Why you should not support the net neutrality crowd
We all like fast internet, we all love to watch movies on netflix in HD. However we should all be adamantly against the current crop of people fighting for so called net neutrality. Why? The fight for the net as it is being called is being vastly misrepresented by people at all levels. The telecom industry would have you believe they are completely against being labeled as Title II common carriers. However nothing could be further from the truth.
What is Title II anyway? It is a section of the 1934 and 1996 telecommunications acts that designates that specific types of communications must be treated as necessary utilities like electricity, gas, or water. What does this mean for you and me? Basically it means that which ever company happens to own the grid they are required to allow other companies to use their grid to compete against whom ever happens to own the grid. Naturally the competitor must pay a carriage fee to use the network. Well that doesn't sound so bad does it? Creates competition, lowers costs for companies looking to get into the markets. Win win right?
If that was all the title II regulations would do it would be a simple decision. However there are many more regulations that will come into play if the telecom companies are put into title II status. Namely, unlawful content. What is unlawful content you ask? Don't we already have laws that prohibit child porn and other things. Yes we do however, subtle word changes make all the difference. Let's define illegal, contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law. Let's define unlawful, not conforming to, permitted by, or recognized by law or rules. Those look similar right? They are in fact exact opposites. One is something that is clearly prohibited by law, the other is something that is clearly not allowed under the law.
Jaywalking is a good example of this, in many places it is unlawful but not illegal. There is no law that says you can not jaywalk however there are also no laws that say you can jaywalk. So how is that treated in a system of unlawful monitoring? The answer is, while you are not breaking any law you will still get in trouble because it wasn't expressly permitted. This is the problem with the current tone of the net neutrality debate. Everyone is clamoring for net neutrality because they do not want to have to wait 10 seconds for their netflix to buffer. However most are completely oblivious to anything else that would happen if those fighting for net neutrality get what they think they want.
No one seems to care that they will be giving control of how to police the internet to the ISPs. For example you have a blog, you happen to make joke in a blog post that someone finds offensive to some group. They call up their ISP and your blog is shut down, your IP address is blocked, and you are SOL because you made an unlawful comment, aka "bullying or hate speech". This is where the internet is heading under the proposed net neutrality rules. All because we are a bunch of spoiled douchebags who complain when we have to wait a few seconds for netflix to buffer.
Anyone who has ever been the target or instigator of a lawsuit knows. Words matter motherfucker.
Defendant.... Plaintiff
The worst write up I've ever read on this site.
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Glad I skipped straight to comments. Thanks for the sacrifice.
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I'm waiting for heister to come out in support of slavery and apartied.
Yeah.. @"heister" & @"Lucky Charms" ... What are you thinking? I mean it, I can't really tell if the argument in the original post makes sense coz I cannot understand it
heister i am disappoint
Net neutrality is supposed to rectify whatever you said up there. It removes control from the ISPs and forces them to be "neutral" with regards to what content they distribute, and how they allocate bandwidth to that.
I mean, I haven't paid enough attention to the issue and I've always thought that I favored net neutrality without digging too deep, but holy monkey balls you guys are predictable with the MS.
Of course most of you break out in hives if anyone says something bad about Ron Paul or Elon Musk.
We haven't actually had any laws regarding net neutrality. We had guidelines at one point, but the Verizon FCC lawsuit overturned those because they weren't laws but were being attempted to be enforced as laws. Do you all know that Netflix currently has servers in most ISPs. Did you know under net neutrality laws those servers would have be be removed and your buffer time would likely suffer even more than it does now because the traffic would now be two points rather than one. If you all actually believe the shit the tech media is saying, I feel somewhat sorry for you.
As for Netflix paying Comcast for a so called fast lane. Not the case. The internet remains in a somewhat balance because of things called peering arrangements. This means most of the largest web destinations (webpages and major hosting services) have a roughly equal upstream bandwidth as a downstream. They get as much data as they disperse. This is not the case with Netflix. Netflix isn't even close to being in balance. Netflix attempted to remedy this by providing data caches directly to the ISPs. However Netflix did not want to pay for rack space. Most ISPs accepted this, however Comcast demanded to be paid for their rackspace. Netflix balked at this idea and took their servers home and threw a fit. Before the streaming boxes netflix was using their market to pressure ISPs into brunting the majority of Netflix's streaming services operational costs. Ironic really that they are the ones clamoring for a "neutral" net.
The whole debate is being staged on a completely different game let alone a different stadium. Many of you have said it before, the reason there will never be a revolution in America is because of reality tv. If you can placate the masses with cheap crap they are less likely to be annoyed at their shit lot in life. The same thing is going on here. Distract everyone with this stupid netflix slow down crap.
No I used the language I used for a specific reason. The plaintiff and defendant are not always the true instagators and targets of a lawsuit. You want to shut down and industry practice that gives others an advantage over you? You seek out the least prepared and funded user of said practice or process and sue them based on some obscure regulation. Get the process banned and shut down your largest competition with out ever having faced them in court. Similar things can be said for proxy plaintiff cases. You don't always have to be directly involved to be the prime benefactor or loser in a case.
LOL
Interesting thing to keep in mind. If Time Warner and Comcast (the ISPs) find media or opinions developing that they aren't in favor of, they can pretty easily and legally shut that shit down under current law by slowing the internet access of the people or websites using their service, which they must be using since TW and Comcast have a monopoly. Protect free speech and the growth of online native content. This isn't just about Netflix, unlike my weeknights.
NFLX's business model is to consume a massively disproportionate share of everyone else's resources without having to pay for it. It's really as simple as that. Great example of free-riding. Kudos to Mr. Hastings and his PR team for making sure the general public automatically associates Brian Roberts with the devil.
I gotta disagree here. I think saying that a broad spectrum Title II Classification argument would never work because you happen to be passing over two major arguments. The first is the Section 706 argument, which would use the '96 Telecom Act to reclassify the internet as being compliant under Section 706 to basically say it's an advanced telecom system and therefore qualifies as a common carrier. The second is that the FCC would allow a forbearance under Title II classification, which is more than reasonable for the FCC to do. As it stands, I think they are looking for forebear all but something to the effect of 5 to 8 subsections, almost all of them being in the 200s.
I could care less about Netflix. What I care about is the fact that Net Neutrality prevents prioritization of internet bandwidth at the end user level. What happens on a Backbone level is entirely different than at an End User level. At the backbone level, I completely get how paid prioritization, peering and the hundreds of other methods used to ensure relatively timely arrival of content. It's part of how networks make sure data is able to transfer from point A to B and is done so fairly effectively because it follows the n-sided market theory where all parties negotiate a somewhat mutually beneficial market. The problem comes in at the end user level; having bandwidth throttled, capped or being told I need to pay more in order to ensure that my internet traffic is prioritized at times of congestion is akin to being told you can only drive in the 20 mile an hour lane unless you pay a king's ransom to use the 20 miles an hour plus lane. I can't engage in Peering, or buying internet traffic or selling part of my bandwidth and am held hostage because companies that provide the end user access are Terminal Access Monopolies. That's where the issue of net neutrality, in my mind, comes into play. I'm a gamer. When I game online, my bandwidth and connection speed matter to me. I don't want to find out that I now need to pay more in order to prioritize my gaming traffic ahead of other traffic if I want to even have a shot at not getting screwed by serious lag. Add in the question of what happens if you have a large contingent of people, do you then build a tiered prioritization structure which further alienates consumers. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that internet tends to be bundled with Cable, so moving away from one provider to another can be extremely cost prohibitive, particularly when you are forced into using such a shitty provider (I'm looking at you Time Warner and Cablevision.... Comcast, you're also in the cross hairs!) in the first place. That's monopolistic behavior. This really shouldn't be about some whiny bitch complaining about Netflix not being instantaneous. It should be about protecting the end user and their ability to access the internet without forcibly impeding the ability to access content. Don't get me wrong, what goes on at the backbone level will be addressed at some point, but lets worry about the end user first and protect them at the onset.
completely unrelated, but I'd like to see you and @"NorthSider" have a debate
What you said is true about the backbone level network, however if you listen to the arguments of the pro net neutrality crowd they are promoting backbone level ideas. Fast lanes? Those aren't consumer level terms. Consumers already have "fast lanes" everyone seems to look right past that. I can buy a 1mbps connection or I can buy a 1000+ mbps connection at my house. Is that equal? No, so how will net neutrality ever really work? If all bits are equal then technically you have to work on the lowest common denominator. Guess what people, that happens to be grandmas 56kbps dial up connection. The entire argument is based on pure hypocrisy.
Look at how the slogan has changed in just a couple of months. It was we can't have these "fast lanes" because it would give big business an unfair advantage. Now the talking point are those evil ISPs are going to slow down the internet! Let's have a stupid day of protest and slow down all of the websites to show people what our hypothetical idea of how this will work!
Fucking stupid. If you actually think about it, the whole debate is pointless. Everyone is spending their time debating a hypothetical outcome which under the current and past guidelines could have happened but never did. Gosh I can't imagine how we don't live in a dual level internet dystopia.
I'm aware that people are trying to argue backbone level issues and trying to apply them to the end user. It's not the easiest way to do it and really shouldn't be used. Regulating the end user and regulating the backbone are completely different. The issues concerning the backbone level data transfers are entirely different because Tier 1 systems allow free routing through their lines for other Tier 1 Systems and then Tier 2 networks are are buying access, selling access and dealing in peering rights and the like because there is only so much infrastructure in place to move data across the web. Those are where the "fast lanes" really exist.
Except we don't have fast lanes at the consumer level. What we have is access to bandwidth with a higher degree of thoroughput and not speed. People are stupid in that regard and saying you have a 75/15 line vs a 150/150 line and what not doesn't mean your actual connection is any faster. The whole concept of bandwidth and thoroughput is how much theoretical and actual data you can transfer at a given time from point A to point B. Bandwidth is indicative of a perfect closed system and Thoroughput is your actual rate of transfer. Mind you, downloading is capped at the discretion of the uploader and what their available upload thoroughput is and having a higher degree of bandwidth and thoroughput does not mean that you have "faster" internet, but that's beside the point. The great equalizer is not thoroughput, but Latency and Jitter. Latency is how time is perceived. When things go right, we are talking about millisecond latency and no one notices problems in that space. When things go wrong, then we experience lag and delay. Jitter, much like latency, can affect the actual transit time because Jitter is variable latency (basically, Jitter happens in a random and periodic fashion that can cause a spike in latency. It's purely variable in its rate of occurrence).That 56Kbps modem still suffers from Latency and Jitter. Now, imagine being able to create artificial latency to slow things down. That's where end user protection needs to be considered. The problem with prioritization is that it can be used to build in artificial stopgates, increase round trip times (the time it takes to send a packet of data from point a to point be and back), and other means of inducing latency and jitter unless you pay to get those blocks taken out. So even though I'm paying for massive thoroughput, I'm still capped in the slow because my bandwidth is forcibly being delayed at the ISP level. Comcast has had a history of doing that dating back to at least 2006. If I pay for thoroughput and my ISP is blocking, gating, purposely delaying transfers or shaping the traffic associated with the bandwidth I've paid to use, then they are forcing prioritization whether I like it or not. Traffic Shaping, blocking and whatever you may want to call it, are End User Problems that increase the latency of your connection despite having the thoroughput. That's where my issues come from.
Of course, I just want to point out that although I take their views with a grain of Salt, when Vint Cerf or Bob Kahn speak on this topic, I'll listen more readily than I would most other people.
We were having a great time bickering retardedly in here and then this guy shows up. Some people.
@"heister", I'll agree with you on that point (that few people actually understand the issues with net neutrality) in a heartbeat.
@"MBA_Junkie", If I recall correctly, basically the argument is that telcos and internet providers want to charge for both sides of access (meaning they charge Google in order to transmit their data and then they tack on a fee on our end to access Google in a timely manner). I'm a little hazy on the exact specifications for that case, so don't hold me to it.
The telcos aren't wanting to bill end users for faster access. What they are wanting to do is bill popular internet destinations (netflix, facebook, etc.) that don't have at least a close to balanced peering. It really is unfair for an ISP to bear the brunt of the majority of what should be Netflixs business costs. People wonder why internet is expensive at their houses. When one company has to pay a huge chunk of a different company's operating costs that money has to come from somewhere. As consumers we should want Netflix paying for their usage rather than all of us paying for it via our internet bills.
First off, Netflix shouldn't pay a dime for their usage if they are willing to colocate servers in order to reduce strain on the network. I honestly believed that Netflix got strongarmed by Verizon and Comcast into Paid Peering agreements because Verizon and Comcast have a stranglehold on the end user. If Verizon and Comcast want to purposely filter their traffic, then end user is screwed because they can't really go anywhere else. I can't get Verizon FIOS where I live and am forced to use Comcast if I want internet access. I have friends in Manhattan who are forced to use Time Warner because that's what their building gets and that's the end of it. Then you have the unwritten rule that broadband providers don't compete with each other in certain markets, which is great if you don't care about being treated like shit. It's like the
once said on SNL, "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
I don't see any difference between directly colocating or colocation through the use of CDN providers like Akamai. You want to charge Facebook money because they have an unbalanced peering? Fine... then what? Does the CDN like Akamai get hit too because Facebook uses them and part of the Asymetric traffic comes from an Akamai colocated CDN? Do you now have Facebook paying a higher fee to Akamai for their CDN services and a fee to the ISP for asymetric Peering? That forces companies to get double taxed, especially when so many CDNs have colocated servers so that their clients don't have to endure this kind of extraneous cost.
People wonder why internet's expensive? Do you really want me to answer that one? Look at how many internet providers there are? I said it before. It's called being a Terminal Access Monopoly. That's one of the biggest problems that is going unaddressed in the Net Neutrality argument. The biggest call for being a Title II telco is that it works to limit Broadband providers from being an unchecked monopoly that can get away without having any sort of significant scrutinization and oversight.
What is going to stop netflix from passing that cost onto the consumers? It really will not be different to the end user.
Also, moral hazard: Phone companies suck and already exist under a quasi-monopolistic system by region - as pointed out by @"Frieds". If these guys are paid by netflix and not paid by others for using a network that you and I are already paying for, guess traffic from which website gets preferential treatment? In the end, you and I will be able to access netflix very easily but will have crappy user experience on any other website.
This breeds monopolistic behavior and as long as telecom companies receive a cut, they will not care... even more than they do (not) right now.
Besides, it is the telcos' job to provide the connection. That is what they are paid for. Not to decide which websites end users have access to.
Comcast and Verizon want to throttle Netflix to benefit their own on demand movie options. Which is bullshit cause when I pick on demand I can't FF through commercials.
Comcast maybe... but Verizon can do whatever the fuck it wants with relative impunity. Comcast is a Tier 2/Tier 3 Network. Besides being a really shitty company, they are a 2 bit player. This is pure fact. Comcast is a two bit waste of an internet provider. They are a Last Mile provider and buy network access off Tier 1 Networks and peer with other Tier 2 Networks in order to service their clients. Comcast is doing this because they want to exercise their right to say "We are a massive TV Network and a cable provider, we want to rule the world!". They are trying to act as if they are a true Tier 1 Network Provider except they have no reason to do so. Instead, they are simply trying to screw over internet consumers but are doing so to push shitty products.
Verizon, on the other hand, being one of remaining RBOCs along with AT&T and Century Link, is an actual Tier 1 Backbone Provider. For them, saying they don't want to transmit data from Netflix is more than fine because they can enter into whatever paid access/paid peering agreements they want to with any non-Tier 1 Network, CDN provider and whomever the hell they want because they, for lack of a better word, provide the internet. Despite the fact that I dislike Verizon wanting to throttle Netflix, their status as a Tier 1 Network gives them far more credence to not need to be bothered with Reed Hastings, his tantrum and Netflix packing their shit up and going home. Although it benefits Verizon's VOD business by throttling Netflix, Verizon does have the right, in this case, to do whatever it wants to throttle Netflix if it doesn't have an agreement in place for Netflix to stream its data over Verizon's network, and since Netflix needs to transmit over the Verizon backbone, they have to give in (or at least give some to get some) in order to continue to serve Verizon customers. This is why I think that Netflix's offer for colocation of its servers should have been more than sufficient (although I do think that a reduced Rackspace Rental Agreement isn't too much to ask either as a token gesture) to reduce strain on Verizon's network as opposed to the Paid Peering and Rackspace rental agreement that Verizon wanted in its entirety.
I don't see why your arm's length opinions about the compensation arrangement between Netflix and Verizon should supersede the actual outcomes of willing negotiations between both parties.
You act as though ISPs have absolute primacy over internet provision, which, of course, they do not. Verizon and Comcast as much need to deliver satisfactory Netflix streaming as Netflix needs its customers to receive that stream. The nightmare that would ensue from customers unable to stream at adequate speeds and PR debacle from targeting a Silicon Valley darling would devastate the FiOS (for instance) brand, irreparably. Certainly, households have limited optionality in the short-term, but these issues become manifest more quickly than you might imagine. FiOS adoption has been rapid in new developments in NY given residents' penchant for hating TWC. Landlords market FiOS capabilities as a premium feature. 4G LTE speeds are more than adequate to stream Netflix these days anyways; substitution threats in the medium-term abound.
In any case, none of this address the fundamental question of why Verizon or Comcast ought not to be allowed to charge what the market is willing to bear for the provision of its services. You opinions about ISP quality are many, but if, indeed, Comcast provides the 'Last Mile' required to connect your home to the grid (as it were), can they not charge in accordance with the level of service provided? What gives you a privileged position to determine what price you should have to pay for which services?
I shudder at the thought of internet infrastructural innovation under a centrally-imposed pricing regulatory scheme. Whenever and wherever government has intervened in industry by way of price setting, efficiency has fallen to the wayside. Policymakers once made similar arguments about the transportation system; after decades of price-setting in the airline industry for fear of "monopoly power", I'm sure the government was aghast to discover flight prices declining following deregulation.
I would like to disagree with the main post. Net Neutrality is highly important and should be supported! This allows equal and open access to all of those who access the internet. The merger between Comcast and time warner is a huge deal and in the idea of business a great move for those directly benefiting from the merger. However, this almost monopolized state will create difficult barriers for those who would like to enter the market.(This would classify as any of those who would oppose a threat toComcast and TimeWarner) This can be any entrepreneur trying to enter the market slowing innovation and ultimately jeopardizing the economy
What?
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