News Net Neutrality, the FCC, and you wake up

Which rules are you and russ opposed to?

 

Unfortunately, we only notice regulations of this type when they are important to us personally.

 

If an IP such as a cable company, were to have a financial interest in a VOIP company or a streaming video company, should it be legal for them to block a competitor's product or limit usage or charge excess fees for delivering that content?

With a limited number of IPs, the laws of supply and demand don't always apply. Rural users may have only one IP to choose from. If the majority of IPs or at least the large ones adopt the policy of blocking competitor's content, is that not the purview of the FCC?

 

Unfortunately, that is not a viable option for many lightly-populated areas. We can't use the "free market" to choose which ISP to use when there are no options. For instance, there is only one phone carrier in this town, so that's where you get DSL if you want it. There is no cable in this part of town, so no options there, either. It's possible to subscribe to Hughesnet or some other satellite service, but even their most basic plan is $60/month+. Plus, I have read some very bad reviews about their support and service, and it appears that the company throttles users and caps your daily traffic. No thanks.

If somebody doesn't keep the ISPs honest (FCC) we're screwed.

 

The problem is that the ISPs themselves often have conflicts of interest. Consider that the largest (by far) ISP in the US is Comcast, which has an extremely strong vested interest in protecting their cable television and conventional telephone services. One of the things this regulation is intended to prevent is for Comcast to begin slowing down bandwidth for things like streaming video or VOIP, in order to protect their existing investments. This is especially important, since in many areas of the country there is only one choice for ISP.

Another issue is one of fairness. Some ISPs sold unlimited plans, offering certain speeds, but then began throttling speeds on the heaviest users. What the regulation basically does is make sure this doesn't happen. If an ISP offers unlimited data, they're not allowed to slow down your access once you use some amount, which effectively puts a limit on how much data you can download.

 

The original article gets it a bit wrong. Read here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality#FCC_broadband_policy_statement

The point of the rules is that Verizon or your cable company cannot selectively throttle netflix, or hulu, or any other website. The worry is that your cable or DSL company will use its last mile service to make netflix or hulu streaming basically unwatchable to avoid competition with their television service.

These rules have nothing much to say about bandwidth caps or bandwidth tiered fees for heavy users, which are still ok under FCC rules, as long as all websites are treated equally.

It does have something to say about bait-and-switch advertising/fairness. i.e. a signed a year long contract with AT&T for DSL service, but halfway through, AT&T introduced bandwidth caps. I wasn't getting the service I signed up for, and had no recourse.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...oin-comcast-nbc/2011/05/11/AFYfl1rG_blog.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/183652-2/nbcuniversalcomcast_merger_what_we_do_and_dont_know.html

 

I'm pretty sure it specifically stated that the ISP cannot block "lawful" content. It sounds innocent enough, I mean, who "doesn't" want to be lawful right? Who decides what is lawful though? Anyone have any idea?

 

For unlawful content, think child porn, copyrighted material in torrent, etc. And obviously, what is and is not lawful is decided by the US legal system, as these are FCC (US) guidelines.

 

So then everyone has to suffer? What is going to happen isn't 'max bandwidth for everyone!', instead it's going to be 'really poor internet' for everyone over time under the Net neutrality regulations. There becomes no incentive for the telecomm companies to provide any palpable service, they can now do the minimum and get away with it for everyone.

There's also lots of other services that may not be directly available at the best quality when living in the country - I don't think that's a justification for the net neutrality rules. 'Keeping them honest' isn't really in the text of the bill.



Also, I think something that is missing from the conversation: Why do the wireless/ISP companies want to throttle service? This is a concept that I think is missing from most discussion is the rationale behind WHY ISP/Wireless providers are starting to change their policies.

Lastly, has there been any examples of a large scale ISP totally cutting off a competing service? So, why is this such a worry other than someone spouting random anti-corporatist conspiracies? In fact, I can think of some examples of the opposite - when Comcast started offering TV-over-web for their cable customers, you could only access it from Comcast's internet service (this was an internal-Comcast restriction, not a banning by other providers).


This all just feels like another FCC power grab: well intentioned, but not well thought through.

 

Well that's not quite what I was referring to, but that definitely goes without saying. Suppose we were in a situation like Egypt earlier this year. Would it then be lawful to block content deemed inappropriate for the "good of the nation"?

 

Where is it stated? Employers can block lawful content to their employees. Schools can block lawful content to their students. My daughter's school was so restrictive there was a short list of sites they were permitted to access. What is the legal difference between an ISP and an employer or a school?