Network Neutrality Is Law In Chile

An anonymous reader writes "Chile is the first country of the world to guarantee by law the principle of network neutrality, according to the Teleccomunications Market Comission's Blog from Spain. The official newspaper of the Chilean Republic published yesterday a Law that guarantees that any Internet user will be able to use, send, receive or offer any content, applications or legal services over the Internet, without arbitrary or discriminatory blocking."

Comments

A Law That Guarantees

[WrongSizeGlass]

a Law that guarantees that any Internet user will be able to use, send, receive or offer any content, applications or legal services over the Internet, without arbitrary or discriminatory blocking

In Chile. If the servers are not in Chile then this law doesn't apply.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[WrongSizeGlass]

In Chile. If the servers are not in Chile then this law doesn't apply.

That was worded poorly. If the traffic doesn't originate in Chile then it is subject to arbitrary and/or discriminatory blocking or throttling before it gets to Chile.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[Anonymous Coward]

In Chile. If the servers are not in Chile then this law doesn't apply.

You expect Chile to enforce its will on foreign countries?

What do you think they are, AMERICA?

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[cappp]

Google and I have joined forces to provide the following description of what the law seems to cover:

1Prohibition for ISPs (those that provide Internet access) to interfere with, discriminate or interfere in any way the content, applications or services unless measures to ensure the privacy of users, virus protection and security the network;
2.It requires ISPs to provide parental control services;
3.Forces to provide clients with a series of written evidence for it to correctly identify the contracted service;
4.Forces to ensure the privacy of users, virus protection and network security, and
5.Forces to ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network and offer a service that does not distinguish content, applications or services, based on the source of it or their property. Also prohibits activities that restrict users' freedom to use the content or services unless the specific request of users.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[LiquidPaper]

Well, yes. We are part of America. I believe you are thinking of USA.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[sjames]

Only because of less progressive jurisdictions. However, most of the non-neutral routing is on the client ISP side which IS in Chile.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[shoehornjob]

If the traffic doesn't originate in Chile then it is subject to arbitrary and/or discriminatory blocking or throttling before it gets to Chile.

You would pretty much expect that your packets are at the mercy of whomever is routing them anyway so this is no big deal. At least they are taking a step in the right direction. In this country (USA) that'll never happen because there's either too much consumer apathy or excessive control by those who have the most to lose. Sad but true.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[Runaway1956]

With all this outsourcing and exporting of jobs, we can't afford rich schools or middle class schools. We are stuck with poor schools and poor geography and poor math and . . . .

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[Alexandra Erenhart]

They do teach poor geography. The rest of the world knows that there's ONE continent called America, that has 3 different sections: North America, Central America and South America. US people like to join together central and south america and call it Latin America, but that's only them. The rest of us know geography. If you look at wikipedia, the english section refers America as the US, while the spanish section shows you America as the ONE continent. Is a cultural difference, but it hurt us non US citizens in the way that we feel americans, but not in the way the US thinks about it. It feels like they robbed us of our continent's name.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[Tacvek]

I believe the part that said "interfere with, discriminate or interfere in any way" forbids both blocking and discriminatory QOS.

Also see the phase "and offer a service that does not distinguish content, applications or services, based on the source of it or their property", which also implies discriminatory QOS is forbidden.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[Draek]

Much like there's a continent called Western Europe and another called Eastern Europe, which are collectively known as the Europes.

Oh, wait.

Re:A Law That Guarantees

[rtb61]

Does that really matter. A slow down of foreign content will simply drive the production of local content. Plus network neutrality is all about open politics, maintaining an equally accessible public discourse, about gutting the ability of mass media to dominate public consciousness. That needs to work on a national level before you push it on an international level.

Chile

[MarkRose]

That makes sense. When I eat chile, I never have trouble with traffic flow or port blocking.

If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[LinearBob]

In one word -- GREED!

Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[MarkRose]

Greed and monopoly. If competitors were permitted in cities, I bet you'd see a return to unrestricted access. Where I have my hosting, I get transfer for under $0.01/GB. A TB of transfer is less than $10. Bandwidth is no longer a major cost of doing the ISP business. So why can't I get that at home? Lack of competition. Cities get fat checks for restricting competition, and we all pay for it.

Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[Urza9814]

Um...I agree with you that lack of competition probably has a lot to do with it...but they don't just throw a datacenter at some random place. One of the key things they would look for is cheap bandwidth. Plus, when you're moving huge quantities of data, it's easier to get a good deal. It's like anything else.

I once had a girlfriend whose mother was a regional manager for a restaurant chain. She got hundreds of dollars of free food every month. Does that mean that, if there was more competition in the restaurant industry, we could all get hundreds of dollars of free food? No. When you have certain locations and deals and jobs, you get things cheaper. So to say that bandwidth to your home should be cheap because bandwidth to a datacenter is cheap is a pretty poor argument.

Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[stinerman]

Three! All you need is three and you've got a well-functioning free market! And do you know how difficult it is to get authorization? Very, very easy.

I used to be part of an advisory board that dealt with the local charters back when we did have local franchise agreements. In Fairborn, OH all you had to do was negotiate a deal with the city to use their rights-of-way and you could offer service. We still had one cable company. There simply weren't enough people in Fairborn (about 30,000) to keep two franchises profitable.

The problem is that the people selling infrastructure are the same people selling service. Imagine if UPS and FedEx had to build their own roads. We'd have the same problem.

We need publicly owned infrastructure and privately owned businesses selling service over that infrastructure. Remember the good old days of dial-up? You didn't have to buy service from your phone company. You could choose any ISP in the world if you really wanted to. Of course, you were generally limited by the ISPs that had a local number you could dial, but there were more than three. I grew up in a town of about 7,000 residents and we had 5 choices.

I agree that the state of Internet access is a problem, and I'd like nothing more than to see some real competition, but you're not going to get competition until you remove the inherent conflict of interest that occurs when a company owns the infrastructure in a market that lends itself to a natural monopoly.

Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[Klinky]

Bandwidth for the ISP should be even cheaper for the ISP than what the OP pays for it. Where do you think your home connection ends up going to? A large datacenter run by your ISP that is located strategically to allow for the ISP to reap cheap bandwidth. On top of that, they possibly don't even pay for much bandwidth at all & instead setup peering agreements with backbone providers. Yet broadband prices keep going up. The last mile is not cheap to maintain, but a lot of the intiail costs have already been recouped as far as setting up initial infrastructure & the ISPs are very slow at upgrading or even maintaining their network.

Prices keep going up because there is no reasonable competition. Usually it's either cable for $X or DSL, that after you are forced into getting a POTS line put in and then their addt'l fees is just as much yet half the speed.

Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[Securityemo]

The government must restrict monopolies. Without a government, the monopoly holders would find some other way to stop upstarts besides putting pressure on the local offices. A truly free market will devolve into a pit of snakes very fast, taking in both those who have and those who have not.

Re:If Chile can do it, why can't we do it?

[hairyfeet]

Well Mr Anon Coward, or AC for short, the problem we have seen again and again with the whole libertarian "let the market take care of it" philosophy is this- without regulation one or two players will simply use their wealth to crush everyone else and then destory any free market that once existed there. If you would like examples I suggest you look into how Intel was able to force the higher electric and heating bills of Netburst onto the public by bribes to OEMs and thus removing free choice, or for an oldie but a goodie how MSFT crushed competition by tying windows to computers sold and not computers installed with Windows.

When we are talking about things with huge startup costs as barriers to entry, such as CPU fabs or in this case millions of miles of cable or fiber, it really doesn't take much for the biggest player to simply wipe out any competition and lock the market up for themselves. Thanks to the massive deregulation that has happened in this country we have gone from the tons of little players we had under dialup to a few massive regional monopolies, that can simply use predatory pricing to crush anyone that dares to enter a market or simply refuse to allow them access to the backbones (which they own).

In my own area I have watched three different smaller ISPs be crushed by getting screwed out of backbone access, and talking to one shortly before it went under their lawyer made it clear that while there was a good chance they could win, it would cost them in excess of 10 million in lawyers fees and a decade of litigation to find out. THAT my dear AC is how come we need the government to open up broadband to competition. Because as it is now you will simply be destroyed by the local incumbents if you try to compete. Sadly instead we will most likely see guys like you demanded even more deregulation and we will fall farther and farther behind as ISP impose caps rather than upgrade infrastructure, because they know their "customers" simply have nowhere else to go.

Re:Turn Off Your TV

[WrongSizeGlass]

Slashdot: Stop being slaves and turn off your TV!
Homer: Never! The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!

"applications or legal services over the Internet"

[SuperKendall]

So does that mean illegal services (such as torrent sites on a blacklist) might be blocked?

And how long is it before that changes to "must be blocked" due to being a signatory on an international copyright treaty...

Or does it mean companies can no longer filter websites they find inappropriate? They after all a form of ISP in a way.

Any time you let the government decide what is permissible on your network you will be sorry in the end.

All this to solve a problem that doesn't even exist. The only time we saw torrent throttling (not even blocking!!) in the U.S. was Comcast, and they got smacked down for it. The market worked, why do we need regulation when there is no problem?

"Network Neutrality" sounds so happy and awesome at first, but it hides a greater problem than you'll ever see from throttling.

Re:Safe Haven?

[MarkRose]

Obviously not. I'm certain the Chilean ISPs are still permitted to have acceptable use policies.

From Specifics Upwards

[DynaSoar]

"Chile is the first country of the world to guarantee by law the principle of network neutrality,"

Isn't passing a law that makes something originally outside the law to remain outside the law rather oxymoronic? It's like the US requiring members of sovereign nations that exist within its own borders prove to the US that they are valid members of said nation before the US will recognize them as such; such is the requirement for tribal membership for Native Americans. To pass such a law Chile only proves that it an make laws regarding net neutrality. If it can make them, it can remake them. If net neutrality were an objective fact, no country's laws would matter. Since they obviously do, even a 100% granting of neutrality by all concerned is no more than lip service. And being international, such a law would require a treaty. Check out for yourself how many treaties get signed by all involved, and how few of those actually get honored. TFA is the appropriate first step, but unless it's followed with some far more powerful and reaching reforms, say, putting worldwide network administration under a UN component with the power to actually act, it's strictly superficial regardless of intentions.

Re:From Specifics Upwards

[Jedi Alec]

Isn't passing a law that makes something originally outside the law to remain outside the law rather oxymoronic?

Hmm, is it? I vaguely recall a set of laws that certain things shall remain outside the law to be rather highly thought of somewhere...

"Congress shall make no law" sound familiar?

Re:From Specifics Upwards

[wisnoskij]

countries can make laws about anything they want to.
and their are lots of laws that exist to make other laws illegal.

Re:From Specifics Upwards

[Attila Dimedici]

Yeah that's a great idea, put enforcing network administration of the Internet under the UN, then they can set up a commission to oversee it. I figure the Chairperson of that committee will be from Iran or China, countries known far and wide for their dedication to open and free exchange of knowledge.

Re:Safe Haven?

[Jedi Alec]

Glad to see the FUD campaign wrt Net Neutrality has achieved its goals. The meaning of the concept has been distorted beyond all recognition in certain countries.

The argument for net neutrality

[WarJolt]

If this works out and their internet access appears to have been improved as a result, then I will support the concept of net neutrality. However, I doubt I will support and US implementation of it. I don't like the FCC. Anyone know anything about the regulatory commission that enforces net neutrality in Chile? Hopefully they are less political than our FCC.

Re:The argument for net neutrality

[Alexandra Erenhart]

The entity in charge of regulating this is probably the SUBTEL,(Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones, subsecretary of telecommunications perhaps is the translation?). I don't know if you have any idea about politics in Chile, but we have several political parties over there, not only two. Yeah, there are like 3 or 4 that are bigger and with more power than the others, but they don't get to bend government entities the same way political parties in the US do. So in a way, by being more political (more parties), they are less political (the power is more spread). I don't know if that makes sense, but it sounds pretty haha.

Chile doesn't have states like the US. The main divisions are regions. They have their own governmental entities but they're all controlled by the central ones in Santiago, the capital. So regions don't get to do whatever they want either, meaning that if the government creates a law, all the rest of the regions have to follow, and individual regions can't make their own laws.

I hope that helped somewhat to understand a bit how Chile works. Of course, the real question is if the SUBTEL is going to care enough to reinforce the law in all its extent. That's a completely different deal.

Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern

[sjames]

All this to solve a problem that doesn't even exist. The only time we saw torrent throttling (not even blocking!!) in the U.S. was Comcast, and they got smacked down for it. The market worked, why do we need regulation when there is no problem?

REALLY?

You seem to forgotten that there was a lot of complaining and a lot of people finding no competition to turn to and then the FCC smacked Comcast for throttling torrents.

In other words, exactly the opposite of what you said.

Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree, strongly. As one of the unlucky comcast customers who was caught up by their throttling for months, its very much a big deal to me. Especially when they kept insisting they weren't doing any of the kind of shit they eventually got caught doing, and to this day they still lie about the crap they were pulling. "Reasonable network management", my ass! Comcast claimed they weren't blocking anything, but when I had a torrent going (of ANYTHING) my downloads (on ANYTHING) dropped to almost nothing within 5 minutes, even at 3am! They throttled all traffic going to my computer because they saw one piece was something they didn't like (torrent traffic). The whole point of network neutrality is to keep them from pulling this kind of shit. They are welcome to throttle when I hit a certain amount of traffic for the month. They are NOT welcome to start throttling my fucking connection 5 minutes into a LEGAL BSD ISO download and turn the torrent, as well as the rest of my connection to crap to save themselves a few pennies on data transit costs. That is bullshit. Pure bullshit.

I can not wait for the US to implement mandatory network neutrality. And I'm not talking about Google+Verizon's underhanded back door deals that let them only do it where its favorable to them. It's either that, or force comcast, the bells, and any other company that's ever been given tax breaks and subsidized land from the city for their equipment and for their lines to force them to provide wholesale access to their wires to other isps. That way, consumers really do have a choice on who they can get internet from and whether they are going to put up with this kind of crap or not.

Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed

[Sigma 7]

He explained that suppliers must provide a service "which makes no distinction arbitrary content, applications or services based on the source of their origin or ownership."

In other words - no VOIP traffic prioritizing or in fact traffic shaping of any kind. Sorry Skype users, you'll have to stick with the big business telcos!

There's a set of bits in IP meant to adjust QoS, which is a non-arbitrary way of handling things. Thus, Bittorrent can claim itself to a minimal QoS, which is announcing to nearby routers that they're the first ones to go if there's a problem. Likewise, an RSS feed may declare it to be a low QoS, and defer to a normal QoS (such as from an HTTP browser), or a high QoS (such as real-time video conferencing or telephony.)

In this case, it's the applications themselves that volunteer to be dropped as issues arise from QoS, rather than being arbitrary.

Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern

[Kjella]

So does that mean illegal services (such as torrent sites on a blacklist) might be blocked?

Perhaps, but before it could be any arbitrary block. Now there's a law that specifically says you can not unless it meets some exception, so I don't see how it could possibly be worse than before.

And how long is it before that changes to "must be blocked" due to being a signatory on an international copyright treaty...

The day YouTube has to shut down because *one* pirated clip is found on their service is the day all sanity has left the Internet anyway.

Or does it mean companies can no longer filter websites they find inappropriate? They after all a form of ISP in a way.

Only if they resell access to individuals or other companies, I would think. An employee is more like a child in your household, I doubt your teenage son can demand you give him unfiltered internet access by this law. I guess there's some ambiguity at college campuses and the like, but that is not a new discussion. Also I'm quite sure ISPs can continue to offer voluntary filtering services, I know at least some ISPs here do.

Any time you let the government decide what is permissible on your network you will be sorry in the end.

And the first amendment means the government decides what you can say in the US? Which is by the way a pretty good response to your first statement, even though there is freedom of speech there are certain forms of speech that are illegal and forbidden. It would be very strange for "speech" over the Internet to be any other way.

All this to solve a problem that doesn't even exist. The only time we saw torrent throttling (not even blocking!!) in the U.S. was Comcast, and they got smacked down for it. The market worked, why do we need regulation when there is no problem?

The market? Comcast has most their customers trapped or in a duopoly with an equally unfriendly ISP. The only reason they got smacked down was because they were being covert and dishonest about it, if they had been above board then people would be screwed.

"Network Neutrality" sounds so happy and awesome at first, but it hides a greater problem than you'll ever see from throttling.

I think you need better arguments, you sound like Chicken Little who has become convinced the sky is falling. So far I've hardly seen anyone against network neutrality that I would say act with the customer's best interests at heart. Predominantly it's either companies who will lose their ability to double dip and become Internet gatekeepers or MAFIAA-like organizations that have as their stated goal to reach agreements with intermediaries to block unregulated services and offer only a cripple-net of "approved" services. Then there's some shills and quite possibly the most legitimate are the libertarians who claims the government can't do anything right, even though rights like this is a huge counterexample.

Great News Everyone

[Strange Ranger]

Zoidberg aside, this IS great news. Despite the "free from government" leanings here on slashdot, because of the way the market and the legal system works (despite our ideals), this is great news.

It's regulations like this that keep free markets free.

Re:key word: "blocking"

[Anonymous Coward]

you "sound" bitter just beacuse Chile passed a law that restricts the -evil- actions of the ISPs before the US

PS: the law also includes "delaying", so your post is pointless

Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

So does that mean illegal services (such as torrent sites on a blacklist) might be blocked

Yes. Just like they were before.

And how long is it before that changes to "must be blocked" due to being a signatory on an international copyright treaty...

No shorter (if ever) than before the law.

Or does it mean companies can no longer filter websites they find inappropriate? They after all a form of ISP in a way.

Certainly not by any sane legal definition.

Any time you let the government decide what is permissible on your network you will be sorry in the end.

...which has what to do with Net Neutrality?

All this to solve a problem that doesn't even exist. The only time we saw torrent throttling (not even blocking!!) in the U.S. was Comcast, and they got smacked down for it. The market worked, why do we need regulation when there is no problem?

What if an ISP started throttling/blocking something a little less beloved than torrents? How much support would you get if they blocked, say, terrorist propaganda? Every one of the slippery slope arguments applied to government (not that I've heard a convincing one yet) can be applied to companies.

"Network Neutrality" sounds so happy and awesome at first, but it hides a greater problem than you'll ever see from throttling.

Again, no more than without Net Neutrality.

Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern

[ScrewMaster]

They are NOT welcome to start throttling my fucking connection 5 minutes into a LEGAL BSD ISO download and turn the torrent

I agree, but I ask: why should it matter if it's a "legal" download ... or otherwise? I don't expect my telephone company to censor my speech if I say things that someone else doesn't like (although that would certainly be possible from a technical perspective.) Likewise, I don't expect a company that I pay to transmit packetized data from here to there and back again to be in any way involved in determining the legality of said communications.

Re:"applications or legal services over the Intern

[beakerMeep]

So does that mean illegal services (such as torrent sites on a blacklist) might be blocked?

Well, what do you think? Were illegal services all fine and dandy beforehand? Use your brain.

And how long is it before that changes to "must be blocked" due to being a signatory on an international copyright treaty...

OK, so throw out the baby with the bathwater. Also, that's pretty off-topic.

Or does it mean companies can no longer filter websites they find inappropriate? They after all a form of ISP in a way.

Huh? Are employees consumers?

Any time you let the government decide what is permissible on your network you will be sorry in the end.

This isn't the great firewall of China, in fact it's quite the opposite but "government bad! government will make you sorry!" is not a compelling argument.

All this to solve a problem that doesn't even exist. The only time we saw torrent throttling (not even blocking!!) in the U.S. was Comcast, and they got smacked down for it. The market worked, why do we need regulation when there is no problem?

Comcast won in the end in case you forgot here's a link, and they were resetting traffic with RST packets. If you dont think that was a test of what they could get away with, you're crazy. It was precedent setting.

"Network Neutrality" sounds so happy and awesome at first, but it hides a greater problem than you'll ever see from throttling.

I'm sorry this is going to sound rude but.... your post was either a complete troll or one of the stupidest things I have read on Slashdot in a long time. You warn of fixing a problem that doesn't exist and try proving your point with a bunch of unrelated "what-if" scenarios peppered with existential "you'll be sorry" fear mongering.

Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

He explained that suppliers must provide a service "which makes no distinction arbitrary content, applications or services based on the source of their origin or ownership."

In other words - no VOIP traffic prioritizing or in fact traffic shaping of any kind. Sorry Skype users, you'll have to stick with the big business telcos!

What is the matter with you? Read the text you quoted yourself. VOIP is a traffic type. It is not a "source of origin or ownership". So yes, they can prioritize VOIP. They just can't prioritize Company A's VOIP while not prioritizing Company B's VOIP.

Reading comprehension is important. Not important to you, apparently, but it is important. Really man, the text you quoted yourself answered the question you are asking. You deserve to be called out on that.

Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed

[Burdell]

The standard QoS bits are basically useless across any administrative boundary (such as the connection between you and your ISP, or your ISP and their upstreams/peers). Otherwise, you very quickly get people realizing they can just set all of their traffic to the "high priority" class. The only way an ISP could reasonably do QoS is by port or packet inspection.

Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

derp.

QoS isn't "I want to go faster" or "I want to go slower". It's "I care about bandwidth" and "I care about latency".

Bad translation

[dolmen.fr]

The diario oficial is not "the official newspaper". It is in fact the public journal of the country, where laws are published.