A Note about Net Neutrality and Why We Support It

[ll00ll00ll00ll]

There are currently two different arguments happening. I agree that the "fees" for right of way access is out of control and stifling to investment. That is a different argument from whether or not equal access to the internet as a construct is preferable.

[Andraax]

That is a sweetheart deal, it's separate from what Net Neutrality is targeting. Those prohibitions are there due to the before mentioned public/private partnerships, mostly to lay that wire in the first place. Your county bent over backwards and basically said 'Please wire up our neighborhood, we'll give you an incentive..'

That is a "government mandated monopoly". When the government restricts a market to one or a few companies, then a "free market" cannot operate to reduce prices / increase services. Net Neutrality is required because of those government mandated monopolies - without the monopolies, then Net Neutrality restrictions would not be needed. You're treating a symptom, not the problem...

[ll00ll00ll00ll]

So, why don't you petition your local government to allow other ISPs?

There is no one who would want to come out here. In fact the reality is that without the ARRA investment, I wouldn't have DSL here, so you're barking up the wrong tree if you think I'm going to decry the government participation in internet access.

[Ken L]

The problem with that statement is that it *does* cost more to provide some traffic than others...

Yes such as video and peer-to-peer (FG would be grouped with torrent users in terms of traffic), but if you strip off neutrality you welcome a 'derivatives investor' business to open up. What is the price for my content to gain priority over another's? How much can we extort these websites or corporations to gain favorable speeds to our customers?

Some traffic is absolutely more costly than others, but if you strip neutrality off, then you're relying on the benevolence of for-profit enterprises to do the right thing as opposed to maximizing profits with the balance of satisfaction. You might get great video speeds... if you only use Amazon Prime video... you can clearly see from speed test that Netfix is the inferior service for HD Streaming....

Removing the profit aspect, it allows discrimination of all traffic. Perhaps Fox is super slow in some areas and fast in others with CNN not even loading on others. Neutrality is a blanket protection, you're effectively throwing the baby to the wolves.

[ll00ll00ll00ll]

You know what? I'm going to cede the argument. I come on here to get away from stuff like this. It's my fault for engaging in the first place. For the record, I don't think you're wrong about most of your argument, I can see it's merit in some cases and not others. As with most situations, there is very rarely a 100% solution answer. Most things of value rarely are easy to "fix". I see that everyone on here actually wants the same end result, just disagrees on how to achieve them. Again, I'm going to keep my politics off of this forum from now on.

[Ken L]

That is a "government mandated monopoly". When the government restricts a market to one or a few companies, then a "free market" cannot operate to reduce prices / increase services. Net Neutrality is required because of those government mandated monopolies - without the monopolies, then Net Neutrality restrictions would not be needed. You're treating a symptom, not the problem...

Absent of the partnership there would be no wire laid. Would that community rather remain disconnected? The only reason wire was laid was because of the government giving an incentive. It is doubtful a rivial company would want to lay wire for so few customers without a similar incentive.

Now assuming that the community grew and a competitor comes to town, exclusive market deals are done in such a way to foresee this. That progenitor company paid a high price to wire a sparse community and grow with it while a new comer arrives to take advantage when the market is viable. The Progenitor company wants to protect that investment as they were willing to wire when others did not. These agreements exist for a reason; not that I'm saying it's good, but from the progenitor company's perspective, they're recouping cost and ROI.

[Andraax]

There is no one who would want to come out here. In fact the reality is that without the ARRA investment, I wouldn't have DSL here, so you're barking up the wrong tree if you think I'm going to decry the government participation in internet access.

Yeah, that's what they said about where I live, too. Didn't even have DSL. Once a bunch of us formed our own group and distributed service wirelessly, a few years later all of a sudden a couple cable companies decided to lay fiber and the phone company decided that they *could* upgrade our equipment to support DSL. And the local governments involved did *not* give them "sweetheart" deals to do so - mostly because the local governments were also getting wireless through the same private group - I believe they still do.

[Ken L]

Yeah, that's what they said about where I live, too. Didn't even have DSL. Once a bunch of us formed our own group and distributed service wirelessly, a few years later all of a sudden a couple cable companies decided to lay fiber...

The private group you mentioned built, and showed market viability. Companies then saw it was profitable and moved in. However, it was likely that your community wasn't connected for quite some time until that viability threshold was met. The community had to 'prove' that there was a market while other communities struck deals to get connected early to boost business or other economic factors.

Not everyone is so fortunate to have a collective act on behalf of the community. Just would like you to note that there is a reason for everything. Net neutrality aids against the single ISP problem, but in addition it provides protections beyond that of profit, If you can't see that then I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye on this.

[JeffKnight]

That is a "government mandated monopoly". When the government restricts a market to one or a few companies, then a "free market" cannot operate to reduce prices / increase services. Net Neutrality is required because of those government mandated monopolies - without the monopolies, then Net Neutrality restrictions would not be needed. You're treating a symptom, not the problem...

This is exactly the problem, there are these "government mandated monopolies" for cable and telephone companies intended to lure in people that go on for perpetuity and don't require upgrades after the initial install. A lot of the "speed" issues in my neighborhood would be fixed if AT&T would stop using 70+ year old telephone wires. Comcast has the same issue too, they don't upgrade equipment here unless the old stuff fails and they can't get replacements. We're using cable boxes other markets ditched 10 years ago because there is ZERO competition other than Dish or DirecTV, and even then you still have to go to Comcast or AT&T for internet and phone. They know they have you.

[Ken L]

Food for thought. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rural-a...ville-georgia/

$40,000 per mile of fiber optic cable. If there's 20 customers that are 50 miles from the nearest city, that's 2 million dollars of fiber optic cable for 20 customers. Most likely that number is higher unless all 20 residents live next to each other given how sparse rural communities are. Chances are that number is far higher for maintaining all the wire and paying for work crews to dig it up.

Regarding those companies not improving to fiber, you're asking them to dig up and install new wire for a small rural customer base, it's not even economically beneficial. Companies don't do this out of the good of their heart, and I doubt another company will move in to provide that oft toted 'superior' service. Unless that rural community suddenly becomes a profitable market, they will ignore it unless they have investment opportunities. That's essentially a waiting game where the community slowly shows viability while other counties and towns immediately get the economic benefit of fiber for making that 'sweet heart deal'. It's all trade offs. If a city council is getting demand from businesses for faster internet threatening possible relocation, they'll be more willing to make these telecom exclusivity deals.

There's all this 'but i can switch to another company' but what other company would be willing to take that cost trade off without incentive? And if they take that incentive they need county or federal sweetheart dollars to make the investment. Companies aren't going to throw around money like that without a deal to their benefit, often a exclusivity deal. I feel there are people that don't really understand the economics of the situation as to why those monopolies exist; not that they're good, but it's a part of why there is cable in the first place absent of a feasible market. To then take that and use it as a weapon against Net Neutrality because 'regulation is bad' is adolescent.

Net neutrality is akin to Federal banking regulations but for your data. Bank's can't do a lot of fishy activity with the money you entrusted them to safe hold. Likewise, ISPs can't do fishy information that you transfer over their wires given that you 'paid' for it. For the analogy to a highway, without Net Neutrality ISPs can make it so that only red cars can go in the fast lane and that even plates are limited to 30 mph on the weekend. In addition, they can close exits outright to locations they wish to steer traffic away from, forcing the use of side roads.. or even block access to that location entirely. Speed isn't their only gating factor, they can discriminate against locations and even ban all silver cars from accessing exits 20 -> 34.

Do you really want to give ISPs that power? Going back to the rural question, if you only have 1 ISP, do you want them to have it given you have no other alternative? If you have another ISP, great, perhaps competition can make data privacy protections/access marketable, but this isn't like pizza shops, chances are you'll have 3 to choose from if you're lucky and even then all 3 of them will be looking towards profit so hoping that the market will drive a privacy advocate to the surface is akin to hoping that Lucifer is a good person sometimes.