on the poles to offer dual pair services. Running new wires or fiber is expensive, and is only economical if the take-up rate will meet some minimum. Servicing multifamily buildings is more expensive/difficult because the utility needs to coordinate with the building owner and wiring from the units to the utility area may not be sufficient for newer technology.

AT&T's access technology needs more outside equipment, and it's harder to find locations to install it in denser areas where buildings are often built closer to lot lines, especially in older areas with small sidewalks and no grass frontage strips.

[1] https://data.lacity.org/widgets/ppge-zfr4?mobile_redirect=tr...

gottorf11• 2 years ago

no one should be charged more based on their neighborhood

Isn't it a fact that it will be more or less costly to roll out service in different neighborhoods? Everything will differ, including the local labor pool, the distance from the central station, etc. It makes about as much sense as decreeing that all grocery store items in LA should be priced exactly the same, or that all gas stations in LA must have the same priced gasoline.

The article refers to a recent FCC ruling on "disparate impact" (without intent). To me, that's the greatest flaw of all civil rights laws, one that causes government encroachment upon every facet of American life. Literally everything causes disparate impact.

lotsofpulp4• 2 years ago

It is cheaper to make laws like this than to actually help poor people by giving them cash or services, which would cause an increase in taxes.

You can lay more of the burden on the upper middle and middle income deciles (since the costs are spread implicitly via costs to comply with regulation and liability avoidance), and avoid taxing the top percentiles, which really would require a broad wealth (or property) tax. Or alternatively, much higher land value taxes which hit the top percentiles too.

RHSeeger• 2 years ago

You can lay more of the burden on the upper middle and middle income deciles

This seems like it just means everyone will pay whatever the highest cost for anyone is. Doesn't seem like it burden's the middle more than anyone else.

umvi3• 2 years ago

Cash and services just helps the symptoms though. Addressing the root cause involves educating the poor somehow so that they have the skills to be more financially self reliant and the ability to avoid traps (lottery, debt, etc).

Being poor (long term, i.e. across generations) actually has little to do with how much money is currently in your bank account and everything to do with how much knowledge is in your mind. That's why you could take a highly paid [insert profession], take every penny and possession of theirs and dump them on the street penniless and homeless, and they wouldn't stay poor for very long if they didn't want to.

mulmen4• 2 years ago

Yes, the deployment cost will vary if you draw enough lines. But higher charges in poor neighborhoods doesn’t mean that’s where the highest costs are. Wealthy neighborhoods with large property and low density could have a higher per-home infrastructure cost. All that trenching adds up.

LA is drawing one line at the city limit so there’s only one cost. All customers will pay an equal share of the total cost.

This allocation is a matter of perspective but neighborhood boundaries are a classic tool of oppression. Similar to toll roads and bus fares. It costs a lot to be poor.

Famously AT&T was required to offer local service at a loss to maintain their monopoly. This seems consistent.

Society benefits when everyone has access to basic services.

fragmede2• 2 years ago

Municipal broadband is what needs to happen. Water, electricity, and garbage are considered basic services and are provided by the government, so should Internet access be.

oh_sigh2• 2 years ago

Why would a company choose to charge less to wealthy people, and more to poor people?

dogman1448• 2 years ago

As a presumably technical poster, I have a hard time understanding your comparison between

- the internet, through which most of all civil life and beyond flows

- grocery stores and gas stations.

The internet is a public utility at this point. You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah.

bigbillheck2• 2 years ago

You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah.

I'm certain there's plenty of people here would agree with that.

gottorf11• 2 years ago

You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage

Nowhere did I make that claim. I'm simply saying that if a service costs differently to provide in different areas, then it's reasonable to expect different prices paid by the consumer. Of course, you can also make a valid argument that certain kinds of services should cost the same everywhere in the overwhelming interest of public benefit; kind of like how it costs one stamp to send a letter whether it goes from your house to the next house over, or from Florida to Alaska. But it doesn't mean that the former position is automatically unreasonable or discriminatory.

I'm also having a hard time understanding the proposition that internet access is more vital than food and transportation.

lupusreal4• 2 years ago

Do you really think the government should be obliged to offer water and sewage service to all neighborhoods, let alone for the same price? The price to hook up will obviously depend on local circumstance and in a sizable minority of cases the price would be so prohibitive that it isn't done at all! 15% of American homes get their water from private wells instead of a utility. Even more use septic systems instead of having a connection to a sewage utility.

ineptech2• 2 years ago

This is a kludge because we don't have the actual solution to keeping prices low, which is market competition. No one wants the government to tell big companies what to do, but when you let a monopolist take over you're stuck with either consumers getting screwed or burdensome regulation, which are both bad.

Same deal with net neutrality. In a healthy market we'd have it naturally, without laws prescribing it. We don't have a healthy market, so here we are. And there's no greater gift to the monopolists than the position you're taking.

Snowfield9571• 2 years ago

So the "real" solution is market competition right to make a healthy market- how do we get that? History has repeatedly shown that large corporations hate competition because it means they have to do something to make money. Anyone who comes up with a new idea is just copied or consumed. Sounds to me like the idea that a "free market" is a healthy market is only healthy for the owners of large corporations.

mplewis• 2 years ago

It doesn’t matter what it costs. The internet is so fundamental to daily life that it should be considered a basic right. Access should be provided for free to everyone.

gottorf11• 2 years ago

It doesn’t matter what it costs

Everything has diminishing returns. Of course it matters what it costs, no matter what "it" is.

it should be considered a basic right

Many people disagree that positive rights (that require something to be provided to the right-bearer by the state at the expense of others) are on the same level as negative rights (that forbid the state from imposing some restriction or penalty on the right-bearer), or should indeed even be considered "rights".

dogman1448• 2 years ago

Not sure on the free part but yes, it’s a public utility no matter how tech hems and haws- good luck navigating civil life without a smart phone, for instance.

And on top of that originally developed by the govt, then handed over private sector, and then 20 yrs of effort forced everyone to run their lives through it. But definitely not like a utility, at all.

The audacity to treat it like a market good vs as a public utility astounds me.

LeifCarrotson• 2 years ago

One of the things that causes disparate impact is the fact that as little as 50 years ago, my white parents bought a house in a white neighborhood that my black coworker's parents were prohibited from buying by racist redlining policies.

Today, in 2023, my mother can do WFH consulting in her retirement in part because she can reliably run an HD low-latency video stream, because their neighborhood has fiber and cheap, high-bandwidth service. But my coworker's parents have hugely oversubscribed cable and no fiber options and can't make a video call out because they have negligible upload.

Removing the policy, even all these years later, doesn't change the fact that the policy still has a hugely disparate impact.

The red lines are still there in the exact same places, it's just not on an FHA insurance map denoted by "white" or "not white", it's on a fiber coverage map and says "fiber" or "no fiber".

gottorf11• 2 years ago

I do not dispute the past existence of actual race-based discrimination on the part of the government, but it doesn't change my argument. My broader point re: "disparate impact" is that it's virtually impossible, in this country or elsewhere (even in places that have been historically monoethnic), to not have any action, whether public or private, that impacts different subgroups within that population differently.

The FCC's ruling (mentioned in the article) piggybacks off of the disparate impact clauses of the various civil rights legislation[0], which says that even when there is no intent to discriminate, any action taken by any entity that results in a difference of outcome along protected lines (whether it be race, sex, etc.) is considered to be a discriminatory action. Which, upon examination of available evidence, ends up meaning that every action taken by every entity can be considered discriminatory, since nothing in life affects every subgroup of a population in equal proportion to their composition of the population.

But back to the point of internet access: I submit that it's a better solution to remove the impediments (of which there are many, in this highly-regulated sector of the economy) to some enterprising person coming along and rolling out fiber service in your coworker's neighborhood, than to order private businesses to essentially ignore economic realities on the ground. Heck, I would consider a publicly-funded ISP in LA to be a vastly lesser evil, because to routinely ignore economic realities eventually leads to famine and ruin.

As I noted in another thread, you can have the USPS mail a letter for you for the price of one stamp, whether it goes from your house to your neighbor's house or from Florida all the way to Alaska. That's an example of something that explicitly ignores the underlying economic reality (that it costs way, way more to do the latter than the former) because A) the USPS is a government agency that B) has a government-granted monopoly on letters and C) serves the public good. UPS or FedEx, on the other hand, will charge you vastly different sums depending on (among other things) how far your package is going. I find ISPs to be more like UPS and FedEx than USPS. They're for the most part not government agencies and are generally not monopolies[1].

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/Disparate_impact

[1]: Of course, a duopoly can be as bad as a monopoly in terms of internet access. I'd be in favor of something like a public utility that owns the lines, and have competing providers serve access over those lines.

renewiltord• 2 years ago

California has tried these kinds of equality laws before. The net effect in the insurance industry is that many homes just have no insurance rather than receiving higher prices. This is going to be interesting to see. We have wireless internet now so maybe they're competing with a cheap to deliver fully-trackable internet service and the outcomes will be different.

infecto4• 2 years ago

Thats my concern. Why not just pull out of a neighborhood/region then?

bombcar3• 2 years ago

That's exactly what happens, once the cost of providing service becomes higher than the expected revenue.

Now there is some pressure the state/city can provide (you can't serve ANYONE in LA until you serve EVERYONE at the same price points) but at some point the whole thing is unprofitable and the companies disappear.

Literally just happened with home insurance.

oh_sigh2• 2 years ago

I can't speak specifically but a lot of times, part of their charter is that they need to provide service across all areas in order to get the permission to provide any service.

nonrandomstring4• 2 years ago

In Finland, Internet access is considered a basic human right. When working there a few years ago I found that any homeless person in Helsinki has better connectivity than I have in the UK for £40/mo

Anyway according to TFA:

   Its so important for everyone to have broadband access for full
   participation in modern society and no one should be charged more
   based on their neighborhood

How very US American to interpret it only through the lens of cost.

We can do much better than talk about the "affordable internet".

That's why I wrote this:

https://news.tuxmachines.org/n/2023/03/06/Microsoft_is_Not_a...

Digital Discrimination is multi-faceted, and it applies to all kinds of groups who for reasons of mobility, neuro-diversity, ethics and more, are excluded or marginalised.

   Since Los Angeles has never codified exactly what digital
   discrimination means, the legislation asked city officials to
   strongly consider using the Federal Communication Commission's
   definition of the term.

Plenty of room there to include people who choose to protect their security and morals but are discriminated against for those choices.

slibhb• 2 years ago

Depending on where you live in the US, you can get free cell phone/internet if you're poor enough. E.g. https://www.assurancewireless.com/lifeline-services/states/d...

fragmede2• 2 years ago

the lesser known Obama phone program provided cellphones to the poor because Internet access is requisite for access to government services in this day and age.

wang_li3• 2 years ago

and no one should be charged more based on their neighborhood

Then the city should be obligated to lock up vandals and refined materials thieves. It's bullshit to tell a network provider they have to provide the same service at the same cost to an area where they have to re-lay hundreds of meters of copper every week.

Plenty of room there to include people who choose to protect their security and morals but are discriminated against for those choices.

Society should not be obligated to adapt to a crazy person who is only willing to communicate by passing notes via dumbwaiter and only using pseudonyms.

nonrandomstring4• 2 years ago

should not be obligated to adapt to a crazy person who is only willing to

Actually yes it should and that's why we have non-discriminatory laws (the subject of the article) in the first place. In civilised countries we do that in order to avoid what John Stuart-Mill called the tyranny of the majority. But since you already see these minorities as "crazy" I hold out scant hope for your love of other people. I even think the US even has some constitutional basis for the Protection of Minority Rights.

sgift• 2 years ago

Then the city should be obligated to lock up vandals and refined materials thieves.

Uh .. aren't these things illegal? Last time I checked people who do crimes are usually taken by the police.

Solvency• 2 years ago

Good luck enforcing this. California's laundry list of poorly executed "good intent" acts continues.

maxcan• 2 years ago

Exactly. The mostly likely outcome is providers just pulling out of poorer neighborhoods or even the whole city (if forced).

happytiger• 2 years ago

This is the wrong approach. This lets politicians decide. The right approach is to make Internet access universal human right.

infecto4• 2 years ago

This is feel good legislation that will be hard to implement. If LA wanted to actually solve this they should start an LA public service internet. I think it’s ok to say it’s a right to have internet access but if you are, you need to back it up and not put it on the burden of a commercial entity to follow that plan.

rappatic• 2 years ago

The source of the problem is the near-monopoly most ISPs have and the high barrier to entry for a new ISP wanting to enter the market. It makes it difficult for the market to self-regulate here.

RecycledEle• 2 years ago

I dated a girl more then 20 years ago who was on food stamps, and had a supposedly state-subsidized Internet account. She was paying more than I was for a slower DSL connection while we lived walking distance from each other. We both lived in apartment complexes.

Having said that, it is reasonable to charge more base rate when someone is likely to not pay their bills on time. Companies hate late payers and non-payers.

atlgator• 2 years ago

So in the short term the higher-end areas will pay disproportionately more to fund new infrastructure in the lower-end areas. But in the long term, the value of the lower-end will rise as a result of the improvements and we'll be back here talking about gentrification, skyrocketing rents, and how people can no longer afford them.

Los Angeles Becomes First US City to Outlaw Digital Discrimination

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