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The Danger In Exempting Wireless From Net Neutrality
nmpost writes "Nearly two years ago, the FCC outlined its rules for net neutrality. Notably absent were rules for wireless networks. There are several legitimate reasons that the same rules applied to wired networks can not apply to wireless networks. However, the same danger lies in leaving wireless networks unguarded against the whims of its administrators. As we move more and more towards a wireless dominated internet, those dangers will become more pronounced. We are going to need a massive investment in infrastructure in this country regardless of net neutrality rules. Demand for wireless is going to continue to grow for many years to come, and providers are not going to be able to let up. Data caps and throttling are understandable now as demand is far outpacing infrastructure growth. Eventually, demand will slow, and these practices will have to be addressed. This is where allowing internet providers to regulate themselves becomes an issue. Self regulation usually does not end well for the consumer. Imagine allowing power plants and oil refineries to determine what chemicals they could pour into the air. Would they have the population's best interest at heart when making that determination? In the future when the infrastructure can match the demand, what will stop internet providers from picking winners and losers over their wireless networks? As conglomerates like Comcast gobble up content providers like NBC, a conflict of interest begins to emerge. There would be nothing from stopping one of the big wireless providers like AT&T or Verizon from scooping up a content provider and prioritizing its data speed over the network."
The more the ones who can afford armies of lawyers will win.
And once the government starts regulating the internet, there will be literally thousands and thousands of pages of regulations.
Tell me, how does that help the consumer?
Or do you REALLY think the government is really setting out to help YOU? YOU don't control enough money to generate millions of dollars in campaign contributions, do you?
It is unreasonable for them to throttle anything due to lack of infrastructure while simultaneously sporting enormous profit margins.
You can have one, but not both. If they need more infrastructure they should build it.
Wireless networks suffer from congestion a lot more than wired networks. I don't think it's unreasonable for carriers to want to throttle traffic on wireless mediums to ensure mr tethered torrenter isnt destroying everyone else's connection.
Keep in mind that on wired or wireless networks, Net Neutrality is NOT treating all packets the same. VoIP and Video are among those applications that are time sensitive. You need to apply QoS to prioritize that type of traffic. Where NN comes in would be something like this: Say your ISP charges $50/month for internet, and limits you to 250Gb per month. Instead of subscribing to their TV service, you want to use Netflix or Hulu. Under this scenario, their data limit may keep you from using Netflix as much as you'd like. OTOH, they don't charge against you cap to use their TV service. Oh, but you can buy additional data for, say, $10/10Gb more. What they're doing is making sure that the additional data charges are so expensive that it's cheaper to buy their TV service, keeping out competition.
It's OK to throttle traffic on congested networks to make sure that everyone has access, but it's another to use data limits to keep out competition for other services.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
Sez the anonymous coward.
Says the witless fool
An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or unrelated belief of the person supporting it. Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as a logical fallacy, more precisely an informal fallacy and an irrelevance.
Name one time in the history of the internet where demand for bandwidth has slowed? The size of content outpaces the increase in bandwidth that technology provides. Remember when you could install your OS with a floppy? Try a DVD now. The current Debian dist is 8 DVD's, over 300GB.
This line of thinking never quite works.
A doctor doesn't NEED wireless internet, but they certainly would like it since it makes a great number of things easier and more convenient. If the providers can update their infrastructure to accommodate traffic but choose not to the doctor is NOT going to go out and build their own network. It would require a complete change in their life and learnings to do so. It's not a reasonable thing to ask.
Much like if a software engineer gets a headache. They don't NEED it but some medicine would definitely be nice to alleviate the pain. However, pharmaceuticals are artificially pumping up the price. The software engineer is not a doctor nor a chemical engineer. Vindicate the pharmaceuticals by saying that the doctor is free to drop their life and go a completely direction to fulfill this one need is just silly.
So it's OK for you if your daughter can't call the police to come help her when she has an accident on the highway because 5 or 100 other users in the same cell are downloading porn right now?
Wireless providers *have* to throttle to protect the voice network for public-safety purposes.
It's not ok, but that wouldn't be the "porn downloaders" fault. It would be the fault of the network operators who oversold services they couldn't adequately provide. If they have too many customers in an area they need to build more towers. If you sell someone a service you need to provide what you sold them.
Build your own damn network.
Throw a cell tower in your back yard - see how quickly the FCC knocks on your door.
The problem with the 2 things you mentioned is that we have regulation, we have a distorted market based on coercion
If it only wasn't for regulation, we would have a perfect world. Right? Haven't learned anything yet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
The purpose of a government is to maintain a free market via regulation and police and the justice system. Free Market does not exist without regulation. As soon as there are any major players in the market, they would just muscle out any competition, even if they have to do that literally.
Natural end of any purely capitalistic society is total monopoly, at which point it basically becomes a totalitarian government.
The biggest problem here is not controlling usage so there's less congestion. Providers already do that plenty with data caps.
The problem is providers telling you what application you can use that 2GB or 4GB you purchased for.
AT&T for instance, says that if you have a 2GB smart phone data plan, you can't tether your laptop. But if you have a 4GB plan, you can. What business do they have telling you if you can tether your laptop? If you want to sit there and use 30GB tethered, that should be okay; you'll just have to pay for the additional usage. This is understandable and makes sense.
They're doing it again with iOS 6, saying you can't do Facetime over cellular unless you upgrade to one of their sharing plans. They shouldn't CARE if you use facetime over cellular, because if you use too much data, you'll have to pay for it anyway.
Charge me $xx for $yy GB. That's fine. Just don't tell me what I can do with those GB. They're MINE, I paid for them!
You don't quite seem to understand why the free market doesn't work very well with markets like telecommunications, roads, etc. Sometimes the regulation is problematic, but often the market wouldn't even be viable without the regulation. The problem is that some markets are what are referred to as natural monopolies. Consider roads. How many sets of roads from different providers can any given location support? How many roads does the typical home have frontage on? Multiple sets of roads would also _have_ to cross. How would the property rights work? How expensive would all the tunnels and/or overpasses be? How would interconnects between the different providers work? Roads are natural monopolies, which means that, to be practical, they either need to be managed by government or by heavily regulated industries. The same holds for telecommunications. With wireless telecommunications there's only so much spectrum to go around. In a pure free market, there would be so much noise on the airwaves that cell phones probably wouldn't even be possible.
Agreed that natural monopolies are hard for free markets. But then the question is will the regulation be effective. Regulation can be expensive and sometimes ends up benefiting initial players and limiting choice. The biggest issue, for me, is if the regulatory body will stay effective and not be corrupted by market players. When a regulatory body is captured, it will be very hard for a politician to work to defeat it due to the interest/power of the market players vs the interest/power of the people. You mention that often the market wouldn't even be viable without regulation, do you have some examples to discuss? Things such as wireless frequencies could simply be considered property and handled similarly. Ownership of such property could be handled in the same way, ie homesteading.
I think the point you are getting at here is that the owners of routes to destinations, of which there are few, will take advantage of their position and it will cost you more to use those routes. Markets are actually more complicated than that as they also have to deal with indirect and potential competition. How much would it cost me to walk to a parking garage that gives me access to different routes? What if I took a different means of travel altogether?
Private property rights would work as they do today. Tunnels and overpasses would be expensive, I assure you government does not make them cheaper. That is also a problem with government roads; they will be built even when they do not make financial sense in a market. Interconnects between different providers would bring more usage (ie. more money) so they would be beneficial to road owners to that extent.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am