F.C.C. to Try Again on Net Neutrality

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/fcc-to-propose-new-rules-on-open-internet.html?hp&_r=0

by 001sky • 12 years ago

135 137 12 years ago

MWil• 12 years ago

How can one tell if Netflix is purposely being throttled as opposed to it just being heavy traffic periods?

twoodfin4• 12 years ago

In my experience all recent Netflix slowness is a product of congestion at peering points between Netflix's ISPs (Cogent, Level 3) and the consumer broadband ISPs (Comcast, Verizon). There's a good article in the WSJ today on the dispute:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

This kind of dispute is not really anything a Network Neutrality regime as currently proposed could fix.

seanmcq• 12 years ago

There are a few interesting choices in your comment that make it appear to be an Astroturf:

1. You state that it is "your experience" that "all" recent Netflix slowness is a result of peering contract disputes. Unless you are a network operations engineer at one of these companies how could you have this experience?

2. You link to the WSJ, which is not a credible source when discussing big media companies.

That said, you may well be a real person, in which case I would recommend changing your wording on commonly astroturfed topics.

pwarner• 12 years ago

For super high bandwidth things (video today) it makes sense to serve as close to the end user as possible. This probably means putting the server in your ISP's network. This probably violates what most people think of as net neutrality. But it makes sense from a technical standpoint. I think net neutrality needs to update it's thinking to accommodate this model. Maybe what should be neutral is the pricing for putting a server inside the ISP's network? How do you treat the ISP's own video service? Force it to be a different company that pays the same as netflix to store a server there?

digikata• 12 years ago

There may be a technical differences between bad network performance due to some active throttling configuration in the network hardware, and bad network performance because a company doesn't want to make changes to a network interconnect. To the end user sees both cases as "throttling" in terms of poor performance.

Net Neutrality should be about how we come to terms with companies that are pure ISPs trying to deliver data their customers want vs companies that stand to increase profits and hurt competitors through active throttling or, in the peering case, simple inaction.

nostromo• 12 years ago

VPN into an AWS instance. If Netflix is faster, your ISP may be throttling.

twoodfin4• 12 years ago

First, most Netflix content isn't served from AWS, but from their CDNs running on a variety of ISPs (lately, a lot of Cogent).

Second, the VPN trick doesn't really tell you anything except that the end point of the VPN has a better path to Netflix's CDNs than the route your ISP is using. Your ISP doesn't have to act overloaded routes to the content, which they want Netflix to pay to upgrade.

runako4• 12 years ago

On that note, can anyone recommend a home router that can easily route all traffic through a proxy server?

This appears to be the only reliable way to stream video during peak hours in my neighborhood, and I'm done with my ISP's suggestion that the problem would go away if only I'd reboot my modem again.

dasmithii• 12 years ago

Although legal action against ISP censoring and monopolization sounds beneficial, I'd prefer that government entities remove themselves from open Internet pursuits entirely.

It should be by the people, for the people.

Karunamon• 12 years ago

"The people" don't have any power in this matter.

drcube2• 12 years ago

They can serve their own content while boycotting Time Warner's.

JackpotDen• 12 years ago

It should be by the people, for the people.

I agree, but I'm not sure how you can maintain these things without being owned by the people (govt) or a corp. I guess a regulatory body like the FCC then?

gtaylor4• 12 years ago

If internet service were a luxury product, I'd agree. However, an internet connection is every bit as important as having a phone (land or cell) these days.

Assuming we completely de-regulate, you'd still have municipal governments striking these anti-competitive monopoly deals. In fact, there'd be no barrier to it at all, since we're de-regulated in this case.

Don't like Comcast? Better not move to City A, because they "own" it, even though some of the fiber was paid for by the residents.

gojomo4• 12 years ago

If that's the problem, why not prohibit municipalities from creating local monopolies? Why have the FCC dictate limits on the design of network pricing and services everywhere, even where there are many options?

jwarkentin6• 12 years ago

That only works in places where a free market exists. In the case of ISPs there are generally very limited options and no room for new competitors. That being the case, we don't have much of a free market or opportunity for proper capitalism to govern the entities involved. In situations such as that, unfortunately, we need a governing entity to set some ground rules to protect the consumers.

gojomo4• 12 years ago

There's always room for new competitors, if that were the goal. About 20 years ago, almost no place had 'broadband' - only dial-up. Since then, most places have gained 2 or more wired broadband options, and 2 or more wireless options, that are all many multiples faster than dial-up.

The wireless technology keeps improving. New wired infrastructure can be run – as with Google Fiber or other initiatives. The sensors and robots for such installs also keep improving. And for sticky 'last mile' wire bottlenecks, sharing of that conduit could be required, or a 'minimal universal neutral' service option be required where there are no other options.

Instead, the FCC seeks to limit how all broadband services, everywhere, must work, to respond to an abuse threat that remains almost entirely theoretical. That itself is an anti-competition, anti-differentiation move. It also adds another lever of power by which the FCC's other regulatory tendencies – such as censoring indecency or enabling wiretapping – could be applied to the internet. (In the UK, Australia, and South Korea it is agencies like the FCC which maintain compulsory national internet black-lists.)

MBCook• 12 years ago

I thought the ruling said they didn't have the authority to do this without classifying ISPs as common carriers. If they're not going to do that (per the end of the article) then what changed that makes it legal this time?

gtaylor4• 12 years ago

I was wondering that myself. It's going to be very disappointing if these rules are just "suggestions".

lallysingh• 12 years ago

I took "The commission will not seek to immediately reclassify Internet service as a utility. Mr. Wheeler said that the commission will retain the right to do so, however, if its new rules are approved and appear not to be working adequately." to mean that they'll be using the utility-classification as a lingering threat if the ISPs don't follow along.

rhizome4• 12 years ago

It's odd to see utility status classified as a punishment for industry. Shouldn't it refer to the technology (water delivery, electricity, possibly internet) and its role in the customers' lives?

gz5• 12 years ago

FCC can help open up local access ISP competition. Spectrum reform, permitting dynamic sharing of existing spectrum, etc.

Anything else is a band-aid on top of an injury (the ISP monopolies) that actually requires surgery.

wmf2• 12 years ago

Any form of wireless seems like a band-aid compared to wired broadband.

jfasi• 12 years ago

Just to be clear, this approach is awesome and completely correct. However, it's important to remember that this policy isn't stable. It's liable to change with the FCC chairman. Should the next administration choose to regulate ISPs more loosely, these gains will be reversed.

The only solution is for Congress to pass these regulations and enshrine net neutrality as a fundamental principle of internet regulation.

jwarkentin6• 12 years ago

Or we can replace the internet with a mesh net and solve the problem of regulation, centralized control and ISPs altogether :)

samelawrence2• 12 years ago

This sentence blows my mind, and I don't know enough to understand it. Could someone helpful point me to a relevant Wiki article or something to help me grok how this could be possible?

lrem4• 12 years ago

As someone who spent his PhD in a building with people working on mesh nets I just want to ask one question:

Would you accept return to text-only communication, not always instantaneous?

If so, mesh nets are there for us.

ck2• 12 years ago

Did you just suggest Congress would actually pass laws to protect consumers? lol

Actually, lol at just passing laws, Congress didn't do anything but name post offices the past year.

The only regulation we are going to get in the next decade is anything that can do an end-run around congress.

sonnyz• 12 years ago

I agree that Congress sucks, but their website shows they enacted 79 whole laws in 2013. These include the "Small Airplane Revitalization Act of 2013" and the "Freedom to Fish Act".

eck• 12 years ago

I worry that the rules will forbid ISPs from having explicit whitelists/blacklists, but will do nothing to prevent them from having undersized and saturated transit links then demand payment for peering with content providers like Netflix.

What would happen if consumer ISPs were required, for each customer, to choose a single point (at the metro level, probably) where they are required to peer openly? That allow all Netflix-like companies access to customers, but since it's a point local to the customer, would not impose any long-distance bandwidth requirement on the ISP.

zacinbusiness3• 12 years ago

I wonder how this sort of thing will affect Google's fiber offerings. Say what you will about Google (I don't trust them, but I don't trust anyone...including YOU!) but they run one hell of a tight ship and they are aggressive when it comes to their business interests (note G+ integrations with all other GOOG services).

If Google Fiber comes to an area that's controlled by TimeCast (ComWarner?) will Google enter into an aggressive pricing war? I mean there were rumors several years ago that they intended to license the dead air waves to use as free internet. And I'd let Google inject ads into my browser if it meant getting that insane bandwidth - especially if it's for free.

giantrobothead• 12 years ago

I don't support the merger, but I do support your coinage of the title TimeCast. Make it so!

massysett2• 12 years ago

Negatively. A heavy regulatory burden will raise Google's costs to enter into this business. In particular, any last-mile network that Google would build would be much less valuable to Google if the government requires Google to be "net neutral." Of course Google wants to discriminate in favor of its traffic--and why shouldn't it? It built the network!

Government enforcement of "net neutrality" is a great idea if we want to cement the role of the incumbent operators.

wmf2• 12 years ago

Discrimination does nothing in a network with no congestion. I hope Google isn't planning to operate a congested network.

joe_the_user• 12 years ago

Your post seems confused.

There's nothing in a net neutrality demand that would change Google's costs as such. One might argue that neutrality might impact Google's potential profits - but since Google already has such a large portion of the net's traffic, it's main business model has involved a neutral net and they have been a strong advocate. Since they profit from a large portion of Internet traffic, their aim has been to increase this traffic to thus increase their profits (IE, the ability to shake-down Netflix is not worth anywhere as much as the other ways Google makes money - see: "world's largest advertising company").

On the other hand, some of their motive for entering the ISP business has been make sure the current operators respect net neutrality and don't engaging in sleazy that exploit their monopoly (throttling, ad-substitution, etc). If net neutrality were guaranteed, Google might feel less urgency in entering this business. On the other hand, they aren't doing this at a loss so they may well continue.

Also, Google has a vast internal network that carries it's internal traffic. This network isn't part of the Internet at all and won't be affected ever by net neutrality issues.

etler• 12 years ago

If the FCC classifies a carrier as a common carrier, does that apply just to the service, or also to the infrastructure itself? If cable companies were made into a common carrier would cable television also have the same regulations applied to it?

brownbat• 12 years ago

I feel like I could sort of wrap my head around Net Neutrality in a world with just content providers and ISPs.

Once people start talking about CDNs and peering agreements, and all those massive middleman infrastructures most consumers don't even know exist, this issue gets orders of magnitude more complex. It seems unregulatable.

What is Netflix supposed to do if Verizon just passes data around its network to keep it "full" all the time and refuses to open up good datalines to Netflix CDNs? What is the network supposed to do if a major data provider ends up choking the lines just to move from one endpoint to the other, not even stopping at customers?

I doubt any rules would work here except for actual enforcement of anti-monopoly regulations on a locality by locality basis. Maybe Netflix needs to start rolling out fiber and competing directly with ISPs (most of them are already competing by providing content anyway).

x00543• 12 years ago

They need to regulate ISPs as common carriers. Anything short of that will result in ISPs constantly lobbing to get more say, until they get what they want. We can NOT rely on the free market to sort the ISPs out because there is 0 competition in that market.

craftkiller• 12 years ago

While I agree that right now there is zero competition in that market, the reason is because we didn't let the free market decide. We gave government approved monopolies to them and now we're seeing the consequences.

superuser• 12 years ago

Correct

x00543• 12 years ago

What does a market with competition looks like? 20 cables from 20 different ISPs hanging outside my window? ISP is a utility, like water, electricity, and gas. Maybe once we have good wireless technology it would be different.

F.C.C. to Try Again on Net Neutrality

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