• Murdawg (unregistered) in reply to justsomedude
    justsomedude:
    Ah dial-up. Can you remember being able to guess the link speed just by listening to the handshake play out over the modem's built in speaker? *memories*

    Hey who knows, if net neutrality dies then maybe we'll go back to using them and home-hosted BBSs.

    YES, the old BBS days, I had one, and I found with an upload/download ratio, it was the best way to aquire the most warped disturbing porn ever

  • Murdawg (unregistered) in reply to Murdawg
    Murdawg:
    justsomedude:
    Ah dial-up. Can you remember being able to guess the link speed just by listening to the handshake play out over the modem's built in speaker? *memories*

    Hey who knows, if net neutrality dies then maybe we'll go back to using them and home-hosted BBSs.

    YES, the old BBS days, I had one, and I found with an upload/download ratio, it was the best way to aquire the most warped disturbing porn ever

    Sometimes so bad it made me wonder what kind of creeps lived with in my local call range...

    Also, change the word best with Most Effect, there is nothing GOOD about the warped crap people uploaded to my BBS.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    Anonymous:
    justsomedude:
    Anonymous:
    bigoldgeek:
    Have fun paying extra to get to YouTube, Hulu, Facebook.

    As the banking crisis showed, regulation is sometimes a good thing, and lack of regulation disastrous.

    ...snip... Of course, there is a solution. If your ISP starts doing this, switch ...snip... Post #4

    And what do you do when ALL ISPs do it?

    apologizes for the double post

    In my opinion this will never happen. Why? Because there will always be a market for unrestricted internet access and wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply. The vast majority of UK internet users use the same 5 ISPs - but there are over 100 different ISPs in the country. If the big 5 all start to ignore net neutrality, it will just put more users in the hands of the smaller ISPs. If anything, it will be the best chance they've ever had at gaining new customers. The smart ISPs will milk this for all its worth and will never implement the same draconian rules that scored them all that custom in the first place.

    Nah, once the market is dominated by cable and DSL, they're quite happy to sit on their asses and collect money. Any upstart ISPs can be crushed or legislated out of existence.

    I know what you're saying but these aren't necessarily upstarts. Some of these "smaller" ISPs have been going for over 15 years. I just did a quick check and found out that the internet service I had back in 1993 (with my Amiga, yay!) is still going strong to this day.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    Nah, once the market is dominated by cable and DSL, they're quite happy to sit on their asses and collect money. Any upstart ISPs can be crushed or legislated out of existence.

    You mean the Government doesn't always work in the people's best interest? If we don't expect them to always save us from tyranny, why do we implicitly entrust them to enact sane, fair, cost-saving measures that would perfectly implement this "net-neutrality" utopia? Especially with their consistent record of ruining everything they stick their noses into with incompetence, pork-barrel spending, expense, and scandal? (First-time home buyers, social security, medicare/medicaid, cash for clunkers, ...)

    Well, rant off, time to return to my Congressional Savings&Loan scheme...

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    [quote user="Anonymous"][quote user="Franz Kafka"]in the first place.[/quote]

    Nah, once the market is dominated by cable and DSL, they're quite happy to sit on their asses and collect money. Any upstart ISPs can be crushed or legislated out of existence.[/quote]I know what you're saying but these aren't necessarily upstarts. Some of these "smaller" ISPs have been going for over 15 years. I just did a quick check and found out that the internet service I had back in 1993 (with my Amiga, yay!) is still going strong to this day.[/quote]

    Compared to a telco, 15 years is barely in business. Of course, most telcos and cablecos probably wish the internet would go away so they could just collect $50-100/mo from everybody in their control and not worry about becoming irrelevant.

  • (cs) in reply to Doooood

    ignore this, or preferably delete it if you can - posting seemed to cause two posts...

  • (cs) in reply to Doooood
    Doooood:
    Incidentally, I can remember the nightmare of moving my workplace from static IP addresses to DHCP in the mid-90s. After a big bang approach to change every device over one weekend, it was months later before we hunted down all the random machines (old laptops that people used at home and brought into the office every so ofter, reps that visited the home office occasionally) that still had static IPs and knocked other machines off the network

    WTF? You set up the DHCP leases on the SAME Class C net you had the static IPs on? Now that's what I call WorseThanFailure.

    Not being too radical but you could just set up a scope to cover some of the addresses in the range and use addresses outside this scope for things with static ones.

    Don't see the big wtf about mixing dynamic and static address myself as long as it is thought through.

  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka

    Ok, The primary argument I see in here against net neutrality is that it may not be necessary as the worst case we fear is argued to be unlikely to happen.

    Assuming the best case on one end - that net neutrality isn't passed and doesn't need to be because our free markets will save us. Seems to amount to a statement "well, we should be OK without it". Operative word "Should" - that's a pretty weak argument.

    Now what about the flip side, let's assume net neutrality is passed and does ensure all traffic is treated equally. What's the tangible problem with that? 30,000ft statements like "the gov shouldn't interfere with business" do not amount to anything tangible. I want to know what the problem specifically would be?

    Seems far better to try and ensure it stays neutral, than to rely on the good nature of our service providers to keep it that way.

    Oh and to the BBS SysOps with the special problem - maybe it would have been better to just skip the ratios and instead require donations.

  • VoiceOfReason (unregistered) in reply to justsomedude

    That's easy, fewer profits. QED.

  • (cs) in reply to Leo
    Leo:
    "Hey who knows, if net neutrality dies then maybe we'll go back to using them and home-hosted BBSs. "

    You mean if "net neutrality" (quite a WTF name in itself) is passed. Nothing will ruin the Internet quicker (well, moreso than it is now) than government regulations.

    It's not often that the WTF-ness of a comment can eclipse the original story, but you've bested it by about 256 orders of magnitude.

  • aBase (unregistered) in reply to Foo
    Foo:
    Anonymous:

    Of course, there is a solution. If your ISP starts doing this, switch. That's exactly what I did, the day after my ISP announced they were planning to ignore net neutrality principles and charge content providers for faster access to their sites. This was Virgin Media in the UK, by the way. If you're with them, run like hell.

    Post #4

    you in the UK are lucky.. in most spots your infrastructure (the physical lines) is owned by the public to my understanding. then the providers lease out sections to sell support with.. and you can switch providers.

    here in the states it doesn't work that way. if i want to have internet access i have two options: Qwest DSL, Mediacom Cable.

    both have doubled their rates in the past 5 years, but only increased bandwidth nominally.

    I've been a Mediacom Cable customer for over ten years, and my monthly charge hasn't changed by one penny since the day I signed up, while the bandwidth has increased to six times what it was then.

  • just as anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Of course, there is a solution. If your ISP starts doing this, switch. That's exactly what I did, the day after my ISP announced they were planning to ignore net neutrality principles and charge content providers for faster access to their sites. This was Virgin Media in the UK, by the way. If you're with them, run like hell.

    When did they announce that ?

    I know Virgin Media has a reputation for connection throttling that works in the following way: 1: Has this connection been used during the last 24 hours ? 2a: If "yes" - reduce the connection speed and increase the latency 2b: If "no" - reduce the connection speed and increase the latency

    ( while enticing customers by advertising the speed of the connection )

    but when did they decide to "charge content providers" ?

    ( Obligatory mention of the ISP Orange - which advertises "unlimited" tariffs... that have maximum download limits.

    Do advertisers - never mind regulators and customers - have any understanding of the meaning of words any more ? )

  • (cs)

    This reminded me of my first "it can't be that easy" hacking attempt as a young teenager. I was on IRC and noticed that ChanServ and NickServ would occasionally quit (due to "netsplit", timing out, or whatever). So the next time NickServ timed out, I changed my name to NickServ. I immediately got a message saying "IDENTIFY CHRISTIAN" which I took to be a threat from an admin. Then a few seconds later, I got another message that said "identify password123" before I remembered that is how you identify/login to NickServ. I sent a few messages back, something on the order of I AM NICKSERV AND I HAD SEX WITH YOUR MOTHER (hey, I was like 14). Then I got scared and quit.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    No net neutrality? What's the worst that could happen?

    [image]
  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Some credit to the creator: ClickyMe

    That image spread quick...and quink's comment responses were so funny I figure he deserves some linkage.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    Franz Kafka:
    Nah, once the market is dominated by cable and DSL, they're quite happy to sit on their asses and collect money. Any upstart ISPs can be crushed or legislated out of existence.

    You mean the Government doesn't always work in the people's best interest? If we don't expect them to always save us from tyranny, why do we implicitly entrust them to enact sane, fair, cost-saving measures that would perfectly implement this "net-neutrality" utopia? Especially with their consistent record of ruining everything they stick their noses into with incompetence, pork-barrel spending, expense, and scandal? (First-time home buyers, social security, medicare/medicaid, cash for clunkers, ...)

    Well, rant off, time to return to my Congressional Savings&Loan scheme...

    Who do you think writes that legislation? If you're a telco, it's in your interest to make competition illegal or just plain unworkable.

  • Vowyer (unregistered) in reply to Carl

    Isn't the government there to "govern"?

  • TimP (unregistered) in reply to justsomedude
    justsomedude:
    Ok, The primary argument I see in here against net neutrality is that it may not be necessary as the worst case we fear is argued to be unlikely to happen.

    Assuming the best case on one end - that net neutrality isn't passed and doesn't need to be because our free markets will save us. Seems to amount to a statement "well, we should be OK without it". Operative word "Should" - that's a pretty weak argument.

    No it's not so much that the Free Markets should protect us it's that so far they have done fine to protect us in this case. We've survived this far without a problem without legally mandated net neutrality, which suggests that the worse case probably won't happen. The ISPs have had the technology for decades, but haven't used it for any particularly glaring examples of evil yet.

    This is particularly true now that wireless is becoming more common. The main problem with companies that don't hold to network neutrality is if they own the actual network; with wireless that is not a problem (except if the government interferes and restricts only certain organizations to using wireless). There are also literally hundreds of cable providers that will connect you to a new network for cheap, though you will probably be restricted to only a couple in your area.

    justsomedude:
    Now what about the flip side, let's assume net neutrality is passed and does ensure all traffic is treated equally. What's the *tangible* problem with that? 30,000ft statements like "the gov shouldn't interfere with business" do not amount to anything tangible. I want to know what the problem specifically would be?

    Seems far better to try and ensure it stays neutral, than to rely on the good nature of our service providers to keep it that way.

    One of the negative consequences of mandating net neutrality is a decrease in competition, and most industries where there are only one or two providers suck. Legally mandated net neutrality causes an increased cost of entry into the industry (as do all corporate laws), because they have to spend legal fees on making sure they comply with the law.

    Another negative consequence is that it prevents people from purchasing the service they actually want. If someone wants to only purchase access to a restricted sub-set of sites for a cheaper price why can't they? Some people want a network where certain applications are given priority, and if that's the case who are we to say they can't.

    Basically it won't make things much worse than they are now even in the worst case, but even in the best case it will slow down the rate of improvement, to fix a problem that may potentially start happening at some point in the future, and that to me is a bad move.

    (There is also the problems of increased government expense to regulate it and the gradual decrease in freedom. Just because a group of people are acting together rather than individualy doesn't mean that they lose their rights to freedom)

  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Vowyer
    Franz Kafka:
    Dan:
    Franz Kafka:
    Nah, once the market is dominated by cable and DSL, they're quite happy to sit on their asses and collect money. Any upstart ISPs can be crushed or legislated out of existence.

    ....snip...

    Who do you think writes that legislation? If you're a telco, it's in your interest to make competition illegal or just plain unworkable.

    No kidding, and the blanket claim that the gov "consistent record of ruining everything they stick their noses into with incompetence" is absurd at face value. I'm not saying they do everything right, mind you, but to say they do everything wrong is equally absurd.

  • Tristan (unregistered) in reply to justsomedude
    justsomedude:
    Now what about the flip side, let's assume net neutrality is passed and does ensure all traffic is treated equally. What's the *tangible* problem with that? 30,000ft statements like "the gov shouldn't interfere with business" do not amount to anything tangible. I want to know what the problem specifically would be?

    This depends on what you mean by equality of traffic. Everyone has their own definition of net neutrality and what exactly it means (I count at least three main points of view in this thread alone).

    At a basic level you could can consider neutrality at the packet level or neutrality at the service level. As a note I'm against the former but in favour of the latter.

    So, let's assume all traffic is neutral at a packet level. We're moving from a high capacity channel (international backbone) to a lower capacity channel (backhaul to our private networks). Whenever traffic comes in faster than the lower capacity channel can handle it has to be buffered and will be delayed. The decision about what packet to send next from the buffer can be called traffic shaping.

    Now, you have a VoIP connection active and if a packet is delayed by more than half a second (at best) that's an audible gap and the packet might as well be discarded. I've got a hundred connections open that I'm using to torrent pr0n and if my packets are delayed by a couple of seconds a time I probably won't even notice.

    But we're neutral - so either on a FIFO buffer or Round-Robin. So my packets that I don't really care when they turn up come through at the same rate as your VoIP packets that you need as fast as possible. But I have a hundred connections to your one and we get an even delay on every packet. Your VoIP service suffers badly and I don't notice one way or another.

    And that's before we even get into what happens when the buffer is exceeded and what discard choices we make on new packets and the consequnces on channel utilisation if we're 'neutral' and use tail-drop or similar.

    The prioritisation of time-critical traffic over best-effort traffic over non-desirable traffic can be said to be not neutral but is to the benefit of the end user.

    Sevice neutrality however implies that packets within the same class (type, protocol, whatever you want to call it) are treated equally. So my http packets to Microsoft Bing go at the same speed as my http packets to Google or my Sky Player streaming is not degraded because BBC iPlayer paid more money.

    In an non-neutral environment here the smaller service providers who cannot afford to pay for prioritization are marginalized and squeezed out as their service degrades under load leading to shrinking choice and monopolies.

    So, concluding. Traffic shaping to stomp on torrenting in preference of VoIP or VPN or Streaming - annoying but acceptable when the network is under load. The rumours of deliberately crippling competitors VoIP through my network so that my own service is superior - unacceptable.

    We just have to be clear on what we're fighting for.

    I also get the feeling I drifted off-point about halfway though but whatever.

  • Blutoof (unregistered)

    Carl wrote <I can't in good conscience support the idea that the government has the right to tell businesses what kinds of services they can and can't offer, or to tell consumers what kinds of services they're allowed to purchase, or to regulate the Internet or access to it in any way. I am constantly shocked by the overwhelming number of Internet users who appar believe that what the Internet really needs is increased government regulation.>

    Well Carl, Maybe the government could do one good thing and PROTECT the internet. How it does it MAY include a LAW. It does NOT necessarily mean control and regulation.

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to Carl

    The theory that we need zero government regulation would work well if we actually had competition.

    Frankly most communities are slaves to whatever big network provider they are unlucky enough to be saddled with.

    For instance if AT&T suddenly decides that I can't visit thedailywtf without paying a WTF access fee, then my only choice is pay or dialup.

    We need net neutrality, but we need real competition worse.

  • TimP (unregistered) in reply to Blutoof
    Blutoof:
    ... Maybe the government could do one good thing and PROTECT the internet. How it does it MAY include a LAW. It does NOT necessarily mean control and regulation.

    And how exactly does the government do anything without "control and regulation"? Those are the only things the government can do.

  • TimP (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    We need net neutrality, but we need real competition worse.

    Yes, but apparently the best way to deal with a problem caused by a lack of competition is to make competition harder by introducing greater legal complexities into the industry.

  • TopCat (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    In my opinion this will never happen. Why? Because there will always be a market for unrestricted internet access and wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply. The vast majority of UK internet users use the same 5 ISPs - but there are over 100 different ISPs in the country. If the big 5 all start to ignore net neutrality, it will just put more users in the hands of the smaller ISPs. If anything, it will be the best chance they've ever had at gaining new customers. The smart ISPs will milk this for all its worth and will never implement the same draconian rules that scored them all that custom in the first place.

    Actually there are only about a dozen true ISPs in the UK that actually deliver DSL or cable connections to users. All the rest simply buy services wholesale from the key players and resell it. In recent years, the number of independant companies that deliver DSL connections has actually gone down as networks have been bought and merged.

  • Stuart MacDonald (unregistered) in reply to Tristan
    Tristan:
    This depends on what you mean by equality of traffic. Everyone has their own definition of net neutrality and what exactly it means
    Agreed.
    Tristan:
    Now, you have a VoIP connection active and if a packet is delayed by more than half a second (at best) that's an audible gap and the packet might as well be discarded. I've got a hundred connections open that I'm using to torrent pr0n and if my packets are delayed by a couple of seconds a time I probably won't even notice. [snip] The prioritisation of time-critical traffic over best-effort traffic over non-desirable traffic can be said to be not neutral but is to the benefit of the end user.
    No, it's not. It is to the benefit of *some* end users, sometimes, but always at the expense of other end users. Your argument is equivalent to stating that the benefit accrued to some users outweighs the cost to the others.

    Same applications but: your VoIP is your 17 year old daughter having phone sex with her boyfriend; my torrent is downloading the latest medical research I need to make a life or death call in my ER.

    Which traffic is more important? More time-critical?

    How would an ISP know the difference between the situation you propose and the situation I propose?

    Tristan:
    Traffic shaping to stomp on torrenting in preference of VoIP or VPN or Streaming - annoying but acceptable
    To you perhaps. Not to others. Not to me.

    The net neutrality I fight for is what you call packet-level neutrality. I fight for this because I believe the following decisions are too important to leave to a corporation:

    • which packets are more important that others
    • why they are more important
    • which users get to benefit
    • which users get to suffer

    The only way to have fairness is to carry all packets equally.

    Tristan:
    The rumours of deliberately crippling competitors VoIP through my network so that my own service is superior - unacceptable.
    Agreed, but that's just illegal monopolistic business behaviour.

    ...Stu

  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Stuart MacDonald

    My FSM, this has been one of the most stimulating and interesting threads. Many thanks to all, on both sides of the debate.

    CAPTCHA: similis - A bit less than similar

  • Zippy (unregistered)

    "In my opinion this will never happen. Why? Because there will always be a market for unrestricted internet access and wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply."

    Yet more Libertarian wishful thinking. In truth, if your "choice" is between two providers (typically DSL and cable), they will be quite happy to give you the fewest number of choices you will tolerate, and charge you more for it.

    And by the way, in this environment, huge providers like Comcast are far more concerned about stock value than any antiquated market concept like "customer service." When you're a captive market, you're nothing but a number to them, a data point on a chart. And if they know the government will do nothing to help you, you're even less than that.

    Call up tech support sometime. After a half-hour, you'll likely get an over-worked, under-trained call-center employee who is required to try to sell you something and drop you in the shortest time possible.

    I am symphathetic to the general argument against government regulation, and certainly any legislation must be examined for ominous loopholes. It also certainly impossible for government to quote-unquote "regulate the Internet."

    But simply mandating--in terms that clear and limited--the open-access principles on which Internet was founded be obeyed--is neither illegal nor onerous, and well within the government's ability to regulate commerce within the US Constitution.

    We just have watch the legislation closely, and make very sure they do it right.

  • (cs)

    Everybody talks about net neutrality as if, without it, Microsoft could pay Verison to make microsoft.com packets go faster. But can't Microsoft pay Verison to make google.com packets go slower?

  • Alan (unregistered)

    Disregarding the bullshit net neutrality debate (net neutrality is integral to the idea of the Internet, abandoning it would destroy it, allowing that to happen would make me personally come over and stab you), could we please focus on the WTF?

    Did anybody else notice that the first thing that came to "Jonathan"'s mind when he noticed he can set his own IP was to spoof his ISP's mail server and collect user account data?

    Today we call this phishing and consider it a cyber-crime. WTF, dude?

    He could have proven his point by setting up a simple webserver instead and showing his ISP the access logs. It still wouldn't make his hat white, but at least he wouldn't have subverted anybody's privacy.

    The guy's an asshole, no matter how cringeworthy the ISP's infrastructure was.

    veniam: as in "veniam, videam, viciam"

  • EmperorOfCanada (unregistered)

    Try Canada. Every upstart gets mowed down, bought out, or like today's very announcement regulated away. In the same week the US got a net neutrality nod our FCC equivalent said yes to packet raping.

  • Everything Guy (unregistered)

    TRWTF is commenters speculating about how a dial-up ISP got their DHCP setup wrong. Nobody assigned dial-up IPs with DHCP.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RADIUS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACACS%2B

  • An ony mouse (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that he phoned twice and got the same tech-support guy each time.

  • Xythar (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    In my opinion this will never happen. Why? Because there will always be a market for unrestricted internet access and wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply. The vast majority of UK internet users use the same 5 ISPs - but there are over 100 different ISPs in the country. If the big 5 all start to ignore net neutrality, it will just put more users in the hands of the smaller ISPs. If anything, it will be the best chance they've ever had at gaining new customers. The smart ISPs will milk this for all its worth and will never implement the same draconian rules that scored them all that custom in the first place.

    There's a pretty big demand in Australia for unlimited internet, doesn't mean anyone's actually supplying it.

  • (cs) in reply to An ony mouse
    An ony mouse:
    TRWTF is that he phoned twice and got the same tech-support guy each time.

    Maybe the company was so small that they only had one.

  • Herby (unregistered)

    As for "net neutrality", consider what happens to your "casual" surfing when American Idol (or something similar) is streaming to every household clogging up the internet so much that nothing else gets through. If we must treat ALL packets equally, it could turn out that way.

    Broadcast technologies need to be delegated to broadcast items. Point to point should be delegated to those things that really ARE point to point, NOT broadcast. Unfortunately our government in the form of the FCC doesn't understand this.

  • Xythar (unregistered) in reply to Herby
    Herby:
    As for "net neutrality", consider what happens to your "casual" surfing when American Idol (or something similar) is streaming to every household clogging up the internet so much that nothing else gets through. If we must treat ALL packets equally, it could turn out that way.

    Broadcast technologies need to be delegated to broadcast items. Point to point should be delegated to those things that really ARE point to point, NOT broadcast. Unfortunately our government in the form of the FCC doesn't understand this.

    Thanks for this, Ted Stevens. Let us know when you figure out how the internet actually works.

  • Nick (unregistered) in reply to justsomedude
    justsomedude:
    Carl, I respect your love of true free markets but the problem is we don't have true free markets and consumers can't choose to not do business.

    Yesterday I stumbled across this well articulated argument: http://www.ianwelsh.net/consumers-cant-choose-not-to-do-business/

    In reality what we have is large ISPs moving towards a model in which they can choose what parts of the internet you will have easy access too. In a better world, another prospective ISP could come along and offer what the consumer really wants (and get the business), but in reality this is unlikely to happen.

    Consumers will have the choice of Limited, Throttled access to much of the internet, or no access at all. That is not in the spirit of true free markets and is exactly why regulations are sometimes necessary.

    So if I was an independent mechanic that only serviced Japanese cars, you would be perfectly OK with the government coming along and forcing me to service American cars too? What if a don't have the time or money to get certified for them, I have to go out of business because I cannot comply with the regulations and then the large companies get all the customers. This is exactly what you say we should prevent.
  • Dan (unregistered)

    [url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/cable-group-turns-net-neutrality-around-over-isp-access-fees.ars[/ur]

    It's not just the ISPs who need regulating.

    And what happens when the backbone providers get in on the game? I'm sure they'd love to make more money.

  • Nick (unregistered) in reply to Herby
    Herby:
    As for "net neutrality", consider what happens to your "casual" surfing when American Idol (or something similar) is streaming to every household clogging up the internet so much that nothing else gets through. If we must treat ALL packets equally, it could turn out that way.
    This is exactly what the free market will resolve. Packets are prioritised first-come first-served, why should my request for stock prices be prioritised higher that the next video packet? The telecom companies will see that the network is saturated and realise that if the lay more fibre, more data can be transferred and they will get more money. Regulations will just delay the fibre upgrades.
  • (cs) in reply to Nick
    Nick:
    justsomedude:
    Carl, I respect your love of true free markets but the problem is we don't have true free markets and consumers can't choose to not do business.

    Yesterday I stumbled across this well articulated argument: http://www.ianwelsh.net/consumers-cant-choose-not-to-do-business/

    In reality what we have is large ISPs moving towards a model in which they can choose what parts of the internet you will have easy access too. In a better world, another prospective ISP could come along and offer what the consumer really wants (and get the business), but in reality this is unlikely to happen.

    Consumers will have the choice of Limited, Throttled access to much of the internet, or no access at all. That is not in the spirit of true free markets and is exactly why regulations are sometimes necessary.

    So if I was an independent mechanic that only serviced Japanese cars, you would be perfectly OK with the government coming along and forcing me to service American cars too? What if a don't have the time or money to get certified for them, I have to go out of business because I cannot comply with the regulations and then the large companies get all the customers. This is exactly what you say we should prevent.
    I take your point, Nick, but I don't think you've made the right analogy.

    Neutrality isn't like "forcing" auto shops to repair makes and models in which they aren't trained. It's more like forcing auto shops to not give preferential treatment to a few brands.

    But no, even that's a terrible analogy. Why? Because the markets are so dissimilar. There are hundreds - thousands - of competing, independent auto shops in my home state (MA) alone. If my mechanic tried to "throttle" my access to his service, I could easily go to a competitor. My switching costs would be no higher than driving down the street. The free market can handle this situation without intervention.

    If my mechanic was one of 5 or 6 controlling 90% of the auto repair business nationwide, you have a different story. This becomes a classic case of "market failure" (I think even Adam Smith might agree!) and so regulation can be justified.

    Of course, that's not how it will happen in the auto repair business. What will happen - and is happening right now - is that the auto manufactures are withholding access to diagnostic codes from independent shops. This hampers the ability of the little guy (non-dealer) to fix my car. In some cases it outright prevents the independent mechanic from fixing my car; forcing more traffic to the dealer. This is what the automobile "right of repair" controversy is all about (and it's probably waaayyy off topic.... what did you say the WTF article about again?)

  • the real wtf (unregistered) in reply to justsomedude
    justsomedude:
    Leo:
    "Hey who knows, if net neutrality dies then maybe we'll go back to using them and home-hosted BBSs. "

    You mean if "net neutrality" (quite a WTF name in itself) is passed. Nothing will ruin the Internet quicker (well, moreso than it is now) than government regulations.

    Just, wow. Are you serious? Maybe I'm mistaken, but it's my understanding that passing net neutrality means we will continue to treat all traffic equally. From Wiki:

    "Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for residential broadband networks and potentially for all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams."

    So if I read your note correctly, you believe this is a bad thing?

    Leo is one of those dumbasses duped by McCain's "internet freedom" nonsense. America has significant numbers of guys like Leo who will never break 90 on an IQ test.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to just as anonymous
    just as anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    Of course, there is a solution. If your ISP starts doing this, switch. That's exactly what I did, the day after my ISP announced they were planning to ignore net neutrality principles and charge content providers for faster access to their sites. This was Virgin Media in the UK, by the way. If you're with them, run like hell.
    When did they announce that ?

    I know Virgin Media has a reputation for connection throttling that works in the following way: 1: Has this connection been used during the last 24 hours ? 2a: If "yes" - reduce the connection speed and increase the latency 2b: If "no" - reduce the connection speed and increase the latency

    ( while enticing customers by advertising the speed of the connection )

    but when did they decide to "charge content providers" ?

    ( Obligatory mention of the ISP Orange - which advertises "unlimited" tariffs... that have maximum download limits.

    Do advertisers - never mind regulators and customers - have any understanding of the meaning of words any more ? )

    Here you go my friend, take a look at this:

    http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a93556/virgin-media-ceo-attacks-net-neutrality.html

    Neil Berkett, Virgin Media's CEO, went on record as saying that net neutrality is "a load of bollocks" (seriously, his words!) and made it perfectly clear that they are in talks with content providers to negotiate extra charges for faster content delivery. I understand that this practice could begin as early as the first half of 2010. The long and short of it is that Virgin Media have made it 100% crystal clear that they will not uphold the principle of net neutrality and are actively persuing a model of charging content providers extra for faster delivery over the Virgin Media network. As soon as I heard this news I switched providers. There is no way that I'm paying to have a crippled service like this.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to TopCat
    TopCat:
    Anonymous:
    In my opinion this will never happen. Why? Because there will always be a market for unrestricted internet access and wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply. The vast majority of UK internet users use the same 5 ISPs - but there are over 100 different ISPs in the country. If the big 5 all start to ignore net neutrality, it will just put more users in the hands of the smaller ISPs. If anything, it will be the best chance they've ever had at gaining new customers. The smart ISPs will milk this for all its worth and will never implement the same draconian rules that scored them all that custom in the first place.
    Actually there are only about a dozen *true* ISPs in the UK that actually deliver DSL or cable connections to users. All the rest simply buy services wholesale from the key players and resell it. In recent years, the number of independant companies that deliver DSL connections has actually gone down as networks have been bought and merged.
    Yes, I'm aware of this, but it doesn't change anything. We still have a choice, we have alternative services to go to if any one service does not meet our expectations. As long as this is true there will be real competion in the UK market and providers will have to fight for customers. Whether or not that competion comes from "true" ISPs is irrelevant; I actually use an LLU service myself, so technically my ISP is not a "true" ISP. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference.
  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Zippy
    Anonymous:
    ...there will always be a market for unrestricted internet access and wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply...
    Zippy:
    Yet more Libertarian wishful thinking...
    Xythar:
    There's a pretty big demand in Australia for unlimited internet, doesn't mean anyone's actually supplying it.
    Sorry guys, I'm just telling it like it is in the UK. It's not wishful thinking, it's reality. We were quick to establish as fair and open a market as we could in regard to internet services. Unfortunately, a lot of countries have made no such efforts.
  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to ContraCorners

    I get the feeling that it's not 'net neutrality' which is needed (there are many reasons why it might NOT be what individual customers want), but increased competition, and the requirement for ISPs to publish any throttling they are doing, and also to prevent them changing your Ts & Cs half way through a contract period without giving you a chance to cancel your contract.

    So, rather than fighting for net neutrality, people should be fighting for lower barriers to entry (eg less regulation, being able to use another company's cabling for a reasonable fee (as in the UK)), and standard consumer protection (clarity of Ts & Cs and inability to change Ts & Cs part way through a contract term - as in the UK).

    Traffic prioritisation is a good thing - YOU might not want it, but why can't I buy a 'VOIP' ADSL line with SIP prioritisation? Net Neutrality would prevent me from doing that.

    As long as you have a wide range of ISPs with enough competition, then 'Net Neutrality' WILL sort itself out, and you get lots of other benefits as well.

  • Wizard Stan (unregistered) in reply to Stuart MacDonald
    Stuart MacDonald:
    Same applications but: your VoIP is your 17 year old daughter having phone sex with her boyfriend; my torrent is downloading the latest medical research I need to make a life or death call in my ER.

    Which traffic is more important? More time-critical?

    Your strawman argument has no affect on me. Delays caused by prioritization would be measured in half to one full second: delays like this make VoIP and IPTV annoying, but even in the life or death situation it only adds up to a few seconds, if anything at all. Remember, torrents are designed to be out-of-order transmission. It doesn't have to wait for one packet before requesting the next. If one packet is delayed, who cares? You were already waiting on the next one anyway. Two tiered internet is a good thing assuming the following: 1) both layers are maintained 2) priority is opt in, and your ISP can't say "you're server is using too much bandwidth, so we're moving you to the higher tier and charging more money" This will not give google or youtube a perceivable edge over any other search or video hosting site. Delays are measured in half seconds. Maybe a whole second. WOO! Google might load up one second faster than Yahoo, maybe two seconds if there's particularly heavy traffic. Woopdy freakin' doo. And that's assuming that they would have run along the same backbone with prioritization. Remember when the telcos first proposed second tier as an entirely different backbone? And then knee jerk reaction to the proposal squashed all discussion? We could have had the best of both worlds! Torrents and web pages could have continued to be neutral with FIFO on one pipe, VoIP and IPTV upgraded to the second pipe (if they wanted to be!) And that's why I'm opposed to net neutrality: the knee jerk reaction that killed practically all serious talks about a two tier compromise that could have been the next great evolution to the internet.
  • Gimli (unregistered) in reply to bigoldgeek
    bigoldgeek:
    Have fun paying extra to get to YouTube, Hulu, Facebook.

    As the banking crisis showed, regulation is sometimes a good thing, and lack of regulation disastrous.

    Umm, but the banking crisis was caused by excessive regulation to begin with. The government decided that it was a good thing for people to be able to own their own homes rather than renting. So they passed regulations -- notably CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act -- pressuring banks to give mortgages to people who, by the banks' standards, wouldn't previously have qualified. That is, the bank didn't think these people were likely to be able to repay the loan. The government said, Too bad, you must loan them money anyway.

    Then, shock of shocks, many of these people turned out to not be able to repay the loan! Who would have thought those stupid, greedy bankers were right and the Congressmen and bureaucrats were wrong?

    The solution, of course, was to accuse the bankers of "predatory lending", that is, of loaning money to people who they knew could never repay it.

    Just think about this for a minute. Why would a bank WANT to loan money to people who they knew couldn't repay it? Why would they do that, unless they were forced to by the government? Does the pro-regulation version of this story even make sense?

    A few years ago, conservatives in Congress pressed for hearings on the subject. Bankers warned that the whole system was about to collapse. And the majority in Congress rejected the concerns, declaring that there was no danger, everything was fine, and increasing home ownership was a worthy goal that we needed to continue to pursue.

  • Gimli (unregistered)

    So let me see if I can sum up the pro-net neutrality argument we've had here so far:

    Yes, in a perfect free market where there was ample competition, where all vendors were honest and hard-working, etc, government regulation would be unnecessary. The market would police itself. But the reality is that we do not have a perfect free-market. Therefore, we need government regulation.

    For of course, while markets are flawed, the government is always perfect. Government regulation is always infinitely wise and fair and always devised in the best interests of the consumer.

    In a free market, a few big companies may manage to dominate the market and keep out competition. But if the government steps in to regulate, the idea that these big companies or special interests might make large campaign contributions and send in hordes of lobbyists to influence the regulations in ways that favor themselves and keep out competition, nah, that could never happen.

    Government never acts for the benefit of the rich and powerful, or even of the loud and outspoken. No, government always acts in the best interests of the common man. Being able to afford an army of lawyers and lobbyists wouldn't do any special interest any good. They'd be superfluous: Government officials would always make decisions based on what is best for everyone, regardless of what the lobbyists say. That's why no big company today bothers to send lobbyists to Washington.

  • (cs) in reply to Gimli
    Gimli:
    So let me see if I can sum up the pro-net neutrality argument we've had here so far:

    ...etc.

    Have any of you considered the possibility that maybe the correct answer is not in either extreme, but some compromise between the two?

    Have any of you checked to see if that's what's actually being proposed?

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