Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

The FCC is poised to "deregulate" internet access by repealing the net neutrality rules. In the name of "deregulation," the FCC will permit private regulation of what we can access. The door is also opened to provide tiered service -- the $30 bundle; the $60 bundle; and the $90 dollar bundle or whatever number the provider attaches. It looks like internet providers will now have two streams of income -- one from the us users and another from websites that seek preference. Anyway you look at it, we users will come out losers.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/technology/fcc-net-neutrality.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/21/the-fcc-has-unveiled-its-plan-to-rollback-its-net-neutrality-rules/?utm_term=.0b363b67c0e6


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/20/what-to-know-about-the-fccs-upcoming-plan-to-undo-its-net-neutrality-rules/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.0dc1fa1daaf2

Good riddance to false security at the risk of liberty.

Gee I wonder what Dubyagee had to say on this topic. Too bad his ISP decided to filter out his post so nobody else can see it except for him. Oh well that's what happens when you let the ISPs be the gate keepers. Yay for freedumbs and deregulation.

I don't catch your drift.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

Regulating the web under the pretense of corporations throttling and controlling access is dishonest. How much has the government helped the power grid, Telephone or any infrastructure. They live in comfy million dollar houses though.

Crooks and thieves will stop crooks and thieves.

They see a tax revenue and want in. Like the freeloading ticks they are.

Security of what? Or whom?

I think you will come to regret this comment when you find out what limits are placed on your access for a price from the private sector.

Bad idea.

Doubt it

Windstream tried that throttling crap and got sued. Had to upgrade everyone by court order.


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On what basis would they get sued after elimninating net neutrality regulations? You are applauding the elimination of the rules that prevent such an occurance.

They got sued for breach of contract. Without any net neutrality lies.

They want nets ,alot of nets, to pull up all those trillions of dollars the marketing giants digest over this fat cow.It will only sicken our need for an alternative source ,which maybe already in the works .Alot of smoke and mirrors folks are played upon us through what we really dont pay much attention too ,commercials .You need this are want that ,its all subject to how its feed to you the consumer .We need to start by pin pointing the directive.If marketing giants want to use the govt to take the NET and dice it up,UNITE AGAINST PRODUCTS that do business in this commerce before its in place.We are already screen pinged all the time with adds ,look at your monitor screen as it is right know ,the cost of that add you see will be paid to a group and you are aware know what its all about ,$$$$$.All sites have embraced this over the years,its part of the highway now ,the new part is they want you to pay for the roadsigns.

Can you specify some of these lies?

A breach of contract means their legal team didn't write their terms well. If they are already trying to throttle, do you think their terms and conditions v.2 doesn't have a few edits in it? You can't be this naive.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

They oversold their network. Throttled their modems. I was in in the suit. Your the naive one thinking NN is for our own good.

For you to say a breach of contract means their lawyers wrote it up wrong implies it was a scam and they just happened to get caught.

Im sure they have written their new contract ironclad but the damage has been done. Their name is Mudd. Comcast is building as is ATT. They had it sewn up and the free market set them straight.

Their new contract states speeds up to xxx *

*Network traffic permitting

Still doesnt mean they are litigation proof like our government is.

Explain why.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

You seriously think letting a corrupt government control a corrupt corporate base is solving anything? You know "providers" will provide what the market demands. This NN locks out competition and converts the internet into a good ole boy network.

Have you tried starting an ISP lately? I'm all for scaled reform or exceptions for municipal services for the few little guys out there.

Overall it's cutting off your nose to spite your face. We should open the doors to exploitative and preferential tiering for the sake of a couple ISPs with no market share. Since you loved getting screwed by your ISP I guess it only makes sense to remove an additional protection from them doing it again.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

When has this "screwing" occurred?

You have twice implied I'm naive or stupid. I am about done talking to an abusive ass because I dont agree with you.

Classy. The screwing is from having your internet throttled, while paying for better service...as evidenced by being resolved with the class action suit.

Resolved without Net Neutrality

Correct. But it sets a pretty damning precedent of stiffing their customers for the sake of a few bucks.

It did and cost them big for it.

Not big enough.

You really don't have a clue how the internet works do you? Typical of Repblicans in general it seems. Ultimately there was probably no chance of intelligence prevailing with the morons currently running congress. This being the USA, the robber barons will prevail. It's one of the few times in my life I've bother to "write my congressman". In this case Jeff Flake. Who actually replied to my e-mail, essentially saying "**** you, I'm with corporate profit."

- Peter.

I know how it works regardless of your judgmental and ignorant statement.

The "robber barons" are on both sides of the aisle. They put themselves into every money stream and love those who think each side is for them.

Clearly not.

- Peter.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

Oh please. Insult your way through life.

Please explain how it all works and how it has worked up to now.

Its a utility if your side runs it. Its a monopoly if not. Got it.

Sounds about right.

It was not invented by US companies. It was not developed by US companies. The US does not have a monopoly on it's development nor frankly on it's greatest efficiency. Moving into the future it behooves the United States of America to maintain the equality and equability with which the internet has always been infused. If that means some of richest US corporations don't have such outsized profits, then so be it. US corporations have proven themselves no friends of the USA or it's citizens and I see no reason to allow them to eff this up as they have most of the rest of the economy. If you simply see this as which provider should be allowed to make the greatest profit with the most extensive monopoly you are nothing more than a shill for the clowns who flushed the economy down the toilet a decade ago.

- Peter.

Comcast loves you. So does Verizon. Just call their customer service lines. They'll tell you every time!

Well, sure beats getting offended through life.

So far there has been lots of thunder but no light.

Perhaps instead of titting each others' tats you could make a case for your perspective?

Fair enough. Which should we trust more, a big money ISP who already has questionable business practices and ethics, or politicians who have questionable practices and ethics? Way I see it is the less absolute power we give either of them, the less likely they are to abuse it, or at least will have a bit more eyesight towards abuse. Put them at odds and neither win.

Also as I said, I think municipalities and small providers should get an exception. That would be great for the ones complaining about overhead (literally the only argument against NN far as I've heard) while securing consumer protections. I believe access to information is key to our future as a society.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

The big money ISPs are in on the scam. It would shut down competition so they could divi up the market like cable and cell providers do and price fix to their hearts content. Politicians want in for the taxes they swear wont happen.

The fear mongering over free access is made up.

An answer to a problem that never was.


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Can you define how internet service is fundamentally different from cable or cell service and should be treated differently? Fwiw, cable tv has been completely disrupted by streaming services.

He has no clue, but I can tell you. Municipalities allow wire companies to run their services along public rights of way. The ONLY "rent" they can collect for this priceless access is from cable TV service, in the form of cable franchise fees. Telephone is a different class of service. For telephone, the municipality can recover the costs of providing 911 service and regulators can recover their costs. But under current federal and state rules, "data service", including video provided via Internet access, rides for free. Got it? Three classes of service are delivered on the same physical connection: one pays for the right of way, one pays for certain police and regulatory services, and the third pays zip.

The wire line companies have both feared and coveted the "free ride" enjoyed by Internet video. In theory, it allows "cord cutters" to access video services more cheaply than traditional cable. As cord cutting has become more popular, the various providers of Internet video have been gradually increasing their charges, in effect, collecting the municipality's rent as their own profit. The customer pays about the same, or even more if the service is unbundled. But the municipality loses it's revenue.

With net neutrality, the cable company really couldn't move into the cord cutter market in any major way, because it's product would be undifferentiated. But remove net neutrality, and they can dip into the revenue of the independent video sources. That frees them to offer Internet video to cord cutters and capture the "municipality rent". Competitors could do the same, BUT they would also have to pay a premium to the cable company. The cost can only be passed to their customers. So the cable company would take the municipality's rent and part of their competitors revenue. That's why AT&T has invested in DirectTV. And that's what this is all about. The big losers will be municipalities (because residual CATV customers will be migrated to net video) and individual consumers. And the alternative providers will be priced out of their own market. Repealing net neutrality is about as anti-competitive as it gets.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

Sure Frank, assume I don't. It changes nothing. The infrastructure was already there and its being used in a way it was not designed at the fault of the designers. Data can also be transmitted over the air.

The "rides for free" doesn't apply if existing networking is being used and isn't being interrupted. I pay for my power and phone to be connected to my house. What I do with it is irrelevant. So your saying anyone who has a server in their house should have to pay access fees? They already are. To the phone and power companies.

Take it from the "utilities" perspective (as Dubyagee has pointed out is really a legal monopoly granted by the government to a company).

As a freemarketeer, I don't mind monopolies at all except when they play footsie with the government. You know, when a private company (say, Ma Bell) is granted special privileges. Is it any wonder the glacial pace of innovation under Ma Bell, and the fantastic explosion of communication since the breakup?

So that's my bias. Free market. So yeah, I do have a side.

OTOH, I find the argument about net neutrality not so simple to understand. Media companies are getting into the provider business and providers are getting into media.

Somebody once tried to explain it to me as a pipeline, in which the pipeline company squirts whatever product at some price per unit pumped. As I understand the argument, net neutrality wants all product pumped at the same rate and price while the other folks want the pipeline to set prices based on market demand.

Is that a fair description?

Given that it has nothing to do with what "the internet" is and has been since it's conception its not a description at all.

- Peter.

So substitute a better analogy. And/or describe where the above analogy fails

Asserting it is wrong is easy.

The best analogy would be as what it always was concieved of. An information superhighway. Analagous to the autobahn or interstate. Users of which are presented with a level playing field because no particular entity is allowed to grab ownership of them. That will not be the case with the repeal of net neutrality when the internet ceases to exist and becomes the private preserve of profit driven corporations.

- Peter.

Repeal of Net Neutrality
 

It has always been at the control of companies who provide access. It was "the internet" then as it will always be. No supervision required. Fear mongering is all this NN is.

The data belongs to the authors. The infrastructure is already there. This "super highway" exists because of the people using it. You make it sound like its all going to collapse without the governments help.

No, market demand has nothing whatsoever to do with setting access rates. In your model, imagine that the pipeline company is a common carrier, with a legal obligation to provide transport to all comers. But it also owns most of the oil wells. With "pipeline neutrality", the pipeline company has to set the public rate to be comparable to it's internal chargeback rate. Without "pipeline neutrality", the pipeline company can use it's rate structure to crush the business of competing oil producers.

By accident of history and technology, a wireline provider delivers it's own products...telephone and TV, on the same physical wire as Internet. For decades, phone and TV paid the cost of the wire, and net connection was just a bit of added revenue. The regulatory regime that's grown over the last 70 years or so barely addresses net services, and so cost recoveries are an afterthought. But technology and bandwidth now allow TV and phone to be delivered over the net, and companies like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and Vonage have been providing phone and CATV replacement services. That's called competition. But every customer that turns away from traditional telephone or CATV threatens the revenue and cost structure of the physical network, that's the other side of competition. So the wireline provider wants to recapture that revenue, and the way they want to do it is to use access pricing to increase their competitor's cost. Repeal of net neutrality allows them to do that, it's about as anti-competitive as it gets. If you're really a free marketer, then you should be outraged.

(As a side note, there are no legal monopolies. It was recognized in the 20's that telephone networks devolve naturally into defacto monopolies because interconnection is difficult, plant is expensive and the customer pool is finite. So a regulatory regime was established where the phone companies were gently treated from the viewpoint of anti-trust, but rates were set in an adversarial hearing process. In fact, there was never a legal guarantee against anti-trust prosecution, see MCI vs ATT, Carterphone, etc)

I see what you mean. But I think the highway analogy fails because Interstates are public property and networks are not. Isn’t that correct? Well, I guess if we include the electromagnetic spectrum then we know that the gov regulated aspects of the EM. I guess that is analogous to the highway. But wait, I’m losing track here. What is analogous to the provider?

No, the interstate fails.

What was wrong with the pipeline analogy?

thanks for the detailed explanation. I have not thought that deeply. It will take time.

Concerning utilities vs monopoly, what you wrote is an explanation of why the government grants a legal monopoly. Personally, I don’t give a damn if competitors overbuild and go broke. I benefit because prices drop.

Your description does not present an inherent difference between a monopoly and a utility other than government sanctioning. Exactly my point. Lots of companies compete for the same infrastructure. Like say, cellphone companies. Cellphone towers are expensive. From a monopolist (or utility) perspective, oodles of money could be saved by granting regional monopolies. Same with airlines. We have too many serving the same routes. Etc.

Government has created a legal monopoly that benefits the monopoly, not the citizen.

Nobody has a legal monopoly. AT&T was broken up in '83, after legal action that went all the way back to '49. The government tolerates defacto utility monopoly only where there is a transparent, adversarial process for setting rates. But in the last 40 years, there has been a rolling deregulation experiment which tries to introduce limited competition to allow market based rates. It hasn't worked very well, in my opinion.

The tell of a true monopoly is the rate setting process. Market rates imply a relationship between supply and demand. In the case of telecom, the supply is essentially infinite, so rates are set for every reason under the sun. But the hoped for supply/demand effect isn't among them.

You say nobody has a legal monopoly and then say the gov tolerates de facto monopolies. There's a tortured logic in there trying to escape.

The general solution to the a problem created by regulation is less regulation, in my opinion.If partial deregulation is floundering then deregulate and let the market determine how it reforms.

I heard an NPR interview of the FCC chairman concerning this issue. He argued that "net neutrality" is a misnomer. The regulations, in his opinion, stifle innovation on the provider side He argues that the best way to get networks into underserved communities is to allow a free-for-all fight among providers to wire the last remaining underserved areas: some metropolitan neighborhoods and rural areas. According to him, "net neutrality" provides no incentive to wire underserved areas.

The issue of the pipeline company also owning refineries and oil wells is a good point. For some reason, oil production companies don't like owning pipelines but do like owning refineries. I don't get it. Concerning pipelines, I think they actually will transport any fluid from any origin compatible with their infrastructure. Many of the local ones are dedicated -- to or from a particular refinery. But the big pipes from say, Texas to NJ carry multiple products from various sources. I do not know their pricing structure but I bet it is like an electric utility, which has one price for small customers and decreasing prices for larger customers.

The logic isn't tortured, the facts are just confusing. Utilities form natural monopolies, while demand is inelastic. Left to their own devices, rates would skyrocket, nothing whatsoever to do with supply and demand. Think of Enron's manipulation of the California energy market. Where you can't have effective competition, you have to have regulation, unless you see no need to protect consumer interest. Government's position varies from time to time...sometimes favoring regulation, sometimes trying to promote competition (by initiating anti-trust activity). But recently, there has been a certain affection for the (indefensible) position that you espouse: no regulation, and pretend that customers have free will to walk away. As if you could buy electric power from Deutche Energiegesellschaft if you don't like the price or service.

Pipelines, railroads, etc have published rate schedules, which are regulated by the ICC. The example I gave hypothetically built on the example you gave to illustrate what net neutrality really means, it may or may not reflect reality in the pipeline business.

As for the politics, the present head of the FCC seems to confuse the carriers "using overwhelming force to dominate key players" with "fair competition". It's a blunt error. And "underserved areas" have absolutely nothing to do with what the provider does once the area is served. I'd also point out that the ONLY way remote areas will ever be served affordably is if regulation requires it. Underserved areas are underserved because it's not in the economic interest of any company, monopoly or not. Normally this would be beaten to death in the hearing process, but apparently, we don't do that stuff any more.

It's not that his is the only groundless position, though. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also confuses a lot of important points. They think that carriers will use differential pricing to somehow upset the "democracy" of the net. And they think this is a consumer issue. Neither is true. The carriers couldn't care less about 99% of the traffic on the web. What is upsetting to them is the challenge that IP delivery poses to their traditional bread n butter: Phone and CATV. If they simply take the plunge and offer competing IP services, their products would be undifferentiated. Worse is that the various last mile costs...911 service, public access, rights of way, etc...are recoverable with traditional services, but not with IP service. So if they compete toe to toe, price for penny, their physical networks go bust (not to mention the huge budget hits taken by the communities served.) It really comes down to which set of giant companies will come to dominate phone and video. Consumer issues? If you think that Netflix or Youtube service will be even one penny cheaper than traditional CATV, you have a rude surprise coming your way. If you think that Netflix or Youtube will be any "more democratic" than traditional CATV, you have a surprise coming. It's all corporate cr_p, so just come off the pedestal.

So there it is...I've disparaged every side, and left you wondering what to make of it all. It's simple: the consumers pay the last mile cost, no matter who owns the network. So let that be directly reflected in the monthly bill. If someone lives on a mountain top in Podunk, they're going to pay a fortune for the wire, settle for satellite service, or do without service entirely. And allow net neutrality, so that the regulator can step back and let the pigs fight fairly for the trough. Anything less means that someone has to be in there refereeing.

Repeatedly asserting something is a "natural monopoly" is not an argument. It is a assertion used by folks who wish to use the coercive power of government to defend a monopoly.

The assertion that a government granted monopoly saves money through reducing competition for infrastructure is (in my opinion) ludicrous. By that measure, telecoms should be granted exclusive regional coverage since multiple cellphone towers are wastefully duplicative.

Sure, they're duplicative, but who gets to determine whether it is wasteful?

I see no difference in arguing any point of infrastructure including roads, waste disposal, electric power, gas -- whatever. If private companies want to build competitive and duplicative systems, why not? It's their money, let them blow it.

From the net neutrality argument it seems to me that one's position (excluding political oneupmanship) comes down to who one trusts most to provide the best service. To me, it's not a morality play. Frankly, I cant see how either approach especially benefits or penalizes me.

So try one. Either one. If it fails, change the law and try the other. WTF?

Prominent people Opposing repeal sign detailed letter of opposition: Internet Leaders Call For FCC to Cancel Net Neutrality Vote | Fortune

Unfortunately prominent people dont count for much in a nation of ignorami who have no concept of anything outside besides unbridled capitalism.

- Peter.

I am waiting to see what happens to my streaming ROKU service brought through internet by the local cable provider who has made two dozen calls over the last year trying to get me to buy a cable package instead of just internet.

This is one of the things that no one appears to realize. My cable provider will now be in a position to recoup the loss of profit from selling me a cable package, by impacting the speed of my internet to slow down streaming, unless of course I pay for deluxe web services.

In the end, the people who lose will be the consumer.