A Note about Net Neutrality and Why We Support It

[Ken L]

If your ISP pisses you off by slowing down something you want, you can just switch to a different ISP. There are many places in the US where the government has said "you must buy your service from company X or company Y" and you're screwed if both of those companies want to slow down the same traffic. That's a government problem, not an ISP problem.

If you live in a rural area, you'd be lucky to have something other than DSL. It's not profitable to wire out to those areas. You have ISP A and ISP A to choose from, if you don't like ISP A, then you have... ISP A or sat com which is hundreds. You seem to take for granted suburban and urban benefits and expect it to translate everywhere. That is not the case.

I suppose you could say that if you don't like your electric company, you can change it... But there's logistics issues and and soon an evolving sense of why utilities companies are treated as they are. Internet isn't an essential resource, but then again the same could be said about electricity or water. Given the growing importance of technology, access to the internet is approaching utility level necessity to get many resources only available there in.

Regarding government mandated monopolies, that is dictated by counties and some states in respect to compensated 'wiring' to certain communities, and often that company now owns the subsidized wire, perhaps with shared carrier provisions (like in NY where they need to rent wire use to other carriers but each owns their own hub/nodes) hence why small providers such as Boost Mobile and what not can exist without laying wire. Note that this has nothing to do with net neutrality but rather sweetheart deals to highlight 'government regulation is the bad!'.

Net neutrality is regulation no doubt, but it isn't mandating one ISP over others, but mandating that the traffic is treated equally so content providers can't pay to gain priority over competitors, or snuff them out entirely. Equally, it prevents the carrier from extorting content providers at price points they want else have their delivery hampered or eliminated on their network. This translates to regional price differences akin to parcel costs to hawaii vs iowa, but rather than geographic distance being a pay gate factor, it's the quality of the regions wiring, and who owns it.

I suggest you separate the 'government regulation is all bad' from the context to understand the problem of removing net neutrality.

[Andraax]

As Ken says above, the incentive of getting a big payday from a company that wants preferential treatment will typically override the incentive of a few disgruntled customers switching to a competitor. Also, nothing prevents said company from cutting deals with all the ISPs in an area.

It doesn't matter - if there is a ISP that provides the service I want, I don't care if *another* ISP makes money on *someone else* who doesn't care about it. In a truly open market, there would no way for them to "cut deals with all the ISPs in an area", because new ISPs would just move in. It would be a constant game of "whack a mole". You can only "cut deals with all ISPs" if the government *limits* the number of ISPs.

As an example, big banks don't care if some small number of customers switch to other banks to get reduced fees. I have not banked with a big bank in decades, I always use local credit unions or small regional banks. That doesn't mean that I require big banks to change their fee structure - I don't care, because I'm not forced to bank with them. And, apparently, their customers don't care either. If someone else doesn't mind those fees, it's no skin off my back, and they *should* have the freedom to charge them on one side and pay them on the other. Back in the days when banks were limited in the areas they could operate in, that competition didn't exist, and people were forced into paying the fees that were offered, because there were so few choices of who to bank with. But if you have an open market, someone else could always move in - even if a whole bunch in one area collude to keep rates high, they can't control who enters the market after they collude. OPEC is an example of collusion - their market power is waning because there are so many people outside their group that are increasing production / entering the market. All of sudden, their attempts to control oil prices is almost non-existent because if they try to raise them, everyone else just increases production, driving the prices back down.

And expecting government regulation to fix all the issues is more than a little optimistic...

[Ken L]

It doesn't matter - if there is a ISP that provides the service I want, I don't care if *another* ISP makes money on *someone else* who doesn't care about it. In a truly open market, there would no way for them to "cut deals with all the ISPs in an area", because new ISPs would just move in. It would be a constant game of "whack a mole". You can only "cut deals with all ISPs" if the government *limits* the number of ISPs

I don't think you get the cusp of the argument. It's cost prohibitive to wire out to certain communities hence why there are some private/public partnerships to subsidize wiring giving the subsidized company a monopoly over that wire. If you're out in the country you have no other ISP. If bad practices or deals by that ISP make in unattractive, how are you going to get another ISP to dig up and lay wire to your community? Get the government to subsidize another wiring effort? What if that company too starts to makes Amazon prime video priority over netflix to the point of unusable?

Net Neutrality gives consumers protection only in the form that they cannot discriminate traffic. That is all...

But by all means, cut off rural communities because it's not worth wiring to them, and the government shouldn't help that company wire to them. And if they do, then let that single ISP milk as much profit as they want as they're the only option as it's too expensive to lay down more wire for a handful of customers so rival competition won't see it as worth competing in that market.

[ll00ll00ll00ll]

Say this sentence out loud with a straight face... "Ever since the government got off Time Warner's back, these internet access speeds are through the roof, it's almost too fast!"

[Andraax]

If you live in a rural area, you'd be lucky to have something other than DSL. It's not profitable to wire out to those areas. You have ISP A and ISP A to choose from, if you don't like ISP A, then you have... ISP A or sat com which is hundreds. You seem to take for granted suburban and urban benefits and expect it to translate everywhere. That is not the case.

I live in a rural area, that until recently did not even have cable TV or DSL. I did have broadband wireless, however, by buying into a group that provided distributed wireless on a purely voluntary basis. This was totally funded by individuals, no government involvement at all. Still have my antenna, radio, and amplifier installed - it's my backup in case my cable service goes out - but I no longer provide money to fund the group. My out of pocket costs were comparable to cable service in many urban areas (I think it was around $60 a month or so). The funny thing is that they *could* provide service into some of the larger cities south of my home, but are barred by law (government regulation) from doing so. Providing these services does *not* require government - that is the "easy" (and frequently wrong) solution.

The antenna on my roof for Internet service.

[Andraax]

Say this sentence out loud with a straight face... "Ever since the government got off Time Warner's back, these internet access speeds are through the roof, it's almost too fast!"

Who is Time Warner's competition in your area?

[ll00ll00ll00ll]

Who is Time Warner's competition in your area?

The local DSL company. I am in exactly the rural area being talked about above. My problem with your argument that government regulation won't fix anything is naively expecting that the altruistic benevolence of Time Warner will fix everything. They've been somehow just waiting for the government to back off so they can give us all the really good internet? Do you think that if Net Neutrality is "fixed" then all of the sudden Comcast is going to swoop in and suddenly bury cable for miles out here in the sticks?

[Andraax]

Net Neutrality gives consumers protection only in the form that they cannot discriminate traffic. That is all...

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

[Ken L]

The funny thing is that they *could* provide service into some of the larger cities south of my home, but are barred by law (government regulation) from doing so. Providing these services does *not* require government - that is the "easy" (and frequently wrong) solution.

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..'

I still don't think you get it. This isn't like brands of bread, there are only a handful of companies who can provide internet access. The reason we have the FCC needing to approve mergers is to prevent monopolies from forming due to the high cost of entry squeezing out competition from even forming.

[Andraax]

The local DSL company. I am in exactly the rural area being talked about above. My problem with your argument that government regulation won't fix anything is naively expecting that the altruistic benevolence of Time Warner will fix everything. They've been somehow just waiting for the government to back off so they can give us all the really good internet? Do you think that if Net Neutrality is "fixed" then all of the sudden Comcast is going to swoop in and suddenly bury cable for miles out here in the sticks?

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