[HN Gopher] FCC to vote on restoring net neutrality
___________________________________________________________________
FCC to vote on restoring net neutrality
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 39 points
Date : 2024-04-03 21:13 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fcc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fcc.gov)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Carr Opposes Biden Internet Control Plan_
|
| https://www.fcc.gov/document/carr-opposes-biden-internet-con...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Note "net neutrality" described here as "Internet Control Plan"
| by FCC Commissioner
| kouru225 wrote:
| That seems normal and not reactionary at all
| axus wrote:
| Internet Service Provider Control would be more accurate.
|
| Has any of the bad stuff come to pass since it was lost?
| jerkstate wrote:
| well, we certainly have pervasive censorship online now
| wtallis wrote:
| By ISPs? Most of the censorship that I've seen people
| complain about is done by social media website operators,
| not ISPs.
| nostromo wrote:
| Because of Google and Facebook - not your ISP.
| rockskon wrote:
| In some jurisdictions, yes. A number of other
| jurisdictions have legislated their own Net Neutrality
| rules though and the issue is still a relatively hot
| topic in internet policy circles. So ISPs are waiting for
| all controversy around it to die down before more
| aggressively abusing their position to favor their own
| services and cripple that of competitors and anyone who
| refuses to pay them extra $$$ beyond what they already
| pay.
| _justinfunk wrote:
| Not again... "Net Neutrality", whether you are for or against the
| policy, is just a terrible name. It is too ambiguous.
| jjulius wrote:
| The ambiguity is the point, unfortunately.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Yup. Just like "immigration reform".
| kouru225 wrote:
| If they change it you know how many conspiracy theories that'd
| open it up to?
| wtallis wrote:
| It's a very accurate label even if it is a bit imprecise since
| it doesn't convey anything about the nuances of the policy.
| You're probably not going to be able to come up with a better
| name that isn't _much_ longer. Or did you mean that you 'd
| prefer a policy without nuances?
| kouru225 wrote:
| So what are the betting odds?
| shmerl wrote:
| Long overdue.
| dilap wrote:
| Have you noticed any negative impacts from not having net
| neutrality? I haven't -- compare this to FOSTA-SESTA, which
| knocked craigslist personals and various other sites offline.
|
| I don't really see why people get so worked up about net
| neutrality.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Yes, I have. Some Mobile internet providers seduce stream
| quality unless you pay more.
|
| Despite advertising speeds and capacity, they still limit
| you.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| > _I don 't really see why people get so worked up about net
| neutrality._
|
| At the time, there were still remnants of the early ideas
| about the Internet being a democratizing force. For instance,
| that it would be possible for anyone to stand up a service
| and have an equal chance of competing.
| bisby wrote:
| Multiple major ISPs used to throttle Netflix, so that
| customers would have a poor experience and switch to the ISP
| owned streaming service. That stopped the last time net
| neutrality came up (that was basically WHY it came up).
|
| Right now, if there are no immediately visible negative
| impacts, it's because ISPs are being cautious to not get
| regulated, not because they won't do it again.
|
| If companies are doing nothing wrong and are just doing
| exactly what we want anyway, they would have no issues
| supporting net neutrality: "That's what we're already doing,
| it's a good thing!" The fact that they are so adamantly
| against "don't throttle your competitors traffic" is a huge
| red flag screaming "thats exactly what they are trying to
| do".
|
| So I have seen negative impacts from not having net
| neutrality in the past (netflix throttling), yes.
| wmf wrote:
| ISPs have been on relatively good behavior because they know
| that being evil will motivate net neutrality to be
| reinstated. Peering extortion is probably distorting
| competition between streaming companies but it's designed so
| that consumers don't see it.
| perrylaj wrote:
| There are plenty of examples of real damage caused by ISPs
| being able to give preferential treatment to what _they_
| think is important. A quick search comes up with plenty of
| examples:
|
| 1. ISPs limiting 3rd party VOIP solutions to avoid
| competition with their own VOIP solutions
|
| 2. Comcast blocking bitorrent communication was pretty
| obvious case of ISP preferentially limiting traffic
|
| 3. Verizon blocking text messages it didn't like the
| political message of
|
| 4. Verizon blocking 3rd party tethering apps, limiting users
| from using the bandwidth they pay for because they want to
| prevent competition
|
| 5. ATT prevented Facetime over their network unless users
| paid a higher subscription, even though users were already
| paying for data
|
| 6. Verizon limiting bandwidth for arbitrary reasons during
| natural disasters (first responders communication hampered
| due to limits justified through 'we don't need to follow net
| neutrality anymore')
|
| Those are a few, there are MANY more examples in the US
| alone. Ya, some or many have been rolled back due to public
| outcry, but they shouldn't have happened to begin with.
| Allowing ISPs to determine which traffic is allowed based on
| their own self interest is just a terrible idea. Just because
| you haven't been harmed by it yet doesn't mean much,
| especially not in a country where the majority have only one
| or maybe two broadband ISPs to choose from. It WILL be
| abused, and we know this because it already has.
|
| ISPs should be dumb pipes and not much more.
| dantheman wrote:
| The FCC just constantly exceeds its mandate; it's just nonsense.
| bluish29 wrote:
| I think people argue that without net neutrality, we didn't see
| much negative impact. Except that it is not always about what is
| happening, but what could happen. This can be useful if at some
| point the internet providers started to collude or think about
| changing the status quo. It is one thing to rely on the status
| quo to be the same by the good well (maybe market forces, but
| they often fail to protect customers) of the providers but
| another if they are required to do.
| nateglims wrote:
| Yeah, I don't buy the noblesse oblige view. We are watching
| tech companies freely throwing away trust of employees and
| consumers for financial gains.
| wtallis wrote:
| It's also about what _did_ happen in the past. ISPs explicitly
| targeted P2P protocols like BitTorrent instead of identifying
| and fixing the underlying network problems (bufferbloat) that
| were first exposed by p2p but eventually became problematic for
| many other use cases. ISPs extorted streaming video providers
| that competed against their own bundled services. Cellular
| providers implemented various zero-rating schemes to explicitly
| privilege access to certain partner services. All of these are
| real, documented harms that were inflicted on the public and
| can be prevented and punished by reasonable net neutrality
| regulation without interfering with the ability of an ISP to
| compete in the market by trying to be a better ISP.
| nostromo wrote:
| Regulators shouldn't waste time on non-existent problems that
| might come to pass (unless it's a catastrophic outcome, like
| nuclear weapon proliferation).
|
| Instead we should keep the _threat_ of neutrality on hand, but
| only use it if the market fails. It hasn't failed yet. ISPs
| seem much less willing to filter content than tech giants like
| Google and Facebook are.
|
| Always keep in mind that regulations get corrupted by industry
| over time. Regulatory capture is worse for the consumer than is
| a well-functioning market.
| wtallis wrote:
| > but only use it if the market fails. It hasn't failed yet.
|
| First of all, regulators should at a minimum have enough
| investigatory power to monitor for and uncover abusive market
| failure situations. But your assertion that the market hasn't
| failed yet only seems to hold up if you set a pretty high bar
| for what kind of malfeasance qualifies as a market failure.
| Do you honestly believe that none of the instances on record
| in the US and elsewhere are individually or collectively
| sufficient justification for preventive measures? Just how
| much abuse has to pile up before regulation stops being a
| waste of time?
| bigtex wrote:
| People in rural Texas can get gigabit fiber internet for
| 80/month, why do I need Net Neutrality again?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-04-03 23:02 UTC)