Yep. Good play by the dems. It looks like Collins is on board too, so would just need one more republican vote to at least pass the Senate. The House is probably a tougher sell, but considering their constituents want NN to stay in place (see below) and several states are planning to sue over the FCC decision, it might have legs.
Overwhelming Bipartisan Majority Opposes Repealing Net Neutrality
Respondents were given a short briefing and asked to evaluate arguments for and against the proposal before making their final recommendation. The survey content was reviewed by experts in favor and against net neutrality, to ensure that the briefing was accurate and balanced, and that the strongest arguments were presented.
At the conclusion, 83% opposed repealing net neutrality, including 75% of Republicans, as well as 89% of Democrats and 86% of independents.
My dad is. He can watch ESPN from his direct TV On his AT&T phone. I donât think this counts as harm until they throttle or charge more for competing products. Like if they throttled or charged for fox/nbc sports.
If the infrastructure canât handle the volume, right?
This shit confuses me. On one hand, I prefer the free market approach. @countingbeans made a pretty compelling argument a year or so ago when we discussed putting this under the telecommunications Act (canât remember exactly what the law is called). the tl;dr was you basically stifle innovation (For example, we still use big ass sticks in the ground for telephone polls).
Now, we argued about that for a while, but it does make a decent point.
On the other hand, specifically from a small business perspective (e-commerce non the less) itâs more than just a throttling concern for us little guys. Itâs a go out of business concern. If Amazon loads instantaneously and my products take 30 sec+ no one is going to look at a product of mine. Thereâs zero chance theyâre gonna scroll through my whole catalog.
The infrastructure can technically already handle all the volume (possible exceptions would be NYC esque densely populated areas).
Correct. It also doesnât touch on the bandwidth changes as you add new âunlimitedâ players. Thereâs a pretty big difference between âAmazon is now unrestricted (requires fairly low bandwidth)â vs âYouTube is now unrestricted (requires high bandwidth).â
Every time you add an unlimited guy, the non unlimited guys have to shift their respective size of the burden. Also effected by how dense your neighborhood/town is, etcetc
Youâre saying the current infrastructure couldnât handle allowing a YouTube unrestricted speeds without throttling others? I thought I had read the bandwidth was there already. Not my area, though.
The current infrastructure can (to my knowledge) handle damn near everything without missing a beat.
Infrastructure has never been a realistic metric to care about though. ISPs choose to throttle even when infrastructure doesnât require it. Itâs a cost driver.
Think of the available bandwidth of a neighborhood (assuming they run on shared lines) as X. Available bandwidth is now âX/number of connections.â Upon instituting fast lanes (Y), neighbor bandwidth is now â(X - Y)/number of non fast lane connections.â
As you increase Y, the non fast lane connections suffer. Quite literally pay to play if youâre a business. Eventually you wonât be able to afford not being in the fast lane, due to the reasons you listed above.
Edit: I should also note, due to the way the vast majority of connections are configured, your bandwidth is literally being used by the people in your general location. You donât even have to utilize a fast lane customer to see your own connection suffer
Okay, but if the current infrastructure can handle damn near anything then couldnât an isp offer a faster lane for a price while maintaining the current lane at current costs?
I would think, in theory, they could charge enough of a fee for higher speeds (for say YouTube) to make a profit and cover the additional costs to push more bandwidth through their existing infrastructure to maintain speeds to everything else.
Greater profitability while maintaining current customer satisfaction?
Ehh, that could change as we shift away from hard lines (4g LTE, the whole Elon Musk satellite internet thing, etcâŠ). Heck, even Xfinity has WiFi hotspots.
This only holds true under free market conditions. Those donât exist re: high speed ISPs. Vast majority of the country simply doesnt have access to choices due to the ISP industry being so chummy with the GOP (similarly to the Dems with Wall Street.)
Sure, it âcould.â In reality, nothing positive is yet to happen that would allow for it.
People against net neutrality are fond of saying âthe market can do this or thatâ yet conveniently forget the market hasnât. Itâs like they thing the catalyst for these changes are going to spawn from our asses.
Furthermore, best case net neutrality was killed prior to the market making those âcouldâ adjustments. Itâs like removing seatbelt reqs from cars because the market âcouldâ develop cars so safe we donât need them, except they havenât yet and have no incentive to do so
I would have thought it had more to do with local municipality agreements and the cost of running lines to rural America?
A city near me actually actually has a new fiber optic network thatâs not named Verizon, which I thought was kinda cool. It only runs through the relatively small city, though. Rural folks are still stuck with Cable (Comcast) if itâs available or satellite.
I donât think thatâs really fair. Just because the market can and hasnât doesnât mean it wonât. The biggest hurdle, as far as I can tell, is that the US is friggin enormous and running lines to 13 house neighborhoods isnât cost effective.
Sort story, we moved into a neighborhood a while ago (weâve since moved) with about 30 houses and about 2 miles from a pretty new school (10 years old at most). We had nothing. Not even DSL. We couldnât believe it. I talked to a buddy of mine that works for Comcast and he told me the closest line was about a mile away and it would cost a couple $100k to run a line to our neighborhood. It just didnât make economic sense for so few houses and thatâs how a lot of that area is laid out. small neighborhood, then big ass farm, then another small neighborhood.
Long story short, we were able to get Verizon Home Fusion. It cost a butt load, but it was a free market solution to the problem:
This is correct. Itâs called over-subscription and all ISPs use it.
This is the only wildcard possibility for right now. Every other ISP is either a monopoly or duopoly in the vast majority of the country outside of major cities. If this alternative did come to fruition (wireless/cellular), then you can bet your ass pricing from the Comcasts & Verizons of the world would drop like a rock.
ISPs are notorious for creating barriers to entry that most people just canât fight. Similar to the pharma industry with their respective lobby power.
Google has been trying to make headway into the ISP industry for a few years. The cities theyâve managed to bribe their way into are showing really really positive feedback so far, so cross your fingers.
Agreed. But otoh, just because the market can, doesnât mean it will. Thereâs no real driver for change re: ISPs in this country.
Even if you can afford it, and have the will to, ISPs wouldnât let you. Theyâve been spending millions annually to slow Googleâs progression. If google wasnât, ya know, google, theyâd have lost a while back
By donating money to re-election campaigns and (in a lot of cases) more or less writing the laws. The same way every other Titan industry makes its will know.
4 cities in 5 years doesnât exactly inspire confidence in the notion that the market is somehow going to fix things, especially given the current political landscape
Edit: actually per tings own site theyâre in 3 cities. Charlottesville, wesyminister (?), And Holly springs (?)
A company not named Google or Verizon is spending gobs and gobs of money laying fiber optic cables in small town USA. How is that not exactly what a free market fix looks like, lol?
I donât have law numbers on hand, but Iâd be more than happy to look them up after work and post for you. This is one of the few topics on tnation that Iâm genuinely passionate about. ISPs blow
From a brief google, tings 3 cities total almost 100k population. Which means tings coverage area (after 6 years) covers .03% of the population. If thatâs what a free market fix looks like, Iâm even more terrified than I was before.
I agree many potential solutions exist. Thatâs why I was keen on them coming to fruition before shredding the net neutrality rulebook, instead of after.
Of the 2 otw cities, one has a population of 7700 and the other of 103k. At this rate, maybe in another couple decades theyâll have coverage to 1% of the population. Thatâd be cool I guess
I think you guys are both making valid points. USMC is right that local governments give out exclusivity to certain ISPs way too easily and that shuts down the chance of having municipal broadband.
However, it takes-two-to-tango and the ISPs are greedy fucks who will do anything and everything to hold on to their -opolies.
I am conflicted as to what the right answer is, but thereâs certainly something appealing about having the infrastructure under Title II and allowing the ISPs (the old definition where they could provide internet access over existing infrastructure, a la AOL and those other companies that would send you a CD in the mail). How you could work all that out, I donât know.
But I am staunchly pro-net neutrality and absolutely want more competition.
